by L. D Beyer
Rumson was silent for a moment. “What if they don’t find him? The FBI is telling me that there’s a possibility that they never will.”
“Then that will be the basis for the motion we file before the court. We would need the investigators to declare that, in their expert opinion, the president’s body was destroyed in the crash.”
And who knew how long that could take, Rumson thought. He frowned.
“Tyler…Mr. President, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.” Kiplinger paused. “From what I’ve been told, the recovery teams have done an incredible job in a very short period of time. They’re still finding bodies. I suggest that you give them another week.”
Rumson sat back. Kiplinger was right. He had to let the investigation play out. He would still keep the pressure on—the American public needed closure, and he would use that. But it was better not to rush things. It had taken a long time to reach this office, a lot of planning, many small steps. The snowstorm was just one more obstacle and a small one at that. The acting part of his title was just a formality. He was the president.
He glanced up at the two men and nodded.
____
President Kendall didn’t recognize the face in the mirror. His beard and mustache were peppered with spots of grey. His cheeks were sunken, one still bruised, and his dark eyes reflected the tension. He looked like he had aged ten years. With a Budweiser baseball cap on his head, and a green and blue flannel shirt, he couldn’t have looked any less presidential than if he had hired a Hollywood make-up artist. God, he looked like a redneck, he thought. But he was alive.
He rubbed his face. Even though he had groomed it, his beard still looked awful. Richter, however, wouldn’t let him shave it off. He sighed as he looked around the motel room, noticing it for the first time. The carpet and curtains were stained, the bed springs squeaked, the tiles in the bathroom were cracked, and the place smelled musty. But after the snow cave and the miner’s shack, it was heaven.
They had arrived at the motel on the outskirts of Boise, Idaho, late in the afternoon. The president had headed directly to the shower. It had felt good and he wanted to stand below the hot water forever. But Richter had come knocking with a new set of clothes and a couple of pizzas.
Their trip down from Elk City had taken almost eight hours. Along the way, they had learned the latest news on the crash and the recovery from the car radio, from newspapers, and from a copy of Time Magazine. President Kendall shivered when he read about the crash and the latest theories and speculation of what had happened to his body. He was stunned by the horror and devastation captured in the pictures. He read the list of names of all those, passengers and crew alike, who had been aboard Air Force One. He turned the page and saw the pictures of his family attending the candlelight vigil. His wife, his Maria, looked grief-stricken and his daughters crushed. They were holding onto their mother as if trying desperately to make sure that she too would not be taken away. His heart ached, but at the same time, he was angry. He vowed to do everything within his power to find the people responsible.
He glanced up at Richter standing by the door. His appearance had changed as well, he realized. Gone was the clean-shaven, well-dressed young man who favored designer suits. He looked more like Derek and Jack than a federal agent. With sweatpants, a matching zippered sweatshirt and running shoes, he might be on his way to play soccer or softball with his buddies. Except for his eyes, Kendall thought. If anything, they made him appear even more formidable, more intense.
____
The president seemed far away, and it took a moment for Richter to get his attention. He handed him a newspaper, pointing to the front page article.
“Pat Monahan’s heading up the investigation,” he said. “That might work to our favor, but it may be very difficult to get a hold of him.”
The president glanced at the paper and nodded.
Richter sat on the edge of the bed. They had, against all odds, made it to Boise. Now, he had to figure out their next move.
“I can try calling the main FBI number. We can get that at the local library. The problem, though, is that there’s no way they’re going to give me his cell phone number; they’ll connect me to his voice mail or maybe to his secretary.” He shook his head. “But I’m not about to leave a message.”
The president frowned. “What about a local FBI office. They should be able to reach him.”
Richter shook his head. “Too dangerous. Even with my credentials, it will probably take some effort to convince them who I am. And there’s no way to prevent them from notifying people up the chain of command.” He paused as his eyes narrowed. “All the way to Washington.”
”We might have to take that risk,” the president said.
Richter could hear the doubt in his tone.
“Mosby and Rumson have a history together,” Richter countered. “And Mosby seems to be connected to Broder too. Besides, those two federal agents I saw in the woods? For all we know, they’re real and they’re from the local office.” Richter shook his head again. “For the same reason, we can’t go to the state police either.”
The president was still frowning, but after a second he nodded. “Okay. So, it appears Rumson’s tentacles are everywhere,” he said. “What do we do next?”
Richter let out a breath. “You mentioned a reporter that you know. In Colorado?”
Kendall nodded.
“We go to Colorado.”
____
“We’ve completed the review of the data recorders.” Stan Burton handed out the transcript. “This shows the timeline and sequence of events as we understand them so far. At 10:58 a.m. local time, exactly fifty-nine minutes into the flight, the flight data recorder indicates an apparent malfunction in the fuel gauges. The gauges indicate an unequal feed from the port and starboard fuel tanks. These tanks are located in the wings and, if this were true, it would indicate an imbalance across the airframe. This appears to be an anomaly. Data on the engines and the fuel system indicate normal operation, everything within specs.
