by Ward Larsen
Davis shook his head. “I don’t think you’re that clever.”
“Get out!” Marquez snapped, his words laced in venom.
Davis stood, but he didn’t move toward the door. He hovered ominously over the colonel’s desk, their bodies separated, in Davis’ view, by the precise distance of one extended fist. “My daughter is out there, and I’m going to find her. Do not get in my way.”
Marquez rose from his chair, the colonel’s three stars prominent on his shoulders. “Pack your bags and go home!” he bellowed. “You are no longer part of this inquiry!”
“I don’t answer to you, Colonel, so I’m not going anywhere. You can put in a request to dismiss me through official channels, but that will take time.”
Marquez almost said something, his eyes going to slits. In the end he remained silent.
Minutes later Davis was walking through a sultry evening, his eyes level and his center of gravity forward. At one point a bystander backed out of his way, shouldering against a wall. So lost in thought was Davis, he never even noticed.
TWENTY-ONE
Davis stopped at his room where he exchanged the satellite phone for the second prepaid, which he had not yet used. Out the door a minute later, he set out on foot and left the airport behind, its terminal access roads choked by traffic on the evening rush. The sky was no better off, a string of white landing lights—lined up at precise three-mile intervals, Davis knew—stretching far into the night. An aerial traffic jam. Problems in the sky often had their terrestrial equivalents.
He thought a great deal about Marquez, how so many inconsistencies had slipped past him. It seemed careless, imprecise. Only Marquez wasn’t that sort. He was the type of guy who would scramble eggs using a recipe, who would have the best-trimmed hedges on the block. So how had so many irregularities escaped his detailed eye? It made no sense whatsoever.
For the second time since arriving in Colombia, Davis found himself looking over his shoulder. It seemed an exercise in futility. Even if he spotted someone, he wouldn’t know who to suspect of following him. Would they be tied to Marquez? Echevarria? An unknown assassin wearing a scarred black boot? The United States Secret Service? He could be on any of those radar screens, and possibly others he wasn’t aware of. It was like flying through a great air battle in a neutral airplane, dodging and diving and trying to stay out of everyone’s gun sights.
It was enough to drive a man to paranoia. Streetlights seemed to follow his every move, and the ubiquitous yellow taxis all had the same driver. He checked six after every turn, and backtracked twice. There was no chance of getting lost—the southern mountains were always there as a reference, dark shadows cradling the city in their interminable granite grasp. He passed an old church, bristling with crumbling stucco, whose door flyer invited those in need of salvation, then a fortresslike lending bank preferring those in need of solvency. Davis ignored all of it as he dialed the number—Sorensen’s brother-in-law.
This time she answered directly.
“It’s good to hear a friendly voice,” he said.
“It’s good to hear yours, Jammer. Any luck finding Jen?”
“Not yet, but I’m definitely making waves.”
“That I believe. Did you learn anything more about Agent Mulligan?” she asked.
“I found his Sig Sauer a few hours ago. It was checked in his suitcase, presumably because he didn’t have clearance to carry it on the flight. Does that sound right?”
“It does. Secret Service agents have carte blanche to carry on domestic flights, but foreign-flagged carriers are a different game. Depending on the principal he was protecting, Mulligan might have been forced to check. Or maybe it was a tactical decision—do you want to fill out a lot of paperwork in order to carry, or is it better to quietly check your weapon and not draw attention? I’m only thinking out loud here—I’ve never been on that side of the fence.”
“It makes sense,” he said. “And it probably made sense to Mulligan until somebody pointed a nine millimeter at him. Listen, I need another favor. This one’s delicate too.”
“Whatever—I’ll do it.”
“I haven’t told you what it is yet.”
Silence from Virginia.
“Thanks, Anna. Here’s the deal—I think I know who Mulligan was assigned to protect. There was a girl on the flight sitting next to Jen.”
“You said there were two passengers missing. Is this girl the other one by any chance?”
