Flynn

by Mcdonald, Gregory, 1937-2008

  "Is that so?" said Flynn.

  "Yes, Inspector. It's our best guess. Most likely a time bomb wouldn't have gone off so soon. If you're going to use a time bomb, obviously you wouldn't take the chance of setting it for the minute after scheduled takeoff. How many planes actually take off on time? With the likelihood of a delayed departure, especially at this time of year, late winter, you might find yourself blowing up an empty airplane sitting on the runway."

  "I see," said Flynn.

  "Furthermore," continued Rondell, "it's a good guess the bomb was set off from the ground, rather than from inside the airplane. Supposing you're sitting there in the airplane, a passenger, with a radio switch in your pocket which can blow up the plane, and yourself. Would you press that button immediately on takeoff?"

  Flynn said, "I think I might have a cup of tea, first."

  "However, a person on the ground with a radio transmitter has got to press that switch before the plane gets out of range."

  "What would be the range of such a toy as this?" asked Flynn.

  "'Toy'!" said Hess.

  "Probably about seven miles."

  Baumberg said, "I think we can be almost perfectly sure no one got aboard that airplane with a radio transmitter in his pocket. That would never have passed airport security."

  "You can disguise a radio transmitter like this as anything. It could look like a hearing aid."

  Baumberg said, "Oh."

  Flynn said, "What you're saying is, that most likely this airplane was blown up by someone here at Logan Airport, standing at a window, watching it take off?"

  "Speculation, Inspector," said Rondell. "But that's where our speculation has led us."

  "Surely there aren't all that many people around an airport at three o'clock in the morning?"

  "Not many," said Ransay. "But some."

  "Inspector, as you would know, if you had been more cooperative with us," Rondell went on politely, "we are checking airport personnel who were on duty at that hour yesterday morning, to see if they saw or remember anyone acting strangely or suspiciously."

  "So far nothing?"

  "So far nothing."

  "Why are we telling him all this?" Hess asked Ron-

  dell. "All the son of a bitch does is take rides in the country and hit the taverns!"

  "Because." Rondell smiled with closed teeth at Flynn. "Because the Inspector is going to be a great help to us, from now on. Aren't you, Inspector?"

  "Ach," said Flynn. " 'When there's constabulary work to be done, The constable's lot is a terrible one.' Have I got the line exactly right? I doubt it. I'll go look it up, I will."

  Fourteen

  "I rather like that Nathan Baumberg," Flynn said to the perfectly shaven, combed, polished, creased Paul Kirkman in the Passenger Services offices of Zephyr Airways. "But I'm not sure why he's taking the matter so much to heart."

  Kirkman shook his head. "Nate's a great guy. Totally conscientious. Best in the business. Also a good friend. But you're right. He's taking this too personally. Too afraid the explosion might be proven his responsibility."

  "Could it have been?"

  "No way. Maintenance has checked out perfectly. Some kook put a bomb aboard that airplane, Inspeo-tor."

  "It seems so."

  "For my own sake, I had to decide, 'Okay, if I slipped up somewhere, let some mad bomber aboard that airplane, I get fired. My life isn't over.' The world is full of kooks. History has shown we can't identify and control them all."

  "Madmen can be the most normal-looking people," said Flynn. "It's a part of their madness."

  "Of course, Nate's got kids. I can pick up and move anywhere, anytime. Truth is, Inspector, we'll probably both be fired once this thing calms down a little. Our names will be identified with this air explosion for the rest of our lives—at least in the industry. I can work anywhere, at anything. Nate's whole training is in aircraft."

  Flynn cradled the bowl of his unlit pipe in both hands.

  "Is there any way Baumberg could be responsible for the explosion?"

  Kirkman looked blankly at Flynn.

  "I mean, he would have had access to the plane. He's an engineer. He would know how to make a bomb. No one would ever notice him walking around the building with a hand-held radio transmitter. You use walkie-talkies often at airports. He would be able to see the airplane taking off—"

  "I didn't see him, Inspector. As far as I know, he was at home asleep."

