Phoenix Rising

by Nance, John J. ;

  He came to a sudden stop and repeated the thought.

  Everything in its place. Suppose everything isn’t in its place.

  He turned and headed back to the scene of the crime—the file room—with the name Willis running through his head.

  They had two unrelated pilots named Willis, Art and David. Art was a copilot/first officer, while Dave was a captain. Dave Willis’s file was one of the ones taken, but something had snagged his memory earlier when he had gone through the files himself.

  He had no memory of having seen Art Willis’s file either.

  Brian spun in the combination on the newly installed file cabinet lock and pulled open the bottom drawer. Each file was color-coded according to crew position: red for captains, blue for first officer/copilots, and green for flight engineers.

  He forced himself to slow down as he paged through the folders, stopping in the exact spot where both Willis folders should have been.

  Both folders were missing.

  He spun around and checked a training computer printout. With copilot Art Willis not scheduled for any recurrent training for several more months, there was no legitimate reason for the folder to be out of the file cabinet. The fact that it was meant the thief had taken both Willis folders!

  Brian sat down on the rug with his back to the open file drawer, mentally picking his way through a tantalizing trail of logic that seemed to promise a solution if he could only solve the riddle.

  Two files with the same name were missing, and one of them belonged to a copilot. Yet only captains had been cited by the FAA for missing training folders. Why hadn’t the FAA complained about Willis the copilot, too? That had to mean that the FAA had checked only the captains’ folders when they pulled their inspection, because copilot Willis’s folder must have been missing at the same time.

  Why? Why would the FAA team not be interested in all the pilot folders if they had been tipped off that some pilots were illegally trained?

  The answer was quick in coming, and Brian snapped his fingers.

  Of course! Because the tipster told them exactly which captains were deficient, and those are the only ones the feds came in to check. That’s why they wouldn’t have realized that Art Willis’s folder was missing too.

  But if the thief had intended to turn in only captains, why did he take Willis the copilot’s folder in the first place?

  Wait a minute. WAIT a minute!

  Brian got to his feet suddenly and turned toward the file cabinet, holding his index finger like a gun, his voice suddenly booming his thoughts into the room.

  “What if he didn’t take the folder? What if he pulled it by mistake, discovered his error, and just stuffed it back in at random?”

  He began searching through the folders again, starting with the top cabinet and working back through the alphabet, and in the third drawer—between the U’s and the V’s—the name Willis suddenly popped into focus.

  Brian stood there in disbelief for a second, stunned by the chance it gave him.

  “Gotcha, you son of a bitch!”

  He dashed to the break room for a paper towel, then gingerly pulled the file out, using the towel to avoid smudging any fingerprints. He opened it the same way, noticing that some of the papers within were upside down.

  “Okay, so you’re sloppy, too! That probably means you left fingerprints on the papers inside.”

  There was something else this proved. What? What else?

  The color-coded tab on the edge of the folder came into focus as if lighted by a sudden spotlight.

  Of course! Anyone who knew this filing system would never have made the mistake of grabbing a copilot’s file. The person I’m looking for is not on my office staff, and couldn’t be one of the training pilots or instructors.

  That was a great relief. The chance that one of his own people had turned renegade had made him sick, especially when he’d caught himself distrusting nearly everyone, Gail included.

  Brian carried the folder to his desk, oblivious of the time. It took several calls to roust out the FBI agent assigned to the NTSB investigation at Whidbey Island, and several minutes of explanation to get the man to agree to a late-night meeting.

  “Whoever tried to murder our passengers and crew on Flight Ten is probably the same person who took these files, and I think I’ve got the sumbitch’s fingerprints! I need you to lift the prints and run them through your central files in Washington, as well as compare them with our fingerprint files. I know some of our prints will be there too, but the freshest ones will belong to the thief.”

  Fingerprinting had been required of all Pan Am employees before hiring, including the executive staff. If the culprit was a Pan Am employee, they’d catch him now for sure.

  And if the thief wasn’t a Pan Am employee, well, at least they’d know.

  Brian slid the folder into a larger manila envelope and headed for the door. The FBI agent had agreed to meet him at corporate headquarters in two hours, and he’d already called the personnel manager to get him downtown to open the main personnel files.

  Sleep would have to wait.

  14

  Tuesday, March 14, morning

  New York City

  Elizabeth stretched luxuriously and rolled over, fluffing the pillow and nestling her head in it, letting herself be drawn back to a dream state as the filtered daylight played over her closed eyelids.

  Daylight?

  She came awake in an instant, her eyes searching the unfamiliar interior of Eric Knox’s bedroom for a clock.

  The lighted red numbers jumped out at her with accusatory intensity.

  It didn’t ring. It didn’t! I would have heard it!

  She rubbed her eyes and looked at the numbers again.

  “Dammit!” she hissed. She had set the alarm for midnight to call Brian. Now it was 8:35 A.M. in New York, 5:35 A.M. in Seattle, and she’d missed the window.

  The call would have to wait.

  Elizabeth pulled on a bathrobe and padded to the well-stocked kitchen to make some coffee and toast, letting her mind spin up to something resembling normal speed.

