“Right here, sir. Ten minutes ago I sent him clear orders to make a thirty-degree course alteration to his left and to take a swing left around Cincinnati, leaving Northern Kentucky International to his starboard side.”
“Where’s he bound?”
“Montreal, sir.”
“Start point?”
“Trinidad, sir. Refueled Palm Beach, Florida.”
“Aircraft?”
“Boeing 737, sir.”
“Is she squawking?”
“Nossir.”
“You tried High Frequency?”
“Yessir. I went to SELCAL
“You sure she’s still flying?”
“No doubt, sir. She’s headed straight over the southern part of the state of North Carolina, slightly right of the city of Raleigh.”
“Airline?”
“Thunder Bay Airways, sir. Canadian. She has no scheduled stops in North America. Her fuel stop was not on her flight plan, according to the Miami Tower.”
“They probably ran out in Barbados.”
“Guess so. But what do we do?”
“Well, right now she’s flying over some lonely country. But I want you to alert the agencies. CIA, National Security, then White House Security. that’ll do it. They’ll take it from there.”
“What do I tell ’em, sir?”
“Tell ’em we got a fucking bolter! What else? And keep trying the cockpit, Steve. You never know. Could be an electrical problem.”
Today Lt. Commander Ramshawe was hot on the trail of anything to do with aircraft. The short, low-key signal on his screen was informing him that some nuthouse Canadian pilot was ignoring warnings from the control tower and appeared to be heading for the North Carolina swamps. This hit him like “Houston, we have a problem” had hit the NASA ops room on April 13, 1970.
Jimmy Ramshawe grabbed the phone, direct line to his assistant. “Get me Herndon on the line right now,” he snapped.
“National Air Traffic Control Center, Operator Simpson speaking.”
“Operator, this is Lt. Commander Jimmy Ramshawe at the National Security Agency, Fort Meade. Please have the operator dealing with the Thunder Bay Airlines off-course Boeing 737 call me back right away. Military Intelligence Division.”
As always, the words
“This is Steve Farrell, sir. You wanted me.”
“G’day, Steve,” said Jimmy. “This Thunder Bay flight. Where is it right now?”
“Sir, I’m showing it just southeast of the city of Raleigh, making around 380 knots through 35,000 feet. They’ve ignored my orders to swing left, refused to answer my signals, and stopped squawking. Just silence, sir. Like they’d gone off the charts.”
“You’re certain they haven’t.”
“Dead certain, sir. We got a radar paint on relay. They’re up there, sir. And right now they’re flying where they ain’t supposed to be.”
“They stuck to their original course all the way?”
“Nossir. After the Palm Beach refuel, they were directed out over the water and were scheduled to stay off the East Coast until they made landfall over Connecticut, and then proceed on up to Montreal. But we got a Navy Exercise in operation off Norfolk, so we redirected ’em west, back over land.”
“And they heard that okay?”
“Yessir. And obeyed it.”
“So they didn’t ignore the towers until they were diverted from their northerly course off the Carolinas?”
“Nossir. That’s when they went quiet. Soon as I told them to head for Cincinnati, Ohio.”
“Is the aircraft full?”
“Nossir. It’s not logged as heavy. But we don’t have a passenger count.”
“Who owns Thunder Bay Airways?”
“No idea, sir. They usually fly out of Downsview Airport, Toronto.”
“Where’s their home base?”
“No idea, sir. We don’t see them that often. Tell you the truth, I think this might have been a private charter.”
“Got a flight number?”
“Funny you should ask, sir. I’ve been checking. But I’ve had two different answers, 446 and 5544, almost like they filed two different flights.”
“Steve, you sound like a very smart guy. I’ll find out who owns the airline; you nail down their flight number. And keep tracking that bastard, will you? Call me in five with the flight number and gimme a projected route, okay?”
“You got it, sir. Be right back.”
Lt. Commander Ramshawe hit the line to Military Intelligence Research and instructed them to run Thunder Bay Airways to ground and find out how many were on board their flight from Barbados to Montreal this morning. “And get the name of the pilot while you’re at it.”
Then he hit his own desktop computer, which took all of two minutes to inform him that Thunder Bay was situated way up in northern Ontario, on the northwest shore of Lake Superior. The city was very small, mostly a ski resort, but it most certainly did have an airport.
Three more minutes went by, and the phone rang again: Steve Farrell, to give the pilot’s name, Captain Mark Fustok, plus the Boeing’s current projected route.
“If she doesn’t deviate,” said Steve, “this bearing will take her four miles to the right of Raleigh, North Carolina, then straight over the middle of the city of Richmond, Virginia, across the Potomac, up the eastern shore, and on over the very center of Washington, D.C. There was still no accurate flight number.”
“Gimme her last known,” snapped Jimmy.
“She’s just crossing the Virginia border,” replied Steve, “close to a little place called Greensville. Still making 380 knots, still at 35, still defying every fucking thing she’s been told to do.”
Ramshawe liked that. Farrell was an earthy character, feet on the ground, hard to fool, no bullshit, moving fast, right next to a half-eaten donut.
“Stay with it, kid,” he said.
At that moment, his screen lit up the way it did when there was incoming data from Military Intelligence Research. He swiveled around and watched the signal, which informed him that Thunder Bay Airways was about two years old, registered in Canada, excellent safety record, with servicing facilities at the local airfield. It ran regular flights to the Caribbean throughout the winter, with specialized vacation programs available throughout the year to a series of luxury hotels, all of them in the Middle East, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco.
There were no American-based directors, and only two Canadians. Ninety percent of the shares were held by an overseas trust based in the Bahamas. There was an office on the airfield at Thunder Bay, dealing mostly with their flights from Toronto and Montreal, transporting skiers. The president was listed as Mr. Ismael Akhbar, an Iranian-born naturalized Canadian, who held a master’s in engineering from McGill University.
Jimmy glanced at the phone number and called the office in Thunder Bay. He explained to the girl that he was trying to trace a passenger on the flight but could not locate a flight number.
“Well, that’s because we have no scheduled stops in the USA — it’s not necessary to file flight details if
