by Steve Richer
He pushed against Rogan and brought the gun forward again. Rogan’s eyes grew wide, his life was in the balance. He put both his hands on the pilot’s wrist, doing what he could to wrestle the weapon away.
But the man was strong and he resisted. They were both staring into each other’s eyes in silence, teeth gritting, and struggled for dominance.
“Let go,” Rogan snarled.
This gave him the power he needed and he thrust the gun until it was pointed away from his chest. With a last ditch effort, he jerked the wrist forward and the gun went off.
“Argh!”
The pilot was agape and in a flash Rogan felt warm blood pooling into his hand. He promptly looked down and saw that the pilot had been shot in the belly. The white shirt turned red.
Rogan snatched the pistol away at last and took a step back. The pilot’s mouth quivered and his legs buckled. He slid down against the bulkhead while the federal agent realized the shot had hit his liver.
He was dead by the time he hit the floor.
Taking a deep breath to settle his nerves, Rogan realized that if one pilot was an assassin, there was good reason to believe the other was one as well. He went through the tiny galley and headed for the cockpit.
He could do this, he told himself. The adrenaline was back as he realized they were still losing altitude. He threw the cockpit door open. By now the alarms had been turned off but lights were still blinking on the instrument panel.
“Did you get him?” the copilot asked with a hopeful smile.
Rogan looked down and saw three parachutes stacked in the corner next to their coats. Their plan was clear now. They were to kill him, jump out, and somehow cover the murder by crashing the plane.
“I’m sorry to say he didn’t.”
Still catching his breath, Rogan was looking forward to sitting in the pilot’s seat as they got ready to land, making it easier to interrogate the other man. However, the copilot had been ready for any situation.
Out of nowhere, he produced a small pistol and pointed it at the FBI man. Rogan was so taken aback that he lifted his own weapon and shot the copilot in the head.
“Shit.”
And the plane continued to lose altitude.
Chapter 15
There was no time to waste, Rogan knew that very well. He jammed the pistol in his pocket and evaluated his options. He didn’t know how to fly but he did know how to skydive. He looked at the altimeter, they were at 9,000 feet and falling.
He grabbed one of the pilot’s black overcoats, slipped into it, and then proceeded to put on the parachute. Jump School was almost 15 years behind but it was like riding a bike. With the pack secured on his back he hurried into the cabin again.
He hesitated and went to the dead pilot.
“Hurry hurry hurry!”
He wanted to search the man for clues as to who wanted him dead. But when he found the guy’s phone he pocketed it and figured he had wasted enough time.
He went to the door and saw that the lock had been switched off, thanks to the depressurization and stray bullets. Without missing a beat, he grabbed the handle and rotated it.
Because of the plane’s speed and rate of descent, the door didn’t open easily. Rogan swore under his breath and pushed with all his might. All of a sudden, the door swung up and outward, making him lose his footing.
He fell out of the aircraft.
His body missed the tail of the Learjet by an inch and he wondered why he didn’t suffer a heart attack right then and there. He tumbled through the freezing air and he had to remind himself to stretch out his limbs in order to gain stability.
It worked! He stopped spinning at last. The coat wasn’t tied properly and it billowed over him. He realized how cold it was, especially going down at 120 miles per hour at terminal velocity. On top of that, it was snowing and it was like each minuscule snowflake was a shotgun blast to the face.
The ground was coming up fast and he had no idea how far away from it he really was. He couldn’t wait any longer and he pulled the ripcord.
His breath was knocked away as the chute deployed and caught the air, making the straps dig into his flesh with brute force.
“Huh!” he winced.
At least it slowed his fall dramatically. He looked down again and saw that he was in the countryside. There was some sort of open field below him so he didn’t risk getting impaled by a tree.
He managed to get his coat shut up and looked sideways at the plane. The downward angle was much steeper now and it was going off course. If anything, it was going faster than ever and Rogan calculated its trajectory. It was going to crash into the mountainside several miles away.
And that’s exactly what happened.
The moment his feet touched the snowy ground, the Learjet exploded into a gigantic fireball. He couldn’t help but being impressed. It reminded him of Iraq and Afghanistan. As much as the experience had been traumatizing, there was nothing like the pure adrenaline of witnessing an explosion.
He crouched to catch his breath and gathered the parachute rapidly, just like he had been trained to do. Today it served a double purpose as he used the ripstop nylon to shield himself against the cold while he thought about his next course of action.
What the hell was going on, he pondered while looking around the desolate surroundings. Why did people want him dead? These were professional assassins too with the means to hire – or at the very least, steal – a $10 million aircraft only to allow it to crash.
Rogan distinctly remembered the FBI Director leaving him to the capable hands of Albert to drive him to the airport. So it could be assumed that Hephner wanted him dead personally.