  I could call Harold Hudgins now. It’s late enough.

  It was going to be an immense relief to hear him confirm the eighty-five-million-dollar loan, but she forced herself to sit and enjoy the coffee before heading for the phone, and by the time she dialed Hudgins’s number, she was energized and eager.

  At first she didn’t recognize the cold, distant voice on the other end.

  “Harold?”

  “Yes … who is this?”

  “Elizabeth Sterling.”

  No reply.

  “Pan Am’s CFO, remember?”

  “Of course. Sorry, it’s been a busy morning.” There was an apology in his words, but not in his tone.

  “You indicated,” she began “that you’d be finalizing things yesterday afternoon, so I decided to start the morning out with good news and call you.”

  Silence again. She could hear him muttering to someone in the background, then turn back to the phone.

  “Good news?”

  She tried to chuckle against rising apprehension. “I was expecting to get the good news from you. In regard to the note.”

  “Oh. I see,” he said. “Well, these things normally take time, as you know, but I was able to get to the various lenders yesterday, and I’m afraid they simply weren’t interested.”

  The words fell like a sack of cement at her feet.

  “What about your assurances yesterday?” she blurted out in confusion.

  Hudgins’s voice hardened instantly.

  “Now listen, I gave you virtually no assurances of any kind. I made it clear that—”

  “Harold,” she cut him off, her voice now firm and tinged with anger, “I am not going to have the plug pulled on me without an adequate explanation. Twenty hours ago you clearly indicated this was very close to a done deal. I want to meet at your office in an hour.”

  “That’s not possible, I’m
much too busy—”

  “Ten or ten-thirty, then, take your pick,” she snapped.

  There was a lengthy hesitation before he replied.

  “Ten o’clock, if you insist.”

  “I do insist.”

  “But there’s really nothing more to say.”

  Elizabeth ended the call, realizing she was shaking slightly with a combination of anger and alarm.

  She showered quickly and picked out a smart gray silk business suit trimmed in black, one that fit her curves perfectly without being too overtly sexy. Black patent shoes and handbag—along with the sterling silver jewelry that had become her trademark—would give just the right balance. Elizabeth was halfway into her pantyhose when the need to call the other contacts from yesterday’s meetings became almost overwhelming.

  After all, a voice in her head seemed to be saying, all it’ll take is one “yes” and your day is made. We can forget about this strange rejection and go home.

  It doesn’t work that way, my dear, she sneered at herself. It’s much more complicated and you know it!

  She picked up the phone anyway.

  All of the people she’d seen the previous day were in, and all of them were quite clear: Sorry, we can’t do it.

  Elizabeth replaced the receiver at last and sat for a moment, listening to the roar of Manhattan traffic outside and the ticking of an incredibly expensive Victorian grandfather clock in the entryway.

  What in heaven’s name am I going to do now? she thought as she finished dressing. An entire day had been wasted, and the deadline came in less than a week. Panic began to rise up again inside her, threatening her ability to think clearly, and she fought to contain it. She had a long list of friends and contacts on her Rolodex who had yet to be called, and she knew Eric would help as well. Silverman, Knox, and Bryson was still Pan Am’s investment banking firm. All they really needed by the twentieth of March was a solid letter of intent. With that, she could buy the time from the bondholders for a slightly delayed payment without going into default.

  But the first problem on the list was Hudgins. Why the sudden reversal? Why the frostiness?

  With a last look in the mirror, Elizabeth grabbed her briefcase and headed out the door. She was already hailing a cab when the phone in Eric’s apartment began ringing, activating the answering machine.

  Tuesday, March 14, 5:40 A.M.

  Seatac Airport

  Who the hell is that guy?

  The mechanic forgot about his freezing hands and watched the lone figure in coveralls walking with studied nonchalance across the predawn ramp, trying to pinpoint what was bothering him about the man. Everyone at Pan Am had been placed on a state of security alert, or “practiced paranoia,” as his lead had dubbed it. Maybe he was overreacting, but he was sure he’d never seen this character before.

  The mechanic began walking an intercept course, catching up with the man about fifty yards from Ship 610—the 747 due out on the London flight later in the morning.

  “Hey! Hold up there!” He tensed for trouble, and wondered what he’d do if the man took off running.

  But the man stopped and turned, looking mildly curious and unruffled.

  That’s a good sign, at least, the mechanic thought as he came within a few feet of him.

  “Could I see your ID, please?”

  The man smiled easily and unclipped the blue and white ID card from his lapel, handing it over. The mechanic studied the card and the name, Joseph F. Balkins, looking up to match the mustached face before him with the similar face on the card, though it was difficult to see in the dim lights. The bearer, it said, was with ARA Services, the fuel provider.

  “Where’s your truck?” the mechanic asked as he handed the ID back.

  The man chuckled. “The pickup won’t start, and I need the exercise, so I thought I’d just hoof it. Gotta do the morning checks on the hard-stand fuel connectors, you know. New rule.”

  The mechanic hadn’t heard, but then handling the fuel apparatus wasn’t his area of expertise. If the guy said they had a new rule, he probably knew what he was talking about. Certainly the ID seemed okay, and suddenly he felt foolish.

