Zeke stood outside the yellow-taped safe zone of the burned aircraft wreckage and yelled over to the clean suit guys. “What you got, Frank?”
Lifting up his mask, Frank yelled back. “Don’t know just yet, Zeke. We’re pulling it out of both mishap engines now, so whatever it is, it was located in both of ’em. I don’t recognize it, but there’s enough of it to make a birds nest… it didn’t burn through.”
Zeke waved.
Frank continued. “Hey, we’ll bring up the samples to the lab and get back with you within the hour.”
From the hangar floor, Zeke checked his watch and dialed Ford, no longer waiting for Ford to call him. “Mornin’ Ford, Zeke calling. Got a few minutes to chat?”
“Yup, Zeke. Full schedule, but just wrapped up the morning news. Go ahead. How are things?”
“Know you’re busy this morning. Wanted you to know we’re accumulating lots of evidence, fact checking everything from radar tapes to maintenance logs. Fuel samples. Whole thing. But I got this one item to tell you, so I’ll get right to it. Need to tell you we have security video of Charlie being the last one near the mishap aircraft.”
“What are you saying, sir? You still think Charlie was involved in bringing down his own aircraft? Like he had something to do with it?” Ford was touching the baby ultrasound printout on his desk.
“That’s what I am saying, Ford. I’m going to bring in law enforcement now as a precaution. We also found something in both engines of one aircraft and are checking the other engines on the second jet. If the labs come back positive for anything, and we tie it to someone, we got a real problem percolating.”
“Zeke, sir, look...” Ford inhaled deeply after touching the red star on the front of Wu’s flight helmet. “My plate is full with the Save The Base Rally crowds coming today, and we’ve got three jets airborne. I know you guys still have the wreckage laid out in the two hangars. Let me come down, maybe Charlie, too, and we’ll figure this out,” Ford said. “You gotta know. He’s my brother, so how do you think I’m going to stay unbiased?”
“Look, Ford. I don’t know any other way to tell you. After my call to the Buffalo Field Office, I’m going to have to call Sarah up in the 914th Headquarters, then down to Air Force Reserve in Georgia. Then-”
“Okay, okay, I got it, Zeke.”
“Listen up, Ford,” Zeke told him in a stern voice. He paused for second.
Ford sat with the ultrasound printout on his lap, staring at the black-and-white image, listening.
“This situation is about to get real. If Charlie is really a suspect, there is nothing you can do to protect him.”
Niagara Air Base, Niagara Falls, New York
“Tower, BISON 79, three down and locked for two-eight right,” the crew said over the Tower frequency.
“BISON 79, Niagara Tower, you’re cleared for the touch and go, runway two-eight right.”
“Roger, BISON 79. Say winds.”
The air traffic controller working the tower frequency checked and replied back just as fast. “Winds two-seven-zero at twelve.”
“BISON 79.”
The crowd of community leaders and military members were both inside the base fence line near the hangar and outside the main gate that morning, showing their support at an organized “Save The Base” rally. Coordinated by the lobbyists that represented the base, as well as the Family Council, hundreds of supporters were present to show their military unity and pride. With the Buffalo news cameras rolling, BISON 79 came down the runway, touched her tires on the runway, then leapt back into the air. Standing in the cool spring air, the cheer of the crowd grew louder upon seeing the jet, waving their American flags and hand-made signs to the patriotic music being blared over the loudspeakers.
Meanwhile, over in the hangar was Richard, working his part-time Reserve job and listening to the air traffic on his hand-held radio. Standing in his second-floor hangar office with his arms folded and gazing out at the crowds, he was becoming more annoyed by the minute. Disgusted was more like it, figuring all these people were just wasting their time. He stood with a holier-than-thou demeanor, disconnected from the people he was defending as a military officer.
Scanning the crowd, he spotted Holly and Grace working the crowds on behalf of their boss, Bruce. Both wearing matching collared office polo shirts and jean shorts, they worked a display table, answering constituent questions. Although they were both sitting under a tent, Richard’s eagle eyes targeted what he wanted. Holly’s tanned, crossed legs, bouncing one leg over the other as she played with the earrings that climbed to the top of her ear.
