Max blinked. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, what if we’re looking at bad data.” She pointed to the aircraft status, which showed that it had impacted the water.
Max turned and yelled, keeping his eyes on Renee. “Bradley! Come here. Now.”
Karpinsky walked over, a somber look on his face. “What is it, Max?”
“What GPS coordinates should be on the screen here?”
“The last known location of the aircraft. It should be right where it hit the water. Listen, Max, I have to get ready for the NTSB team to—”
Max and Renee looked at each other. Renee said, “The coordinates on the screen here — the aircraft status screen — they don’t match up with the coordinates the pilots called out when they made their mayday call.”
Karpinsky shrugged. “So what? They probably glided a little farther—”
Renee shook her head. “No. They’re one hundred miles off.”
Karpinsky’s eyes narrowed. “Huh. Well, that is a little weird, but…”
Max looked at Wilkes. He stood in the corner, talking on the phone with an intense look in his eyes.
Like he was still in the middle of an operation.
Max gathered Wilkes, Flynn, Renee, Karpinsky, and his father into an office.
“What if the plane didn’t go down?”
Charles shook his head. “Max, what are you saying?”
Flynn said, “That’s silly. Look, we need to look into this Islamic State thing. I’m getting calls from D.C. about—”
“Hear me out, Agent Flynn. Please.”
Flynn sighed. “Okay. Where would it have gone?”
“You tell me,” Max said. “Bradley, Renee, and I just looked at the in-flight statistics — Bradley told us they’re programmed to stay on the last known GPS location of the aircraft. That helps them set up for a search and rescue. Right, Bradley?”
“That’s right.”
“But those coordinates were one hundred miles away from where the pilots claimed to be when they went down.”
“What are you saying?” Charles asked.
“What if Maria reprogrammed the system to make it look like they crashed, when they really didn’t?”
Flynn said, “Why would they do that?”
Max said, “Think about it.”
The blood drained from Flynn’s face. “How far could it have flown?”
“It had enough fuel for another fifteen hundred miles at least,” Karpinsky said,
“But people would have noticed it, right?” Flynn shook his head, his voice a pitch higher. “I mean, you can’t just fly a commercial airliner around without getting noticed. Right?”
Karpinsky shrugged. “It depends.”
Flynn said, “On what?”
“It would attract a lot of attention if they tried to land it at just about any airport. And I’m pretty sure some radar controller would notice if it was flying over the continental United States without its transponder on.”
Max said, “I would think so. They at least would have noticed it when it first entered US airspace, right?”
Karpinsky nodded. “Yes.”
Renee said, “So we’re saying it’s possible that the Fend 100 is still airborne right now? How would we know that?”
No one immediately responded. Just sideways glances at each other — faces mixed with hope and fear.
Bradley Karpinsky cleared his throat. “According to our aircraft in-flight stats, it has crashed. We aren’t getting any signals sent out from the aircraft. The only way we would know is if someone had it on radar.”
Max said, “Who can check that?”
“We can look into it here,” Karpinsky said. “The Fend 100 mission control center has several people who are trained as radar controllers. And we’ve got a good relationship with air traffic control in the area. I’ll go talk to them and tell them to start searching for anything suspicious. But at this point, I suggest the government get involved.”
Renee said, “Aren’t they already?”
Flynn shook his head. “He means NORAD. We need the professionals looking for this aircraft.”
Bradley left to go speak with the radar controllers, and the group kept talking. Wilkes excused himself to go make another phone call. Flynn went to call FBI headquarters and make sure that NORAD was updated on the situation.
Charles said, “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Relax, Dad. It’s not your fault.”
“I was a fool to think we could take a risk like that. I just wanted them to get Morozov. It was all I could think about — I wanted to get back at him for what he did to your mother. But now… all those people. I feel responsible. We should have insisted on stopping the flight. We shouldn’t have relied upon—”
Max placed his hand on his father’s shoulder. “Dad, let’s worry about that later. I have a feeling this isn’t over yet.”
Max glanced at his father’s newspaper, which was lying on the office desk. Below the article about him was a feature on the G-7 summit. It was to be held tomorrow at Camp David, but the world leaders were due to arrive today.
Max picked up the paper and scanned the article quickly. After much political posturing, the Russian Federation was reportedly rejoining the group, and it would be renamed the G-8. Several of the member nations were making a big fuss about it.
Wilkes and Flynn walked back in.
Max placed his finger on the article. “Have you guys seen this about the G-7?”
Wilkes watched Max from across the room. “What about it?”
Max stared back at him. “It would make one hell of a target. The news is reporting that the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the hijacking.”
“I know,” Flynn said, “but that’s impossible. They aren’t equipped—”
“Pavel Morozov has a subsidiary that works closely with the Islamic State,” Max said. “They actually do defense contracting for them in Syria.”
Flynn said, “You’re kidding.”
“So Morozov is trying to attack the G-7 conference? And blame it on the Islamic State?” Renee said.
“Oh, Jesus. You think that—”
Renee nodded. “If the Fend 100 is really still airborne, and Morozov’s got control of it…”
Flynn’s phone buzzed, and he quickly answered it. “Special Agent Flynn. Yes. Understood. Use this number.” He hung up and looked up at the group. “NORAD and the NSA are both working to locate the aircraft now. If it’s airborne, they’ll find it.”
23
Air Force Master Sergeant Krites sipped his coffee out of a paper cup. He liked his coffee plain black. Cream messed with his digestion, and sugar rotted his teeth. But a good cup of black joe was heaven. He always brought his own coffee in. None of this rotten stuff that the kids around here drank. They liked all the big fancy brands. He knew better. If you wanted good coffee, you had to grind the beans yourself, the same day. So he did, every morning. His wife certainly liked it. She was looking forward to him doing a lot more cooking after he retired. And that day was coming up faster than he could believe.
He had been in the US Air Force for twenty-three years. He’d become an expert in modern air defense and air traffic control. For the past ten years, they’d lived in New York state, and Krites liked it just fine. His job with the Eastern Air Defense Sector was meaningful. Especially after September eleventh.
EADS was the US Air Force command that was permanently assigned to detect and defeat an air attack on the United States. It was his job to identify unknown aircraft and vector in fighter jets to intercept them when needed.
In his eight years working at EADS, he was used to two types of these intercepts: knucklehead private pilots who accidentally flew into restricted airspace, and drills.