  "You wouldn't have to see him. He must know this airport as well as he knows anything. He's a bright man."

  "Nate Baumberg is no madman, Inspector."

  "Ach, well. I'm sure you're right. And I'm sure his highly nervous reaction is entirely understandable, under the circumstances."

  "Take it from me, Inspector. Nate Baumberg is simply a sincere, good man. I'm not saying he wouldn't hurt a fly, exactly. At one time he talked a lot about the Jewish Defense League."

  "Did he, indeed?"

  "Sort of surprised me at the time, but understandable when you think about it. His grandparents and the families of two uncles were wiped out by the Holocaust."

  "Entirely understandable."

  "He's told me he's contributed to the League. Now, understand, I'm not talking about his propensity to violence—which I believe is nearly nil. I believe he left the League when the stories about their nondefensive violence got around. I'm talking about his sincerity. Nate cares. As a person. He feels intensely."

  "Did he ever actually tell you that he's left the League?"

  "Inspector, whether or not Nate is a member of the Jewish Defense League is irrelevant. There was no high, Arabian muckety-muck aboard that airplane—no enemy to the State of Israel, or to the Jewish people. I merely stated his interest in the JDL as an example of how deeply Nate cares about things."

  "But he's never told you he's no longer a member of the JDL?"

  Kirkman said, "He hasn't mentioned it lately. I mean, in years."

  Flynn stirred the ashes in his bowl.

  "What I need from you, Mister Kirkman, is the assurance that everyone who was supposed to be aboard that airplane was aboard it."

  "What do you mean, 'supposed to be'?"

  "You've issued a list of names. One hundred and ten passengers: forty-eight in first class; sixty-two in coach; eight crew members. How do we know they were all aboard?"

  "That's a strange question, Inspector."

  "Is it?"

  "Well, yeah. I mean, the passenger list has been out for twenty-four hours. All the newspapers have published it. Don't you think that if someone who was supposed to be aboard that airplane wasn't, he would have stood up by now and said, 'Hey, I'm alive'?"

  "Yes," said Flynn. "I would."

  "Then I don't get the question."

  "Conversely, supposing someone were aboard that airplane you didn't expect to be aboard, and twenty-four hours later no one admits to the fact—wouldn't you find that odd?"

  "You mean a stowaway? There were no stowaways on Flight 80 to London."

  "Something other than that. Supposing at the last minute, say, a stewardess got attacked by a bad case of the flu, or love, or something, and got a friend to substitute for her. Would you know it?"

  "Of course. Those situations have to be reported. Absolutely."

  "I'm afraid my example isn't much good."

  "Inspector, have you ever flown?"

  "A little."

  "I mean, transatlantic. Have you been on a flight out of the country?"

  "Once or twice."

  "Then you should know the routine. Let me explain. If you're flying from one city in this country to another, you can use any name you want, legally, as long as you pay cash. You can say your name is Abraham Lincoln and fly from here to Atlanta, Georgia, and no one has the right to say 'Boo' at you. Of course, if you say your name is Abraham Lincoln and try to write a check or a credit slip in the name of Jefferson Davis, that might raise suspicions."

  "Only might," said Flynn. "Onl
y might, the American sense of credit being as slippery as it is."

  "If you're flying out of the country, okay, so listen to me. You come into the terminal. Our man takes your baggage. You present to him your passenger ticket. He weighs your baggage. From your ticket, he makes out a route ticket for the baggage. He writes on the ticket where it is going, and on what flight. You are required to have your own tags on your luggage, stating your own name and address. He is supposed to check that name against the name on your ticket, to make sure they match. If you have not provided tags for your bags, he will provide them for you, again checking what you say your name is against the name on the ticket."

  "But the baggage doesn't get opened, does it?"

  "No. If the man accepting the baggage thinks there's anything suspicious about the bag, or the person traveling, then he calls me. No one called me for Flight 80. I dropped by the counter once or twice."