“Actually, yeah. Her name is Kristin Marie Stewart, a U.S. citizen.” Davis took out his wallet and removed a slip of paper. “I wrote down her passport number—are you ready?” Sorensen said she was, and Davis read off the number and date of birth. “I think she was heading to the same internship program as Jen, but I’m not sure. That’s all I’ve got. Does the name mean anything to you?”
“Nothing at all.”
“It should be easy enough. She’s twenty years old, and probably a college student. Try Facebook or Instagram.”
“It won’t be that easy, but I’ll track her down.”
“There’s one more thing,” he said. “Officially, I’m down here working for Larry Green at NTSB. I think I introduced you to him once.”
“You did. I remember giving him my condolences.”
“Well, I’m still driving him nuts. I want you to go see him and pass along a message.” Davis told her what he wanted.
Sorensen considered it. “Jammer, I know how you operate. You won’t be any good to Jen if you get in trouble yourself.”
“I’ll be careful.”
A hesitation. “Okay, I’ll do my best.”
“That’s exactly what I need, Anna.”
* * *
The warehouse across from El Centro had once been the epicenter of a thriving air cargo business, a concern that fell abruptly insolvent when a raiding task force uncovered half a metric ton of high-grade cocaine embedded in shipments of aquarium filter cartridges. The owner of the company claimed to know nothing about the scheme, nor did the floor shift managers, and in the end the most expeditious path for everyone had been to simply shutter the place and sidestep blame.
That was the story Davis had heard, and it might well have been true. Heritage aside, the building across the street from El Centro was ideally suited to fill the investigation’s most immediate need—ten thousand square feet of broomed concrete and a corrugated roof that didn’t leak.
A guard at the door waved him through with only a glance at his credentials. Davis had been here twice before, and in the last twenty-four hours the room had begun to fill. Mostly it was the strays: antennas, wingtips, and sheet metal that had separated from the fuselage in the crash. The tail had been recovered largely intact, and now sat crookedly in one corner, the TAC-Air logo still sharp and clear on the unblemished white background. The most significant section missing was the disjointed fuselage and cockpit. Because the ARJ-35 was a relatively small aircraft, those pieces would likely be recovered as a whole, although the job would require a crane and a flatbed truck sturdy enough to handle a twenty-thousand-pound load—a matter further complicated by the condition of the roads and the remoteness of the crash site.
Davis walked straight past the wreckage. He was here with one objective in mind, and it had nothing to do with the metal on the floor. His footsteps echoed off the cavernous walls as he approached Pascal Delacorte, who was leaning over a bent horizontal stabilizer and taking a measurement.
“Glad to see I’m not the only one working late,” said Davis.
Delacorte stood straight and stretched as if his back was sore. “I have not been in the field for over a year. One forgets how taxing it can be.”
“You didn’t come dressed for it, either,” said Davis, staring at the Frenchman’s silk shirt, pleated trousers, and Italian loafers. “How’s the survivability of your airframe holding up?”
“From what I’ve seen so far, I would say the design carried the impact forces quite well. A few sections remain
unaccounted for, but that is always the case, is it not?”
“It is.”
“And you? Is there any news of your daughter?”
“Not yet, but I’m hopeful.”
“Have you recovered from your near disaster under the wing?”
“I think so,” Davis said, rolling one shoulder. “I’ve been practicing stiff-arms on the rugby pitch most of my life—I guess I finally found a practical use for it.”
Delacorte smiled.
Davis said, “I’d like your opinion on something.”
“I am glad to help. What is it?”
“Actually, I’d rather talk about it somewhere else, maybe over a beer. There’s a bar down the street.”
“Très bon. Are you buying?”
Davis nodded. “Now I know for sure you play rugby.”