“The cockpit voice recorder indicates that the crew noticed the problem almost immediately. The transcript of the conversation is in front of you. Colonel Zweig and Major Lewis discuss the situation and then order Lieutenant McKay to check the level capacitors and the transfer pumps. They discuss the maintenance brief. Colonel Zweig then orders the Flight Engineer, Captain Wes Thomas, to check the computers and to manually calculate the fuel state. At 11:02, Lewis reports that the gauges appear to be correct, and that they indicate approximately one hundred and forty-one thousand pounds of fuel in each tank.
“Four minutes later, at 11:06 a.m., the flight data recorder indicates an interruption to the main electrical supply to the data recorders and to the communications systems. The data recorders have backup power systems and continued recording. We don’t know yet why the main power supply failed.
“At 11:09, there appears to be an explosion. The FDR indicates that the rear hatch is breeched. The crew suspects they’re under attack and begins evasive maneuvers, deploying chaff and flairs to confuse any potential inbound missiles. At the same time, they immediately lose cabin pressure; in the transcript, you can see Colonel Zweig refer to an ‘explosive decompression.’ They don oxygen masks and immediately begin an emergency descent to the minimum safe altitude. Although they’re not exactly clear what occurred, the crew reacts quickly and professionally. They’ve turned and are now on a westerly course of two-five-three degrees.
“One minute later, at 11:10, Lewis unsuccessfully attempts to contact the Air Force E-3 Sentry that is controlling the flight. She then attempts to contact Air Traffic Control, again, unsuccessfully. The aircraft continues to descend and, at 11:11, they level off at eleven thousand, nine hundred feet.
“There is another explosion. The crew deploys chaff and flairs again but does not take evasive action. It would appear that Colonel Zweig reacted appropriately, given the low altitude and the elevation of the mountains
they were over. They radio a Mayday and discuss their options. They decide to try for Missoula, Montana, which is one hundred and twenty miles away. The aircraft turns north to heading zero-one-five.
“At 11:14 a.m., there is another explosion and the CVR ends. The FDR continues to record for another twenty-seven seconds and indicates major malfunctions in multiple systems, hydraulics, electrical, power plants, control surfaces. This is where the recordings end.”
Monahan waited until Burton was done and then looked around the room. “The critical question is: what exactly was Lt. McKay doing when he was sent to investigate the fuel gauge problem?”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Saturday, May 1
The call came in the morning, minutes before seven. After working through the night, Pat Monahan had just closed the door to his office and was heading to his trailer for a few hours of much needed sleep. Wearily, he answered the call.
“Mr. Monahan. This is Brett Donahue from San Antonio.”
Monahan remembered Donahue when he was transferred to Texas to become the Special Agent in Charge of the San Antonio office five years ago.
“Sir? I’ve got something down here that’s going to interest you. We discovered a body in a house about fifteen miles west of Laredo. Male, age and identity unknown, decapitated. Our initial inspection of the corpse suggests he’s of Mexican heritage. At first glance, this looks like the modus operandi for the cartels, a retaliatory killing. However, we found something with the body that suggests otherwise.”
Monahan rubbed his head, unsure where this was going.
“In a briefcase next to the body, we discovered two pounds of Semtex, plus timers, fuses, and various fake IDs.” There was a pause. “Sir?”
Monahan felt the hair standing up on the back of his neck. “Yes.”
“We also found classified spec sheets and diagrams of Air Force One and the president’s itinerary for his trip to Seattle.”
____
Behind the dirty strip mall south of Salt Lake City, they found what they needed: another Dodge Grand Caravan, from an earlier model year, but with a similar color pattern. They had watched the strip mall for some time and noted very little traffic. The mall was located on a side street and had lost its customers to the more heavily traveled and newer thoroughfares. There were vacant lots on either side of the strip mall and the few small clusters of retail activity on the other side of the street appeared to be hanging on for dear life. Except for the wino out front, even the liquor store a block away looked abandoned.
In the strip mall, six of the storefronts were vacant. Of the businesses that had somehow managed to survive, there was a tax preparation service—a sign indicating it was closed—a computer repair shop, a printer, and a vacuum cleaner repair shop. There were three cars in the front parking lot and, in the back, a handful more, presumably belonging to the owners and employees. On the far end, they spotted the minivan. It was covered with a thick layer of dust, and rust was eating through the sides. A rag was stuffed into the hole where the gas cap had once been. One tire was flat, and the crack in the back window was held together with duct tape.
It took Derek two minutes to remove the license plates. The odds were in their favor that no one would notice that the seemingly abandoned minivan behind the seldom-used strip mall no longer had plates. Or so they hoped.
____
Henry Amalu frowned. “Do the intelligence services have anything to support this? The CIA, the NSA?”
“No sir,” the agent answered. “Not to my knowledge.”
