The Negotiator

by Dee Henderson

  He paused the car to give emergency vehicles the right of way. “Walk me through your itinerary for today, everything that happened.”

  The timeline. Yes, it was going to be critical. She took a deep breath and felt the relief of being back in a role she knew how to deal with. She thought about it carefully. “I got to the office at 6:55 A.M. I know because the news at the top of the hour was starting when I went for coffee. Franklin was fixing himself a bagel with cream cheese, and he happened to mention the O’Hare security review was on his schedule for today. I didn’t want to spend the day in the office, so I cleared it with my boss and traded with Franklin. Dave, my name went on no schedule. Maybe four to six people inside the office might have known I was coming. I left the office, met Bob Roberts at the United ticket counter here at 9:40 A.M.”

  “Did you call Bob before you left the office to arrange the time and location? Did someone at his office have advance warning?”

  “No. I called from the car when I was a few minutes out. It would have been about 9:20–9:25.” She closed her eyes, thinking back. “We got word of the first phone call at 10:48 A.M. It’s scrawled on the top of an envelope I was using to make notes. One hour of time in which someone could have seen I was here at the airport and made the decision to mention me. No. It makes more sense that using my name was planned long before today. I don’t think my being at the airport had anything to do with it.”

  “A past case? Someone who wanted you dragged in?”

  “I’ve had several cases with men this vicious, but the problem is finding one who isn’t in jail at the moment who might have the knowledge to do it. And why a plane? If someone wanted to come after me, there are much more straightforward ways to do it.” She appreciated his grim expression, the fact he didn’t like that reality, but it was one she had long ago accepted she would live with. She offered him the other option she had considered. “This may simply be a red herring because my name has been in the news lately.”

  It was obvious Dave had not thought about that. “That’s possible. In fact, it would be a very good tactic. It would divert resources in the early days of the investigation, buy himself time to cover his tracks while we are busy elsewhere. It’s going to take time to get through your past cases.” He looked at her and frowned. “If you were named as a red herring, I wish he had used my name instead.”

  Kate wanted to smile at the irritation in his voice. He didn’t like the fact she was in the middle of this. Neither did she. The prospect of spending days reviewing hundreds of cases was not a pleasant one.

  His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “There’s another problem that will have to be dealt with because of this. You had better plan to disappear before your name hits the media. They are going to chew up any tidbit of information they can find, and the tape contents will eventually leak. The information is too explosive and was heard by too many people.”

  “I’m already thinking about it.” She could stay with anyone in the family, and she probably would to avoid the media pressure. It would be nationwide media, not just local. The last thing she needed was Floyd Tucker shadowing her every step. “Back to the timeline. The second call came in at precisely 11:00 A.M. He knew the bomb would go off at 11:15. What does that tell us? It was a device with a timer?”

  “Probably. It’s doubtful the device could have been remotely detonated over any great distance. The most logical scenario would be a bomb with a timer in the luggage area of the plane.”

  “So would the calls have been from nearby?”

  “It depends on his rationale for going after this particular plane. If he wanted to see the commotion, maybe.”

  She absently worried at a blister on her hand that had broken while she tried to build a profile in her mind. “The words of the call were very precise, carefully chosen. ‘The bomb goes off at 11:15. The plane is talking to the tower.’ That’s precise, specific. He likes control. That reference to the plane talking to the tower—you’re the pilot; could that be literal?”

  “You can listen to the radio traffic with the right equipment. But radio traffic is very concise. A normal exchange with the tower is a dozen words. It’s not what you would consider a dialogue. If that statement was itself not another red herring, it meant he was referring to having heard an exchange with the plane.”

  “Is it possible the reference to me and the reference to the tower were both extraneous?” Kate considered that, then realized immediately how looking at it that way cut out the complexity. “The simple truth—he set a bomb to go off at eleven-fifteen. The plane’s location was irrelevant. If it had been stuck at the terminal gate if the flight was running late, the plane would have blown up there.”

  “Exactly. As red herrings, those two statements are brilliant. By adding the reference to the tower, he creates churn in the initial moments before the bomb goes off. By mentioning your name, he complicates the initial investigation.”

  “And at the other extreme, he meant both of them.”

  “Yes. To speculate they are red herrings, even to believe it is likely, won’t change the reality. They have to be ruled out.”

  Her past. What would Dave think when he learned what that really meant? She backed away from the thought, not willing to borrow trouble. “Tell Kate O’Malley I haven’t forgotten the past” told her at least one comforting thing. Her name had not always been Kate O’Malley. She wouldn’t be dealing with ancient past. “I’m glad you’re here.” The words were stark, but they were meant from the heart.

  Dave’s hand covered hers. “So am I.”

  The quiet interlude lasted only a moment, for they had reached the administration building.

  The command center swarmed with people. Leaving Dave talking with one of the other FBI investigators, she went to wash up, doing what she could with soap, hot water, and a towel. The soap stung her hands. She considered the pain a useful thing, confirming to herself that she was getting past the shock.

