Skyhammer

by Richard Hilton

Genres: Police Procedurals; Private Investigators; Political Thrillers

Synopsis

An ex-Vietnam jet fighter jockey and one of New World Airlines' best pilots, Emil Pate is a man with a grievance.

Release date: October 31, 2009

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 272

Sample

Albuquerque, New Mexico

One month earlier

A jetliner was coming in, still high, but the faint, down-pitching whine of the engines made Emil Pate look up. The sun was
behind the plane, and he couldn’t make out the insignia. But the plane was on its approach, and he figured it was the afternoon
New World flight stopping over on its way back from the coast—the route he would have next month. For a moment he pictured
the cockpit, the pilots running through their checklist, everything routine. As if this were any other day.


He tossed his flight bag onto the front seat and turned back toward the house. Katherine had come out onto the step and stood
with her arms folded up tight against the early fall chill.


“Find your sunglasses?” she asked tonelessly as he came back up the walk.

He nodded.

“Got everything else?” She was treating it as a normal goodbye. Pate wondered how long she could pretend. But then again,
his own self-control amazed him.


“Katherine,” he said, looking at her now, wanting for the hundredth time to explain. But he couldn’t.

“You’ll be all right,” she said. “Things are going to work out for you.”

He nodded, looked back at the car, and then at her again. Her eyes were dry.

“Got your keys?” She unfolded her arms and shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket. They both waited, looking at each
other. Her blond hair was tinged red, and the light made her squint.


Pate looked her over, the way he’d always done before going on a trip. She was the best woman he’d ever known. He managed
to smile. “We had some good times, though, didn’t we, pardner?”


At that, her mouth went small and quivered, but she kept her eyes on him, and he was sure, suddenly, that she was thinking
she wouldn’t see him ever again. Or maybe that was only what he was thinking.


“All right,” he said. “I guess that’s it. Send me the papers to sign.” He picked up his other bag and turned.

“Emil?” She’d stepped down to the sidewalk. “You’re okay, aren’t you?”

He forced a look of surprise.

She stared at him, trying to read him. She was always trying to read him.

“You care?” he said, then felt mean for saying it. She blinked at him, wounded. Somehow his anger was always striking her. It had to stop; she knew that too. Now her hands came out of the jacket pockets, doubled up into fists.


“It is your fault we’re doing this. You know that.”

He nodded. “I don’t want to hurt you, Katherine. I’m sick of it.”

“Then let it go,” she urged.

Pate grimaced and looked down at his shoes, before turning to look up at the sky. The plane was gone. There was only the thin
white trail of another one, military maybe, far up in the blue New Mexico sky. “If it wasn’t for Jack Farraday—”


“Don’t,” she said. “Not again.” Then, sighing, she said, “It doesn’t make any difference, does it?” She took another step
toward him. “If you could only accept what is.”


He smiled again. “I’d do anything for you, Kate. But not that.”

“Damn you, Emil.” Her face went red. Pate never loved her more than when the freckles across her nose dissolved in an angry
flush. “You goddamn stubborn rock-headed pissant Indian,” she whispered in a rush. “That’s what you are. All that stupid pride.
You just can’t quit, can you?”


“You know me too well,” he answered, weary now of covering his own anger.

She started to answer, but then her fists fell open, and she shook her head. “Yes, I guess I do.”

“We’d better get this goodbye over with then.” He stepped toward her.

“No,” she protested, backing away. “Just go on. And good riddance to you.” Staring at him desperately, as if she were afraid
she would change her mind in another second, she took another step back. Then she turned quickly and went up the steps. The
door swung closed sharply behind her, and she was gone.


Emil Pate stood for another minute, looking at the shabby, crackerbox house, at the paint peeling off the eaves, at the broken
shingles under the windows.It was so different from the place they’d moved out of just a year ago. Their dream home. He dropped
his bag and went up to the door. Shutting his eyes very tight, he leaned his forehead against the wood. He didn’t want to
leave, but it was better that he did.


