Fly By Wire Read online

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  EPILOGUE

  Fly by Wire

  ALSO BY WARD LARSEN

  The Perfect Assassin

  Stealing Trinity

  Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads

  (contributing essayist)

  Fly by Wire

  A Novel

  Ward Larsen

  Copyright © 2010 by Ward Larsen

  FIRST EDITION

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-933515-86-1

  Published in the United States of America by Oceanview Publishing,

  Longboat Key, Florida

  www.oceanviewpub.com

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  To Rose

  Fly-by-wire adjective, (1968) : of, relating to, being, or utilizing a flight-control system in which controls are operated electrically rather than mechanically

  —Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary

  Fly by Wire

  PROLOGUE

  MARSEILLE, FRANCE

  The room was cool and dark by design. Three dozen computer workstations sat ready, the hum of ventilation fans a constant backdrop. Most of the large circular screens were in a standby mode, vacant and black, but those in action glowed with flecks of green, tiny winged crosses that were accompanied by multicolored data tags. A handful of men and women sat watching, each hunched in a God’s eye view of their respective domain. The air traffic control center, Marseille High Sector, was coming to the end of its night shift.

  Dimly lit and without windows, the bunker had no natural circadian rhythm, no guidance from sunlight or darkness to govern the day’s cycle. These customary markers were replaced by instruments of far greater precision—digital clocks. Mounted on walls and support columns, there were more than a dozen scattered throughout the room, glowing red numbers presented in twenty-four-hour format and synchronized to a painstaking accuracy. The clocks were situated, without fail, in pairs—one registering Zulu time, the universal standard of aviation, and the other, in a blatant act of Gallic defiance, Central European time. In France, it was 5:56 in the morning.

  Serge Flourent was nearing the end of his shift. His coffee cup long empty, the air traffic controller struggled to keep his eyes open. Only five of the operating stations around him were occupied. In another hour, the morning rush would be well under way, no fewer than two dozen men and women issuing directives into their microphones, an incessant chatter of frequencies, call signs, and navigation fixes. In spite of the rough hours, Flourent preferred the solitude of the night shift.

  His eyes fluttered as a new blip came to his screen. World Express Flight 801. The data strip told him the aircraft was a new CargoAir C-500, headed across the Atlantic to KIAH, Houston Intercontinental Airport. Another delivery from the factory, no doubt.

  A female voice crackled into his headset, “Marseille, WorldEx 801 checking in, flight level three eight zero. Bonjour!”

  Flourent grinned. English was the mandatory language for air traffic control everywhere, but at least the American pilot was trying to be civil.

  “WorldEx 801, Marseille Control. Bonjour.” Flourent was in a generous mood. “WorldEx 801, you are cleared direct Sierra Hotel Alpha.”

  “WorldEx 801, roger. Cleared direct Shannon.”

  Flourent watched the blip on his screen change its vector ever so slightly as the pilot applied the shortcut. Everything again fell quiet. He looked up just in time to see the clock turn to the new hour. His relief would arrive for the hand-off briefing in fifteen minutes. Then Flourent could go home to his warm bed and his lukewarm girlfriend. These were the tired thoughts drifting through his head when he saw the first sign of trouble.

  The altitude display for World Express 801 showed a descent of five hundred feet. Careless Americans.

  “WorldEx 801, check altitude.”

  He waited patiently, but got no response. The number on Flourent’s screen flashed red as it reached one thousand feet below the assigned cruising level.

  “WorldEx 801, Marseille Control, over?”

  Still no reply. Flourent watched incredulously as the big jet broke through thirty-five thousand feet—half a mile below where it was supposed to be. Thankfully, there was no traffic below. Ten miles to the east, a U.S. Air Force C-5 Galaxy was lumbering along at thirty-two thousand feet. Flourent would take no chances.

  “Reach 961, turn right immediately to heading three five zero. Traffic!”

  “Reach 961, roger. Heading three five zero.”

  At least his radios were working, Flourent thought. He watched the World Express jet dive through thirty thousand feet. The rate of descent was incredible and seemed to be increasing. Then he noticed the speed readout—it had fallen to less than a hundred knots. With a logic born of eighteen year’s experience, Flourent reasoned that World Express 801 was making little horizontal headway because it was pointed nearly straight down.

  “WorldEx 801, Marseille Control! Are you experiencing difficulty?”

  Nothing.

  “WorldEx 801, Marseille!” Flourent’s voice carried an edge that drew the attention of his supervisor. The woman came over and looked at his scope.

  “What is it, Serge?”

  Flourent pointed to the flashing symbol. “World Express 801 does not respond to my calls. It’s falling like a stone.”

  Twenty thousand feet. Subconsciously, Flourent adjusted his microphone. “World Express 8—0—1, this is Marseille. Do you read?”

