“How would someone take control? I know there are hackers out there, but this seems like a tall order.”
“When we’re at altitude, we’re above cell signals, so there would have to be a way to connect the plane to whatever system the hacker is using.”
“That’s over my head, pardon the pun. Let me look the plane over and see if I can find anything that doesn’t fit. Can you show we how to get to the cargo area?”
Brett Egan showed Walter to the cargo area, but he found nothing there. Walter then exited the plane and came back a minute later with the small projectile that had been stuck to the side just behind the wing.
“Does this look like something that belongs on the outside of the plane?”
Owens took the item and looked it over, shaking his head.
“Where did you find that?”
“Stuck to the outside, just behind the wing.”
“That definitely doesn’t belong there.”
A few seconds later, the engines shut down and Brett Egan walked back from the cockpit.
“We got control again. Looks like that thing was letting someone else hack us.”
“Sorry guys, gotta take this,” Walter said, pulling out his ringing phone.
“Yeah, Larry, what’s up?”
“Man am I glad you answered. You seen the news?”
“Uh…no…I’ve been otherwise occupied.”
“Heading to Chicago?”
“Well, I was, until I spotted a plane in a nose dive. They’re all okay, by the way. Put it down in a cornfield, somewhere in Indiana.”
“There are two more. Someone has control of them.”
“That would explain the device I found on the outside of the plane. The pilot has it now.”
“I can brief you on that later. You think you can do something about the other two planes?”
“Where are they headed?”
“One’s headed to Florida and the other to Dallas. The Florida plane is nearing Tennessee.”
“Does it look like either are in danger?”
“Not at the moment. The pilots don’t have control, but both planes are still on course…wait a sec…the southbound plane just went into a dive.”
“I’m headed that way.”
Walter addressed Egan, “Hey, gotta go. More planes in trouble. You’ll be okay?”
“Yeah, just go.”
15
Walter flew south as fast as he could, looking ahead for the plane. He was almost to the Tennessee border, when he spotted the plane in a steep dive. He could already hear the passengers, some praying and some screaming. He dove toward it as fast as he could, but he was still five hundred feet away when the plane dove nose first into the ground and erupted into a fireball. He pulled up and hovered over the scene, looking in vain for any signs of life.
He went into the trees, pulled out his phone, and dialed Wilkins.
“Yeah, Walter.”
“Too late, I was too late.”
“You can’t blame yourself. You did what you could.”
“I was too freaking late, Larry. I was almost there…saw it hit…it’s bad.”
“Look, Walter, there’s still one left, and it’s still flying steady. There’s nothing more you can do there.”
“Larry…I’ve…never…never seen anything like this before.”
“I know, but there’s another one out there, and you’re the only one who can do anything about it.”
“I hear you. Where is it?”
“Probably not far from you. Heading west over Tennessee, heading toward Texas.”
“Okay, Larry. I’m on the way.”
Less than a minute later, Walter found the west bound airliner cruising at 35000 feet. He approached from below, flew along the left side of the plane, and there behind the wing, in the same place it had been on the first plane, was the small projectile. He looked in the cockpit and saw what he had seen earlier, two pilots who had no control over anything. He went back behind the wing and removed the projectile and crushed it in his hand. He went back up front and looked into the cockpit. One of the pilots saw him, smiled, and gave him a thumbs up.
Five minutes after that, Walter was walking into the District 1 Police Station.
“Hey, you got here fast,” Wilkins said when he saw Walter, “You want to sit down for a bit?”
“Yeah, I need to.”
Wilkins pulled a chair up next to his desk and motioned for Walter to sit down.
“You want a Coke or something?”
“What I could really use is a beer, but I don’t expect you have any around here.”
“I was about to have one at the house, before this happened.”
“You don’t suppose we could talk there, do you?”
“Can’t see why not. I’m not really on duty now, anyway.”
“Hop in your car and hold on.”
Five minutes later they were in the back yard and Larry had fired up the grill.
“You didn’t have to light that just on my account,” Walter said.
“I was using it earlier, and maybe you could use a bite. How do you like your steak?”
“Medium well, thank you.”
“Maybe I should bring you up to speed. You heard about the semi trailer that was stolen the night you grabbed that fake bomb?”
“Yeah, what was in it?”
“The devices that you found on the planes. I have a friend up at Wright-Patt. He confirmed what was in the truck.”
“Let me get this right. Someone attaches that thing to a plane and then it can be controlled remotely?”
“That’s the idea. Not just planes. Anything it attaches to can be controlled.”
“That definitely could cause problems. How’d they get it on the planes?”
“There’s a launcher, about the size of a rifle. Get a target lock and you can hit a target up to five miles away.”
“There are places you can see the runways. Wouldn’t be hard to hang out and hit planes taking off.”
“That’s what we think happened. The first one was luck. You happened to be heading the same direction. What about that show you were heading up to, anyway?”
“They saw the news, figured I was involved, and re-scheduled.”
“Whoever did this is seriously twisted. Said it was a demonstration of their capabilities and we would do well do give in to any future demands.”
“You’re telling me there were no demands, that this was just a demonstration?” Walter clenched his fist so fast
