Crashers (40 page)

“That's the part I meant when I said ‘long story.' We have a fatality on board.”

“I'm off duty, but I can help.” The deputy nodded down the highway, where the copilot, Burke, stalked away, hair and clothes plastered by the rain. “Who's he?”

“A man who's had enough for one day.”

 

Kiki and Isaiah returned to the cockpit, soaking wet, after stopping to check out the engines. “Amazing,” Isaiah said, water trailing down the
back of his windbreaker. “Engine number three doesn't even show any signs of wear. The wing didn't sustain any damage when we hit that fast food sign, either. Fortune favors the foolish.”

“You shut off the Gamelan just in time,” Tommy said. “You reacted faster than Meghan Danvers.”

Isaiah shook his head. “No. If I'm right, she and Kazmanski would have had no way of knowing that shutting down engine number three would save them. And the Gamelan was programmed to create a cascading failure. If the first two engines didn't knock us down, I'm sure more nastiness was about to erupt. But everything reset itself as soon as the Gamelan was offline, erasing evidence of sabotage.”

“This is perfect,” Ray said. “Silverman's scheme. Think about it. A plane with that whatchahoozit crashes, and you guys call in the guy who programmed the—”

“Gamelan,” Kiki cut in.

“Gamelan. Right. He knew he'd be called in and handed the fucking evidence. It's perfect. Set up a crime in such a way that you have to bring the bad guy into the tent. Genius.”

“Let's admire the prick later,” Tommy growled.

Ray nodded, then updated them on the situation of the inbound foreign delegation, Dennis Silverman's unknown whereabouts, and the Red Fist of Ulster. Tommy just sat there, pressing the now-red wad of Kleenex against the cut on his temple.

Kiki said, “So. The Irish delegates will be in California in less than four hours. The terrorists are in California. And Dennis Silverman is on his way to California.”

Tommy finally spoke. “Us, too.”

“Agreed,” Isaiah said. “As soon as they get us back to the airfield, I'll find out about this storm, see when they're reopening the fly zones. We can probably be gone by morning.”

“No,” Tommy said. “We can't wait that long.”

Kiki frowned. “What do you recommend?”

“Can this plane fly?”

The others stared at him and shifted uncomfortably.

“I'm not concussed,” he assured them. “The bad guys, the delegates, and Silverman are converging in California. They'll get there in four hours. And we know that crashing a jet is part of their overall plan, which means they'll try to kill the delegates as they arrive in L.A.”

“Wait a minute,” Kiki cut in. “Didn't Ray just say there are Ulster Union guys on that flight, too?”

“According to one of my bosses,” Ray said. “But we're talking about terrorists. Don't use logic. It's the wrong tool for the job.”

Isaiah cleared his throat. “Doc, this storm? This is serious as shit, man. It's pouring buckets out there. If we had a healthy beast, the FAA probably wouldn't let us fly in this. And she's not all that healthy. Plus, we had a forced landing on a highway, people. Do you have any idea how many regulations we'd break if we left the scene before—”

“Before what?” Tommy cut in gently. “Before the NTSB gets here?”

“The FAA's gonna yank my ticket, at a minimum. We're all on contract with the NTSB and we can kiss that goodbye, too. Also, the jet could have sustained more damage that I don't know about. We—”

Ray said, “Daria.”

All eyes turned to him.

He sat upright, rubbing his eyes. “She was with Israeli intelligence. She was ordered to take part in an assassination and she refused. She was shot for that, almost killed. I was there. Now, because she wants to help, she saved the life of a friend of mine, Lucas Bell. She infiltrated this group of psychotic thugs. Her name's Daria Gibron.”

They waited.

“It's happening all over again. She's risking her life to save others. Again. And I'm responsible for her. She's my asset. So there it is. She's in California and I have to go get her. Dennis Silverman pretended to be one of you and tried to kill us all. He did kill Roby. And we have to go get him. Now, it's up to you guys. I'm invoking no privileges here. Tommy's still IIC, as far as I'm concerned. But I'm going to California if I have to car-jack the next fucking Mini Cooper I see.”

He stood wearily and left the flight deck.

