by Ward Larsen
“Wasn’t that supposed to be to our advantage? Having an insider on this crash investigation?”
“That was our intent. We’ve been monitoring him very closely, but for some reason our NTSB man—his name is Jammer Davis—sidestepped his normal means of communication and asked this friend at CIA for help. Davis has uncovered Special Agent Mulligan’s identity, and we think he knows there’s something special about Kristin.”
For the first time Stuyvesant felt uneasy. “These two people know the Secret Service was protecting her?”
“They know there’s a connection of some kind, yes.”
“This whole damned protection scheme was a mistake from the beginning! We should have kept our distance like we always have.”
“Once you got the nomination, Martin, we had no choice. Kristin was at risk of—”
“Of exactly what’s happened! The Secret Service dropped the ball on this!”
“You know we tied a hand behind their back. They wanted a full protection detail, but we said no. We insisted they keep it small and discreet. They also warned us against letting her travel.”
An agitated Stuyvesant banged his fist on a cabinet over the bed. “That was her mother’s damned fault! The woman simply will not listen, despite everything I’ve given her. All right … this NTSB man, Davis. Does it do us any good to keep him in Colombia?”
“Not that I can see. The ransom is on its way, and Kristin will be on a plane home tomorrow.”
“So pull him out. He’s asking too many questions. We need to tie this up once and for all. Then we need to bury it for good.”
Evers said hesitantly, “I agree, however … there might be one problem. Getting Davis out of Colombia could prove difficult.”
“Why?”
“It’s something that came out of the blue—a one-in-a-million coincidence. When the NTSB went to assign an investigator, the guy in charge—I think his name is Green—looked over the passenger list and saw a familiar name. Davis has a daughter, and it turns out she was also on that flight.”
“What?”
“Apparently she and Kristin were headed to the same semester abroad program. Davis’ daughter is the other hostage that was referred to in the ransom request.”
“The one we ignored?”
Evers said, “I think ‘secondary concern’ was the phrase you used. My point is that getting Davis to leave might prove difficult. By all accounts he’s a bull, and I don’t see him leaving without his daughter.”
The bus was gaining speed, heading for a barbecue to benefit wounded veterans. Stuyvesant sat on the mussed bed. “Is there any chance Davis can find her?”
“His daughter? Working on his own? Not a prayer. I’ve had the full briefing from Strand. We’ve put a lot of effort into this, a lot of resources, and we still don’t know who we’re dealing with. It’s not FARC, but probably someone like them, a splinter paramilitary group. There are dozens in the jungles down there, and they’re all ruthless. Drugs and extortion are their bread and butter. They move constantly and are armed to the teeth. FARC lasted twenty years against the Colombian Army, and the others are just as persistent. I can’t imagine one angry American dad is going to bother them. Honestly, if Davis pushes too hard—I wouldn’t be surprised if he disappeared too.”
Stuyvesant met Evers’ gaze and saw discomfort. They were both thinking the same thing. If Davis didn’t come back, their cleanup efforts would be greatly simplified. Evers was about to say something when Donovan poked her head around the corner. She handed Stuyvesant talking points for the veterans affair, and said, “Ten minutes.”
As soon as she was gone, Stuyvesant took the lead. “All right—just get my daughter out of harm’s way.”
“And Davis?” asked Evers.
The vice president turned away and began to study his notes.
THIRTY-ONE
“The democratic nominee for president has a love child?”
“Apparently so,” said Sorensen. “Jean Stewart worked on his first congressional campaign twenty years ago.”
“Sounds like she worked more than the phones,” said Davis.
“Do you realize how sexist that sounds?”
“Sorry. Look, I know Stuyvesant is married now, but was he at the time?”
“He was, but according to Stewart his wife never learned about the affair. They kept it very discreet until the inevitable hard landing.”
“Thanks for putting that in language I can understand.”
