Zero Day_ A Novel - Mark Russinovich [4]
The nose was now well down as the 787 plummeted toward the earth. The air slipping across the exterior controls of the airplane had restored flight control, but the yoke still denied it to the pilots.
The sensation of falling was palpable. Behind the men now came a high-pitched howl neither could place. It was neither mechanical nor human. McIntyre glanced back, expecting the worst, and realized it was Westmore. He hadn’t thought it possible for a human voice to make such a sound. “Quiet, luv,” he said, trying to calm the terrified woman. “Please!” He turned to the front. “Disengaging auto!” In front of him, filling the entire windshield, was the blue expanse of ocean.
“It’s rebooted now!” Jones shouted.
Without warning, the plane suddenly responded to the yoke.
“Oh, shit,” Jones said, as the captain began to try to raise the nose of the plane. The dials were giving information now. “Airspeed 915, altitude eight thousand! Easy, Bobby, easy. Don’t overdo it.” If they managed to pull the aircraft out of the dive, the danger was that it would rocket uncontrollably into the sky, a situation nearly as deadly as the dive itself.
McIntyre pulled on the yoke steadily. His face was masked in sweat. His breath came out in short, labored puffs. The plane was pulling up in response to his command, but the horizon was still much too high, the space before them nothing but ocean.
“Airspeed 1034, altitude four thousand! Oh, God!”
McIntyre pulled back more forcibly on the yoke. They felt the g-forces as he compelled the airplane out of the dive.
“Airspeed 1107, altitude three thousand!”
“Come on, you bastard, come on.” McIntyre pulled the yoke well back, all but certain one of the wings was going to come off.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!” Jones said. The g-forces pressed them heavily into their seats.
“Get up, get up, motherfucker.” Behind the men, Westmore screamed again.
“Airspeed 1122! Altitude twenty-three hundred!” Jones said in a high-pitched voice, almost in falsetto.
“Climb, you bastard, climb!”
Suddenly the g-forces vanished as if an invisible hand had been lifted from them.
“We’re climbing!” Jones said with a laugh. “We’re climbing! Airspeed 1103, altitude twenty-six hundred!”
Flight 188 rocketed into the sky like a ballistic missile.
2
MANHATTAN, NYC
FISCHERMAN, PLATT & COHEN
MONDAY, AUGUST 14
9:07 A.M.
“Coffee? A Danish?” she asked with an inviting smile.
“No, thank you. I’m fine,” Jeff Aiken said, considering closing his eyes until summoned for the meeting.
“Mr. Greene will with be with you any moment.”
Jeff, still in a fog from his hasty trip, didn’t take the time to admire what he sensed was an inviting view. The receptionist was not yet thirty, stylishly dressed, trim, obviously fit, but wearing the latest hairstyle, which made her look as if she’d just crawled out of bed and sprayed it in place.
Jeff had received the urgent call Saturday night—Sunday morning, actually—right after falling into a deep sleep, still dressed, splayed atop his bed at the Holiday Inn in Omaha, Nebraska. He’d just finished an exhausting all-night-all-day stint at National Interbank Charge Card Services. Their security system had been so porous that financial crackers, as criminally minded hackers were known, had systematically downloaded the personal accounts of more than 4 million “valued” customers. News accounts reported that the data looting had gone on for two weeks before being discovered. Jeff had tracked the information loss back more than three months and guessed it had been going on even longer.
Once he’d agreed to fly to Manhattan and negotiated a substantial fee for his time, it had taken all day Sunday to finish the security checks he’d installed on the new NICCS system. He doubted it would save the company from the ire of its violated cardholders, or federal regulators. If the company