Big trouble, p.20
Big Trouble, page 20
Eliot pulled Anna away and stepped right in front of Greer. Their noses were a half inch apart.
"She says she doesn't know where the goddamn suitcase is, OK?" Eliot said. "She wants her daughter. She doesn't care about your fucking suitcase."
"Who're you?" asked Greer.
"I'm her friend," said Eliot.
"Well, friend," said Greer, "if you want to help her daughter, you better care about the fucking suitcase."
"She wasn't with the suitcase," said Eliot. "She was with me. This guy was with the suitcase." Eliot pointed to Puggy, who had just trotted up.
Greer turned to Puggy.
"Who're you?" he asked.
"Puggy," said Puggy.
"You were with the suitcase?" asked Greer. "A metal suitcase? You saw it?"
"I carried it," said Puggy. "It's heavy."
"You carried it?" asked Greer. "Where? "
"To the plane," said Puggy.
"It's on the plane?"
"Yeah," said Puggy.
Greer thought for a second, then said, "Did anybody open the suitcase?"
"Over there," said Puggy, pointing toward the security checkpoint.
"They opened it there?" asked Greer.
"Yeah," said Puggy. "They made him turn it on."
Greer's face went pale.
"How did he turn it on?" he asked.
"There was these, like, switches, that he ... " Puggy made a hand motion, flipping up imaginary switches.
"Then what happened?" asked Greer. "Did anything happen when he did that?"
"Lights," said Puggy. "Little numbers."
Greer glanced at Seitz and Baker, who were both listening. Seitz's face was blank. Baker looked sick.
Greer looked back at Puggy. "When did this happen?" he asked. "How long ago did he turn it on?"
Puggy thought about it.
"It's been a while now," he said.
07:43
Monica's legs ached from crouching in the tiny space allotted for legroom in front of the seat. She was trying to think, but it was hard with the horrendous roar of wind and engines coming through the open door.
Twice, very carefully, she'd moved her head just enough to look around the seat in front of her toward the front of the plane. Both times, Snake was facing forward. Once she'd heard him say something to the pilot, but she couldn't make out what it was.
From time to time, she made eye contact with Matt, crouching across the aisle. She tried to look confident, but she definitely didn't feel confident. She had no plan. The only thing she'd thought of was to jump Snake from behind, but he'd almost certainly fire his gun, and there were passengers—Monica didn't know how many—in front of him. And of course the pilots. If he shot them, everybody would die. On the other hand, if she didn't try to grab him, he might kill everybody anyway. He was definitely crazy.
Monica looked over at Matt, gave him another confident expression. He stared back. He was clearly scared.
Monica thought, He's right.
06:22
Greer was standing at the edge of the main concourse traffic, next to an abandoned airline counter, talking into his special phone. Seitz and Baker were next to him. A few feet away were Eliot, who had his arm around Anna, and Puggy, who was holding hands with Niña.
"Still nothing from the pilot?" Greer said to the phone. "OK, and his location is ... OK. How about Homestead? They're ... right, OK, good." Greer looked at his watch. "Right, that's affirmative."
"I don't understand," Anna said to Baker. "Why aren't you going out to the plane? Why aren't there police out there?"
"Mrs. Herk," said Baker, "the plane took off."
"Oh my God," she said, putting her hand to her face. Eliot hugged her tight, imagining how awful he'd feel if Matt were in that plane.
"But they're tracking it," said Baker. "They have it on radar. That's what he's talking to them about now."
"So what happens?" asked Eliot. "When the plane lands, they arrest him?"
Baker looked at Seitz.
Seitz said, "They'll do whatever it takes."
05:55
The noise was driving Snake crazy. He decided to try to close the door. Facing the cockpit, he walked backward slowly toward the rear of the plane.
05:45
Baker pulled Seitz aside, close to where Greer was talking on the special phone.
"What do you mean, 'Whatever it takes'?" asked Baker.
"Just what I said."
Baker stared at Seitz. A few feet away, Greer was saying, "Has that been cleared? Can I talk to ... Sorry, I didn't realize. Yes, sir. I understand, sir. Yes, sir, they've acquired it."
"Who's acquired what?" Baker asked Seitz.
"Keep it down," said Seitz, nodding toward Anna.
