Hard Fall

by Ridley Pearson

  “With smaller aircraft, the light winds we’re talking about would certainly have made a difference. Not so with something this size. It all comes down to thrust, gravity, ground speed, and flaps. It’s entirely predictable. Avionics is an exact science—that’s what I’m telling you. If we can land an unmanned space probe on the dark side of Mars—a project Duhning was proud to be part of—we had better be able to predict the flight pattern of a commercial carrier one minute into flight!”

  “But why?” Daggett asked. Barnes stared at him. How was he going to sell Pullman—and worse, Mumford—something like this? This was the type of thing you kept to yourself until you understood it. He broke his silence. “What about Ward? I know he was in Simulation—I understand that much. But what end of things? With a new aircraft like the 959, someone would have to train the new pilots, wouldn’t they?”

  “That’s correct. The pilots have to be recertified for the 959 before they fly it. It’s the same with any new aircraft.”

  “And if they all learn from the same guy, then essentially, during takeoff let’s say, they’re all going to perform about the same way as whoever taught them, aren’t they?”

  “That follows logically, yes. I can see that.”

  “And Ward—I know he was trained an engineer, but the pictures on his office walls—he was a pilot, too, wasn’t he?”

  “Many of us are pilots.”

  “But he flew jets.”

  “That’s not unusual either. Jets are what Duhning builds.”

  “But my point is: There have only been what, twenty, twenty-five pilots through the program so far—I read that in one of the reports. You haven’t sold all that many planes yet.”

  “Twenty-seven aircraft,” Barnes said, interrupting and correcting the number, “is a significant production, I can assure you.”

  Daggett ignored it. “Who was in charge of training those people who then trained the pilots? That would be one of the engineers, wouldn’t it be? That would be someone familiar with the new aircraft. Someone like Roger Ward. Ward was in charge of training,” he stated. “Ward was Duhning’s expert on flying the 959.”

  Barnes adjusted his glasses and flipped through some papers. A moment later, reading, he shook his head and then looked up.

  He offered Daggett a puzzled, ironic expression, and then his first smile of the day. “And just exactly how did you know that, Mr. Dagger?”

  10

  * * *

  Monique downshifted and followed the signs for the Beltway. It was the safest place for a meeting. The car purred so softly and sensually that Anthony Kort, who sat stoically in the seat beside her smoking a nonfilter, wasn’t sure if it was the car or the woman making that titillating sound. She wore a sleeveless, soft pink cotton cable-knit suit with matching flats, glossy pink lipstick, and no other makeup that he could see. She glowed in her pink, the brilliant sunlight washing her in a smoky mist. She was radiant and composed. Strong and confident. He wanted her now. Right here.

  Kort set the cigarette down, unfastened his seat belt, and slipped his hand under her pullover.

  She hummed contentedly and reached over to stroke him.

  His hand roamed the soft warm skin of her chest and then wandered lower, finding her knee, the edge of the skirt, and finally sneaking up underneath. He knew he was on safe ground. Monique liked it wild. She grinned and parted her legs. His fingers reached the top of her silk hose where he encountered a garter belt—he loved garter belts—and just beyond, her intense warmth, like a furnace.

  “Later,” she said, gently closing her legs and trapping his hand. It was a tease. Typical of her.

  He freed his hand and worked on the cigarette. “So what about the Greek,” he asked. “Tell me.”

  His efforts were useless without the Greek, a complete stranger, whose motives came into question. The Greek’s front as a restaurateur/caterer covered his true business of corporate espionage. He was believed to have an extensive network of people on his payroll, some pressured into supplying information, some, like the Greek himself, motivated by money. For a fee, he could procure the architecture of Intel’s latest chip circuitry, or the number of plant closures and layoffs anticipated by General Motors in the fourth quarter. He could tell you which Big Swinging Dick on Wall Street had a drug problem, or the voting patterns of a particular board of directors. He was in the information business; it had been the Greek who provided them with Roger Ward and Kevin Dougherty. Kort now relied on him for the exact date of the “secret” meeting. He found his reliance on an outsider repugnant, but at this late date saw little way around it.

