Skyhook

TWO TUESDAY, DAY 2 UANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA 8:25 A.M.

In a high-rise condo overlooking Vancouver’s west end, the incongruous sounds of barnyard animals wafted through the carefully decorated interior and scratched at the exposed ear of the sleeping owner, the abrasive vibrations subtly turning a strange dream to the bizarre.

April Rosen opened one eye and tried to focus on something coherent as her mind grappled with the possibility that pigs had found the twenty-third floor, bringing what sounded like a flock of chickens and geese along for good measure.

She pushed herself up from the bed and blew a curtain of jet-black hair from her eyes as she turned, half expecting the TV to be the culprit, her mind spinning up rapidly and eliminating possibilities one by one.

The TV sat dark and silent in the built-in credenza, yet the pigs persisted.

April threw off the bedcovers and slid to her feet, disconcerted by the cacophonous concert, unaware that she was gloriously naked in front of a wall of uncovered floor-to-ceiling windows, with several of downtown Vancouver’s high-rise offices across the way.

What in the world is that noise? Annoyance was replacing shock, her ears guiding her gaze to the bedside, where a new electronic alarm clock sat, happily spewing the wake-up call from hell. She leaned over and examined it, turning the volume down before sliding the switch to “off” to stop the clucking and snorting. The clock was supposed to play soothing noises such as surf and babbling brooks. Nowhere in the little owner’s manual had there been anything about babbling animals.

April sighed and made a mental note to reread the instructions. She stood and stretched luxuriously, stopping suddenly when she realized she was putting on a skin show. There were guys with high-powered binoculars already zeroed in on her condo. She’d caught some of them several times before with her own set of binoculars.

April swiftly dropped to her knees and fished on the bed stand for the remote control that closed the curtains, waiting for Vancouver to disappear before standing again. She picked up a purple satin robe from the floor, where it had slid off the end of the bed during the night, and put it on, tying the belt deftly around her waist.

A motion detector clicked on and a small electronic chime echoed pleasantly through the condo, announcing that its tiny silicon brain had just activated her preloaded coffeemaker and raised the thermostat two degrees as it tuned the music system to light classical. The strains of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto radiated from the hidden ceiling speakers, and she glanced up involuntarily with a smile. Classical was a touch of elegance, even when the apartment was a mess, which it seldom was. The music blended with the rich colors of the collection of paintings she’d spent far too much on, original oils by local artists. She walked into the living room, enjoying the uncurtained, panoramic view of English Bay spread out in front of her. She never tired of seeing all that beauty, and was glad she’d made the decision to mortgage most of her salary and buy the corner unit.

April loved being the newest staff vice-president of Empress Cruise Lines, but she was equally pleased that on such a beautiful morning, she didn’t have to be in her office until early afternoon.

I can have a leisurely breakfast, read the paper, go jogging, or all of the above.

There was one more waking ritual before coffee, and she moved to her computer to figure out where her parents were today.

April typed in her password before triggering the world map and opening the appropriate program, initiating a high-speed connection with the Internet. She could picture the small satellite antenna she’d paid to have installed on top of Captain Arlie Rosen’s aircraft after he’d reluctantly given in to the idea of being actively tracked by his daughter. The GPS-based system sent a burst of radio energy to an orbiting satellite every sixty seconds, reporting its position wherever they were.

“That’s all it is, Dad,” she’d said, hands on her hips as she stood alongside his beautifully refurbished World War II amphibian aircraft at the dock in Seattle months before. The interior resembled the parlor of a luxury yacht, with a bedroom, living room, galley, and bathroom, and her folks used it at every opportunity.

“You’re spying on your mother and me, right?” her father had accused.

“Wait… hold it,” April had replied, laughing. “That’s my line!”

“What do you mean, your line?”

“When I was a little girl—”

“You’re still a little girl.”

“Dad! When I was just starting to car date and you wanted me to take a cell phone with me, I accused you of spying on me.”

“Yeah, well, you were right. We were spying on you. You were dating boys, for crying out loud.”

“No, Dad, you said the phone was for emergencies.”

“And you believed me?”

“Yes, because you were right.”

Arlie Rosen had turned to her mother, who was trying unsuccessfully to suppress her laughter.

“Rachel? Our daughter admitted her father was right about something. Record the moment and then do CPR. She’s obviously ill.”

“Dad…”

He’d smiled at April then, his silver hair framing his well-tanned face, looking every inch the reliable veteran 747 captain, as he shook his head in defeat. “Oh, all right, if it’ll make you feel better. Just no cameras or microphones inside listening to whatever we’re doing.”

