Read The Last American Wizard for Free Online Page B

finishing the placement of the false roof, and big floodlight rigs were replacing the sunlight. “We have...” she paused and then started again.” We have a fact set that simply doesn’t make sense.” Another pause. “Which I suppose makes it cease to be a fact set in the classic sense.”
    She began to walk slowly over to the four tables and used her fingers to tick off her data points. “One, we have a 747-400 with several hundred passengers missing. American International’s flight 1143 to Los Angeles declared a Mayday at 0843 hours today. The pilots said the flight controls were moving, quote, on their own, unquote. They also reported that they were ‘fighting someone’ for control. We have no idea what that means; they had the post-9/11 standard heavy-duty steel door, which according to remote telemetry was closed and locked, and the first officer was armed.”
    She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and continued. “The radar showed it losing altitude and vectoring towards Washington. Fighters were scrambled from Naval Air Station Patuxent River and Andrews Air Force Base, but the commercial jet swung to the east and eventually vectored away from DC.” She waved vaguely to the west. “It came in low over the apartments on the other side of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway–”
    “I know.” Steve interrupted. “The noise almost blew my head off.”
    Tataka gave him a sharp look. “You heard it?”
    “Yep.”
    “Odd, we’ve had no other reports of people hearing or seeing the plane as it came in over populated areas. Even more astonishing, phone camera videos haven’t started to pop up on CNN." She sighed, shook her head, and continued her briefing. “We could still follow AI 1143 on radar, but as far as we can tell, it was both unheard and unseen by anyone on the ground by the time it dropped below 10,000 feet.” She sighed. “Now comes the part I really can’t believe I’m saying, but I have to play the hand I've been dealt.”
    Steve said. “You and me both. It’s been a very strange morning.”
    She nodded slowly, her eyes focused on a blinking green light on a small piece of equipment on the closest table. “You have no idea. The facts as we know them indicate the flight ended here. I won’t say it crashed here because there isn’t any debris and a 747 does not crash without a mountain of wreckage. On the other hand, it was this point that the radar lost track of it as it merged with the ground clutter in an almost vertical trajectory. Command declared it a possible Level 2 OTN Incident, so we inserted a false radar trail into the air traffic computers so that they now show it going down in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay.”
    Steve looked blankly at Ace. She explained. “A Level 5 Incident would be lights in the sky, crop circles, and that sort of thing. Level 1 is an alien spaceship on the White House South Lawn.”
    Tataka nodded. “So, a Level 2 is serious but containable. There is a substantial search-and-rescue mission going on over the Chesapeake as we speak.”
    “But they won’t find anything.”
    “Well, eventually, we’ll sink a physical misdirection package so that plane and passengers can be identified. Just like that TWA Flight over Long Island Sound–”
    “Flight 800?” Steve interrupted. “What happened there?”
    “The captain of the USS Albuquerque spilled coffee on the launch controls.” Tataka shook her head. “We would have hung the bastard out to dry, except that there was conclusive evidence that his elbow was jostled by a previously certified poltergeist.”
    Ace nodded. “Yeah, that was Skippy, right?”
    “Right. OTN entity 465 slash 14p.” Tataka said absently. “The little bastard thinks he’s a gremlin. Keeps calling himself ‘Adolf.’ He got tired of busting people’s chops during the investigation and switched over to the USS Ronald Reagan. Driving them crazy, from what I’ve heard, but enough of that. Let’s get back to the