  His supervisor shouted to another controller three stations away, “Louis! You have a heavy jet breaking into your low altitude sector from above. Call up World Express 801 to your screen! Clear any other traffic!”

  The low altitude controller acknowledged the order.

  Flourent saw the altitude display break ten thousand feet. Then the flashing red numbers next to the j
et’s blip disappeared. His heart seemed to stop as he watched the only thing that remained—the primary return, a tiny white square floating tenuously across the black void of his display.

  “We’ve lost his transponder,” the supervisor said. She plugged her own headset into a jack at Flourent’s station. “WorldEx 801, WorldEx 801, this is Marseille! Do you hear?”

  Finally, a garbled reply, “Marseille … WorldEx 801 … Mayday! May—” Then a terrible pause.

  “WorldEx 801,” the supervisor said, “you are clear of all traffic. What is the nature of your difficulty?”

  Again silence. Without altitude information, the two air traffic controllers could do little but watch the tiny white square that was World Express 801 and will it to not disappear. Seconds later, it did just that.

  Flourent’s heart skipped a beat. His supervisor tried one more time to raise the flight by radio. There was now a distinct difference in her tone—no longer urgency. Hope, perhaps. “WorldEx 801, Marseille. Do you read?”

  The ensuing silence was thick and heavy, as if all sound had been pulled into some aural black hole.

  “All right, Serge,” the supervisor said, “activate the alert.”

  For the first time in his long tenure as a controller, Flourent positioned his cursor over a red icon in one corner of the display. Automatically, the disaster response began.

  In fact, the alert proved redundant. Police and fire units took dozens of calls centered on the village of Solaize, just outside Lyon. The reports were of an explosion of some sort.

  The first to the scene was a small village fire brigade. They found widely scattered blazes and enough wreckage to certify that they were indeed dealing with an air disaster. Seeing no chance for survivors, the man in charge decided to wait for help before tackling the inferno. There might be hazardous material involved, and the boys from Station 9 were better suited to handle that.

  Looking at the other man in his truck, the lieutenant gestured downhill from the crash site toward an industrial quarter at the edge of town, along the Rhone River. He said, “It could have been worse, Claude. He might have hit over there.”

  THE GULF OF OMAN

  TEN HOURS LATER

  The gulf waters were relatively calm in the late afternoon, and light winds made for an easy landing as the Bell 429 settled onto a helipad at the stern of the megayacht Sol y Mar.

  The ship was a Sparkman and Stevens custom, two hundred and nineteen feet of glistening paint, mahogany, and chrome. No expense had been spared in her construction, and in the three years since Sol y Mar’s christening, extensive upgrades had been made to her staterooms and salons, and the bridge had been updated to include the most advanced electronic gear for communications and navigation.

  As had been the case all afternoon, an even dozen men were stationed around the ship at precise intervals. None would be mistaken for crewmembers—the uniforms they wore were not nautical, but more akin to special forces attire, to include the automatic weapons they displayed openly. Twenty miles out to sea, the only other ship presently in sight was a distant oil tanker, yet in these chaotic waters one could never tell when a show of force might be necessary to discourage the odd band of pirates.

  The helicopter’s skids planted firmly on the large H, and its thumping rotors changed pitch as the aircraft’s weight transferred to Sol y Mar’s sturdy afterdeck. Moments later, a man in a flowing white robe stepped down, assisted at the elbow by one of the security men. It was the sixth and final delivery of its kind. The man, a Saudi, walked quickly across the helipad, his robe snapping and fluttering in the idling chopper’s downwash.

  He made his way to the main salon and found the others waiting—Dubai, Russia, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, and Switzerland. There were exactly six seats at the large conference table, and the Saudi settled into the only vacancy. Each place was set with a crystal carafe of water and a goblet. Nothing else was offered, no tray of fruit, no decanter of premium liquor. Unique to the day’s hastily arranged meeting, there were also no servants hovering at the room’s perimeter, no one to attend to the principals’ whims and demands. All extraneous staff had long departed.

  The rich cherry table was circular, reinforcing to all the nature of their arrangement. The men were here on equal footing, and while the Saudi was today recognized as “chairman,” the title was little more than a parliamentary convenience. Determined by rotation—there was simply no other way—the main duty of the acting executive was to act as facilitator, arranging transportation and a venue for the gathering.

  Without so much as a “good afternoon,” the Saudi brought the meeting to order.

  “Do we know why this has happened?” The question was open to all.

  Russia said, “I have spoken with our operative in France. He has theories, but it may be some time before we have an answer. Fortunately, the same can be said for others—there will be an investigation.”

  Singapore, “The man has become worrisome. Is he still necessary?”

  None spoke, and this lack of response was an answer in itself.

  The Saudi addressed Switzerland. “Are the finances in order?”