He zoomed in on Holly’s beauty, gawking as his mischievous imagination wondered what the art of the possible was between them. Although he had feelings for the congressman, the attraction to Holly was immense. Wow. He was really turned on by her, the way she swayed her fit body at the office. Her smarts on policy and legislation. Like so many of the young interns and new hires, Holly wore excessive short skirts and high heels, teasing all the older men at Rayburn. Her perfume drove him crazy every time he inhaled it. Although he was some 30 years older than her, he felt tingles inside his body for Holly. He struggled to keep his feelings hidden, and they were tough to control. Fireworks.
He held in his hand his phone, glancing at the last text message from the congressman. Reading and re-reading, reviewing what Bruce wrote: “Finish this, Richard. Get it fucking done ASAP. I want it over at that base and get Ray off my ass. Do you understand?”
He turned to his desk, looked at his blue wheeled commercial laundry cart across the office for a moment, and tapped his finger on his forearm. Richard then gave himself a squirt of anti-bacterial gel on his hands and rubbed them together in thought for a long time. I got something here, Alex. Would require meticulous planning, but this is it. The final blow. He kept nodding his head in a yes motion, as he had just generated the final idea to end the future of the base. He was pleased with the plan. It was sinister and dark, but it was a plan to end the pain for Bruce. BRAC would definitely close the base down for good, he thought. No way the Air Force Reserve would keep it open, Alex, right? Press would have a field day with it. My Bruce would love it, wouldn’t he? He’d set something up so imaginative and special, it would embarrass the hell out of the pilots. That stupid Charlie Stevens… and Ford. Those pompous pilots who never let me be one of them. They’re out to get me… following me around. No way they would...
“Knock, knock. How are you, Richie?” Zeke asked as he knocked on the office door.
Appearing at the door was Zeke and Grape, holding some spiral-bound notebooks, a camera, and an extra chair to join the other in front of Richard’s desk. “We looked on your schedule and saw you were free, so we thought we’d do another follow-up interview with you. Yeah?” Zeke asked, more like told him. He had an unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth.
The timing couldn’t have been worse for Richard. “Oh my, no, no, right now isn’t the best time. It’s not good. It’s not good,” he said, coming around from behind his desk.
“The timing is perfect. We won’t be long, right, Grape?” Zeke asked, walking in uninvited. Grape dragged in his chair, making a wood scuffing sound on the linoleum tile. Both men chuckled a bit out loud.
Richard walked right past them. “I’ve got to go. Muffin needs help. Got to go.”
Richard’s hypersensitivity to criticism was present and took offense to their laughing. Their unannounced visit set Richard off, and his demeanor changed for the worse. He added their laughing to his mental list of what he perceived as an insult. Others on the list already included high school girls saying no to him through the years, the school bullies tormenting him as a child, and at the top of the list, his father.
His father was the lead abuser, always physical or verbal in his harassment to him because he was different than the other sons in the neighborhood.
Ri
chard shut down and walked out on Zeke.
“Hey, we have work do to. Quick chat, Richard,” Zeke told him, but Richard kept going toward the staircase to the hangar floor.
Both men looked at each other as Richard stormed off, talking to himself.
“Grape, dis guy is a weird bird. Repeating himself. Not dealing with stress. Seems like a loose cannon. Jesus. I feel like pulling his medical records. What do you think?”
“He is weird for sure, sir. Irritable, angry… rapidly changing mood,” Grape replied, looking around the office. “Ready to burst.”
“Make me a note, Grape. We’ll talk to medical later. Something not right about him.”
Grape jerked his head back and grimaced. “Sir… I mean, really? That’s one big-ass blue cart he’s got. What’s he doing up here, commercial linens?”
Grape moved the wheeled blue commercial laundry cart off to the side.
“Grape, it’s never taken me this long to determine the cause of a mishap. When it’s this tough to find the cause, it tells me something is up. That video sticks out in my mind. Those lab results, whatever they are,” Zeke explained. “And now, dis guy, Richard.”