  In this regard, Monique served a useful purpose as a go-between. A buffer in case the Greek intended to sell Kort to the authorities. Also, communicating with the Greek involved a computer bulletin board and most of that technology had passed him by. Monique had her place as a pawn.

  Still, he had to wonder: Was the fall of Der Grund coincidence, or had the Greek found a way to double his profits?

  He could feel her reluctance to tell him whatever it was she had to tell him, and it annoyed him. “Well?”

  She drove a little faster. He wasn’t used to having no destination. It unsettled him. She said, “The message was that he does not have the date. The name you want, but not the date. The date has been changed, and he has no way to find out what it is.”

  “Impossible!” Kort hollered.

  “I am only telling you what the message said.”

  “Impossible,” he repeated. “We paid him.” The date of the meeting was critical to his success. Without it … “I must speak with him. It must be as soon as possible. You will arrange it.” Then he reconsidered. “No, no. That’s no good. He must not know. He might sell me off to someone.” He couldn’t keep his thoughts clear. Compartments came open without his consent, flooding him with mental noise. He rolled down the window. It helped.

  Several minutes passed. Kort smoked a cigarette, and then another. He tried to clear his head. “I’ve just had an idea,” she said from behind the wheel. He didn’t want to hear her ideas; he wanted time to think.

  He glanced over at her; her eyes sparkled with excitement. He misunderstood it, thinking she was going to talk sex. The way she lost focus on what really mattered infuriated him. She said in a low, fierce half-whisper, “There is to be a reception next week hosted by the airline lobbyists. It is to celebrate tougher security standards at airports. Not your favorite cause, but, of course, as vice-president of In-Flite, I am invited. Everyone in the industry will be there. And, if you desire, so will the Greek,” she stated. “I can arrange it.”

  He looked puzzled and she added, “A very good friend is organizing the event. It is an elaborate international cuisine. The Greek is not only a restaurateur, but also a caterer, is that not so?”

  He nodded, intrigued by the suggestion. Risky, he thought, but perhaps worth the try.

  “I can arrange for him to cater the Greek food at the reception. It will be no problem. We will attend—you as my guest. You get your surprise meeting with him on neutral ground. What do you think? Are you up to it?” Her face was glowing. He could smell her perfume, even over the cigarette smoke. He had underestimated her.

  “I love Greek food,” he said.

  11

  * * *

  “Where’s Carrie?” Duncan asked his father, wheeling his way to the kitchen table. The question interrupted Daggett’s current train of thought, which didn’t involve Carrie.

  It bothered him that in this era of moon shots and microchips, bullet trains and automatic tellers, there were so few wheelchair-accessible dwellings available within commuting distance of the nation’s capital. He didn’t like this house much. The floor plan was strangely cut up—“for heating reasons,” Carrie had explained when leasing him the place—the rooms too small, the floor plan a rat’s maze. The house had been remodeled by an elderly couple, the wife chair-bound with arthritis, a pair who evidently found it difficult to stay warm and to
pay the electric bills, thus the small rooms. But the light switches were set appropriately low, as were the room thermostats; the halls and passageways were four feet wide, the doors three feet six, and there were ramps where needed. It made life easier for Duncan—of primary importance to his father.

  The outside of the house was white aluminum siding with fake black shutters that, if you came too close, looked cheap. The fake chimney, a poorly built chase of faux-brick vinyl and wallboard, really irritated him. Of all things! Why such pretense? The only explanation seemed to be that every other house on the block had a chimney. Despite his problems with the place, he knew Carrie was right: a house is made a home by the people in it, its personality determined by the inhabitants.

  “She didn’t stay over,” Daggett answered.

  “How come?”

  “You want to know why?” Daggett asked. He and Duncan were always honest with each other. “Because she’s mad at me for working so much. For promising I’ll do things and then not following through. For leaving you alone so much of the time.”

