Corrector

by Blink, Bob

  “You’re referring to the fact the men killed appeared to be engaged in something of their own. In fact it seems as if our killers prevented a major catastrophe by their actions. How could they know? It’s clear they were waiting and ambushed the two brothers. That means they knew when and where. What is their source of intelligence that they can be aware of these planned attacks scattered all over the country? We could use some of their insight.”

  “It’ll be one of the things we ask them once we have them in custody,” Carlson said.

  “At least we have one of the fired cases this time,” Shaun Hansen said. “If he simply changes the barrel, we’ll still have a chance of a match if we can get our hands on the pistol.”

  “What about any hits to our databases?” Carlson asked Hansen.

  “Nothing anywhere. He didn’t use the same credit cards or the same name this time. None of the car rentals or the hotels have provided anything.”

  “You’re thinking he lives in the area, or close enough that he could drive and use his own car, and maybe his real name,” Laney said. “You’re thinking about the plane again.”

  Carlson nodded. Hansen had done an excellent job with the private plane idea. It had taken a lot of time, but they had a likely match. Of the nine cases they had tentatively linked together, in five instances an upscale private plane was registered at a nearby facility around the time of the killings. Since the killings were spread over a large fraction of the country, it was a surprising coincidence. Knowing where the plane was based had provided a reasonable reason why the plane might not have been present in the remaining instances.

  “The plane wasn’t used for the San Francisco attack,” Laney reminded Carlson.

  “It could have been flown VFR (Visual Flight Rules), in which case there wouldn’t be any record of its flight, although we would have expected to locate it at one of the nearby airports. I tend to agree that it wasn’t used, but look at the distance. The plane is based in Reno, and San Francisco is only a few hours drive away. That would be consistent with several of the other cases where the plane appears not to have been involved.”

  Once they had a tail number it was straightforward to determine where it was based. One of the FBI’s agents based in Sacramento a couple hours’ drive away named Bob Thomas, who was himself a private pilot, had made a stop at the FBO [Fixed Base Operator] where the plane was supposedly based pretending to be looking for long term storage of his own plane. During the tour of the facility, he had been able to spot the sleek Cessna, and ask a few casual questions about it. Agent Laney would be leaving in the morning to fly out to Reno where he would question the operators of the FBO about the plane and its pilot or pilots in far greater detail. There should be records of when it was present at the facility and when it had been gone, and hopefully the name of the pilot.

  Once they had discovered the plane and decided it was likely the means the killer had been using to travel to and from the site of the crimes, they’d thought they were almost there. Unfortunately, a detailed search had shown the plane was owned by a private corporation, not an individual, and one with the ownership carefully masked by offshore companies. Despite Hansen’s best efforts, they had been unable to trace back the ownership.

  Carlson wanted Agent Laney to link up with Agent Thomas and drop in on the operators of the FBO. Hopefully the local records would reveal a lot more than they knew at the moment. With luck they could get the flight history based on when the plane was taken out from the local facility and the name of the pilot, which he expected would be known by the operators of the facility. The plane had apparently been based there a number of years, so it would be reasonable to assume a certain familiarity between the pilot and the operators of the facility. It wasn’t that large a facility after all.

  “We should know a lot more in a couple of days,” Carlson said. “Once you and Thomas have had your talk with the folks at the Reno Airport, a lot of our questions might be answered. I’ll be ready to fly out there if we have a name and are prepared to make an arrest.”

  “Is there anything I should be doing in the meantime?” Shaun Hansen asked.

  “Yeah. Our elusive killer might have a new identity. We think he’s made a change in the past, so maybe he felt the need to do so again. I don’t know how you look for something like that. You might also have the computers sort through all of the hotel reservations for a couple of days on either side of the shootings in San Francisco. Have them sort out anyone who lists a Reno or Sparks home address. Maybe something will stand out.”

  “What area should I search?”

  “I don’t know. Start with anything within fifteen miles of the city and see what pans out. Anyone who used a credit card with a mailing address located in Reno or Sparks would be of interest.”

  “How about Lake Tahoe?”

  “Why Tahoe?”

  “It isn’t that far from the Reno airport, and this guy seems to have money. There are a lot of people with money who live up there. Just a thought.”

  “Go ahead and add Tahoe. The computers work cheap. It’s really a long shot anyway. If they even stayed anywhere in the area, they might have paid their bill with cash, in which case the only record would be at the hotel. We simply don’t have the ability to hit every hotel in that kind of area for their old records.”

  Chapter 24

  Special Agent Jim Laney slammed the door of the agency sedan as he stepped out into the parking lot of the small private facility on the east side of the Reno/Tahoe International Airport. Agent Bob Thomas mimicked his actions on the driver’s side of the car. Bob Thomas had driven over the mountains to Reno and had met Laney at the airport earlier in the morning. Then they had driven to the FBO directly from the commercial airport on the other side of the runways.

