Total Control

by David Baldacci

  limp body face down in the small crevice between the bed and the wall and emptied the remaining eleven shots from the Sig's magazine into the dead man's upper torso. Although the victim's heart was no longer pumping, dime-sized drops of dark blood appeared at each point of entrance, like the sprout of tiny oil wells. The auto pistol landed next to the body.

  The shooter walked calmly from the room, stopping only to perform two tasks. First, he scooped up the leather bag containing the dead man's new identity. Second, out in the hallway he hit the HVAC switch on the wall and turned the air-conditioning on full blast. Ten seconds later the front door of the apartment opened and closed. The apartment was silent. In the bedroom, the beige carpet was fast becoming an ugly shade of crimson. The balance in the offshore bank account would be reduced to zero and closed within the hour, its owner no longer requiring use of the funds.

  It was barely seven in the morning. Darkness still reigned outside.

  Sitting at the kitchen table, wearing her battered old house-robe, Sidney Archer slowly closed her eyes and once again tried to pretend this was all a nightmare and her husband was still alive and would be walking through the front door. He would have a smile on his face, a present under his arm for his daughter and a long, soothing kiss for his wife.

  When she opened her eyes, nothing had changed. Sidney looked at her watch. Amy would be awake soon. Sidney had just gotten off the phone with her parents. They would be at their daughter's house at nine to drive the little girl to their home in Hanover, Virginia, where she was going to stay for a few days while Sidney tried to make some sense of what had happened. Sidney cringed at the thought of having to explain the catastrophe to her little girl when she was older, at having to relive, years later, the horror she was now feeling. How to tell her daughter that her father had died for no apparent reason other than a plane doing the unthinkable, shedding almost two hundred lives in the process, and killing the man who had helped breathe life into her.

  Jason's parents had passed on years before. An only child, he had adopted Sidney's family as his own, and they had happily accepted him. Sidney's two older brothers had already called with offers of help, commiseration and, finally, quiet sobbing.

  Western had offered to fly Sidney to the small town near where the crash had occurred, but she had declined. She could not bear to be with other family members of crash victims. She envisioned all of them boarding long, gray buses in silence, unable to make eye contact, exhausted limbs twitching, frail nervous systems ready to crumble from overwhelming shock. Struggling with complicated feelings of denial, grief and sorrow was terrible enough without being surrounded by people you didn't know who were going through the same ordeal. Right now, the comfort of similarly stricken folk did not sound at all appealing to her.

  She headed upstairs, walked down the hallway and paused at her bedroom. As she leaned against the door, it halfway opened. She looked around the room, at all the familiar objects, each having a unique history of its own; memories inextricably tied to her life with Jason. Her gaze finally came to rest on the unmade bed. So much pleasure had occurred there. She couldn't believe that that early morning encounter before Jason had boarded the plane was to be the last time.

  She closed the door quietly and walked down the hallway to Amy's room. The even breathing of her daughter was comforting, especially now. Sidney sat in the wicker rocking chair beside the trundle bed. She and Jason had recently succeeded in moving their daughter from crib to bed. The effort had required many nights of sleeping on the floor beside the little girl until she grew comfortable with the new arrangements.

  While she slowly rocked in the chair, Sidney continued to watch her daughter, the tangle of blond hair, the small feet in thick socks that had kicked free from the blankets. At seven-thirty, a small cry escaped Amy's lips and she abruptly sat up, eyes tightly shut like a baby bird's. Barely a moment passed before mother had daughter in her arms. They rocked for a while longer until Amy awoke fully.

  As the sun began its ascent, Sidney gave Amy a bath, dried her hair, dressed her in warm clothes and helped her down the stairs to the kitchen. While Sidney was making breakfast and brewing coffee, Amy wandered into the adjacent living room, where Sidney could hear her playing with an ever-growing pile of toys that had occupied one corner of the room for the last year. Sidney opened the cupboard and automatically pulled out two coffee cups. She stopped halfway to the coffeepot, rocking slowly back and forth on the wood floor. She bit into her lip until the urge to scream subsided. She felt as though someone had cut her in half. She put one cup back on the shelf and carried her coffee and a bowl of hot oatmeal over to the small pine kitchen table.

