16 Souls

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Seven Months before — January 21^st

Newsroom, The Denver Post

Scott Bogosian had stopped what he was doing, his attention drawn to an array of state-of-the-art flat TV screens hanging across from the City Desk, searching for special report banners or anything that would explain why he had been suddenly attracted. In the middle of a growing blizzard anything could happen in the way of breaking news, although his mental recitation of that grossly overused term made him cringe. Before the end of the Rocky Mountain News Scott had proudly posted a sign over his cubicle that prompted rolled eyes, but he loved it: “When news breaks, we fix it!”

There was nothing on the monitors to explain his sudden shift of attention. Of course, he’d been on alert all afternoon. Too many years of subconscious monitoring, he figured, his ear fine-tuned to police and fire radio channels, and now all of that supplemented by the visual addition of all the local and cable channels with their speakers off.

Something, though, had yanked the chain of his otherwise engaged conscious mind.

He looked around the newsroom, but no one was demonstrating the behavior of a newsroom on the scent of a new story — no one had popped up like a disturbed prairie dog.

There it was again, a short transmission, but coming from a desk to his right, and he realized one of the other long-time reporters — an inveterate pilot — had left his handheld aviation scanner on. That was it! Suddenly it had burst into activity.

Scott moved to the adjacent vacant desk and examined the little radio, reading a combination of aviation-only radio channels. It was jumping from frequency to frequency like any scanner, and once again it snagged an urgent voice.

“Roger… what are… I mean… how can we help you?”

Seconds went by before the reply as Scott wondered what he’d missed, and what phrase had caught his attention. The volume had been so low… how could he have understood anything from the distance of his desk?

“Just… ah… vectors, Denver, to the longest runway you’ve got at DIA.”

That was enough. He turned up the volume and moved back to his desk to trigger his computerized Rolodex and find the restricted numbers he kept for Denver International and the FAA’s Denver Tracon facility. The list populated into detail across his side-by-side computer screens and he examined the listings, wondering which ones would generate overly cautious spokesmen with an arsenal of defensive answers. The airline and aviation world were awash in paranoids afraid to even admit there were reporters in the world, let alone talk to one.

An unlisted line he knew penetrated deep into the control positions of Denver Tracon caught his eye. He’d surreptitiously copied it down during a tour the previous year. To use it now would be risky, but his internally generated need to know was pegged out, and he sat back down and punched in the number in the one line that never transmitted caller ID, composing what to say.

The line was answered instantly with a no nonsense male voice and a terse repetition of his controller position number, then the phone transmitter clicking off as the man released the little transmit button on his handset.

“This is Bogosian,” Scott said, matching the brusk, authoritative air. “What are you working that requires the whole runway? I understand we need to keep it completely plowed?”

“Yeah… he’ll need it all. It’s a Regal seven-fifty-seven, Flight 12… just took off and may have midaired someone on departure near Broomfield. And… I’m not sure of all of it but he’s apparently controllable but asking for the longest runway, so, yeah… we’ll need all of it. Can you keep it open?”

“Who did he hit?” Scott asked, instinct overriding caution, instantly aware he’d gone too far. Whoever the controller thought he was talking to, that question didn’t make sense, and there was a tiny, telling hesitation on the other end.

“Wait, who is this? Airport ops?”

“Gotta go. Thanks.” He clicked the line off and replaced the receiver.

Damn! A Midair! And whoever he hit is probably already on the ground.

Scott wondered whether to alert the paper’s television news counterpart and give substance to the loose partnership with the TV station across town. It was probably inevitable, he decided. But handing broadcast people breaking news they weren’t aware of always felt like surrendering a once-in-a-lifetime scoop to the infidels. Sometimes they’d throw a crumb and give the Post on-air credit. Usually not. Of course, he couldn’t remember a time someone over there had called him with a breaking story.

Instead, Scott pulled up the phone number of the Broomfield Police Department and punched it in. If something had fallen out of the sky, 911 should be exploding by now.