John Nance - Lockout

“Hopefully, not. Anywhere but back on that heading.”

“Okay,” Jerry said, turning to Josh. “Was it your entire phone number and then the execute key?”

“Yes, I… wanted to call home, you know.”

“Got it,” Jerry replied, feeling a deep pang of guilt for being up here while his wife and children were probably scared to death back home in Evanston. “Okay, write out that number. Dan, see if that could have been interpreted as latitude, longitude, or something, or maybe a compass heading.”

“We’ve done a complete 180,” Dan said, watching the progress. “And we’re still turning.”

“I think he typed in what the box thought were coordinates.”

“Hell, Jerry, we didn’t think the box might be on. The screen was dark…”

“Neither did I.”

Josh handed over a slip of paper with eleven numbers.

“Much longer than a latitude and longitude,” Dan added. “Here, punch in three digits, Josh. Punch zero-zero-five and enter.”

Josh turned to the MDCU and entered the numbers, and they all held their breath, but the aircraft was still turning right, now less than ninety degrees from the original course.

“If this thing steadies out on the same course to Tel Aviv, then all we’ve done is delay things.”

“But that’s something! We just bought, what? Four minutes?”

“Yeah. Josh, punch in your entire phone number one more time and hit execute. Let’s see if it does it again.”

“Dan,” Jerry interrupted, “Look at this! It’s telling us the truth… the instruments, I mean.”

“Try disconnecting autoflight,” Dan said, holding his breath.

“Already did. Nothing. And the sidestick still doesn’t work. But something’s new.”

The aircraft was leveling its wings now, and back on the previous course to Israel.

“Josh?” Jerry said. “Keep punching things and hitting execute, just… just write down what you’re entering each time.”

“Okay,” Josh responded, turning back to the MDCU, visibly relieved to have a mission.

Dan took a loud breath. “Okay, meanwhile, Frank and I are going back down to start pulling relays, starting with anything autoflight related I can get my hands on.”

First Class Cabin, Pangia Flight 10

Ashira Dyan was well aware of her conflicting loyalties: First, there was her lover and employer, Moishe Lavi, but she was with him, in part, because Mossad wanted her to be. And the broader intelligence mission of Mossad was in Israel’s best interests. But precisely where did all those coincide and where did they clash?

She wished she could phone the one who had recruited her so long ago and ask the key question: Is this a coincidence, Moishe being on an electronically hijacked jet apparently headed for Tehran?

Let’s not dance around this, Ashira , she could almost hear her handler say. If the pilots are telling the truth, someone is controlling this airplane, and it has to be Moishe’s doing.

Indeed, what were the odds of an accidental presence?

And, she thought, he’s almost enjoying this!

She knew him so well. He could be as inscrutable as a statue at times, but it was also true that he couldn’t really hide deep upset from her entirely. There were always contradictory signs, as there were now. His refusal to let her volunteer their handheld satellite phone when the crew was begging for them was one, as well as his unusual reluctance to let her see what he had been writing so diligently on his laptop.

That feeling of apprehension again crept past her professional training.

So what if he has engineered all of this, and is determined to start the war so we can finish it? If I could stop him, should I? If he’s behind this, there will be many confederates on the ground, all of them working to make Israel’s launch decision inescapable.”

She should confront him. But then he would merely deny it, and she would be no closer to the truth. Same denial, same amused expression.

No, there seemed to be one choice left, and that was to somehow gain control of his laptop. If he’d used a trigger program to take over the aircraft, perhaps she could find it in time and undo it. She had most of his passwords.

The inevitable pragmatic realism that was the bedrock of her personality reasserted itself, as it always did. If he was in control on this aircraft, he would be expecting her to confront him, and the only way around his usually brilliant maneuvering would have to be complete surprise.

The White House (11:45 p.m. EST / 0345 Zulu)

Working from a tiny anteroom off the Oval Office, Paul Wriggle had a phone to each ear coordinating what the president had just approved: securing the Israeli Air Force’s immediate assistance in passing the unlock code to Flight 10’s computers.

“We can do that?” the president had asked. “You built that into the system?”

“Yes, but we’ve never tested it. It’s an operational back door, a way of reaching the computers aboard our aircraft from a radio signal relayed through a fighter flying alongside, one with ultra-high frequency military range capability, which all of them have. With the proper gear, we could even fly the airliner from a second seat in such a fighter, but that was just a contingency. But what we have already built in is the ability to reach the computer and lock out the cockpit with a UHF transmission… and reverse it with the right codes.”

“How fast? Does it take special equipment?”

“As Rube Goldberg as it sounds, sir, all it takes is using the keypad tones from a cell phone… just hold the cell phone’s speaker against the pilot’s microphone, and the all-important string of numbers can be transmitted over the UHF radio. Unlike their flight deck computer screen, you can try as many times as you need and it won’t lock you out if the sequence is wrong. The downside is that we’d have to provide information that is technically illegal to discuss.”

“Executive orders, Paul. Don’t worry about giving the information to the Israelis. Get that arranged as fast as you can.”

Aboard Pangia 10 (0350 Zulu)

“Okay, guys, we’ve got about thirty minutes before we find out where we’re going next.”

Jerry Tollefson met the eyes of everyone in the crowded cockpit, including Carol and two of her flight attendants.

“I’ll do another PA announcement as soon as I know whether we’re turning or not, but in the meantime… if we can’t regain control any other way and if we do turn in the wrong direction… I’m going to have everyone strap in and get ready for our last, best move.”

“Jerry… Captain… we’ve got some seriously terrified people back there, including some of my crew. Please talk to them sooner rather than later.”

“I will.”

“And… what you called the nuclear option? Cutting the power?” Carol asked, her voice steady but her features decidedly pasty.

“Yes. If Dan can find it, cutting the main electrical power lead to that damned box.”

Dan and Frank Erlichman quickly descended back into the electronics bay to start pulling as many relay cubes as possible in the hope of finding the one that would restore directional control without turning them upside down. Dan had lost count of the number of times he and Erlichman had descended the small ladder from the cockpit. But once again they were standing in front of the offending cabinet, its mere presence mocking them, the remaining minutes to Tel Aviv ticking by with increasing urgency. Carol was once again scrunched in behind the captain’s seat, kneeling so that she could stick her head down through the hatch to relay any messages to Jerry, who had been out of the captain’s seat no more than twice the entire duration of the cascading emergency.