‘What did you think about Aziz’s colleague, the egghead you met at the conference in Atlanta?’
‘He didn’t put my mind at rest, let’s say that.’
‘OK. I’m moving Aziz right to the top of the list until we get some confirmation that he’s innocent. No point speculating exactly what he did, but he’s certainly a person of interest. But Dennison interests me, too. FBI. He could have access to information that’s out of our reach. He thinks the plane is still in one piece, hidden by some government agency. Is that right?’
‘Yeah. I’m not sure how much we should trust anything Dennison says, though. He’s got some mental health issues. A lot of them.’
Rory nodded. ‘Still, you’ve got a lot of important information. It’s amazing you’ve done all this on your own.’
‘What, for a girl?’
‘Oh my Lord, you’re hard work. OK. We’ve got a lot of pieces of the puzzle. Now we need to start fitting them together.’
That night, as Kaitlin tried to sleep, her phone buzzed and lit up the dark bedroom. It was Amelia.
‘Hey. What’s up?’ she asked, rubbing her eyes and trying to hide the exhaustion in her voice.
‘Mate, you need to get out of there, fast,’ Amelia hissed, sounding tense. ‘You need to run.’
‘What? What are you talking about? Amelia, what’s wrong?’
‘I’ve just got back from a meeting with campus security.’
Kaitlin sat bolt upright. ‘Is everything OK?’
‘I’m fine. This isn’t about me. Look, I don’t know what you’ve been getting up to since you’ve been here, but you’ve pissed off some very bad people. Our dorm got trashed. At first, I thought it was just some frat boys playing a prank. But then there were some seriously low-rent thugs asking after you all over campus, all gold chains, tattoos and Eastern European accents.’
Dragov’s gang. It had to be.
‘I told campus security and they’re doing regular sweeps,’ Amelia continued. ‘But those guys are still around, watching. Thought I ought to warn you.’
Kaitlin felt a rising tide of guilt. ‘I’m so sorry you had to deal with that. The last thing I wanted was you getting dragged into this.’
‘Don’t worry about me. What are you getting yourself into, mate?’
‘The less you know, the better. Thank you for warning me. Just … stay as far away from me as possible. I won’t call you. Don’t call me.’
‘Kaitlin, you’re meant to be my best mate. What the actual fuck is going on?’
‘I can’t say any more right now. You just have to trust me.’
All thoughts of sleep were now gone. Once she’d hung up, Kaitlin felt bad about pushing Amelia away, but she knew it was in her friend’s best interests not to get dragged into her mess. And now she had another wave of paranoia washing over her. Not only was she trying to avoid the attention of government agencies, but it seemed she was going to have to stay one step ahead of a brutal criminal gang, too.
Kaitlin closed her eyes, but she knew sleep wasn’t going to come easily.
News Recordings
British Newscaster
* * *
The three missing British schoolgirls believed to have travelled to Turkey as part of an attempt to join ISIS have likely reached Syria, British police have said. They’re thought to be the victims of online grooming by a woman known as the White Matchmaker, because of her success recruiting jihadi brides from the West for ISIS fighters.
Terrorism Expert
* * *
If you look at Islamic terrorist organisations in the last fifteen years, many have tried to recruit girls and have been very unsuccessful. But ISIL has had a very aggressive social media campaign of deliberately targeting girls and they’ve had a great success.
British Newscaster
* * *
A British Islamic State recruiter known as the White Matchmaker and her twelve-year-old son are believed to have been killed in a US-led bombing raid on Aleppo in Syria. Sources say she died close to the border between Syria and Iraq, in a strike also thought to have killed her son.
15
Rory grabbed the falafels from the food truck just off Park Avenue and handed one to Kaitlin. She longed to tear off the foil and attack it, but she restrained herself. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten and she’d resorted to using a belt she’d found in one of the closets at the apartment to stop her jeans from slipping down.
‘My investigator pulled up another lead on one of the names on the passenger list. Instantly raised a red flag or two.’
