High Flight

by David Hagberg

  Mueller stood at the head of the stairs listening to the vagrant sounds of the house. Now that the computer equipment no longer ran twenty-four hours a day, he’d come to appreciate the quiet. To each operation that would succeed there came a point at which a symmetry became obvious. Like now, he thought. Coming here from Europe had been the left side. Accomplishing Reid’s task and leaving would be the right. They were at the pivot point.

  Louis came to the bedroom door. “Are we ready to leave?” he asked.

  “First I need to make certain that you removed your safeguard.”

  “It’s already done. I told Mr. Reid.”

  “Show me.”

  “It’s okay with me if you guys want to make a big production out of this,” Louis said. “I just don’t want to miss my plane, man.”

  “You won’t,” Mueller assured him.

  Louis switched on one of the terminals, brought up a phone line, and got into the FBI’s mainframe, his fingers flying over the keyboard. “I had the program on a coded timer,” he explained, pulling up a block of fingerprint records from the Identification Division. “At the beginning of each six-hour period, plus or minus five minutes, had the recognition code not been entered, this is what would have happened.” He hit a key, and suddenly the screen went red, with the word WARNING flashing on and off.

  “This is not happening now?” Mueller asked.

  “Just here because I pulled the program, like I said.” Louis chuckled.

  The red screen was replaced with photographs of Reid and Mueller, with a complete narrative description of everything they’d done, and what they’d planned.

  “Your program has been erased?” Mueller asked.

  “Yeah,” Louis said. “Watch.” He brought the FBI’s logo back up on screen, hit a series of keys, and this time he was denied access.

  “IMPROPER ACCESS CODE.”

  “Very good,” Mueller said, and he plunged the blade of the stiletto to the hilt in the back of Zerkel’s neck, at the base of his skull, severing his spinal cord.

  Zerkel flopped forward, his head hitting the computer screen, and within a few seconds his body stopped shivering.

  Mueller withdrew the blade and carefully wiped it clean on the back of Zerkel’s sweat-stained shirt. “What do you think about that?” he said.

  A messenger came down from the FBI director’s office and handed John Whitman the warrant. “Mr. Harding asks that you proceed with caution.”

  “Will do,” Whitman said.

  The District of Columbia police had agreed to cooperate. Every hotel and motel within its jurisdiction would be canvassed. The CIA had sent over a recent file photograph of McGarvey. If he was a registered guest anywhere within the district, under whatever name, he would be found. Every Bureau office around the country would get copies of the warrant, and the photograph would coordinate their efforts with local and state police units. The Portland office was especially on the alert, and Guerin Airplane Company would be the subject of a massive, but very quiet, surveillance operation. Outside the country, the CIA would conduct its own search. It would only be a matter of time before he was picked up, with or without his cooperation, Whitman assured himself.

  They left at dark. Mueller went first with the van and headed up to Baltimore to get rid of the bodies. From there he planned on flying to New York where he would place repeaters at La Guardia and JFK airports before returning to Washington. Sometime Saturday he would place the final repeater at Dulles. Reid left a half-hour later, closing down the house. Zerkel’s body was buried in the garbage pit in back, and within twenty-four hours a crew would remove the computer equipment and dispose of it. Mueller thought it was a weak link, although he agreed that Reid knew what he was doing and that the step was necessary. Sunday was the day that the United States would wake up to what the world was really all about.

  John Whitman called Howard Ryan at the CIA. “We’re trying to locate Mr. Phillip Carrara. We’d like to speak with him about Mr. McGarvey.”

  “Have you tried his home?”

  “There appears to be nobody there. I thought you might be able to help.”

  “Just a moment,” Ryan said. He came back on the line several seconds later. “You understand that he is presently on administrative leave.”

  “Yes.”

  “He may have left the city. Nobody has heard from him since this morning. In any event I don’t know if he would be terribly cooperative. He and McGarvey are friends.”

  “Yes, Mr. Ryan, it’s one of the reasons we’d like to interview him.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. But I think that such an interview would have to be conducted here. We’d have to monitor it. Could be that questions of national security would arise.”

  “I agree. You’ll let me know?”

  “As soon as,” Ryan said.

  What a pompous ass, Whitman thought.

  “He’s gone,” Sam Varelis told McGarvey.

  “Gone where?”

  “No one knows, Mac. He’s just gone. His wife is up in Montpelier, and the FBI and CIA are looking for him. Should I dig deeper?”

  “If you can without making waves,” McGarvey replied, but he was worried.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The ocean sounded as if it were just outside the bedroom window. At any other time the pounding surf would have been soothing. But not tonight. Now it sounded ominous, the big waves coming as they did from some distant storm. Maybe even as far away as Japan. Chance’s head felt as if it was about to split open, and she was frightened. They’d given her some drug in Portland, and she couldn’t remember much after that, except that what had begun as some sort of crazy adventure had turned into a nightmare.

  “How are you feeling?” Yamagata asked from the doorway.

  Chance turned. “Where are we?” Her voice sounded slurred to her.

  “Someplace safe. And now you’re going to have to help us.” He sat down beside her on the edge of the bed. “Actually, it’s your husband you can help. If you still want to.”