“I always try to keep things simple for pilots. Back then, Stuyvesant was a rising star politically. He knew the affair would blow him out of the water, so he ended the relationship in no uncertain terms.”
“He was a jerk. That’s not sexist to say, is it?” He heard Sorensen sigh.
“Then the complication came,” she continued. “Stewart found out she was pregnant, but she never told Stuyvesant. Until last year he never knew he had a daughter.”
“Last year? That’s pretty awkward for a guy in the middle of a heated presidential primary. How did Stewart break this news to him?”
“She didn’t have time to tell me that part, but I did notice she seems to be doing well. Nice house, furniture, clothes. I saw a few pictures on the wall of a different place, much smaller, a very different neighborhood.”
“You think she hit him up? Demanded hush money?”
“Could be,” said Sorensen.
“And maybe somebody else found out about Kristin—somebody in Colombia.”
“That was my first thought. It could be even worse, though. What if somebody learned not only about Kristin, but about the payoff to Jean Stewart? It’s one thing for a politician to find out he has a long-lost daughter from an affair that ended twenty years ago. That’s awkward, but it’s manageable. Throw in a hush-money scandal, maybe a kidnapping between now and the first Tuesday of November—it would be catastrophic for the campaign.”
Davis thought it all through. “Okay, but how does this help me find Jen? Both girls have been kidnapped—that fits everything we know.” He told her about the audio recording he’d discovered on the iPod. “The problem is, we still don’t know who’s taken them or where they are.”
“I can tell you that Jean Stewart is as much in the dark as we are. As for the Secret Service, don’t expect much help—we’re not exactly on the same page right now.”
“Which means any answers will have to come from my end.”
“That’s a wide net to cast. There are no end of suspects in Colombia—it’s a haven for organized crime and extortion schemes. We have to narrow things down.”
“If it is a kidnapping, there’ll be a ransom demand,” he said. “Who would they contact?”
“Stuyvesant, I suppose. Or maybe his campaign.”
He heaved a long breath. “That’s no help either.” He saw the proprietor in a back room talking on a cell phone. When the man locked eyes with Davis he abruptly ended his call. Was there awkwardness in his gaze? Probably not, he decided. Even so, the readiness of his suspicion drove one thing home to Davis—he was becoming increasingly isolated.
“I need help,” he finally said.
“I agree. Unfortunately, I can’t just run this up the flagpole at CIA. Think about it—our next president getting blackmailed by Colombian drug lords right before the election? That’s not a grenade I want to toss.”
“Even worse,” Davis added, “it might endanger the girls. Right now I’m the only one in a position to do anything.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to be discreet.”
“You? Discreet?”
Davis ignored this as an idea surfaced, and he ran it past Sorensen. She agreed it was the best course. “Thanks, Anna. I really appreciate everything you’ve done.”
“Just bring Jen back safe and sound. Oh, and by the way,” she added, “you owe the guy at the hotel desk two hundred and fifty dollars.”
“Two-fifty? Are we married?”
&nbs
p; “The way I spend your money—we might as well be.”
* * *
Larry Green left his eleven-thirty meeting with a grim expression, one that anyone who’d spent time with him in the last few days would recognize. His wife certainly had, but generals’ wives knew better than to ask.
The daily briefing had not gone well. His boss, Janet Cirrillo, had asked pointedly for updates on the crash of TAC-Air Flight 223, and for the third day in a row Green had given her nothing. The managing director was not an unreasonable woman, and she took in stride his explanation that contact with Davis had been intermittent. All the same, Cirrillo was feeling heat from above, and having spent twenty-eight years in the Air Force, Green knew the direction in which foul things flowed.
He rode the elevator to the first floor looking forward to his afternoon run. He was ready to blow off a little steam. In the name of hydration, Green purchased a water bottle at the lobby coffee shop. He was getting his change when he heard, “Hello, General.”
He turned and instantly recognized Anna Sorensen.
“Miss Sorensen … hello. What a surprise to see you.”