‘Wish I had an investigator.’
‘He’s costing me a small fortune. Really, you’re better off with your own shoe leather.’ Rory unwrapped his falafel and wafted the aroma under his nose.
‘If your investigator uncovered it, why are you handing it over to me?’
‘Because this one requires a sensitive approach and I’m not someone known for my sensitivities. My guy spoke to a Brit, Gavin Jones. His wife was on Flight 702.’
‘Laura Jones.’
‘Right. Only, Mr Jones claims his wife didn’t disappear with the plane. She’s living in New Zealand with their daughter.’
‘She survived the flight?’
Rory took a huge bite of his falafel. ‘Mr Jones says she’s “on holiday”,’ he said, munching. ‘Told the police all this when they came round to question him about her name on the passenger manifest. He’s not heard anything from them since. He refused to pass on a contact number for her.’
‘Probably sick of being bothered.’
‘Or maybe it’s because she’s staying in Karatanga Women’s Refuge for domestic violence survivors.’ Rory cocked an eyebrow. ‘You want to give her a call and find out her side of the story?’
‘I’m sorry to say you’ve got the wrong Laura Jones.’
The voice on the other end of the call had a musical lilt, which Kaitlin took to be a Welsh accent.
‘Yeah, there was another Laura Jones on that flight. There are a fair few number of us in the world, you know,’ the other woman continued.
‘Was she a teacher, too?’
‘I don’t know. Why are you so interested?’
‘My brother, Conor, was one of the passengers on Flight 702.’
‘I see. I’m sorry. For your loss. But I don’t think I can help you. I went through everything with the police at the time.’
‘Why were the police involved?’ Kaitlin stretched out on her bed, watching the shadows creep across her apartment.
‘They thought I was on that flight, too. Everyone did. But I wasn’t. I lost my passport some months before. Had to get a replacement. And the police said there are criminal gangs that buy and steal these things, so yeah, Laura Jones on the flight might well have been using my passport. The police wouldn’t say. They said it was an ongoing investigation, couldn’t tell me anything.’
A missing passport. Someone flying under an assumed identity. Kaitlin felt the familiar prickle. Maybe Rory was on to something here, after all.
‘Can you talk me through how you found your passport was missing?’ she asked.
A long silence hummed.
‘This has been a difficult year,’ Laura replied after a while. ‘I was in the process of leaving my husband. It’s been very messy, the whole thing, really. We had to get out, my daughter and me. We left in the middle of the night.’ She swallowed. ‘My friend – well, colleague, Chrissy. She gave us refuge for a few nights. I just … I needed to get away, for the sake of my daughter. My husband was violent.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘He wasn’t always. It started after our daughter was born. I just reached the point where I couldn’t stay any more.’
Kaitlin listened to a siren whining in the distance. She felt like she was intruding in someone else’s pain. But she had to do this. ‘And you had the passport when you left?’
‘Yes, initially. I must have lost it in transit. Maybe one of the r
efuges we stayed at. We moved around a lot. When you’ve got a violent, manipulative man on your trail, phoning you constantly, leaving messages, sending threatening texts … I was worried for our safety. We had to keep moving.’
‘I understand. So, someone at one of these refuges might have taken it?’
‘At the time I thought it was my husband. I thought he was trying to stop me from leaving.’
‘I thought you said you had it with you when you left.’
Another silence, this one heavy. ‘Look. This is really hard for me to talk about.’ Laura began to sob.
Kaitlin clutched the phone, listening until the sound ebbed.
‘Shit. Shit, shit,’ Laura gasped. She took a deep breath and added, ‘I agreed to see Gavin again. Don’t judge me, please.’
‘I’m not.’
‘I thought it was the best thing to do. He was so persistent. He made so many promises. We met in a park in Cardiff, in Wales. And it started off all right, so I thought, OK, maybe we can work this out. Maybe things can change.
‘When we first dated, he was the kindest, most considerate man you could ever hope to meet. We travelled the world together. Free spirits, you know? Maybe I thought we could go back to that.’