"It's fighter jets, isn't it?" said Baker, his voice low. "From Homestead. You're gonna shoot this plane down, aren't you?"
Seitz said, "Whatever it takes."
05:12
Snake was backing slowly toward the rear of the plane, keeping his eye on the pilot. He was now even with the third row from the last. And now he was even with the second from the last. One more step, and he'd be right next to Monica and Matt; he'd see them for sure. Monica saw she was going to have no choice.
04:52
"We got no choice," said Greer. Baker was right in his face. They were talking quietly, so Anna and Eliot couldn't hear.
"There are innocent people on that plane," said Baker. "This woman's daughter is on there."
"With a nuclear weapon that's gonna go off," said Greer. "If it goes off in Freeport, many innocent people die, you understand? Many. We have to get it now."
A man wearing an official Greg Norman golf shirt, official Greg Norman hat, and official Greg Norman slacks tapped Baker on the shoulder. He tapped several times before Baker turned to him.
"What?" Baker said.
"Which way is Northwest Airlines?" the man asked.
"I don't know," Baker said. He turned back to Greer. "Can't you signal to them somehow?" he asked. "Tell them to ... "
The man tapped Baker's shoulder again, and said, "Is there some kind of ... "
"NOT NOW," Baker said.
"Well, you don't have to shout," the man said. He went back over to his wife, who was wearing a muumuu the size of a wedding tent, to tell her how rude this jerk was.
"Can't you tell 'em the situation?" Baker said to Greer. 'Tell 'em throw the suitcase out of the plane?"
"We tried," said Greer. "We're still trying. Pilot doesn't respond."
"But how can you just ... " Baker held up his hands, let them drop.
"We have to," Greer said. "We fucking have to, that's how. Listen, nobody likes this. Nobody wants this. But this has been discussed, believe me, as high as it can be, every scenario, and this is the only way outta this."
Baker looked over at Anna. She was watching him and Greer, the representatives of Law and Order, waiting for them to tell her that her daughter was OK. Baker looked back at Greer.
"When does this happen?" he asked.
"When the plane's over the middle of the Gulf Stream," said Greer. "Over deep water."
"How long is that?" Baker asked.
Greer looked at his watch.
"Three minutes," he said.
03:17
Snake had stopped one row in front of where Monica crouched. She could see the back of his legs; he still hadn't turned. He was yelling something Monica couldn't quite hear to die pilot, something about the radio.
Monica looked across the aisle at Matt, nodded her head toward Snake, and made a grabbing gesture with both hands, to indicate, We're gonna jump him. Matt nodded. Monica held her right hand out with the forefinger and middle finger pointed down, like legs, then tapped upward between the legs with the forefinger of her left hand, to indicate Kick him in the balls. Matt puzzled over that one for a moment, then got it and nodded again. The thought flashed through Monica's mind, just for an instant, that Matt was a lot quicker on the uptake than her partner, Walter.
02:37
The F-16s carried both the AIM-9M heat-seeking missile, known as the "Sidewinder," and the AIM-120 AMRAAM, or advanced medium-range air-to-air missile, which is radar-guided. Because they were at close range, and because Flight 2038 had turboprop engines that generated enough heat, the pilots had elected to go with the Sidewinders. They radioed this decision in and were told to go ahead and arm.
01:58
Snake took another step back. He was right next to Monica and turning to his left, toward the door, which meant his gun was turning toward Matt. Monica came up out of her crouch and grabbed for his right arm, the one with the gun in it. She gripped it for an instant, but then a cramp sent a vicious jolt of pain through her right hamstring, buckling her leg. As she fell sideways, Snake shook off her arm and whirled, pulling the trigger. Monica's body jerked violently backward into the window, then crumpled to the floor. There was a softball-sized hole in the window, its edges spattered with blood.
As she went down, Matt came up, wrapping his arms around Snake, trying to pin him; but Snake was stronger, and he twisted quickly back to his left inside Mart's arms, whipping the gun around hard into the side of Mart's head. Matt lurched to his right and went down onto the plane seat.
In the front of the plane, the postal retirees had gone to the floor at the sound of the gunshot, as had Frank the copilot. Justin had turned around and seen that the maniac was fighting somebody—Justin had no idea who it was—back there. Timing forward again, Justin quickly reached for his radio headset.