“Tell the girls goodbye for me?” He listened but heard nothing. So he turned and picked up his bag and went down the walk
to the car. Without looking back to see if she had come out again, he drove off.


Two blocks away, though, rage overtook him, forcing him to stop. He slammed his fist into the ceiling of the car, once, again,
then abruptly buried his face in his hands and moaned. If he quit flying now he’d give up twenty-three years’ seniority. And
then what? fly puddle-jumpers in Alaska? Or worse? No, he’d already paid his dues, and he couldn’t bear to spend the rest
of his life on the ground. Finally it had come down to this, he thought. Flying was all he had left. Or maybe that was all
he’d ever had. Maybe he had only borrowed Katherine Winslow and her daughters for seven years, borrowed a decent life, like
another man’s clothes. Now that it was gone, he felt as if he would lose his mind.


“I’m not paying those bastards for what they do when things are routine. I’m paying them for when things aren’t routine.”


—John H. Farraday

Flight Deck, New World 554

25:46 GMT/120:46 EST

Tuesday Evening

The dials and gauges jittered, swam, multiplied. The panel seemed to press forward, thrusting the yoke at Captain Boyd, as
if the plane meant to crush him. It was incredible. Even so high above the ground—surrounded by all that empty space—claustrophobia
had set in. All afternoon Boyd had felt the MD-80’s small cockpit becoming even smaller, shrinking in around him, squeezing
his endurance to the breaking point.


Boyd blinked hard and shook his head to force the instruments back into focus. Everything was still normal, the MD-80 running
perfectly, its autopilot tracking Jet Route 518 into Cleveland, altitude steady at 33,000 feet, all the engine needles aligned.
Thank God, this was the final leg. They were still a hundred and fifty miles out, but at seven miles a minute they had less
than a half hour to go. Unless they were jacked around in the pattern, Boyd thought miserably, or put into a hold. The first
big winter storm of the season, a real “Canadian express” had rolled down from the north, socking in all the airports in the
upper Ohio River valley, Hopkins International included. Already ATIS was reporting one mile of visibility and blowing snow.
Such weather could quickly back up the flow into the terminal and easily add an extra twenty minutes to the flight—when all
Boyd wanted was to be out of the cockpit as soon as possible. As far away from his first officer as he could get. The man
was a nightmare, not only ex-Westar but a former Westar captain. Worse still, he was Emil Pate.


Before Boyd had even seen the name typed in after his own on the flight roster, he had heard about Pate. Other new captains
like Boyd, fellow replacement pilots who had flown with Pate, had told horror stories. It went without saying that all the
ex-Westar pilots were sore about the New World takeover, the strike, the demotions. Especially the older ones, the ex-captains.
They hated jerking gear for younger pilots. Still, most were trying to make the best of it. They knew their necks were on
the line, that their new boss Jack Farraday wanted them gone altogether. But Pate didn’t seem to care. He was putting the
royal screws to anyone who had helped break the New World strike. Anyone he chose to blame for his demotion. Not by calling
names, not with outright insubordination or in any way you could easily nail him for—no, instead he drove you nuts by sitting
absolutely still for hours at a time, speaking only to make a required call, grinding you down with stone-cold silence.


The stories had turned out all too true. On the first day, coming into the cockpit, Boyd had tried a few friendly openers,
but Pate had instantly put an end to that. “Let’s cut the soft talk,” he’d said flatly. “Just do your job. I’ll do mine.”
Since then, he had said nothing except what he had to.


Boyd had decided this was fine. Pate was a write-off anyway, an old dog, a used-up leftover from another era. A retread. And
he was scruffy as hell, an ethnic of some kind. Mexican maybe—he didn’t look clean. The lank black hair on the back of his
neck spilled over the collar of an unpressed shirt. He had a drinker’s bruised eyes squinting through his creased, leather-brown
face. He was an embarrassment to his uniform.