  “Hey, I’m sorry to stop you. We’re just, you know, watching our airplanes a lot closer these days.”

  “No problem,” the man named Balkins replied, flashing a smile. “Sorry if I worried you by walking. I’ll just go do my check and get out of your hair.”

  He thought of strolling along with Balkins and watching as he lifted the heavy cover to the hard-stand fueling connector under the Pan Am 747’s wing, but decided it was unnecessary. The mechanic waved goodbye and began walking back toward the terminal. About halfway there, he turned around to check on the fueler’s progress beneath Ship 610.

  But Balkins had disappeared.

  It was near the end of his shift when the mechanic called ARA’s foreman to check on Balkins. The answer was totally unexpected.

  “He’s on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, overeating, chasing his wife, and taking a vacation. Be back next week. Why?”

  He told him of the encounter on the ramp, and added a description.

  “This guy was a white male about five foot eight, with a mustache and black hair.”

  “You say he had an ID with a picture that matched that description?”

  “Yes,” the mechanic replied.

  “The ID was fake, then. We better get the police in on this.”

  “You sure? Maybe your man came back early.”

  There was a worried laugh from the other end.

  “Friend, ‘Big Joe’ Balkins stands six foot three, weighs over two hundred pounds, is as bald as a billiard ball, and black.”

  Tuesday, March 14, 9:55 A.M.

  New York City

  Irwin Fairchild buttoned the top button of his overcoat against the cold air whistling down Manhattan’s skyscraper canyons and glanced around cautiously as he pushed through the revolving door.

  No one seemed to notice him, and for that he was glad. Fairchild was slight of build, just under five foot six, with deep, sunken eyes submerged in a hawkish, cadaverous face. At a casual glance, he looked merely old and tired. But to anyone who had stared into those menacing eyes over a negotiating table, Irwin Fairchild was a casting director’s caricature of the grim reaper, without the robe. The thin lips and sunken cheeks gave him a look of perpetual rage, a barely contained homicidal fury just beneath the surface. There were retired corporate chairmen who swore they had sold out to Fairchild because of the implications of that inhuman stare.

  “It was as if,” one client had told Elizabeth, “those evil eyes were saying, ‘You can either agree to the deal, or be dismembered here and now. I don’t really care which.’”

  Fairchild’s limousine was right where he had instructed his driver to be, and the uniformed man held open the rear door as his boss slid swiftly and expertly onto the plush backseat.

  It was never wise to be too visible in public, Fairchild knew. Successful financiers had enemies, and Fairchild realized his were legion.

  The limo dropped into gear and began to glide away from the curb before Elizabeth Sterling could force herself to get out of the backseat of her taxi. They had pulled up just behind the limo as Fairchild came through the door, and her stomach had knotted with a range of emotions when she spotted him and watched the coal-eyed bastard move to his car.

  A raspy, irritated voice lashed back at her through a small window in the divider between the cab’s back and front seats.

  “So is this your building or isn’t it, lady? I don’t got all day!”

  This one was a cabby of the old school, Elizabeth realized. She paid him without comment and got out.

  She walked briskly into the building and headed straight for the security desk to announce herself. While a lost tourist occupied the guard, Elizabeth let her eyes range over the building directory, assuming Fairchild’s company would be listed.

  It wasn’t.

  What was that snake d
oing here?

  “Okay, ma’am, which office?” Having dispatched the tourist to an uncertain fate, the guard turned his attention to Elizabeth, and she found herself responding with a ploy she hadn’t planned, the split-second decision made only as she turned to answer the man.

  “I’m Mr. Fairchild’s assistant, and I need your help. He just sent me back in here with papers that have to be delivered to one of the offices, but I guess I didn’t listen well enough to what he said, because I don’t see anything here that sounds like the right one.”

  “You don’t know the name?”

  “No, and I’m going to be in real trouble. I did this same thing last week, too. He talks awfully fast.”

  The guard nodded.

  “If I can find which office he came from, will that do it for you?”

  “Yes. Yes, it will. He was just up there in an important negotiation.”

  The guard consulted his sign-in book, pulled out another badge, and handed it to her.

  “Forty-fifth floor. Just sign my book right here. Bannister Partners is the office. They have the whole floor.”

  Hudgins’s floor. Hudgins’s firm!

  She decided to press her luck.

  “Does it say which partner he was talking to?” she asked.

  There was a momentary hesitation, but the guard looked back at his book.

  “Yeah. Mr. Hudgins.”

  She thanked him and found the elevators, got off on the twentieth floor, and found a ladies’ room. She had to sit for a minute and think.

  Fairchild and Hudgins together. What did that mean? Could it be some other deal they were working on? Was it coincidence? Or could his presence here be connected with the abrupt refusal to set up an emergency loan to Pan Am?

  Elizabeth settled quickly on a plan and headed for the elevators again. She got off on the forty-fifth floor and asked for Harold Hudgins.

  He left her to cool her heels for twenty minutes. When he came out, there was no friendliness. He didn’t show her back to his office until she insisted.

  After ten minutes of noncommittal platitudes and denials that he had ever indicated it was a sure thing, Elizabeth got up to go, then turned to Hudgins.