Crashers (12 page)

From this day onward, these groups would be cut out of the link substantially. And they knew it. This was their chance to be heard.

“Thank you,” Susan said into the microphone. “I'd like to thank Principal Mike Aleman for the use of this auditorium.”

The principal waved to her from the back of the audience.

“Okay. I'm Susan Tanaka, intergovernmental liaison for the Go-Team leadership. These three are my people.” She waved to three twentysomething assistants who stood off to the side. “Go through them to get to any one of us. You have their business cards with their cells and e-mail addresses. Before we get going, I'd like to introduce our Investigator in Charge.”

Tommy took a very large bite of a bagel with cream cheese, and was
wiping cheese off his
Austin City Limits
sweatshirt just as Susan waved to him and said, “Ladies and gentlemen: Dr. Leonard Tomzak.”

 

An Allthing meeting generally can take two, maybe two and a half hours. Tommy really didn't want to wait that long to kill Susan Tanaka.

RAY CALABRESE STOPPED AT a drinking fountain on the third floor of the FBI's Los Angeles field office and took a sip, holding his tie carefully against his chest. He stood up straight, his lower back protesting a little, reminding him that he'd been slacking off at the gym lately.

Through a doorway halfway down the hall, he caught a glimpse of an agent sitting at a desk. He paused, then walked down that way, rapped twice, and entered.

The agent sat with his wingtips up on the desk, reading through a fat court transcript and marking passages with a yellow highlighter. He looked up and smiled. “Hiya, Ray.”

“Hey, Phil.” Ray perched on a corner of the desk. “Got a sec?”

Ray retrieved the snapshot from his suit-coat pocket and handed it over. “You used to work the Ireland book. Recognize this guy?”

Phil stared at the photo for about three seconds, then frowned. His eyes took in the tattoos on the man's forearms. He shouted, “Yo. Lucas?”

Lucas Bell, a black man in a natty suit and an Oxford tie, strolled in. He slapped Ray on the shoulder. “Ray Calabrese. The Kid Complete.”

Phil looked at Ray and said, “Please, for the love of God, don't ask about his tie.”

Ray turned to Lucas Bell. “Nice tie.” It was, in fact, a damn fine tie. Lucas could put together a suit like nobody else in the Bureau.

Phil said, “You're killing me here, Calabrese.” He handed the photo to the newcomer. “Who's this look like?”

Lucas took the photo, blinked several times.

Ray said, “You know him. See, this is why I like playing poker with you.”

“Tell me that's O'Meara!” Phil said, a little shock in his voice.

Lucas said, “How the hell'd you get a photo of this guy?”

“I have a source who knows him as Jack, that's all.”

Lucas Bell studied the bigger man for a second. “Since when do you have contacts in Belfast?”

Ray's stomach dropped. He had a very bad feeling. “This source is in L.A. So's your boy here.”

“Bull!”

Ray shrugged. “This guy's trouble?”

Lucas said, “This guy's Ebola on a bad day!”

Dennis Silverman wanted to watch his masterpiece unfold but he wasn't stupid enough to show up at the crash site. No one knew there'd been a crime yet, but he had no intention of getting photographed as a rubbernecker anyway.

He sat in his recliner, wearing boxers, fuzzy slippers, and a flannel robe, the remote in his fist switching between the ABC and NBC affiliates, then to CNN. All three offered aerial views of the crash, with the fuselage separated into three sections; the aft and wing, the fore section, and the crumpled remains of a cockpit. The brown, burned trail behind the jet was obvious for all to see. There seemed to be something missing, and it took Dennis a few minutes to realize that it was a wing.

That engine he'd cooked must have blown the entire wing to kingdom come, he thought, and snickered.

The phone rang. Dennis hit the speakerphone function, his eyes locked on the TV.

“Denny?”

“Hi, Mom.”

“What are you doing at home? Aren't you going to work?”

“No,” he said, eyes on the screen.

“Den-ny,” she said, drawling the name out, which she did whenever she was annoyed with him. Which was always.

“I'm on flex time,” he explained for the thousandth time. “I'm working at home today. Telecommuting. They understand.”