“Don’t worry. It just reports your position.”

“Position?” he’d repeated. “Which ones? Missionary, doggie…”

Rachel Rosen had swatted him on the shoulder as April turned a deep shade of red. “Now… see…” she’d said, fumbling for words, “that’s something I don’t expect to hear coming out of my father’s mouth.”

April chuckled at the memory. She waited for the computer program to report the latest latitude and longitude of the Rosens’ Grumman Albatross and let her eyes fall on the small video camera on top of the screen. Several of her friends now used computer-mounted cameras, too, and they enjoyed being able to see each other when talking over the web, especially her best friend Gracie in Seattle, 150 miles distant. Unfortunately, she’d accidentally left her camera on and connected to the Internet a couple of times, and once she’d been mortified to find that she’d been broadcasting for a whole day and had inadvertently become a popular webshow. She’d disconnected in embarrassment as a small counter had flashed on the screen proudly reporting that nearly ten thousand web surfers had clicked in to watch her moving around her condo. The camera had even had a bird’s-eye view of her bed, making her embarrassment all the more acute.

The world map now assembled itself on the screen, then snapped to a closer view, framing Alaska. The track of the Albatross’s flight from Japan the previous week appeared along with small flags marking each stop. April looked at the track from Anchorage. The trail of blue position dots showed they’d flown down Turnagain Arm and crossed the small range of mountains near Whittier before setting a course for…

What’s this?

A small chill climbed her back. The blue dots did not extend to Sitka, or Juneau, or any of the other places they were planning to visit. Instead they marched to the southeast for almost a hundred miles, past a tiny dot of land called Middleton Island, then turned northwest, toward Valdez. The last dot was somewhere south of the entrance to Prince William Sound and the Valdez area, maybe sixty miles out to sea.

She zoomed the screen and ordered the program to show the time each report had been sent.

They’re probably still in flight, she told herself.

But the last transmission had come during darkness the night before. At 10:13 P.M. local, they had been in flight at 140 miles per hour at an altitude of less than a hundred feet and on a heading of 320 degrees, and after that, the little reporting unit had fallen silent.

April sat back and tried to suppress her growing concern. There were a million possible benign explanations. The unit itself could have failed. They could have had an electrical failure in the airplane. She knew they could still fly and land safely even if that were the case, but wasn’t that open ocean? Her dad had always said that landings in open ocean were far more difficult and dangerous in a seaplane.

Something’s wrong. April sat forward and grabbed for the portable phone as she stood and began pacing, a habit that always drove Gracie to distraction. April entered her parents’ Iridium satellite phone number from memory and waited for the clicks and squawks to end in a ringing sound.

“The Iridium customer you have called is not currently available,” a voice intoned. She disconnected and tried again, harvesting the same result.

The lure of coffee and breakfast completely forgotten, she returned to the computer and launched a search for the FAA’s regional facility in Anchorage, punched the resulting number into the telephone keypad, and worked her way through several people before receiving a definitive no.

“We have no record, Miss… Rosen?”

“Yes. April Rosen.”

“No record of any accidents or incidents last night, or calls for help, or even an emergency locator transmission.”

“You would know if one had been received, right?”

“Well, someone would. You say that’s an old Albatross, right? They could easily land out there on the water.”

“I know, but—”

“That’s why the Navy built them. Not as effective as the old PBY Catalina on open ocean, but they can handle it. The Coast Guard used them for years as—”

“Excuse me,” April interrupted.

“Yes?”

“My dad always files a flight plan. Is there any record of his flight plan and where he was going?”

“VFR or IFR?”

“He’s… an airline captain. Very experienced. Usually it’s a visual flight plan, I think, because they stay so low.”

“Okay. Hang on, and I’ll check.”

He put her on hold and returned several minutes later. “Miss Rosen… April… apparently your dad didn’t file a flight plan. Anchorage Flight Service tells me there’s nothing on the computer.”

“That’s really unusual.”

“I’m sure they’re just fine, but if you’re still worried, I’ll give you the number of the Coast Guard’s regional command post, and you can double-check with them.”

April wrote down the digits absently, her mind racing around the entrance to Prince William Sound for an explanation and a reassuring image of her parents floating and fishing or making love or whatever else they might be doing. She thanked him and disconnected before turning to the computer to send an e-mail to Gracie in Seattle, routing it to Gracie’s beeper, cell phone screen, and office and home computers simultaneously.