Lauren moved through the open door, went straight to the sofa, and gently laid Abigail on the plush cushions. She turned and hugged Susan. “I’m so sorry,” Lauren whispered as Susan sobbed softly, her body shuddering as she wept. Lauren held her friend, thinking of how strong Susan had always been in the past.
“Why?” Susan said. “How could this have happened?”
Lauren fought her own tears as Susan cried. Sitting on a shelf were dozens of pictures, one of a much younger Michael, all blond hair and square jawed. Every bit the good-looking Southern California beach boy, except that he was standing in a flight suit next to a Navy jet. The impish expression on his tanned face hinted at the devilish sense of humor behind his deep-blue eyes.
Susan wiped at her tears, her brown, shoulder-length hair falling across her face. “I don’t want to wake the boys yet. I don’t know when we’re leaving. Donovan said something about a charter, but I don’t know anything else. He sounded horrible on the phone. I don’t think he’s doing much better than I am.”
“I know. That’s why Abigail and I are going with you. I can help with the boys, that way you can spend as much time with Michael as you want. Plus, I want to be there for Donovan. As upset as he is right now, it won’t take him very long to get angry.”
Lauren heard her phone ring and was relieved to see it was William calling.
“Lauren, I’m about to get off Interstate 66 in Centerville. There’s an airplane being diverted to take us to Florida. We’re leaving in an hour.”
“I’m at Susan’s. We still need to get everyone here up and packed,” Lauren said. “Have you talked to Donovan?”
“Yeah. And we need to get down there as fast as we can.”
“I understand.” Lauren felt her pulse jump at the worrisome tone in William’s voice. She ended the call and turned to Susan.
“I should wake them?” Susan asked.
“William will be here in a few minutes. There’s a jet on its way, and we’ll be airborne in an hour. What can I do to help?”
“Let me go up and talk to Patrick and Billy. When William gets here, let him in and then you can help me get the boys packed.”
Susan steadied herself for a moment, and then hurried upstairs. Lauren moved to the sofa and brushed her daughter’s reddish-brown curls away from her chubby cheeks. Abigail was a sound sleeper and might not wake up for hours.
Lauren stopped and studied a photo of Michael and Susan’s wedding, Michael in his dress whites and Susan beaming, standing next to him. Her eyes wandered to the other images, pictures of their parents and children, nieces and nephews—normal treasures displayed by families. Her own home lacked photographs, the past remaining hidden.
She envied Michael and Susan’s marriage. Childhood sweethearts, they’d married young so they didn’t have to worry about inadvertently revealing a secret that could cause immediate and severe repercussions. Susan never lay in bed at night reviewing the exact procedures she’d follow to whisk her children into hiding if the truth about her husband were revealed. Lauren craved the simplicity.
Lauren walked from the living room toward the kitchen. On the way, her eyes were drawn to a framed photograph of Michael and Donovan standing in front of the Spirit of Galileo, the very first Eco-Watch Gulfstream. They’d decided to christen all Eco-Watch airplanes after notable figures in the world of science. Nearly a decade ago, Donovan had founded Eco-Watch and one of the first people he’d hired was Michael. The two of them were like brothers, and if the worst happened, if Michael didn’t make it, Donovan would have lost yet another person close to him. Lauren couldn’t help but ask herself how many people her husband could lose and still remain intact.
CHAPTER SIX
Donovan sat in an interview room at the Boca Raton police station. A detective named Turner had driven him from the airport and explained that this was standard procedure. He’d assured him someone would be in shortly before he quietly closed the door.
He hated having to sit in this tiny room, and whatever small reserve of patience he had was dwindling fast. He was on edge, a combination of far too much adrenaline and having been up since early that morning. Images of Michael kept hammering at him, his eyes were gritty, and his clothes were still wet from the rain. The last he’d seen of Michael, he was being loaded into the ambulance. At that point, he was still alive. Soon after that, the crime lab technicians as well as Detective Turner had arrived, and Donovan had answered their questions over and over. He’d given them free reign aboard the da Vinci and explained, as did the linecrew, all of the events of the evening.
The paramedics had checked him over. Other than bumps and bruises, he was fine. At some point he was informed that his presence was required at the station to give a full statement. It was another square to fill and he went willingly. He hadn’t realized how closed off from everything he was going to feel.
The door opened and Turner held it as a woman breezed into the room. She was strikingly attractive, and tall—he guessed her at nearly five foot ten—and in good shape, long and lean like a distance runner. She had on blue slacks, a white blouse, and a blue blazer. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she wore little makeup. Her credentials hung from a lanyard around her neck, and Donovan saw she was FBI. Turner sat off to the side with his arms folded across his chest. It was obvious to Donovan that Turner was taking a backseat to the proceedings and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was now firmly in charge.
“I’m FBI Special Agent Montero,” she said. “I know you’ve had a difficult evening, but I need to ask you some questions.”
As she sat down opposite him, Donovan was surprised to find she was older than he’d originally thought. At first glance she looked to be around thirty, but on closer inspection he could see the age lines that crept out from her eyes and creased either side of her mouth. He put her at closer to mid to late thirties, though it was hard to tell through the passive expression fixed on her face.
