Order of Succession: Getting Away with Murder (Brian Sadler Archaeological Mystery Series Book 5)

by Bill Thompson

Joe was instructed to go to a park not far from his salvage yard. He walked along a shady trail that led to a secluded area with benches facing a small lake. Ali and Mo were waiting. They shook hands and he sat down. They began to explain the first task they'd ever required of him.

  When he had left the poker game that Saturday night, Ali felt like he'd won the lottery. Once he reported to his superiors about the evening at Jeremy Lail's house, they were ecstatic. It turned out Lail was a master sergeant in the Air Force and he was in charge of final preflight checks for the most well-protected aircraft in the world, the planes that carried the leaders of the United States. And Lail's best friend was Joe Kaya! Allah had truly blessed their cause by handing them a perfect opportunity.

  Ali and Mo explained what they wanted Joe to do. He listened, asked questions and offered suggestions. It would take time – perhaps a long time – but this was exactly what Mo and Ali's bosses had been hoping might happen someday. The men told Joe to take his time – eventually things would be right and it would happen.

  Jeremy had known none of the background, of course. All he knew was that his best friend Joe became more and more of a mentor. Joe was a rock-solid man on whom Jeremy could rely for sound advice. Most of all, Joe guided his friend along the journey to rebuilding his confidence, self-esteem and sense of worth. Joe believed in him, and Jeremy believed he was a better man because Joe was in his life.

  At that point Jeremy would have done anything for his best friend.

  Then one day it happened. Joe asked him for a favor. It was unusual, illegal and bizarre, but Joe presented it more as a daring stunt. And it was something Jeremy could easily cause to happen as a favor to his friend.

  Joe had a distant relative by marriage who also worked at Andrews, he told Jeremy. He hadn't mentioned him before because Joe rarely saw him. Thousands of people – civilian and military – were employed at the base, and it didn't seem odd to Jeremy that one of them would be a third cousin Joe had never mentioned.

  According to Joe, his cousin was chained to a desk job while his lifelong ambition was to sit at the controls of the two most famous aircraft in the world. From his desk, the cousin often watched the planes soar into the sky, carrying the leaders of our country, and he wanted to experience – just for a moment – what it would be like to sit in the left seat of the cockpit like the pilots did.

  The planes that carried the President and Vice President weren't designated Air Force One and Two until shortly before they flew. There were always several aircraft available and ready to go. No one knew exactly which would be used until two days before a scheduled departure. If the President was leaving day after tomorrow, today the plane he was using would be designated as Air Force One. It was also the first time that anyone would know for certain on which plane the President would be flying.

  Jeremy hadn't been aware that soon President Harrison and the Vice President would be away on trips at the same time. This part of his job – the last preflight check – was so routine that he never paid attention to the passenger manifests. These planes weren't "Air Force anything" to him – they were just 747s, or Gulfstreams, or whatever.

  Apparently it was important to Joe's cousin to be on the actual Air Force One and Two after they were designated, not just one of the planes that occasionally was used to haul the top brass. It surprised Jeremy when Joe told him his cousin had learned that both leaders would be away at the same time. Apparently his cousin had heard it on the news. The President would leave for Barbados, and a couple of days later the Vice President and Secretary of State would head out for Hong Kong. It was a perfect opportunity for a selfie photo op on both planes, all in the same week!

  "Sure," Jeremy said. What could it hurt? The guy would only be on board each plane for a minute, just enough time to climb into the left seat, snap a picture and get out again. He was doing a favor for his good friend Joe, and helping Joe's cousin achieve an odd – but not that crazy – dream.

  The man had shown up on two different days, gone into the cockpits of Air Force One and Two, and left again, his lifelong goal apparently satisfied.

  I let him put bombs on those planes.

  The worst part was afterwards, when he'd called Joe. He knew his old friend would be astounded at what his cousin had done. He wanted the two of them to go to Jim Perkins and explain what happened so Jeremy wouldn't appear to be complicit in all this.

  That was when he finally understood Joe was a part of all this. Joe told Jeremy he'd be branded a traitor.

