Parallax View

by Leverone, Allan

  He picked up the phone. “What?” he barked into the receiver. It came out harsher than he had intended, but he didn’t much care.

  “Shane, this is Marty Hall. I understand you had quite an adventure last night.” Marty was the FAA Air Traffic Manager at Bangor Tower, an older man with a mop of thick white hair and a heavily lined face who had spent his entire adult life working his way up the FAA ladder. Shane barely knew Marty because they rarely had the opportunity for interaction beyond the occasional nod and smile as they passed in the hallway of the facility’s base building stationed next to the control tower.

  “Hi, Marty. Yeah, you could say that.” Shane remembered Chuck McNally’s statement that he would have to come in and talk to the NTSB accident investigators and cursed under his breath. He wanted nothing more than to lie back down on his couch and sleep for another couple of hours. Or days.

  “Listen, Shane, I know you’re supposed to be off for the next couple of days, but the crash team is going to be here at nine and would like to talk with you as soon as possible. Think you can get in here by then?”

  He sighed. It’s not like this was unexpected. “I’ll be there,” he said, then hung up the phone and this time cursed out loud. There would be no going back to sleep today.

  He padded past his bedroom on the way to the shower and saw the bedroom door ajar, as he’d left it. He eased it open and peeked in at his injured guest. She was lying on her side in a fetal position. He took two steps into the room and saw her breathing deeply and steadily. She looked impossibly small and helpless.

  Her back was to him, so it was difficult to see how the bandage on her leg was holding up. Shane thought for a moment about trying to take a quick look at it while she slept, then imagined her waking up to see him bent down over the bed, looking at her bare legs. He remembered the feeling of staring into a gun barrel last night and decided the bandage was probably holding just fine. He eased the door closed and continued to the shower.

  22

  May 31, 1987

  7:40 a.m.

  Hampden, Maine

  The early-morning air was cool and crisp, and the slanting sunlight reflected off the windshields of dozens of vehicles parked in the truck-stop lot. Anatoli Simonov stepped out of the rented Chevy Caprice and shaded his eyes against the glare. The relative warmth reminded Anatoli how far he had come from his childhood in Siberia, where the bitter cold was so complete it was like being stabbed in the lungs if you tried to breathe too deeply.

  But the desolation felt familiar. Dysart’s Truck Stop was located south of Bangor, Maine on Interstate 95, and apart from the truck stop buildings and the big paved parking lot, he was surrounded by a massive expanse of mostly unpopulated landscape, thousands of square miles of rolling terrain filled with millions of evergreen trees, the city of Bangor just a rumor to the north.

  “Come on,” Bogdan Fedorov urged, climbing out of the back seat along with a second KGB operative. “We have much to do, and standing around is accomplishing nothing.” The three men hurried across the tarmac and into the truck stop for breakfast.

  ***

  They ate mostly in silence, preferring to interact with the locals as little as possible. It was easy to blend in with the Americans visually, much more difficult when you spoke in heavily Russian-accented English, as Anatoli’s two companions did. Anatoli had long ago achieved a certain familiarity with the language, so he ordered for everyone, and their conversation ground to a halt whenever the waitress—a heavy-set middle-aged woman with rust-colored hair and an aggrieved demeanor—approached to refill their coffee.

  An ancient black-and-white television suspended in one corner of the dining room was tuned to a local channel, the volume cranked to a decibel level roughly equivalent to that of an air raid siren. Local programming had been pre-empted to carry continuous coverage of a breaking news story—last night’s crash of an Air Force B-52 jet.

  The men ate their omelets, drank their coffee, and paid close attention as a female reporter gazed solemnly into the camera and said, “It appears as though there was at least one survivor of last night’s fiery airplane crash in a heavily wooded area north of Bangor International Airport. Sources close to the investigation have confirmed that a passing motorist witnessed the crash and braved an out-of-control fire to pull a young woman from the wreckage.”

