She had been an agent for nearly five years, first working counterterrorism in Boston before picking up her follow-up assignment to the Miami field office. A Georgia native, she found the South Florida climate much more appealing and was eager to jump into one of the nation’s busiest offices.
“Martin is here,” she announced, resuming her place at the conference table. Her notes were scattered everywhere, among empty Red Bull cans. They had been going over the case for three hours.
Baxter ignored her. “So you were saying you’ve got a lead on this Victor guy?”
“Well, sort of,” she said, pulling up the legal pad that she had been taking notes with. “The guy that just called was our lead analyst down here. He searched every database we have, narrowing his search to activity within the last three months. As you can imagine, it was still quite a big list.”
Baxter nodded, hoping she would just get to the point. He didn’t like to keep people waiting. It was one of his biggest pet peeves, but he needed for them to be on the same page before talking to Martin.
“Anyway, trying to cross reference them with known Al Qaeda or Brothers of Freedom associations was a big goose egg, surprisingly enough. So he called his contact at the NSA and tried referencing it against foreign intelligence aliases.”
“What did he come up with?”
“Five names. He’s e-mailing them to us now with dossiers from the CIA. Should be on the secure side.” She was referring to their classified network, designed specifically to handle message traffic classified SECRET or higher. CIA intelligence usually required sensitive handling, and despite The Patriot Act and improved cross talk among agencies, it was still a miracle to even get cooperation from the spy branches of the government.
“Great. Can you go download them and print them off? I’ll start with Martin,” he said, standing up to walk out.
Decker picked up some of the empty cans and threw them away on her way out. The classified computers were located in the vault at the end of the hallway. Since Baxter’s boss was gone on paternity leave for his second child, the office was virtually empty. Baxter was the de facto boss.
“Mr. Martin,” he said, opening the heavy wooden door, “thanks for coming out on such short notice. Can I get you anything?”
Spectre shook his head as Baxter gestured for him to follow into the conference room. He asked Spectre to have a seat and offered him water as Spectre took his seat at the head of the conference table.
“Your new partner is a lot better looking. What happened to the other guy? Sale on doughnuts this morning?” Spectre joked.
“He was killed yesterday,” Baxter replied somberly.
Spectre’s face turned red. Joking probably wasn’t the best approach at a time like this, but this was much worse.
“Holy shit, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Can you tell me what happened?”
“He was killed yesterday during the attempted apprehension of Abdul Aalee. You might remember him from our previous interview,” Baxter replied.
“Yeah, I remember. Attempted? Is he still at large?” Spectre noticed the bandages on Baxter’s forehead and put the two together. The terrorist piece of shit had somehow gotten the best of them during their attempt to apprehend him.
“No, he killed himself in the process. Took out several good men.”
“I’m really sorry,” Spectre offered.
“We brought you here today to discuss your association with Chloe Moss in a little more depth,” Baxter said, changing the subject.
Agent Decker walked in with files in hand, as Spectre started to explain their previous history. He was struck again by her beauty. She carried herself with a high level of professionalism mixed with grace and attractiveness. She also seemed to have a “don’t fuck with me” air about her, something Spectre was sure many men had experienced firsthand.
She handed the files to Baxter and sat down across from him. Baxter nodded at Spectre to continue.
“We were engaged, until a couple of weeks ago, when she just abruptly broke it off,” Spectre explained.
Both agents scribbled notes as Spectre explained how she ended their relationship. He felt like he had told the story a hundred times in the last few weeks, but it never stopped being painful. He still didn’t quite understand any of it. He thought about the laptop, but decided to leave that detail out for the time being.
“Tell me about the day of the crash, did she say anything before she went to work?” Decker asked, her deep blue eyes almost penetrating Spectre.
“I didn’t see her. We slept in separate rooms after the breakup. She was on a night schedule, so I went to work before she was even awake. When I got home that night, I went straight to bed.”
“Did her behavior change leading up to the crash? Do anything out of the ordinary? Talk to anyone new?” she asked.
“You mean was she cheating on me?”
“I’m not suggesting anything, Mr. Martin, just wondering if her associations changed,” she replied.
“Yes. She stopped associating with me. Otherwise, I don’t know. I work at a range that’s open until nine. A lot of nights, I wouldn’t get home until ten or later. Her car was always home when I got home.”
Baxter separated the pictures from the dossiers and pushed them to Spectre. “Do any of these men look familiar to you?”
Spectre flipped through the pictures. They were all Hispanic men in their mid thirties to early forties. Each picture seemed to be some sort of high fidelity surveillance shot.
“No, should they?” Spectre replied, handing the pictures back to Baxter.
“What about the name, ‘Victor?’” Decker asked.
Spectre froze. He thought back to the laptop. He had intentionally left it out because he was embarrassed that she might have cheated on him. Despite Marcus’s paranoia that they were hiding from the government, Spectre didn’t think it was relevant to a case about a kidnapping. Chloe was probably dead. The rescue efforts had long since turned to recovery, despite being hampered by rough seas. There was no need to tarnish her memory.
Decker leaned forward. She could see by Spectre’s facial expressions that she had struck a nerve. He knew something.
