High Flight

by David Hagberg

  “Certainly, but a threat to whom?” Shirokita asked. “The Americans or that bastard Kiyoda?” Nobody was claiming responsibility for allowing that fool to regain his command and actually sail out of here. But sooner or later heads would roll.

  Bruno Mueller arrived back at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport a few minutes after six and went down to retrieve his single overnight bag from the carousel. The flight from Washington’s National where he’d left his car had been less than half full, so the luggage came out quickly. He’d had a lot to think about on the way out, and he was still preoccupied as he turned to leave. Louis had run into trouble with the signal train out of Tokyo. At first he’d been annoyed, and he’d thrown one of his tantrums. But when he’d finally calmed down, he discovered that the Bank of Tokyo had installed what he called an “antivirus” program in its computer system. “Designed,” Louis explained, “to stop the kind of shit we’re trying to pull.”

  “Do they know we’re tampering with their system?” Mueller asked.

  “No. It’s just a precaution. Means they’re nervous.”

  “Can you get around it?”

  Louis had a wild look in his eyes. He was losing it. “There isn’t a program I can’t defeat,” he said. He studied his computer screen. “Twenty-four hours, man. The bastards won’t know they’ve been raped. What do you think about that?”

  The operation was disintegrating. With Glen gone there was no one to control Louis, whose devotion to Mueller had been short-lived. Reid was falling apart and was about ready to crack. And Mueller was beginning to believe that he should kill them both and get out.

  But Reid’s plan was charming. One last strike at the West. One final act of terrorism that would go down in the books as a day of infamy in America’s history. Not that anyone but an Islamic fundamentalist would care.

  “Reston,” someone called. “Tom Reston.”

  Mueller was instantly alert. There were only a few people who knew him by that work name. None of them would do him any good here. He stopped as a short, gray-haired man with a neatly trimmed beard came over from a United carousel where he was waiting for his bags to come up. Mueller put a name to the face immediately.

  “Bill White. Air Traffic Control, Oakland.”

  “That’s right. Nice to see you again.” They shook hands. “How’s the article coming?”

  “Slow but steady.”

  “If you’re working your way east, O’Hare is a good stop,” White said. “Damned fine crew. Earl Heintz, the chief controller, is one of the best in the country.”

  “What brings you so far from home?” Mueller asked. If this one discovered that no one at High Technology Business or Aviation Week & Space Technology magazines had ever heard of Thomas Reston, the operation would definitely be in jeopardy.

  “Union meeting.”

  “Here at the airport, tonight?”

  “Holiday Inn. Starts tomorrow, but some of the guys will be drifting in tonight. You might want to drop by, if you have the time. I’ll introduce you around. For background.”

  “That’s a coincidence. I’m staying at the Holiday Inn. You can ride over with me, I’m going to rent a car.”

  White glanced back at the still empty carousel. “I have to wait for my suitcase.”

  “I’ll get the car and meet you out front. There’re a couple of questions I’d like to ask you on the way over.”

  “Sounds good,” White agreed.

  Mueller hurried to the Budget counter where he rented a Chrysler LeBaron for dropoff in Minneapolis, using his Howard Ellefson identification and credit card. White was waiting in front when Mueller drove up. He tossed his small suitcase in the back seat.

  “I hate those damned shuttle buses, but they’re a lot cheaper than cabbing it,” White said. “How come you had to rent a car?”

  “I want to get over to Meigs Field tomorrow sometime.”

  “There’s nothing much worth seeing there. Not for your article anyway.”

  “I thought I’d take a couple of days off. See some friends. It’s been a long time since I’ve been back here.”

  “I know what you mean,” White said. “But except for O’Hare, you can have Chicago. Too big, too dirty, too much crime.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s getting as bad as L.A. Too dangerous to be anywhere near downtown at night.”

  “How about this far out?” Mueller asked.

  White shrugged. “Who knows? There’s no place really safe these days.”

  It only took a few minutes to get over to the Holiday Inn from the terminal, and Mueller pulled around to the side of the hotel and parked in front of some bushes next to the building.

  “Hope you don’t mind the extra walk, Bill. But I didn’t want to register first and then have to move the car.”

  “No problem,” the air traffic controller said.

  Mueller got around to the passenger side of the car just as White was pulling his suitcase out of the back seat. The parking lot was nearly full, but for the moment no one was around.

  “Here, let me help you.” Mueller took White’s arm with his left hand and pulled him around. With his right, he plunged the nine-inch stiletto into the man’s chest just below his left breast.

  White was surprised. He looked down at the stiletto in his chest and then up at Mueller. “Why—?” he asked, then he collapsed. Moments later he was dead.

  Making sure that no one was coming, Mueller removed the stiletto from the dead man’s chest, wiped the blade off, and then took the man’s wallet and money from his pockets before hiding the body behind the bushes.

  He drove immediately to the rear of the hotel, where he rifled through White’s suitcase and tossed everything into a garbage dumpster, along with the wallet after he’d taken the credit cards and a hundred dollar bill stuck behind the photograph of two small girls hugging Mickey Mouse.

  It would be hours before White’s body was discovered. Possibly not until morning.