  Laney and Thomas were very much opposites. Thomas was older, in his mid fifties, and was resigned to the fact that he would never advance to the upper tiers of the agency. He would be located in the field, most likely finishing out his career in Sacramento where he’d been for the past fifteen years. He was white, in reasonable shape, married with a pair of college age children, and more or less content. Laney, was in his late twenties, was black, and looked like a professional athlete. He was single, and a fast riser in the agency. He was based in D.C., and was one of those rare agents who frequently traveled to other cities. His assignment with Carlson was only one such assignment, and one he had sought after a chance meeting with Carlson one day on another matter.

  Thomas reached suddenly for his hat as another of the fierce gusts of wind blasted through the parking lot. Reno in October could be cold sometimes, and the winds off the not too distant mountains were frequently strong. Thomas watched as the wings of a large commercial jet waggled back and forth as the pilot fought to hold it level as he approached the landing runway. Thomas wouldn’t want to be flying today in one of the small planes he sometimes rented for pleasure flying.

  The two agents bent into the wind and started walking toward the small building. The facility was a sprawling one story building with the flight facility at one end and a Mexican restaurant at the other. They pushed through the double glass doors of the FBO, and stepped into the lobby. At one end was a small flight planning area, and in the larger open space were the operations desk which was currently manned, and an all glass back wall that looked out onto the runways in the distance. At the moment one younger man was in the planning area, looking at the charts and plotting his planned flight. Otherwise, the lobby was empty.

  As they walked toward the desk the sandy haired man looked up from something he was doing on the computer and smiled. “Can I help you?” he asked pleasantly, obviously recognizing they weren’t someone he knew or who used the facility before.

  Both agents pulled out their identification folders and flashed them at the man, who frowned upon seeing them.

  “FBI? What would bring the FBI here?” he asked.

  “We need to ask you some questions about one of
the planes that is based here and the pilot or pilots who fly it,” Jim Laney explained.

  “Which plane?”

  “The Cessna 400, the Corvalis TTX,” Laney replied. He provided the tail number.

  “Ah, Stan Mathews’ plane,” the man said, clearly familiar with the airplane. “Pilot,” he continued, “not pilots.”

  “What was the name again?”

  “Stan Mathews. Nice guy. Nice plane. It’s been here a long time. Flies it regularly, although a lot less this time of year. Was just in a few days ago actually. I wasn’t here, but Charlie said he went for a short flight.”

  “Can you describe what Mr. Mathews look like?”

  Agent Laney noted the details of the description in his notes as the man talked. Mathews clearly fit the general description of the man they thought they were seeking based on a series of poorly remembered descriptions from hotel owners around the country. The hair color seemed off, and there wasn’t enough detail that Laney would have been able to pick Mathews out of a lineup. He didn’t seem to have any particularly unique features. Perhaps if he could get a sketch artist to work with the man.

  “You said he was in recently?”

  “Just the other day. Went out for a short spin. Only a couple of hours according to the log. First time in a number of months. That’s the longest I can recall him not flying in a very long time.”

  That seemed to answer the question about whether the plane had been used to fly him to San Francisco a couple of weeks ago.

  “I’m going to want to see your records on the flight history of the airplane in a little bit, but first, do you happen to have an address or a credit card from Mr. Mathews?”

  “I’m sure we do. It would be required when he made arrangements to store his plane here. I’m just not sure I can release such information. Even to the FBI. I mean, could I end up being sued for doing so?”

  Laney smiled. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a couple of sheets of paper and handed them to the man.

  “This is a court order authorizing the release of information. Feel free to contact anyone you feel necessary, but I’m going to need to see those records today.”

  The man took the offered papers and paged through them.

  “Just a moment,” he said, and stepped back into a small office behind the counter. Laney could see him pick up a phone handset and make a call. After several minutes, he hung up, and stepped back outside, handing the papers back to Laney.

  “The owner says I’m to give you anything you ask. May I inquire if Mr. Mathews is in some kind of trouble? He doesn’t seem like the type. A nice guy. A hunter I think.”

  “A hunter?” Agent Thomas asked quickly.

  “Yes, I think so. Once or twice I observed him carrying what might have been a rifle case to his plane. We never talked about it. He was friendly enough, but always eager to get airborne.”

  While he was talking, the man had been busy at the keyboard of his computer. After a few moments he smiled and pressed a key, then stepped back to a printer and waited for the sheet to come out of the machine while it was warming up.

  “Here is the information he provided at the time he made arrangements to keep his plane here. It was more than five years ago, so something might have changed. We’ve had no reason to try and contact him, so we wouldn’t know. His bills are paid by his company promptly, and that’s all we care about.”

  Jim Laney looked at the printout. It listed a name, and address in Sparks, somewhere in Spanish Springs, a telephone number, and a credit card. It seemed almost too easy after everything that had come before.

  “What about the records on the plane; when it is here, when he takes it out, and so forth?”

  “We have the handwritten log and the computer transcript,” the man explained. “Which would you like to see?”

  “The computer version for now. It might be necessary to compare it to the written log at a later time.”