Montero switched on a handheld tape recorder and placed it on the table. “Mr. Nash. Tell me everything that took place since you departed Virginia.”
Donovan exhaled, and then began reciting the series of events up to and including when he found Michael and the police and ambulance had arrived at the airport.
“What exactly does Eco-Watch do?” Montero asked.
“Eco-Watch is a private, nonprofit research organization.”
“And your title is?”
“Director of Operations,” Donovan said, his face bore no trace of the deception. The lie was so ingrained that it had become the truth. Nothing on paper explained his actual position. He was not simply the director of operations. He was the founder of Eco-Watch.
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“I’m the guy the board of directors hired to make the aviation section work. Eco-Watch currently operates two Gulfstream aircraft out of our world headquarters at Dulles airport. There is another division that runs our two ocean-capable research ships and a section that oversees all the land-based research teams we deploy globally. Eco-Watch’s mission is to supplement scientific research organizations that have a legitimate need for the assets we can provide.”
“I see.” Montero glanced at her notes. “Who are you working for at the moment?”
Donovan bristled at all the time being wasted on bureaucratic overlap. He’d given all of this information to the detectives at the scene. “Our current client is the federal government, specifically a joint NOAA and NASA project. We’re installing an airborne visible/infrared imaging spectrometer in the da Vinci.”
“I understand the da Vinci is in reference to the name of your airplane?”
“That’s correct. Once the spectrometer is up and running, we’ll be able to chart and then track small changes in the offshore reef structure as well as the existing shoreline contours.”
Montero held up her hand for Donovan to stop. “I don’t need to be schooled on the science, Mr. Nash. I get it. It’s a b
ig fancy camera. So this team of scientists is planning to depart West Palm Beach in the morning?”
“We were. The plan was to calibrate the camera over the next day or two and then eventually meet up with an Eco-Watch ship currently steaming toward the Turks and Caicos. The overall goal is to make a comprehensive aerial documentation of the existing shorelines and assess the health of the coral infrastructure.”
“The weather forced you to divert from West Palm Beach to Boca Raton?”
“That’s correct.”
“Once you landed, you and Mr. Ross went your separate ways?”
“No. We both surveyed the initial damage from the lightning strike. I went back inside the airplane to make some phone calls. Michael stayed outside to continue his inspection.”
“What happened then?”
“I was on the phone when I saw someone run past the airplane.”
“And this struck you as odd? Why?”
“It didn’t. I assumed it was a lineman coming to help Michael. It was then that I looked out of the window to see if they needed my help. That’s when I saw them fighting.”
“Describe fighting,” Montero said.
“They were chest to chest, locked up like boxers do sometimes.”
Montero nodded that she understood. “We know that the assailant had a gun. Why would he engage in hand-to-hand combat?”
“I have no idea, but my guess is he tried to take Michael out quietly, but met with more resistance than he expected. Michael knows how to defend himself.”
“Are you referring to his training in the military? To my knowledge, they don’t focus on hand-to-hand combat in flight school.”
“He grew up in a rough neighborhood. He has street skills.”
“How long has he worked for Eco-Watch?”
“I’ve known him and his family almost ten years. He’s one of my closest friends.”
“So you have no reason to believe that Mr. Ross was shot for any reason other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“No, none at all,” Donovan replied.
“In your earlier statement, you said you grabbed a flashlight and rushed to aid Mr. Ross.”
“That’s correct.”
“You saw Mr. Ross on the ground and claimed to have smelled the residual effects of a recently fired weapon.”
“Yes.”
“You were then struck from behind.”
“Yes.”
“You only saw Mr. Ross and one other person. Is that correct?”
“That’s correct.”
“Let’s back up for a moment. To crew a Gulfstream properly, there are at least two pilots. Throw all the regulations out the window for a moment. Could one pilot get it from point A to point B alone?”
“Sure, I suppose. He’d have to know what he was doing though.”
“I think we can assume that whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing. How long do you think you were unconscious?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Was the Gulfstream there when you went to help Mr. Ross?”
“Yes.”
“You stated earlier that after you regained consciousness you went to Mr. Ross. It was then that you saw the Gulfstream takeoff. My question to you is this: quick and dirty—how long does it take to fire up a Gulfstream, taxi out, and depart?”
“At least ten minutes, I’d say more like fifteen.”
“That answers that. Does the name Bristol Technologies mean anything to you?”
“No, should it?”
“They’re the company who had their airplane stolen.”
Montero’s phone rang and she answered it while shutting off the tape recorder. “Yeah, I’m here at Boca PD now. What have you got?” She frowned as she listened.
“You’re kidding me, right?” Montero shook her head in dismay. “Then off the top of my head I’d say, eighteen hundred to two thousand miles. If they headed south, they’ve easily got enough fuel to make it to South America.”
Donovan studied her as she continued her conversation. From what he was hearing, she was aviation savvy. He was starting to understand that this woman was smart and inquisitive and no stranger to interrogation.
