by Levi, Steve;
Pegasus got the better end of the deal. He ended up as Zeus’ thunderbolt carrier.
“Well,” said Gerry as she logged off the Internet. “I’ve got air images with Pegasus and Perseus and Bellerophon. I’ve got earth images from Bellerophon. And I’ve got water images with Poseidon. I went from no clues to too many. Do I hate riddles.”
Chapter 22
It took Ayanna all of about ten minutes to get a complete cargo manifest for Unicorn 739. It was just a matter of printing a readout. As far as locating the owners of most of the property, it was even easier. She didn’t have to go looking for them. They were looking for her. Almost every one of them. They wanted their cargo off Unicorn 739.
Checking with the AIC, the answer had been simple. “No way. Not until this case is resolved. We’re not talking cargo here; we’re talking crime scene.”
“Do you have any objection if I take a look at the cargo?” Noonan had asked.
As far as the AIC was concerned, Noonan was a fly in the ointment. No one knew what was going on which was fine with the AIC. It made him as good as anyone else. He was the AIC, in fact, and when this matter was resolved it was going to be his office taking the credit. Actually, he was going to take the credit. All of it. He’d thank a laundry list of locals, of course, but the single mention would be as far as it went. Any crime is only good for one press conference. The rest of the coverage is called “background” or “follow-up.” No one reads background or follow-up articles. They are like where-are-they-now stories. Who cares? News is a here-and-now medium. It is the here-and-now coverage which gets you the promotion and star status. No one cares what you did last year; they want to know what have you done for me lately? It was pure politics but without the election.
Noonan, the AIC sensed, was bad news. He was not in any chain of command so he was, basically, a freelancer. The AIC hated freelancers because they could not be contained. He could not tell or order them to do anything. They didn’t have to do what anyone told them. He couldn’t fire them either.
Worst of all, freelancers had no stake in the game. The police, airport security and the troopers pretty much had to follow the AIC lead. They didn’t have a choice. He was the man in charge. EOS: End Of Story. If the AIC said the sky was orange, everyone would agree because that’s the way the system worked. He said it ergo it was true.
Freelancers were a sunrise of a different color. They didn’t have to say the sky was orange. The AIC couldn’t make them say the sky was orange and if the sky wasn’t orange, the freelancer was going to say it was blue. Or some other darn color. Or any color. Freelancers are not team players and should be kept as far away from the command structure as they could be moved.
But they have to move carefully. Freelancers have one thing the police, airport security and trooper do not have: a mouth. They do not have to play the game and a lot of times they did not. They were not necessarily the kind of low life who would throw a dead rat into the punch bowl at the cotillion but they would certainly point out the dead rat. This was a problem because no crime was ever completely solved. There were always people who get away with it, whatever it was. Some crooks were just unbelievably lucky, that’s all there was to it. Everyone in law enforcement knew it. You couldn’t catch them all. You wouldn’t catch them all. The one thing you sure didn’t want was some freelancer shooting off his mouth to the press saying some of the bad people actually walked away clean and dry. The inside expression was “coming out of the water dry.” No one used the expression outside of the office.
No one in the office, in the chain of command.
A freelancer might and then everyone would be using the term.
Curse those freelancers!
So the AIC had no trouble giving Noonan permission to get as far away from Command Central as possible. Ayanna, desperately running all over town picking up loose diamonds, couldn’t join Noonan in the cargo bay so the Chief of Detectives from some rat’s nest town in North Carolina was free to do whatever he wanted on his own. It was fine with the AIC. Noonan on his own was a lot less trouble than with someone on the inside. And Noonan was not on the inside. Was not going to be on the inside. He was only in the mix at the personal request of the extortionists. Which was a public relations brickbat the AIC could use if things went bad.
Why they wanted Noonan in the mix was not clear. The AIC only knew Noonan as a detective from North Carolina. He was in Alaska on vacation. How convenient, eh? Too convenient. The head office said he was sterling. No blemish. Good cop. Long track record? How good was that? There was no reason for Noonan to be here and no reason for the extortionists to know he was here but they did know he was here. Why? What was the angle? Synchronicity? The AIC didn’t believe in synchronicity.
He didn’t have the time or manpower to keep Noonan under surveillance. So he did the next best thing: he moved him off the field of play. If he wanted to snoop around far away from where things were happening, fine and dandy. Let him go. Best wishes and don’t come back too soon. Not at all would be best but the longer the better.
Noonan had no problem with being away from Command Center. All of his years of experience told him the last place anything important was going to happen was in the Command Center. The Command Center was pure politics. The stench was overpowering and Noonan knew the extortionists had planned well. They were playing the political card p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y.
So he followed his instincts. If you do not know what you should be doing, go back to square one and look around, kick a few cans and then scrounge for cigarette butts and theater ticket stubs. You never know what you will find.
The closest he could get to Square One was the airplane. So it was back to the airplane he went. He flashed his badge to the airport security people to get onto the apron. No one stopped him. Security may have been tight in the terminal but out here on the apron it appeared just like a normal day. Ground crew and baggage personnel were shuttling back and forth. The trucks which had been blocking the plane were gone, which made sense. The plane wasn’t going anywhere. Watching it was a waste of time, like guarding the barn after the horse had been stolen. There was a solitary woman in uniform at the base of the back stairs and she gave Noonan’s badge a perfunctory glance. That was it.
