One of Us Is Dead

94 Tuesday 18 October 2022

So far, none of the ten police officers who were now searching the vast area of the airport complex had reported any sign of Rufus Rorke. He could be anywhere, Grace knew. He could be long gone too. The detective superintendent stood with Glenn Branson in the Air Traffic Control tower of Brighton City airport.

It was rectangular, with tall, wide windows sloping outwards, giving a 360-degree view. A narrow, curved worktop ran around much of the circumference, on which sat a large number of computer screens, of varying sizes — some displaying maps, the rest rows of digits or lines of text — binoculars and several telephone sets, and Grace noticed the usual office clutter of water bottles, mugs, a Thermos flask, and cables everywhere. Some of the equipment looked almost brand new, while some looked like it dated back to the Second World War — when this airport had been a significant base for the RAF.

There were one controller and two trainees on duty, all casually dressed, seated on basic but supportive-looking chairs. Alan Moss, a jovial, lightly bearded man in his late forties, with a mop of silver hair; Darren Fry, a studious-looking man in his mid-thirties, with dark hair and dark-rimmed glasses; and Danny Robinson, tall, burly, hair shorn to stubble, wearing a cable-knit sweater and with the physique of a rugby player.

Moss had been pointing out the flight path, designated by a white line, that the Pilatus was currently on, almost due west towards Southampton and the London Air Traffic Control centre at Swanwick, and then south out across the English Channel, passing close to the Isle of Wight.

‘Oh shit!’ Robinson exclaimed and pointed at the air traffic monitor.

‘What the hell?’ Alan Moss said.

‘What?’ Grace asked.

Moss pointed at the large radar screen in front of him. It looked like a Cubist painting in bottle green, light green, light brown and black. The map was populated with letters and numbers in white and orange. On it, Grace could see the south coast of England, the Channel Islands and the north and north-west coast of France, the land masses showing in light brown.

‘That’s the Pilatus,’ he said with an urgency in his voice, pointing. He clicked his mouse and zoomed in. The call sign appeared in white. Golf Alpha Victor Uniform Zulu. Next to it in orange were the numbers 180. ‘That’s the designated altitude, 18,000 feet. We allow a tolerance of 200 feet deviation either way. Look!’

Grace could see the altitude rise to 190, 200, 201, 220. Then it started going back down. Within moments it was 170... 160... ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

Moss didn’t respond to him for some moments. ‘Golf Alpha Victor Uniform Zulu, this is Shoreham tower, are you still on frequency?’ With his headset on one ear Moss put the ageing and rather well-worn desktop telephone to the other to speak directly with his counterpart at London control centre at Swanwick by conventional landline. At the same time London repeated their increasingly anxious attempts to regain comms with the erratic Pilatus; ‘Golf Alpha Victor Uniform Zulu London control radio check.’ Silence. They tried again.

Still silence.

The huddled group in the Shoreham ATC room then all saw the aircraft start climbing steeply again. 220... 230... 240.

Moss turned to his colleagues. ‘We have a rogue aircraft, we need to get all planes well clear out of the way.’

‘What the hell is going on?’ Grace quizzed him.

Moss shook his head. ‘The pilot’s not responding in any normal way. His current rate of climb is very steep — as if he’s performing aerobatics. That’s causing me concern.’

‘Concern?’ Branson repeated.

‘This aircraft — the Pilatus — has a pressurized cabin,’ Moss said. ‘If there was some catastrophic failure of the pressurization, it could lead to oxygen starvation, hypoxia, and that could be one explanation for the pilot’s erratic behaviour — or, he could be drunk or high on drugs. But I know the pilot, James Taylor, he’s a very reliable man.’

All three of them could now see the plane was levelling out, at close to 30,000 feet. Then it began to dive. Vertically. Before seconds later pulling up steeply again, then rolling to starboard.

‘Jesus,’ Moss said. ‘Those are far higher G-forces than a commercial pilot would be used to. He’s in danger of blacking out.’

‘Is there anything else that could explain his behaviour?’ Branson asked. ‘Like a malfunction with the plane’s systems? Something gone wrong with the autopilot?’

‘Or a bomb detonating?’ Grace asked.

‘Unlikely,’ intervened Robinson. ‘Any bomb, however small, would almost certainly either destroy the aircraft or bring it straight down.’

The other two air traffic controllers nodded in agreement.

‘If it didn’t detonate fully, might it destroy the aircraft’s pressurization, but not the cabin itself?’ Grace asked.

Darren Fry, looking deeply studious, as if he was an expert on these matters said, ‘Possibly, if it was a small explosive — like a hand grenade, perhaps. But...’ He shook his head. ‘Very unlikely.’

‘What about some kind of sabotage?’ Grace asked. ‘Or someone tampering with the controls — a hijacker?’

‘We could request assistance from the military,’ Moss said. ‘They have Quick Reaction Alert jets — Typhoons — based at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire that can fly supersonic over land in emergencies. One could be alongside the Pilatus in under fifteen minutes and tell us what’s going on in the cockpit.’

Grace nodded. ‘What CCTV do you have around the airport?’ he asked.

‘We don’t have much,’ Moss said. ‘There is some in the main hangar, but that’s about it.’

‘The main hangar? Is that where the Pilatus would be parked?’

‘It is.’

‘The hangar’s kept locked overnight?’

He nodded. ‘The Ops team open it in the morning and tow out any aircraft with an early flight plan filed.’

‘How do we view the footage from the time the hangar was opened this morning until the Pilatus was towed out?’ Grace asked.

‘There’s a monitor in the management office,’ Moss replied. ‘I’ll call down and see who’s in there who could do the playback for you.’ He reached for the radio on the work surface in front of him.