01:14
"Yes," said Greer, into his special phone. He was looking at his watch. "That's affirmative. I repeat, affirmative. When you're ready."
01:12
Snake was furious. The cop bitch and the punk! How the fuck did they get here? He looked down at the bitch; her eyes were open, but he couldn't tell if she was seeing anything. He turned back toward the punk, who was groaning, moving a little. Definitely alive. Not for long, punk.
00:59
Greer had his ear pressed tight to the special phone. "What?" he said, his voice rising. "What'd he say?"
"What?" asked Baker, pressing close to Greer. "What?"
"They heard from the pilot," said Greer. "He's ... hold it." He listened on the phone. "OK," he said, looking at his watch. "Ask him is the suitcase on the airplane. Got that? Ask him can he get the suitcase off the airplane right now." He looked at his watch. Shit.
00:41
Snake raised the gun, aimed it at Matt's head.
"Snake!" a voice shouted. Snake jerked his head right. It was Eddie, standing in the aisle.
Snake, still aiming the gun at Matt, shouted, "The fuck you want?"
"Snake, Jesus," shouted Eddie, pointing down at Monica. "You shot a cop."
"That's right," shouted Snake. "Now I'm gonna shoot this punk."
"Snake," shouted Eddie, "You're fuckin' crazy. I don't wa ... "
Snake grabbed Eddie by the shirt, yanked him hard, pivoting and hurling him past Matt against the wall in the rear of the plane. Eddie's back hit the wall and slumped to the floor next to the suitcase.
"DON'T CALL ME CRAZY," shouted Snake.
"Snake," shouted Eddie, "When we land, I ain't goin' with you."
Snake fired the gun. Eddie screamed and rolled sideways, grabbing his thigh.
"That's right," shouted Snake. "You ain't goin' with me." He turned back toward Matt, raising the gun.
Jenny landed on Snake chest high, wrapping her legs around his waist, grabbing his hair with one hand and furiously clawing at his eyes with the other. He raised his left hand to shove her off and she bit into it, her teeth sinking in to the bone.
00:26
The F-16s were directly behind the target, in textbook firing position. The target was slow and taking no evasive measures. There was essentially zero chance the Sidewinders would miss.
00:24
Snake screamed and yanked his bleeding hand away from Jenny's mouth. He brought his other hand up hard, hitting Jenny with the gun barrel under her jaw. Her head snapped back and she dropped off of him, into the aisle.
"You fuckin' BITCH," he screamed, kicking at her. "I'm gonna KILL YOU, YOU FUCKIN' BITCH." Jenny, on her back, tried to scrabble away up the aisle.
"YOU AIN'T GETTTN' AWAY, BITCH," screamed Snake, raising the gun.
Then he heard it, over the plane noise, a thump behind him. He spun and looked. Eddie, blood spreading quickly over his thigh, had managed to shove the suitcase against the lower lip of the open doorway. His eyes closed, his teeth gritted, he was pushing it over the lip. It was leaning out now, into the shrieking wind.
"NO!" screamed Snake. He dove to the back of the plane. As he got there, Eddie gave the suitcase a last desperate shove, toppling it slowly over the lip. Kicking Eddie aside, Snake leaned out of the doorway and grabbed for the suitcase handle with his left hand. He caught the handle, and he almost got the suitcase pulled back. But he'd leaned forward a little too far, and the weight of the suitcase was a little too much. Snake felt it pulling him out of the plane. He grabbed for the side of the door with his right, but he still had the gun in that hand, and he couldn't get a good grip. If he'd have let go of the suitcase, he could have grabbed the stairs, could have stayed on the plane and saved himself. But he wanted that suitcase; that was his kingpin suitcase. Snake held on to it as it bounced down to the bottom of the hanging stairs, then off the last stair, dragging Snake along, into the rushing black nothingness, over the vast black ocean.
00:14
Justin heard the bumps and felt the sudden weight change at the back of the plane. He looked back where the maniac had been, where the suitcase had been. He began shouting into his headset microphone.
00:11
Greer was shouting into the special phone, now, causing airline passengers to stop on the concourse and stare at him.