The passenger compartment was exactly as he had left it the previous day, eerie and silent with every indication people had been here and left suddenly and unexpectedly.
Suddenly and unexpectedly were exactly the terms to use when he stepped into the cargo area where a large Doberman instantly accosted him. It was both large and a Doberman, neither of which was good news. Not quite the killer of a late night thriller, the animal was still, nonetheless, formidable because of his size. When Dabney the Dog Man arrived from the cockpit, the dog, quite literally, rolled on his back and exposed his belly as if to say, ‘Hey, I’ve done my part. Now you do yours!’
“Back again!” Dabney said when he spotted Noonan. “You’re that out-of-town detective up here helping us?”
“I’d like to think so,” replied Noonan. “I talked to you yesterday, right?”
“Could have been. Things have been crazy around here, you know.”
“I’ll bet. I came down to do some work. Got a couple of extra minutes?”
“For the forces of law and order I always have time.”
Dabney leaned against one of the crates and spread his hands. “What can I do for the forces of truth, justice and the American way of life?”
“Did they ever find video footage of our mysterious pilot?” Noonan leaned against some of the cargo boxes.
“Naw. She was too good. The only thing the big boys with the clean uniforms could figure out was she was wearing a uniform of some kind and just blended into the crowd when everyone came rushing out. Her timing was perfect. She knew where the cameras were so even if she could have been picked out of the crowd her face was never exposed.”
“So she pulled a fast one, eh?”
“Ab-so-positive-lootl
y.” It suddenly dawned on Dabney he should not been familiar–or out-spoken with Noonan. “That is, I mean. . .”
“I know exactly what you mean, son. Don’t worry about the enthusiasm. The crooks have been very clever. So far, anyway.”
“Yes, sir, they have been.”
“You have any ideas how they did it?”
“Did it, sir?” Dabney was still not sure he should trust Noonan.
Noonan pulled the man aside an avuncular arm around the man’s neck. “Let’s just have a talk between the two of us. I’m not your boss. I don’t know your boss. I don’t care who your boss is. I’m just one of those socalled interested parties. You’re a bright guy. You know what’s going on. Tell me, how did they do it?”
“You mean, suck the passengers off the plane?”
“Part of it, yeah. How did they do it?”
“You really want me to guess?”
“As Elvis Presley is my witness!” Noonan put a hand over his heart.
Dabney laughed. “Elvis Presley. Rich. Very good. OK. What do I think? I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t believe in little green men from Mars. I don’t believe in the President’s foreign affairs policy and I don’t believe 89 passengers and 6 crew members were part of an alien abduction.”
“I don’t either,” confided Noonan. “But where are they?”
“Oh,” replied Dabney. “An easy answer. They’re somewhere in Seattle.”
This candid assessment took Noonan by surprise. “Why do you think so?”
“It’s the only place they could be. From what I’ve heard the plane could not have been on the ground anywhere else long enough to get the passengers off and then back to altitude without the FAA knowing about it. The only logical answer is they never got on the plane in the first place. So they are in Seattle.”
“Where in Seattle?”
“Good question. Answer: I don’t know. But I’ll bet the FBI in Seattle has hit every building large enough to house 100 people anywhere near the airport so they have to be somewhere else.”
“Did you tell your boss what you told me?”
“Old Poop for Brains?” Dabney looked sideways at Noonan. “Have you ever worked in Alaska?”
“No. Why?”
“Alaska,” Dabney said looking sideways, “is the last place in America striving for the highest standard of mediocrity. People from the Lower 48 do not get jobs here because they are competent. They get them because they are incompetent. Frankly, confidentially, this was the best possible airport in America to hit. There isn’t a qualified person from mid-management up. This airport was a disaster waiting to happen – and it did.”
“You don’t have a lot of faith in your superiors,” Noonan said wryly.
“They aren’t my superiors,” Dabney responded. “They’re my supervisors.”
“Point well taken. Let’s play a game. Do you like games?”
“Maybe.” Dabney was suspicious.
“Just between you and me. What’s going to happen?”
“Nothing. That’s the beauty of this crime. Nothing is going to happen. The Airport is going to pay. The police aren’t going to stop them. The FBI is going to diddle until it’s too late to do anything. The only people who might do something are the airport security people because their jobs are on the line.” Dabney sighed and stalled, “But I doubt it. Three-quarters of the people working for airport security could not find an elephant in a bath tub. The only reason this hasn’t happened before is no one knew how incompetent our security really was.”
“You mean in Anchorage or across the country?”
“Well, I work in Anchorage so I know how bad we are. I can’t imagine any other airport is better.”
“All this being said, you really think these guys are going to get away with it?”
“Who’s going to stop them?”
A point well taken, Noonan thought. “Let’s take a walk.”
Wandering down to the end of the cargo bay, Noonan wanted to know as much as possible about the cargo procedures.