  A table had been set up with cold drinks, and she headed there. The ice water helped ease the burning in her throat from the smoke she had inhaled. She looked around the room, assessing the mood here. It was not unlike the mood among those working out on the runway. Intense, focused on tasks, faces grim.

  Bob Roberts had arrived back from the crash site. He looked at her and gestured to the east conference room. She nodded and headed that direction. People were assembling for the first update meeting.

  Dave joined her and held out a chair for her at the large oval table. Out of habit, she reached for a pad of paper and a pen, jotting down the date and time. She recognized about a third of the people at the table.

  Bob called the meeting to order. “This is the T+2 hour update. Elliot, what’s the time frame for the folks out of Washington?”

  Kate idly turned the pen in her hand while she listened to the discussion.

  “The full NTSB team will be on site by 3 P.M. FAA thirty minutes after that. ATF and FBI will be bringing in people throughout the next twenty-four hours.”

  “Have there been any further calls?”

  “No. Not to us or the media.”

  “Where are we with the second bomb sweeps?”

  “The terminals have been checked, airplanes and luggage/cargo are going to take at least another three hours to complete. Nothing so far.”

  Bob looked at the airline representative. “Passenger list?”

  The young man looked pale and nervous. “Still temporary. At least another couple hours to confirm.”

  Kate thought that was an optimistic estimate. Someone who was single, older, with no immediate family, would create an identification problem—it could take days to confirm they were actually on the plane. Beat cops loved getting sent out on the ‘we think they’re dead’ assignments. And there was another complication, a bigger one: MetroAir allows walk-ons. Kate wrote it on the notepad in front of her and slanted it to Dave.

  He wrote below her note—How many on this flight?

&n
bsp; Gate attendant thinks a dozen. There would be less paperwork available, less information for those passengers. Walk-ons tended to be travelers who had missed their connecting flight with another airline. They were not expected to be on the flight, and so it would take time for people to realize a loved one might have been aboard.

  Bob turned to the Red Cross representative. “Who do we have working information with the victims’ families?”

  “Jenson with the FAA. He’s coordinating the Red Cross, the airline, and the media. The eight hundred number for families has been given out to the media.”

  “Are there enough qualified people on the phones?”

  “We’ve three tiered it. Information, counselors, and travel support. We’ve established half hour status updates for the families and assigned them a primary contact person. We have arranged media-free space in the terminal and the airport hotel for the families.”

  “Tell Jenson to arrange for a couple floors at the Chesterfield hotel as well. Let’s give family members an option of where to stay. Make sure flight arrangements are into Midway or Milwaukee. We don’t need relatives flying over the crash scene once this airport reopens.”

  Bob looked over at Elliot. “Recovery and identification?”

  “A temporary morgue has been set up in hangar fourteen. We’ve got hangar fifteen being cleared as a contingency if they need more room.”

  “Has Jenson talked to the families about what will help with identification? Jewelry, clothing, dental charts, X rays?”

  “He’s got Red Cross trauma counselors working with them.”

  Bob scanned his notes, then looked back at the airline representative. “Tell me about the flight.”

  “MetroAir Flight 714, departing O’Hare at 10:55 A.M. bound for New York. An Illiad 9000 Series A wide-body, the first crash for this type of aircraft. It was a connecting flight that originated in L.A.”

  New plane? Dave scrawled.

  Kate tried to remember back to Bob’s remarks during past security reviews. He commented on new planes, pointing them out like a proud papa. Put in service last year?

  Possible mechanic failure, not a bomb?

  Doubtful. The explosion ripped the plane apart.

  “Any threats to the airline recently?” Bob asked.

  “No.”

  “Labor disputes, problems with the carrier management?”

  “Nothing known.”

  The door opened, and Kate’s boss entered the room and took a seat against the far wall. She was glad to see him.

  “Who worked the flight?”

  Elliot scanned his notes, then answered. “The FBI is interviewing the maintenance crew and terminal reps now. We’re working on identifying the baggage handlers and the ticket counter personnel.”

  “What about the previous flight crew?”

  “On their way back from St. Louis.”

  “How are we doing on the phone call?”

  “There is a team on it. The tape is with the police forensic lab now. Phone company technicians are pulling the switch logs to try and locate a billing record.”

  Dave touched her arm, drawing her attention back to the pad of paper. “Tell Kate I haven’t forgotten the past.” Exact words?

  Kate O’Malley. It was significant because her legal name had not changed until she was nineteen.

  Bob looked at Elliot. “Security camera tapes?”

  “All pulled and under seal. The last two weeks of tapes are being pulled as we speak.”

  “Card key access logs?”

  “Being printed now. We’ve got the handwritten security guard logs together.”

  “For now, all information goes into the evidence room. I want two guards on the door and only people on the list allowed access,” Bob ordered. “We need to know who was on that plane, where the bomb was located, what it was made of, and how it got onto the plane. Let’s meet again at 4 P.M.”