But a decent pilot—Boyd had to give him that. For three days Pate had demonstrated flawless judgment, and his aircraft control
was incredibly smooth. Former military, Boyd had decided at some point. Which only made matters worse. He hated flying with
the ex-military types. Almost all of them projected an air of superiority, as if a few years of yanking and banking a fighter
around the sky had somehow made them better pilots.


So the trip had been sheer torture, sitting there strapped in a narrow seat, elbow to elbow with a bitter has-been who somehow
had it in his head Boyd had cheated him out of his job, that Boyd didn’t deserve to be captain just because he was fifteen
years younger. No matter how it had happened, He was the captain of this flight, not Pate.


Boyd’s headset crackled. “New World Five fifty-four, descend and maintain flight level two eight zero.”

Finally the descent. As Boyd acknowledged the Indianapolis controller’s instruction, he saw Pate’s hand reach up to the glareshield
to reset the autopilot. Boyd verified the altitude, then shifted against his lapbelt, trying to find a comfortable position.
The cockpit was growing dark now. Outside, night was coming on fast, the cobalt dome of sky overhead fading to star-studded
black. But ahead of them the horizon was wild-looking, obscured by ragged cloud, and below the plane, the cloud layer had
become a solid, rumpled mass, bluish in the twilight. Boyd was suddenly glad it was Pate’s turn to fly and his to talk and
run the checklists.


Just for a moment he let his eyes drift shut. He was tired, really tired. He wanted to think about his upcoming vacation,
not brood anymore about the situation.


But even now he felt the hatred radiating from Pate. For all his coldness the man was a furnace of hate. For three long days
Boyd had suffered from it. And he would have to suffer it the entire month if he didn’t do something. Talking out the problem
was no option, that was for certain.


He opened his eyes long enough to scan the panel. They were passing 29,000.

“Twenty-nine for twenty-eight,” he called, more or less to himself. He closed his eyes again. For a few more minutes he could
rest. He tried again to think of something pleasant. Another minute went by. He felt the aircraft leveling off, heard the
faint whine of the engines spooling up.


In the next instant he was bolt upright, eyes wide, heart punching hard—the quiet of the cockpit shattered by the high-pitched
warble of the alarm bell. In the center of the panel, the right engine fire handle glowed bright red. Now the voice synthesizer
began to chant, “Fire, right engine ... Fire, right engine . ..”


For the sheerest moment Boyd didn’t believe it. The chanting even made him angry. Then his heart leaped into his throat. This
was real. And serious. His mind stumbled. He had trained a dozen times for engine fires but never faced an actual warning. What
was the first step?


“Silence the bell!” Pate shouted suddenly over the shriek of the alarm. He had already taken the yoke, disengaged the autopilot.

Boyd shot a hand to the panel and turned off the alarm.

“Bell is silenced,” Pate said. “Engine Fire checklist.”

The checklist was in the pocket above the glareshield. Boyd searched for it, trying to remember the procedure. In the sudden
quiet he could hear his blood pounding in his ears. They had to assume there was a fire, or at least an overheat, and that
meant shutting down the engine. He found the card. “Memory items,” he read out, although Pate was already completing them.
He had disconnected the autothrottles, retarded the right engine throttle to idle.


“Warnings are silenced,” Boyd read. “Throttle—number two engine—retard to idle.”

“In idle,” Pate answered.

“Fuel lever—number two engine—off.” Boyd took hold of the lever just behind the throttle, then remembered. “Confirm number
two?”


Pate glanced down at Boyd’s hand. “Confirmed.”

Boyd snapped the lever back, letting go his breath at the same time. Even in training it had always been a relief to get this
far. Now the row of amber caution lights and red warning lights above the windscreen began to come on—fuel line,generator,
hydraulic systems, all shutting down. So far so good.


“Engine fire handle—pull,” he read. Again he waited for Pate’s confirmation, then pulled the handle out to its stop. The light
inside the handle flickered and disappeared.


Boyd settled back into his seat. “Looks like it’s out.”

“Maybe.” Pate glanced over at him. “Test the loops.”