  She looked toward the living room. "Amy. Amy, sweetie, it's time to eat." She could barely speak above a whisper. Her throat was killing her; her entire body seemed to have eroded into one large ache. The little girl hurtled through the doorway. Amy's normal speed was most other kids' top speed. She carried a stuffed Tigger and a photo frame. As she raced toward her mother, her little face was bright and shining, hair still slightly damp, straight on top with curls emerging at the bottom.

  Sidney's breath suddenly left her body as Amy held up a photo of Jason. It had been taken just last month. He had been outside working in the yard. Amy had crept up on him and sprayed him with the hose. Daughter had ended up with father in a pile of bright red, orange and yellow leaves.

  "Daddy?" Amy's face was anxious.

  Jason was to have been out of town for three days so Sidney had already anticipated having to explain his absence to her daughter.

  God! Three days seemed like three seconds now. She steeled herself as she smiled at the little face.

  "Daddy's away right now, sweetie," she began, unable to hide the tremble in her voice. "It's just you and me right now, okay? Are you hungry, you want to eat?"

  "My daddy? Daddy working?" Amy persisted, her chubby finger pointing at the photo. Sidney lifted her daughter onto her lap.

  "Amy, do you know who you're going to see today?"

  Amy's face looked expectant.

  "Gramps and Mimi."

  The child's mouth formed a large oval and then broke into a big smile. She nodded enthusiastically and blew a kiss toward the refrigerator, where a picture of her grandparents hung with the aid of a magnet. "Gamps, Mimi."

  Sidney carefully pulled the photo of Jason from Amy's hand while sliding the bowl of oatmeal over.

  "Now you need to eat before you go, okay? It's got-maple syrup and butter, your favorite."

  "I do it. I do it." Amy climbed out of her mother's lap and into her own chair, carefully maneuvering the spoon as she hungrily plunged into the oatmeal.

  Sidney sighed and covered her eyes. She tried to hold her body rigid, but several wracking sobs still managed to escape. She finally fled the room, carrying the photo with her. She raced up the stairs to her bedroom, put the photo on the top shelf of the closet and flung herself on the bed, muffling her sobs in the pillow.

  A full five minutes went by and the outpouring of sorrow continued.

  Usually Sidney could lock on Amy's whereabouts like radar.

  This time she never heard her little girl until she felt the small hand on her shoulder, pulling at her. Amy lay down beside Sidney, burrowing her face into her mother's shoulder.

  Amy saw the tears and cried out "Oh, boo-boos, boo-boos," as she touched the wetness. She cupped her mother's face between her two little hands and started to cry too as she struggled to form the words.

  "Mommy, sad?" Their wet faces touched, tears mixed together. After a while Sidney pulled herself up, held her daughter, rocked her back and forth on the soft mattress. A bit of oatmeal clung to Amy's mouth. Sidney silently cursed herself for breaking down, for making her daughter cry, but she had never experienced such overpowering emotion before.

  Finally the spasms stopped. Sidney rubbed at her eyes for the hundredth time and finally there were no new tears to replace the old. After a few more minutes she ca
rried Amy into the bathroom, wiped her face and kissed her.

  "It's okay, baby, Mommy's okay now. No more crying."

  When Amy finally calmed down, Sidney gathered some toys from the bathtub for her. While she was thus preoccupied, Sidney quickly showered and changed into a long skirt and turtleneck.

  When Sidney's parents knocked on the door promptly at nine, Amy's bag was packed and she was ready to go. They walked out to the car. Sidney's father carried Amy's bag. Sidney's mother walked along with Amy.

  Bill Patterson put one burly arm around her daughter's shoulder, his sunken eyes and caved-in shoulders revealing how strongly the tragedy had struck him.

  "Jesus, honey, I still can't believe it. I just talked to Jason two days ago. We were going to do some ice fishing this year. Up in Minnesota. Just the two of us."

  "I know, Dad, he told me. He was very excited about it."

  While her father loaded Amy's bag in the car, Sidney strapped her daughter in the baby seat, handed her Winnie the Pooh, squeezed her hard and then kissed her gently.

  "I'll see you very soon, babydoll. Mommy promises."