  "What cousin? I didn't say anything to you about a cousin. It's all on you, Jeremy. You can't prove anyone else was involved."

  Joe had known all along what was going to happen. That guy wasn't Joe's cousin – he was a terrorist. That meant Joe was too. Jeremy could see it all now, but it was far too late.

  "I can help you," Joe had said. "I have friends in Greece who can help you disappear."

  Jeremy had nowhere to turn. He was so far out of his element that he made another serious error. Instead of going to the authorities, he listened to Joe and bought a plane ticket to Athens.

  Any way you looked at it, Jeremy was a traitor and an accessory to twenty-five murders. Maybe more than an accessory. If there was no cousin, then only Jeremy could have planted the bombs. Any jury in the world would convict him of treason without a minute's thought.

  He fought back the feelings – the loss of someone else he felt close to, the betrayal by his best friend, the knowledge that he'd been a part of a conspiracy all along – and tried to concentrate on what was ahead. As remorseful as he felt now, there was no turning back. What's done was done, and he knew he would never see his country again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The driver pulled up in front of a four-story building in an area of Athens called the Plaka. There were hundreds of apartment buildings, taverns and cafés in these streets situated just below the Acropolis. Right now all Jeremy wanted was a bed.

  The affable Greek lugged Jeremy's suitcase up two flights of stairs and unlocked the door to a pleasant studio apartment. He opened a pair of doors revealing a sunny balcony. Light breezes wafted through the room.

  Jeremy pulled out a wad of one-dollar bills and offered them to the man, but he declined.

  "It has been a pleasure to serve you," he said enthusiastically. "I will pick you up here tomorrow morning at seven for the next part of your journey."

  "Where am I going?"

  "Until tomorrow, then," the man replied as he walked out the door.

  Jeremy stayed in the shower for ten minutes, letting hot water stream all over him as though the scalding liquid would erase his sins. He pulled down the bedcover, slipped beneath the sheets and slept straight through until late afternoon.

  The sun was setting and it was much cooler outside when he awoke, so he closed the balcony doors. He felt rested, but he was also famished. He was ready to walk around the area and find a restaurant. He turned on the TV, flipped until he found CNN in English, and began to rummage through his suitcase for clean clothes.

  Suddenly he heard his name. He whirled around in horror and saw his picture emblazoned on the screen. He stared in shock and learned that there was a worldwide search under way for Master Sergeant Jeremy Lail, the man whose signature had allowed the planes to depart Andrews Field. He had arrived in Athens, Greece, this morning, and the airports and train stations were under tight surveillance. Local and federal police had joined Interpol to scour the city for the international fugitive.

  Holy shit! He should have expected this, but he hadn't allowed himself to consider the consequences of suddenly leaving the United States. In his entire life, Jeremy Lail had never had so much as a parking ticket. Now he was a man on the run, wanted for questioning in connection with a horrible crime against the United States of America.

  How proud must his father feel now?

  Why the hell am I thinking about him? And how can I even go out to get something to eat? Everybody in this city is looking f
or me!

  Overwhelmed and scared, he sat on the bed shaking uncontrollably, completely lost in the enormity of what he was facing.

  There was a quiet knock on the door.

  Jeremy was petrified. He sat silently, afraid to even move.

  "Mister Lail," a voice said, "I'm the man who brought you here. Let me in!"

  He wasn't sure if it was his driver's voice. Maybe it was, but he wasn't positive.

  What the hell? If it was the police, then all this would be over. He opened the door. His driver rushed in and closed it quickly.

  "We must leave now! Everyone is looking for you! We have to go at once. Leave everything and come with me. There is very little time."

  "How are you going to get me out? They're watching the airport and the train station."

  "By ship. So far they haven't made it to the docks. It's impossible to watch every boat in the harbor. But we must go quickly!"

  Jeremy grabbed his passport, the envelope full of euros, his wallet and a jacket. As he walked out, he thought briefly that he was leaving behind not only his belongings but his entire life as it had been. Nothing would ever be the same.