“Well, sir, since we’re visitors in his office and all, why don’t we have a little look around?”
Zeke was already sitting in Richard’s desk chair, looking at his stacked papers, aligned to the ninety-degree corners of the desk. Meticulous workspace, each item in its place. Perfect alignment of stapler, pens, pads, and paperwork.
“Ever see a desk like dis? All these antique… and modern keys on display. Even the paperclips are lined up, spaced all perfect?” Zeke asked, pointing.
“He doesn’t have one personal photo anywhere. On the desk. Credenza there. Walls. Nothing,” Grape said. “How strange is that?”
Zeke reviewed the desk calendar for the dates of the mishaps, future demands for overseas deployments, and anything else he thought might be out of the ordinary with the specific BISON tail numbers. Couple to-do lists for supplies were found, too. “Well, for starters… he has a cat calendar, with a cat for each month. And on that, he’s got a shopping list. What’s dis here supply list, Grape? CHCl3 is written in a red pen?”
Grape took out his pen and wrote it down on his pad. “Ha! He has a cat calendar? Okay… well, airframe and powerplants parts list, I guess. Three copies of ’em, whatever CHCl is.”
“Hey Grape, when we do an investigation like dis, on two aircraft, the chances of them being mechanical would be rare, yeah?” he asked as he lit up his cigarette. “I just don’t know,” he continued, looking around the office. “Something isn’t right. Same feeling I had with that T-38 mishap in Texas. Can’t put my finger on it.”
Grape opened the walk-in closet in Richard’s office and turned on the light. Looking around, he was fascinated by what he saw. “Hey, sir. This is strange. Put your finger on this.”
Zeke strode from around the desk to Richard’s walk-in closet to see what Grape was doing. His eyebrows went up as he looked. “Jesus. What human has that many bags of rags in their closet? Why aren’t these down in a stock room area downstairs?”
It looked like a big box store inside the large walk-in closet, with great bags of rags stacked high up to the ceiling. Each bag had a specific label, methodical in appearance, and numbered. It was as if the rags were on display at a window showcase at the mall. Shocked, Grape turned to Zeke with his jaw dropped. “Sir, these are no regular rags.”
Zeke shot a look at Grape. “I don’t get it, rags are rags. These are maintenance rags, no?”
“No, sir. Well, yes, but…” Grape replied, shaking his head. “I’ve worked in maintenance before when I was enlisted and seen plenty of rags… for spills and oil. Fuel. Keep your hands clean. Rags come in, like, these 55-gallon drum-size canvas bags. All mixed colors. I don’t know, what, the seven main colors plus black and white?” Grape told him. “I’ve seen some obsessive-compulsive disorders, but this is off the charts.”
Zeke was disturbed at what he was seeing, knowing that if Richard was spending this much time on color-coding rags, he had to be suffering from a mental disorder. “Never seen nothin’ like dis here. What is going on, Grape?”
“Lansing has all these rags separated. Brings ’em up the second floor in that blue cart,” he said, pausing. “Each rag bag was physically separated by hand. By hand… can you believe that? Must have taken hundreds of hours. Sir, these rags are… color-coded.”
Zeke scanned up at the high ceiling, then down to the floor, staring in amazement. “Holy. Shit.”
Chapter 31
Daniel O’Connell’s Irish Restaurant and Bar, Old Town Alexandria, Virginia
Charlie made arrangements to fly down from the Buffalo area the day before to see the Rayburn House office press conference, in addition to some work over in Maryland. He missed seeing Grace at work because of his workload, but they’d made arrangements to see each other that night.
He sat on a cushioned bar stool close to the front entrance as he thought about what Grace last told him regarding the base and Al King. Charlie sipped his frosty dark Irish dry stout while waiting for Grace to arrive at the bar, glancing around at the imported antiques from Ireland that decorated the interior. He was at Daniel O’Connell’s Irish Restaurant and Bar on King Street, an Old Town Alexandria favorite. Charlie was captivated with the looks of the inside of the bar, from the black-and-white historical photos to the traditional clock above one of the four bars. He could tell how much effort it took to restore the original wood and brickwork, giving it an authentic feel straight from Ireland.