  An unfortunate happenstance that would, however, not slow him down, he told himself leaving the Holiday Inn parking lot. He would find a good steakhouse for dinner, place the repeater in the Commission’s Noise Management Program office, and then drive immediately to Minneapolis. With luck he would be finished well before the morning shift arrived.

  Carrara telephoned McGarvey at Dominique’s Watergate apartment. “Are you clean?”

  “For the moment.”

  “No file on Reid. The Attorney General’s office has quashed that part of the investigation for the moment on another strong recommendation from the White House. But listen to this, compar, Reid has switched sides. He’s going to Tokyo on Sunday with the President. It changes everything.”

  “I thought he was anti-Japanese.”

  “He is. Which means he’s probably covering his ass in case everything’s worked out at the summit. But he can’t be involved with this plot to bring down Guerin, or else Air Force One won’t be a target. He wouldn’t risk his own life.”

  “Unless he comes up with a last-minute excuse not to go Sunday,” McGarvey said.

  “I never thought of that,” Carrara replied after a moment.

  “You know Reid’s background better than I do. How likely is it that he’s had a legitimate change of heart?”

  “Not very likely, Mac. He’s been too long at it, and too vocal to switch sides overnight. He has a lot of supporters who read his newsletter. But the President evidently bought it.”

  “He’s worth a quick pass before I go back out to Portland and lean on Yamagata.”

  “It’ll have to be quick, if you’re right about their timetable,” Carrara cautioned. He sounded worried.

  “Is there any way of getting through to the President?”

  “The General, but he won’t listen to either of us.”

  “Do you think Ryan might be a part of it?”

  “No.”

  “Neither do I,” McGarvey said, although it would have given him a certain amount of pleasu
re to attend the Agency counsel’s fall from grace. “Does Reid live here in Washington?”

  “Georgetown.” Carrara gave McGarvey the address on R Street. “His newsletter is the Lamplighter. Offices in the Grand Hyatt Washington. Do you want me to go with you?”

  “Not this time, but I might need some help from Technical Services. You got anyone over there who owes you a favor?”

  “A couple of guys.”

  “Good. In the meantime, I want you to try to get to Murphy one last time. Set up a meeting for the three of us. Anytime, anyplace, so long as Ryan isn’t there.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. But watch yourself. If Reid is involved, and Mueller or Schey is nearby, they’ll be tough. I saw their files.”

  “I hope they are,” McGarvey said.

  “Watch yourself,” Carrara repeated.

  “Will do.”

  McGarvey found a parking place across the street and down the block from the driveway to Reid’s Georgetown place. The house, set back in the trees, was visible from the road. A few windows were lit inside, and the yard floods were on, indicating that someone was home. But to do a proper job of monitoring the man’s movements, Carrara’s Technical Services friends would have to be called out.

  He had no gut feelings this time, but he was running out of options. Short of returning to Japan and taking Kamiya out, there wasn’t much for him to do. One by one his moves were being sidestepped by the Japanese, by Guerin, and by his own government.

  If Reid were involved with Schey and Mueller, however, whatever they were up to would be big. The Germans had their backs to the wall. There were very few places left for them to run. But it did not mean that they were involved in the plot to bring Guerin down. There were no solid connections. Everything was different this time. Less precisely defined. The blacks and whites had turned to shades of gray.

  Time to get out for good. Time to quit chasing demons that hadn’t been catchable in any event. Like a donkey with a carrot dangling in front of its nose, he’d made the moves but he’d never really accomplished anything.

  Headlights came on at the end of the driveway, and moments later a slate-gray Mercedes sedan emerged, Reid behind the wheel, and headed east on R Street.

  McGarvey had to wait for a break in traffic before he could make a U-turn and catch up, but Reid was apparently in no hurry, nor was it likely from the way he was driving that he suspected he was being followed. Either he was a pro, or he had nothing to hide tonight.

  The man had good connections in this town. The very best. It was likely that he would hear about any investigation in which he was involved, and either cooperate if he were innocent or take steps to have the Bureau sidelined if he weren’t. Such as signing on with the President. It wouldn’t stop them for long, but Sunday was only five days away.

  Reid turned on Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House, McGarvey two cars behind him in moderately heavy traffic.

  Up to this point the American had been extremely difficult to follow. His moves, apparently erratic, were those of a highly experienced intelligence officer. Yozo Hamagachi and Toshiki Korekiyo had been allowed to see a portion of McGarvey’s file, and they were impressed.

  “Be very careful of this man,” Yamagata had warned them. “Under no circumstances must you underestimate him. If you are discovered he will not hesitate to kill you.”

  “There are two of us,” Hamagachi had suggested.

  “Pardon me, but although your abilities are impressive, McGarvey would nevertheless kill you.”

  They had their doubts, but they did as they were told, taking extra care with their tradecraft. McGarvey showing up at Edward Reid’s house, however, had been a surprise.

  Korekiyo telephoned Yamagata in Portland on the scrambler. “Target Red is following Teardrop.”

  “Teardrop,” Yamagata repeated. “Are you certain?”

