The Hadrian Memorandum - Allan Folsom [95]
“Cessna D-VKRD, you are in the landing pattern. Please change radio frequency to 267.5.” The voice of an air controller suddenly crackled over his headset.
“D-VKRD. Going to new frequency, 267.5,” he heard the Cessna’s female pilot reply.
“Copy to 267.5, D-VKRD.”
Abruptly White’s radio went to static as the Cessna pilot changed radio frequency. He took off the headphones and looked over his shoulder to Patrice and Irish Jack in the seats behind him.
“They’re on approach, gentlemen. Workday’s about to begin,” he said sharply. “Saddle up.”
4:55 A.M.
59
CESSNA, D-VKRD, ON APPROACH TO
MÁLAGA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT. 5:02 A.M.
Marten looked at his watch, counting down the time. Anne was awake now, watching him in the dimly lit cabin.
“Where do we go from here?” she asked quietly.
“That will depend on Brigitte.” Abruptly he undid his seat belt and climbed into the copilot’s seat next to her, just as he had an hour before. Below he could just make out the cloud deck in the beam of the plane’s landing lights. It was steel gray and forbidding, stretching out like some enormous glacier.
“How long before we’re in it?”
“About eight seconds.”
Marten glanced over his shoulder at Anne, then back out the windshield. He held his breath and counted down. Five, four, three, two—Then they were in it. The clouds swirled around them. He turned to Brigitte.
“This is what I want you to do.”
5:05 A.M.
SIMCO FALCON, 3C-B797K, 5:12 A.M.
Conor White felt the main landing gear hit; then the plane’s nose angled over, and the front gear touched the runway. He saw the lighted terminal flash past, then heard the scream of the three Garrett turbofan engines as the pilot put them into reverse thrust. The plane slowed quickly. Another few seconds and they were at the end of the runway and coming back around. Instantly he was out of his seat and at the window looking for the Cessna as they taxied for the terminal. Patrice and Irish Jack were up, too, their weapons packed away in a pair of dark green and yellow sports-equipment bags, peering out, ready to go. All they saw was darkness and parked aircraft.
“Where the fuck is he?” Irish Jack was on edge. “Where the hell did he go?”
White was already on his cell phone talking to his man in the tower. “Where’s the Cessna that just landed?”
“The landing was aborted at the last second.”
“What?”
“The pilot reported radio trouble. Said she would refile a landing request.”
“Where did she go?”
“Don’t know. Her radio is still out.”
White glanced at Patrice and Irish Jack. “Son of a bitch used the cloud deck to dance out of here. He knows he’s being followed.” He turned back to the phone. “Refile us for immediate takeoff, then get me a reading of the Cessna’s transponder code. I want a location of that aircraft.”
“It may take a little time to find, sir. There is a lot of traffic in the area. Cessna’s not the only airplane up there.”
“My friend.” Conor White’s voice was filled with rage, “I can’t follow a plane when I don’t know where the hell it went! Find it. Find it fast! Find it now!” Conor White clicked off and looked to Patrice and Irish Jack. “Shit!” he said.
5:24 A.M.
LEARJET 55, FORTY MILES OUT FROM MÁLAGA.
AIRSPEED 310 MPH. ALTITUDE 14,200 FEET. SAME TIME.
Emil Franck turned his laptop off and then back on and waited for it to reboot, just as he had done moments earlier. The green dot giving the Cessna’s position had suddenly disappeared from the screen, and he held his breath, hoping the problem was with the laptop’s software. Up front, he could see