Fly by Night

by Ward Larsen

  “Larry, I gotta go.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Davis walked out into the heat.

  He made it to the airplane just ahead of the advancing Land Rover. The truck rolled to a stop in front of the bullet-riddled DC-3. The driver’s door opened, and an immense man got out. He was taller than Davis by a good two inches, outweighed him by fifty pounds. His arms and legs belonged on an oak. He was dark skinned, with close-cropped black hair on a head the size of a basketball. His cheeks were dark, the kind of five o’clock shadow that didn’t care what time it was. As he walked around the front of the Rover, Davis was sure he felt the guy’s footsteps transmit through the ground—like a Tyrannosaurus rex out for a stroll.

  T. rex opened the passenger door, and Rafiq Khoury stepped out. Dark glasses, bird’s nest beard, slender limbs. Just like the photo Davis had seen. The cleric walked toward them—no, he flowed toward them, an apparition of white cotton fluttering in the torrid breeze.

  “What has happened?” Khoury asked, addressing Schmitt.

  Davis wondered how Khoury knew that anything had happened.

  Schmitt looked cautious—like any American who worked for a fundamentalist Muslim cleric would. He said, “There was trouble on our delivery to Congo today. Some gunfire broke out while the airplane was on the ground, right as they were finishing the unload. The airplane took a few hits.”

  Khoury looked over the aircraft—even a nonflier couldn’t miss the damage—and then swiped a fleeting glance at Davis who was standing away from the rest.

  “And the crew?” the imam asked.

  Boudreau said, “Achmed is still down there. We don’t know what happened to him.”

  Ever so slightly, Khoury’s head cocked to one side. Davis would have given anything to see the expression hidden behind his knock-off Serengetis. As if to accommodate, Khoury walked toward him. He stopped right in front of Davis and very slowly pulled his glasses away from his eyes. Davis was taken aback, struck by the intense, mismatched gaze. That hadn’t been in the file, hadn’t been in the lone photo in which Khoury’s eyes were masked behind dark glasses. Davis almost felt as if he was looking at two different souls. Yet it struck him, aside from the eyes, that there was nothing special about the rest of the man. Take those away, put Khoury in a suit and tie, add a decent haircut and a shave, and he might have been a fastener salesman at a convention. Which somehow put even more emphasis on his gaze.

  “I am Imam Rafiq Khoury. I manage FBN Aviation. You are the investigator who has come to help us?” The cleric’s English was good, if a little deliberate.

  Davis considered a number of smart-ass replies, but said, “I am. The name’s Jammer Davis.”

  “I understand that you were also on this flight today, Mr. Davis. May I ask why?”

  Davis thought, Because you and Schmitt sent me. He said, “Because I wanted to check out your operation.”

  Khoury nodded. It was a good answer, convenient for everyone. He asked, “And what did you think?”

  “I think your captain did a first-rate job.” Davis nodded toward the airplane. “The rest speaks for itself.”

  “We must all pray for Achmed’s safety. He is a strong young man, and Allah will be with him.”

  “Yeah,” Davis said, “he seemed like a great kid. The kind of kid who always did what he was told.”

  Khoury stared at Davis with his incongruous green-and-brown gaze. With far less deliberation than he had used to remove them, Khoury put his glasses back on. He reminded Davis of an actor, every movement and word calculated for effect. But Davis didn’t allow himself to be distracted. Didn’t lose his SA. While he and Khoury had been staring each other down, the big guy had slowly arced around behind Davis, almost as if he was stalking. Like T. rex’s probably did millions of years ago. Yet if there was a scent of trouble on the air, it dissipated when Rafiq Khoury took a step back.

  “Tell me, Mr. Davis, how does your investigation progress? We have been operating our airline for nearly a year, and this tragic crash is our only case of misfortune.”

  Davis looked over the bullet-riddled airplane behind them. “If we don’t count today’s misfortune.”

  “I am sure our mechanics can repair the damage.”

  “And I’m sure you can recruit a new kid to fill the hole in the right seat.”