“Let’s talk cargo.”
“This is a joke, right?”
“Not really. Does all of the cargo get picked up right away?”
“Hey, for what people pay per pound, believe me, they pick it up right away. Time is money. The minute the plane lands there is a line of people to get their cargo. They paid big bucks to get it here. The last thing they want is to be delayed.”
“So no one waits very long to get their cargo?”
“Not a minute. That’s why there’s such a mess right now. There is a lot of cargo on Unicorn 739. Is as in it is still on the plane. A lot of people want their cargo to go to work. The longer the FBI holds it up, the angrier the people will be.”
Noonan handed him the print out of the cargo manifest. “Of these names, how many want their cargo now?”
Dabney looked over the list. “Well, I can’t tell you about all of them but I’d say about 80 percent of this list want their cargo right now. The rest is bypass.”
“Can you show me which ones are bypass?”
“Maybe. Have a pen?”
Over the next 15 minutes Dabney slowly went over the list, checking the customers he knew to be bypass. As Noonan sat and watched him, the Doberman jumped up, putting his paws on Noonan’s chest. The Chief of Detectives scratched behind the dog’s ears, a motion the dog appreciated.
“He loves that kind of thing,” Dabney said without looking up. “Darndest security dog I ever worked with. Most ferocious looking animal when you first see him and the friendliest dog on the planet when you get to know him. Cats frighten him and he’ll lick a burglar to death.”
“I guess there isn’t much of a call for security here.”
“You got that right,” said the Dog Man. “Now over at the International Terminal it is a whole other ball of wax. Even the bell caps are surly. Here’s your list.”
“How do you know all these customers are bypass?” Noonan asked as he looked at the check marks.
“I don’t. You asked me if I could identify them. I said maybe. These are good guesses though.”
“How do you know?”
“Simple. Look at where the cargo is going. If the cargo’s not destined for Anchorage, it’s bypass. As an example. See this hospital bed. Its eventual destination is Lime Village. Lime Village is about 300 miles from here. This bed is going to be taken over to the Post Office and mailed. It’ll end up on a Northern Air Cargo flight. No one from Lime Village is going to be driving down here to pick up the bed. Primarily because you can’t drive here from there. I’m guessing anything for the pipeline is bypass. I happen to know this company is in Fairbanks.” He tapped the list with his index finger. “So is this one and this one.” I’d guess the rest are Anchorage area customers.
“How sure are you?”
“Real sure. If you want to be real sure, just walk over to that desk,” he pointed at a desk at the far end of the cargo bay where a group of people were clustered around a harried clerk. “That’s the poor women who’s got to tell the Anchorage customers they can’t have their cargo.”
Noonan looked at the desk and then back to Dabney. “Got a few more minutes?”
“Sure. Whatcha need?”
“Let’s take a walk.”
Stepping out of the cargo area onto the runway apron, Noonan led Dabney a dozen feet away from the building, until he could see the security cameras on the roof. “Do all those security cameras work?” He pointed at the cameras on the roof.
Dabney looked at him nervously. “Who’s asking?”
“Well, let’s put it this way. Cameras like those are not good for very much. They are old, too high on the building to offer much detail of someone on the ground, are in a very bad place for wind and ice and snow. Those cameras are not made to pick up people. They are made to pick up vehicles which are not supposed to be on the apron.”
“A fair statement. In answer to your question, yes, they do work. But they are in the p
rocess of being moved and upgraded. Which ones have been deactivated, if any have, was a decision made by management to move them. They all worked the other day when Unicorn 739 came in. I know because I and every other employee who was there when the plane came in had to look at the footage of all cameras over and over and over again.”
“And there was nothing unusual? Even something you might not think related to the crime.”
“Not a thing. It was like watching a normal day until the flight came in. I didn’t see anything odd, even after the turmoil in the cargo area. I didn’t see the pilot or any suspicious characters until the police showed up. Then there were too many people moving too fast to be distinguished.”
Noonan nodded. “One more thing. I notice the cargo on the plane was in front of the bulkhead, between the passengers and the pilot. Since the passengers cannot get out of the plane by stepping over the cargo, they exited out the back. Is it unusual to have a plane with cargo pull into a terminal gate and then have the passengers disembark from the rear?”
“Not for Alaska. I’d say it would be unusual for a carrier like Alaska Airlines or Northwest because they have passenger flights carrying nothing but passengers. Let me revise what I just said. If Alaska Airlines and Northwest flies into Anchorage or Fairbanks, their planes won’t have cargo. Northwest probably all the time but Alaska Airlines services Nome, Kotzebue, Bethel and Dillingham. Those cities are. . .”
“I know where they are,” replied Noonan. “Alaska Airlines will fly bulkhead cargo to those areas?”
“Depends on the season and flight. In those airports, there isn’t a terminal like Anchorage. The plane just rolls up to a building and people get out. Sometimes they get out the front, sometimes the back, sometimes both.”
“So having a passenger plane with cargo at the front forces the passengers to get out the back is not unusual, even if the plane is nose-in a terminal and there is a corridor to the plane and the corridor can be opened into the terminal?”
