by Gregg Loomis
Inside, Mary Jo, the receptionist, looked up at him. With pictures of her grandchildren on her desk, she felt safe in flirting with every flyer that came her way. "Well, well, it's Burt Sanders," she cackled. "Come to take me to some deserted isle in his wonderful flying machine. Hold on just a minute, Burt. I gotta go get my contraceptive kit."
Burt smiled sheepishly, still not used to her ribald humor. "actually, it's something a lot less fun, Mary Jo. You got a G-S based here or transient with numbers ending in four-six Alpha? Mebbe one with problems with the readout on the digital altimeter?"
She looked at him over the top of rimless glasses. "I can tell you flat out, we got no such animal. Your§, your foundation's plane, is the only G-S we service. Other two on the field use someone else, that other FBO." She sniffed as though personally affronted, as indeed she was. "Now, about you 'n' me takin' a little trip..,,"
Burt retreated as gracefully as possible. "I'll ask the boss, Mary Jo. Thanks."
He got back into the Honda, still uncertain what, if anything, he should do. He was already turning onto I-20 when two things jumped out of his memory to hit him like a pair of mental sledgehammers: The man in the hangar had been carrying something resembling a toolbox. Sophisticated avionics weren't repaired like a car, where the mechanic climbed under the hood. The offending equipment was removed from the aircraft and repaired and tested on the bench at the repair facility. Second, the maintenance ladder, the one used during periodic inspections or repairs to reach the higher parts of the aircraft, had been moved across the hangar.
To do what he said he'd come to do, take the altimeter out, the man would only need a couple of Phillips head screwdrivers, not a tool kit.
So, what was in the tool kit?
The digital altimeter was accessible from the instrument panel in the cockpit, which you entered after walking up steps and into the passenger cabin.
So why was the ladder moved?
When in doubt, pass the problem up the line. Burt fumbled his cell phone out of his pocket and punched in a number from memory.
A few minutes later, Lang Reilly was staring at the telephone on his desk as though reproaching it for the problem. The chief pilot had quite possibly prevented someone from tampering with the foundation's G-5. The man had been suspicious initially, enough to return to the hangar, where he found, once again, it was unlocked after he had secured it.
No, there had been no signs anyone had been tinkering with something. But then, an expert would hardly leave smudges of dirty fingerprints on the instrument panel.
Lang sighed as he thumbed through a well-worn personal directory and dialed the number for FAA Security at Charlie Brown. He explained what had happened to a disembodied recording and then touched the number the machine designated to speak with a flesh-and-blood representative of the FAA. The result was as predictable as it was frustrating: canned music interspersed with assurances of his call's importance and the Agency's intent to deal with the problem as soon as someone became available.
Reilly could feel his blood pressure rise. What could he expect from a government who considered general aviation security to be a wire fence with a gate that opened by punching in four digits? Admittedly, most general aviation aircraft weren't going to bring down another World Trade Center, but the Gulfstream was nearly as large as an airliner.
He hung up.
Opening his center desk drawer, he reached in to release the catch on the false back and groped around until he found what he was looking for. He put it on the desk, a disk made to screw into the speaker part of most pay phone receivers. It was one of the few toys he had taken from the Agency, a random modulator that made a voice over a telephone impossible to identify, either by a listener or a voice-wave measuring device. He put it in his pocket and walked out of the office for the elevators. There were three pay phones in the building's lobby.
Slightly less than a half hour later, Sara-stood in the doorway, clearly perplexed. "Lang, there's a man on the phone wants to speak with you, an emergency. Says he's with the Transport Safety Administration. We have any business with…?"
Lang put down the file he had been reading and suppressed a grin. "I'll take it."
The Transport Safety Administration, another of the alphabet-soup bureaus that had sprouted like weeds after 9/11. This one's principal purpose seemed to be to harass commercial air travelers while refusing to conduct politically incorrect searches of profiled persons from places that spawned terrorism. Better to let a bearded, wild-eyed mullah in flowing robes through security and frisk an eighty-year-old grandmother than risk the ire of the liberal media.
