I might have succeeded, except he somehow extended the steel baton and whipped it down flush between my legs. I screamed again, this time from pain, and curled up with my eyes rolling back into my head.
Meyer paused to wrestle with the airplane, managing to pull it out of its dive and aim it through the building corridors and toward Central Park. Then he hit me on the forehead. It felt like he’d cracked the whole front of my skull. The world went gray as he shoved me back down into my seat.
His last measured blow with the baton whiplashed my head so hard into the door beside me that the window broke. I saw wheeling lights and blood streaming down the interior of the plane like a dark curtain, before my body went limp and my eyes closed.
I was just about gone, but somewhere deep in my head, a tiny spark of consciousness fought to stay lit.
Chapter 93
Mayor Carlson was on the third mile of his before-bed elliptical machine trek when Patrick Kipfer, one of his deputy chiefs, stuck his head in the doorway of Gracie Mansion ’s basement gym.
“The Commissioner,” he said. “I forwarded it to your cell.”
The mayor hit the elliptical’s Pause button and lowered the volume of the hanging TV before he lifted his phone.
“Commissioner?” he said.
“Sorry to bother you, Mort,” Commissioner Daly said. “We got a hostage situation. One of our homicide detectives, Mike Bennett. His family said a man came into their apartment and abducted him and his four-year-old daughter.”
Bennett? the mayor thought. Wasn’t he the cop who was at the Blanchettes, the one who’d wanted to shut down the party?
“Tell me it isn’t the spree killer.”
“We have to go on that assumption.”
Carlson wiped his sweating face on his NYU T-shirt.
“Goddammit. Do we have any idea where they went? Any ransom demand? Any contact?”
“Nothing so far,” Daly said. “This happened less than an hour ago. His unmarked vehicle is missing, so we’ve notified state troopers and our guys.”
“I know you’re doing everything you can, Commissioner,” the mayor said. “You think of any way I can help, let me know immediately.”
“Will do.”
The mayor stared at the Pause button on the elliptical after he placed his cell back down. Should he call it a night? No, he decided, reaching for the button. No excuses. His cholesterol was through the roof. Not to mention how tight his suits were getting these days, with all the fund-raiser food. Just do it, and all that garbage. Besides, what good would he be to the city if he had a heart attack?
He was just getting back up to pace when Patrick returned and stuck his head in the doorway.
This time, the mayor hit the Stop button as he lifted his cell phone.
“The commissioner again?”
“The other commissioner,” his aide said. “Frank Peterson, from Port Authority Police.”
The mayor gave him a puzzled look. Christ, when it rained, it poured. What did the Port Authority commissioner want?
“Frank? Hi. What can I do for you?” the mayor said.
“One of our cops, a young guy named Tommy Wi, was just shot dead out at Teterboro,” Peterson said somberly.
The mayor shook his head in disbelief as he stepped off the machine. First a kidnapping, then a murder?
“That’s…” he started to say, but couldn’t find a word. “What happened?”
“Just before Officer Wi was shot, he called in and said an NYPD detective had asked for access to the tarmac. Two minutes later, a twin-engine Cessna was hijacked by a pair of men. Nearby, we found an NYPD unmarked radio car with a little girl inside, saying her daddy is Detective Mike Bennett.”
“Mr. Mayor,” his aide Patrick said, coming in again with another cell phone in his hand. “It’s important.”
Christ, another call? He had only two ears.
“Sorry, Frank, can you hold a minute?” he said to the Port Authority commissioner. What now? he thought as Patrick traded phones with him.
“Hello, Mayor Carlson,” said a crisp male voice. “Tad Billings, assistant director of Homeland Security. You’ve heard about the hijacking at Teterboro?”
“I’m starting to,” Carlson said curtly.
“FAA radar is tracking the Cessna over the Hudson, heading east, inbound toward the city. An F-15 has been scrambled and is en route from McGuire Air Force Base in south Jersey.”
“What?! An F-15?!”
“Part of the new Federal Homeland Security statute,” Billings said. “Teterboro spoke to the FAA. FAA spoke to North American Air Defense. NORAD scrambled a jet. I just got off the phone with General Hotchkiss. The jet pilot has been authorized to shoot the Cessna down.”
“You can’t be serious. We think there’s a cop on that plane, an NYPD homicide detective. He’s being held hostage!”
“The air force has been made aware of that. They’ll try to establish radio contact, but time constraints and the hijacker’s unpredictability are important factors. This is a major threat to your entire city, sir. As harsh as it is, as reluctant as we are to put the life of an innocent on the line, we unfortunately have to prepare for the worst.”
And he’d worried about having a heart attack? A heart attack would have been a breeze, compared to this impossible-to-keep-up-with insanity.
“Is our conversation being recorded?” the mayor finally said.
“As a matter of fact, yes, it is.”
“Then let me state for the record that you are all a bunch of heartless bastards.”
“Duly noted, Your Honor,” Billings said without hesitation. “I’ll make sure to keep you up to date.”
Chapter 94
The F-15E Strike Eagle was less than a mile out from McGuire Air Force Base when the pilot, Major James Vickers, fired the afterburners. Sapphire-blue flame shot from the jet pipes of the aircraft’s Pratt and Whitney F100 engines, and the state of New Jersey was suddenly rolling beneath him like the belt of a treadmill turned to sprint.
Located eighteen miles south of Trenton, McGuire for the most part was a C-17 cargo plane and KC-10 tanker refueling plane base. But in the aftermath of 9/11, in order to cover all future threats to New York City, a contingent of the 336th Fighter Squadron had been discreetly redeployed sixty-four miles to the north. At the aircraft’s top speed of nine hundred miles an hour, that distance evaporated in an eyeblink.
Which was what happened a moment later as the F-15 double-boomed, breaking the sound barrier.
Like opening a can of biscuits, Vickers thought with a shake of his flight helmet. You know the pop is coming, but damn if it don’t always surprise you.
“Okay, we’ve got him,” said Captain Duane Burkhart, the weapons systems officer, or wizzo, as they were called, sitting in the cockpit seat behind Vickers. “The Cessna’s transponder is still on. It’s lighting up the LANTIRN screen like a Christmas tree.”
LANTIRN was the plane’s Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night system. Since the small plane’s transponder was still operational, they could actually fire a missile now if they wanted.
“You heard the CO,” Vickers said. “We need to try radio contact first, and at the very least we need a visual.”