It sort of made sense too, in a way. He had wanted him off the case and then tried to ensure that it was on a permanent basis. And if the FBI Director was involved then it meant whoever was after him had the full resources of the federal government to track him down.
Everything was obvious now, he knew what he had to do.
He pulled out his own phone and removed the battery. Then he stomped on it until it was completely shattered. It was unfortunate that a forensics analysis would reveal that the phone had been destroyed a few miles from the crash site but it was good enough for the moment. The government would assume he was dead.
Next, he produced the pilot’s phone. He prayed it wasn’t password-protected, angry at himself for having demolished his device too soon, but it wasn’t. In fact, upon closer inspection it seemed like a cheap burner and it most likely wouldn’t offer too many clues.
In any event, he brought up the GPS function end found that he was just outside Warrenton, Virginia. He studied the map and then called Cass.
“Special Agent Carranza,” she answered.
“Cass, listen to me. I can’t talk long.”
“Ro–“
“Don’t say my name! Listen, this is important.”
“What’s going on? I thought you were off the case and flying back home.”
“There’s been a mishap. Listen, you need to come and get me right now. Don’t ask questions and drive toward Warrenton right away, near Route 17.” He gave her a precise junction and he could tell she was writing it down. “Whatever notes you’re taking, you need to destroy them right away.”
“You’re scaring me…”
“I’ll tell you everything, just come very quickly. Brownie points for getting here in under an hour.”
And with that he hung up. He couldn’t stay on the line for fear of the NSA’s system catching his name and associating it with a location. If the government really was after him then he was fucked.
The crash site wasn’t far enough for his taste. People would be rushing by and he could be spotted at any minute. He dismissed the parachute and ripped the shoulder boards off his coat, as well as the wings over his breast pocket. Now it looked like a regular coat.
Next, he went through the phone and as suspected it contained no personal information. Going through the history there
were only a few text messages, all brief such as “Operation underway” and “Report as per usual channels after”.
To add insult to injury, the contact with whom the pilot was communicating was listed as Anonymous. In the course of previous investigations, Rogan knew how this was done. A person went through a computer program to send the texts, probably through a VPN for extra security.
There was no way to find anything through this phone. Just to be sure, he turned it off and removed the battery, pocketing them both. Maybe it could be useful for fingerprints though he doubted it.
Finally, he packed the parachute crudely and buried it under some bushes where it wouldn’t be noticed. He also took a moment to clean the blood off his face and hands using some fresh snow. Once it was done and he looked like someone who hadn’t jumped out of an airplane after killing three men, he started walking toward the rendezvous point.
He had to get some answers about what was going on.
Chapter 16
Rogan avoided the commotion by going as far from the crash site as possible on foot. Still, he came across numerous emergency vehicles and rubberneckers heading that way. He minded his own business and no one stopped him to ask what he was doing by himself, walking in the freezing cold.
Cass got to the intersection a minute before he did. He looked left and right to make sure she wasn’t being followed, mostly out of habit, and quickly got into her government sedan. Before even greeting her, he cranked the heat to its maximum setting.
“Tell me what’s going on,” she said in greeting.
“Drive.”
“Washington?”
“For now.”
She shifted into gear and they pulled away from the shoulder. Rogan didn’t speak. He was busy getting feeling back into his extremities, rubbing his hands rapidly next to the vent. He closed his eyes and considered how lucky he’d been to make it out alive, to find warmth once more.
“So you wanna tell me what this is about, Rogan?” she asked as they got onto I-66, heading east.
“You saw the plane crash in the distance?”
“Yeah. There’s been chatter on the radio, Homeland, Air Force, FAA, nobody knows anything.”
“Well,” he began. “That was my flight back home.”
“What?! And you survived?”
“The Director had Albert drive me to this flight. Then we take off, I close my eyes to catch up on my beauty sleep, and the next thing I know the other passenger is going Jack the Ripper on me. I had to strangle him with a seatbelt.”
“Jesus…”
“Then the pilot comes out with a gun to finish the job. Long story short, he shot out a window, we lost cabin pressure, and we were heading down. Turns out the copilot was also a co-conspirator, tried to shoot me too. Needless to say, he didn’t make it.”
“And what? You jumped?”
“They had parachutes ready for the three of them. This was planned, they were a hit squad. I think the plan was to bail out and have the plane crash with me inside, thus covering the murder.”
Cass grunted. “But then wouldn’t the NTSB realize they’re missing corpses?”
“That’s where it becomes handy to have the FBI Director in on the scheme. I think this goes deep. They think I know something although I don’t know what it is, and they want me dead because of it. If there are government officials involved, then they can cover it up pretty easily, wrap it up with a pretty little bow.”
“This can’t be real,” she said.
“Oh it’s very real, I’m wearing the coat of a very dead man to prove it.”
