Hard Fall (5 page)

“These are the runway specifics,” Kort said, producing a folded piece of paper and handing it to Ward.

Ward accepted the note paper reluctantly. He located a pair of reading glasses and looked them over.

“Wait here,” Ward said, crossing the aluminum bridge between catwalk and simulator. He stepped inside the machine, leaving the door open, and then came back out, passed Kort closely and indicated that he should join him.

The room marked
Simulator Computers
used filtered air, chilled to 64 degrees and pumped into the room with enough velocity that opening the door required a good strong push. The cold air slapped Kort in the face. He buckled under the surprise of the door's resistance, stepped through, and followed Ward as the door eased shut. The room had a false floor raised to allow space for computer cables. Windows looked out on the four simulators. Mainframes capable of crunching eighty million bytes of data thirty times a second purred as they went about their work. Ward spent five minutes programming the runway specifications.

Ward spoke softly as they left the room. “We have LAX in our database, you know. You should have just asked.” The comment froze Kort, and a hot jolt of anger flushed through him despite the chill of the room—Ward's knowledge and his resulting confidence could become a problem. He hadn't realized Ward might recognize LAX just by some numbers. He had given him too much information, he decided. Would a man with this much background in avionics realize his purpose in conducting these tests? His intentions? Anxiety took hold.

Once Kort had crossed the drawbridge between the catwalk and the simulator, Ward raised it electronically, isolating the two and leaving the simulator independent and detached, able to move freely on its hydraulics.

The smell of the simulator was immediately electronic as Ward closed and locked the door behind them. The two men ducked and crossed into the flight deck, and Kort felt disoriented. The cockpit was ablaze with instrument lights. The windows looked out on an airfield—a simulated airfield, but one so impossibly close to reality that within seconds, Kort felt as if he were actually out on a runway. The parallel lights of the runway blinked in unison. “Amazing,” he said, without meaning to.

Ward scowled as he worked a small-screen computer at the instructor's post. Then he moved into the pilot's seat.

Kort took the instructor's seat behind the pilot's chair. His stomach turned. He didn't want Ward to see him like this.

Anthony Kort suffered from acrophobia. Even the thought of taking off in a plane, much less from a position in the nose of the aircraft, knotted his stomach. Originally intended as part of this operation's preliminary research, and scheduled for another operative, this responsibility had fallen onto his shoulders. The situation required he avoid revealing his weakness. He had to maintain his domination over Ward. “What I want you to do is this: You will take off, fully loaded, and begin your ascent. When I say, you will release the controls.”

“She'll crash if I do that,” Ward replied, waiting for a different command. “And it'll be no fault of the plane,” he added, defending his baby. “Thrust won't maintain the climb. She'll fall like a stone.”

Kort said, “Just do as I say.”

“You
want
it to crash? That's absurd.”

“I want you to do as I say.” He glanced away from the dizzying screen and studied his watch. He had to avoid looking at that screen at all costs; he had to avoid any sign of weakness. Besides, it was important he look at his watch: The timing had to be perfect.

Engineers working for
Der Grund
had spent months studying the specifications of the 959 to make this predictability as exact a science as possible. Kort was now to use the simulator to test their theories and discover their accuracy.

As the plane lifted off the runway, Kort counted off the seconds on his watch. When his watch read fifty-four seconds, Kort called out, “Now!”

Ward removed his hands from the controls and sat back as the speakers inside the simulator screamed loudly, the plane complaining violently, sliding toward impact, the combined effects horribly real. Louder and louder it grew until silenced by impact.

Even without watching, it took Kort a moment to recover after the crash. He checked several of the flight deck's instruments. The results of this first test were not right; he would have Ward repeat the simulation using a different duration of time between takeoff and loss of pilot control. He would try fifty-two seconds next.

Ward reset the simulator. The hydraulics leveled; the screen flickered and cleared. And there was the same runway again—LAX—stretching out before them.