  Khoury stiffened, but said nothing. Davis figured the imam wasn’t used to being challenged. Around here, arguing with Khoury was tantamount to arguing with God. But even if Davis had been a man with strong religious leanings—even if he was a Muslim—he couldn’t imagine turning to this man for anything spiritual. Khoury struck him as a manipulator and nothing more.

  Loudly enough for everyone to hear, Davis said, “Since you’re here, Mr. Khoury, maybe I could ask you about the airplane that went down.”

  The imam hesitated, and Davis imagined his eyes moving fast behind the dark glasses. Searching for help.

  Schmitt tried to give it. “What could the sheik know that would help your investigation?”

  Davis kept his gaze locked on Khoury. “You seem to have connections.”

  “I have many followers.”

  “Do any of them work in the government?”

  No response.

  Davis continued, “You see, I was wondering if any wreckage might have been discovered along the coast. When an airplane goes down in the water there’s always debris, so something should have been found by now. Seat cushions, plastic fittings, maybe a wing floating on an empty fuel tank. It might have been picked up by a fisherman, or maybe washed ashore. There’s even a chance that the body of a crewmember might have been found, but we just haven’t heard about it.” Davis paused for effect. “Could you do that for me, Mr. Khoury? Ask around and see if any bodies have, you know, turned up?”

  Davis let his gaze drift obviously to the T. rex who was still rooted a few steps behind him. He locked eyes with the brute. Everyone knew the storm flag had been raised. Knew it was snapping stiff in a force five gale of bullshit. Davis watched as Khoury considered how to respond. It wasn’t a short-term, tactical deliberation, but the longer strategic variety, like a chess player thinking five moves ahead. Only Davis doubted the imam was a good chess player. He figured Khoury for the type who would analyze things in a linear fashion. My move, my move, my move, check. Davis had played a little himself, and he knew that you had to consider your opponent’s countermoves. When you did, the mathematical possibilities got real big, real fast. And Davis had always been good at math.

  “I have heard nothing,” Khoury said. “But I will see to it that the authorities are notified. It should be simple enough to have the police agencies along the coast report on the matter.”

  “Great,” Davis said, beaming a huge smile. “My investigations always go faster when I get that kind of cooperation.”

  Khoury turned to address Schmitt. “I must go now. If Mr. Davis needs anything else to aid his inquiries, see to it.”

  “My pleasure,” the chief pilot said.

  The imam walked briskly to the Land Rover. His T. rex stomped ahead to beat him there, and pulled open the door with forced delicacy, as if he didn’t want to rip it off its hinges by accident. A minute later, Rafiq Khoury’s British-made SUV swerved away.

  Davis was the first to speak. “So who was the Sasquatch?” he asked.

  Boudreau answered. “His name’s Hassan. Sort of a bodyguard, I guess. You never see Khoury without him.”

  Schmitt added nothing.

  With Khoury gone, the tension was sucked right out of the air. Davis’ eyes skipped past the chief pilot and landed squarely on Boudreau. “Buy you a beer?”

  The Louisianan smiled. “Captain always buys the first round.”

  Boudreau bought the first round, and the second. By the fifth he was all alone.

  It wasn’t an uncommon situation. No pilot ended up in a place like this—a makeshift watering hole in the African desert—without a sad story. As a career, aviation could be
both rewarding and costly, both enlightening and depressing. Broken marriages were common. Stress-related illness—ulcers and high blood pressure—a fact of life. And some turned to drink. Boudreau was coming in for a landing after a tough day, and this was his way of keeping the right side up. Davis thought no less of the man. He’d faced his own demons when Diane had died, and might have hit the bottle hard had it not been for Jen. His daughter had needed him more than ever, and Davis made sure he was there for her with no complications or distractions. Over time, their bond had become more of a two-way street. Jen was his foundation now, a stabilizer for the top-heavy monument that was his aviator’s ego.