The TSA had taken heat lately from the number of fake bombs journalists had slipped by it, incursions into "restricted" areas, and items stolen from baggage.
Like any government entity, Lang figured, this one would catapult itself into an opportunity for favorable publicity.
"Lang Reilly," he said as he picked up the phone. "What might I do for my government today?"
Lang was at the hangar in twenty minutes, watching a swarm of uniformed agents buzz like bees protecting a hive. Each inspection plate was carefully removed by FM-certified airframe and power-plant mechanics, and the cowling was being removed from both engines. Several ladders rested against various parts of the fuselage.
The chief pilot, Burt Sanders, saw Lang and came over, a worried expression on his face. "I hope they can get the plane back together in time for the next flight."
Lang turned to watch two German shepherd dogs sniff the landing gear as a uniformed agent stood on tiptoe to peer into a wheel well. "Better to be a little late than take a chance."
Burt was wide-eyed. "I don't understand, Mr. Reilly. If somebody put a bomb on the plane, why would they turn around and make an anonymous call to report it?"
Lang shifted his weight, his hands behind his back. "Oh, I'd guess some organization we turned down for a grant got pissed, and somebody decided a bomb hoax would be a way of getting even."
"But what about the guy who was in the hangar?" Burt was nervous, afraid he'd somehow get blamed for whatever bad might happen. "I mean, I'm careful to lock up every time I leave-honest."
Lang put a reassuring hand on the young man's shoulder. "I'm surprised you don't guard it twenty-four/seven, careful as you are. No doubt in my mind you locked up."
"But how…" A large uniformed black man wearing a TSA windbreaker approached. "Mr. Reilly? Step over here, please." Lang and Burt followed to the base of a ladder resting against the rear of the aircraft. The man pointed, looking at Burt. "You might want to take a look."
Lang watched Burt climb the ladder and peer into the small hole created by the removal of an inspection plate. Even from the floor, Lang could see the pilot's face go white. "Oh, shit!"
Lang arched a questioning eyebrow at Burt. The pilot's legs were-less than steady as he climbed back down. "Main control cable, one to the horizontal stabilizer," Burt managed with difficulty. "It's all corroded."
"Logbook shows the aircraft had a hundred-hour inspection less than two months ago," the TSA man said. "That cable couldn't corrode that fast." Lang was becoming as uncomfortable as his pilot. "Unless?"
The government man shook his head. "Not sure. There was an odor, though, soon as the A amp; E pulled the plate. That's what made him call me over."
"Give me a swag, some wild-ass guess," Lang said evenly.
The TSA man took one look at the anger burning in Lang's eyes, the threat he seemed to express without words, and decided this was a man who wasn't going to accept the usual government-speak nonsense. He made a most ungovernment like decision to exceed his authority. "Can't be sure, but I'd make a personal guess it was some sort of acid."
"Acid?" Lang was puzzled.
Burt, still looking like he might be ill any moment, nodded. Acid eats almost through the cable. Leaves enough connection to respond to the controls during preflight, then snaps."
"And then?" Lang asked.
"Hor
izontal stabilizer controls altitude, nose up, nose down. If it went out on takeoff, say, we couldn't lift the nose of the plane to get into the air; we'd crash off the end of the runway."
Lang's knowledge of aeronautics was basic at best. "I thought the air speed controlled when the plane left the ground."
"It does, but unless the plane lifts off, it would just increase velocity until it hit something. Even if the horizontal stabilizer held for takeoff, we'd be unable to climb. For that matter, we couldn't lift the nose on landing, either."
Once again, the TSA man beckoned. "Come with me."
Lang guessed he was used to being obeyed.
Lang spoke to Burt. "Make sure she's properly buttoned up, will you?"