Ward, as pilot, flew six takeoffs, each using a slightly different elapsed air time. On this sixth attempt, he got remarkably close to obtaining the data Kort sought. Dizzy with victory, and badly nauseated from his acrophobia, Kort ordered Ward to try exactly forty-seven seconds. This time would be perfect.

The flight deck's sixty-four-track stereo sound system duplicated everything from the sound of the jets and the wind to the grinding of the hydraulics and the thud of the wheels as they were drawn into the aircraft. The nose lifted dramatically from the runway, engines whining; Ward released the controls when instructed by Kort. Pilotless, the plane slipped helplessly and crashed. Kort leaned forward and again checked several of the instruments. He smiled triumphantly, and drew a box around the number 47. One last time—that was all he needed to be absolutely certain.

“You don't like flying,” Ward suggested. “You haven't looked at the screens once.”

Kort wanted one last run-through, but Ward's observation worried him. This last attempt had gone perfectly. The sense of achievement welled up in him, and had he been alone he might have cheered his own success. Perfection was everything to Anthony Kort. Forty-seven seconds. But he wanted desperately to repeat the test one final time—to duplicate his success precisely, to relive that success, to make absolutely certain his success
could
be duplicated. That was the point. His pursuit of perfection wouldn't allow it any other way. In a perfect world …

“Let's repeat that once more,” he ordered.

“Forty-seven seconds again?”

“Exactly as we just did it.”

“What is it that you're after? Who
are
you? This
isn't
corporate espionage, is it? It's something else.” He turned around to face Kort.

“Just fly the plane,” Kort instructed.

Ward had troubled eyes. He couldn't hide the anger on his face as his earlier fear gave way to a growing understanding of Kort's purpose. Kort thought about stopping here; he had what he needed. Ward's impatience was suddenly a liability. He was about to call it off when Ward encouraged the throttle forward and sent the plane charging down the runway. As the yoke came back, the hydraulics at the rear of the pod contracted, and the nose angled into the pale blue electronic sky. The jets screamed in stereo. The steep-pitched climb continued. This was wrong! Kort turned to chastise the pilot, and in doing so, made the mistake of looking into the hypnotic screen. He couldn't take his eyes off it. The ground faded below them; the nose aimed into the blue. The plane banked sharply left and right, up and down, as the pod physically responded to Ward's erratic piloting. Kort, who wore no restraining belt, fell from his seat. “Stop it,” he demanded in a weak voice. The simulator continued to heave and jerk unpredictably on the hydraulics. “Stop it!” he tried again, but this time his food came up.

Ward spun around wild-eyed, and shouted above the roar. “You may ruin my marriage,” he said in a menacing voice, “but there's not much left there anyway. You
will not
sabotage one of our planes, or whatever it is you have planned. I will not contribute to
that
.”

“Stop it!” Kort demanded, feeling slightly better from vomiting.

Ward came out of the pilot's chair, the plane slipping into a devastating dive, and laid a knee into the side of Kort's face—right into his bad tooth—as he pushed past. He was escaping!

Kort lunged forward and caught the man's ankle.

Ward went down hard.

The plane continued to dive. The sound grew to a fevered pitch. Kort climbed over him. Ward screamed for help. They wrestled. When Ward screamed again, Kort silenced him with a choke hold. He maintained the hold tightly until Ward lost consciousness.

The plane continued its long, eerie dive toward destruction. And although Kort knew he must release his hold, he could not. He took out his fear on the man's neck.

The 959 crashed. The sudden quiet was almost as deafening. Kort, regaining his senses, released his grip. Roger Ward fell away from him and rolled over, his eyes open and enlarged, his face a sickening blue. He was dead.

In the silence of the now motionless simulator, the stark reality of Kort's predicament slammed home. He had murdered Ward. An investigation would follow. There would be links to the simulator, to the 959—to everything he had hoped to prevent.

