All three men turned around to see a taxi racing towards them and skidding to a halt.
Max sprang out of the door, panicked. He and the woman with him looked like hell — clothes damp and sandy.
“It took off? Shit. Come on, we need to get to the control room and contact the pilots. You have to recall them.”
“Don’t be absurd. Why?” Charles asked.
“Hold on now, Max,” Wilkes said.
Max pointed up at the departing aircraft. “Listen to me. Morozov isn’t planning to steal the Fend 100 technology.”
“What are you talking about? What is he trying to do, then?”
The group stared at Max as he spoke.
“Morozov is going to crash it.”
A drink cart made its way down the aisle of the Fend 100. The passengers were a mix of company employees being rewarded for their hard work, aviation enthusiasts who had won contests to go on the first flight, and members of the media.
In seat B13, Betsy Sivers ordered a mimosa and looked out in awe at the beach below. She had worked for Fend Aerospace for almost thirty years. She’d started off in manufacturing at the original plant in Texas, then made her way to Florida when they’d expanded in the early 2000s. This flight was a great reward for her hard work.
Rick Powell sat in G23. He wrote for Plane and Pilot magazine and was eagerly typing up everything he experienced so that he could publish it on his blog when they landed. His wife and twelve-year-old son had made the trip up from Daytona and were waiting back at the airport. He couldn’t wait to tell his son about the ride.
In seat F57, Bobby Turell thanked the flight attendant for his apple juice and smiled to himself. He had turned thirty-two last week. He was one of the ten contest winners. A self-proclaimed aviation nut, Bobby had been to every SUN ‘n FUN air show since he was a boy. Getting to ride in the first passenger flight of the Fend 100 was the thrill of a lifetime for him. Right up there with riding in a Ford Tri-motor at Oshkosh. He couldn’t wait to tell his girlfriend about it. In a moment of pure euphoria, he decided right then and there that it was time to go ring shopping. Life couldn’t get any better than this.
As the aircraft banked right to head south over the Florida shoreline, beams of electromagnetic energy began to illuminate the Fend 100’s data link antenna. The energy beams originated from a large yacht just south of St. Augustine and rapidly intensified in magnitude.
The Fend 100 was being hijacked.
21
While the group marched into the Fend 100 headquarters building, Max did his best to fill them in on what he knew. Renee followed him in, listening.
“Come on,” Charles said. “I’ve had them set up a special office space for you. You’ll be able to monitor the flight from there.”
“We need to recall the flight, Dad. Now.”
Charles said, “We can talk inside.”
They walked through the revolving doors and past a throng of reporters who were setting up for their morning interviews. The group watched as Max and his father led the others into an office right next to the Fend 100 control room.
One of the reporters said, “Is that…?”
“No, he’s taller,” another one said.
A few flashes erupted as cameramen snapped pictures.
Once in the office space, they closed the door. Flynn said, “Okay, spill it, Max. What’s going on?”
“Morozov tried to have me killed last night. We barely escaped. You were right, Caleb. Charlotte Capri was working for him. By the time we escaped, it was almost dawn — it took us longer to get a phone and a vehicle. We kept trying to call, but the Fend Aerospace phone network and my father’s phone weren’t connecting. Neither were the local police. We finally tried the FBI.”
“Could be Morozov’s hackers trying to prevent you from reaching us.”
“Well, it appears to have worked. Can we recall the Fend 100?”
Max was scanning the room, looking to see who was in there.
Wilkes said, “We have fail-safes in place. You know what we need here, Max. I need the Russians to make their move so that we have verifiable electronic data. Leverage to use against Morozov.”
“That was back when the risk was a simple cyberattack — stealing a few terabytes of data from my father’s company. Now we’re talking about people’s lives, Caleb.”
Agent Flynn grimaced. “Dammit. We shouldn’t have let them take off. I agree with Max.”
Charles said, “So do I. I’m going to see what I can do.” Charles marched back into the Fend 100 control room.
Max looked at Flynn. “Are you armed?”
“Of course.”
Max looked through the window of the office and into the adjacent Fend 100 mission control room. “If Morozov was going to kill me last night, that means that he didn’t need me to upload any software. But he’s still planning to hijack the Fend 100. I think you were right about him having someone on the inside.”
Each of their heads turned to look through the window. They scanned the faces in the Fend 100 control room. The engineers and project team working diligently as the Fend 100 had its big show. Now that Max was silent, they could hear the project engineers and radio controllers speaking to the aircraft through the overhead speakers.
“Fend 100, Control, we have good uplink and downlink. What’s your status?”
“Control, Fend 100, everything looks good here. We’re along for the ride.”
The group could hear the voice of the pilot and the project engineer, Bradley Karpinsky, on the overhead speaker system.
The pilot said, “Cecil Control, Fend 100, things are looking good. We’re in fully automated mode and everything is proceeding normally.”
“Fend 100, Cecil Control, roger. Nice job, boys. We’ll see you in a few.”
“I am going to head next door for a moment,” Special Agent Flynn said. Wilkes followed him.
Renee sat at one of the computer terminals in their office, looking at all of the displayed information. “What are we looking at?”
“So this map here shows the aircraft track, altitude, airspeed, and heading,” Max said.
Renee said, “Where are they now?”
“East of Cape Canaveral. Headed South.”
“So nothing unusual yet?”
Max shook his head. “Not yet. Perhaps Maria’s security fix is working.”
Max could see his father standing over the shoulder of Bradley Karpinsky, a grave expression on both of their faces.
Karpinsky’s voice came on the radio again. “Fend 100, Cecil Control, there has been a change of plans. We’re being asked to cut the flight short due to unforeseen circumstances here on the ground.”
“Say again, Control?”
“We’re bringing you back, Fend 100. Sending the aircraft new directions now.”
Max could see the engineers in the other room becoming agitated, pointing at their own displays and yelling back to Karpinsky.
Renee said, “What’s wrong?”
The overhead speaker relayed Karpinsky’s voice. “Fend 100, Control, I just input a return to base command, but I’m not showing the aircraft turning.”
“Affirm, we’re seeing the same thing here, Control.”
“Fend 100, Control, I now show you in a descent of one thousand feet per minute,” they heard over the overhead speaker. “Please verify. The flight profile has you maintaining altitude at twenty thousand feet for the next fifteen minutes.”
“Roger, Control, we see that. We’re in fully automated mode. Not sure why it’s descending on us. We’re troubleshooting now.”