''You can count on it."
Lang followed the man to what he guessed were the airport's administrative offices. In one room, six people were watching a television monitor of Lang's hangar. He had not seen the camera. If there was doubt in Lang's mind that they were all some species of cop, the letters on various windbreakers dispelled them: FBI, ATF, US Marshal, Treasury Department. The only departments missing seemed to be Health and Human Services and the IRS.
A woman, middle-aged and probably once attractive, extended a hand with a badge in it. "Sheila Burns, Special Agent, FBI."
All agents-were "Special Agents" unless they were "Special Agent in Charge" or some other derivation. It had been a subject of humor at the Agency. Lang said nothing, waiting for her to continue.
He wasn't disappointed. "An attempt to sabotage your aircraft, Mr. Reilly. That's a federal crime." Her words capitalized the offense. "Just as effective as a bomb, with the added benefit of maybe passing as an accident."
"Any ideas?" a man from the Marshal's Department asked without introduction. Burns silenced him with a glare. Obviously, she was the chief honcho on the investigation.
She asserted her authority by asking, "Know somebody who'd want you or the executives of your foundation dead?"
"No."
She glanced around the room, making sure she was asking the questions Lang knew they had all agreed upon before he got here. He was well familiar with interrogation by committee. "The Holt Foundation was chartered as a charity a little less than a year ago, right?"
Lang had been wrong. The IRS was here, just not in person. That left Health and Human Services.
"That's correct. We fund programs to provide pediatric care in undeveloped countries."
"Do you mind telling us the source of that funding?"
"Our sources are confidential."
Not entirely a lie. The Pegasus organization would hardly want its identity known.
Burns's eyes narrowed, the equivalent of a horse laying its ears back or a dog growling. Law-enforcement agencies assumed that any information withheld was incriminating. Privacy was a bothersome subterfuge of the guilty.
"You know I can find out." Lang gave her a smile with no humor in it. "Be my guest."
The labyrinth of foreign banks, dummy companies, and assumed identities would take an army of accountants to unravel. Well, a regiment at least.
A half hour of evading further questions left the FBI agent frustrated and Lang mentally fatigued. He could have gone on, however. Agency training included aggressive interrogation, a course its students referred to as "creative obfuscation." This woman was a sweetie compared to the instructors under whom Lang had suffered. His training had also included ascertaining exactly what the person asking the questions did and didn't know from the line of inquiry. Same, similar, and re-asked questions made it clear to him that the Feds suspected the foundation was into something other than charity work. Exactly what, he was fairly certain, they had no idea.
She was clearly winding down, asking, "You're a lawyer, right?"
She made it sound like an accusation.
Lang was tired of standing, but he understood asking to sit would be interpreted as a sign he was weakening. Actually, it was a sign his new toe caps hurt. "That's right."
"No wonder we can't get a straight answer," said an anonymous voice from the back of the room. Lawyer-bashing, a sport even government bureaucrats could play.
Special Agent Burns sounded like she had just discovered his darkest secret. She pounced. "So you're used to interrogation procedures."
"That's what lawyers do, ask witnesses questions." There was a snicker from the back of the room that drew a dagger like stare from the FBI woman.
A few more questions and he was told to go, excused like an unruly child from after-school detention. Since no one had a clue as to the source of the attempted sabotage, he, Lang, was the convenient suspect, he was sure, although it was unclear why an extremely wealthy charitable foundation would want to destroy either a multimillion-dollar aircraft or the executives who flew on it.
Lang did have an idea, though he wasn't about to share it. So far, it had no name, no face. But it was linked to Don Huff. First Lang's car, then his foundation's plane. What was next, the thirty-story building in which he lived? Finding Don's killer had become very personal. Personal and a matter of life and death.
Lang's life and death.
CHAPTER TEN
Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Delta Crown Room, Concourse B
The next day
Gurt was sipping a beer, her eyes wandering across the crowded room. "Explain again why we are going to Chicago."