“Test. Test. One, two. One. Two. Three,” came over the speakers. He could hear the band tuning up in the other room. It felt like a night of fun coming. Charlie gave a nod over to owner John at the far side of the bar, and he gracefully nodded back.
“Hey Charlie, how’s it going?” Grace asked. She had snuck up on him.
Charlie had the same tingling feeling inside every time he saw Grace. “Hi, Grace,” he said as he got up to give her a hug and kiss. He loved the sweet taste of her skin.
“You guys made it over from Maryland okay?”
Charlie and the rest of the flight crew were in town over at Andrews Air Force Base for their oxygen chamber qualification and training, so they had taken a jet down for a couple of days.
“Yeah, doing great. This is one cool bar. Look at the woodwork over there, the hand-made wooden walls… the intricate ceiling. Has as a cool vibe… I’m pumped that you live nearby,” Charlie said. He was glowing after greeting her and pulled out a bar stool for Grace to sit. “Rest of the guys are down at the hotel.”
She sipped her wine, turning to see the Daniel O’Connell’s crowd coming in the bar. The husband-and-wife duo were tuning up their guitars for the evening entertainment, and from the looks of the increasing amount of people flowing in, they had a nice following of fans.
“Me, too. Like it in D.C. a lot. Job, people, my apartment. There is a bright future for this area.”
“D.C. traffic is ok for you?” Charlie asked, looking outside to see the red brake lights of bumper-to-bumper cars lined up.
“I take the metro when I can, grab a car service for other locations. Yeah, I do like it in this area, as I said. Like Buffalo, too, but the region in New York can’t compare to this area. The employment opportunities are endless. My friends, although I do miss them, have to settle for any job they get. And the outrageous state taxes! But I do miss my family and get up north so often that I feel like I live in both places. But, hey, work is work.”
Grace winked at him.
“So, police officer-pilot guy... Canal Fest starts tomorrow. Can’t wait to go back up! Do you love it there or what?”
Canal Fest of the Tonawandas was a week-long outdoor summer festival that took place near the Historic Erie Barge Canal. Each night, headline events such as the
car muster, a parade, art contests, and live music filled the schedule, in addition to food and bars that filled the nights with fun. Thousands of spectators came each year to enjoy the excitement.
Charlie reached for her shoulder and pulled her in for a kiss. “Canal Fest isn’t something I’ve attended before, I don’t recall. Take me this year?”
She kissed him on the lips. The music act was being introduced, so the noise was increasing.
“Any feedback from the big rally up at Niagara?” he asked.
Charlie looked at her and saw the hesitation. He thought for a moment she wasn’t telling him the truth on something. “It was just all right. But… I don’t like something at work, Charlie.”
He looked at her with concern. “Like what? Are you alright?”
“Yeah, yeah. I am. Well, two things. Richard was working his Reserve job while we were working at the rally. He is just so freaking weird. At times he is a normal guy, professional at work. Other times, his speech is disorganized. He… he never changes his facial expression. Like, talks in circles, repeats himself. Real weird-like. The other day, he wouldn’t leave Holly alone, just… following her around and embarrassing her with immature comments about her looks. Last week he leaned in from behind and put his face into her hair, made a deep inhale, like, sniffing her. Put his crotch up against her hip and pushed. He said it was an accident, but he watches her, real creepy-like.”
“He likes her. Let him -” Charlie replied.
“It wasn’t like that,” she snapped, growing mad. “Let him what? She shouldn’t have to be humped and grinded on at work. Or be sniffed. It’s not Holly’s fault for Richard not getting the social clues! It was on the fence of sexual harassment. Wait, it was sexual harassment! You think that’s okay?”
Grace has hot on this subject. The topic of sexual harassment and how wrong it was to commit was on her front burner and a daily conversation with the professional women of Capitol Hill. Committee professional staff members had brown bag lunches on the topic, so the issue was on the tip of Grace’s tongue.
The Buffalo Pilot: A Ford Stevens Military-Aviation Thriller (Book 3) Page 17