  "Sometimes people check in baggage for each other," said Flynn. "A father, or a mother, for a whole family, A travel escort—"

  "There was nothing suspicious about anyone on Flight 80. Okay, so then the passengers go down the corridor toward their gate. They and their carry-on luggage go through a complete electronic scan. If there is anything suspicious about them or their luggage, they are thoroughly searched at that point. We can examine the carry-on luggage at that point, because the State Police are standing right there. That's why I'm sure this theory of the FBI is crazy. No one could have boarded Flight 80 with a radio transmitter without getting stopped."

  "They suggest it wouldn't have looked like a radio transmitter," said Flynn. "It might have looked like a hearing aid."

  Kirkman said, "Jesus."

  "One can't keep up with the criminal mind," said Flynn. "Especially when it belongs to the FBI. 5 '

  "All right. Then the passengers come to a stand-up desk. There they present their tickets and their passports. Our representative is supposed to see that the pictures they see on the passports are the same faces they see standing in front of them, and that the name on the passport is the same as the name on the ticket. He tears a slip from the ticket, with the passenger's name on it. He gives the passenger a boarding pass, assigning a seat to him. Now, Inspector, the slips from all the tickets for all the passengers were picked up at that desk for Flight 80 Tuesday morning. All of them."

  "Righto. You can make a specific seat reservation before that, can't you?"

  "Yeah. A lot do. When they buy the tickets, or when they first come into the terminal. You know, people traveling together. Want to sit together. That sort of thing. Some people think it's safer to sit in front of the wings, others think behind the wings is safer. Others want to sit nearest the Johns."

  "People other than passengers go through the electronic control and down to the arrival-and-departure gates," asserted Flynn.

  "They're not supposed to, but they do."

  "People never do what they're supposed to do," noted Flynn. "Curse the lot of them."

  "Boarding passes are taken from the passengers at either one of two places: the stewardess takes them aboard the airplane, as they come through the door; or a steward stands in the terminal at the entrance of the jetway and takes them."

  "If the stewardess takes them, does she then fly away to London with them?"

  "No. She hands them to the steward before the door is closed."

  "Which place were the boarding passes picked up on this flight?"

  "I'm not certain, but I expect at the entrance to the jetway. The stewardesses would probably be too busy. People are apt to be fussier on a transatlantic flight, especially at that hour of the morning."

  "So the stewardesses wouldn't have seen the boarding passes on this flight, most likely?"

  "Most likely not."

  "Then is there a head-count aboard the plane? Sometimes I've noticed that."

  "Not on this one. The feeder flights were in plenty of time. The point I'm trying to make, Inspector, is that we have all the boarding passes for Flight 80. All one hundred and ten of them."

  "No head-count."

  "All the boarding passes are all the boarding passes, Inspector."

  "A definitive statement, that. Now, then, Mister Kirkman, only one more question. You've said several times you were around the airport that night, on duty, as it were, while Flight 80 was boarding and taking off."

  "I'll never forget. In my job, you know, when one of your airplanes is taking off, you take a deep breath; your whole body relaxes. I was just doing that, starting back to my office, when I heard the bang."

  "And a very considerable bang it was," said Flynn.

  "If I didn't drop dead at that moment," said Kirkman, "I never will."

  "You should never make such promises to yourself," said Flynn. "They may prove to be false. But tell me, did you happen to notice three men traveling together, probably formally dressed, you know, in dark business suits, maybe looking like foreigners to you, names of Bartlett, Carson, and Abbott?"

  Kirkman looked at the passenger list on his desk. "Abbott, Bartlett, and Carson appear to have been traveling together. But they're not foreigners."

  "I know. But did you happen to notice them?"

  "If you ask me, I say, yes. I seem to have an impression of three men in dark suits, being quiet, sort of taking to the side of the waiting lounge there at Gate 18, you know, shirking, shrinking away from the other passengers—especially after the passengers from San Francisco came in."

