by Andrew Watts
Chapter 26
Senator Becker walked up to the grassy area where Karen was busy preflighting her aircraft before the show. Karen walked around the right wing, checking for any popped rivets or loose fasteners. She checked the oil levels and landing gear, the prop and the engine, making sure that there was no foreign object debris anywhere in sight.
“You ready?” asked her father, looking stiff and artificial in his creased button-down shirt.
Her coach was nearby, still within earshot. “Could you give us a moment?”
The coach pointed at his watch. “Two minutes and you gotta start up.”
She nodded, mouthing, “Thanks.”
On the nearby taxiway, people were staring at both Karen and her father as they spoke, close and quiet beside her cockpit. Karen could see at least three security men, watching the crowd through their sunglasses.
“Have you decided what you’ll do?”
Her father nodded. “Yes. I’ve made arrangements to speak to someone representing the group. I think we’ll be able to work something out.”
“How can you trust them after what they’ve done? What makes you think they’ll ever leave you alone?”
“Don’t worry about that now.”
“You made a mistake. But you were trying to do the right thing. People will understand that. You might not be able to run for office again, but you don’t need that. Tell them you’re done, Dad. They’ll just keep coming after you for more.”
“I know, honey. You’re right.” He looked into her eyes, giving her that same warm smile that had soothed her as a child and annoyed her as an adult, when she realized he gave it to everyone on the campaign trail as well. “I’ll end it. Once and for all. Everything will be alright. Why are you crying? Honey…”
She shook her head. “Dad, I can’t be doing this right now.”
“It’s fine. We’ll talk later.”
Karen nodded. She wiped away a tear and hugged her father.
“Now good luck today.”
Karen smiled and climbed into her plane.
Max walked under the air show entrance gate and towards the VIP tent area. Once there, he saw the other CIA guy, Mike, standing behind a vendor stand that was selling airplane vacation tours in New Zealand. A red “Display Closed” sign sat on the desk in front of him.
“How’s everything going?”
Mike looked up at Max and motioned him to come closer. He pulled out a drawer and handed him an earpiece, which Max promptly put in.
“Trent and Wilkes are both up on our closed circuit. FBI and local police have about twenty personnel doing roaming security, most of them close in to the senator. They’re both on separate comms freqs. They know we’re here. Your father opted not to wear one of these since he’ll be in the VIP tent. Have you heard the news on timing?”
“No, what?”
“Our SIGINT techies said they picked up some chatter. They think Williams has someone on the move right now.”
Max’s eyes went wide. “Shit. Where’s Wilkes?”
Mike pointed towards the grove of trees behind the VIP tent. Max walked over there, tapping his earpiece as he did. “Comms check. Max is up.”
“Trent hears you.”
Max could see Wilkes give him a thumbs-up as he approached. Caleb Wilkes had a pair of binoculars wrapped around his neck but was using them to scan the crowd, not the five aerobatics planes flying in formation above them.
Max filled Wilkes in on what he’d learned from Jennifer Upton.
Wilkes cursed softly. “This is crazy. I don’t care what the guy wants. We should move him. With this and the intel we received earlier, I think it’s now too much. I’ll get on the phone with my contacts at FBI and the Capitol Police. It might take a few minutes, but they’ll put the word out to the security he’s got stationed here. I expect they’ll insist on pulling him out. You and Trent keep your eyes open until that happens.”
Max said, “Trent, you got all that?”
“Copy.”
Max could see his father and the senator through a plastic window of the VIP tent. They were holding drinks and talking with their hands, telling stories to a captivated group around them. The senator looked completely unaware of the danger he was in.
Trent walked along the alleyways and vendor tents of the air show, scanning for anything out of place. It felt weird to be using these skills here. In Middle Eastern and African countries and, during the final years of his Army career, in the streets of Mexico, he had grown used to having to blend in. But operating at an air show in Wisconsin was a first. He’d spent more than half his adult life deployed overseas. Where had the time gone? Just yesterday he and his brother had been teenagers, having pushup contests in the backyard and watching old Rambo movies on the VHS.
The thought of Josh brought a sting of sadness. He missed his brother like hell.
He shook off the thought and continued to walk the air show exhibits near the VIP tent, evaluating each face in the crowd through his sunglasses. This wasn’t the kind of place where he wanted to get into a firefight. Way too many civilians around. He looked for possible IEDs, sniper locations, ambush spots. He profiled everyone he saw, paying particular attention to the younger, fitter men, anyone with Latin or Central Asian features. He also scanned anyone with clothing or bags capable of hiding a weapon.
He took a turn and saw Max walk by, evaluating the crowd in the same fashion. They gave each other barely perceptible nods and kept at it. Max looked tense. Trent had a hard time believing that the cartels would try something here. Especially against a US senator. Trent had worked in Mexico. He knew that the cartels could be brutally violent, but they also had rules. And one of them was not to poke the bear to the north. Assassinating a senator was definitely against the rules.
He checked his watch. Almost time for Karen Becker’s performance. After that, Senator Becker would leave the air show, and protecting him would get a lot easier.
