Passenger 19

by Ward Larsen

  “I am a structural engineer for BTA,” said Delacorte. “We manufacture two-thirds of the main fuselage on the ARJ-35.”

  Davis was well acquainted with BTA, a European consortium that supplied parts for nearly every airliner in the world. On paper Delacorte would be here as a technical consultant. In reality, of course, he was much like the Pratt & Whitney man, an embedded corporate spy who would provide forewarning to BTA should any unwanted attention come their way. Unlike some investigators, Davis viewed the practice in a positive light. The people sent on such missions were generally top-flight engineers, so it was like having Oz available to explain his machine. Or at least some small part of it.

  “I arrived last night,” said Delacorte.

  “Have they given you a status briefing yet?”

  “No, I was promised one this afternoon. In the meantime, I hope to fly out to the crash site to perform a preliminary analysis.”

  Davis weighed giving Delacorte the condensed version of what they’d discovered so far, but decided it wasn’t his place. On balance, the investigation was fast becoming a sinking ship, and the control of information was one of the last buckets Marquez had to bail with.

  Delacorte said, “I did hear something about you, Monsieur Davis. Is it true your daughter was on board this flight?”

  “She was listed as a passenger, but two bodies are still unaccounted for and Jen is one of them.”

  “Let us hope for the best, then,” said the Frenchman, more with faith than conviction.

  Davis nodded appreciatively. “Yeah, thanks.”

  Delacorte excused himself, explaining that he had to arrange for credentials. Davis turned to a computer and began scanning last night’s logs. The system Marquez had adopted was a good one. Field teams, lab techs, and interviewers all transferred their raw reports into a central database, which was then correlated by staff and organized into a preset framework. Davis searched for anything relating to the interviews that were supposed to have taken place yesterday: one set to determine whether the body in the cockpit was Reyna, and the other to compile a background profile on their hijacking suspect, Umbriz. It took ten minutes to recognize defeat. There were no updates on either man.

  He refilled his coffee cup from an industrial-sized pot—no crash could be solved without one—and was settling down again at the keyboard when Marquez and Echevarria walked in.

  Marquez spotted Davis and beckoned him with a finger, and not a word was said as the two Colombians disappeared into the main conference room. Davis took a deep breath and followed.

  “We have not found your daughter yet,” said Marquez as soon as Davis walked in.

  “That’s good,” said a hesitant Davis. “At least, I hope it is.”

  Echevarria said, “Good morning, Mr. Davis.”

  “Buenos días.”

  A weary-looking Marquez unloaded papers from a satchel and began the meeting. “Major Echevarria and I attacked things using independent methods, and yesterday we both tried to resolve the questions surrounding Captain Reyna, and also our chef from Cartagena.” Marquez stiffened as he looked Davis in the eye. “You were correct about the body in the cockpit—it was not Blas Reyna. This has been confirmed by family members, as well as the chief pilot at TAC-Air.”

  “Any idea who it is?”

  “No,” chimed in Echevarria. “My department is best suited to identifying unknown persons, but so far we have had no success. No fingerprints in our records match those of the man in the morgue, and we found nothing on his body or clothing to suggest an identity. We have good facial recognition software, but it will not help here due to the condition of the body. Dental records might be useful in time … but as of this moment, he remains a mystery.”

  “Any idea where the real Captain Reyna is?”

  This, apparently, was Marquez’ ground. “We interviewed eight family members and the last three first officers he flew with. He kept a small apartment in the Germania district, an address that was not on record with TAC-Air. We performed a thorough search but found nothing to shed light on his disappearance. Reyna was last seen there by a neighbor the night before the crash.”

  Davis rubbed his chin, and said, “Have you gotten TAC-Air involved?”

  “In what way?” Marquez asked.

  “It’s a slim chance, but you have to rule out that the body we recovered is that of another TAC-Air captain. There might have been a last-minute change from crew scheduling that slipped past on the paperwork, or even two captains who swapped flight assignments without telling anybody. If Reyna got somebody to take his flight, he could be sleeping in right now at his girlfriend’s apartment. Things like that happen.”