  Simple questions, none of them easy to answer. Chairs pushed back from the table, and the noise level rose. Kate maneuvered through the crowd to join her boss. “You heard the tape?”

  “Yes. For whatever reason, he wanted you dragged in. He accomplished it. I’ve got staff pulling cases you’ve worked. We need a lead that will help us sort through them. That’s now your primary focus. Spend time going through the passenger list. Find us something we can work with, Kate.”

  She nodded, taking a deep breath, dreading that look into the details of two hundred lives. “Once I get through the passenger list, I’ll start looking on past cases. Can you spare Debbie? Having transcribed my tapes and filed cases for the last five years, she knows how they are going to be indexed on-line.”

  “I’ll get her cut free for as long as you need her. Anything you need, ask.”

  “Thanks, Jim.”

  “Have a cop pick up whatever you need from your apartment. The media storm has already begun, and you’ll eventually be at the center of it when that phone call becomes known. I don’t want you back there until I know what we are dealing with.”

  It was a request, but it could be made an order. She nodded rather than protest. She would be working here through the night, so it made little immediate difference. “I’ll do that.”

  Jim nodded and moved to join Bob.

  Kate rubbed her arms, momentarily unsure who in this room to talk to first. Dave touched her hand. “Stick with me. I’ll be working the passenger list with you. Even if the bomber knows you, there is still a reason he chose this plane. Someone on board was likely a target. That’s my immediate job, so we’ll make better progress working together.”

  She was grateful and not sure how to say that. “Where do you want to set up?”

  “Elliot has a conference room upstairs for us. Susan and Ben from my office are already working on the list.”

  As soon as they reached the hallway, they saw the line by the elevator. Dave gestured to the left. “Come on, let’s take the stairs.”

  They had to wander the halls for a few minutes to find where Susan and Ben had set up shop. The two of them had appropriated a conference room off an unused office. Kate carefully stepped over the power cords and cables strung across the floor to the two computer terminals and printer that had been brought in. The room looked like one she was accustomed to seeing at the precinct. The table was strewn with printouts and handwritten pages of notes. The white board had accumulated a list of names written in different colors. On the right side of the white board was a list of questions they had considered when looking at the names. Kate already felt at home.

  Dave pulled out two chairs and introduced her to Susan and Ben. Kate saw their curiosity and wondered if it was from the bank incident last week or if they had heard about the specifics of the phone call. Either way, she had a reputation before she arrived. Dave settled back in his chair. “Where are we?”

  “The lists are still tentative.” Susan slid across two copies. “We’re patched in with the airline group working on the problem, getting realtime updates.”

  Kate looked at the data, sixteen pages of it. Her face grim, she read the names, the ages. So many families. “Do we have a seating layout for the plane?”

  Ben cleared the center of the table to spread out the blown-up diagram. It was the chart the airline used when booking tickets. “Whether someone was in their assigned seat is an open question, but this will correlate to the ticket information listed on the printouts.”

  “Three sections—first class, business, and coach?”

  “Yes.”

  Kate nodded, checking the seating chart occasionally as she reviewed names. The chance she would find a name she recognized was slim, but it was the obvious place to start. She turned page after page without success.

  Dave set down his list and looked at the white board. “You’ve already researched some interesting questions. Let’s start at the top. How many people had tickets, but did not show?”

  Susan scanned her notes. “Preliminary, four. We’ve cleared one. Tim Ve
rrio, a reporter for a New York paper, who took a later flight. He had tickets issued the same day for two carriers. The others, a Glen and Marla Pearse, Chicago address, no information, and a Bobby York, Virginia address, no information.”

  “Who is working that problem?”

  “Travis.”

  Kate started to write her list on the pad of paper, then realized to bring the names up for discussion it would be better to have the list on the board. “May I?” Susan handed her the marker and eraser. Kate took them to the board along with the printout. “What about the variation— how many people checked baggage but did not board?”

  “The checked tags appear to match, but we’ve got two problems. This was a connecting flight, and most of the luggage is reported to be damaged and or burned; it is going to take time to physically confirm bags and see if an extra one made the trip.”

  Kate thought about that debris field, how much of the aircraft had burned, and doubted they would ever be able to totally account for the baggage.

  “Anyone cancel reservations for the flight?” Dave offered.

  “Another open question. The airline is still working the list.” Ben searched through the faxes. “Susan, did we get an answer on who bought their tickets for cash?”

  “It just came in. There were two. Assuming these are real names, a Mark Wallace, Colorado address, no information; and a Lisa Shelby, Milwaukee address, no information. Travis has the names.”

  “We need to find out if they were actually on the flight,” Dave noted, adding them to his work list.

  Kate double-checked the list she had. “Has the airline confirmed how many walk-ons there were?”

  Susan checked the terminal screen. “Tentatively, eleven. We’re getting updates on those as they confirm the electronic tickets and the matching credit card charges.”

  Dave leaned back in his chair. “Does anyone on this flight look like a target? Maybe someone in law enforcement? A judge, mayor, city councilman, state representative? What about someone with a criminal record?”