* * *
The bar was called La Pista, which Davis thought translated to The Runway. The place was darker than most and had a subdued atmosphere, which fit his mood perfectly. There were twenty square tables with chairs, ten stools at the bar. Half the seats were occupied by working men, and two young waitresses rushed deftly among them. The theme was predictably one of aviation. There was a wooden propeller bolted over the liquor rack, and pictures of old airplanes tacked on the walls. He caught the sporadic aroma of meat cooking on a grill and saw waves of smoke washing past an open back door. They took up station at one end of the bar, facing a picture of a DC-3 and next to a grizzled old man who nodded once, then went back to slurping soup from a bowl.
“I flew one of those once,” Davis said, pointing to the picture.
“Was it challenging to land?” asked Delacorte. “I’ve been told tail-wheel aircraft require different techniques.”
“I had my own technique,” Davis said, thinking, One that didn’t involve the landing gear at all. But that was another day and another place. He ordered dos cervezas from a curious bartender who probably didn’t often entertain pairs of six-and-a-half-foot men from the high northern hemisphere. The beers appeared right away, reasonably cold in sweating bottles.
The two investigators exchanged a santé, and Davis’ first draw went down like it always did, cool and dense. He hadn’t had a beer in four days, which was some kind of record, but the usual gratification was missing. He made arrangements with the bartender to purchase a case of rum, and while he probably could have gotten a better bargain at a liquor store, the bartender was happy to take a credit card, and all Davis had to do to make good on his promise was haul one cardboard box across the street. That settled, he got down to his business with Delacorte.
“I have a theory about this crash, but I need some information about the ARJ-35 to back it up.”
“What kind of information?”
“It relates to aircraft performance. Feel free to shoot holes in my idea. At the moment, Colonel Marquez and I aren’t on the same page, and I could use an impartial opinion.”
“You realize I am an engineer, not a fully trained investigator.”
“All the better.”
After talking to Sorensen, Davis had retrieved the sat-phone from his room, and he took it out now and called up the photographs he’d taken. “Here’s what I found under that wing before it fell on me.” He flicked through the pictures with an index finger and settled on one. “What do you see?”
“A landing gear assembly.”
“What else?”
“Dead grass and dirt.”
“Exactly. Now, BTA makes the gear doors for this airplane, right?”
“Of course.”
“And can we agree that all the evidence we’ve seen so far confirms the landing gear was retracted when the airplane hit? The landing gear handle in the cockpit was up, the uplocks on this assembly are engaged, and there’s no impact damage to the strut or support arms.”
“Agreed,” said Delacorte. “The landing gear was up when the aircraft struck. Are you questioning how this grass and dirt came to be in the wheel assembly?”
“I am.”
Delacorte addressed his beer, adding a classic Gallic shrug. “The airplane slid through a rain forest, so the landing gears doors could have jarred open momentarily, long enough to allow such contamination.”
“My point isn’t that grass and dirt are merely present—look more closely.” Davis enlarged the photo. “That grass is wrapped around the wheel, and the gaps in the brake assemblies are full of debris. In a typical taxi-out, on an asphalt or concrete strip, those spaces would be scrubbed to a metallic shine by brake pressure. And up here,” he pointed to the roof of the wheel well, “you can see a distinct splash pattern of mud and grass. Twin arcs, one above each wheel. The only way to get contamination like that is from a spinning wheel that’s throwing muck.”
Delacorte sat back on his stool.
Davis turned off the phone and slipped it back in his pocket.
The Frenchman said, “You are suggesting the airplane landed somewhere else? On an unimproved airstrip?”
“It would answer a lot of questions.”
“Including what might have happened to your daughter?”
Here Davis hesitated. “It’s possible.”
“Where could it have landed?”
“That’s where I was hoping you could help me. Tell me about the soft field landing capability of this airplane.”
Delacorte’s expression went sour. “It was not designed for ‘soft fields,’ as you put it. The engines are too low to the ground. On a grass or dirt strip there would be a high chance of foreign objects being ingested into the bypass fan.”
“I know it wasn’t designed for that—but is it possible?”
