Passenger List

by John Scott Dryden

  ‘I can understand how people become crazy conspiracists. When you go down the rabbit hole, it just keeps going.’

  Her phone buzzed on the carpet beside where she was sitting cross-legged. She stared at the incoming message for a long moment.

  ‘Something interesting?’ Rory wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘Yeah, it’s Dylan.’ She continued to stare at her phone, not quite believing what she was reading. ‘He wants to meet.’

  17

  The hotel bar buzzed with conversation. The after-work crowd bustled around the counter, laughing and chinking their glasses. Kaitlin preferred it busier than the time she’d met Dennison here. Easier to blur into the background now that her paranoia had reached fever pitch.

  As she headed towards the same corner table, a voice echoed behind her: ‘Kaitlin?’

  She turned, her mind already flashing up the image she’d created of Dylan. Instead, she reeled for a moment as she stared at a familiar face, good-looking, blond hair, nose ring, the faintest scar above the left eye.

  ‘Thomas?’ She choked on the name, trying to make sense of what was happening. Then she felt the rush of realisation. ‘Thomas … you’re Dylan?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said with a sheepish lowering of his head. ‘But the fake accent was good, right?’

  Kaitlin hovered for an instant, not sure if she should be angry at the deceit, and then she buried her face in his shoulder, hugging him so tight it was as if she never wanted to let him go. She choked back a sob and shook. How long since she’d had such human contact? How much had she missed it?

  ‘Hey,’ he said in a soft voice, stroking her hair.

  ‘I thought you might be dead,’ she stuttered. ‘I mean, Dylan … and you.’

  ‘Shh. Come on, let’s sit.’

  Thomas led her to the table and they let the shadows swallow them.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured when they were both sure they weren’t being observed. ‘I had to get off the grid, fast.’

  ‘It’s so good to see you.’

  ‘I really am so sorry for the deception. And it’s good to see you, too.’

  ‘Why would you lie to me about being Dylan? I told you things about me, and about Conor, that I haven’t told anyone else.’

  ‘I know, and I’m so sorry for lying. But believe me, it had to be that way. I needed to help you, but I couldn’t risk you knowing it was me.’

  Kaitlin leaned across the table and clutched his hand. ‘Why would you have to hide? And why run away now? I mean, Thomas, you have to tell me what the fuck is going on.’

  ‘It actually goes back to how I met Conor. That’s what’s so …’ He paused, choosing his words. ‘You know, I have this question in the back of my head: what if Conor’s in the middle of this somehow? And I just needed to know. I’d been hoping you and I could maybe figure this out together if we went through the passenger list, but the long and short of it, I suppose, is that … I work for MI6.’

  Kaitlin gaped. Was this a joke?

  ‘Well, worked. Until two weeks ago, when I left.’

  ‘How is that possible? You and Conor were hackers.’

  ‘Yes, professional ones. Conor with a security firm and me with MI6. I’d been tasked with understanding the scope of the Elysians.’

  ‘The … wait, the cyber-utopian group that Conor was a part of?’

  ‘That’s the one. It was my job to find out more about them. From the inside. That’s how I met Conor.’

  ‘So you were, what, undercover?’

  ‘I’ve been working with MI6 for six years now, basically since I got out of uni. It was all very much like work until I met Conor and then I suddenly realised I could be putting him away. And that’s when things started to get complicated faster than I could project.’

  Kaitlin thought back over the last couple of years, seeing things in a new light. ‘That explains why Conor never talked about your work.’

  ‘Technically, he didn’t even know.’

  A waitress drifted over and they ordered a couple of gin and tonics.

  Once she’d gone, Kaitlin said, ‘Jesus. Thomas, is there anyone in your life you haven’t been lying to?’

  ‘Well, let’s not put all the troublesome ethics on my shoulders. Conor was hacking for an international criminal syndicate, no matter how well-intentioned he may have been. But I told him, eventually, right when MI6 and the FBI were moving in on the Elysians. That’s why Conor was able to cover his tracks to the degree that he did, otherwise he would have ended up in prison.’

