The Negotiator

by Dee Henderson

  Jennifer slipped into the passenger seat. “Quit apologizing. This is fine. If I slipped out earlier, I would feel guilty about abandoning Lisa and Rachel.”

  “Do they have your wedding planned?”

  “They are having the time of their lives making suggestions. It is wonderful. There is no way I would have the energy to pull off what can be done with their help.”

  “So it’s good? They are not stepping on your toes?”

  “I’m enjoying sharing the joy.”

  Kate relaxed. Jennifer meant it. She looked at her sister, hoping to find she had misread the situation last night. She hadn’t. The tension was still there. “What would you like to do?”

  The lighthearted few moments changed to quiet resolve. “Let’s pick up a soda at the corner store and then go for a walk.”

  They bought sodas, and Kate stopped at the nearby park. They set out to walk around its oval-shaped pond. It was a beautiful evening, and several people were out walking around the park.

  Kate would have liked to break the silence with some light comment but forced herself to stay quiet. The longer they walked in silence, the more concerned she became.

  “I didn’t come with only good news.”

  “I know,” she said quietly.

  “Kate, I’m flying from here to the Mayo clinic.”

  She didn’t make the connection immediately. “Why?”

  Jennifer reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’ve got cancer.”

  “You’ve what?”

  “The test results came back last week.” Jennifer’s shoulders hunched. “They were pretty bad. It’s one of the reasons Tom refused to postpone his proposal.”

  “What did the test results say?”

  “The cancer is around my spine. It’s rare. And it has spread into at least my liver.”

  No! The emotions screamed to spill out. They turned inward instead, were stuffed deep, defensively blocked. Keep focused.

  Breathe.

  “We have to tell the family.”

  “No. Not yet. I’ll be back for the Fourth of July. By then I will know the scope of what I’m facing. I was only going to tell Marcus, but he can’t afford the distraction. Given what happened Tuesday, I couldn’t afford to wait another week to tell you.”

  “How can you sound so calm about this?”

  “Oh, Kate, the emotions roil in a thousand directions. But there is a comfort in knowing I’m okay even if the worst happens. Tom introduced me to what faith is. I have to talk to you about Jesus. Tuesday scared me to death.”

  Kate’s thoughts were racing with the onslaught of unexpected news. “First Dave, now you,” she murmured quietly, not realizing she spoke.

  “What?”

  “He said nearly the same thing the other night.” She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “What can I do to help?”

  Jennifer’s arm circled around her shoulders. “I know this is a shock. I know how big of a burden I’m placing on you. The news is going to affect everyone in the family, and they are going to lean heavily on you and Marcus.”

  “Oh, Jen, the fact it affects us is nothing compared to the reality of what you are dealing with. Is the pain bad?”

  “My right side hurts. There is some numbness in my left leg. But there were few warning signs.”

  “What are you looking at—surgery, chemotherapy, radiation?”

  “I’m being sent to Mayo to find out if there are any options. I won’t kid you. Whatever they come up with is likely to be experimental.”

  “There have to be options.”

  “The doctors have advised it will be a week of long days and a lot of tests. We’ll see what they come up with. As a doctor, I can cope better with the details than the speculation.” Jennifer hugged Kate. “You asked what you could do. I want to talk with you when I get back about Jesus. I’m afraid for you.”

  Jen was afraid for her. There was such helplessness in being asked something so intangible. “I wish I could promise there would be no more close calls. But it comes with the job.”

  “I know that. But do you understand why faith has become such an important issue to me? I don’t want to pressure you, but if something did happen, I would have a very hard time knowing I had never talked to you. I want you to read the book of Luke and have dinner with me, then tell me honestly what you think about Jesus.”

  “Jennifer, I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”

  “You won’t. I would rather hear honest reasons for disbelief than never to have had the conversation with you.” She took a slim book from her pocket. “I marked the page.”

  Kate looked awkwardly at the leather book Jennifer handed her. “You want me to read the book of Luke.”

  “It’s written by a doctor. It’s one of my favorite gospels.” Jennifer tried to offer a reassuring smile. “Kate, if you still say you don’t believe, that’s okay. I simply need to talk to you about it.”

  She was supposed to believe in God while her sister was possibly dying? Reeling from a hit against her family she could do nothing to fight, Kate’s hand clutched the book. She couldn’t say no to Jennifer’s request, but how could she calmly discuss something that made her feel so angry? She had no choice. She would do whatever Jennifer asked. “We’ll have dinner.”

  The clock blinked 3:22 A.M. Kate pulled another page off the printer and skimmed the text as she drank her sixth cup of coffee since midnight. The article from the January Oncology Journal filled in a few more gaps in her knowledge. There were two new chemotherapy treatments showing promise, both combinations of existing drugs. Her eyes burned as she struggled to focus and read, but at least it was now fatigue and not the salt of tears. She had given up trying to sleep.

  She desperately wanted to be able to talk to Marcus, but instead had listened as the answering machine took his call at 11 P.M. If he heard her voice, he would know. She couldn’t come up with a convincing lie right now, even to give herself cover so she could talk with him. This was the first crisis in years where she had not been able to lean on him.

