Fly by Night

by Ward Larsen

  Green watched for half an hour as the airplane spun round and round. He waited patiently, expecting the data block to start flashing some kind of warning, expecting the altitude readout to start spinning down like a car odometer getting tripped to zero. But that never happened. The airplane just kept flying, boring a pattern of oval holes in an empty sky. Finally, Air Sahara 007 turned toward Khartoum International, began a slow glide down, and settled to what looked like a pretty nice landing.

  “What the hell?” Green muttered.

  Had the Navy sent the data for the wrong day? And what had the airplane been doing? If the crew had really been performing some kind of maintenance test flight, there was no need to go out and fly circles over the water. The airplane would have just taken off, done a quick circuit over the home drome, then landed. But it was the pattern that really put Green’s thoughts into a spin. It reminded him of missions he’d done himself, a long time ago in an F-15 over the Gulf of Mexico—radar test work with a captive-carry air-to-air missile. That was what it looked like, a test pattern to gather data. Only the DC-3 was a seventy-year-old airplane, and an airplane that old didn’t have much left to test.

  No, Green thought, none of it made sense. Not one bit.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  His shirt went into the trash, but the pants were salvageable.

  Back in his room, Davis hit the shower. The water was even warmer than this morning, but did the job—a tiny cyclone of brown mud and grit swirled at his feet. He dried himself with two tiny towels and donned fresh clothes before easing down on the bed with the paperwork Antonelli had given him. Davis was not, by nature, a patient man. In a big investigation he would have had help with this part of the inquiry, a small army of experienced people to help weed through records and documents. The only help he was getting here—a seven-thousand-mile phone link to his boss and an Italian doctor with a honey-do list.

  The papers were load manifests. Every bit of cargo carried on an airplane had to be weighed and its position noted. This was critical because an airplane’s center of gravity had to remain within certain limits, everything added up as if on an apothecary’s balance scale. But the manifest had other purposes as well. Customs officers liked to see what was coming into their country. Hazardous materials had to be listed so that first responders knew what they were dealing with in an emergency. Copies of the papers Davis held were on file in lot of different cabinets. The airline. The people who did the loading. The people who did the receiving. Any number of government agencies in between. Chances were, all the copies were the same, but with a company like FBN Aviation you never knew. So Davis took a good close look.

  He saw roughly twenty load sheets covering five months of shipments to Antonelli’s aid organization. In truth, he would rather have seen the departure manifests—what had gone out. He’d like to find a load sheet originating at Khartoum International that said: CARGO: U.S. BLACKSTAR DRONE (1) SLIGHTLY DAMAGED. DESTINATION: CHINA. That was what Davis needed. Black-and-white proof so he could go home and call it a day.

  What he had was a line-by-line inventory of inbound cargo. He found a lot of the things one would expect. Medical supplies, batteries, bulk food, construction materials. But there were also surprises. A Harley-Davidson Softail, a Thoroughbred racehorse, two crystal chandeliers. In one load: a two-thousand-gallon hot tub, nineteen cases of Irish whiskey, and forty thousand condoms. A dictator somewhere was planning a hell of a party.

  Davis was halfway through August when he hit pay dirt, four consecutive entries that seemed to jump off the page. One dorsal tracking beacon. Two guidance transponders. One flight control interface module. The kinds of things that Rafiq Khoury was supposedly trying to sell to the highest bidder. Davis was giving these entries some serious thought when his phone rang.

  It was Larry Green.

  Davis got up and meandered to the window. He spent three rings deciding what he was going to ask for. Then he picked up.

  “Hello, Larry.”

  “Hey, Jammer. How’s Africa?”

  “Tahiti would have been better.”

  Davis spent a few minutes discussing Bob Schmitt. Green talked about the unhelpful reconnaissance photos, then got to his real business.

  “Darlene Graham sent me some radar data this morning, but it’s not making much sense.”

  “Why’s that?” Davis asked.

  “Well, on the night in question the Navy had real good coverage of the area where this airplane went down. I went over the recordings twice, and you know what?”

  “The airplane didn’t go down,” Davis said.

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “How the heck did you know that?”

  “Just a guess. Was there anything at all on the tape?”

  “Actually, yeah. An airplane with an FBN call sign did take off. It flew out over the water, roughly to where the crash was supposed to have occurred, churned circles in the sky for half an hour, then went straight back to Khartoum International and landed.”

  Davis said nothing.

  “Does this mean anything to you?” Green prodded.

  “I don’t know. What about the radio traffic—was there anything on guard frequency?”

  “One twenty-one point five? I don’t have anything on that yet,” Green said, “but the DNI’s people are working it. What are you looking for? The airplane I saw didn’t go down, so why would there have been a distress call?”

  “I don’t know. Just check it. Something is screwy here. Do you have any history on those two tail numbers?”

  “Not yet, but they’re working on that too.”

  “Tell them to work faster.” There was an extended silence, until Davis said, “Sorry, Larry.”

  Green seemed to ignore the apology. “Have you gotten near the hangar?”

  “No, not yet.” Davis looked at the load manifests in his hand. “But there’s something else I want you to check. I need a description of some parts that were shipped here a few months ago.”