The other three were quiet for a while. Tommy daubbed at his forehead wound. “
Asset.
Man, that guy's in love.”

Kiki reached out to run her hand through his hair and nodded.

Finally, Isaiah Grey flopped down heavily in the left-hand seat and began going through the preflight sequence. He muttered, “There are no crazy people like crazy
white
people. . . .”

The glare of sunlight in her eyes revived Daria. She was outside. She tasted blood, and she moaned as someone shoved her to the side. Her arms were yanked back and handcuffs clicked.

Fully conscious, the pain in her side blazed. She was lying on the ground behind the hotel. She forced herself to sit up, hissing in fine agony when she leaned back. Her hands were cuffed behind an old iron clothesline pole, which canted five degrees off true. Atop it were five steel arms spread like fingers, with rope looped lazily from arm to arm, creating a spiderweb for hanging wet laundry. Most of the ropes were gone now. The pole was so hot to the touch that it would leave blisters after sustained contact.

Donal O'Meara knelt beside her, on his haunches, head tilted to one side and studying her through sunglasses. Sweat trickled off his forehead and glistened in the hair on his forearms. The Python revolver hung easily in his right hand.

Daria tried to lean forward, not touching the red-hot pole. Her side ached and each breath was agony, but she wasn't coughing up blood. He hadn't punctured a lung.

O'Meara said, “You're FBI, then.”

“I saved you from the F—”

He reached out languidly and poked her rib, hard, with the four-inch barrel of the Colt. The rib creaked. Daria gasped, leaned over, and vomited. Black dots blinked around her peripheral vision. Groaning, she sat back up again, blinking the sweat out of her eyes.

“I didn't make many rules,” O'Meara said, his voice casual. “Just one. Fuck with me and I'd kill ye.”

She squinted at him.

“I have a contact who says you killed Johnser, back at the hotel. Dunno how.”

She waited.

“My contact says you're working for an FBI agent. I need to know what you've told him.”

Daria leaned forward and spat a gob of blood on the ground. The blow to her jaw had split her lip.

“I've a friend in high places, Daria me love. I've learned enough to know you've screwed us, but not the fine details. And the devil's in the details, isn't he. Now, I've more friends you haven't met yet. They're on
their way here. And when they arrive, I'd like a few more details from you, if you please.”

He stood. “I'll give you a little time to consider the error of your ways, my girl.”

He left her there, squinting into the sun of the Mojave Desert.

Assistant Director Timothy Perdue ignored his phone without taking his eyes off the field report. It was a security analysis of Quantico itself, and Perdue was pretty sure he'd reread that last paragraph at least three times. He still didn't know what it meant.

The phone kept ringing. He checked his desk clock, which read
WORLD
'
S GREATEST DAD!
It was almost 6
P.M.
Eastern.
Who calls at this hour?

He scooped it up. “Perdue.”

“Tim? Lucas Bell.”

The assistant director smiled. “Hey! How's La-La Land?” He leaned back and reached for a stress ball. He and Bell had worked together on the Ireland Watch for years before Perdue had moved up to the highest echelons of the Bureau. They had been the best of friends for a time.

“Bad,” Lucas said. “Very bad.”

Perdue removed his reading glasses and glanced at the clock again.

“Are you up to speed on the Red Fist of Ulster problem?”

“More or less. I can't hear you very well.”

Lucas whispered, “I can't speak up. I have proof, positive proof, Tim, that agents in the Los Angeles field office are running interference for the terrorists.”

Perdue reached for a pad and pen. “Go.”

“Ray Calabrese, for sure. He's our point man on the investigation!”

“Shit! Anyone else?”

“I think Assistant Director Henry Deits has been covering for him. They—”

“Henry? I know Henry. He's—”

“Tim, I'm telling you, I don't want to believe it either, but I can't explain the lapse in security, the protocols we've blown, the secret conversations. I don't think we can afford to gamble on Deits. You know about the Irish delegation . . . ?”

“Yes. We have bad clock here, Lucas. What do you suggest?”

After a beat, Lucas said, “Jesus, Tim. I don't know. What do you think?”