  “Like Mom,” the son said. It was an observation for him—a memory—nothing more, but it devastated his father.

  Daggett suddenly saw himself as a man doomed to repeat his mistakes, despite his better intentions. He wanted to blame fate, but knew better. He admitted, “She thinks you spend too much time with Mrs. Kiyak and not enough with me—or actually the other way around, that I don’t spend enough time with you.”

  “Sometimes you do,” Duncan said, and the truth again stung Daggett. Carrie was right. That hurt him even more.

  “Mrs. Kiyak’s okay,” his son said lamely, his lack of enthusiasm driving yet another spike through Daggett’s heart. “Sometimes she smells really weird. Old people smell weird.”

  “You like her, don’t you?” Daggett asked in a tone that forced the boy to agree. Patterns. He used the same technique with Carrie, though with less effect. He was thinking about Lynn, again. Wondering how much she had to do with Carrie’s absence. Wondering why she dominated his thoughts. Could he use the investigation as an excuse to call? Did he dare tell her that since their reunion he had heard her voice behind him, had seen a piece of her in every woman he passed on the street? That he was haunted by the memory of a few fleeting hours of happiness, and that he laughed aloud when he recalled the image of the fireman being knocked down by the horse?

  “School starts in a couple days,” Duncan said, avoiding an answer.

  When they had both finished breakfast, Duncan backed up the chair—Daggett’s cue to open the back door. The two went outside into the small backyard and the chin-up bar.

  Duncan urged, “All you have to do is sign the form. Couldn’t you lie, just once?”

  “You’re making headway, Dunc. You’re doing just fine.”

  Duncan clasped the bar tightly and pulled with all his strength, arms quivering. He made two pull-ups easily, but trembled at the third. He needed five to qualify for the canoe trip. Daggett wanted to shove his hands beneath the boy’s arms and cheat him up. But only if requested—that was the rule. After several long seconds, Duncan said, “Okay.”

  Daggett felt the warmth of his son between his hands. He assisted, but avoided doing the work for him, feeding him the cold steel bar gradually until it graced the fine hairs of his chin. It would not be too many years before those hairs would be whiskers. Time, the common enemy. The last tryout for the Indian summer canoe trip would be held in just three weeks. By then they needed all five pull-ups. It wasn’t much time. Daggett hoisted the boy again, and again. He’d give anything to see the boy qualify. Duncan’s arms shook like rubber but he managed six in a row—assisted.

  “That’s good work,” Daggett said.

  Duncan slapped down into the chair, smiling.

  Daggett wanted to hug him. He said, “Weights and pushups will help.”

  “We’re getting there, Dad. I know I can do this.”

  “Damn right.”

  “Have another cup of coffee,” the boy instructed. “I’ll try some on my own.”

  “Just holler,” Daggett said, hesitating before heading inside, preparing himself to sit by the window and pray for miracles.

  The same every morning.

  Just before lunch, Daggett and Bradley Levin took the FBI shuttle van to the Hoover Building, where they were briefed by a lab technician on the variety of trace evidence discovered inside the Dodge Caravan that had been rented by Maryanne Lyttle in Los Angeles on the day of the crash. As occasionally happened, the results of that work had been erroneously sent to the lab at the Hoover Building rather than directly to Daggett at Buzzard Point. This time the error happened to yield some benefits. Daggett and Levin received a full, expert briefing. As predicted, the van had not been cleaned very thoroughly, which meant that the scientific scrutiny undergone by the LAFO forensics squad had reaped a good deal of microscopic evidence. “You play racquetball, Ohio?” Daggett asked as the two entered the basement corridor in the Hoover Building that led to the loading bay where they would wait for the return shuttle.

  “You bet.”

  “You doing anything for lunch?”

  “Whipping your ass.”

  Twenty minutes later they were suited up. Daggett stuffed his briefcase into a crammed locker and forced the door closed, then locked it.

  Levin said, “You sleep with that thing, Michigan?”