The Frenchman’s mouth maintained its upside-down U. “An airplane is an airplane. If the landing surface was in reasonable condition, and if it was long enough … yes.”
“Define long enough.”
“One thousand meters minimum. Twelve hundred would be better.”
Davis turned his bottle in his hand. It was the answer he’d wanted to hear, yet it widened his field of search considerably.
“Will you suggest this theory to Marquez?” Delacorte asked.
Davis blew out a long breath. “The colonel and I are barely on speaking terms right now.”
“He seems competent enough.”
“He’s very competent. Only I think he’s found himself between a rock and a hard place. The rock is the Colombian Air Force, which means his career is on the line.”
“And the place that is hard?”
Davis grinned at the translation. “I don’t know … it’s strange. I don’t think Marquez ever really believed this was a hijacking. But he kept pushing the idea, even after it clearly didn’t work. It’s almost like … like he was playing for time.”
“Or trying to make everyone look away from the real cause.”
“Maybe so,” said Davis.
“What can you do?”
“I don’t have much choice. I’m convinced this airplane landed somewhere before the crash. It fits everything we know. The evidence in the wheel well, the missing passengers, even the missing captain. I guess there’s no choice—I’ll have to go to Marquez and make my case.”
They drained their bottles. The bartender was good, asking if they wanted refills as soon as glass hit wood. Both men declined. Davis paid for their beers, assured the bartender he would be back for his case of rum, and they headed for the door. Two steps from the entrance he heard the first sirens. Davis took a cautious step outside, and saw a police car skid to a stop in the gravel parking apron across the road. Two officers dismounted and ran toward a crowd of people. Their guns were drawn.
TWENTY-TWO
Sorensen drove back into work early that evening, passing through security after most of the day shift had gone home. The George Bush Center for Intelligence is necessarily a 24/7/365 operation, yet the vast majority of the workforce keep office hours as regular as any accountant or banker. That being the case, the halls were quiet, and there was no one
else working in her section. It probably didn’t matter.
On face value her inquiries were harmless. She needed only to identify a twenty-year-old girl who’d recently traveled to Colombia, which by itself put high odds on one of two scenarios—Kristin Stewart was either a college student on a semester abroad, or a young woman on a church mission trip. Sorensen figured she’d be able to write the girl’s life story by eight that night, leaving time for a glass of Malbec before bed. The passport number was key. It would link a photograph and address to her subject, and from there the CIA’s primary database would thread together driver’s license information, school transcripts, and any recorded arrests. If necessary, Sorensen could go all the way back to a twenty-year-old birth certificate complete with tiny footprints.
She sat down at her desk, logged into the system, and had the research database active in less than a minute. The main page was essentially a questionnaire asking for all existing information on the unknown subject, including a facial photograph that could be uploaded and matched using disturbingly accurate recognition software. Sorensen entered what she had—full name, passport number, and birth date for Kristin Stewart—and then hit the send button. The computer hesitated longer than usual as it digested her request. The response that finally flashed to her screen was one she had never seen before. Indeed, one she didn’t even know existed: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS.
“What the hell?” she muttered.
She considered a second try, but hesitated over the input page where the fields had gone blank. Sorensen suspected a second request would end no differently. She’d seen the primary server go down before, and had more than once sent invalid requests upstream. That wasn’t what she was looking at. Unauthorized Access. She had used this system to research terrorists, Wall Street financiers, foreign heads of state, and at least one philandering United States ambassador. Never had she simply been denied.
Sorensen pushed away from her desk and considered her options. During regular business hours she might have been tempted to call Melanie Brown, her Secret Service friend in Chicago. Melanie had already gone out on a limb for her once, however, and the name Kristin Stewart had obviously raised a flag. Sorensen was sure her denial of access had been logged and reported, and tomorrow would likely appear in a morning brief. But in which nearby office? Homeland Security? The Department of State? Internally within the CIA? It was bad enough she’d been locked out—but had she also unsuspectingly hit a tripwire?