“If you're right, we have to raise the firewall.”

“Whew. It's a big step. But until we get the delegation on the ground and into a secure location, I guess you're right. I don't see any other choice.”

Raising the firewall
meant isolating a field office. It meant cutting off everyone's communications for a period of time—their phones and computers; cutting them off from other FBI field offices, from other federal law enforcement agencies, and from the intelligence community. It would mean routing some of their duties through another office, like San Francisco. If, by some chance, Lucas was wrong, well, nobody's career would be eighty-sixed by his taking this precaution.

Tim Perdue stood. “I'll talk to the director himself. He hasn't gone home yet. I'll also recommend we reroute the delegation from LAX to Frisco.”

“That's good thinking. I'll keep nosing around here.”

“Lucas? You keep your head down, my friend. Cavalry's coming.”

“Thanks, Tim. Good luck!”

Timothy Perdue depressed the tine, then stabbed three buttons.

“Director's office.”

“It's Tim. I need him. Now.”

“No. No. No! Absolutely no way.”

Susan Tanaka didn't seem too keen on the idea, Tommy observed.

He stood in the open midway hatch of the swap-out and watched the rain fall outside.

“Sorry,” Tommy said. “Overruled.”

“You can't do that!” Susan snapped across the satellite phone.

“Look, it sounds stupid, but we don't have a better choice. I'm going to need your bureaucratic sorcery. Keep the FAA off our backs. And keep Del Wildman from firing my sorry ass until we find these terrorists.”

When she replied, he heard the concern in her voice, overriding the anger. “Tommy, this breaks every rule. You're screwing with a vital piece of evidence! You're fleeing a crime scene!”

“I'm following the instructions of the senior law-enforcement official on the scene, so it's not fleeing. And we're trying to solve the downing of
CascadeAir Flight Eight One Eight, not the swap-out. So this bird isn't evidence.” It sounded like pure, unadulterated horse crap, even to his own ears, but he no longer cared. “Look, I gotta go. This is insane and stupid and impetuous and reckless and just plain nuts. I'll stipulate to all of that. But he killed John. He's gonna kill more folks.”

Susan didn't reply, not right away. “I disapprove of this and recommend against it. That goes in the official record.”

Tommy said, “Agreed.”

“Good luck. I'll keep the dogs off your heels as long as I can.”

 

Isaiah Grey stood beneath the wing of the swap-out, the hood of his NTSB windbreaker up. He and the off-duty deputy had transferred John Roby's body to the Land Rover.

“You sure about this?” the cop asked.

“Yeah. We're pulling out. Can you take care of John until the rest of the police get here?”

“Um, well, yeah. But . . .” The kid, all of twenty-seven, was way out of his league. “You sure it's okay, you taking off in that thing?”

“This?” Isaiah reached over and patted the portside landing gear, smiled at it. “Yeah. She'll take care of us.”

“I don't know. . . .”

Isaiah said, “You ever hear of anyone flying a crashed airliner away from the scene?”

The cop gulped. “No, sir.”

“Me, neither. Can't be a law on the books if nobody's ever tried it before. Right?”

And—absurdly, amazingly—the cop agreed.

 

Isaiah returned to the interior of the liner.

“Okay. John's in good hands. We ready?” He brushed back his hood. Tommy, Ray, and Kiki gave him appreciative looks.

Ray said, “Yeah. Thanks—”

“You can thank me if I don't turn this bird into the world's biggest corkscrew. For now, you and Tommy take a seat and strap your asses in. And if you've never given any thought to a personal relationship with Jesus of Nazareth, now would be the time.”

Kiki started to sit down.

“Not you. You're copilot.”

Her jaw dropped. “What are you talking about? The last plane I piloted was mounted outside the grocery store in my hometown and it rocked for a nickel a minute!”

“Burke walked. Proving at least one of us has the sense God gave a hamster. Sorry, Kiki, you were a bridge officer on a nuclear submarine. That makes you the closest thing I've got to an aviator. C'mon.”

He stormed onto the flight deck. Kiki turned to Tommy, her eyes narrowed. The temperature in first class took a dip. “You owe me, Tomzak.”