“Keep me in the loop,” she said, and then ended the call. She glanced at Turner then turned her attention toward Donovan. “Okay, that was the team at the airport. We’ve managed to piece some of this together. You and Mr. Ross touched down at 10:02 p.m. The stolen Gulfstream departed at 10:28 p.m. What does that tell you?”
“I remember seeing the airplane when we arrived, it was dark inside, the covers were installed as if it had been left for the night. What that tells me is that they’d already breached the Gulfstream and our arrival probably interrupted them and forced them to wait. But they couldn’t wait too long or they’d be trapped on the ground when the weather hit. So they needed to take out Michael.”
“They needed you both out of the picture,” Montero said. “Mr. Ross was just the first, and may have been more combative than they anticipated.”
“What about security cameras?”
“Nothing, and the communication with the control tower was normal, relaxed, professional.”
“I gather they didn’t file a flight plan. Any idea where they went?”
“They told the tower they were going to reposition from Boca Raton down to Opa-Locka Airport in Miami. Airplanes do that all the time, and run down the coast, no flight plan needed. When I checked with Miami Center, they said they tracked what they assumed was a small airplane that left Boca Raton and flew out to the eastern edge of their airspace. At some point the transponder was lost or switched off, and the target turned south and flew out of radar range.”
“From your phone conversation I gathered you found the Bristol Technologies crew still in Florida?”
“They’re present and accounted for at a local hotel. They told us that they’d fueled their Gulfstream when they landed due to an early-morning departure later in the week. The paramedics reported that Mr. Ross had some mild bruising on the knuckles of his right hand. The marks were consistent with someone who’d been in a fistfight. Can you tell me if Mr. Ross had those marks earlier in the evening?”
“No.”
“It would seem Mr. Ross managed to get in at least one punch before he went down. He no doubt got a good look at his assailant.”
“I overheard the police at the airport say that it was probably drug smugglers. If you would have asked me before tonight what kind of airplanes drug smugglers were interested in, my answer wouldn’t be fifty-million-dollar business jets.”
“There’s been an alarming new trend among drug cartels, and we’re starting to see this switch in methodology. A Gulfstream crashed in Mexico; it was loaded with almost four tons of cocaine. Two other Gulfstream jets have been seized prior to flights to West Africa from Venezuela, and we’ve seen evidence of traffickers using forty-year-old former airliners to fly drugs.”
“They used to do that back in the seventies. I remember the stories of farmers in Kansas finding empty, deserted transport airplanes out on remote roads, the shipments long gone.”
“Today a DC-8 can be bought for less than three hundred thousand dollars, loaded with tens of millions of dollars worth of cocaine, flown thousands of miles, and discarded in the same manner. Outside of the developed nations, radar is virtually nonexistent and these aircraft can easily move unnoticed. We’ve also noticed a disturbing trend in the pilots we’ve apprehended for drug smuggling in the last year or so. They’re older, better trained, and have a far higher level of experience than we’ve seen in the past. A trend that will probably get worse before it gets better. With the sorry condition of the airlines, more and more pilots have been put out of work, or lost pensions. A small percentage of them will use their skills to make a fast buck. Smuggling pays very well. Depending on the trip, pilots could easily make a half million dollars cash.”
“How do you know so much about airplanes?” Donovan asked.
“Since nine eleven, the FBI takes a great interest in stolen aircraft.” Montero brushed a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. “This isn’t my first dance, Mr. Nash.”
“So, what do you think happened tonight?”
“In the past, jets were involved in a different caliber of theft than typical drug traffic. As you know, not just any weekend pilot can jump in and fly a jet, so right off the bat we can eliminate almost ninety percent of the licensed pilots in the country. The most recent jet thefts in this country have involved alcohol, disgruntled pilots, and even a few who take off with the company jet to avoid being arrested for other crimes. They change the registration number and then attempt to sell the plane in South America, Central America, or some other offshore location. We usually locate the airplane later when the new owner takes it someplace for maintenance. But this particular theft does raise some eyebrows.”
“In what way?”
“It was premeditated. Whoever took the plane was watching the airport. They waited for the perfect set of conditions. It was dark; Boca Raton has no commercial air traffic, so the security is nothing more than a chain-link fence with a little barbed wire along the top. The chaos of the weather made it easy.”
“They took an airplane that had been fueled. They’d been watching who fueled and who didn’t. Or they had access to that information. Could it have been an inside job, someone who works at Boca Raton Aviation?” Donovan asked as he began to consider the details.
“We’re looking at that already,” Montero said. “My guess is in a week or so this airplane will be found at a remote airfield in Mexico or the Bahamas—or we’ll get a call from a legitimate repair shop somewhere in South America where someone has matched up some serial numbers to a stolen aircraft watch list.”
“So this sounds like drug traffickers to you?”
Montero’s phone rang again. She glanced briefly at the incoming number and answered. She had a brief exchange with someone and moments later hung up. “Detective Turner, someone from my office is faxing over some information. Could you go find it and bring it to me, please?”
Zero Separation Page 4