  Sidney closed the door. Her mother took her hand.

  "Sidney, please come down with us. You don't want to be alone right now. Please."

  Sidney gripped her mother's slender hand. "I do need some time alone, Mom. I need to think things through. I won't be long. A day or two, then I'll be down."

  Her mother eyed her for several more seconds and then gripped Sidney in a massive hug, her small frame shaking. When she got in the car, her round face was smeared with tears.

  Sidney watched the car pull out of the driveway. She stared at the backseat where her daughter clutched her beloved stuffed bear, a thumb stuck firmly in her small mouth. In a few moments the car turned the corner and they were gone.

  With the slow, unsteady motions of an elderly woman, Sidney walked back to her house. A thought suddenly struck her. With renewed energy, she rushed toward the house.

  Inside, she dialed information for the Los Angeles area and obtained the number for Allege raPort Technology. Because of the time difference, she had to wait to call. The hours went by with agonizing slowness. As she punched in the number, she wondered why they hadn't called when Jason had not shown up. There had been no messages from them on the answering machine. That fact should have prepared her for Allege raPort's response, but she wasn't.

  After speaking with three different people at the company, she hung up the phone and stared numbly at the kitchen wall. Jason had not been offered a vice presidency with Allege raPort. In fact, they had never heard of him. Sidney abruptly sat down on the floor, drew her knees up to her chest and wept uncontrollably. All of the suspicions she had experienced earlier swarmed back; the swiftness of their return threatened to dissolve her remaining ties to reality. She pulled herself up and ducked her head into the kitchen sink. The cold water partially revived her. She stumbled over to the table, where she covered her face in her hands. Jason had lied to her. That was indisputable now. Jason was dead. That, also, was incontrovertible. And, apparently, she would never know the truth. It was with that last thought that she finally stopped crying and looked out the window into the backyard. She and Jason had planted flowers, bushes and trees over the last two years. Working together toward a common goal: They had conducted much of their married lives along that same theme. And despite all the uncertainty she was feeling right now, one truth remained sacred to her. Jason loved her and Amy.

  Whatever had compelled him to lie to her, to climb aboard a doomed plane instead of remaining safely at home doing nothing more daring than prepping the kitchen walls for painting, she would find out what it was. She knew Jason's reasons would have been completely innocent. The man she knew intimately and loved with all her heart would have been capable of nothing less. Since he had been senselessly ripped from her, she at least owed it to him to track down why he had been on that plane. As soon as she was mentally able, she would take up that pursuit with every bit of energy she could muster.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The airplane hangar at the regional airport was small. On the walls were rows of power tools; stacks of boxes lay all over the floor.

  The darkness outside was turned into daylight inside by a ceiling full of overhead lights. Wind rattled against the metal walls as the sleet intensified, clanging like buckshot against the structure. The interior of the hangar was filled with the thick, pungent smell of an assortment of petroleum products.

  On the concrete floor near the front of the hangar lay an enormous metal object. Bent and grossly distorted, it was the remains of the right wing of Flight 3223, with starboard engine and pylon intact. It had landed in the middle of a densely wooded area, directly on top of a ninety-foot-tall, hundred-year-old oak, which was split in half by the impact. Miraculously, the jet fuel had not ignited.

  Most of the payload had probably been lost when the tank and lines had been pierced, and the tree had cushioned some of the fall. The pieces had been removed by helicopter and brought to the hangar for examination.

  A small group of men gathered closely around the wreckage.

  Their exhalations formed clouds in the unheated air; thick jackets kept them warm. They used powerful flashlights to probe the jagged edge of the wing where it had been torn loose from the in-fated airliner. The nacelle housing the starboard engine was partially crushed and the right-side cowling was caved in. The flaps on the trailing edge of the wing had been ripped off on impact, but these had been recovered nearby. Examination of the engine had shown severe blade shingling, clear evidence of a major airflow disturbance while the engine was delivering power. The "disturbance" was easy to pinpoint. A great deal of debris had been ingested into the engine, essentially destroying its functionality even had it remained attached to the fuselage.

