Phoenix Rising

by Nance, John J. ;

  ok fine. its easier without trying to hit upr case. get joe taylor in here to see me as quick as you can. tell the old fart im not a vegitable, and that i can run this thing from this bed better than jennings is doing on his feet. basically i want jennings out of my office. i intend to resume my duties as pres. find elizabeth for me too please, tell her to call me here. my wife will standby and interpret whad … what i write. were not going to let all these years of hard work go to hell without a fight to the last minte … minute. hows the faa actions?

  “All fines are suspended until they finish investigating who did what to us and when. I think we’ll end up in the clear on everything, and that’s Murphy’s and Conrad’s opinion too.”

  wunnerful!!! now the sobs need to tell the rest of the world. ralph … tell murphy and conrad to redoubel security … i dont belive … believe its over. the sabotage i mean.

  Friday, March 24, 10:25 P.M.

  Heathrow Airport, London

  Elizabeth had just cleared customs at Heathrow when Creighton MacRae appeared at her side, scooping up her bag and smiling at her as she tried to hide the depth of the pleasure she felt.

  He was supposed to be in New York!

  “I’ve brought a legal team along, Elizabeth. Jack Rawly, your general counsel, and another attorney he’s retained in New York. They’re waiting for us across the field on board Jack’s Falcon 50, which will be ready to go back to New York in about thirty minutes.”

  “Good grief! What’s that going to cost us?” she asked.

  “Cheaper than four tickets on the Concorde at, what, three thousand a pop?”

  He took her arm gently and guided her through the throng of passengers, brushing past a portly, balding man in a business suit who suddenly turned and called out to Elizabeth.

  “Excuse me! ma’am? Excuse me!”

  Creighton stopped as Elizabeth turned.

  “I’m Jim Cleghorn, Ms. Sterling, right? You’re our new chief financial officer?”

  “Our?”

  “I’m Pan Am’s London station manager, Ms. Sterling. We met last week when I got you the pass back home on British Air?”

  She relaxed then, and smiled at him as she took his hand. “Of course, Jim. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you.”

  “Ah … Ms. Sterling, would you have a moment to come to my office and help me out with a slightly odd situation?”

  Creighton moved closer to her side now, speaking out of the corner of his mouth.

  “We really do need to get cracking.”

  She nodded ever so slightly at Creighton while keeping her eyes on Cleghorn. “What about, Jim?”

  “I’ve got a fellow in my office, a well-spoken gent who wants to relay some information to us that he says is urgent, but he’ll only speak with a corporate officer.”

  “A complaint, you mean?”

  Cleghorn shrugged. “He won’t tell me. I had him wait while I took care of another matter, and then I was going to try again to get someone on the phone from Seattle, but since you’re here …”

  Creighton shook his head openly and looked at Elizabeth. “We really don’t have time, Ms. Sterling.”

  She smiled and raised the palm of her right hand. “I’m sorry, Jim. We have a private plane waiting for a transatlantic flight. This fellow sounds like someone Ralph Basanji in Seattle would want to talk to.”

  He reached out and shook her hand again, smiling. “Not to worry. I’ll take care of it. Let me know if I can ever help when you’re in town.”

  Creighton led the way to the driveway, where a black Bentley was waiting to take them to the aircraft.

  “I know you’re probably exhausted.”

  “Not really. I’m okay.”

  “Good. I thought we could work and plot strategy across the pond. We’ve got three extra computers aboard, and if we each copy and search through the data you’ve brought back, maybe the legal types can get their case together.”

  “Have they scheduled a hearing?”

  He shook his head. “Rawly says he wants to find his favorite federal judge in his rose garden. Gives us a better shot.”

  Elizabeth stole a sideways look at Creighton, noting the glitter of combativeness in his eyes and the way he was sitting forward on the edge of the seat, fists clenched, watching the driver’s actions like a pensive hawk. She had wondered if his legal victory over the companies that killed his airline had given him the freedom he sought, or made him a captive to his ultimate success. With the money came no need to fight further, and she could imagine his irascibility growing in direct proportion to his boredom as he sat, season after season, like a brooding lion atop the personal hill of his Scottish farm.