Boyd sat up again. The fire could have burned through the sensing cables, might still be raging. But no, the test showed the
loops still intact. He sat back a second time, his face chilly now as his sweat slowly dried. His heart was still beating
fast, but everything would be okay. He had reacted all right to his first real emergency—no panic anyway. Pate had done all
right, too. Better than all right, in fact. Even now Pate showed no sign he might be rattled. He was holding the plane dead
level, on heading, in spite of the lopsided thrust. But after all, he was a good pilot. He’d handled the plane without a mistake for three straight days. Knew his job. Or was just too old to get wound
up? Suddenly Boyd remembered they were facing more than a single engine approach: they’d be landing through an ice storm,
onto a slick runway. His gut clenched as adrenalin shot through him. Didn’t Pate understand what they were headed into?


“You heard the weather report, didn’t you?” Boyd looked down at the storm again, then at Pate. “They’ve got freezing rain
at Hopkins, vis down to a mile.”


Pate glanced over, scowling. “Finish the list and make the call. Tell ATC we’re comin’ in on one engine.”

Now Boyd’s face went hot. He hadn’t forgotten the checklist—he’d only wanted to consider the situation.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it,” he answered before running quickly through the rest of the items. When he finished, he keyed his
microphone.


“Indianapolis, New World five-fifty-four has lost an engine.”

“Are you declaring an emergency?” The controller’s voice was as flat as ever.

Boyd pressed the key of his mike but released it. He’d better think about this. There would be the paperwork, the reports.
With the fire out they wouldn’t need the fire trucks, would they? All their other systems were operating normally. He didn’t
want to do anything stupid while he was still in his first months as a captain.


“Declare it,” Pate said abruptly. “Weather’s dogshit, and you’re down to one motor.” He scowled at Boyd again. “Either way
you fill out the same paperwork.”


Pate was right. And with the weather so bad it was stupid not to declare. Any problems at all and his butt would be in a sling.
He keyed his mike. “That’s affirmative, Center. New World five-fifty-four is declaring an emergency at this time.”


Immediately the controller asked him to restate the emergency. “Say your souls on board and fuel remaining.”

How many passengers were there? Boyd couldn’t remember. And the controller wanted fuel in hours and minutes. He stared at
the fuel totalizer’s glowing red LED’s, frantically calculating.


“Seventy-six on the passengers and crew,” Pate transmitted almost immediately. “Two hours on the fuel.”

For a moment Boyd was furious with himself for not remembering the passenger count, for not realizing the controller only
needed an estimate on the fuel. But he was even angrier at Pate for jumping in.


“I’ve got the radios,” he told Pate. “You do your job and fly the plane.”


Pate only glanced at him. The controller was on again, giving a weather update. Conditions had worsened. Visibility was down
to three-quarters of a mile, with fog and blowing snow.


“Runway five-right RVR is four thousand,” the controller reported. “Say your intentions please, Five-fifty-four.”

This time Pate stayed quiet while Boyd checked the alternate airports, hoping he could find one with better conditions. But
Akron was getting clobbered, Fort Wayne too. He called Center and told them 554 would continue to Cleveland.


Immediately the controller put them on a new heading and cleared them down to nine thousand. Boyd peered at the deep gloom
ahead and then stared down through his side window at the undercast, dense and dark, tops billowing up, beguiling in their
still softness. They would be into it soon enough. But he wasn’t scared any more, he decided. The plane was made to fly through
such stuff, even on one engine. They’d do all right. For a moment he even considered taking the yoke, simply commanding it—his
right as captain. He could use the experience. It would be nice to say he’d been the pilot. But even during emergencies, by
unwritten rule, you let the pilot flying continue to fly. Besides, Pate did have the edge on experience. And how would it look afterward if he took the plane, then screwed the first approach? No, he
wouldn’t chance it, Boyd decided, just as Pate interrupted again, saying something.


“What?” Boyd glared at him.

