Free Fall

Thirty-One

Clear River, North Dakota

The earth had shifted under Robert Cole as he’d watched the slow-motion swan song of Shikra Flight 418.

Ice tinkled against glass as he lifted his drink.

No, stop! It won’t help. Be strong. Keep your mind clear.

He set the drink down without tasting it.

Still, the images of the crash haunted him and guilt crept into a frightened corner of his heart.

Fifteen people dead.

In the days that had followed since the Heathrow crash, he’d gone online, scrutinizing every news report he could find, examining every image, absorbing every published detail.

Speculation in the British press on the cause had ruled out a terrorist act, pointing instead to a double engine failure, even though such occurrences were rare. Some reports referred to an earlier incident-the crash landing of a Shanghai-to-London charter jetliner at Heathrow sixteen months ago. In that case, ice buildup had choked fuel flow to both engines on landing, resulting in loss of power. Dozens had been injured, but no one killed. In that incident, the route had taken the jet over mountainous regions of China and Russia, where temperatures plunged, which had caused ice to form in the fuel system. But Cole knew that ice couldn’t be a factor in the Kuwaiti flight because its path presented warmer temperatures, and fuel mixtures in the industry had been adjusted since.

The key factor in both the Kuwait flight and the EastCloud flight was that each aircraft had the same Richlon-Titan fly-by-wire system, the one he had created and helped build.

My flawed system. And now fifteen people are dead.

The Times of London had just published excerpts of transcripts from the Shikra crew, and one segment leaped from Cole’s monitor.

Copilot: “We’ve got a double engine failure! The engines have been switched off!”

Captain: “Switched off? How? We didn’t do that! Try restarting!”

There, that part.

“Switched off? How? We didn’t do that.”

Cole clicked to an earlier story from Newslead that quoted EastCloud’s Captain Raymond Matson.

“There was no clear-air turbulence and I did not disable the safety system. The aircraft suddenly rolled. For a critical time, the plane refused to respond to our commands. I don’t know what happened but I know something went wrong. This was a clear flight control computer malfunction.”

Cole dragged his hands over his face.

It was evident to him that what he had feared was now a reality, a horrible reality. He was staring at the telltale signs of the system’s vulnerability-an external breach of the system’s security system.

I have to tell them that someone is hacking into RT’s system.

Cole took in a long breath, let it out slowly, reached for his phone and called Jake Hooper at his NTSB office in Washington, DC.

“NTSB, Major Investigations Division,” the receptionist said.

“Robert Cole calling for Jake Hooper.”

“Oh, hello, Mr. Cole. We’ve passed your message to Jake.”

“I haven’t heard back, and my emails to him keep bouncing back. Could you give me a number where he can be reached?”

“No, I’m not permitted to do that. As I mentioned when you called an hour ago, and the hour before that, he’s overseas assisting on an investigation.”

“Listen, this is very important. He needs to know that there’s a security issue with the RT flight-management system.”

“I’m sure he’s aware and that the team is looking into all aspects.”

“You know that I used to participate in investigations with the NTSB.”

“Yes, we’re aware of who you are, Mr. Cole.” He thought her tone condescending and dismissive. “We no longer have you listed. That’s why your emails are rejected. As I’ve mentioned in your previous calls, you don’t have party status on any ongoing investigation, which restricts us from doing much more than relaying your message to Jake. I’m sorry.”

Cole squeezed his phone hard before hanging up.

He knew what they thought of him but he couldn’t give up. The reasons stared back at him from his laptop, picture after picture of the Heathrow tragedy-burning wreckage, anguished relatives and body bags dotting the grass near the runway.

I know what I have to do.

Cole had to go beyond alerting the NTSB to the problem. He had to give them the solution, the one he’d developed, to retrofit RT’s fleet and every aircraft with the RT flight-management system.

I know what I have to do but I don’t know if I can do it.

He felt as though an enormous weight were pushing down on him, because even if he found the solution, he’d have to adapt it to what RT had actually installed in planes now in service. Cole was unsure he had the skill, the thinking power he needed. Not after all these years. Not after what he’d become.

I have to try. If it’s the last thing I do, I have to try.

He got up, poured his drink into the kitchen sink and made himself a sandwich and black coffee. Then he showered, put on fresh clothes, grabbed his keys and got into his pickup truck. Driving across town, he sorted through his thoughts.

When he’d sold the house in California and moved to North Dakota, he’d considered destroying all of his personal records and material from his work at Richlon-Titan. But something-a distant voice, an impulse or an instinct, he’d never know-had told him to keep the material.

Cole couldn’t bear to have it with him, so he’d put it away in self-storage along with furniture, keepsakes and other items he couldn’t let go of, but couldn’t stand having with him in his small house in Clear River.

Now more than ever, he was relieved that he’d kept his RT files.

If he was going to develop a solution, he’d need to review the corrective work he’d developed for the system. He had put into storage two file cabinets jammed with manuals, schematic drawings, equations and USB flash drives, all invaluable.

Now he had a starting point.

What I don’t have is time. Who knows how much longer before we see another tragedy?

He turned onto Wagon Road at the edge of town, following it until he came to a cluster of low-rise buildings enclosed within a ten-foot-high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.

The sign at the gate read Riverwind Self-Storage.

Cole inserted his key and turned it in the entry post and the fence gate automatically opened, giving him access to the complex. He went to the structure marked Building 2 and used another key to enter.

He walked down the long, straight corridor that divided into rows of uniform storage units, each about the size of a small garage. He picked through the keys of his key ring, coming to a silver key with “108, Riverwind, Bldg 2” scrawled on a piece of paper that was taped to it.

Cole passed units 105, 106 and 107, then froze in his tracks.

The door to 108 was unlocked.

He opened it.

Everything was gone.