  Creighton noticed her silence and turned his head toward her, delighted to find her eyes on him.

  “What exactly am I doing that you find so amusing?” he asked, half amused himself. “Come on now, be brutally frank.”

  She cleared her throat and diverted her gaze forward.

  “I was merely thinking that you seem to be up for this fight.” She looked back at him, locking her eyes on his. “And it makes me feel very encouraged.”

  He smiled and looked away. “Don’t buy any Dom Pérignon yet. We’ve a long way to go.”

  “Any word on Jason Ing?” she asked.

  Creighton shook his head as they pulled up to the airplane.

  Maybe he’s forgotten about Vancouver.

  He helped her out of the car, and Elizabeth could see the other two men through the open door of the jet, but her mind was occupied with a disturbing debate.

  I hope he doesn’t remember, and yet I hope he does.

  As Elizabeth was fastening her seatbelt in the cabin of Jack Bastrop’s Falcon 50, less than a mile across the airport in the main Heathrow Terminal Jim Cleghorn replaced the handset of his office phone and shook his head at the distinguished-looking man seated on the other side of his desk.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but as you heard, I’m getting nowhere. It would really be helpful if you told me what this was about.”

  “I cannot. Only to an officer.”

  “Well, that’s what I mean. I ran into our chief financial officer just a few minutes ago in the terminal, and if I could have told her what you wanted—”

  The man lurched forward in his chair, his eyes flaring. “Your chief financial officer is here?”

  “Was here. She’s headed for New York, I think, on a private jet.”

  Not smart, Jim! he told himself. Don’t give out details to strangers!

  “I must stop … her?”

  “Yes. Our CFO is a woman.”

  “I must stop her!” The man was on his feet and threatening to dash out the door.

  “Not possible, sir. I don’t know which airplane, or which airport they’re leaving from. If you want to catch her, you’ll have to do it in New York.”

  Jacob Voorster whirled back to Jim Cleghorn. “Will you send a message to your people in New York that I must speak with her? This is vital for your company!”

  Jim Cleghorn leaned forward and concentrated on his visitor’s eyes.

  “This … doesn’t concern any threat to our airplanes, does it?”

  Voorster shook his head firmly. “But it is so important that I will fly to New York at my own expense to speak with her.”

  Cleghorn sat back and sighed. You’re sure not flying at our expense, fellow, he thought to himself. He looked up at the man. “Okay. I’ll let them know, and they’ll let her know.”

  He pulled a pad of paper across the desk. “Your name, sir?”

  “Jacob Voorster, formerly of Van Zanten and Vetter of Amsterdam.”

  Saturday, March 25, 7:00 A.M.

  Hong Kong

  Nicolas Costas gripped the balcony railing of his multimillion-dollar apartment on the mid-level slopes of Victoria Peak, staring at the harbor as he ground his teeth.

  Two very alarmed men stood in the shadows of his living room expecting the worst, one of them the British expatriate
chief operating officer of ITB, the other the head of ITB security. Neither of them had ever met the third man in the room, whose name was Choi, but from what they knew of his reputation, they would just as soon not have been on the same island with such a dangerous sort. Choi, for his part, was ignoring what he considered Costas’s lackeys. The leading member of a powerful Kowloon underworld family stood to one side looking quietly comfortable, and waiting for Nick Costas to come back in.

  Costas muttered a four-letter epithet toward the bay and returned to the room, eyes ablaze with fury as he looked at his two employees, then softened his expression as he turned to face Choi Hee.

  “How bad is your guest feeling?”

  Choi smiled an evil smile. “He’ll live. He has all his parts. But he’ll be sore for some time.”

  “And he doesn’t know who snatched him?”

  Choi shook his head. “He will be unable to identify anyone.”