  ‘I can’t believe he didn’t tell me any of this.’

  ‘He wanted to.’

  ‘Obviously not enough.’

  ‘As you said, things were strained.’

  ‘Because he was stealing! Was I supposed to pretend to be OK with that?’

  ‘Believe me, I know how you feel. It nearly destroyed our relationship, too.’

  ‘It wasn’t even the stealing that was the real problem. I mean, obviously, that was bad, but taking money from a bank to give it to what he thought was a good cause? That’s Conor all over.’

  ‘Using malware someone else gave him – Conor should have been too smart for that.’

  ‘Do you think he knew how out of hand it would get?’

  Thomas looked into the crowd, reflecting. ‘No. I think he was serious about just skimming off the top, taking pennies from the largest accounts, from people who wouldn’t even miss it.’

  ‘But then the Koschei almost collapsed the entire bank. I mean, millions of people could have lost everything if Conor hadn’t stopped it.’

  ‘But he did.’

  Kaitlin felt all those old emotions come surging back. ‘Yeah, and he didn’t even care! That’s why I was so mad at him. He put so many people at risk and he treated it like some big adventure.’

  She bit her tongue as the waitress dropped off the drinks. The bar was getting even busier and she enjoyed the anonymity that it brought.

  Thomas swirled his drink in his glass. ‘To defend my fiancé for a moment, at that point he didn’t know what the money he was stealing was really going to. He thought he was funding an activist group. People who thought technology could make the world a better place.’

  ‘Right. The Elysians.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why was MI6 investigating them? What were you trying to find out?’

  ‘For starters, all the illegal activity that was going through them. Conor isn’t the first Robin Hood hacker they’ve had.’

  ‘You were investigating your own boyfriend?’

  Thomas shook his head. ‘Absolutely not. Conor wasn’t involved in anything illegal when we first met as far as I know. But then we both got deeper into the group and they weren’t what they appeared. All groups on the internet have their dark spots, but the Elysians have a black hole at their centre. That’s what Conor was funding. When he found that out, trust me, he wasn’t treating it as a great adventure any more.’

  Kaitlin felt her thoughts racing to catch up. ‘So, you think the plane going down … you think it could have something to do with Conor?’

  ‘I wondered. A lot. A couple of days after 702 went missing, I started using my access to find out as much as I could. But it was hard. I couldn’t very well start asking questions of the recently bereaved just to find out more about who was on that plane. So, when I saw what you were doing, I thought, well, maybe this is perfect. Maybe this is the universe telling us how to move forwards.’

  ‘How the hell do I trust you now?’ she demanded. ‘The last thing I need is some MI6 agent manipulating me.’

  ‘I told you. I left MI6. I hid out in Moscow for a while. Easy to disappear there.’

  ‘Oh, great! Now I could be the pawn of a Russian agent!’

  Thomas grinned over the lip of his glass. ‘The US, British and European governments are all looking for me. If I were a Russian agent, do you think I ever would have left Russia?’

  Kaitlin bowed
her head. ‘I don’t know what to think any more. Or who to trust.’

  ‘When you and I started poking around, I installed an alert on the MI6 intelligence hubs I’d been using so that I’d be warned if anyone started following my tracks. The alarms went off a few times over the past couple of months. But then two weeks ago, they all started going off at once. So I knew my bosses were on to me.

  ‘They knew I’d been investigating, far outside my lane. It’s one thing to go rogue, it’s another to start hacking your own agency. The false logins I’d been using, and the workarounds, they’re the kind of things that get people like me renditioned. Not to mention, I’d started to suspect there was something that wasn’t even stored on the top-secret classified servers.’

  ‘Something about the flight?’

  Thomas’ eyes darted around the bar. ‘All I know is there are as many different accounts of when the plane went missing as there are intelligence and avionics agencies in the North Atlantic. And I’m not sure half those agencies even know what they’re talking about.

