The two small air-to-air missiles were still in crates in the back of the plane. They had been easy to obtain, and relatively cheap. Whereas a shoulder-fired ground-to-air missile could cost upward of two hundred thousand dollars on the black market, an air-to-air missile like the two old French Magic heat seekers, which were now considered obsolete, could be picked up for a few thousand dollars. They weighed less than two hundred pounds each and required no sophisticated target-tracking system to use them.
A well-armed terrorist with an airframe like the 727 could have armed it with a load of obsolete Magic missiles under each wing, set out over the Atlantic beyond ground-based radar, and in a single day taken down a score of commercial jetliners flying in and out of the East Coast.
Thorn had already trained the two Mahdi pilots in how to mount the missiles on the pylons and how to pull the arming ribbons before they took off. And where they were headed, it wouldn’t matter, because there would be no one around to see them do it.
I start calling from my cell phone before we reach the rental car still parked behind the bushes near the dead- end gravel road. I call 911 and wait for the dispatcher’s voice to come on. Then I explode all over her in a litany of information, drowning her in details, everything we’ve seen during the last hour.
“Wait, wait, wait,” she says. “Is this an emergency? Is someone injured?”
“No,” I tell her. “But a lot of people are going to be dead real soon if you don’t send somebody out here now.”
“I don’t understand. Slow down, calm down, and tell me one more time,” she says.
I take a deep breath and then in a calm voice tell her about the plane, the bomb, the camo netting, and the grassy airstrip. I tell her what we know about Thorn and, halfway through what must sound like an incredible tale she stops me and says, “Who are you? What’s your name?”
I tell her.
“Where are you right now?” The way she says this makes me wonder if she’s about to dispatch a few male nurses from a local mental institution to come and pick me up.
“We’re standing on a hillside about fifteen miles south of Ponce, just off the main highway.”
“And you’re telling me you’ve seen all of this?”
“Yes, damn it!”
“Just a minute,” she says. She puts me on hold.
Herman, Joselyn, and I stand by the car.
“What are they saying?” says Joselyn.
“Nothing. I’m on hold.”
In less than half an hour, Thorn and the two Madhi pilots had buttoned up the plane, turned it around, and were jetting down the runway, leaving the welder to load up his equipment in the back of Thorn’s pickup and disappear.
The jet had enough fuel for about three hours of flight time. Thorn intended to make the most of it. He needed a cover story, one that would fit like a glove into everything his visitors were about to report to the cops. If it worked, it would put a quick end to the search for the plane.
As soon as the wheels cleared the runway, he lifted the landing gear, started to climb to altitude, and reached down and turned on the mode C transponder. He dialed in a number at random.
This immediately gave away their location. The instant the plane showed up on radar in the control tower at Mercedita Airport, three miles outside Ponce, the controllers in the tower went nuts.
Thorn was flying directly into the approach pattern of incoming planes and he knew it.
Frantically they tried to reach him by radio using the squawk number from the transponder. “Unidentified 2416, come in! You are entering controlled air space. Come in!”
Thorn ignored them as the two Mahdi pilots looked on, fear and puzzlement written all over their faces.
“Not to worry,” said Thorn. “I thought you were prepared to die.”
The 727 continued to climb. Off in the distance Thorn could see a large wide-bodied jet, its wheels and flaps down, its landing lights on. It was descending, steaming this way on a clear approach to Mercedita.
Thorn gently eased the 727 to the right until it was virtually nose on to the incoming plane. By now the chatter on the radio was frantic. “Do me a favor, turn that off,” said Thorn.
Ahmed, the Saudi flyer now sitting in the right-hand seat, looked as if he was about to wet his pants. He reached over and turned off the radio, then turned his gaze, his eyes wide like saucers, back toward the front windscreen.
“Put your hands on the throttles,” said Thorn.
Ahmed looked at him and tentatively reached for the throttle controls.
“Gimme full power, when I tell you. Not before! You got it?”
Ahmed said nothing. He was frozen with fear.
“Answer me. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” Ahmed’s fingers turned white strangling the plastic tops of the throttle controls as the nose of the giant wide-bodied plane suddenly filled the glass panel in front of him. He looked down and winced, and hunched up his body for the impact as Thorn yelled: “Now!”
Ahmed pushed the throttles all the way forward as Thorn pulled the yoke back hard. The nose of the 727 soared upward. The colliding air turbulence from the massive jet hit them like a brick wall. It rattled the old airframe and shook it nearly to pieces. Thorn could feel the pressure on the foot pedals as the two rear elevators flapped like bird wings. “God damn, that’s a rush!” he yelled. The old plane jolted as if it were strapped to the back of a bucking bull.
“They don’t make ’em like that anymore, hey, Ahmed?” He looked over at the Saudi. “What am I asking you for? You wouldn’t know.”
Ahmed glared at the infidel and then gave him a ghost of a smile and nodded. It was always best to humor those who were insane. God often protected them.
“I talked to my supervisor. We can dispatch a squad car from Ponce but it will take a while for them to get there,” she tells me.
“We don’t need a squad car!” I say. “We need a tactical unit. You send a cop out to that field alone, he’s going to get killed.”
“Are you telling me that they’re armed?” she says.
“Lady, they’ve got a bomb. What do you call that?” I ask. As I am talking, I hear the jet engines approaching from the distance.
“You don’t have to yell,” she says. “I’ll see what I can do. But I will tell you that the nearest tactical unit is in San Juan. It would take them at least an hour to get there, maybe longer.”
“Isn’t there a military base at this end of the island that can scramble planes?”
“There was, but no more. There’s a DEA unit at Ramey,” she says.
“Well, then, damn it, tell them there’re drugs on board that plane,” I tell her.
“You didn’t say nothing about drugs before.”
“I am now.”
“Listen,” she says. “It’s a serious matter to make a false report. You can get into a lot of trouble. Do you understand?” As she is talking I see the giant airliner already in the air heading straight up over our heads. I can no longer hear her on the phone. For almost half a minute the noise of the jet engines drowns her out.
“Yes, and if there’s a tape of this conversation and Thorn drops that bomb on a population center, somebody is going to want to boil you and your supervisor in oil,” I tell her. “Never mind, it’s too late.”
“We have limited resources. There’s only so much we can do,” she says. “And as I tol’ you, we don’t have no tactical unit at that end of the island. I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you,” I tell her. “In the meantime, do you have the local number for the FBI?”
“You can get that through information,” she says. She tells me that we should wait out on the highway for the police to show up.
I hang up and tell Herman what’s happened and he laughs. “Maybe we should just go home,” he says.
“At least one of you is beginning to talk sensibly,” says Joselyn.