“No, I mean… You really think Hephner is involved?”
Starting to feel comfortable for the first time in almost two hours, Rogan shrugged and turned down the heat a notch.
“In what possible world could you ever think this is preposterous, Cass? Power, money, you put these two together and you get a deadly cocktail.”
“I just can’t get my head around it,” she said, shaking her head.
“It’s the new reality we have to live with. A decade ago I would have said that these are the new mission parameters. I have to adapt.”
“Where can we go with this information, Rogan? Vanstedum?”
“Frankly, I don’t trust anyone.”
“Not even me?” she asked.
He looked at her as she stared back sideways, pouting like a puppy. He chuckled.
“You get a pass for picking me up in this cold. But you lose a point for not bringing coffee.”
“You said it was an emergency.”
“I know, I know.”
The snow picked up. They drove in silence for a few minutes before she spoke again.
“So what’s the plan then?”
“I have two leads.”
“Which are?”
“The aircraft. We need to track down the tail number, see where they got the plane from.”
“I’m sure the NTSB is all over it right now.”
Rogan snorted. “As long as they actually do their research and don’t let themselves be spoon-fed the information from other sources.”
“Right. And your other lead?”
“This,” Rogan said as he pulled out the confiscated cell phone from his pocket, holding it gingerly with two fingers as to not contaminate it any further. “Took it from the pilot before I jumped. It’s the only thing I had time to get, aside from the gun.”
“I have evidence bags in the glove compartment.”
Grateful, he got one and slipped the phone inside the clear plastic bag.
“Have Blair Purdie look at it.”
“Rogan…”
“Fingerprints, of course,” he continued. “But I want a total forensics analysis from a tech team and–“
“Rogan…”
“What?”
“There was an accident. Blair Purdie is dead.”
That made Rogan turn sideways on the seat as his jaw dropped. “Tell me what happened.”
“It was last night, coming back from work. Apparently it was a mugging gone wrong. Around ten last night, his boyfriend reported his disappearance and he was found a couple of hours later, a few blocks from home.”
“This isn’t a coincidence,” Rogan mumbled, shaking his head.
“You really think so? You think this is related to you?”
More precisely, he was certain this was related to that cryptic expression the President had used: Hyperion Foxtrot Protocol.
“Rogan, talk to me.”
He glanced at her but then went back to facing forward while he thought about this. Cass was the only one he trusted but he also knew that if he told her anything she would be in as much danger as he was.
That’s what had happened to that Purdie kid. He was the only one he’d told about Hyperion and a few hours later he was dead. Definitely not a coincidence.
“Rogan, tell me what you’re thinking.”
He nodded thoughtfully and looked at her. “Pull off the highway.”
“Why, what’s going on?”
“Just do it, please.”
It was half a mile until the next exit and she slowed down. They came to a junction with signs pointing to gas stations and fast food joints on each side, nothing was further than a few hundred yards.
“Which way?”
“Just turn here to the right and stop the car on the shoulder. I’m not feeling too well.”
With a worried look, she complied, pulling the car to a complete stop. Rogan opened the door and stepped out, bent in half as he gulped in air. The snow was picking up and the road was practically empty.
Cass left the driver’s seat and went around the car to see what was going on. “Rogan, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said.
As he straightened up, her eyes grew wide when she noticed he was holding a pistol. With no hesitation whatsoever, he hit her behind the head using the improvised hammer. She fell unconscious and rolled into the ditch.
Chapter 17
His first priority was to get rid of the car but it could wait an hour. He drove to I-95 and then headed to Baltimore. He stopped on the way for coffee and snacks, the eventful morning having starved him, and he continued on his way north.
What people didn’t know about him, what was never discovered in the various government background checks, was that Rogan was much more than a federal agent. Beyond his training, his Harvard degree, his military experience, something much more sinister was lurking.
He had once been on the wrong side of the law.
Because of that, he had a backup plan in place, an escape route that would allow him to go to ground in the event his secret was ever discovered. He just never thought he would have to use it, especially with government assassins on his tail.
Once in Baltimore, he got off the highway and headed west to Sandtown. The place looked like a war zone with abandoned buildings lining the streets and trash everywhere. There were pockets of young African-American men on the corners, braving the cold in the hopes of selling some drugs. Their gang colors were conspicuous.
In spite of the odd looks, Rogan wasn’t scared. The Ford he was driving was unmarked but it wasn’t difficult to notice the recessed emergency lights behind the grill. It might as well have been bright red with FBI painted on the side. As such, no one would touch him.
After making two wrong turns, he finally found the shabby body shop he was looking for. Before he had even stopped, two men swaggered his way.
“What you want?”
“I’m looking for Squeaky Barclay,” Rogan said after lowering his window.
“You got the wrong crib, yo.”
“I’m here about business.”