"ABORT ABORT ABORT," he shouted. "DO YOU HEAR ME? ABORT ABORT ABORT."
00:06
Snake was falling, falling. He was very afraid, but he was still thinking clearly. He had not let go of the suitcase. He would not let go of the suitcase. This was his kingpin suitcase. He would hold on to it for the rest of his life.
fourteen
The next day's newspaper was full of news.
The big story was the rogue wave, estimated to be somewhere between eight and twelve feet high, that hit both South Florida and the Bahamas. The wave was felt by even the big freighters; it capsized a number of smaller boats, although fortunately nobody was hurt. It was also fortunate that the wave hit at night, when there were few people on the beaches. There were some scary moments and a fair amount of damage, but nobody drowned.
The cause of the wave was, for the moment, a mystery. The best guess from the experts was that it was caused by some freak seismic event on the seafloor under the Gulf Stream. Rogue waves had hit Florida before; Daytona Beach had had one in July of 1992. As one oceanographer quoted in the newspaper put it: "Every now and then, Mother Nature throws you a curve."
There was also a dramatic story of a hijacking attempt aboard an Air Impact! turboprop flight from Miami to Freeport. A man—described by one of a group of retirees who'd been on the plane as "a complete lunatic"—managed to smuggle a gun on board and ordered the pilot to take off without clearance. A Miami police officer, Monica Ramirez, had somehow—details were not yet available—gotten on the plane and tried to apprehend the hijacker, who had shot her. Other passengers had also fought the hijacker, and during the struggle, he had apparently fallen from the plane to his certain death in the ocean. Officer Ramirez, who was described by the police chief as a hero, was still alive when the plane returned to Miami; she was in critical condition, but doctors said her chances for survival were good. A passenger identified as Edward Porter also sustained a gunshot wound to the leg; he was listed in satisfactory condition.
By bizarre coincidence, there was another, totally unrelated story involving the airport at around the same time. Somehow, a thirteen-foot python had gotten loose in the main concourse and attacked a passenger, identified as Leonard Pflund, a forty-two-year-old consultant from East Orange, New Jersey. He was rescued by his business associate, identified as forty-seven-year-old Henry Algott, also of East Orange, who killed the snake with a handgun. Police had taken possession of the handgun and detained Algott pending further investigation of the incident. Police said they would file charges against the snake's owner, Neil Hart, when he was released from the hospital, where he was being treated for injuries sustained while resisting arrest.
Police reported two unusual incidents in Coconut Grove. In one, a man identified as Jack Pendick, twenty-eight, of the Harbour Oakes Manour Trailer Court in Cutler Ridge, had been apprehended after firing a handgun several times near the Coco Walk shopping complex. Nobody had been hurt, but the incident and subsequent apprehension of Pendick had attracted a crowd of tourists, who had temporarily blocked Grand Avenue. A few hours later, in a residential section of the Grove, a Miami police officer identified as Walter Kramitz had been discovered in the middle of Garbanzo Street handcuffed to a large metal object, along with a local business executive identified as Arthur Herk. This apparently was the result of a home-invasion-style robbery at Herk's home, but the details of the incident, and especially how Kramitz and Herk ended up in the street, were still sketchy.
Finally, traffic on busy Le Jeune Road had been shut down completely for several hours when a group of goats had somehow gotten loose on the roadway.
The newspaper ran this story as a "bright" on the bottom right-hand comer of the front page, with a picture of a sweating animal-control officer, surrounded by cars, chasing a frisky, cheerful-looking goat. This picture produced identical reactions in thousands of readers: They shook their heads, smiled, and said, "Only in Miami."
epilogue
In the weeks that followed, oceanographers up the Atlantic coast detected elevated radioactivity levels in the waters of the Gulf Stream; in addition, some mariners noted an unusually large quantity of dead deepwater fish floating on the ocean surface. Various explanations were offered for these phenomena, including the possibility that they, and the rogue wave, were caused by a catastrophic malfunction aboard a nuclear submarine. This allegation was aggressively advanced on the Internet by a number of people, most notably Pierre Salinger; the fact that the U.S. government said there had been no submarines of any kind in that area only reinforced their belief that they were right. But no concrete evidence ever surfaced, and eventually the matter became just another random piece of conspiracy-nut lore.