  Anatoli lowered his coffee cup to the table, unable to believe his good fortune as a graphic was superimposed on the lower right hand corner of the screen, depicting a head-shot photo of a youngish man, perhaps in his late twenties. The television’s distance from their table and the small size of the picture made it impossible to distinguish any details of the man’s facial features.

  The reporter continued: “Sources tell us this man, Shane Rowley, an air traffic controller living in Bangor, was on his way to work at the time of the crash and managed to rescue the as-yet unidentified woman. Her condition and whereabouts, as well as the whereabouts of Rowley, are at this time unknown, but we’ve learned Mr. Rowley is scheduled to meet with NTSB investigators as well as representatives of the Air Force at nine a.m. at the control tower building at BIA to assist in the investigation. More on this story as it develops. Jane Finneran, WBGR News 9.”

  Anatoli tried to keep from smiling but just couldn’t do it. He tore his eyes from the television for the first time since the news report had begun and saw that his fellow operatives were smiling also.

  “This would be considered good news, yes?” Fedorov said softly between bites of omelet, flecks of cheese peppering his black beard.

  “It most certainly would,” Anatoli agreed.

  “What is next? Find out where this Shane Rowley lives and force him to lead us to the girl?”

  “We could do that,” Anatoli said, “but why wait to take him at his home? This is a matter of no small importance, and, according to Colonel Kopalev, it is extremely time-critical. We know where and how Mr. Rowley will be spending his morning. Our instructions are to retrieve the letter absolutely as soon as possible. Since we don’t know when Shane Rowley will be alone again, I suggest we pay these investigators a visit and remove Mr. Rowley from his meeting. Once we have secured Rowley, we can find a nice, secluded location—that shouldn’t be difficult, there is nothing much in this wasteland but trees—and extract the information we need. Now, let us finish our delicious breakfast. It seems this will be a busy day.”

  23

  May 31, 1987

  8:20 a.m.

  Bangor, Maine

  Tracie’s eyes fluttered open and she felt a rush of intense panic. She saw no one. Recognized nothing. Had no idea where she was or how she had gotten here.

  She sat bolt upright in a strange bed, feeling stiff and sore, and then the memories came rushing back: Major Mitchell shooting his fellow B-52 crewmembers, Tracie returning fire and putting Mitchell down, the desperate attempt by a dying Major Stan Wilczynski to land the big jet in Bangor, Maine, the subsequent plane crash, and her rescue by air traffic controller Shane Rowley, who brought her to his apartment and cleaned and bandaged her injured leg.

  Then she had fallen asleep in his bed. She started to panic again as she looked for the letter she had to deliver to President Reagan from Mikhail Gorbachev. She snatched up her pillow, and there it was where she’d stuffed it, crumpled and sweat-stained, flecks of blood splattered across it.

  She grabbed it with a sigh of relief and then looked around, wondering about the time. A digital clock-radio on a dresser on the far side of the room said eight twenty. Tracie tried to remember the last time she had slept this late and couldn’t. Stretching, she eased off the side of the bed and gingerly placed a little weight on her injured leg. Her thigh throbbed but the pain was bearable. She leaned more firmly and finally took a couple of shuffling steps toward the bedroom door.

  Painful but not overwhelmingly so.

  She poked her head into the short hallway and looked around, seeing no one. She smelled fresh coffee and her stomach rumbl
ed. Shane must be in the kitchen. She decided to take advantage of the opportunity for a shower and slipped into the bathroom. Splotches of dried blood covered her arms and she could feel more blood flaking off her face. Her hair was matted and stringy. She felt as though she had crawled through a mud puddle the size of a football field.

  She closed the bathroom door, put the letter on top of the toilet tank, and undressed, casting a critical eye at the makeshift patch job Shane Rowley had done on her leg last night, pleased to see only a slight discoloration of the Ace bandage at the site of the injury. There was no oozing or seeping of blood.

  She knew she should remove the bandage and clean the wound again, but didn’t want to take the time now. She’d do it later.