Lang was stirring sweetener into a cup of flavorless coffee. "These people, whoever they are, obviously have someone watching."
Gurt waited for the wail of a nearby infant to subside rather than raise her voice. "Obviously?"
Resigned to the fact that he was going to add-no taste other than sweet to his beverage, Lang took a sip and grimaced. "First, they know I usually park and pick up the Porsche myself. How many residents you think pay the same fees I do and still fetch their own car?"
Gurt shrugged. "Those who do not need wheelchairs or walkers?" The building had a fair percentage of what management euphemistically referred to as "seniors."
Lang was uncertain if Gurt was serious or making a joke. It was hard to tell with Germans. "Actually, almost everyone, old or young, uses the valet car service. Whoever planted the bomb knew I didn't. They also knew I was going to use the Gulfstream for this trip."
Gurt set her glass down. "Or were willing to wait until your next flight in it."
"Possible," Lang conceded, "but I don't think so. The acid would have completely eaten through that cable in a day or two, and then the sabotage would have been detected." He frowned. "Of course, that's why we're flying commercially now, so the plane can be completely torn down and inspected, make sure there are no more surprises waiting."
Gurt stood and went to refresh her beer. Admiring glances from men and jealous ones from women followed her like the wake of a ship.
She returned with a glass in one hand and a paper cup of snacks in the other. "Did you ever consider that was what these people wanted you to do, fly the airlines? It would be much easier to know your wheneabouts."
"Whereabouts."
"Whatever."
The implication that he was being manipulated was disturbing. "Why would they do that? I mean, if the cable had parted, they would have succeeded."
"Only if killing you was what they wanted," Gurt said.
She took a sip and made a face as though she had bitten into something tart. "To call this beer is to advertise falsely."
''You say that about every American beer."
"It is true with every American beer."
"If they wanted to know where we were going, all they had to do would be call up the international flight plan that has to be filed with the FAA. I'm pretty sure they're more interested in making sure whatever we found in Spain stays a secret. Problem is, what did we find?"
Falsely advertised or not, she took another drink, this time without the face. "It is also a simple matter, is it not, to chop into the electric files of either the airline or credit card
company and see what your flight reservations are?"
They both knew the answer. Even with the technology available when Lang was with the Agency, obtaining the passenger manifests of any carrier had been simple. In fact, the lists of Iron Curtain airlines were routinely scrutinized.
Cooling had not improved the taste of Lang's coffee. He put the cup down, pushing it away in unconscious rejection. "We can't keep our destination secret, but we can make sure no one is actually following us by taking an indirect route."
Primary instruction at The Farm, the Agency's training facility in the Virginia countryside.
Gurt finished her beer, shot a look at the bar, and decided against another. "Why would they follow us if they know where we are flying?"
Lang leaned across the table. "They might not, but an indirect route might very well make them think we believed we were evading them." He proffered two sets of tickets. "Take a look."
Gurt frowned, squinting at the small type. "But these…" She grinned. "The shuffle is on again?"
He nodded.
Lang's eyes felt as though they had sand in them, and his lids weighed a ton each. Sleep had evaded him on the flight from Chicago to Paris. It was as if his subconscious kept him awake in the belief that, should an emergency occur at 35,000 feet, he could do something about it if sufficiently alert. Tired of the novel he had brought along, he tried to get interested in the in-flight movie. A childish comedy sufficiently sanitized by the airline to offend no passenger, it had also been leeched of any entertainment value.
Idly, his mind wandered. How many times had he crossed the ocean? At least once or twice a year while he was with the Agency. Then there had been that trip with his wife, Dawn.
The memory was weighted with sadness. Dawn, bright and cheerful, had been only too happy to work while Lang attended law school after leaving government service. After all, the law practice would mean she would have her husband home at night instead of excuses phoned from undisclosed places. He would succeed, she was certain.