True Fiction (Ian Ludlow Thrillers #1)(6)
SMITH: The president has been briefed and is monitoring the situation. A White House spokesman says at this point there is no evidence to suggest that this is a terrorist act.
“There isn’t?” Cross posed the question to the room and hit a button on the console, muting the newscast. “Tell me what intel authorities have so far.”
The first person to respond was Victoria Takahara, the analyst who sat to his left. She was a Pentagon hire who had spent most of her ten-year military career at a keyboard, directing drone strikes against terrorists. She’d killed more people from the comfort of a Herman Miller chair, with a Starbucks Cinnamon Dolce Latte in one hand, than most soldiers ever did on a battlefield. But Cross knew from reading the intelligence reports on her that in her private life she liked a more visceral experience, one that would make Christian Grey or the Marquis de Sade cower.
“The NTSB, FBI, Pentagon, and CIA have radar and satellite data that shows the plane prematurely leveled off after departure and turned east,” Victoria said. “They also have audio of the pilot reporting an emergency and that they’d lost control of the aircraft.”
“There’s more.” This time it was Seth Barclay who spoke. The former CIA analyst sat at Cross’ right. His psychiatric profile described him as a highly functioning nonviolent sociopath afflicted with a hint of Asperger syndrome. He was thirty years old and his most intimate physical relationship to date was with his touch screen. “The authorities have the system data stream that’s automatically transmitted by the plane to the airline and the engine manufacturer. The data indicates that the plane’s autopilot was engaged and there were no mechanical malfunctions.”
“How could the pilots have lost control if the autopilot was on and there were no malfunctions?” Cross said. “Who is asking those questions?”
“Probably everybody involved in the investigation,” Seth said.
Cross pointed to the news broadcasts streaming on the media wall. “I mean out there.”
“No one yet,” Seth said. “The media doesn’t have the data.”
“Change that. Leak the information we have to some of the aviation pundits under contract to the TV networks,” Cross said. “Encourage them to start speculating on the worst possible scenarios.”
“They won’t need the encouragement,” Victoria said. “Fear is what keeps them on the air and getting paid.”
“What about background on the passengers and crew?” Cross asked. “Any red flags that we can exploit, like felony criminal records, terrorist ties, diagnosed mental instability?”
“None so far,” Victoria said. “But I doubt it was a flight full of angels.”
“If they weren’t before,” Seth said, “they are now.”
“I’m sure there are a few who are on a spit and getting stabbed with a pitchfork,” Victoria said.
Cross knew that she might as well be describing her idea of casual foreplay. “I want updates every fifteen minutes.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
Cross walked out of the situation room and headed down the hallway, past several conference rooms, to his large corner office, which had an adjoining private apartment as luxuriously appointed as a suite at the Four Seasons. It sure beat the vinyl-upholstered couch and minifridge that he’d had in his cramped basement office at the CIA. He’d spent many nights on that damn couch. Now when work demanded that he spend the night in the office, he enjoyed a king-size bed fitted with sumptuous 1,020-thread-count sheets of Egyptian cotton, gossamer-woven in Italy by naked nubile virgins.
The part about the nubile virgins was just a guess on his part. But the thought of it often eased him into a peaceful sleep with a languid hard-on.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sheraton Hotel, Seattle, Washington. July 18. 3:47 a.m. Pacific Standard Time.
The only light in Ian Ludlow’s dark hotel room came from the open, ravaged minibar and the flickering glow from the TV, which had been playing CNN all night. Jake Tapper was on the air now, giving an update against a backdrop of photos of the devastation in Honolulu. It looked like nuclear winter had come to paradise. A ticker-tape crawl at the bottom of the screen kept a gruesome tally of the victims like the score of a football game. Two hundred thirty-eight people were dead, 117 injured, but both numbers were expected to rise.
TAPPER: At the same moment air traffic controllers noticed that the plane had changed its heading and leveled off, the pilots radioed the tower that they’d lost control of the aircraft. With me now is Shawn Danielson, a former NTSB investigator and our senior aviation editor. Shawn, what does that tell you?
Danielson was a talking head in his fifties with dark circles under his hangdog eyes. He was wearing a wrinkled Lacoste polo shirt that looked as if it might have been yanked out of the hamper. He joined Tapper on Skype from what appeared to be his kitchen table. Danielson’s backdrop was a toaster oven and microwave on a granite countertop.
DANIELSON: A horrifying story, Jake. All departing aircraft leaving Honolulu International immediately turn away from Waikiki toward the open sea to avoid flying low over the beaches. But 976 didn’t do that. The plane leveled off at twelve hundred feet, then veered toward the beach in a fast, steady descent. In fact, I’ve learned from sources close to the investigation that data transmitted during takeoff indicates that the autopilot was engaged.