Pate faced forward as he spoke. “I said we need to do the single-engine landing check. But I’d PA the passengers first, if
I were you—and brief the number one.”


Christ! Boyd thought. He’d forgotten the passengers! Some must have heard the engine spool down, felt the plane yaw. They’d probably
already be badgering the cabin crew. He was lucky the number-one flight attendant hadn’t called the cockpit already. Boyd
snatched the PA phone from its holder. But not yet, he decided. Pate was no doubt feeling too smug about all this, and that
couldn’t go unchecked.


“Look,” Boyd said. “You just fly the plane. I’ll decide when to do what. Got that?”

Pate said nothing. He did not turn his head or even flinch, but somehow Boyd could tell that he, too, was boiling inside.
Good, Boyd thought. “Just do your job,” he said, wanting to say a lot more, but they were less than thirty minutes out and
the voice recorder was taping.


He sat back and glared at Pate, challenging him, but Pate kept quiet, staring straight ahead. Boyd waited another minute,
collecting himself, then keyed the PA phone and announced the engine shutdown, explaining that the plane could safely fly
on a single engine. It was important that he sound calm and confident, and he accomplished that, he felt, despite the rage
Pate had forced him into. “This is why we carry a spare,” he concluded before summoning the number-one flight attendant. He
told her to prepare the cabin for emergency evacuation. “For God’s sake, Julie, don’t pop the slides unless you hear from
us or the plane goes off the runway,” he reminded her. Afterward he waited another minute, just to prove to Pate they had
time. Then he got out the single-engine landing checklist.


Pate answered each call-out tersely and exactly as required. They were closing in on the surface of the storm. Boyd reached
up to flip on the landing lights. The twin beams, rotating forward from beneath the wingtips, showed ragged wisps of cloud
rushing at them from the darkness. Turbulence began to jiggle the airframe. Boyd reached up again and switched on the seatbelt
signs, then activated the ship’s anti-icing systems.


“Passing eighteen,” Pate said. “Niner five seven set.”

Boyd reset his own altimeters to local field pressure. A moment later they were into the top of the storm. Instantly the windshield
went blank, then ignited with millions of tiny ice pellets flying at them like sparks in the glare of the landing lights.
The plane bucked upward and settled again. Boyd tuned the navigation radios and brought up the volume levers to ID the instrument
landing system for Runway 5-right. Then he checked the panel again. They were just forty-one miles from the airport, a little
high still for the distance. He knew MD-80’s were fair gliders, descending slowly even in idle. But they had room; they’d
make it down in time.


Except now Pate was advancing the throttle, adding more power to the left engine. Boyd gaped at him.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Pate didn’t answer, didn’t even turn his head.

“We need to get down!” Boyd shouted, reaching out to tap the face of his altimeter.

“We need sixty-five percent,” Pate answered now. “For single-engine de-icing. Check the book.”

For a second Boyd didn’t understand. Then he knew what Pate meant. The anti-icing systems needed plenty of hot, compressed
air, but now there was only one engine to supply it. And the outside temperature gauge was registering minus two degrees Celsius—prime
condition for icing. Boyd unclipped his penlight from his shirt pocket and shined its narrow beam through the windscreen.
Nearly an inch of white rime had collected on the wiper post. Without enough heat, more rime would build up on the leading
edges, adding weight and drag, altering the critical shape of the airfoils. Pate was right. They would have to keep the power
up to the left engine.


But how would they get down in time? “We’re only thirty-eight miles out,” Boyd said. “You want a vector, to give us more spacing?”

Pate shook his head sharply, irritated. “Negative. We’ll get down just fine.”

“How?” Boyd demanded.

Pate didn’t answer, and wouldn’t—unless he ordered it? Boyd wanted to, but what if Pate knew something else he didn’t? He
wouldn’t risk looking stupid again, Boyd decided. But what was Pate up to?