He was not a man to panic, but despite his training he did just that. He slapped the face of the warm corpse, repeatedly murmuring impossible demands that it return to life. He talked to himself trying to explain, to rationalize: he had wanted to gain control; to silence him; to scare him into behaving. Now this! He shook the man by the shirt. Come alive! The head flopped, ungainly, from side to side as if to say, “No.”

Come to life, you bastard! Kort willed. But where he had the power to take the life away, he had none to restore it.

Slowly, he collected himself. Killing men was not something entirely new to him—he reminded himself. He released Ward for the second time. Ward fell heavily to the carpet, a soft thud. The man had made his contribution; Kort had what he was after. Kort threw the switch to lower the drawbridge, listening intently as it fell securely into place. He opened the door and peered around the edge at the three other simulators, all of which were still moving, their drawbridges up. He checked his watch: just under two hours before this four-hour shift ended.

It offered him a chance.

To leave the corpse inside the simulator module was unthinkable for it would undoubtedly be quickly discovered, bringing the police and reducing his lead time, which in turn would limit any chance of effective escape.

He collected Ward, throwing one of the man's arms over his own shoulders and supporting his weight by taking him below the ribs. He peered around the door once again. Seeing all was clear, he struggled across the drawbridge. Ward's feet dragged lifelessly. The catwalk seemed to grow longer with each step, but eventually he reached it and, just beyond, the door to the computer room. He shoved against the door, managed to open it, and lost his hold on Ward just as he stepped inside. Ward fell to the false floor. Kort had planned to hide the body amid the large computers, but the hollow sound of the false floor gave him a better idea.

He dragged him to the very back of the room, passing six rows of machinery in the process. He removed one of the false plates, revealing a network of tangled wire. He removed four more plates and was able to use the slack in the various wires to push them aside.

As he grabbed for Ward, the drawbridge to the third simulator began to lower. One of the crews was taking a break! Panic jolted through him like a live current. He grabbed Ward and stuffed him under the false floor as outside, the drawbridge continued its descent. Frantically, he replaced the floor sections, remembering at the last moment to search the man's pockets for the car keys. He grappled with the last sections of flooring—pieces to a puzzle. Finally, they went together.

He paused at the door, his mind racing ahead of him: He would have to call her from here; she would have to change her plans; he would have to trust her completely. So much to do.

The drawbridge lowered to within inches of clicking into place. Should he run for it, or bide his time and wait for the trainees to pass by before he attempted to leave unnoticed? No time existed for such thought; he had to act, to go with his instincts.

He tugged open the stiff door, and ran like hell.

Kort saw no way around returning to the hotel. He had to collect his things; he had to wipe down the room thoroughly and, as best as possible, remove any evidence of his having been there. He was practiced in such last-minute ordeals; they came as an accepted, though unwanted, part of his existence. The room had been paid in full through Friday morning, so that much he counted in his favor—a grace period. Enough time to train to Los Angeles and kill a couple of days in preparation. Yes, he still might pull it off.

He had a plane to bomb.

He left Ward's car parked on a residential street where he assumed it might take the police days, perhaps weeks, to locate, and removed his rental from the Pay-and-Park.

He had never intended to kill Ward. Now, for his actions, he paid the price in hasty departure preparations that put him at a much greater risk than he would have wished. In a perfect world, Ward would have lived, would have awakened the next day and gone about his business as usual, the secret of his affair, of his hour in the Duhning simulator, carefully preserved.

Inside the lobby, Kort watched a slightly hunchbacked woman continuously vacuum the same spot on the immense red throw rug that lay beneath the embroidered couches and marble-topped coffee table that formed the focal point of the lobby. She appeared to have fallen asleep. A young man with hard hair that appeared permanently wet, and a bow tie that showed elastic at the mouth of the collar, stood sentry behind the registration desk, his dark eyes glassy with fatigue, his cup of much-needed coffee tucked appropriately out of sight, its rising steam giving it away.

Kort didn't stop at the desk. No sense in giving this kid a chance to remember his face. He rode the elevator to his room and phoned instead.