‘When was this?’
‘A week or so after I walked out. We were still staying at Chrissy’s place. She was so supportive. I was depending on her totally. We were colleagues, both teachers, and she just took me under her wing.
‘Anyway, Chrissy encouraged me not to see him under any circumstances. But I did. I let him come back with me to Chrissy’s place. Chrissy wasn’t there. How dumb was that?’ A long pause. Then: ‘Gavin tried to strangle me.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘All I could think about was what a mess we were making of Chrissy’s place.’ Another sob.
Kaitlin shifted at the raw emotion. She knew about things like this, of course she did, but it had all been so removed from the life she’d led.
‘That’s when I realised I just had to go, get out, disappear somewhere he couldn’t find us. I felt a bit guilty because Chrissy supported me so much. I never even thanked her. I just left. I picked up my daughter from the nursery and I left.’
‘So, you think it’s possible your husband might have taken your passport when he came to see you at Chrissy’s place?’
‘If it wasn’t Gavin, then who?’ Laura choked on her words.
‘Could Chrissy have taken your passport?’
‘No. Why would she do that?’
‘Have you been in contact with her since?’
This time, the silence seemed to go on for ever.
Finally: ‘Oh my God! Do you think Chrissy might have been on the plane?’
Hunched in the glow of her laptop screen, Kaitlin scrolled through the digital files of the recordings of her interviews until she found the one she wanted. She hit Play and the voice of the psychic witch rolled out. Eventually, she dropped into the section she needed:
The man becomes very icy. He shoots daggers at me – like I’m being inconsiderate for not moving. He calls out, ‘I’m sorry, Chrissy, but we can’t sit together.’ Very passive–aggressive. I feel dread, coming over me like a thick fog. I know in that moment that the plane’s heading to disaster. I try to warn them. They won’t listen. They won’t listen!
Kaitlin played it again, just to be sure. There was no doubt.
I’m sorry, Chrissy …
Kaitlin called Laura Jones’ old school in some place she’d never heard of called Stanmore in the UK and tried to pick up a trail to Chrissy. No luck. Afterwards, she left several messages for Professor Marshal in Atlanta. Finally, he returned her calls.
‘I appreciated the honesty in the messages you left, but the fact that your brother was on that plane doesn’t change anything I told you in Atlanta,’ he said.
‘There was something you mentioned when we met, about Dr Aziz, that I wanted to follow up on.’
‘You lied to me, Miss Le. You’re not a Georgia Tech student, and you can’t just go round pretending to be someone you’re not. I understand your pain. I’m sorry for you, for your family. Otherwise I’d have had my lawyer—’
‘There’s … something else going on here,’ Kaitlin interjected.
‘You’re trying to tarnish my colleague’s name, his reputation. Think of Dr Aziz’s family. They’ve lost someone, too.’
‘One question, Professor Marshal. That’s all.’
He paused. ‘Go on.’
‘Dr Aziz was travelling with someone. Can you at least confirm that? A woman, possibly a teacher, going under the name of Laura Jones.’
‘I don’t know anything about that.’
‘It could have been Chrissy. I think he knew her as Chrissy.’
‘Did you say Chrissy?’
‘Yes. He – he wanted to sit with her, but they were seated separately.’
‘Chrissy was his fiancée.’
‘His fiancée?’
‘I didn’t know Chrissy was on the flight. Are you sure?’
‘She was travelling on a stolen passport.’
‘Stolen? No, I don’t believe that. Dr Aziz talked about Chrissy all the time. But why would she join him on that flight?’
‘That’s what I’d like to find out.’
‘He said he was planning to meet Chrissy in Florida, after the conference. I think they were going to visit his family in Miami.’
Kaitlin trailed through Tompkins Square Park, weaving round the kids on skateboards surfing through rolling amber waves of crisp leaves. Her lungs burned when she breathed in the cold air blasting in from the east. She’d tried to call Rory. No response. That worried her. Then she’d attempted to connect with Dylan, but the call went straight to voicemail. It had been a while since he’d been in touch and all of her calls to him had gone unanswered. That worried her even more.