  The two officers exchanged a look. Marquez said, “I will make inquiries, but it seems too easy a way out.”

  Davis thought, If I was you, that’s exactly what I’d be looking for. He said, “Okay, so we have a first officer who’s been executed, and an unidentified captain who was also shot in the head. Any ballistics yet?” This was directed at Echevarria.

  “No,” he said. “If we include the passenger who was shot twice, we should expect to find four rounds, and probably the casings. Unfortunately, none have been recovered.”

  “Doesn’t that strike you as odd?” Davis said. “I mean, I know this is a crash, and that strange things happen when metal meets the earth. But wouldn’t you think at least one of these spent rounds would turn up lodged in a piece of insulation?”

  Neither man answered.

  “What about the weapon?” Davis looked at the two men in turn, but saw only blank stares. He addressed Marquez, his voice rising in frustration. “You know what, Colonel—I haven’t been sleeping well lately. And when I don’t sleep well I get difficult. No, that’s not a strong enough word. I get irritable, which I think is the same word in Spanish. So let’s take this apart. Your theory is that our methodical hijacker shot a passenger twice, then broke through the cockpit door, shot both pilots, and finally rebolted the damaged door before a mob could organize. Do I have this right?”

  The colonel’s face was set in stone. Echevarria regarded Marquez’ discomfort with unveiled pleasure.

  Davis went on, “If this scenario is valid, then I’d say there has to be a gun in that cockpit. Why haven’t we found it by now?”

  “The weapon could have been ejected in the crash,” Marquez argued.

  “Ejected?”

  “The L-1 window failed on impact.”

  “You’re saying this gun sailed on a perfect trajectory to the only place where the cockpit was breached and was thrown clear?” Davis paused and shook his head. “Putting aside that slim possibility, a handgun is a very dense piece of metal. With the detection equipment you’ve been using, scouring the jungle inch by inch—I’m sure you’d have found it by now.”

  Marquez said nothing, his flimsy theory wobbling under the tempest of Davis’ words.

  Echevarria broke the silence. “The medical examiner believes the same caliber gun was used in all three shootings. Dr. Guzman’s best guess is that we are looking for a nine millimeter. If the slugs are recovered, my ballistics people can tell us with certainty.”

  The marginalized Marquez had gone still, a statue on his castered office chair. He was completely at sea, out of ideas, and drowned by facts. Davis had seen it before, investigators watching their neatly cobbled theories get shredded before their eyes. Yet there was something different here. Marquez’ storyline had been riddled with holes from the outset, to the point that his very competence could be called in question. There had to be something else.

  Offering no quarter, Davis looked squarely at the colonel. “Tell us what you’ve learned about your hijacker.”

  When Marquez didn’t answer, Echevarria piled on. “It is a dead end. Over a dozen people who knew Umbriz have been interviewed, and each claims the idea of him being a hijacker is ridiculous. He was sixty-two years old and married for thirty years. Four children, six grandchildren, and he recently began caring
for his aging mother. He’s lived in the same house since 1980, and there is no evidence of fringe politics or financial difficulties—at least nothing he hasn’t been dealing with his entire life. The man was a chef who made flan and pasteles—nothing more.”

  Davis almost felt sorry for Marquez, and having made his point, he decided to ratchet down. “Okay, maybe we should all go back to square one.”

  “I agree,” Marquez responded, “a new approach is necessary. Each of us should spend the day going over the facts as we know them. If we independently develop theories, perhaps we can find new ground.”

  Davis nodded. “Fair enough.”

  Echevarria concurred.

  They arranged to meet later in the day, and Davis was the first to leave.

  He walked outside and looked across the tarmac. The Huey was departing, likely with Pascal Delacorte on board. Davis saw an ARJ-35 landing in the distance, gliding smoothly to a soft touchdown under cotton-ball morning clouds. Like much of the previous night, however, the oblique thoughts that skimmed through his head had nothing to do with airplanes. When did spring semester begin for Jen? Had she already talked to her advisor about a class schedule?