Trent flexed his fingers together against his palms, his eyes darting from one end of the central plaza to the other. Everywhere he looked, there were people. The atmosphere was jovial. Kids licking ice cream cones and holding their grandparents’ hands.
Trent realized that the crowd was now moving en masse, migrating the hundred-yard distance from all the aircraft exhibits toward the sprawling grassy plain situated just next to the runway. People were setting up their lawn chairs and blankets, grabbing the empty spots and looking up at the sky, which was, for the moment, silent.
Today’s highlight was about to begin.
Karen Becker’s show.
A golf cart bumping along in the opposite direction of the crowd caught his eye. Two men wearing gray flight suits with plenty of pockets. Sunglasses and dark blue ball caps. One white guy, one looked…Indian or Pakistani, maybe? Both looked to be in their thirties or forties. Neither spoke, and both looked deadly serious. Their uniforms made them look like they were part of a performance crew—maybe maintenance men or part of the air show admin team? But something seemed off about them. They didn’t have those keycard IDs around their necks, for one. And he hadn’t seen any of the other aircraft maintenance crews driving in pairs, only by themselves.
He kept watching them as their golf cart passed by the vintage air exhibit and came to a halt next to the now-deserted outdoor movie theater in the woods.
An odd destination.
As Trent had learned in the past day, nothing went on there until after sunset. His instincts tingling, Trent tapped his earpiece and said, “Max, meet me in the woods by the vintage aircraft hangar ASAP.”
Max’s reply was drowned out by the loudspeaker, which was fixed to the tree above Trent’s head.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please turn your attention to the south side of the runway as the Blonde Bombshell, Karen Becker, begins her takeoff roll!”
Renee sat in the living room of the safe house. Jennifer Upton was on the couch. She had the TV on and was watching bad reality TV. Renee h
ad given her a questioning look, and the woman had actually hissed at her. There was something off about Jennifer Upton.
Renee had been sitting feet away from Upton while researching her testimony on the computer.
“Why can’t I have my phone back?”
“It wouldn’t be safe,” answered the CIA kid from the kitchen. Upton rolled her eyes and heaved a hearty sigh like a teenage girl angry at her father’s rules.
Renee had just connected with one of her hacker friends on an encrypted chat. He was helping her get access to the previous locations of Dahlman, Dicks, Becker, and Upton. They accessed the cell phone GPS coordinate archives of each person and overlaid that information with any known locations where Ian Williams or Abdul Syed had been stationed and associated dates.
Information about Williams and Syed was scarce. And what little they did have turned out to be a dead end.
But after about fifteen minutes, Renee saw a definite trend. When she looked at the four Americans’ information and took the timestamps back three years, they were in the same location at the same time each year.
Oshkosh.
All four of them at Oshkosh?
They must have been together, which was not consistent with the story Jennifer Upton had just told them. She’d said she hadn’t seen Ron Dicks in years, for one.
Renee thanked her hacker friend and signed out of the chat room. She glanced at Jennifer Upton to make sure she wasn’t watching her. Upton was still busy messing around with her watch, only half-paying attention to the trashy TV show about whiny brides and wedding dresses.
Renee locked her computer and went into the kitchen, where the CIA operative was watching the security monitors.
“Anything going on?” Renee whispered.
“Nothing,” the young man said.
She kept her voice very quiet. “I need access to her phone.”
He nodded and opened up the safe under the kitchen counter. He removed Upton’s cell phone and handed it to Renee. “You need a cable?”
“Won’t be a problem.”
Renee powered up the device and slid it into her pocket. Thankfully it wasn’t an iPhone. Those were harder to crack. Sitting on the couch across from Jennifer Upton, Renee used her computer’s near field communication and some special software to access the phone. She then searched through pictures, text messages, and any other data from the time period that overlapped each annual Oshkosh visit.
There wasn’t much. It was almost like Upton was purposely not communicating or taking pictures during those time periods. The fact that all three of them were together at Oshkosh meant something. But now that Renee had that morsel of a clue, she was determined to find the missing puzzle piece.
She looked up again. Upton was looking at the TV.
Renee looked at the map on her screen again. The one with the overlay of locations. She frowned. It wasn’t exactly at Oshkosh, was it? No. It was southeast. Near the water. Renee decided to try something else. She dug into Upton’s cloud storage accounts. Sometimes they synced up photos without people realizing it, keeping images that were thought to have been deleted.
Nothing. Upton wasn’t a big social media person. Neither was the senator, which made sense.
Renee typed to her hacker friend again. With his help, Renee was able to search through hundreds of thousands of images stored online with GPS stamps near the same time and location she was interested in. They put the images through facial recognition software and came up with several hits. One of the photos was particularly interesting. There was water on the lower half of the image. It might have been taken from a boat or across a small inlet, but the resolution was good. Renee was able to zoom in on a gazebo where a group of people were having some type of gathering. The photo was dated three years ago, and the GPS tag was within five miles of Oshkosh.