  “I don’t understand. Who are you?”

  “A businessman—”

  “No, damn you,” Chance cried. She rose up and tried to strike him, but he grabbed her arms and eased her back.

  “I was sent here to make a deal for Guerin. We want to merge with them.”

  “Businessmen don’t take advantage of women.”

  Yamagata laughed. “I think it was you who tried to take advantage of me.”

  “You used drugs on me.”

  “The effects will pass, and in a few hours you’ll feel better. But you must believe me when I tell you that I am here to save lives. That is very important, Chance. Nothing else matters for the moment. It’s something you’re going to have to help us accomplish. Are you listening to me?”

  “They’ll stop you.”

  “Who will stop us?”

  “McGarvey. He warned me.”

  “Yes, I know. But why did your husband hire him? What is the company afraid of?”

  Chance turned away. Her head was pounding. “The accidents. Somebody is doing it.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. David’s afraid. They all are. Even the old man.”

  “You’ll talk to your husband,” Yamagata said, his voice a long way off. “We’ll change it.”

  The weather had been spotty throughout the day and late afternoon, with the sun breaking through the clouds for as much as an hour at a time. In the lee of Okinerabu’s east shore, the Fair Winds was protected from the brunt of the winds and seas rolling across the East China Sea. But as soon as they’d cleared the island’s northern tip for Tokuno thirty miles to the northeast they were hit by the full force.

  Her full-keeled displacement hull bit into the steep seas, her rail forced well into the water by the forty-knot-plus winds, her stubby, over-stayed mast supporting the three sails of the cutter rig with brute strength. For a full minute or two Stan Liskey reveled in the storm, ten tons of boat straining again
st the thick tiller in his hand. But then he glanced at Carol.

  “How’re you doing, kid?” he shouted.

  “Make that Harlem at night. Times Square would be too easy,” she answered. Her face was strained, and her knuckles were white from a death grip on a stanchion.

  A heavier gust hit them, beam on, driving the lee rail even deeper, the mast visibly bending. She stayed over for a long time. Liskey, on the windward side, was standing almost upright, his feet braced against the lee cockpit well, the pressure on the tiller very pronounced. But then the wind eased and Fair Winds’ rail came up, water streaming off her decks.

  “Time to pull in some sails?” Carol shouted hopefully over the wind screaming in the rigging.

  “The boat can take it.”

  “Good! But I don’t think I can, Stan. What’s there to prove?”

  She was right, of course. This weather would only last another few days at most. But when it cleared he wanted to be much closer to the Japanese south island of Kyushu. If they turned back now, to hide again behind Okinerabu, they’d be stuck there. On the other hand, if they could make it to Tokuno by tonight or early morning, and Amami-O-Shima tomorrow afternoon, they’d be in striking distance of a lot more interesting cruising grounds.

  The seas were running above twenty-footers, but they were not breaking yet, and they were on the beam, not the nose. He studied the strait ahead of them. On a clear day Tokuno would be visible from here, he expected. But not now. There was too much spray and mist in the air. Too much haze.

  He glanced at the compass. They were on course. When he engaged the windvane it would keep them there. And the Magellan GPS would unfailingly tell them where they were. If not the GPS, then they’d dead reckon. They were in no danger, just discomfort.

  They shook off a smaller gust, water flying everywhere, and the boat shuddered.

  “I’m going below,” Carol shouted.

  “Wait, I need you here,” Liskey told her. “I’m going to pull the headsail the rest of the way in, then put a reef in the staysail and another in the main.”

  “Are we going to turn back?”

  “We’ll see how we handle the weather once I reduce sail. But I’d like to make Tokuno sometime tonight.” He studied her anxious expression. “Unless you’d feel more comfortable back at anchor.”

  She didn’t answer at first. Instead she looked out toward the weather, watching the big seas marching in toward them. Each wave would rise up on the port beam, as if it would engulf them, but then the boat lifted up, almost as if she were a woman lifting her skirts, and the wave would pass beneath them, leaving a huge trough over which they seemed to teeter.

  “Hell yes, I’d rather be at anchor,” she shouted, turning back to him. “But you tell me, Stan, are we all right out here like this?”

  “If we were racing …”

  “We’re not, are we?”

  Liskey shook his head. “Something might break, but we’re okay.” He grinned, a sudden overwhelming wave of love for her washing through him. “It’ll be a lot more comfortable when I get the sails reefed.”

  “Will it make much difference in our speed?”

  “Not much,” Liskey assured her. He moved forward so that she could slip in beside him and take the tiller. “I’ll signal when I’m ready. Then turn her into the wind so I can get the sails in.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “I love you,” Liskey shouted.

  “Yeah, that too,” she replied wryly. “But thanks.”

  Kirk McGarvey was a deeply troubled man, Dominique thought, watching him as he came awake. Different from most other men she’d ever known. In some respects like her brother: strong, self-assured, with a bit of a chip on his shoulder.

  “It’s morning,” he said, opening his eyes. Gray light came through the windows.

  “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “Did you get any sleep? Or did you stand guard all night?”

  “All I’ve done out here is sleep,” she said. “Do you know that you dreamed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it about your work?”