  Davis had gone through it before, battled the malignant aftermath of an erased existence. A week or a month from now he would be home, and on a bright September afternoon find his mailbox filled with the usual junk advertisements. Most would be in his name, but Jen would get her share, the great machine of American capitalism being what it was. Student loan pitches, credit card offers, summer-in-Europe scams. Would he set them aside for his daughter with smiley faces drawn on? Or would he slam them into the trash crumpled in a bitter wad?

  Davis had nearly lost his temper with Marquez. Almost done something stupid, which would surely have gotten him tossed off the investigation. Had he been rescued by reason, a rare display of self-control? Pity for the beleaguered Colombian? Would any of his efforts matter in the end?

  After three days in limbo, the uncertainty of Jen’s fate seemed suddenly overwhelming. Facts tumbled in his head without order or direction. Every investigation had its roadblocks, but typically problems that were sourced externally. Never before had Davis seized from within. That’s what it was like—being frozen from the inside out.

  He put his face up to the lifting sun, then checked his watch. Three hours until his call to Sorensen. Three hours to keep going.

  SEVENTEEN

  At three minutes past noon on Wednesday, Davis called the number Sorensen had given him from a corner table at a restaurant. The establishment was one he hadn’t been to before, half a mile from his usual place. Three minutes past noon because it had taken that long to compose his fast-disintegrating thoughts.

  His hard-won equilibrium lurched when a male voice answered, “Hello.”

  “Uh … hello. I was trying to reach Anna Sorensen.”

  “Oh, right. Here you go.”

  Sorensen’s voice. “Hey, Jammer.”

  “Was that your brother-in-law?”

  “Yeah. We all met for lunch in Manassas.”

  “Sounds like fun,” he replied, not knowing what else to say. From where he sat, lunch in Manassas was like lunch on the moon. “Do you think this line is okay?”

  “Best I can do for now,” she said. “I’m stepping outside.”

  He was no expert in communications security, but a brother-in-law’s cell phone from a sidewalk seemed marginal at best. Lacking any better plan, he said, “I hope you’ve got something for me. There’s no news about Jen, and I feel like I’m beating my head against a wall down here.”

  “Too bad for the wall.”

  Davis said nothing.

  “How are you really?”

  A sea of clichés came to mind. He settled for, “I’m treading water—but barely.”

  “That’s good, I think. I do have some news for you. I got a bead on your man Mulligan. Are you sitting down?”

  He assured her he was.

  “The guy was United States Secret Service.”

  Davis sank lower in his booth, staring at the empty plate in front of him that had fifteen minutes ago been piled with rice, beans, and chicken. He blew out a long breath. “Wow. I didn’t see that one coming.”

  “Neither did I. Once I knew that much, I made some very discreet inquiries to find out what he was doing down there.”

  “And?”

  “It’s a little vague—I didn’t want to put my source on the spot. Mulligan was on mission status, personal protection duty.”

  “What?”

  “I know, I know. When I saw he was Secret Service, I figured he’d be part of some financial crimes task force—you know, chasing after laundered drug money or something. But that wasn’t the case. Mulligan was on that flight to act as a bodyguard.”

  “A bodyguard for who?”

  “That I couldn’t find out. The Secret Service keeps information on principals at a very high level. My source went through some back doors to even discover that Mulligan was on mission status.”

  “Yeah, I get that part. But who could we be talking about?”

  “Everybody knows these guys protect the president, but they also cover past presidents and certain family members. Then there’s the vice president and his family. I’ve been told others can be covered in special cases—senators, department secretaries, foreign dignitaries. It’s a bigger list than you might think. The problem is, only a handful of people know who’s on that list.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Anything else?”

  “One more thing. These guys always travel armed, but it takes special authorization to carry on a commercial flight. Clearance is particularly complicated when traveling abroad.”