  Costas nodded. “It would be appreciated if he were to remain your guest until Monday evening. It would also be appreciated if he were to find himself dumped somewhere near the border, where he’ll have to walk home. He comes from a powerful family, Choi Hee. They will want him back.”

  “I believe those wishes can be accommodated by our family, which is also a family of some substance.” Costas saw Choi’s eyes flash in anger at the perceived insult.

  No matter, Costas figured. Choi owed him.

  “And on the subject of what he knew,” Choi continued, “we don’t believe the woman told him anything of substance. All he seemed to know was that she was flying back to San Francisco, as we told you.”

  “He fooled you, I’m afraid. I had one of my people meet that flight in San Francisco. She wasn’t there. This is the second time she’s slipped out of the net.”

  Choi bowed and left. Costas waited before turning to the two bank officers, fury painting his features again, and his voice at high volume. “You two idiots better be telling me the truth about the files.”

  The COO, a ruddy-faced native of Cornwall, England, with a lantern jaw and sunken eyes, nodded furiously. “We know she looked at the files, and which ones she tried to download. But the security system would have erased them when she couldn’t come up with the right code.”

  “But the bitch saw them!” Costas shot back.

  “She came in the building under a false name and spent time with one of the programmers, as I told you, Nick. The girl, the programmer, can’t recall whether Sterling saw one of the security-code lists or not. They were talking about the technical capabilities of the system.”

  “Fire her.”

  “I already have, Nick. I wouldn’t really worry about those files—”

  “Oh you wouldn’t?” Costas walked up to the COO face to face. “I’ve got records in those files that could be misinterpreted and used against me in a hundred lawsuits. Hell, she probably knows, now, that I own the bank.”

  “Nick, if you can grab her computer—”

  Costas grabbed the man’s tie with the quickness of a striking snake, and jerked the man viciously within inches of his face.

  “Where the fuck is her computer, wiseass? Where is she?”

  The phone rang, and Costas released him as he moved to answer it. After a brief exchange he replaced the receiver with a disgusted look.

  “Well, the bitch showed up in London and got on a private jet bound for New York a while ago.”

  “What are you going to do?” the COO asked.

  Nick Costas turned back to the balcony, his voice low and guttural and almost inaudible. “What I should have done to begin with. But it’s probably too late.”

  30

  Cathay Alliance

  Friday, March 24, midnight

  Seattle

  When his panicked client had finished talking, the man replaced the telephone handset and returned to his makeshift workbench.

  He shook his head and chuckled to himself, contemptuous of his client’s worries. So the airline was bending heaven and earth to keep anything from happening on the round-the-world inaugural aircraft as it flew from Seattle to New York. So what? A small change in plans he could easily handle.

  The man slowly inserted a battery, and carefully soldered the positive wire to the positive terminal.

  With the wires in place, he checked to see that the enabling switch was in the off position and began to pack it in a video camera battery case.

  Once finished, he placed the package in the bottom of his camcorder case before peeling off his latex gloves. There was still the mustache. He’d grown attached to it. But it was time to shave it off, change his hair color, and pop in a set of blue-tinted contact lenses.

  Pan Am’s head of maintenance and their chief pilot were trying to play detective and find him, he knew. So far, neither was getting close. But both men were wild cards in a game it was deadly not to control.

  And wild cards had to be neutralized.

  Saturday, March 25, 9:30 A.M.

  New York

  Elizabeth awoke before ten and showered quickly, amazed that she felt rested and awake. She had made several calls and finished putting on her last serviceable dress from her small suitcase just as Creighton knocked on her door, holding a pot of coffee and two cups.

  “How are you holding up?”

  “Through sheer determination. Come on in, and bring that transfusion with you!”

  He sat on a chair while she perched on the end of the bed, forcing herself to focus on nothing but business as they drained the coffee and reviewed the bleak situation. Jason Ing was still missing, and Cathay Alliance had confirmed by phone minutes before that they couldn’t complete the loan without him. The only route to salvation lay through the federal courts.