  Tracie eased into the shower, holding her injured leg awkwardly out of the tub in an effort to keep the bandage dry. It was uncomfortable standing like that, hard to keep her balance, but she turned the hot water up as high as she could stand, then showered quickly. She washed her hair with some shampoo she found in a hanging shower caddy and then got out, dripping water all over Shane’s floor while she searched for a towel.

  She found a stack of clean bath towels in a cabinet under the sink, dried off, and wrapped one around her body, now clean and pink from the hot shower. She wasn’t looking forward to getting back into her filthy clothes, but didn’t have much choice—her travel bag had been lost in the crash. She decided to delay the inevitable, instead picking the precious envelope up off the toilet tank, opening the bathroom door and limping down the hallway in search of the coffee.

  And, she had to admit, Shane Rowley.

  The kitchen was empty. So was the living room. A couple of blankets had been thrown carelessly to one side of the couch and a pillow lay on the far end. It was obvious Rowley had slept here, but Tracie’s assumption that her rescuer was anywhere in the apartment had been off the mark. She turned and wandered into the kitchen, finding a pile of neatly folded clothing on the counter. A handwritten note had been placed atop the clothes.

  Tracie furrowed her brow and unfolded the note. Good morning, Tracie, it read. I hope you’re feeling a little better. Sorry I’m not here, but I got called in to work. I have to talk to the NTSB investigators about the crash. They’re going to want to talk to you, too, but you looked so exhausted last night that I didn’t have the heart to wake you up before I left. The bureaucrats can wait.

  The coffee is fresh, and the water is hot if you’d like to shower. I made the assumption you’ll want clean clothes, so I dug out some of the stuff my ex-wife left behind in her rush to escape her boring husband and the backwoods of Bangor, Maine. You’re probably not exactly the same size, but I’m guessing it will fit okay. I have a feeling you could wear just about anything and look stunning.

  Make yourself at home, and if you’re so inclined, I would love to help you figure out your next move when I get back. If you decide to hit the road before I return, good luck to you, and thanks for my most interesting Saturday night ever.

  Shane

  Tracie finished reading, then rummaged around in the cupboard above the counter until she found a mug and poured herself a cup of coffee. She stood at the counter sipping it as she read the note a second time. I have a feeling you could wear just about anything and look stunning.

  She found herself smiling as she thought about the handsome young air traffic controller, and then shook her head at her foolishness. Something explosive was contained in the envelope she held in her hand, something someone was willing to go to great lengths to destroy.

  She sat down at Shane Rowley’s tiny kitchen table, thinking about secret communications and international diplomacy and who might have the desire—and more importantly, the ability—to commit murder in the interest of squelching a communique that only a handful of people in the world even knew existed. There seemed to be only one possibility, and if she was right, that possibility was terrifying.

  Tracie knew she needed to contact her handler, and she needed to do it before speaking to anyone at the NTSB, or even anyone from the Air Force. A U.S. military officer had brought down that jet last night and had murdered two fellow officers in cold blood, and the only entity Tracie could think of that possessed the reach to accomplish that—and the desire to do so—was the KGB.

  She limped back into the living room and flipped on Shane’s television. A local news reporter was doing a live broadcast from Bangor International Airport on last night’s B-52 crash, and in the lower right corner of the screen was a picture of Shane. “Our source tells us this man, Shane Rowley, an air traffic controller living here in Bangor, was on his way to work at the time of the crash and was able to rescue the as-yet unidentified woman. Her condition and whereabouts, as well as the whereabouts of Rowley, are at this time unknown, but our source tells us Mr. Rowley is scheduled to meet with NTSB investigators as well as representatives of the Air Force at nine a.m. at the control tower building here at BIA to assist in the investigation. More on this story as it develops. Jane Finneran, WBGR News 9.”

  Tracie stared, her heart sinking. Shane had called a supervisor last night to explain why he wasn’t at work, and that person, or someone close to that person, must have leaked details to the press.