“Mr. Martin, anything you can tell us, no matter how insignificant you think it may be, could help us out in this case,” she prodded.
Spectre told them about the laptop he had searched through two nights prior. He explained the e-mails he had found in her draft folder, and how she had been seemingly corresponding with a man named Victor.
“How did you know about Victor?” Spectre asked as he finished his story. “I didn’t think it had anything to do with the kidnapping.”
“The man you subdued told us about him. He overheard Aalee mention the name on the phone,” Baxter replied.
“You don’t think Chloe was involved in kidnapping her own parents, do you?” Spectre asked incredulously.
Baxter sat back and pondered the question. Chloe’s relationship to the kidnapping was puzzling. She had seemingly no motive to be involved in the kidnapping of her parents, and more importantly, she was presumed dead. But the e-mail draft didn’t sit well with him. He knew it was a technique of intelligence agents and terrorists developed in the wake of cyber monitoring. She was trying to hide something.
“You said her last message was time stamped the day of her mishap?” Baxter asked.
“Yeah, she must have sent it from work,” Spectre replied.
Baxter was still mulling the possibilities over in his head. She intended to meet with this Victor person that night. She had at least a personal relationship with him. Had he been using her to get to the family? Or were they in it together? His mental block was still the crash. Had she been planning to meet with him after the flight? And then it hit him.
“You flew F-16s, is that correct?” Decker shot from across the table.
“Yes, I had just over one thousand hours in them,” Spectre replied.
“Is it possible to fake a c
rash?” she asked, tapping her notepad with her pen. Baxter looked at her from across the table. She had beaten him to the punch. She was sharp.
Spectre’s eyes widened. He hadn’t considered the possibility before. He had been so caught up in the breakup and the events of the last couple of days that he had never stopped to consider the possibility that she hadn’t crashed at all.
“Possible? Yes? Probable? No,” Spectre replied. The e-mail and the lack of wreckage were fairly damning pieces of evidence in the case for Chloe faking her own accident, but it just didn’t seem like something she or any other U.S. Military pilot would do. She just didn’t seem like the type to betray her country. But then again, weeks prior, he didn’t think she’d be the type to break up with him either.
“I see. Thank you for your time, Mr. Martin. That’s all I have for now. Do you have anything else, Agent Baxter?” Decker asked as she finished writing the last of her notes.
“Not at this time,” Baxter said as he stood to walk Spectre out. “Well, Mr. Martin, you’ve been more than helpful, if you think of anything else—”
“Wait! Mind if I make a phone call? I think I know how we can find out,” Spectre interrupted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Homestead ARB, FL
Equipped with the latest ASR-11 Digital Airport Surveillance Radar (DASR), Homestead Air Reserve Base’s Terminal Approach Control Facility was among the most advanced in the country. With Primary Surveillance Radar coverage out to 60 miles and Secondary Surveillance Radar Transponder coverage out to 120, the facility could track targets far beyond the capabilities of most facilities.
Spectre stood at the entrance of the Homestead control tower with Agents Decker and Baxter. He had called his friend Chris Fritz after the earlier questioning session with the two agents. Chris happened to be working in the office that morning and not on a shift as Tower Supervisor, so he was available to meet with them.
The door buzzed open and Chris appeared. He was wearing khaki shorts and a Florida Gators polo shirt with sunglasses hanging around his neck and flip-flops. Spectre always admired the casual dress code the tower guys strictly adhered to when he used to sit in the tower as Supervisor of Flying. Chris did not disappoint.
“Hey Spectre, long time no see, bud!” he said, reaching out to shake Spectre’s hand.
“Good to see you too, Chris, thanks for letting us visit on such short notice,” Spectre said as the three walked in.
Chris led them to the elevator and they all piled in. The radar room was located on the fourth floor of the fourteen-floor control tower.
“It’s no problem, man. Listen, I’m sorry about your girlfriend,” Chris said apologetically.
“Thanks, Chris.” He didn’t feel like correcting him and getting into the same discussion about the breakup he had been involved in seemingly hundreds of times over the last few weeks.
“Who are your buddies?” Chris asked, obviously eying Decker. She shot him the “don’t fuck with me” glare Spectre had been expecting, causing Chris to look away toward Baxter.
“Chris, this is Special Agent Baxter with OSI and Special Agent Decker with the FBI,” Spectre said. “I have no idea what their first names are, but it’s probably not ‘Special Agent.’”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you guys anyway, I hope my buddy Spectre is not in too much trouble,” Chris laughed.
The two agents looked at each other, creating an awkward silence as they rode the elevator up the remaining floors.
As they exited the elevator and walked toward the radar room, Chris turned to Spectre. “You said you wanted to see the new radar facility, but what’s this really about?”
“I’ll tell you when we’re inside,” Spectre said, motioning for Chris to keep walking. They made their way to the double doors and stopped. There was a sign warning of the federal penalties involved with interfering with active air traffic control operations on the door, as well as a no cell phones sign.
“Cell phones can go in these boxes,” Chris said, putting his cell phone in a slot on the wall. The three followed suit. Baxter pulled out a pager and put it in as well.