  ‘From what you’ve told me about the FBI, it definitely sounds like there’s a hell of a lot of misinformation out there. To be honest, though, I’ve been wondering if, maybe, there is no cover-up. Maybe it’s just that no one knows exactly what happened.’

  Kaitlin stared into her glass. She didn’t want to hear that. A mystery that would never be answered. No closure. The rest of her life stretching out in this murky twilight.

  She pushed those thoughts aside and said, ‘Why show yourself to me now?’

  ‘I came to the States to get some supplies and make a plan, but I can’t stay here. There are way too many eyes and ears. It felt wrong not to see you before I go away, for good.’

  ‘You’re going to walk away from all this?’ She felt a pang of desperation.

  ‘I can’t be running at full speed on our little arrangement any more.’

  ‘Because you’re scared, or because you aren’t sure we’ll find an answer?’

  ‘I’m just being honest with you.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can move forwards on this without you.’

  Thomas dropped his chin. ‘I’m so sorry any of this happened to us in the first place. And I’m sorry I encouraged you to go down this path. If Conor were here, he’d … Maybe it’s time to move on.’

  ‘I’m just not there yet. Are you?’

  He sighed. ‘I don’t know. These days, though, I keep wondering whether or not this whole investigation isn’t just our way of coping instead of accepting that Conor’s gone.’

  Kaitlin winced. How many times had she heard that, in one form or another, from people whose path she’d crossed?

  ‘I know there’s something real here,’ she said, as much to herself as to Thomas. ‘Can I still count on you?’

  He tapped on his phone and held the screen up to her. ‘The number of my new burner. I’ll be harder to reach, but if you need me, I’ll try to be there.’

  Her instinct prickled. Something in his words, in the flicker of his eyes. ‘What aren’t you telling me, Thomas?’

  Thomas weighed her question and for a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then: ‘I’d advise you to walk away, but I know you won’t listen. But you’ve got to be careful. Really careful. There’s more at play here than you could imagine.’

  ‘What do you mean? Tell me!’

  He shook his head. Kaitlin couldn’t understand why he’d been so helpful before and now he was obfuscating. What had he discovered?

  ‘All I’ll say is that it’s not just the CIA and British intelligence agencies you should watch out for.’

  He seemed to feel he’d already said too much, for he stood without warning, looked around the bar and stepped away from the table. One last smile for her, and Kaitlin thought she saw pity in it.

  ‘You look after yourself,’ he said. And then he walked away into the crowd.

  18

  ‘Have you seen the news?’ Rory’s voice blared from the phone as Kaitlin stepped out of the hotel bar into the night.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Her heart thumped at the urgency of his words, but she couldn’t read any emotion in his voice beyond passion.

  ‘Just get over to my place, fast as you can.’

  Half an hour later, Rory swung open the door to his apartment and Kaitlin all but tumbled in, breathless. He was wearing a monogrammed silk dressing gown and pyjamas, but his mood was electric. He spun away from her to the TV, where CNN droned.

  ‘What is it?’ Kaitlin gasped. The words died in her mouth when she stood beside him. All was clear.

  The screen showed moving images of waves breaking on pebbles under a grey sky, a line of snowy hills in the distance. On the beach, people in heavy coats moved around a twisted slab of grey metal.

  The headline underneath said: Wreckage from Flight 702 Found off the Coast of Nova Scotia, Canada.

  Kaitlin felt ice water flood through her. ‘Is this for real?’ she breathed.

  ‘They’ve already done tests on what they pulled from the water. Said they found traces of explosive on it.’

  The newscaster’s voice hummed from the TV, but Kaitlin flipped into her own grey world where none of the words reached her. She felt the stew of long-suppressed emotions bubble. Since the news of the flight, Conor had been caught in some in-between world, not alive or dead. Lost and waiting to be found. She’d never really allowed herself to hope, but despite her best intentions, a small flame had flickered somewhere in the depths of her mind.

  Now, though, it was all over. An ending. Only the explanations remained to be found.