His headset crackled. Indianapolis was calling, handing them off to Cleveland approach. The Cleveland controller responded
immediately, assigning them another heading and altitude, cutting the corner to shorten the distance to the airport. They
were still above ten thousand now, only thirty miles from the runway, and Pate was bringing the nose up to slow down to the
mandatory speed limit. Boyd checked the glide slope indicator. The marker was at the bottom of the scale, the plane well above
the normal descent path. If they kept to this trajectory they would miss the approach, overshoot and have to go around. Couldn’t
Pate see that?


“You want some speed brakes?”

“Who’s flying this thing?” Pate answered instantly, shooting him a sideways look, as if Boyd were merely an annoyance.

Until that moment, Boyd had still felt in command of the plane. But now it seemed Pate had taken charge. “Who’s the captain
of this thing?” Boyd shouted back at him.


This time Pate looked straight at him. “You want it, captain?”


Boyd knew he wasn’t bluffing. Pate would give up the yoke without hesitation, if Boyd so ordered. The plane rose and fell,
then pitched to one side as a draft caught it. The airframe creaked and groaned. Such battering would only get worse as they
neared the ground. Boyd decided he didn’t want to fly the landing. Besides, maybe Pate was setting him up? Goading him to
take over an impossible situation, then blow the approach and catch the flack for it.


Boyd shook his head. “You’re flying it—but screw the approach, Pate, and you’ll pay for it, not me.”


“Fine, pardner,” Pate said, already back on the gauges.

“Gear down.”

Now Boyd stared at him, wide-eyed. What the hell was he saying? They were still twenty-two miles out. They hadn’t even extended partial flaps yet.


“Gear down!” Pate looked over at him again, sternly this time. Boyd thought fast. They were under maximum speed for gear extension. And the gear would add a lot of drag to the plane.


“Do it,” Pate said sharply. “Now.”

Startled, Boyd reached across the panel and slammed the gear lever down. Through the soles of his shoes came the jarring thud
of the nosegear doors opening, and he could hear the roar of the slipstream sucking into the wheel wells. Then, as the gear
indicators blinked green—all three gears down and safe—he felt the massive drag take hold of the plane. It seemed to sink
from under him, the vertical speed shooting to four thousand feet per minute. They were dropping like a rock toward the glide
slope. Boyd could hardly believe it.


Yet Pate seemed as calm as ever, even though he was working hard, nosing the plane over to hold 240 knots. How could he stay
so cool, Boyd wondered. Was it all his years of experience, or was Pate what he seemed—one iron-tough customer?


“New World Five-five-four.” The controller’s monotone snapped Boyd’s attention back to the panel. “Turn left, heading zero
three zero. Maintain three thousand until established on the localizer: cleared ILS Runway five-right.”


Pate brought the plane around to the new heading. The controller was setting them up to intercept the final approach course
at a twenty-degree angle from the right. They were only nineteen miles out now, but suddenly the glide slope indicator left
the bottom of the scale, moving rapidly upward. Boyd couldn’t help feeling elated. The high-speed descent was working.


But now they were heading into the worst of it, battered by new waves of turbulence, more violent than before. The airframe
screamed and shook as the plane rocked one way, then the other, bouncing up and falling again. No flight simulator could duplicate
it. No, this wasn’t the same at all, Boyd realized. In the simulator there wasn’t any bouncing and rolling, no extraneous
radio chatter. And you knew what would happen, and when. Suddenly he understood why Pate had dropped them down at the last
minute. The high-speed descent had kept them out of the worst stuff for as long as possible.


At three thousand feet Pate leveled off. With the plane below the glide slope, he allowed the airspeed to bleed down to 220,
then called for the leading edge slats. Boyd moved the flap lever to the first notch. They were mushing along in the lowest
level of the storm. The cloud was much denser, the grainy, frozen particles of water rattling the cockpit’s aluminum shell
like blasted sand.


“Localizer alive,” he called. The course indicator had come off its peg.

“Roger,” Pate shouted over the roar of the ice storm. He was already banking the airplane, varying the angle, maneuvering
onto the electronic course. He leveled the wings with the course indicator centered.


Forty . . .