  “Backman had a slight problem of confusing authorship of good ideas. He seemed to think they were all his.” He pointed to the locker. “Conditioning, I’m afraid.”

  The back wall of the court facing the viewing seats was sealed in heavy Plexiglas, which Daggett appreciated because you could talk in here without concern of being overheard. Early on in the game, as his blood began to circulate, his brain came alive again. Meetings tended to numb him.

  Levin proved a good player. The shots came fast and hard. Levin served the first game and was winning four to one when Daggett reviewed the case, hoping to distract him. “We’re assuming Ward’s killer took a train from Portland to L.A. Not a plane. What’s it tell us about him?”

  Levin played out the point, winning it, and then answered. “He’s probably carrying a piece. Maybe an entire arsenal. Trains are safer.”

  Daggett jumped all over the next serve and won the point. As he approached the box he said, “I mean about the man. What about him? I don’t know about you, Ohio, but the way I work … I could give a shit what kind of gun a guy’s carrying. My concern is what kind of mind is controlling the finger that’s on the trigger of that gun. See? This guy orders a pair of pliers from room service and yanks his own wisdom tooth in his hotel room. Now that tells me something. The blood type on the tooth, that’s pertinent to the case, sure it is; it may prove useful at some point. But that’s not really what interests me. You see what I’m saying?”

  Levin didn’t answer. Daggett served. Levin swung and missed. Good. Three, four. He served again; they had a tremendous rally and Levin won the point. Oh well.

  “Maybe he doesn’t like flying,” Levin said, midpoint, a point he subsequently won. “Maybe that’s why he puked inside the simulator.”

  “Good!” Daggett shouted loudly inside the small court. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  “If I were in his line of business, I might have a fear of flying myself.”

  “Anything more?” he encouraged. Levin won a string of points. Daggett tried to concentrate on the ball. Levin was proving a little too good.

  “He’s patient,” Levin said between serves.

  Daggett allowed the serve to bounce away from the corner without even swinging for it, which won Levin’s attention. “Patient to the point of being cool. Even chilly. Fucking stone cold, is more like it.”

  “Brass balls.”

  Daggett added, “That’s a long time stuck on a train, well aware the body you left behind has probably been found. It would drive me crazy, I can tell you that. If I thought someone might be after me, a train is t
he last place I would want to be.”

  “Maybe he didn’t have any choice. Maybe his acrophobia is so bad he can’t fly at all.”

  “Maybe.” The next few points went to Levin as well. Daggett won one finally and then served several winners. “What do you make of all the trace evidence we just heard about?”

  “Make of it?” Levin asked, looking for some guidance.

  “Yes,” Daggett replied, giving none.

  After the point Levin answered. “The brown hair on the driver’s headrest was from a healthy woman. Oil content indicates it’s real hair which is nice for us because our Miss Lyttle is a brunette, and that fits. Red hairs in the back were from a wig. Probably him. Dougherty remembered him as a redhead. Because smart operatives seldom do the driving, she’d be in the driver’s seat, and the operative in the shotgun or in the back. We have the cigarette ash in the seat fabric to support that. Same chemical composition as the ash from the cigarette butts you found in that parking lot. Pullman wants evidence … there’s a match. No pun intended.”

  “And there’s the Anbesol,” Daggett reminded. “The fact that those were fresh spills helps us.”

  “Which further supports my theory that he made a mess of the extraction and that tooth is still bothering him.”

  “Agreed. Score a point for you.”

  At the mention of points they went back to the game. Levin won by a considerable margin. “Chalk up one for Ohio State,” he crowed. Goaded to a frenzy, Daggett jumped to an early and commanding lead in the following game. For the glory of Big Blue. He fought hard, but to his dismay Levin staged an exasperating comeback and won.

  “Another?” Daggett asked.

  “I’ll play if that’s what you want. What is it about you Michigan guys? You never know when to quit.”

  Just right. Cocky. Defiant. Independent within the framework of loyalty. Daggett handed Levin the ball, raised his racquet, and stepped into the corner ready for the younger man’s best shot.