  “Shipped in? I thought we were worried about stuff going out.”

  Davis waited. He and Green had known each other long enough that even silence between them had its meaning. It only took a few seconds.

  “All right,” Green said, “shoot.”

  Davis reeled off the parts from the list, along with the shipper of record and some associated letters and numbers.

  Green remarked, “AN/DRA,AN/DRW? Jammer, this is all mil-spec stuff.”

  Milspec stood for military specifications, hardware that was designed for combat conditions. Green had pegged it just like he had.

  “That’s what caught my eye,” Davis said. “Find out what it is, who makes these parts. And most important—”

  “Who in Africa might use stuff like that,” Green interrupted.

  “Right.”

  “Okay, the government’s open now, so give me thirty minutes.”

  “Twenty-eight.” Davis ended the call.

  It took twenty-six minutes. Davis picked up after the first ring.

  “I’ve got some of it, Jammer. These parts are all U.S. manufacture, all milspec.”

  “And it’s drone equipment, right?”

  “Yep. Mostly from QF-4 modifications.”

  Davis knew all about QF-4s. The Air Force had modified hundreds of mothballed fighters, including Vietnam era F-4s, to act as target drones. The Q prefix signified a drone conversion. They flew unmanned from Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, sortied out over the Gulf of Mexico to act as fodder for live-fire missile shoots. Davis himself had shot down a QF-106, back in the day.

  He said, “I doubt there’s much need in Sudan to modify old fighters for live missile testing.”

  “Nope. I’ll try to track down the shipper, but that’ll take some time. I can tell you that all this stuff is obsolete. These parts have been sitting on shelves for twenty years. I can’t figure it, Jammer. If you have the wreckage from a high-tech drone sitting in your hangar, what’s the point of ord
ering a bunch of old-school drone hardware?”

  There was a long pause as both men digested it. Davis stared at the window and saw a lizard outside, clinging to the glass. It was big and motionless, no doubt stunned by the scorching heat. He finally said, “You know what I could do with stuff like that, Larry?”

  “Yeah,” Green said, obviously having reached the same conclusion. “You could take it out of the boxes, throw it away, and use the paperwork and packaging to forward newer stuff anywhere in the world with very little suspicion.”

  Davis grinned. “If we think so much alike, how come you made two-star and I only made major?”

  “Because you—”

  “No, no. Don’t answer that.”

  Green asked, “When did these shipments happen?”

  “It all came in two loads back in the middle of August.”

  “So if it worked like we think, we’ve already missed our chance. The most important parts of Blackstar are already gone. Damn. Darlene Graham isn’t going to like this.”

  “Yeah …” Davis hesitated, “but there’s still one thing that doesn’t make sense.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The report that started all this. It said Blackstar is still there in the hangar, right?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well,” Davis reasoned, “if Khoury turned the place into some kind of chop shop, crated up the bits and pieces and shipped them off months ago—how would there be anything recognizable left? And why is there still activity around the hangar? They should have closed up shop by now.”

  “I see what you mean,” Green said. “Sure would be nice to get a look inside, wouldn’t it?”

  “I’m working on it. In the meantime, keep checking. I want to know about those tail numbers. Go back a few months and study FBN’s international flight plans. If you track those two airplanes, there might be a pattern of shipments. Maybe we can figure out where all those pieces went.”

  “I’ll work on it,” Green said, then added, “And Jammer—try to stay out of trouble.”

  “You know me, Larry.”

  “Yeah. That’s why I said it.”

  Davis hung up.

  He pocketed the phone and considered his options. Everything began to unfold in his head like a big map, paths and destinations and obstructions. As was his custom, Davis selected Route One—the shortest distance.

  He headed for the chief pilot’s office, but found it locked up tight. There was a security keypad on the wall next to the door, something Davis hadn’t noticed on his first visit. It looked pretty serious, a back-lit alphanumeric display that was blank right now, waiting for eight digits in some perfect sequence. Ten to the eighth power. A lot of possibilities, mathematically speaking. The door looked sturdy too, a metal frame with heavy striker plates. All in all, heavy security for the chief pilot’s office of a Third World flying circus.

  He backtracked to the operations desk and inquired as to Schmitt’s whereabouts. Got blank stares and shrugs in return. Davis checked his watch. Four thirty. Too early for a chief pilot to have quit for the day. He sighed in frustration. No matter which way he turned, he was getting headwinds. On the crash he had a bogus maintenance write-up and a downed airplane that had turned up in one piece. Larry Green’s radar data was just further proof that there had never even been a crash. And on the Blackstar drone he had nothing at all. No Lamborghini parts getting shipped out. Only Edsel parts getting shipped in. The overall status report on his investigation—sliding backward and accelerating.

  Then and there, Davis made his most important decision of the day. He needed a beer. And there was, he suspected, only one place to find one.

  Rafiq Khoury’s room at the hangar had only one window. It was a modest opening, perhaps an architectural afterthought, and completely covered by a slatted blind that served to keep prying eyes at bay. That the blind might also prevent the illumination of Allah from penetrating his sanctuary had never occurred to Khoury.