  “That, and other things. But mostly about the people I’ve been … involved with. Some of them didn’t seem too bad afterward. Just people trying to live their lives,” McGarvey said distantly. “When the rules change it’s hard to know what’s right. There’s never any easy answers. No black and white. It’s not what you think.”

  “I don’t know if I can believe that,” Dominique said. “Whoever brought down the airplane at Dulles is evil.”

  “Maybe they were soldiers like you say I am.”

  “Not like you. I can’t believe that you’ve killed innocent people.”

  McGarvey smiled wanly. “Tell that to the Russians,” he said. He reached over and kissed her. “I have to go.”

  She stayed in bed while he showered and dressed. He kissed her again before he left. At the window she watched him drive away, and when his car was gone, she placed a telephone call to a Washington number. Last night he’d told her everything, because there was no reason for her not to know, and because she’d promised to stay put.

  “Good morning,” a woman said. “Thank you for calling the Lamplighter. How may I direct your call?”

  “I’d like to speak to Mr. Reid, please. Tell him it’s Dominique Kilbourne, from the Airplane Manufacturers and Airline Association.”

  Reid, a guarded note in his voice, came on a moment later.

  “Good morning, Ms. Kilbourne. What can I do for you?”

  “You can buy me lunch today.”

  “Lunch?”

  “Yes, Mr. Reid. I happen to agree with you about the Japanese. I’ve been reading your newsletter lately, and there’s something I’d like to ask you. Something the people I represent are concerned about. Very concerned.”

  “Sounds intriguing. Would you care to give me a hint?”

  “Noon,” Dominique said. “Shall we say the Rive Gauche?”

  “Very well,” Reid replied, but it didn’t sound as if he was happy about it.

  McGarvey left a message at the Russian embassy for Viktor Yemlin. The former Washington rezident met him at the coffee shop in the Washington Plaza Hotel a couple of blocks away on Thomas Circle.

  “Guerin will not ground the fleet,” McGarvey said. “And the President leaves for Tokyo on Sunday, aboard a Guerin 522.”

  “My hands are tied, Kirk. Believe me. In fact I have orders to return to Moscow.”

  “Two days, Viktor Pavlovich. Goddammit, I’m trying to avert a disaster here.”

  Yemlin spread his hands. “What do you want from us?” he asked in frustration. “Abunai has been shut down. I’m no longer your case officer, and for all I know the Guerin deal has already been written off.”

  “If airplanes start crashing your hands won’t be clean.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The President won’t cancel his trip. If Air Force One were to go down, the CIA would turn to the Japanese. But it’d also want to know what part the SUR played. Exactly what Abunai did to … create the situation in Tokyo.”

  “We did nothing—”

  “When I turn myself in and tell them about Mintori Assurance’s part in the 1990 crash, they’ll see it differently. You know goddamned well they will, Viktor. I suggest you tell Moscow exactly that.”

  Yemlin shook his head.

  “You people are in this up to your necks, just like we are.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, Kirk.” Yemlin sighed. “Call me at my blind number this afternoon.”

  “The FBI is monitoring that line. We’ll meet at Arlington.”

  General Polunin had a terrific case of heartburn, and nothing that Colonel Lyalin was telling him helped. This time it wouldn’t be so easy to pass the buck to Karyagin.

  “What’s the upshot?” he asked his First Department chief.

  “It’s lucky for us that Viktor Pavlovich decided to delay his departure from Washington.
Otherwise we would be in the dark. There is no basis for any guesswork. We no longer have the assets.” Lyalin spread his hands.

  “Spare me the economic complaints. What does McGarvey want?”

  “Help with their situation. We’re reasonably certain that Mintori was involved in the American Airlines crash in 1990, but not the recent accident at Dulles. But both crashes were apparently caused by the same malfunction, which would appear to be a statistical long shot. Someone else has become involved.”

  “Who?”

  “Unknown at this point, and with network Abunai inoperative for the moment we’re getting no fresh intelligence from Tokyo. That is assuming the second party is also Japanese.”

  “But we’re not certain of even that much,” Polunin said. “The fucking fools are willing to sacrifice a billion-dollar aircraft factory because they want to save face.”

  “We may get lucky. There might not be a connection,” Lyalin replied hopefully. “The problem is that Air Force One is a Guerin 522, which President Lindsay will be flying to Tokyo on Sunday. If it goes down we could conceivably be implicated.”

  “How?”

  “McGarvey says he will tell the CIA about Abunai’s help identifying Mintori. Langley will want to know why, if we suspected the President’s plane was sabotaged, we didn’t warn them.”

  “Why don’t we?” Polunin asked.

  “I think it’s too late, General. We have no other way out except by helping McGarvey. Providing the Kremlin won’t change its mind about a retaliatory strike on Japan.”

  Polunin shook his head. “Even you are not supposed to know about that.”

  “Everyone knows.”

  “Can we send Abunai to Washington without trouble?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then do it, Colonel. The sooner he talks to McGarvey, the better I’ll feel. In the meantime I’ll light another fire under Tokyo Station’s ass. Its political section is busy, but its field officers aren’t.”