  Davis considered it. “Which means there would be people in Colombia who knew Mulligan was coming.”

  “They’d have known the time and date of his flight, and where he was going. They probably even knew his seat assignment. Which leads to something else.” Sorensen paused to let him figure it out.

  “They probably also knew who he was protecting.”

  “I think there’s a good chance.”

  The gears in Davis’ head ground to a stop, but he wasn’t sure why. He let it go for the moment. “It opens up a lot of possibilities.”

  “What else I can do to help?” Sorensen asked.

  “Let’s take a pass on Mulligan. It would only highlight us to keep chasing that, and you’ve stuck your neck out far enough as it is. I might ask for one more thing, but I’ve got some work to do on my end first. Thanks for your help.”

  “She’s out there, Jammer. I feel it.”

  “I hope to hell you’re right.”

  Davis ended the call, but he didn’t move. He sat at the table with the phone in his hand, Sorensen’s last words ringing in his head.

  She’s out there, Jammer. I feel it.

  For the first time since arriving in Colombia, he felt it too.

  * * *

  Davis used the ten-minute walk back to headquarters to assess his options. He considered calling a meeting to confront Marquez and Echevarria with the information on Thomas Mulligan. He wondered if one, or even both of them, already knew the truth about Passenger 21. His internal scales weighed against the idea for the time being—he just couldn’t see how sharing that information would advance his cause.

  Arriving at the El Centro he went straight to a computer, hoping to build on Sorensen’s revelation. He called up the video he’d seen two nights earlier, the closed-circuit recording of the TAC-Air boarding area. Cueing to the segment he wanted, he saw Jen and Kristin Stewart, and directly behind them Thomas Mulligan. Davis ran the video to its end, slightly short of the point where they all disappeared.

  Mulligan was exactly as he remembered. Sport coat and pressed trousers. Busy eyes working the terminal and checking his phone. Davis had viewed the scene before, but his first interpretation was totally off the mark. If he’d been dropping a practice bomb on a training flight it would have rated unsc
orable—would have landed completely off the range. Davis had pegged Mulligan for a businessman here to sell some new line of products. When Kristin had turned and said something to the man, he’d taken it for a casual acquaintance.

  He watched the video more closely. Not only did Kristin say something, but he saw Mulligan give a response. How had he missed that? Davis concentrated on a 1.2 second loop, and watched it over and over. In the end, he was reasonably sure he could lip read Mulligan’s three word reply. “No, Kristin, don’t.”

  He stopped the video.

  No, Kristin, don’t.

  It was a response steeped in familiarity. And also a directive. Which was not at all how a thirty-something guy would address a college-aged girl he’d just met in an airline boarding area. With his elbows on the chair’s armrests and his hands steepled under his chin, Davis ran the video back and carefully studied the minutes before those words. He paid particular attention to Mulligan’s positioning, eye movement, and who seemed to hold his attention. By the third run-through there could be no doubt. Special Agent Mulligan was in the boarding area for one reason.

  He was protecting Kristin Stewart.

  Davis could have kicked himself. All along it had been right there in front of him. Two missing passengers. He’d been so fully focused on Jen that her seatmate seemed an afterthought. Now he realized it was quite the opposite. Jen was no more than an innocent bystander, swept into events beyond her control. Kristin Stewart was something else altogether. She was instrumental to everything that had happened on TAC-Air Flight 223.

  Passenger 19 was the key.

  * * *

  “Seven million U.S.? Are they nuts?” asked the man named Evers. A characteristically dour man, his baggy eyes and creased jowls took on an unusually sour arrangement. In truth the number did not surprise him, but he thought it good form to make a show of displeasure.

  “I don’t expect any negotiation on the point,” said the other man in the very private room on G Street. His name was Frederick Strand, and he was CEO of The Alamosa Group—the nicely indeterminate name of the company he’d founded six years ago, this after retiring from the Navy with twenty-four good years and the rank of vice admiral.