  The driver had him wait in the vestibule while he went out and looked up and down the sidewalk. He opened the car door and motioned for Jeremy to get in. He ran around to the front, started the car and handed Jeremy a cheap cellphone and a white baseball cap.

  "You'll get a call tomorrow from the people who are meeting you. Wear the cap. It's the way our people will find you."

  "Where am I going?"

  "Cyprus. You should be there by this time tomorrow."

  Cyprus. From geography classes he knew roughly that it was situated in the eastern Mediterranean Sea not far from Turkey. What a perfect starting place for a traitor who's going to spend the rest of his life on the run, he thought with another wave of remorse.

  They drove along the busy docks of Piraeus, past a number of small boats and several decent-sized yachts. Finally they came to the commercial zone. Ships of every size were lined up along the dock one by one for a mile or more. When they stopped, the driver accompanied him to a gangplank. His ship was an aging cargo vessel with a few containers on its deck. A couple of crewmen were untying ropes in preparation for an immediate departure. No one gave Jeremy a glance.

  The driver pointed to a swarthy, dark man with a scraggly beard. "This is your captain. He will take things from here." The man's T-shirt and jeans were filthy, and he simply nodded his head toward his passenger.

  As soon as the driver walked off the ship, the crewmen pulled up the gangplank. With a groan and a creak, the old vessel began backing out of its berth. Soon it was heading into the Mediterranean Sea for the five-hundred-mile trip to Cyprus.

  Jeremy stood at the railing for thirty minutes, lost in thought. A crewman came up and addressed him in Greek. Finally realizing Jeremy didn't understand, the man guided him down a flight of stairs to a tiny cabin. He saw a bed with stained sheets and a dirty blanket, a table, one chair and a half-empty bottle of water. The crewman left and Jeremy was alone.

  There was no way he was staying down here. First of all, it smelled dank and musty. Secondly, being alone with your thoughts when you'd done something that made you hate yourself wasn't a good thing. He went back on deck to a refreshing, bracing sea breeze. That was the only thing about this trip that was refreshing, he reflected.

  He was absolutely starving and hoped he'd eventually be offered food. He stood around for a while and watched three mates doing various chores as they chain-smoked cigarettes. At last a man came up from below deck, carrying a rickety folding chair and a sack. Jeremy sat down and looked inside.

  There was a white bread sandwich with some kind of meat and a slice of cheese. There were grapes, a sack of American potato chips and a can of orange soda. He attacked it like it was a filet mignon and a fine cabernet, eating everything there was. When he finished, one of the men offered him a cigarette. He hadn't smoked in ten years, but tonight seemed like a perfect time to start again. He zipped his jacket as the breeze turned cool, sat in solitude and smoked.

  By nine they were well out to sea and there were no lights from shore. It was a pitch-black, moonless night, and the star-filled sky created an amazing spectacle. He would have been awed if he hadn't felt so singularly lost. As he gazed upwards, he thought for a moment about heaven, but he forced that thought out. There would be no heaven for him. If God ever chose to cast judgment on a human being, he thought, that man would be me.

  Just as he had betrayed his country, he'd been betrayed by those he considered closest to him. His father had never understood or cared about him. They never had a father-son relationship. Instead, he'd cut his own kid loose because he didn't measure up. The same thing happened with the man who'd become his closest friend. Joe had seduced him. He'd become Jeremy's advisor and mentor; then he'd carefully planned how his friend would betray his nation. He'd been a willing participant, of course. Even though it was wrong, he'd agreed to let a man on the planes – a man who had obviously planted two bombs.

  Joe wasn't running for his life now. Only Jeremy was. He had given up everything. Everything. And for what? A life looking over your shoulder every minute? A life in the squalor of a war-torn Middle Eastern country? Would they – whoever they were – even let him live?

  Again, like so many times before, he was completely alone.

  At last he went to his cabin. As much as the nasty bunk repulsed him, he needed to get some sleep. Jeremy itched and scratched all night long as tiny bugs invaded his T-shirt and shorts, leaving red bites all over his torso. Thank God I rested all day yesterday, he thought as he spent a fitful night tossing and turning.