But she needed to tell someone about her mounting suspicion that she’d finally uncovered the truth about the disappearance of Flight 702. Chrissy travelling under a stolen passport was the red flag. Dr Aziz was key, she was sure of it.
As she started to leave a message for Dylan, she glanced back in the direction of her apartment and saw four men walking towards her. Brutish, heavyset, the guys she’d seen outside the warehouse where the trafficked women were being held.
Since Amelia’s worried phone call, paranoia had cranked up Kaitlin’s instinct into the red zone. She’d kept one eye out for Dragov’s gang, but a part of her had always felt they’d never be able to track her down to the East Village.
She leaped the low border fence and raced across the grass among the trees. Her breath seared in her throat as she ran. She was exhausted, but she knew what would happen if those men got their hands on her.
Footsteps thundered behind her, drawing nearer.
They’d have her in no time. Nobody would help.
As she burst out of the northern side of the park, she darted across the street. The wail of car horns and the screech of brakes echoed all around.
Just before she reached the other side, a sleek black sedan screamed in front of her and she slammed into the side of it. Wind rushed out of her lungs as she went down hard.
When her vision cleared, she was looking up into the eyes of a man and woman looming over her. They were holding out badges.
‘FBI?’ she gasped. She never thought she’d be so pleased to fall into the arms of the Feds.
‘Homeland Security,’ the man replied.
Kaitlin dived into the back of the sedan without any encouragement. The woman slid in next to her. She had dark features and a hard face. The man slipped behind the wheel. In the rear-view mirror, Kaitlin saw grey eyes in a tanned face.
‘Kaitlin Le, right?’ he said. ‘I’m Agent Richards. This is Agent Fellowes. Just so you know, you’re not in any trouble.’
‘Yeah, that’s what everybody keeps telling me. Just before I get into trouble.’
‘What we mean is, you’re not in any
trouble unless you decide that’s the route you want to take,’ Agent Fellowes added. She had one of those faces that looked like it never smiled.
The sedan rumbled away.
‘Who was chasing you?’ Richards asked.
‘I’ve made some enemies,’ Kaitlin replied.
‘Yeah? Those looked pretty violent enemies.’
‘People traffickers,’ Kaitlin muttered, glancing behind her to check they weren’t being followed.
‘Nothing to do with a guy called Dragov?’ Richards’ reflection locked eyes with Fellowes. A hint of a smile.
‘What?’ Kaitlin asked.
‘We know his links to Flight 702. Can’t tell you much, for obvious reasons,’ Richards said. ‘There’s a cross-agency investigation under way. Some journalist at New York magazine is helping us with it before she publishes her exposé. You don’t need to be worrying about those guys.’
‘No, you’ve got other things to worry about,’ Fellowes added.
Kaitlin sat behind the table at the Department of Homeland Security office downtown. One World Trade Center was framed in the window.
‘I told the FBI everything I knew,’ she said.
‘We’re a different agency. Different interests, different needs.’ Richards blew on his coffee.
Her mind raced at that comment. Was this about terrorism? Dr Aziz and an attack on Flight 702? Chrissy with the double life?
I wish Rory was here.
‘I need my lawyer,’ she said.
‘Your prerogative, of course,’ Richards replied, ‘but you really don’t.’
‘Yet,’ Fellowes added.
‘Do you want to tell me what this is about?’ Kaitlin said. ‘I’ve already spoken to the FBI.’
‘Your name seems to be popping up on all sorts of radars,’ Fellowes said. ‘And that’s never a good thing.’
‘Is Murphy coming?’ Richard asked his partner.
Fellowes nodded.
‘OK, let’s wait.’
Kaitlin stewed in silence until she heard footsteps approaching. The door swung open to reveal a woman in her mid-forties, short greying hair, no make-up.
Passenger List Page 13
