City of War

by Neil Russell

  Further down, I found a ticket for a shoe repair shop, a pair of grinning alligator bookends, an assortment of pens and pencils, twelve dollars in ones—probably for the Coke machine I’d seen in the museum hallway—an eyeglass screwdriver, a scrimshaw-handled letter opener, a cell phone charger and her passport.

  I put the rest of the items back in the box and opened the passport. The immigration stamps confirmed what Abernathy had said. I looked at the France trips first. There was a calendar taped to the refrigerator. I moved the box to the kitchen counter and compared the dates.

  For each trip, she was stamped into the country on a Friday and back into L.A. later the next week. I knew the route. Thursday overnight to Paris, two-hour connection, commuter flight to Nice, arriving in time for dinner. Depending on the airline, sometimes you can do it an hour faster through London.

  Giving her two hours at LAX on the outbound, another two at Nice returning and an hour of leeway, that totaled thirty-five hours of travel time. On her shortest trip, that left her fifty-five to sixty hours on the ground. Enough time for almost anything. Eyeballing the other trips, they looked similar.

  Archer came into the kitchen wearing one of Kim’s nightgowns, her wet hair combed over the right side of her face. I slipped the passport into my pocket.

  “That coffee any good?” she asked.

  “Not prime, but hot and strong.”

  She poured herself a cup and sat down across from me. “Surprised to find you still here.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Once the mystery’s gone, the guy usually is too.”

  “You need to start hanging out with a better class of people.”

  She looked at me, started to say something, then decided not to.

  I said, “Give me your cell phone.”

  “What for?”

  “Just give it to me.”

  She went into the living room and came back with her purse. She fished the phone out and handed it over. I programmed my number into it. “In case you ever need anything…or just want to talk.”

  For the second time, she opened her mouth then closed it without speaking.

  “City of War,” I said without any lead-in and watched her reaction.

  She smiled nonchalantly. “That would be anywhere I ever lived. Which guy do you want to hear about?”

  I’d found out what I wanted to. “Another time.” I smiled. “When did you leave here?”

  “At fourteen. Went to live with a cousin in Boston. Then dropped out of high school a month before graduation and bolted for New York.”

  “Where you became a model,” I said.

  “Kim tell you that?” she asked accusatorily.

  “I wasn’t kidding when I said I never knew you existed. I saw you walk, that’s all.”

  She relaxed a little. “A blessing or a curse, I don’t know. But once you learn to move on a runway, you can’t get rid of it.”

  “And you want to?”

  “Sometimes. It’s like a subliminal message to every jerk with a hard-on. Pretty soon, they’re sniffing and snorting and rubbing their cock on your leg.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve ever considered you might be giving off other signals.”

  She flashed. “And like every girlfriend I’ve ever known hasn’t told me the same thing. Whoever was handing this shit out should have had to get a consent form signed.”

  I didn’t think she needed to hear that, in my opinion, she was working it for all it was worth, so I said gently, “Someday I’d like to hear what happened.”

  “What happened to what?”

  She knew what I meant, so I let her decide on her own.

  It took a minute, then she sighed. “It ain’t a fucking cliff-hanger. The model’s curse—a rich guy who’s going to take care of you the rest of your life. Most of the time you know it’s over when your Christmas gift goes from a four-carat emerald to a magazine subscription. But that’s not the way it works with Russians. They figure they fuck you, they own you. And besides, they’re so good in the rack, they’ve ruined you for anybody else. Jesus, where do they come up with this shit?

  “Well, this guy, Marko, explained the rules a couple of times—with his fists—but I was a slow learner and thought the police would help.” She looked away, and her voice dropped. “Marko spent the night drinking wine with the Sureté captain, then they drove him home. I wasn’t finished packing, but I was finished getting my picture taken.”

  “Where’s Marko now?”

  “He went back to Moscow, and somebody threw him in prison for not paying off. I read he’s out now and running for Parliament. Think I should write?”

  “I’m sorry about your sister,” I said to break the moment.