  “Ninety-five percent,” a beefy man answered, not bothering to reference the ledger in front of him.

  There was a distinct pause as each of the men performed a more personal calculation.

  The Saudi said, “Very well. We have no choice but to advance our timetable.” The other five nodded in concurrence. “I will notify Caliph by the usual means.”

  Singapore said, “Might I suggest—when he has finished his tasks, let us send him to France. We may have work for him there.”

  More nods. And with that, the meeting adjourned.

  Twenty minutes later, all six of the meeting’s participants were aboard two helicopters streaking westward over the Gulf of Oman’s azure waters toward Muscat International Airport. There, they would disperse into six private jets and speed to six far-flung points on the globe.

  As soon as the last helicopter had lifted off, the security crew lowered the runabout from Sol y Mar’s aft davits, a twenty-two foot Boston Whaler. When the last man was aboard, the helmsman gunned the twin outboard motors until the little craft was a hundred meters abeam its mother ship. There, the engines fell to idle and everyone turned their eyes to Sol y Mar. The commander pulled a small device from his shirt pocket and pressed a button. With a muffled thump and maelstrom of foam amidships, the glistening yacht buckled, her back broken.

  Three minutes later she was gone.

  CHAPTER ONE

  FREDERICKSBURG, VIRGINIA

  Jammer Davis had always made a lousy cup of coffee. He dumped the trails of this morning’s effort into the kitchen sink and went to the foot of the stairs.

  “Jenny!” he barked in his best drill sergeant voice. “Get a move on! School in thirty minutes!”

  There was no reply. He heard music blaring. Davis stomped up the stairs, his boots anything but subtle. Nearing the top, he saw his daughter’s bedroom door partially open. He stopped in his tracks. Jen was standing in front of the full-length mirror, twisted around, and checking out her own jean-clad rear end.

  His mind blanked in ways it shouldn’t have. In ways it never had. Davis wondered what the hell to do. Tell her she had a great butt? Tell her it didn’t matter what kind of butt she had because no young man was going to get within a hundred yards of it? He decided to punt. Davis put his head down, and gave the banister a swift kick. He didn’t look up until he came through her door.

  Jen had straightened up, but there was a mortified look on her face. “Don’t you ever knock, Daddy?” she huffed.

  “Come on, sweetheart. Two minute warning.”

  “But my hair isn’t ready. I can’t find a scrunchy!”

  “A what?”

  “A scrunchy for my ponytail.”

  “Well—use something else.”

  “Like what?”

  He threw his hands in the air. “How should I know? Try one of thos
e plastic cable ties, the ones that zip up. They’re in the garage.”

  She glared at him, then picked up a hairbrush and began yanking it through her shoulder-length auburn hair. At fifteen, she was changing every day. Jen was nearly a full-grown woman in stature, yet still awkward and frisky in that filly-like way. And she was beginning to look more and more like her mother.

  She said, “It’s those new housekeeping ladies. They clean too much.”

  “How can they clean too much?”

  “They put stuff in the weirdest places. Can’t you talk to them?”

  “No. They speak Portuguese.”

  She put the brush down and picked up a tube of hair gel. “Do you know what they did?”

  “We don’t have time for—”

  “The two books I’m reading for English were on the night stand next to my bed. The housekeepers put them in a stack and then pulled out the bookmarks—they laid them on top, as if that was more orderly or something!”

  Davis saw it coming. She was a cresting wave headed for shore, just looking for a spot to crash.

  “They pulled my bookmark out of The Odyssey. Do you know how hard it is to find your place in The Odyssey?” Her voice quivered, “Do you?”

  “Yes—I mean, no. God dammit!”

  “Daddy!” She threw the tube of hair gel at him, striking him in the knee.

  Jammer Davis, all six foot four, two hundred forty pounds, stood helpless. He had no idea what to do. Jen collapsed on the bed, a sobbing heap of convulsions. He thought, Nice going, Jammer. Now what?

  Davis went to the bed and sat next to his daughter. He heaved a sigh. This wasn’t getting any easier. Her moods were like the weather. Sunny, breezy, gloomy—and always changing. He wondered how much was hormones and how much was the lingering effects of losing her mother. It had been nearly two years since the accident, but the tears still came almost every day.

  Jen leaned into him, put her head on his shoulder. Years ago he might have whisked her up and taken her in his arms. But that couldn’t happen anymore. Davis knew he had to just sit there and wait things out. As he did, he noticed the room. It looked different. The posters on the wall had changed—High School Musical was gone, replaced by a graffiti-strewn banner of something called Less Than Jake. A band, he figured. The old dolls and stuffed animals were gone too, probably stuffed in a closet. This bothered him. Not that she was discarding her childhood, piece by piece, but rather that she was doing it on her own. No, Dad, can I give this stuff to Goodwill? He wondered how long ago things had started working that way.