Darkness(17)

The flash drive was secured at that moment inside Cal’s belt, which was of the type—offered by travel companies—that had an inside zipper in the back for the concealment of cash and small items. He’d been using it on various jobs for various purposes for years. The thing was so low-tech that it had never been compromised.

“Just talk me through it,” Cal said, because until he got inside a secure facility he wasn’t putting anything on a computer that he didn’t want the whole world to have access to. Rudy was a great hacker, but there were more just like him. Lots of people out there were looking real hard for Rudy, and one way to look for him, or the information he’d stolen, would be to scan the Web. Cal didn’t believe in taking unnecessary chances. He got the job he was hired to do done with a minimum of fuss, which was why he kept getting hired.

“You’re making this difficult.” Rudy frowned at him. Cal shrugged. Rudy sighed.

“Who created the program?” Cal said.

Rudy made a face. “I don’t know. What, you think it was signed or something? Whoever it was sold it to the Russkies. Or maybe they just took it. Whatever. From whomever. The point is, it’s out there, and there are people looking to buy it or get hold of it however they can. What happened to Flight 155 is almost foolproof.” He smirked a little. “Without me, it would have been foolproof. Nobody had a clue.”

Cal thought about that. His first reaction—why not just shoot the plane down, or place a bomb on board and blow it out of the sky?—was followed by a quick and terrifying answer. A missile strike would leave a heat signature; so would a bomb, not just on the plane itself but as a record on the satellites and other sensitive devices that monitored what was going on in the world. Investigators would figure out that the plane had been brought down on purpose, and would go hunting for the perpetrators. There weren’t that many with that kind of capability. The culprits would be identified.

But if the plane’s own systems were compromised, all investigators would be able to determine was that, for reasons unknown, the plane flew into a mountain.

Rudy was right: as a method of bringing down a plane, it was almost foolproof.

The hair rose on the back of Cal’s neck.

Rudy said, “What makes what I’m selling even more valuable is that there’s chatter it’s getting ready to happen again.”

Cal sat up straighter. “When? Where?”

“I don’t know. These kinds of people don’t exactly post up schedules. The talk is coming out of Ukraine. I figure your people are smart enough to track it down.”

“Tell me how it works,” Cal said through his teeth.

“All right, jeez. Don’t go getting mad at me. I’m the one who found the thing. I’m the good guy here.”

“Right.” His voice was dry. “How does it work?”

“Think of the program as a simple”—Rudy broke off, gripping the arms of his chair while the plane bucked through a pocket of turbulence; as the air smoothed out he continued—“repurposing of any basic remote control program. The program itself is not the trick. The trick is getting it on the plane. In this case, they used a private jet to get within range and then—” Without warning, the plane dropped like it was falling down an elevator shaft.

Rudy gasped out, “Holy moly!” and hung on so hard that his nails made visible indentations in the soft leather of the armrests.

As the seat seemed to drop out from under him, Cal grabbed for his armrests, too. Cruise altitude for this segment of the flight was thirty-three thousand feet. No way should there be this kind of turbulence at thirty-three thousand feet.

Even as he had the thought, the plane shimmied like a belly dancer, then dropped some more.

“Put your seat belt on and stay put,” Cal ordered, and got up to go investigate. As soon as he opened the private room’s door and stepped into the main cabin, the plane dropped so abruptly that he was almost thrown off his feet.

Grabbing hold of the nearest seat back, he made his way toward the cockpit. The interior was all plush beige leather and polished teak, with four additional passenger seats facing each other and a couch on the left side. Although it was the middle of the afternoon, Cal looked out the windows to see darkness encroaching on all sides. He frowned. The plane’s rocking and pitching gave him his answer: what he was seeing were storm clouds. The plane was flying through a storm.

As if in confirmation, a clap of thunder reverberated through the plane. Lightning flashed. Clearly they were right in the middle of a violent weather system. From the way the plane was being buffeted, the wind had to be blowing at least a hundred knots. His ears popped suddenly, giving him incontrovertible evidence that they were descending.

What the hell?

The cockpit door was shut. Cal tried the handle: locked. Quickly keying in the code meant to unlock the door, Cal tried the handle again.

Still locked.

He tried once more. Same result.

Christ, had something gone wrong in the cockpit? Were they unconscious in there? Dead? Visions of a cockpit fire, a decompression accident, electrical trouble resulting in some kind of freak electrocution—the gamut of possibilities ran through his head in the space of seconds. He even spared a passing thought for the scenario Rudy had described—a remote takeover of the plane’s controls—only to dismiss it. No entertainment system. No means of access. A remote takeover of the plane wouldn’t have disabled Ezra and Hendricks.