  This was bad. She looked from the television to the letter still clutched in her hand. Whether it was the KGB or some other entity determined to prevent the communique from reaching President Reagan, they would have no reason to stop until they accomplished their goal, not after committing multiple murders and destroying an airplane worth tens of millions of dollars.

  A chill ran down her spine. She glanced at a wall clock hanging over the TV. 8:50 a.m. She hurried to the pile of clothing in the kitchen, dropped her towel onto the floor, and strapped her backup weapon—now the only gun she had left, her main weapon had been lost in the B-52 crash—to her ankle in its holster. Then she stepped into the underwear, jeans and sweater as quickly as she could manage. The clothes were a little loose but would have to do for now.

  She took another look at the clock in the living room. Its hands seemed to be moving at double speed. There was a lot to do. She only hoped she wasn’t too late.

  24

  May 31, 1987

  8:50 a.m.

  Bangor, Maine

  Shane drove along the access road leading to the air traffic control facility at Bangor International Airport, a bumpy mess consisting of crumbling chunks of decades-old pavement that had at one time made up the runways and taxiways of the old Dow Air Force base. The field had originally been a small civil airport, but had seen three runways hastily constructed at the onset of World War Two, and then a massive 11,400-foot runway built during the darkest days of the Cold War. Dow had been used as a Strategic Air Command Base for two decades, launching B-52s and other military aircraft until its decommissioning in 1968.

  After it was taken over as a civilian airfield and renamed Bangor International, almost all of the runways and taxiways had been closed, deemed too expensive to maintain. The one remaining runway was long enough to accept any aircraft in the world, civilian or military, including the space shuttle.

  Many of those closed runways and taxiways were turned into access roads, resulting in some of the widest, if bumpiest, motorways a Maine driver would ever utilize. It was on one of these long-ago taxiways Shane was now bouncing along in his Volkswagen. The control tower loomed in the distance, ancient and drafty, sticking into the air like a giant’s middle finger. Next to the control tower was a base building, as old as the tower, which housed the TRACON—the terminal radar approach control facility—in addition to offices and conference rooms.

  About fifty yards from the facility, a Bangor Police Department officer had angled his cruiser across the pavement. The vehicle didn’t come close to blocking the wide access road, but Shane decided the sight of the officer standing next to his cruiser, hand resting lightly on the butt of his service weapon, made perfectly clear anyone approaching had better stop.

  Sh
ane eased up next to the cruiser. Mirrored sunglasses hid the cop’s eyes and his face was impassive. He shook his head. “Sorry, pal, no access today.”

  Shane held his government ID up for the officer’s inspection. “I’m expected. My name is Shane Rowley. I work here, and I’ve come to assist in the accident investigation.”

  “Hold on,” the cop said, and opened the cruiser’s door, picked up a clipboard from the front seat, and glanced at it. After a moment he looked again at Shane’s ID, then nodded, his face still a mask. “Go right on ahead, sir.”

  Shane, curious, asked, “Have you had a lot of people trying to get up here?”

  A trace of a smile flitted across the cop’s face. “Not since I turned away the first couple of media vans. I’m sure they’re waiting until I get pulled out of here, then they’ll be on you guys like flies on shit.”

  Shane chuckled. “Don’t be afraid to shoot ’em if you have to.”

  As he was pulling away, he heard the cop mutter, “I wish.”

  ***

  The parking lot was almost full, with a half-dozen or so cars Shane didn’t recognize taking up the few available spaces. He found a spot close to the outer edge and parked, a light breeze ruffling his hair as he crossed the lot to the base building’s front entrance. He pulled open the heavy metal door and entered the building.

  A long hallway bisected the interior, with a row of doors running down each side. Immediately to the right was a small kitchen area, equipped with an ancient oven, a slightly newer microwave, a dual-tub sink, a coffeemaker, and a small round table nobody ever used. Twenty feet beyond the kitchen on the right a doorway opened into the radar control room, where on a typical workday a controller would spend half his time, with the other half spent working upstairs in the control tower.