Emil Broder sat back, only half listening. He knew the answer. Other than the body found in San Antonio, there had been no other indication that the Mexican cartels were involved in the downing of Air Force One. At least for the moment. But that wasn’t unusual. Libya’s planning and preparations for the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 had somehow slipped through the intelligence nets. The USS Cole attack, the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, and countless other terrorist attacks, including 9/11, had slipped through the nets as well. It wasn’t until well after the events that the intelligence services were able to connect the pieces of the puzzle. Yes, the federal intelligence and law enforcement services were reorganized after 9/11, and the Department of Homeland Security was created; the goal being to ensure that coordination and information sharing across almost two hundred separate federal agencies were not impeded by bureaucracy and the desire to protect one’s own turf, something all too common amongst the agencies involved. Still, there were billions of pieces of data to sort through and somehow connect: cell phone and wire intercepts, satellite images, emails and blogs, news reports, data gathered by agents and operatives…the list went on. New data mining software helped, but it was a daunting task.
Were the Mexican Cartels behind this? he wondered as he rubbed his chest. They had a history of targeting the police and the Army in retaliation for raids and arrests. They also targeted informants, local government officials, and political candidates, going after the political structure behind the Mexican government’s war on drugs. Was this retaliation for Project Boston? Could they be sending the U.S. a clear message to stay out of Mexico’s drug battles? Or was it a matter of survival, fighting back to protect their livelihood? So far, their response to the Boston raids had been subdued.
He popped another Tums in his mouth as he turned his attention back to the meeting. As he listened, he began to notice several stolen glances in his direction. It was time to end this.
When he sat forward, a hush came over the room. “This is clearly a lead that we need to pursue.”
____
With their first task done, they drove to Walmart where they purchased more clothes, several newspapers and magazines, some food, more painkillers, and a knee brace. Derek tossed the Idaho plates into the dumpster behind the store. Back in the car, they continued south. Two hours later, they pulled into a roadside motel.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Sunday, May 2
“Sir, we got something.”
Monahan turned to see Agent Connolly. His mouth full of bagel, he nodded and pointed toward the conference room. This was his third bagel and it was only 5:00 a.m.; the night wasn’t over yet. Eating like this, he knew, would kill him. He swallowed, refilled his coffee, and followed Connolly into the room.
“What do you have?”
Connolly sat at the computer and clicked the mouse. “We found another body,” she said over her shoulder. “He was discovered quite a distance from the crash site.”
Finally some good luck, Monahan thought. Frustrated that they hadn’t recovered more bodies, he had asked General Trescott to expand the search.
He leaned over Connolly’s shoulder and examined the picture, noting the circle of light around the body fading into darkness. This was a nighttime shot taken with a lighting system.
“When was this taken?”
“Forty minutes ago.”
The CSAR team, Monahan knew, was working around the clock. Connolly pointed to the screen.
“That’s how they found him, naked and buried below the snow.”
Well that wasn’t so unusual, he thought. Many passengers had been stripped naked by the gale-force winds that had torn through the plane. And almost all had been buried in the snow.
As if reading his thoughts, she continued. “A number of things make this significant. First, he was found about nine miles west of the primary debris field.” She walked over to the large map on the wall and stuck a red pushpin in it. “Right about here.” She traced her finger east across the map to a blue pushpin. “The next closest body, Lieutenant McKay, was found seven miles to the east, right here.” She tapped the map. “Senator Dykstra was found another mile further east.”
Monahan nodded as Connolly returned to the computer.
“He was buried in the snow outside of an old mining cabin. It appears that he was purposefully buried. What’s more disturbing is that it appears that he wa
s shot,” she added.
Monahan studied the picture, grabbed the mouse, and clicked through several shots. Other than the dark holes in the forehead, there didn’t appear to be any other significant injuries to the body.
“Could it be an injury from the crash?” He felt obligated to ask.
“I don’t think so. I told the coroner that this is a priority, so we should know soon. As for the cabin, it appears that someone has been camping out there.”
Monahan clicked the mouse again until the cabin appeared. He studied it for a moment and then clicked back to the pictures of the body.
“Have you ID’d him yet?”
“That’s the disturbing part. We compared him to the eight missing passengers. Three of those, as you know, are female. Of the remaining men, he bears a striking resemblance to Secret Service Agent Cal Mosby.”
“Shit. Really?”
She nodded soberly. “Yes, sir. We should know for sure soon.”
Monahan shook his head. The investigation had just taken another ugly turn.
____
They arrived in Durango, Colorado, in midafternoon. After driving along the river for several miles, they turned into town and, minutes later, pulled up in front of the public library. As Jack climbed out, Richter caught his eye.
“We’ll be back in half an hour.”
Jack nodded then jogged towards the door. Once he was safely inside, Derek put the car in gear. As they pulled out of the lot, he turned to Richter and grinned.
“Time to go car shopping again?”
____
Rumson considered the news. Mosby had been found; apparently shot and killed and his body dumped. He was certain that wasn’t part of the plan. It sure wasn’t part of Mosby’s plan. In fact, disappearing in South America was. But he had known Mosby for over twenty years and, despite the fact that he was trained to be skeptical, Mosby had been easy to manipulate. Like a pawn on a chessboard, it had been easy to move the hapless agent in the direction that best suited his purposes.