“No cockpit door alarm?” said another.
Jimmy the Bishop saw that they had entered the “stupid questions” phase of the investigation. He summoned the patience and good judgment that made him a successful air-traffic controller. “She came in smooth and set down soft. Regis 7-5-3 confirmed the gate assignment and turned off the runway. I terminated radar and transitioned it over to ASDE.”
Calvin said, one hand over his earphone mic, “Maybe the pilot had to shut down?”
“Maybe,” said Jimmy the Bishop. “Or maybe it shut down on him.”
A suit said, “Then why haven’t they opened a door?”
Jimmy the Bishop’s mind was already spinning on that. Passengers, as a rule, won’t sit still for a minute longer than they had to. The previous week, a jetBlue arriving from Florida had very nearly undergone a mutiny, and that was over
Jimmy the Bishop said, “It’s got to be starting to get hot in there. If the electrical is shut down, there’s no air circulating inside. No ventilation.”
“So what the hell are they waiting for?” said another suit.
Jimmy the Bishop felt everyone’s anxiety going up. That hole in your gut when you realize that something is about to happen, something really, really wrong.
“What if they can’t move?” he muttered before he could stop himself from speaking.
“A hostage situation? Is that what you mean?” asked the suit.
The Bishop nodded quietly…but he wasn’t thinking that. For whatever reason, all he could think was…
The port authority’s aircraft rescue firefighters went out on a standard airliner distress deployment, six vehicles including the fuel spill foamer, pumper, and aerial ladder truck. They pulled up at the stuck baggage conveyor before the blue lamps edging Foxtrot. Captain Sean Navarro hopped off the back step of the ladder truck, standing there in his helmet and fire suit before the dead plane. The rescue vehicles’ lights flashing against the fuselage imbued the aircraft with a fake red pulse. It looked like an empty plane set out for a nighttime training drill.
Captain Navarro went up to the front of the truck and climbed in with the driver, Benny Chufer. “Call in to maintenance and get those staging lights out here. Then pull up behind the wing.”
Benny said, “Our orders are to hang back.”
Captain Navarro said, “That’s a plane full of people there. We’re not paid to be glorified road flares. We’re paid to save lives.”
Benny shrugged and did as the cap told him. Captain Navarro climbed back out of the rig and up onto the roof, and Benny raised the boom just enough to get him up on the wing. Captain Navarro switched on his flashlight and stepped over the trailing edge between the two raised flaps, his boot landing right where it said, in bold black lettering, DON’T STEP HERE.
He walked along the broadening wing, twenty feet above the tarmac. He went to the over-wing exit, the only door on the aircraft installed with an exterior emergency release. There was a small, unshaded window set in the door, and he tried to peer through, past the beads of condensation inside the double-thick glass, seeing nothing inside except more darkness. It had to be as stifling as an iron lung in there.
Why weren’t they calling out for help? Why wasn’t he hearing any movement inside? If still pressurized, then the plane was airtight. Those passengers were running out of oxygen.
With his fire gloves on, he pushed in the twin red flaps and pulled the door handle out from its recess. He rotated it in the direction of the arrows, nearly 180 degrees, and tugged. The door should have popped outward then, but it would not open. He pulled again, but knew immediately that his effort was useless — no give whatsoever. There was no way it could have been stuck from the inside. The handle must have jammed. Or else something was holding it from the inside.
He went back down wing to the ladder top. He saw an orange utility light spinning, an airport cart on its way out from the international terminal. Closer, he saw it was driven by blue-jacketed agents of the Transportation Security Administration.
“Here we go,” muttered Captain Navarro, starting down the ladder.
There were five of them, each one introducing himself in turn, but Captain Navarro didn’t waste any effort trying to remember names. He had come to the plane with fire engines and foaming equipment; they came with laptops and mobile handhelds. For a while he just stood and listened while they talked into their devices and over each other:
“We need to think long and hard before we push the Homeland Security button here. Nobody wants a shit storm for nothing.”
“We don’t even know what we have. You ring that bell and scramble fighters up here from Otis Air Force Base, you’re talking about panicking the entire eastern seaboard.”
“If it
“Explode it on U.S. soil, maybe.”
“Maybe they’re playing dead for a while. Staying radio dark. Luring us closer. Waiting for the media.”
One guy was reading from his phone. “I have the flight originating from Tegel, in Berlin.”
Another spoke into his. “I want someone on the ground in Germany who sprechen ze English. We need to know if they’ve seen any suspicious activity there, any breaches. Also, we need a primer on their baggage-handling procedures.”
Another ordered: “Check the flight plan and reclear the passenger manifest. Yes — every name, run them again. This time accounting for spelling variations.”
“Okay,” said another, reading from his handheld. “Full specs. Plane reg is N323RG. Boeing 777–200LR. Most recent transit check was four days ago, at Atlanta Hartsfield. Replaced a worn duct slider on the left engine’s thrust reverser, and a worn mount bushing on the right. Deferred repair of a dent in the left-aft inboard flap assembly due to flight schedule. Bottom line — she got a clean bill of health.”
“Triple sevens are new orders, aren’t they? A year or two out?”
“Three hundred and one max capacity. This flight boarded two ten. A hundred and ninety-nine passengers, two pilots, nine cabin crew.”
“Any unticketed?” That meant infants.
“I’m showing no.”
“Classic tactic,” said the one focused on terror. “Create a disturbance, draw first responders, gain an audience — then detonate for max impact.”
“If so, then we’re already dead.”
They looked at each other uncomfortably.
“We need to pull these rescue vehicles back. Who was that fool up there stomping on the wing?”
Captain Navarro edged forward, surprising them with a response. “That was me.”
“Ah. Well.” The guy coughed once into his fist. “That’s maintenance personnel only up there, Captain. FAA regs.”
“I know it.”
“Well? What’d you see? Anything?”
Navarro said, “Nothing. Saw nothing, heard nothing. All the window shades are drawn down.”
“Drawn down, you say? All of them?”
“All of them.”
“Did you try the over-wing exit?”
“I did indeed.”
“And?”
“It was stuck.”
“Stuck? That’s impossible.”
“It’s stuck,” said Captain Navarro, showing more patience with these five than he did with his own kids.
The senior man stepped away to make a call. Captain Navarro looked at the others. “So what are we going to