  “Stepsister,” she said.

  I was confused. “But your name’s Cayne.”

  “And here I thought I’d fucked your brains out.”

  “So Commander Cayne wasn’t Kim’s father?”

  “I was pretty self-absorbed in those days, but I probably would have noticed her at dinner. No, J. Edgar, she and that asshole old man of hers, Truman, didn’t show up until four years after Dad had been declared dead.”

  Suddenly, things were more complicated. I said, “Moth ers don’t usually let their daughters leave home at fourteen. But if there’s a stepfather, nine times out of ten, that’s the reason.”

  “Pretty ordinary shit, I know.”

  “Unless you’re the one it’s happening to.”

  Archer’s voice took on a sardonic tone. “Mom just couldn’t seem to shake loose from those crazy, madcap flyboys. Grew up a Pensacola girl, where the career choices were being a pilot or marrying one. That’s where she bagged my father—her word, not mine. I never met the guy. Disappeared before I took my first breath. Truman York was just one more in a long line of tall, clear-eyed gents with one hand on their dick and the other on the doorknob. A KC-130 jockey out of Nellis. Three wives long gone and stuck with a snot-nosed brat from one of them. Mom met him in some Vegas saloon, so for Christmas that year, she got her itch scratched, and I got a kid sister. Thanks, Santa.”

  “You and Kim didn’t get along?”

  “Truth is, she was probably okay, but I was so pissed at inheriting a new father over a Miller Lite I never gave her a chance. We probably had a lot in common. Pilots are the same wherever you find them. Forget management by committee; learn to duck.”

  “So you were odd girl out.”

  “You could say that. That is, until Captain York decided to sample some fine teen pussy. Then I got real popular.”

  “When did your mother find out?”

  “Pretty quick, but she didn’t do anything except start drinking a little earlier in the day. So I worked it out myself and never looked back.”

  “Except every day.”

  She looked at me, and I thought she was going to get angry, but instead she nodded. “I’ve watched Oprah and Dr. Phil out the ass, and I’ve heard all the excuses, but I’ve never quite understood not protecting your kid.”

  I had no answer for that either.

  “I used to lie awake at night and hope my real dad died in a lot of pain. Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? You know why we hurt the ones we love?”

  “Maybe because we can.”

  “No, because they deserve it.”

  She got up and poured herself another cup of coffee. “I’d kill for a fucking cigarette. I quit, but sometimes…”

  I ignored her. “Did Kim have any idea what her father was doing to you?”

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t the kind of girl talk you get into over pizza and a sitcom. For all I knew, he was doing her too.”

  “And you never spoke to her again after you left?”

  Archer shook her head. “I stayed in touch with Mom. I don’t know why, but I called her every month no matter where I was. Usually on a Sunday when I knew she wouldn’t be at work. We just yakked about small stuff for half an hour or so. Where I was, what I was doing. That kind
of crap.”

  She hesitated, as if remembering something. “Come to think of it, I did talk to Kim a couple of times. Once, when she was graduating from high school and wanted to come live with me. Go to Columbia or NYU or something. Shit, I could barely feed myself. The other time was when she called to tell me the happy couple was dead.”

  The picture was beginning to clear. Kim had been as lonely as Archer, except that she didn’t have an escape option. So she assumed her stepsister’s history. It probably made explanations easier too. And who was going to care? She didn’t have to swear to any affidavits or make a court declaration. It was just between her and her God.

  I was now certain Truman York had been molesting his daughter too. That’s why she took Alex Cayne as her fantasy dad. While Alex’s actual daughter was lying awake nights wishing him pain, Kim was pretending big, strong Commander Cayne was watching over her. Twisted, but that’s the kind of thing that happens when a child’s innocence is stolen. But now something else was bothering me.

  “Archer, your mother had three burial plots.”

  She nodded. “She bought them right after the navy men came and told her the Pentagon was declaring Dad dead. I was in second grade, and when I saw the uniforms coming up the walk, I yelled, ‘Daddy’s home.’ Not a good moment.”