“Is it?”
He instantly understood her meaning, and Green scanned all around the busy lobby. “There’s a courtyard outside—can I get you something?”
“That water looks pretty good.”
The day was warm, and they found a bench in the shade of a maple tree. In front of them a fountain spewed water to the four cardinal points of the compass, gurgles echoing against the courtyard walls. One of the spouts was misaligned and water splattered over the southern edge.
“Jammer’s been in touch?” he surmised.
“He called today. He needs help.”
Green looked at her curiously. “Why did he ask you and not me?”
Sorensen held his level gaze but said nothing.
Green was fully aware that she worked for the CIA. Jammer had introduced them once, after he’d met Sorensen on an assignment in France. Although “met” was perhaps not a strong enough word. Collided was more like it. Sorensen had saved Jammer’s life in France, and Green knew that he trusted her without reservation. So there was his answer.
“He thinks there’s a problem on my end,” said Green, staring at a skewed footprint of dampness aside the fountain’s blue-tiled base. “He implied something like that the last time I talked to him.”
“Jammer got suspicious a couple of days ago. That business jet he hitched a ride on—it wasn’t any kind of scheduled run, in spite of what you were told. Somebody arranged the flight just for him. Later that night, you relayed a request for satellite information, and Jammer was buried within an hour. Then there was the high-end sat-phone he was issued. It was right there waiting for him when he arrived in Colombia, delivered by some unknown courier from the U.S. Embassy.”
Green nodded. “I should have seen it myself.”
“The sat-phone is compromised, so he and I have been using alternate means.”
“I’ve been getting a lot of pressure for updates. Somebody near the top wants results.”
“I know who it is.”
Green studied her, took a long swallow of water. “Do I want to know?” he asked.
“Probably not.”
He let it go at that. “How can I help?”
“First of all, Jammer wanted you to know why he’s been unresponsive. He’s making headway—maybe too much. He thinks Jen is alive.”
“Thank God for that. But how?”
“Jammer is pretty sure we’re looking at a kidnapping. He thinks the jet landed at a remote airfield in the jungle where the two girls were removed. Then it took off again, and the crash was somehow manufactured.”
“Two girls,” he remarked.
“Yeah—that’s the part you don’t want to know.”
Green took a moment to consider it. “If this is true … it’s a damned ruthless scheme. But I suppose the crash removed a lot of evidence.”
“Neat and clean if you can make it all work. Jammer has been sorting through the details, but he’s at a point where he needs help.”
Green had been trailing Sorensen for most of the conversation, but all at once he went out ahead. “Actually, I suspected something like this … at least in a general way. I made a few phone calls yesterday that might give Jammer just what he needs.”
Sorensen was studying the fountain too, in all its tranquil inefficiency. “I really hope you’re right.”
THIRTY-TWO
Davis left the hotel in a fog, meandering in the direction of El Centro. There was little conviction in his stride because he could imagine nothing there that would help his cause. He lumbered ahead all the same, operating on the same principle as a shark—keep moving or drown.
He’d come here on a mission to find his daughter, and as a secondary ambition, sanity permitting, to solve a crash. He now knew Jen wasn’t the victim of an aircraft accident, but rather a kidnapping. And the crash investigation? It was unlike any he’d ever seen. The final report, if he even bothered with one, would have nothing to do with maintenance practices or pilot training or weather. This mishap was one hundred percent about people. In truth, it wasn’t an air crash at all—more like a crime scene with wings. To top it off, an unbearable new stench was wafting in, seared by that most volatile accelerant of all—the acetylene torch of politics.
The vice president of the United States had fathered an illegitimate daughter. It explained a lot of things, including why Davis had been getting such focused help from Washington. He wondered if the president himself could be involved. Davis would bet against that idea. He’d met Truett Townsend, and everything about the man seemed aboveboard. The Montanan, fed up with congress, had declared he would not run for a second term unless the two parties found common ground. Gridlock continued, and Townsend kept his word. America’s loss, in Davis’ opinion. Now his apparent successor was being blackmailed by someone hiding in the headwaters of the Amazon.