  He stood at the window now, a finger pulling aside one of the thick slats to watch the Land Rover approach. He had summoned Schmitt to his private office, an unusual request that Khoury expected would instill at least a tremor of foreboding in the overconfident American. The fact that Khoury had sent Hassan to collect him made the exercise even less nuanced. He watched Schmitt get out of the truck, trundle a few steps across the blazing ramp, then stop to wait for his escort to catch up. Hassan performed well, taking long enough to reinforce who was in charge. Long enough to make the man sweat.

  When Hassan finally made his way to Schmitt’s side, he dwarfed the squat American. They walked side by side to the door, and Khoury noted the manila files in Schmitt’s hand. He let the slat fall, took a seat behind his desk, and waited. The knock came.

  “Come,” Khoury said.

  Schmitt was in the lead, Hassan hovering behind.

  “That will be all, Hassan. Wait outside.” The giant nodded, then disappeared.

  Schmitt was indeed sweating, though it was likely a consequence of the heat, combined with the fact that the man was terribly unfit. Khoury did not bother with his public mask of benevolence—he would never raise a palm of compassion to this man.

  “Sit,” Khoury commanded, in a tone appropriate for a disobedient mutt.

  Schmitt sidled over to a chair and did as instructed. Even so, he sat erect, his posture stiff and his gaze firm. It confounded Khoury that he could not intimidate the man.

  “These are the files I asked for?” Khoury inquired, holding out a hand.

  Schmitt passed them over. “Yeah. What did you need them for?”

  Khoury set the files on his desk and ignored the question completely. “I am told the investigator has arrived.”

  After a pause, Schmitt said, “He got here yesterday.”

  “Do you think him competent?”

  Schmitt steepled his hands as if measuring an answer. “I imagine he is.”

  “What is his nationality?”

  “He’s American.”

  “American?” Khoury spat in surprise. “How can this be? You said the investigation would fall to the Europeans. The French.”

  “That was what I expected, but apparently the French bureau is a little overextended right now.”

  Not for the first time, Khoury questioned the decision he’d made that had brought on this entire quandary. When the airplane had gone down unexpectedly, the issue arose as to whether to report it missing. Khoury had imagined any number of difficult scenarios. The crash might have been witnessed, wreckage could have turned up in the busy Red Sea shipping lanes, or the aircraft might somehow have gone unaccounted for. In the end, Khoury had reported the incident hoping to minimize complications. A simple explanation for an ancient, decrepit airplane going down seemed the least-risk channel of action. Now Khoury realized he had made a mistake. An American had taken over the inquiry, and unlike Schmitt and the others, one he had not handpicked.

  “What is his name?” Khoury asked.

  “Davis. He’s a big lug, hard to miss. I gave him a room in the residential compound. Figured we could keep an eye on him that way.”

  Khoury nodded with approval. He had to admit, his chief pilot had good instincts. Or at least, the instincts of a thief. “That was clever of you. And the man works alone?”

  “Yes,” Schmitt said.

  “Has he already questioned you?”

  “We had a chat.”

  “And you cooperated?”

  “I told him there had been some suspect work done on the flight controls, and I gave him a copy of the maintenance write-up from the logbook.”

  “Did he seem convinced?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t look at it right away.” Schmitt paused before saying, “You know, I’ve still got my own doubts about what really happened. This story about Anatolii and Shevchenko, that they took the airplane out for a joyride—it just doesn’t sound like them.”

  “I have been told that alcohol was involved.”

>   “Really? Who said that?”

  “It is not for you to know!” Khoury snapped. “I only mention it because such a scandal would not reflect well upon our operation. And it is all the more reason for you to keep this investigator off balance. Those two fools destroyed one of my airplanes, and in doing so paid the ultimate price for their recklessness. Otherwise, there is no harm, so this entire investigation is pointless. The sooner the man gives up and goes home, the sooner we can get on with running our airline.”

  “Davis? He won’t give up. He’d love to—” Schmitt cut his answer short.

  “What?”

  Another pause fueled Khoury’s suspicion.

  Schmitt picked up, “He’d probably love to string up an ex-Air Force guy like me.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Interservice rivalry. Davis was in the Navy—at least I think that’s what he said.”

  Khoury’s mismatched eyes bored into Schmitt, but elicited no reaction. He relented, “Just make sure he works for every scrap.”

  “I’m already on it. I told him that if he wants to figure out the cause of this crash, he should go out and find the wreckage.”

  Khoury shuddered within, but his eyes remained fixed. “And will he?”

  “He’ll try, but without knowing exactly where it went down—Davis could waste weeks. He’s looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  A needle in a haystack. Such a curiously American saying, and one Khoury remembered his mother having used. An American by birth, she had done her best to educate him, including teaching him English. Those lessons had ended abruptly when Khoury was twelve years old, on the day his mother died from a sudden illness. Indeed, the very same day that his downward spiral into a life of misery had begun. But even now her phrases stuck in Khoury’s mind. He rather liked this one and committed it to memory. A translated version might sound original to his flock of followers.