  "Why especially the San Francisco passengers?" v "Well, they were on a theater-junket to London, you know, off on a holiday, they all knew each other, they'd had their drinks. Then they found Daryl Conover, the great English actor, would be boarding the plane with them, and they went through the roof with giddiness. Nobody did anything really wrong. They just gave him the big celebrity treatment."

  "And how did the big celebrity respond?"

  "Well, he wasn't exactly nasty. At first, he looked sort of angry. Then he said something like, Tm very tired. Would you please go away?' They kept it up. Then he asked the steward if he would show him to his first-class seat immediately."

  "You mean, put him aboard the plane before anyone else?"

  "Yes."

  "And did you?"

  "Yes. I did myself. Aboard, he grumbled a little bit, saying we should have done so sooner. He was right. We should have. You know, in Passenger Services, we have to respect people who are famous. Other people bother them. They have their rights to be left alone. Usually, though, such people as Daryl Conover get put aboard straight from the VIP lounge, so there's no problem for them, or us."

  "Why wasn't Conover put aboard early, then?"

  "I don't know. I guess he arrived a little late, and came straight to the gate."

  "He had his ticket ahead of time?"

  "No. He picked his ticket up in the main terminal. I saw him."

  "And what about Percy Leeper?"

  "I don't know who Percy Leeper is."

  "He's the middleweight boxing champion of the world. As of last Monday night."

  "Oh, is that who he was? There sure was a boxer going aboard. Tape over one eyebrow, still bleeding, mashed nose. That was Percy Leeper, uh? I thought we were going to have trouble with him."

  "Why?"

  "Oh, he was as high as a kite."

  "Drunk?"

  "No. I thought so at first. We had to take a can of beer away from him, before he boarded. No, he was just jumpin' around. He couldn't keep his feet still. He was doing little dances, drinking his beer, kept hugging the shoulders of the guy who was with him."

  "You took a can of beer away from the boyo who just won the World Middleweight Boxing Championship?"

  Kirkman chuckled. "Something to brag about, uh? If I had known who he was, maybe I would have thought twice."

  "How drunk was he?"

  "I don't think he was drunk at all. Or not very. Exuberant. He was perfectly nice about letting me take the beer can from him. He said something weird.
What did he say? Some weird word. I know what he said. He put his hand on my arm and said, I'm just feeling peppermint.' "

  "Peppy? Pepped-up?"

  "No. He said, 'Peppermint.* He got me laughing. He was about the last one aboard."

  The fingers of Kirkman's hand, flat on his desk, spread out slowly.

  "Jesus," he said. "Think of all the people who are dead."

  Fifteen

  "It's not 'It's an honest ghost, let me tell you that/ It's It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you'!"

  Everyone on the stage turned to the man who had exploded up from his aisle seat in the empty, dark theater.

  "Furthermore, it's not 'I hold it fitting we shake hands and part.' It's 'I hold it fit that we shake hands and part'!"

  "Look, Baird," one of the men on the stage, the director, said. He wore glasses and was holding an opened manuscript.

  "And it's not 'What heart of man would think it?* It's 'Would heart of man once think it?'! Goddamn it!"

  "Baird, will you let me do this my way?"

  "No, fuck it, no!"

  "Baird, listen to reason. You asked me to fly in from Chicago to work with Roddy."

  "He isn't even getting the words right!"

  "Jesus, Baird, what do you expect?" said Roddy, the Hamlet-to-be or not-to-be. "Last Sunday I was playing The Music Man in Miami."

  "I don't give a Goddamn," Baird Hastings yelled from the dark. "You're not making him get the words right, Tony!"

  "Let's get things blocked out first, Baird, okay? He

  has to know where he is on the stage. This is a bigger stage than he's ever worked with before."

  "You can say that again," muttered Hastings. "I want him onstage tonight!"

  The director looked apologetically to the star before speaking reasonably to the producer. "That's not going to happen, Baird. You'll have to use the understudy again. Or close for a few days."

  "I'm not going to use that mother-fucking understudy again! He was terrible last night. 'Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners. UGH! Rod, you told me you played Hamlet last year. I know you did!"