He laid it gently on the deck and then looked back inside the compartment. He found a wiring harness and heavy-duty electrical cables on one side. On the other side, an optical comb connected with a dozen bundles of fiber-optic cable could be seen. In the middle…
In the middle there was nothing.
Joe grabbed the schematic and looked over the cutaway diagram once more just to be sure. His shoulders sagged and he shook his head in disgust. Tapping the headset, he spoke his thoughts aloud. “Kurt, we have a problem.”
Getting no response, he tried again. Then he remembered the entire weapons compartment was shielded from electromagnetic waves to prevent interference with the laser’s functionality. That effect went both ways. Keeping signals out and others blocked in.
A quick check revealed more missing components, including the boxes that housed the diodes and the emitter partition. Every item they’d been told to retrieve was already gone.
Joe hopped off the ladder and landed on the deck. Ducking out of the clear cylindrical compartment, he ran forward, leaving the work lights and the toolbox behind, grabbing only the satchel containing the schematics. He needed to find Kurt so he could deliver the bad news in person.
Chapter 44
The dead captain remained strapped in his seat with a look of surprise on his frozen face. His eyes were open, his oxygen mask hanging loosely, his frozen skin untouched by any form of decay. Even the knife in his chest looked staged, covered as it was with bright red blood while glittering with a thin coating of frost.
The captain’s death was not a surprise to Kurt. Based on the video of the hijacking they knew the copilot had killed or at least incapacitated him. But a short distance away lay a significant mystery.
The copilot was dead as well.
His body was crumpled in a heap at the bottom of another escape ladder. The hatch above remained closed. An upward-angled gunshot wound to his back suggested he’d been blasted off the ladder from behind before ever reaching it.
The discovery felt odd. To Kurt it seemed like a clue that didn’t fit with the rest of the puzzle. All along they’d known there were two hijackers, Ridley and at least one of the pilots, since someone had to fly and land the plane. But if the captain had been stabbed while he was flying, it was presumably the copilot who’d done it. That would leave Ridley to put a bullet in the copilot’s back after they’d landedon the frozen lake. All of which begged the question: Who, then, was left to shoot Ridley in the tavern five days later?
Kurt had assumed it was the copilot. But now…
He put the idea aside, pulled the dog tag of the murdered captain, and then climbed into the copilot’s seat, looking for the electrical panel. If they were going to do a proper job destroying the plane, they needed to get the power on and enable the self-destruct units, which Ridley and the copilot had turned off.
“Let’s see if this thing has any juice,” Kurt said. Finding the battery switches, he tied them together so they would work as one. With the batteries linked on the main bus, he flipped the switches to the on position.
In the eerie and almost unfathomable quiet, he could hear the circuits and instruments energizing as the power came back on. The tones resembled the strange high-pitched notes one heard when the pressure in their ears equalized. Almost inaudible, but unmistakable.
The sound made him think about the impact signal that had led them astray. The fisherman’s report of a large aircraft flying low over the fjord had made everyone forget about the erroneous signal. But it hadn’t been a phantom, the NSA had picked it up on a highly sensitive network. With the aircraft being safely tucked away on the icy surface of the “fish-head” lake, the signal had to be a false flag, a red herring designed to lure everyone away from the true location. But who’d put it out? It wasn’t the Chinese or the Russians; they’d been searching the ocean as well. And it couldn’t have been Ridley or the copilot, as they’d been here on the plane. It meant there had to be another conspirator, someone who was never part of the crew.
The more Kurt thought about it, the more it seemed like they were being led on. Little by little. Inch by inch. Not just NUMA, but the Chinese and Russians as a well. But why and by whom?
The lights on the panel flickered. The myriad circuit breakers andglowing switches came to life around him. They bathed the cockpit in a soft glow, far warmer than the beam of Kurt’s flashlight. Directly ahead of him, the glass panel screens that dominated the cockpits of modern aircraft lit up one by one. But instead of maps or systems readouts or virtual versions of the instrument panel, they displayed the image of a man sitting in a dark room, posed as if he were ready to recite a poem. The face was instantly recognizable.
The image grinned with joy and malevolence. It gave Kurt the answer to all his questions at once. “Welcome to my parlor,” the man’s gravelly voice announced.
“Ahab,” Kurt whispered.
There was no response, and Kurt realized he was looking at a recording.
“I must admit,” Ahab said, “I expected you to die at sea, going down with your ship like an old captain should. But here you are, still chasing the rabbit I put in front of you. Your determination astounds even me. For the record, this trap was supposed to be the fate of your Chinese friend, Gushan, but don’t worry, he will suffer in due time. He will suffer along with his country, side by side with yours.
“As I’m sure you’ve already realized,” Ahab continued. “The important parts of the laser are gone. I’m almost saddened that you won’t get to see what I do with it next, but this is where you come to your end. One step too far, a mile across the border into Russian territory. I was tempted to let them capture you and take you to a gulag somewhere, but on the off chance they might let you go, it seemed better to have them surround you in the aircraft, where they could watch me bury you in it.
“I offer you a choice,” Ahab said. “Go face the Russians. Or stay where you are and warm up nicely. You have…two minutes to decide.”
With that a number of lights on the panel flashed yellow and began blinking. A timer started counting down from a hundred and twenty seconds. The self-destruct system had been initiated.
Kurt jumped out of the seat, ignoring Ahab’s continued pontification. He rushed toward the cockpit door and nearly slammed into Joe in the process.
“No laser,” Joe said, breathing hard in the frigid air. “Someone already pulled it.”
“I know,” Kurt said.
“How could you know?”