“This is a corporation,” she wheedled. “Bosses notice who's at the grindstone and who isn't, Denny. How do you hope to advance if you don't get noticed?”

He switched from ABC to CNN, which had a better helicopter view of the crash.

“Denny?”

“Hmm?”

“I asked, how do you hope to advance if you don't get noticed? Because you've been with the company for eight years now, and you're still just an engineer.”

He tried the CBS feed. Yes, that was better. His cell phone ding-donged. He picked it up from the end table. Incoming text message.

“It's important to move up, Denny. You move up or you move down. That's life. That's how it is. God knows your father tried to teach you that.”

Dennis okayed the acceptance of the text message and glanced at the television. Fire trucks lined the freeway for almost half a mile, he estimated. Troopers were trying to keep the traffic moving but it was at a snail's pace. He wondered why three RVs were parked so close to the scene.

He looked down at the cell and grinned. His bank in the Cayman Islands confirmed that his account had just ballooned by one hundred thousand dollars.

“You know Irene, from temple? Her husband works at Intel. He moved from engineering to marketing, what was it? Three years ago? He's the assistant manager now. He drives a Lexus.”

Dennis hadn't been to his mother's synagogue in twelve years and didn't know any Irene. He squinted, noting that several people wore dark blue windbreakers with words stenciled on the back, but with the overhead views, he couldn't tell what the words were. He switched to ABC.

“. . . And he's no smarter than you are, not by a long shot. It's just that he has drive, Denny. . . .” He wondered if she was going to stop talking anytime soon. He used to wonder that a lot, growing up. She'd talk and talk and talk, and sometimes, when she wasn't even there, he'd hear that same nails-on-chalkboard voice, talking and talking and talking. He'd be in the wooded ravine beyond their house, watching some neighborhood
dog he'd caught in one of his traps, being electrocuted to death in his ingenious devices.
I'm Dr. Doom,
he'd think.
You'll never escape my trap this time.
And the squeals of the dying animal would morph into his mother's voice, talking and talking and talking.

“. . . And drive is what makes it. I mean, I do what I can. I scrimped and I saved for you. . . .”

Scrimped and saved.
It was her favorite expression. Dennis thought back over the years, tried to remember when she'd scrimped on anything. Or what
scrimped
even meant. He made a note to look it up. He couldn't read the words on the jackets from that angle, either. Back to CNN.

“. . . Always the best clothes. Always the most expensive shoes. And you outgrew everything so fast. Now look at you. Stuck in the same job, year after year. That's why it's important to get to the grindstone, Denny. Get in there and show them how hard you're working. Let them know you're interested in advancement.”

NTSB. That's what the jackets said.
Of course, makes sense.
Dennis wondered when they'd arrived.

“So you'll go in? Today? You'll get to work, let them see you? Denny?”

“I'm on flex time,” he said. “I'm telecommuting.”

“Den-ny!”

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR HENRY DEITS of the Los Angeles FBI field office turned a corner with a cup of decaf in one hand and a cheese Danish in the other to find three of his agents waiting outside his conference room. It was 10:15
A.M.

“Did I miss a memo?” the AD asked.

“No, sir,” Agent Lucas Bell said. “But we've got something to show you.”

 

The conference room had a computer-generated overhead projector and a document scanner. A minute later, the photo of Jack kneeling over the gun safe dominated one wall. Three more top brass had been called into the impromptu meeting.

“Donal O'Meara,” Lucas said. “He's a known terrorist with a long list of assassinations under his name. He served time in Britain's Maghaberry Prison and, we thought, he'd been holed up in Belfast for the last year or so. But Agent Calabrese here has a contact who shot this photo of O'Meara last night in Los Angeles.”

Assistant Director Deits sipped his coffee and said, “IRA?”

“Other side. The Red Fist of Ulster, a hardline Protestant group that opposed the Good Friday Accord and the power-sharing agreement. O'Meara runs his own cell, or he used to.”

“My contact says he's traveling with three other men, all with Belfast accents,” Ray cut in.

One of the brass asked, “Who's your source?”

Ray played with his legal pad for a moment, knowing that he really had no option but to answer. “Daria Gibron.”