  However, the attention of the men gathered around the wing was centered on where it had detached from the plane. The jagged edges of the metal were burned and blackened and, most telling, the metal was bent outward, away from the surface of the wing, with clear signs of indentation and pitting on the metal's surface. There was a short list of events that could have caused that; a bomb was clearly on that list. When Lee Sawyer had examined the wing earlier, his eyes had riveted on that area.

  George Kaplan shook his head in disgust. "You're right, Lee. The changes in the metallurgy I'm seeing could only have been caused by a shock wave exerting immense but short-lived overpressure.

  Something exploded here, all right. It's the damnedest thing. We put detectors in airports so some crazy assholes with an agenda can't smuggle a gun or bomb on board, and now this. Jesus!"

  Lee Sawyer moved forward and knelt down next to the edge of the wing. Here he was, nearly fifty years old, half of those years spent with the bureau, and again he was sifting through the catastrophic results of human pollution.

  He had worked on the Lockerbie disaster, an investigation of mammoth proportion that had brought together a damned near airtight case culled from what bordered on microscopic evidence unearthed from the shattered remains of Pan Am Flight 103. With plane bombings there were usually never any "big" clues. At least Special Agent Sawyer had thought so up until now.

  His observant eyes swept over the wreckage before they came to rest on the NTSB man. "What's your best list of possible scenarios right now, George?"

  Kaplan rubbed his chin, scratching absently at the stubble.

  "We'll know a lot more when we recover the black boxes, but we do have a clear result: The wing came off a jetliner. However, those things don't just happen. We're not exactly sure when it happened, but radar indicates that a large part of the plane--now we know it was the wing--came off in-flight. When that occurred, of course, there was no possibility of recovery. The first thought is some type of catastrophic structural failure based on a faulty design. But the L500 is a state-of-the-art model from a top manufacturer, so the chances of that kind of structural failure are so remote that I wouldn't w
aste much time on that angle. So maybe you think it's metal fatigue.

  But this plane barely had two thousand cycles--takeoffs and landings--it's practically brand-new. Besides that, the metal fatigue accidents we've seen in the past all involved the fuselage because the constant contraction-expansion of cabin pressurization and depressurization seems to contribute to the problem. Aircraft wings are not pressurized. So you rule out metal fatigue. Next, you look at the environment. Lightning strike? Planes get hit by lightning more often than people think. However, planes are equipped to deal with that and because lightning needs to be grounded to do real damage, a plane up in the sky may suffer, at worst, some burning of the skin.

  Besides, there were no reports of lightning in the area on the morning of the crash. Birds? Show me a bird that flies at thirty-five thousand feet and is large enough to take off an L500's wing and then maybe we'll discuss it. It sure as hell didn't collide with another plane. It sure as hell didn't."

  Kaplan's voice was rising with each word. He paused to catch his breath and to look once more at the metal remains.

  "So where does that leave us, George?" Sawyer calmly asked.

  Kaplan looked back up. He sighed. "Next we look at possible mechanical or nondesign structural failure. Catastrophic results on an aircraft usually stem from two or more failures happening almost simultaneously.

  I listened to the transmission record between the pilot and the tower. The captain radioed in a Mayday several minutes before the crash, although it was clear from what little she said that they were unsure what had happened. The plane's transponder was still kicking the radar signals back until impact, so at least some of the electrical systems were working up until then. But let's say we had an engine catch on fire at the same time a fuel leak occurred.

  Most people might assume fuel leak, flames from the engine--wham, you got yourself an explosion and there goes the wing. Or there might not have been an actual explosion, although it sure as hell looks like there was. The fire could've weakened and finally collapsed the spar and the wing gets torn off. That could explain what we think happened to Flight 3223, at least at this early stage." Kaplan did not sound convinced.

  "But?" Sawyer looked at him.

  Kaplan rubbed at his eyes, the frustration clear in his troubled features. "There's no evidence that anything was wrong with the damned engine. Except for the obvious damage caused from its impact with the terrain and ingesting debris from the initial explosion, nothing leads me to believe that an engine problem played a role in the crash. If there was an engine fire, standard procedure would dictate cutting off the fuel flow to that engine and then turning off the power. The L500's engines are equipped with automatic fire detection and extinguisher systems. And, more