  Korekiyo had brought Reid’s file up on his laptop after getting his name from the address listing in the Washington-area reverse telephone directory. He’d been assigned the codename because of his recent anti-Japanese writings. “Hai.”

  “Follow them to their destination and report to me.”

  “They’ve arrived,” Korekiyo said.

  “Where?”

  “The Department of State.”

  “At this hour?” Yamagata demanded.

  “Hai, Yamagata-san. The building is busy. Many windows show lights.”

  “Remain with them.”

  “Which one?”

  “McGarvey,” Yamagata ordered.

  Except for the glow from the computer terminals the upstairs rooms were in darkness. Louis Zerkel was chugging white wine from a bottle, his feet up on the desk, watching the streams of data crossing the screens. He knew that he was slowly sinking toward some point of deep insanity, a place from where he would no longer be able to reason rationally, but he could do nothing to stop the disintegration.

  He’d found Reid’s extensive wine cellar in the basement, and had picked the dustiest bottles at the top of the racks. This one had a French label with a 1928 date. It gave him heartburn.

  Tokyo Bank’s anti-theft virus was like a germ that attacked any unauthorized entry into the system. The entry would get sick, and when it returned to its source, the hacker’s computer program would catch the disease and die.

  It was really quite simple, Zerkel told himself. He took another pull at the bottle. To beat the germ you played doctor and invented a magic bullet, such as penicillin, administering it to yourself first so that your system would become immune. The next part was trickier. Injecting penicillin directly into Tokyo Bank’s system, thus killing their anti-theft germ, would almost certainly set off alarm signals. Instead, Louis had designed a penicillin-impregnated sheath, or condom, around his entry signal, so that only the germs that came in direct contact with him would die.

  “Like fucking a diseased whore,” he muttered. He had to giggle. He was around the bend, but not stupid. Who’d they think they were screwing with? The stupid bastards hadn’t learned a thing from Pearl Harbor. Well, they were going to get another Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

  He had not found the magic bullet yet, but the same multiplexed program he’d used to defeat the heat-sensor triggering code was working on this problem. It would only be a matter of time before the Japanese system would be breached.

  He giggled again.

  Mueller reached the Twin Cities shortly after 4:30 in the morning. He looked up the Metropolitan Airports Commission address in the telephone book at a roadside phone booth, located it on a map, and got over there a little after 5:00 A.M. The layout was similar to Oakland and Los Angeles, and by 6:00 he had returned his rental car and was heading back to the Northwest Airlines check-in counter for his early flight to Washington.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Carrara telephoned Murphy from his car first thing in the morning, and the General reluctantly agreed to see him at home. The guards at the gate leading up to the DCI’s house behind Gallaudet College were expecting him. They passed him directly through.

  “Good morning, General,” Carrara said at the door. “Thanks for letting me have my say.”

  Murphy was a good director, and although he was tough he was usually fair. Over the past couple of years, however, he’d drifted away from his military style of leadership to that of a politician. A lot of Agency officers, Carrara included, did not like the change.

  “I’m leaving for my office shortly, so you’ve only got a few minutes.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “We’ll do this in my study.” The DCI led Carrara back and closed the door. “All right, Phil, I’m listening.”

  “General, I think you should talk the President out of leaving for Tokyo on Sunday. Air Force One is a Guerin 522, the same type of airplane that crashed last week at Dulles and in ’90 out of O’Hare. The first accident may have been engineered by Mintori Assurance, but the Dulles incident could have been caused by another group. Someone who’d stand
to profit if Guerin were to be hurt and it could be blamed on the Japanese. Right now Sunday seems to make a lot of sense on those terms, because Guerin is also flying its new bird out to Honolulu. If it were to go down, along with the President’s plane, Guerin’s stock would take a nosedive. And considering the fact that all of Japan’s military installations are on alert the situation out there would become explosive. There’s a lot of tension between our countries. This could be the incident that sparks a bigger disaster.”

  “Are you talking about a shooting war between us and Japan?” Murphy asked. It was clear he wasn’t impressed by what he was hearing.

  “If the President were to be killed aboard Air Force One, and the Vice President aboard the new Guerin airplane, and if we thought Japan was to blame … yes, sir, I think a shooting war would be possible.”

  “How?”

  “Blocking Tokyo Bay would be easy enough, which would lock most of the Seventh Fleet in port. And if, let’s say, a supertanker were to accidentally explode in the Panama Canal, destroying one of the locks, it would slow sending reinforcements out of the Atlantic. The Japanese would own the western Pacific.”

  “You’re forgetting the Air Force.”

  “Look how long it took us to get enough personnel and equipment over to Saudi Arabia in ’91 to go up against Iraq.”

  “Okinawa is well equipped,” Murphy pointed out. “And unless the Japanese sank the Seventh Fleet at the dock, there’d be nothing stopping us from heading back up Tokyo Bay right into the city. Have you considered that?”

  “No. But I’m sure someone has.”

  “The crash in ’90 and the one last week involved Guerin 522s, the same type of airplane as Air Force One. Where’s the connection between them and their hypersonic plane?”

  “I don’t know, General.”

  “Has the Federal Aviation Administration made any suggestions about grounding Guerin airplanes?”

  “No.”