  Cancer. It was hard to describe the fear the word evoked the more she read. What she had learned from the pages spread out across her desk scared her to death. According to her research, Jennifer could be facing a 2 percent survival rate beyond one year.

  Premature death was part of her world, not Jennifer’s. That pain seared. Jennifer didn’t deserve this.

  Kate had to deal with the personal risk of an early death because of her job. The power of attorney, the will, her bank accounts, financial papers, all of it was organized to make it easier on her family should something happen. She held the same documents for Marcus. There was a sense of preparation for the worst when it came to the dangers of their jobs. But she had never thought about Jennifer as being at risk. The news had struck a soft underbelly.

  There was nothing she could do. That was what hurt the most.

  She set down the coffee cup, pushing back the small leather book with the words New Testament across the front. She had promised Jennifer to read Luke, and she eventually would, but at the moment she would like nothing better than for the book to accidentally fall into the trash.

  She could understand Jennifer not wanting to mix the good news and the bad Sunday night. She could understand the caution of wanting to wait until she had more details before telling the whole family. But carrying the secret was going to be the toughest thing Kate had faced in years.

  Eight

  Kate shifted through change for toll money, glad she didn’t have to make this trip to O’Hare often. Traffic coming out of the city was a mess. Needing to get away from the office, she had offered to take Franklin’s place at the monthly check-in with Bob Roberts, head of O’Hare’s security. It was a beautiful day out—sunny blue skies, light breeze. She popped another two jelly beans in her mouth. After this meeting, she was going to take a few hours of personal time and get some much needed sleep.

  The shock of Jennifer’s news had passed. She was thin
king now proactively about questions to ask the doctors. This would be a long battle that none of the O’Malleys would accept losing. If the doctors said a 2 percent chance, then Jennifer would be in that 2 percent. They were O’Malleys. They had dealt with long odds before.

  She checked her voice mail messages and was relieved to hear one from Jennifer. Her early morning flight had been fine; she was getting ready to take a cab out to the Mayo Clinic. Kate hung up the phone and made a mental note to call in an hour when Jennifer should be checked in.

  There was something majestic about coming into O’Hare on I-190 and realizing they had built an airport taxiway over the highway. Kate slowed her speed to match traffic and watched a huge Turkish Airline Airbus cross from the international terminal to the runway. The plane gleamed bright white, its red tail rising like a hawk. Her car passed under the shadow cast by its wing.

  She glanced at her watch. 9:20 A.M. She was a few minutes early.

  Kate flipped open the incident plan book and found Bob’s number. She called him from her cellular phone and arranged to meet him by the United ticket counter in terminal one. She liked Bob Roberts. She had worked with the former DEA agent several times over the years. Her job today would be to listen, make note of the security changes made in the last month, and coordinate any changes he wanted to make to the incident plan book.

  With one hundred flights an hour on average and over two hundred thousand passengers a day, Bob Roberts had a massive job on his hands. The security personnel at O’Hare could handle most incidents, but a constant coordination was done with the city police, fire department, bomb squad, and FBI so that when he did need to bring people in, it would happen in a seamless fashion.

  Kate slipped a blank cassette into the handheld tape recorder that went everywhere with her and tucked a couple spare cassettes into her pocket. She preferred dictating notes. She walked through the airport at a leisurely pace, scanning the crowds out of habit.

  “Good morning, Bob.” He was a man in his late forties, perpetually in motion. Meetings with him were walking tours, the best kind of reviews in Kate’s opinion. If they swung out to the general aviation terminal, she planned to make a couple inquiries regarding Dave’s jet. Assuming Dave was a regular here, Bob would know what he flew.

  “Kate. Glad they sent you. I always have to explain everything to Franklin.”

  “I’ll take any excuse to get out of the office.” She retrieved her bag of jelly beans and offered to share. She remembered his sweet tooth.

  “Thanks.” Bob gestured to terminal C. “Let’s walk.”

  “There are a couple general changes worth noting. Customs has a new program beginning this month at Cargo City. They are adding five dogs. I expect seizures will be up over the next month.

  “We have doubled the number of security personnel walking the terminals for the next month to accommodate the increase in Fourth of July passenger traffic.

  “I’ve also got a new set of contact phone numbers for you. We’ve finally got the last recommendations of the review panel completed.”

  They walked the terminal, Kate making notes, laughing frequently as Bob peppered his serious discussion of security changes with some of the more amusing incidents in the last month.

  Bob’s pager went off.

  He glanced at the code. “Kate, we’ve got an incident. That’s the air traffic control tower.”

  An incident could be anything from a plane in trouble to a terrorist threat. Regardless, it wasn’t the kind of information people around them should hear. Bob used his access card to open a side door in the concourse. They hurried down a flight of stairs to the tarmac. The roar of planes taking off, muted inside, now reverberated across concrete. He pointed to one of the shuttle carts. “We’ll take it to the tower.”

  Kate nodded and climbed aboard.

  He tuned his radio to a private channel. “Elliot, it’s Bob. We’re on our way. What are the details?”