“Holy shit, I didn’t know people still owned those. Do you deal crack on the side?” Chris joked as he swiped his badge and the magnetic door lock clicked open.
The group entered the dark room. There were two controllers sitting at radar screens, working approach and departure control for the airport. They both nodded as the four walked in. Spectre didn’t recognize either of them. Not surprising since he hadn’t been back in the tower in many years.
“We need to look at the radar tapes from the other night,” Spectre said. His voice was low so as not to disturb the controllers.
“The other night? You mean from the crash? Whoa!” Chris said, putting up his hands. “You know I can’t do that. The Safety Investigation Board has those locked down. Safety privilege and all that. You’ll have to ask them.”
Decker leaned over to Baxter. “We can get a court order if we need to,” she whispered.
Spectre held up his hand. “That won’t be necessary. Chris, I know you’re not supposed to, but I also know you keep backups in here of everything.”
“We do, for a month a time, then it gets purged, but everything is recorded on the fifth floor,” Chris said.
“Listen, man, I know this is not your thing, but it would mean a lot to me if you could help us out. For Chloe.” Spectre gritted his teeth as he said it. He hated playing the false widower card, especially knowing that she might have been cheating on him all along.
“Look man, you know I could lose my job if someone found out,” Chris pleaded.
“You’re aiding with a federal investigation,” Baxter offered. “You won’t get into any trouble for helping.”
“Alright, Spectre, I’ll help, give me a minute,” Chris said after a long sigh. He walked off to a vacant terminal and went to work, loading the recording and cueing it up to the night of the crash.
“Good work, Martin,” Decker whispered. Spectre looked back and nodded. She was grinning. It made him feel like a high-schooler whose crush had just acknowledged his existence.
“Alright, what are you looking for?” Chris said, readying the playback.
“According to the initial report, the crash was at 2100 local, so let’s start there,” Baxter interjected.
Chris cued the playback for 2100 and stopped. He explained what the icons and symbols meant. The display had the airspeed, altitude, and transponder code of each aircraft displayed next to it.
“Play it real time,” Spectre said. They watched as four aircraft on the north side of the airspace maneuvered toward the two aircraft in the south. The two aircraft in the south started in formation, but then the two blips separated. One maneuvered forty-five degrees to the east, while the other turned away to the south and began a rapid descent.
“That’s Chloe,” Spectre said, pointing at the blip turning away. His heart began racing. It was the first time he had seen any depiction of the crash. They watched as the blip descended from twenty thousand feet as the airspeed increased. After a few seconds, the blip vanished. Chris stopped the playback.
“I’m so sorry, Spectre,” he said solemnly.
“Can you rewind it just a few seconds? Last known position,” Spectre said, pointing at the screen.
Chris sighed softly. He felt bad for Spectre. “Sure thing, man.”
“Stop!” Spectre said just as the blip reappeared. The altitude showed five hundred feet, and the airspeed read five hundred knots.
“Why wouldn’t there be more data past five hundred feet?” Decker asked.
“This radar is good, but that’s the last known transponder position, and it lags a bit,” Chris responded.
“Can you turn off the secondary transponder read out on here and just show primary radar returns?” Spectre asked.
“It’s too far out for a primary, bud, that’s over a hundred miles from here,” Chris replied apologetically.
“What about the feed from Key West? Aren’t you guys integrated with their feed now?” Spectre asked. He was hopeful that they might get some proof one way or another. Maybe they could get a primary return lower than the last known transponder position, or if their theory was correct, a primary return of her flying away.
Chris navigated through a few menus to find the Key West Primary Surveillance Radar and then decluttered the screen. The radar blips were replaced with jagged lines to indicate their source. The screen no longer displayed altitude or airspeed information. Chris returned the playback to the start of Chloe’s maneuver and hit play.
The jagged lines maneuvered as before, but with more lag, using the four-second refresh rate of the radar instead of the high fidelity reporting from the aircraft’s own transponder. Her aircraft maneuvered like before, and then disappeared. Chris stopped the tape.
“I know what you must be going through, this is tough for all of us that knew her as well,” Chris said.
“Keep playing,” Spectre prodded.
Chris sighed and hit play. He couldn’t imagine what he would be doing in the same situation if his wife were in that plane. He figured he would have been in denial too.
A few seconds after the jagged line symbolizing Chloe’s jet disappeared, it reappeared a few miles farther south.
“Holy shit!” Chris said, stopping the playback.
“No, keep playing!” Spectre said, tapping Chris on the shoulder. Chris hit play. The jagged line flew a few more miles and then disappeared.
“Wait, where did it go?” Baxter asked.
“Seventy miles,” Chris replied. “That’s as far as this radar can see. I’m surprised it even saw that far with her as low as she was. Good thing it was over water, but holy shit!”
“Thanks Chris, but we need to go,” Spectre said as he turned to walk out.
“No problem, I can’t believe she’s still alive. Where did she go?” Chris asked frantically.
“That’s what we’re going to find out. Promise me you’ll keep this to yourself?” Spectre asked, turning back to Chris and putting both hands on his shoulders.
Spectre Rising Page 15
