A Flight of Fancy.

Mel had been briefed, the meeting was ready, and showing a new trick was the best part for any magician.

“So the trick is we fly two scheduled airliners with passengers into two tall buildings,” he paused, “with no loss of life right. Tall order.” The four faces round the table showed no emotion.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this. OK, Boston say has fifteen flights an hour, near a hundred thousand passengers a day and this, before it all happens, is just an ordinary day. Right. OK the art of magic is to make things happen while people’s attention is on something else. In this case everybody’s just getting to where they want to go and dealing with passengers, planes and stuff. So a scheduled flight, say TM105 rolls up to Gate 32 empty. It has a passenger list and crew all there on the computers all booked in by phone. No one asks if they’re really there, they just assume people don’t pay for tickets to Miami or where ever and not turn up. So all these not-there people gather at Gate 32 and even the people at Gate 31 don’t think anything of 32 being empty, they walk past empty gates all the time. The pilot of TM105 walks up the tunnel to the boarding desk with an envelope full of tickets and passes them through the reader, they’re now all onboard. If necessary someone checks in some suitcases to make it look real. The baggage handlers stow the baggage, the in-flight meals are delivered and the plane fuelled while the pilot keeps the tower informed. TM105 rolls out and takes off for Miami. So far only two, maybe three people know what’s going on.” The four nod and smile.

“Some time latter TM105 goes off air and reappears as an empty flight to Portland to pick up passengers with your drone plane in the vicinity ready to take its place. OK so far so good, no one will remember anything funny and all that’s left as evidence is computer records and they’re all fine. But what about the lives of these passengers, they have to be real somehow? Have you ever wanted to disappear? I mean screw the wife and kids, I want out, new start, yes? So place an ad, discreet, and interview people, offer 100k and a new identity. You can do that right?” they nod.

“You see relatives of the deceased couldn’t keep up an act but the deceased can and even make a desperate last minute phone call and then that’s it, silence. Who’s really going to check where the mobile call was made from, it’s obvious, from the plane. After it all goes down the ‘deceased’ can’t admit to being part of the biggest scam in history and the relatives will be emotional even if they hate the son of a bitch and collect the insurance money. Any questions?” The four round the table look at each other and begin to applaud. “Then once the buildings are empty they collapse, no one gets hurt and the enemies of the US can get what’s coming to them.” The main man of the four stands up, “And that gentlemen is the plan.”