  “A bomb threat was called in on the regional ATC line. Five words. ‘Get ready for a bomb.’ Male voice. Not enough to get a good accent. Popping on the line, possibly a cellular phone.”

  “Handle it Code Two, Elliot.”

  “Calls are already underway.”

  Kate knew the procedures, but since she was carrying a copy of the plan book, she flipped it open. “Is it against the tower, a plane, or a terminal?” She was thinking out loud. They didn’t have enough information to know. She glanced at her watch and noted the time. 10:48 A.M. This was supposed to be a light duty morning. Two bomb incidents within a week was a toll she didn’t need. Every threat was treated as real.

  Passengers and flight crews in the terminals would already be seeing a noticeable shift in the intensity of the security. Unattended baggage would be cleared. Dogs would be out working the areas. The visible sweep would begin while behind the scenes the more intense work began. Fire and rescue would be on high alert. Ground crews would be paying special attention as flights were prechecked and turned around for departure. Luggage would be screened again. A search of the grounds would begin.

  Kate looked at Bob. “When was the last bomb threat?”

  “Sixteen days ago, called into an airline office. A hoax.”

  The tower handled air traffic within the tightly controlled class B airspace. Outside that zone of class B airspace, the aircraft were handled by the regional air traffic control center. “The call came in on a regional ATC phone number. How well-known is that number?” Kate asked, looking for clues.

  Bob skirted around a luggage carrier. “Obviously it is posted in the regional center. Within O’Hare proper, the tower people would know it and the electrical technicians who maintain the tower. It’s a restricted line, but the central phone hub for the complex would have it marked.”

  Kate worked on her list. “So add janitors and maintenance people in general. It’s not secure information but limited.”

  “Yes. We can run the records, see when the phone number was last changed.”

  Kate nodded, looking at the words of the threat. “‘Get ready for a bomb.’ No clock, so he either doesn’t want to give us the time it will go off, or he doesn’t know the exact time it will go off. It sounds like the device is already in place.”

  The more she looked at the words, the more she disliked them. “Bob, it is too general to be a hoax.” Hoaxes were specific. They wanted to arouse a strong reaction without showing evidence. “This is the first warning shot. Why the tower? That’s the only clue we really have.”

  “Rule of thumb, threat calls go to the media to get attention or to the intended target to get a response,” Bob replied.

  It was a common convention that bombs at airports targeted planes, but it wasn’t an absolute. “The tower itself?”

  “Possible. At least it’s a contained area to search.”

  The tower sat detached from other buildings, rose high above the passenger concourses, and looked out across seven runways, one of them over two miles long. Kate followed Bob inside the building and showed her badge to clear security. They headed to the observation deck.

  The room was crowded with very busy people. From this location, they had a full 360 degree view of the airspace. The windows in the room had been sealed in at a slight angle with the top edge extending farther out. The glare-resistant, thick glass helped keep the controllers from squinting into the sunlight. Kate could see planes out on the taxiways, lined up ten deep to take off. Massive Boeing 747s looked small from this height. In the air, planes were stacked in defined holding patterns waiting for clearance to land. She listened to the terse chatter between air traffic controllers and pilots and understood a word here and there. ORD was the designation for O’Hare.

  Elliot waved them over. “We’ve got three groups working the problem. Concourses, luggage and cargo, and aircraft. All the dogs are deployed.”

  “Let’s get a team sweeping this tower,” Bob requested.

  Elliot nodded and reached for the radio.

/>   “Can we route this phone line to the command center in the administration building?”

  “I’ve got a technician taking a look. He said it might have to be a hard jumper at the punch-down block since restricted lines were not made part of the main switch.”

  “What about getting set up to run a trace if we get another call?”

  “Working on it.”

  “Kate, can I borrow the tape recorder? If this is real, I hope we get more than this vague call to work with.”

  She already had a new tape in place. “Unfortunately, Bob, I think you will.” She watched as the men worked, talking with the deployed teams, their calm efficiency reminding her of how many of these incidents they worked in a year.

  It was precisely 11:00 A.M. when the regional ATC phone rang again. The mood all around the tower changed. The odds of this one being real and not a hoax had just risen dramatically. Bob took a deep breath, clicked on the recorder, and picked up the phone. “O’Hare tower.”

  Kate saw the anger cloud his face and caught his startled look in her direction. He apparently was not given the opportunity to ask any questions. He hung up the phone and clicked off the recorder. “Kate, what is going on?”

  He rewound the cassette and pressed play.

  “The bomb goes off at eleven-fifteen. The plane is talking to the tower. Tell Kate O’Malley I haven’t forgotten the past.”

  Hearing her name was so unexpected that the detachment so necessary when working a crisis broke to show her own disbelief, and for a brief instance, fear. Who knew she was here? “I have no idea. Play it again.”

  She closed her eyes and listened, expecting to recognize a voice. It was badly distorted, the words understandable but altered; she could not make out any distinctive features. Probably a digital cellular phone, it didn’t have static like an analog line as much as it cut in and out. The cadence of speech, the word choices, both were very deliberate. She looked over at Elliot. “Is this the same caller?”