In the image, Senator Becker was standing next to Jennifer Upton and Ron Dicks. They were outdoors, drinks in hand, smiling. They seemed to be unaware the picture was being taken.
Ian Williams was in the background, on a cell phone.
They were all together at Oshkosh.
Becker, Upton, Dicks, and Ian Williams. Only three years ago. What did this mean? She needed to tell Max.
Renee got up from the couch and walked into one of the spare bedrooms, closing the door and locking it behind her. Damn the security procedures, she had to call Max. She dialed his phone, but it just went straight to his voicemail.
Renee left him a voicemail anyway.
Short and to the point. Hopefully he would get it soon.
Then she walked into the living room and sat back down on the couch. Renee looked back up at Upton, who was still playing with her watch…
But it wasn’t just a watch, Renee realized.
It was a smart watch.
A connected device.
They had confiscated her phone but didn’t notice the watch. The design hadn’t looked like a typical smart watch. They had glossed right over it.
She was communicating.
Jennifer Upton glanced up at Renee, and their eyes met.
Renee’s heart pounded in her chest. She could feel herself breathing.
Renee turned at the sounds of the CIA man swearing from the kitchen. Then she heard the sound of vehicles arriving out front. Tires grinding to a halt on the gravel driveway.
Renee shut her computer and ran into the kitchen. The CIA man had his gun drawn.
On the security monitors, Renee saw several SUVs parked outside. Men wearing masks and holding assault rifles approached the home.
Chapter 27
The same announcer broadcasting over the air show speaker system was on frequency with Karen as she began racing down the runway.
“Can you hear us, Karen?”
“I read you loud and clear! Good afternoon, Oshkosh!”
The crowd cheered and hollered as Karen gained speed, pulled back on her stick, and shot straight up into the air.
Karen’s heart was beating fast. Adrenaline pumped through her veins. This was her Super Bowl. Nothing compared to performing at Oshkosh. It was her time to shine in front of hundreds of thousands of screaming fans. To leave behind the angst she felt about her father’s mistakes and her own insecurities. Up here, she was alive and in her element, doing what she was meant to do.
She went through her routine with expert precision. She got on altitude and airspeed, checked her instruments, ran through her silent checklist, then jammed the stick hard left, cut the throttle and pulled through her dive upside down and gaining speed, the ground coming closer and closer, the spectators’ mouths opening as they clicked pictures. Then she came to the bottom of her dive, airspeed rocketing upward, the g’s hitting her body, flexing her legs and grunting and pulling in a bit more backstick, then slamming down one pedal and putting her aircraft into a sideslip, practically hovering over the ground at an impossible angle.
Her engine buzzed loud, its pitch changing to the ears below along with the dynamic stresses and speeds of her maneuvers, and she demanded all the power it could muster without redlining. Then she centered her pedals, dipped her nose, and began gaining speed again, diving towards the earth.
“How’s it going up there, Karen? Ready to cut the tape?”
“Sure am, Oshkosh!”
Her eyes scanned her instruments again. She leveled off at eight thousand feet, the clear runways and colorful crowd huddled below her. Blue sky above. Each pull of the stick put enormous g-forces on her body, and she huffed and flexed to stay conscious as she performed loop after loop. Roll after roll. She couldn’t hear the cheering below, but she knew that they were getting one hell of a show.
Now she would start her spin. Full left pedal, full back and slightly left stick…enter the stall…feel her stomach floating up, and then the green and red and blue outside the windscreen tornadoed into a blur and her aircraft departed controlled flight.
This was her most challenging maneuver.
An eight-thousand-
foot controlled drop, plummeting and twirling seemingly out of control, like a maple leaf falling in the air, spinning and spinning towards the ground, all the while she was in control, taking a scalpel to the air and carving it up exactly how she intended.
Her spin would transform into a steep dive below two thousand feet, and she would once again pull herself out just feet over the runway, using her propeller to cut a thin plastic ribbon which had been set up just in front of the crowd.
The two men in gray flight suits were just waiting there.
“What are they doing?” asked Trent.
Max spoke into his earpiece. “Caleb, if they’re armed, they could be at the VIP tent in about thirty seconds. Trent and I are going to head over there. Has the senator been alerted to the threat?”
Wilkes shook his head. “Local law enforcement is passing on the warning now.”
Max looked back and saw a man he knew to be a plainclothes police officer assigned to the senator’s security detail. He was speaking into the senator’s ear, with Max’s father looking concerned next to them. Max’s father also had a bodyguard, but if these guys had the same equipment they’d used down in Texas and Mexico, the best course of action was to evacuate the VIPs immediately and notify the police.
Overhead, Karen’s aircraft was looping and swirling, a bright red stream of smoke trailing behind her.
Hugo had spotted several plainclothes security personnel during his time on the air show grounds this morning, but his risk would soon be minimal.
He had a clear line of sight to his target from here. Hugo fished into the navy-blue maintenance bag on his lap and took the black plastic transmitter in his hands. He had powered it up moments ago, making sure that the LED lit up green. Now he had to wait until his target was in just the right position.