  “That’s why I won’t be with you this afternoon, Elizabeth.”

  She looked up, surprised.

  “I can’t promise anything,” he continued, “but I have a hunch I can find one of the last links. I’m certainly of no use to you in a legal strategy meeting.”

  “But you have direct evidence—” she started to protest.

  He finished the thought, “Which can be presented in affidavit form for these purposes. No, I’m not needed this afternoon. I’ll rejoin you before you go see the judge.”

  She put the cup down and studied him, sensing uncertainty in him for the first time. “Creighton, what are you planning to do?”

  He shook his head side to side. “Nothing foolish, I assure you. But there are people in this yet to be heard from, and remember, you got me into this because I’d been here before. Trust me.”

  She smiled, slow and warm, her eyes looking directly into his. “I do.”

  Saturday, March 25, 10:30 A.M.

  JFK Airport, New York

  Jacob Voorster was astounded and angry.

  “You are telling me I was misled in London?”

  The Pan Am passenger service agent smiled a rueful little smile and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know what to tell you, sir. Ms. Sterling is our chief financial officer and vice-president, and she’s based in Seattle. I just called back there to operations, and they said that as far as they know, that’s where she is.”

  “You must help me reach her, or your president, or someone in authority by phone!” he asked.

  “Not on a weekend, sir, unless this is an emergency—and even then we can’t give out home numbers.”

  “This is an emergency. Your airline is under financial attack. I have worked for the company that is trying to put you out of business. I have vital information to give your leaders. If I do not reach the right person in your company, you will have no company. Can you not understand that?” He stopped suddenly, having said more than he’d intended to say to anyone other than a Pan Am corporate officer.

  The station manager drummed her fingers on her desk for what seemed like forever, her eyes boring into Jacob’s. He didn’t flinch, and finally she spoke.

  “Okay. We get to use our own good judgment around
here. If you’ll wait in the outer office, I’ll find someone back there of corporate rank, and we’ll see what can be done.”

  “Thank you,” Jacob said.

  Thirty minutes later, Judy Schimmel emerged from her office with a notepad and a smile. “Okay, Mr. Voorster. Will the vice-president of operations do?”

  He nodded.

  “Very well. That’s a Mr. Chad Jennings. Until this morning he was acting president while our corporate president recovered from an illness.” She handed him a Pan Am ticket envelope and another slip of paper. “Our flight to Seattle leaves tomorrow at eight A.M. I’ve got a round-trip pass for you in this envelope. I’m going to put you up tonight at a hotel right off the airport at our expense, and have one of our people take you over there and pick you up again in the morning. Mr. Jennings will be at the airport on your arrival in Seattle. Okay? When I told him what you told me, he was very eager to meet you. He also asked me to ask you to discuss this with no one else. He says you’ve found the right officer.”

  Saturday, March 25, 6:15 P.M.

  New York City

  Jack Rawly had lost count of the cups of coffee he had guzzled since late morning. The Pan Am general counsel drained his latest now and looked at the paper-strewn table of the ornate conference room, the battle-field of nearly eight hours’ work. In reality it was the living room of a suite, connected to a bedroom in either direction, and it occupied the southeast corner of the tenth floor of the hotel. But it had served as the Pan Am war room since he had assembled with three additional New York-based attorneys just before noon.

  Elizabeth had stayed for the first few hours, departing in midafternoon to make a series of calls back to Seattle and continue her last-minute efforts to secure a loan.

  Now she was back, relaying word that Chad Jennings had been relieved of his temporary post as acting president by Ron Lamb, who was running things from his hospital room. Elizabeth saw the relieved smile on Jack Rawly’s face.

  “Any word from Hong Kong?” Rawly asked, trying to change the subject.

  “Jason Ing is still missing, and his company is unwilling to transfer any funds without him, even if we resolve our problems with U.S. approval.”