  “I’m sorry. So when Truman and your mother were killed—”

  “Bess. We keep talking about her, but we never use her name. It was Bess. She was weak, but she still had a name.”

  I knew because I’d seen it engraved on the marker at the cemetery, but now that Archer mentioned it, Kim had never used Bess’s name either. Unconscious anger, I guessed.

  I began again. “What I’m trying to say is that I’m not sure Kim would want to spend eternity lying next to them, certainly not her father.”

  “You’re fucking kidding, right?”

  It wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. “I realize they’re dead, but it’s still symbolic.”

  “Jesus, you really don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  “Bess and Truman’s graves are empty.”

  “They didn’t die in a car crash?”

  “Is that what Kim told you?”

  “That was the implication.”

  “This is like the fucking Twilight Zone. There’s symbolism in the graves, all right. And it certainly was a crash. But not the kind you’re talking about. Bess and Truman went down on Egypt Air 990, and their bodies, like most everybody else’s, were never recovered.”

  14

  Crimes and Tears

  At exactly 1:20 a.m. on Halloween morning, 1999, Ahmed El-Habashy, captain of Egypt Air 990, gently eased the nose of his Boeing 767 into the night sky. Seconds later, the last of JFK Runway 22-Right dropped behind him. He retracted his landing gear and felt the bonds of earth loosen, experiencing the familiar and exhilarating rush of raw power as the massive, twin Pratt & Whitney turbines pulled his craft steadily upward.

  As the 767 climbed through seven thousand feet, El-Habashy banked the aircraft slightly, turning east. The light fog at ground level was now well beneath him, and he could see lights poking through the low-lying mist along the left side of the aircraft, outlining the southern shore of Long Island. It was the same path followed by hundreds of flights each day, including one three years earlier that was still steeped in controversy—TWA 800.

  In the darkened cabin sat a full planeload of tourists, students, businessmen and deadheading crew, along with the two relief pilots and flight engineer who would take over the cockpit sometime during the ten-hour flight to Cairo. Also aboard were thirty-four Egyptian Air Force officers, a dozen of them generals, returning home from training in California. A total of 217 men, women and children.

  They had thirty-two minutes left to live.

  El-Habashy keyed the intercom and asked a flight attendant to bring him a cup of coffee—one sugar, two creams. His first officer, Adel Anwar, thirty-six, ordered nothing.

  The night ahead was clear, the ride smooth, and like coworkers do, El-Habashy and Anwar engaged in easy banter about their bosses and their company. During the conversation, seemingly apropos of nothing, El-Habashy suddenly raised the issue of a passenger, possibly one of the military officers, who had boarded the flight without some required paperwork.

  Whether this man had come aboard at LAX, where the flight had originated, or at JFK, where El-Habashy had assumed command, is not clear. Nor is the passenger’s identity. But El-Habashy indicated that he had been pushed into turning a blind eye to the violation of regulations by others traveling with the man.

  What is clear is that Captain El-Habashy, fifty-seven, an organized, meticulous officer with more than thirty years’ flying experience, was perturbed enough by the anomaly to raise it again with his copilot twice in the next few minutes.

  Twenty minutes after takeoff, Flight 990 was approaching its cruise altitude of 33,000 feet when the reserve first officer, Gameel Al-Batouti, fifty-nine, nicknamed “Jimmy,” entered the cockpit. Al-Batouti was not due to assume the copilot’s seat for several more hours, when the entire reserve crew would take over, and when he told Anwar that he intended to fly now, Anwar said that he had already slept and wanted to continue.

  Words were exchanged, and the disagreement ended only when Al-Batouti invoked his considerable seniority and told Anwar unconditionally that he would be taking over as first officer. It is unknown why El-Habashy did not intervene on behalf of his friend and first officer, but it appears he did not. Al-Batouti then left the cockpit for a few moments and returned, taking the right seat as Anwar departed.

  Captain El-Habashy then also left the cockpit to use the restroom.