With Jen caught smack in the middle.
When he caught sight of El Centro, Davis stopped on the roadside and stared. He’d already spent two hours there today, scouring maps and surveillance photos, asking searching questions and getting blank stares in return. The building glimmered under the high midday sun, but to Davis it suddenly seemed a dark place, an investigative black hole where evidence went in but nothing came out. Since arriving on scene he had pursued the standard practices of investigation, none of which had brought him closer to Jen. Marquez had done the same, and it had gotten him killed.
The sun beat down on his back. It pounded everything in sight. People, cars, airplanes landing on the nearby runway—all seemed to move languidly, as if time itself was overheating. A truck barreled past raising a cloud of dust, and El Centro disappeared in a swirl of brown. In that moment, Davis realized he needed a new direction. He studied the city around him, slow and observant, and then the mountains beyond. He considered a scarred plot of jungle eighty-nine miles south. Was that where the solution lay? Or was it in a plush D.C. conference room? He wondered if there was a military transport speeding south at this very moment, full of hard men and exotic weapons, prepared to settle a score for the man who would soon be king.
It dawned on Davis that the most useful piece of evidence he’d discovered was on the bedside stand in his room—Jen’s iPod, which held an audible record of the abduction. Voices that could be analyzed. The gunshots that ended the life of a Secret Service agent. Kristin Stewart imploring Jen to act as her double. With fresh lucidity, he realized that Jen’s recording was his best weapon. He turned on a heel and started back to the hotel.
By the time the weathered three stories of Hotel de Aeropuerto edged into view, he was breathing hard and his shirt was matted to his back. Davis was almost to the parking lot when he saw the door to his room. He scuffed to a stop on the road’s gravel siding.
The door was ajar. There was no maid’s cart parked along the railed balcony. No box of tools from the resident
handyman. He was sure he’d left the No Molestar sign on the handle. Two men emerged from his room.
Davis edged into the shadow of a parked delivery truck and watched. The men were Hispanic, both beefy and rugged looking, a pair who would look right at home on a warehouse loading dock. One was wearing a soccer jersey and needed a shave. The other wore dark sunglasses and needed a gut-buster diet. They closed the door neatly, and Davis followed their progress all the way to the office. His suspicions about the hotel owner might have had merit after all.
The sunglasses went inside, and through a tightly angled window Davis saw him hand something to the proprietor. A key card? Cash? Maybe both. A few words were exchanged, and soon the pair headed out to the street.
They set out on foot, which was good, because a car would have forced Davis into a difficult choice—confront them here or let them go. He fell in behind the men, keeping a healthy separation, and watched them fall in and out of the shadows of high-rise apartment buildings. They tracked across a broad park, and twice disappeared behind foliage, but each time Davis reacquired them. They hit a good stride on a street called La Esperanza, a wide boulevard with a central tree-lined median and sided by retail shops. There were salons and brand-name clothing stores, practical farmacias next to extravagant emerald wholesalers. He was a hundred feet in trail, and working up a sweat, when the two men suddenly stopped. One pulled out a cell phone and had a very brief conversation. Then both turned and looked directly at him.
It didn’t take countersurveillance training for Davis to realize he’d been made. They’d been alerted by a phone call, which meant there was at least one other person nearby, possibly more. The two reversed course and started walking toward him, and Davis sensed a major shift in the odds. He didn’t know how many he was up against or where they were. As he stood in the middle of a busy commercial district, there wasn’t a cop in sight.
Never was when you needed one.
THIRTY-THREE
Davis spun an about face, and immediately spotted two more men with their eyes on him. They crossed the street quickly, taking an angle to cut him off. Davis made what he thought was the most unpredictable move—he dashed into the busy street.