  “The computer version is easy. I can print out the specifics relating to just Mr. Mathews’ plane.”

  Moments later Laney had several sheets that contained the complete history of the vehicle as far as the FBO was concerned. They didn’t know where it had gone when it left, only the departures and arrival times, and a history of fuel purchased as well as a couple of maintenance issues.

  After a few more questions, Laney asked Thomas to take him out to look at the plane. It was clearly a notch above some of the other vehicles parked at the facility.

  “Cessna’s fastest plane,” Bob Thomas explained, as they looked at the vehicle. “Speed, range, it must be nice to fly,” he said with a touch of envy.

  “I’d like to get a team inside it,” Jim Laney said. “Maybe afterwards. If this address information pans out, we might have our guy. Then we can get a court order, although I don’t know what to expect after all this time.”

  “Nothing?” Jim Laney said into the phone as he sat on the bed in his hotel room a few hours later. Part of him wasn’t surprised. He and Bob Thomas had driven to the address listed on the sheet of paper to discover it was a boarding house. No one there had ever heard of Stan Mathews.

  “The credit card links back to the same corporation that owns the plane,” Susan Carlson explained to Laney. “There are records of a pilot’s license, issued in Las Vegas by the way, to Mr. Mathews. Nothing that traces him any farther. The card has never been used for anything other than paying for the plane and its upkeep. The bills are paid automatically, with the requests being sent to an offshore bank. No need to use the invalid address given to the FBO. The phone is also listed to the corporation, and appears to be currently out of service. It hasn’t shown on the company’s tracking system for over a year. I suspect the battery has been removed so it can’t be tracked. I think our Mr. Mathews has planned ahead for this.”

  “Maybe we should get an order and look in the plane. Maybe we can find fingerprints?”

  “Let’s wait and think this out. If he’s been this careful, I wouldn’t be surprised he has been careful in that regard as well. At least this subterfuge suggests we have found the right person. Since he doesn’t know we have located him and his plane, maybe we need to wait and watch for him to return. If we could arrest him as he tries to use the plane, we might have everything we need.”

  “Who knows when that will be,” objected Jim Laney. “According to the man here, he hasn’t flown but once in the last three months, and tends to use it far less in the winter months. It’s been cold here of late, and they might be getting an early winter.”

  “Understood,” Carlson said. “Let’s think about how we might approach this.”

  Chapter 25

  Jake peered out the window to see what it was like outside. The thermometer outside his kitchen window said it was forty-two degrees. The sky was clear and the sun, although weak, was shining brightly in a nearly cloudless sky. A bit of wind had cleared out the snow clouds earlier. It was a whole lot nicer than it had been a few short hours ago. They had received a dusting of snow here on the eastern edge of Sparks. Jake was certain that there had been a lot more in northwest Reno, which was closer to the mountains. Probably at least two inches. Fortunately this had been a typical snow. It had fallen in the morning, and was already melted, or sublimated, away. Only in a couple of deeply shaded spots could he see evidence that a little remained. A quick check on the NOAA website had indicated nothing in the forecast for the rest of the week. Jake trusted that as much as he would a Ouija board. The predict could be very different by later tonight or tomorrow.

  It was already November. It was now more than six weeks since the incident in San Francisco. There was no longer any news of the matter. That had been overcome by events weeks ago. Jake had to assume there was an open file in existence out there somewhere, but the simple reality was that since nothing had come of it by now, nothing would. Nate had finally lost the residual tenseness and worry that they would end up in jail. He’d done well, but his friend’s worry was one mor
e reason that Jake didn’t really want to involve his friends in what he was doing, despite Nate’s claim he would do something like it again if the circumstances arose.

  For the most part the past few weeks had been a quiet time. There had been no major events to prompt a response from him. That was good, as it helped the rift between himself and Karin settle. He owed Cheryl a huge favor for all that she had done in that regard. She and Karin had become frequent companions, and Cheryl had slowly and carefully helped adjust Karin’s view of Jake’s activities. He and Karin talked frequently now, and had even started going out again. Last weekend she had spent the night. He had hopes that she was coming around and hopefully accepting what he felt compelled to do. There had even been discussions on the matter between them while they sat around in the evening.

  “Where do you draw the line?” she’d asked.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Suppose a group of mountain climbers elect to tackle a dangerous mountain peak, and they end up killed. Do you feel obligated to try and warn them of the outcome of their planned excursion?”

  “No. That’s free choice. They elected to take the risk. I can’t try and be responsible for what happens to everyone. It’s the innocent who have their lives taken by the act of someone else that I feel a need to respond to.”

  “But you saved those two boys last summer. That was their choice or at least their own actions that put them at risk?”

  “Their stupidity. It’s not a firm line, and I can’t always justify why one situation compels me to act more than another.”

  “Do you ever wonder if you have the right to be changing things?”

  “I don’t believe that anything is preordained. If a cop was present for many of the situations I’ve reacted to, he would have tried to change the outcome. I see my actions the same as his, except I have a unique ability allowing me to respond retroactively.”