  Davis was enduring Boudreau’s sorrowful account of former wives and airlines. It was a saga of scandal and disrepute that, in the hands of the right screenwriter, might have made a smashing miniseries. He was on wife three and airline five when Johnson came into the room. Like any good mechanic, he was covered in sweat and grease. He sidled up next to Davis and put two thick, hairy forearms on the bar.

  “Buy you a beer?” Davis asked.

  A downtrodden Johnson shook his head. “I’ve been looking for you, Jammer. We need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “Things are getting weird around here.”

  “Like they haven’t always been?”

  Johnson ignored that, and said, “A few weeks ago we stopped getting our usual shipments of expendables. You know—tires, hydraulic fluid, oil. Stuff like that.”

  “Have you run out?”

  “No, not yet. We’ve got enough to keep operating for two weeks, maybe three. That is, if we keep flying.”

  Boudreau sensed a hot rumor, and asked, “What do you mean,‘If we keep flying?’”

  Worry was etched into Johnson’s meaty face. “I’ve been in this industry a long time, over twenty years. It hasn’t always been pretty. I’ve been furloughed twice and seen three former employers go out of business.”

  “And you think that’s going to happen here?” Davis asked. “Just because you’re running low on oil?”

  “There’s more. Three of our airplanes have been grounded for maintenance problems. One in Rwanda and two in Qatar.”

  “Airplanes break,” Davis said. “Especially airplanes that are seventy years old.”

  “I tried to track down what’s wrong with them. I talked to the local contract mechanics in each place, and they don’t know anything about it. I’ve worked with the guy in Rwanda before. He says our airplane is just parked. Nobody even called to ask him to look at it. He snuck aboard and looked at the logbook for me. That airplane is clean, no write-ups at all.”

  Johnson pulled a paper from his pocket and handed it over. “And check this. It’s the schedule for the next two weeks. They always give it to me ahead of time to plan out the required service checks. After Sunday, there’s not a single flight scheduled.”

  Davis looked it over. Today was Friday. After the weekend, no flights. Not a single one.

  “Did you look into this?” Davis asked.

  “Yeah, I went to Schmitt. He said he’d been given some cock-and-bull story about next week’s flights getting moved around for a big job. He said the schedule wouldn’t come out until the last minute.”

  “Has that ever happened before?”

  “Never. And Schmitt told me something else. He said Podulski and Eduardo have been deported.”

  Boudreau jumped in. “Deported?”

  “Some kind of problem with their work visas,” said Johnson.

  Davis studied the two FBN employees. “Okay,” he said, “so what do you guys think is happening? Is FBN Aviation in financial trouble? Is management going to pull the plug?”

  “I’ve seen it happen before,” said a grim Boudreau.

  Johnson kept silent, and Davis tried to read him. Ever since arriving in Sudan he had wondered who Darlene Graham’s “reliable human source” could be. He figured it was likely an American, and there were only three here—Johnson, Boudreau, and Schmitt. The mechanic standing in front of him didn’t strike Davis as the secret agent type. He was blue collar all the way, a guy who’d spent a long career in a tumultuous industry. A guy who was worried right now that another job, another line of paychecks, was about to come to an end. Davis would put Boudreau in the same equation, a long-suffering vagabond in a very unsteady line of work. Aside from that, Davis was pretty sure that if Boudreau was the source he would already have come out and told him as much. There was, however, one big problem with all that division—it left Bob Schmitt as the very odd remainder.

  Johnson said to Davis, “If management has decided to wrap up the company, it might have to do with this crash you’re investigating.”

  It almost sounded like an accusation. “Possible, I guess,” Davis said. He then put some directness in his voice. “Tell me something, Johnson. Were you the one who repainted the tail number on N2012L?”

  The mechanic hesitated and looked at Boudreau, then shook his head vigorously. “No. I noticed that, but I had nothing to do with changing it. If Schmitt or Khoury wanted something sketchy like that done, they’d have asked Muhammed.”

  Davis said, “Okay, I’ll buy that. But what do you think is behind it?”

  Johnson shook his head. “I’ve thought about it long and hard, but it makes no sense. Maybe it has to do with this shutdown.”