Two men gawked at him. The others vaguely recognized the name but couldn't remember why.

AD Deits said, “Are you out of your mind?”

“No, sir. I've been in contact with Ms. Gibron, on and off, since she came to the States.”

“She's a drug addict!” Deits laughed. “She's unreliable!”

“With all due respect, sir, she's not a drug addict.”

“Your own report said so, Calabrese.”

Ray reined in his annoyance. “No, sir. My report said she has an addictive personality. She smokes too much, drinks too much. She works too hard and plays too hard. She doesn't jog, she runs marathons. She doesn't do calisthenics, she kickboxes at a competitive level. If she's addicted to anything, it's adrenaline. And granted, that makes her dangerous and unstable. But not wrong; not this time.”

One of the other brass said, “I remember something about Vicodin?”

“Yes, sir. She was shot badly when we brought her to the States. After her recovery, she developed an addiction to painkillers. She's beaten that.”

Deits turned to Lucas and said, “Could this photo be wrong? Could it be someone who looks like your whatsisname?”

Lucas paused, and Ray cut in. “She ID'd his accent as Belfast; that's why she brought the photo to my atten—”

“An adrenaline addict.” Deits sneered. “What're the chances she was schtuping this guy, didn't like how it ended, and turned him in to her pet FBI agent?”

Ray let his anger settle before answering. His poker face never wavered. “I don't think so, sir. As you may recall, ATF started using Ms. Gibron and a cover that she'd established when she was with Israeli intelligence. She hooks people up with guns; guns that can be traced and, if need be, have been LoJacked. I've got a call into the ATF to see if they tracked this guy last night. Ms. Gibron said he calls himself Jack and is from Dublin but she
recognized the accent as Belfast. I showed this photo to Agent Bell and he immediately recognized a known terrorist from Belfast. That's evidence enough for—”

“Okay, okay.” Deits stood and buttoned his suit coat. “Ray, drop everything else and get going on this. I want to know if we've got a serious threat here or if we have an overly horny ex-spook who's about as stable as a hyperactive eighth-grader.”

Lucas cleared his throat. “I was on the Ireland Watch, back in the New York field office. I'd like to lend a hand.”

Deits said, “Fine. It's ten thirty now. I've got tickets tonight for some concert or play or something with my wife, which means I'm out of here by six. Let's meet at, say, five thirty. Tell me O'Meara's in town, or not.”

And with that, he and the other brass filed out.

Ray pointed to the projected photo. “Do you believe that's O'Meara?”

Lucas studied the wall a moment. “Yes,” he admitted, sighing. “God, I hope we're wrong.”

Donal O'Meara knelt by the TV in a dark, condemned apartment and manually flipped from the ABC affiliate to CNN.

NTSB. That's what those wankers' jackets said.

He sighed with relief. He'd been afraid they were FBI. Although, what was he afraid of? There was nothing connecting him to this crash, even if the FBI had been there. Just as there wouldn't be anything linking him to the next crash, either.

He wondered what the fuck NTSB stood for.

After her strenuous workout, Daria Gibron showered and changed into a little black skirt and open-toed slingbacks with four-inch heels and a black Versace shirt and matching black leather biker jacket. She was just about to leave for a translation job when her phone rang. It was
her
phone, not the ATF phone. She answered. It was the private secretary for a Saudi businessman for whom she had done a little translating.

“He will host a party next Tuesday. And has asked you to do him the honor of attending. There will be some Israelis there.”

This particular businessman cared little for the hatred and woes of the Arabs and Jews. He came to America with only one plan: to make money. Which he did, spectacularly.

Daria wasn't the only translator in town, or the cheapest, but she knew the consul liked how she looked. She could stand being eye candy for an evening. Besides, there were material rewards. “I would love to, but I have nothing to wear,” she replied forlornly.

The private secretary may have been smiling, because the pitch of his voice changed. “That is a small problem, easily solved. Arrive around eight and one of our people will find you something.” She knew they would, too. The Saudi businessman liked to surround himself with beautiful things and beautiful people, and he was willing to pay a high price for his fun. Daria would end up with a designer dress out of the deal.