  Twenty-one seconds later, Al-Batouti, now alone at the controls, uttered the phrase, “I rely on God,” and disengaged the autopilot. He then moved the throttles to idle, thereby cutting off all engine thrust.

  As the nose of the plane tilted down, it rolled slightly to the left, and Al-Batouti again said, “I rely on God.” He then shut off the engines.

  Captain El-Habashy bolted back into the cockpit, struggled into his seat and began trying to wrestle the nose of the plane up, imploring Al-Batouti to help. “Pull with me! Pull with me!” he screamed.

  But in the right seat, Al-Batouti repeated, “I rely on God” several more times and fought to keep the nose of the aircraft down.

  During the next ninety seconds, the men struggled for supremacy. Then suddenly, the plane lurched upward again. Whether this was an aerodynamic reaction to the speed brakes applied by El-Habashy or whether it was because he had regained momentary physical superiority is unclear. One can only wonder how those in the back felt as they experienced unimaginable g-forces and perhaps sensed reprieve.

  But the captain was no match for the combination of Al-Batouti and gravity, and when he could no longer hold them both off, the 767’s nose once again turned down.

  On the cockpit voice recorder, the terrified screams of the passengers can be heard for more than a minute and a half. Finally, 400,000 pounds of aircraft, traveling at six hundred miles per hour, hit the water, and all sound ended.

  At 1:52 a.m., Egypt Air Flight 990 ceased to exist.

  Despite the usual conspiracy whack-jobs and the spin put on the investigation by the Egyptian government—owing to both economic and cultural concerns—aviation experts, law enforcement and the intelligence community have no doubt what caused Flight 990 to plunge into the sea. Nor is there any dispute that Gameel Al-Batouti had numerous personal problems that most likely contributed to his actions.

  The unanswered question is whether this was the last, lone act of a desperate man or the termination point of a conspiracy. And if it was the latter, who was the target? The Egyptian government? The airline? The military officers? Or perhaps another passenger?

  One might think that since 9/11, this would be a serious concern worthy of further investigation. One would be wrong.

  Though I had showered at Kim’s,
I was still wearing the same gamey clothes. I had also taken my last Vicodin, and the pain was returning. But now that I knew where Marta Videz worked, I wanted to talk to her. As I drove toward Los Feliz, I replayed what Archer had told me about Truman York.

  After his military career ended, he bounced from airline to airline but couldn’t manage to hold a job. Unauthorized absences, insubordination, heavy drinking—the common themes of a man with no direction and no plan. Eventually, he ended up flying freight in Canada, but when that didn’t last, he took a job as an air courier, and an old air force contact helped get him certified as a “Special.”

  It’s not a job many people know exists. They’re not supposed to. Special couriers are authorized to carry a loaded firearm aboard an aircraft, and they get absolute priority, meaning they can bump almost anybody—CEOs, senior government officials, even celebrities.

  They used to travel with a case handcuffed to their wrists, but that was a walking billboard for someone to lop off their hand and walk away with the goods. If a professional wants to steal something, he’s not squeamish about a quick ampu tation with a sharp cleaver and a little blood. Or, as occurred in Lagos, Nigeria, where the thief walked into the outdoor baggage claim area, fired up a chainsaw and removed a CIA courier’s entire arm.

  In response, courier cases now have high-tensile steel cable molded into their handles which are then run up the courier’s sleeve and down his back and locked around his waist. This refinement has saved hands, but if the bad guys manage to kidnap the courier, he no longer comes back simply needing a hook to eat his cereal.

  Since Lagos, special couriers on assignment for the government usually travel by military aircraft. Otherwise, they travel by charter or in one of the half dozen passenger seats fitted into FedEx, UPS and DHL planes. When it is absolutely necessary to fly commercial, they sit in the first row of first class with the seat next to them paid for and unoccupied. No one, not even a flight crew member, is permitted to sit down next to a “Special.” They are escorted onto the aircraft by security personnel well before anyone else and are the first to deplane.