  At some point he fell asleep. When he awoke, he glanced at his watch. It was 6:45 a.m. and there was an aroma that smelled heavenly. Coffee was brewing somewhere nearby. He pulled on his clothes and went upstairs.

  With the sun not yet up, it was frigid topside. The captain tossed him a heavy coat that he gratefully donned as he and the crew drank coffee. As cold as it was, he didn't want to go back to the dank cabin. Breakfast consisted of an assortment of meats and cheeses with hunks of brown bread. Still hungry from yesterday, he ate everything they gave him.

  Jeremy spent the day sitting on deck. He had absolutely nothing to do – no smart phone, no tablet and nothing to read. There was a TV on the bridge on which the crew watched one American game show after another, the English-speaking contestants now speaking dubbed-in Greek. He had a lot of time to think – far more time than he'd have wished.

  At noon the news came on. He could see the TV from the deck, and he watched his picture appear along with the word INTERPOL. He pulled the ball cap lower on his head, but it was too late. As the crewmen watched the news, two whispered, turning and pointing in his direction.

  For the rest of the trip he was uneasy and watchful. The crew looked like ex-convicts in the first place. Now that they knew their passenger was an international fugitive wanted by Interpol, who knew what they might do? Was there a reward for his capture? He couldn't read Greek, so he didn't know what the words on TV had said. He sensed danger all around him although admittedly in his entire life this was the only real danger he'd ever faced.

  He had decided to get rid of the things that could hurt him. Regretting losing the security they represented, he tossed his credit cards into the sea one by one. They were a liability now; if he dared use one, he'd be found immediately. He held his passport in his hand for a long, long time, knowing it was an even greater liability than the cards. If anyone demanded to see his identification at this point, he was better off having nothing than to hand over the passport of a wanted man. It went overboard too.

  In the late afternoon he jumped as his new phone rang. He'd never heard it before and he'd almost forgotten that it was in his jacket pocket.

  The caller spoke passable English. He said that a man would meet Jeremy at the dock in Limassol and take him by car to Nicosia, fifty miles aw
ay.

  "Wear your cap so he will know you," the man said.

  He also could look for the only American international fugitive getting off a tramp steamer at a seaport in southern Cyprus, Jeremy thought.

  An hour later the ship pulled into the harbor at Limassol. He'd never heard of the place and was amazed at the volume of marine traffic. Huge container ships moved slowly toward the docks alongside giant ocean liners with passengers lounging on their verandas. The port was teeming with activity, and their tiny cargo ship maneuvered its way to its assigned area. The crew secured it and lowered the gangplank as Jeremy stood on the deck.

  His phone rang again and a man said, "I am just below you on the dock. I am wearing a red shirt."

  "What do I do about customs and immigration?"

  "You're still in the EU, my friend. There's no border inspection here. Now get off the boat."

  Fifteen minutes later he was in the backseat of an old Citroen that was chugging along the busy highway toward Nicosia. Within the hour they pulled up in front of a small hotel just off the town square. His driver, the man in the red shirt, had said absolutely nothing. He handed Jeremy a room key and a manila envelope, got back in the car and drove away.

  The sun was setting as Jeremy walked upstairs to a refreshingly comfortable room and looked inside the envelope. It held a thousand more euros, even though he still had all the money he'd been given in Athens. With the money was a handwritten note telling him he would be picked up from the lobby tomorrow at seven. He recalled that had also been the plan twenty-four hours ago in Greece. He hoped things would work out better tomorrow morning; he needed some rest.

  The first thing he did was to find CNN. He had to know what was going on with Interpol. The sports news was on, so he stripped and showered, trying to wash off the grime and dirt from his night on the ship and trying to ease the knots in his muscles caused by anxiety. The bug bites around his groin and legs itched like hell, but he didn't scratch them. He wanted a drink and a good dinner, toiletries and ointment from a pharmacy, in that order.