  Davis remembered what Schmitt had said on their first meeting in his office. If the Sudanese government steps in and shuts down FBN Aviation, it’ll be up and flying again inside a week. Same airplanes, same pilots, new name. Fly By Night Aviation was a company with no board of directors, no stockholders. But the company had backing somewhere.

  Davis said, “So they might be resetting all the tail numbers and paperwork, shuffling the company like a big deck of cards. Khoury puts it all in some magical filing cabinet to make FBN Aviation disappear, and in a week or a month the airline comes out fresh and shiny under a new name.”

  “It makes sense,” Boudreau agreed.

  “You’ve got some clout, Jammer,” Johnson suggested. “Can you ask around? Find out what’s happening?”

  Davis shrugged. “I don’t know. If Khoury really is shutting FBN down, I’d probably be the last one he’d tell.”

  Johnson looked crestfallen.

  Davis put a hand on his shoulder. “Look, if I hear anything I’ll let you know.”

  The mechanic turned to leave, but then paused. “Oh, and Jammer. There’s one other thing you should know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That doctor, the one whose shipment was ripped off the other day.”

  “What about her?”

  “It happened again.”

  Davis’ eyes locked on Johnson. He fell completely still, like ice had been injected into his veins.

  Johnson said, “There was a shipment to replace the last one, arrived from Naples this afternoon. The same bunch came and took it. Only this time it got a little rough.”

  The ice hit his spine. The same bunch. Not soldiers or police. More like thugs with a precinct. Davis kept a low, even voice. “Rough? What happened?”

  “I didn’t see exactly. The soldiers were driving away when I got there. But the doctor and that kid who helps her—they were pretty beat up.”

  “How bad?”

  Johnson told him.

  Davis said, “You got a key to the pickup?”

  Johnson nodded.

  “Give it to me!”

  Khoury walked into Jibril’s work area to find the engineer busy, as he always was. When Jibril looked up and saw him, he seemed to tense.

  “Good evening, sheik,” Jibril said.

  “Good evening, Fadi. I don’t wish to take you from your work, but time grows short for our lesson.”

  “Lesson?” Jibril asked haltingly. “Oh, yes. Of course.”

  Without another word, without even issuing his usual status report, the engineer turned away and led toward the old DC-3.

  Khoury definitely sensed
something awry. He fell in behind Jibril and followed him to the aircraft, climbing up the short set of steps and ducking inside. Jibril took the lone chair at the workstation he had designed, a desk-like setup with one main screen that was surrounded by electrical equipment. A tangle of wires sprouted underneath, as if some creature had made a nest using loops of electrical conduit, power packs, and surge suppressors.

  Jibril began to work the keyboard silently.

  Khoury could take no more. “What is it, my son?”

  The young man said nothing for a moment, and Khoury sensed him gnashing through a decision. He hoped it was not technical in nature, as there was no time for further setbacks. Khoury moved to one side until he drew Jibril’s gaze, locking eyes with the engineer to demand the truth.

  “I am concerned about the final targeting sequence,” Jibril said.

  “What about it?”

  “Should we not preprogram the final coordinates?”

  Khoury heaved an inner sigh of relief. He had long expected this to come up. “You have already loaded the initial course to the holding pattern. That will be our staging point.”

  “But why can we not program the entire route?”

  “Because,” Khoury explained, “we do not know it. Our target will be moving. We can anticipate a general location, but precise coordinates will not be available until the final minutes. Which is why you must teach me how to enter the final numbers.”

  “But I will be there to do it,” Jibril countered.

  “Of course, but as an engineer you understand the importance of backing things up. Have you ever written one of your computer programs without making a copy?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “There you are. Allah’s will is never done absent challenges, Fadi. We must seize every chance to bring Him glory.”

  The engineer thought about this, and seemed to relent. He began his lecture. Jibril demonstrated how to alternate between screens and how to monitor the performance and signal strength. He then showed Khoury how to send the terminal pairing of navigation coordinates. Jibril gave up his seat and made Khoury run through the entire targeting sequence once, then again.