  This shouldn’t be hitting her so hard. But there it was. She felt hot tears burn and she scrubbed them away with the back of her hand before Rory could see. He was wagging a finger at the TV screen, running away at the mouth about something or other.

  ‘What are you saying?’ she said, pulling herself back.

  Rory looked round and from the way his face softened, he clearly understood what was churning away inside.

  ‘Hey, are you OK?’ he breathed. ‘Sorry. I’ve been a total dick. Got myself carried away with the detail.’ He dipped in his dressing gown pocket and pulled out a handkerchief bearing his initials. ‘Here.’

  She smiled and took it, dabbing at her eyes. ‘Thanks. Don’t worry about me. I just had a moment. Tell me again what you were saying.’

  ‘OK. That trace of explosives. Looks like the terrorism theory is the most likely.’

  ‘So, not a virus released on board, or people getting sick from something the evangelists picked up in the Congo. You’re thinking the White Matchmaker?’

  ‘I could construct a case for Drago’s mob trying to eliminate their boss and his wife, maybe. Or … Well, no point speculating. We need something solid. Though this could be the point where the authorities start doing something instead of trying to cover it up.’

  Kaitlin thought back to the warning that Thomas had given. She mentioned his cryptic comments to Rory and his involvement with the intelligence fraternity and the investigation into the Elysians.

  ‘OK, there’s some meat there,’ Rory said. ‘Something to chew over. I think we need a night to sleep on this. Come back fresh tomorrow and decide on the way forwards.’ He hesitated. ‘You going to be all right?’

  ‘I’ll be fine. Probably good to get some alone time with my thoughts.’

  Kaitlin traipsed back through the streets, dwelling on that image of twisted wreckage on the beach, trying not to imagine the point that had left it that way. Leaving the lights in the apartment turned off, she slumped cross-legged on her bed and looked out across the park to the illuminated skyline.

  That was the moment she saw the notification for a new voicemail on her original cell.

  Absently, she picked it up and called. The message played.

  Kaitlin?

  She felt the blood drain from her and for an instant, she thought she was going mad.

  Kaitlin? It’s me.


  Haunted, her hands trembled and she almost dropped the phone.

  It’s Conor.

  The grief, she told herself. You can’t really be hearing this.

  The message fizzed with some kind of interference. What sounded like ghost voices babbled, fading in and out, the words incomprehensible. After another jolt of static, it cleared and the voice came through loud and clear.

  Definitely, definitely Conor’s voice.

  I’m OK. We’re all OK. I can’t get …

  The call faded again and Kaitlin strangled a cry of frustration.

  His message faded back in:

  We’re alive. We’re all alive. Listen, we need your help. Help us. Help us.

  The message ended abruptly.

  PART TWO

  News Recordings

  NEWSCASTER 1: Breaking news. Wreckage believed to have come from the missing Atlantic Flight 702 has been found in the North Atlantic just west of …

  NEWSCASTER 2: Atlantic Flight 702, from London Heathrow, was expected in New York at …

  FISHERMAN: We were pulling up the nets and I saw what I thought was a whale caught up there. But …

  REPORTER 1: Other objects found drifting in the ocean currents suggest a crash site just south of Greenland, close to the …

  REPORTER 2: … including this, a child’s water bottle, a poignant reminder of the lives lost that night on Flight 702 …

  EXPERT 1: The indications of burning along the tail fin suggest a catastrophic event of some kind like …

  NEWSCASTER 1: … appears to confirm that Atlantic Flight 702 was brought down by an explosion or fire on board …

  EXPERT 2: … six months of being pushed along by the currents and it should be possible to pinpoint the approximate site of the crash fairly accurately.

  NEWSCASTER 2: The focus of the inquiry now is to pin down the exact location …

  REPORTER 3: What we know is that radio contact was broken off at …

  NEWSCASTER 3: Newly released satellite images show the plane changing course dramatically …

  NEWSCASTER 4: … altered course before descending rapidly to 20,000 feet …