High Flight

by David Hagberg

  Fact is, he didn’t think he minded awfully much being a killer. It didn’t bother him as he thought it should. It even fit quite well. He felt a sense of power, of brute strength over all the sonsabitches who’d ever done a double take in his direction. Hey, geek, what’ cha think you’re doing?

  Zerkel grinned.

  Reid hated the Japanese because his kind needed to hate something, but his love of making money was even stronger. He wanted to bring Guerin airplanes crashing to the ground and blame the Japanese government for doing it. The company would slide toward bankruptcy, but Washington would block the Japanese from buying stock, so it would be up to Americans such as Edward R. Reid to help bail the company out. There would be hundreds of millions of dollars in profits.

  Zerkel didn’t mind. The question was how it could be done, and he had already begun thinking about it. One problem would be making sure that the blame ended up squarely in the laps of the Japs. InterTech was the key. The company was owned and directed by Tokyo. If InterTech could be blamed, the guilt would transmit directly to Japan.

  Another problem was bringing down the airplanes. There was going to be a big investigation into this morning’s accident. If another Guerin airplane went down soon, the entire fleet might be grounded. Two accidents might be suspicious, but they’d still be classified as accidents. If a lot of Guerin airplanes went down all at once, or all on the same day, no one would believe the crashes were coincidental. There would be tens of millions of dollars in property damage and hundreds if not thousands of lives lost. The act of terrorism would be monstrous, beyond belief. If the blame could be placed on the Japanese, it would be the end for them. The consequences would be even worse than losing the war.

  There were at least two other wrinkles Zerkel could see. The first was his absence from InterTech. Someone bright out there could very well be putting together this morning’s crash with his disappearance. The next time he went back into the company’s computers he was going to have to be extra careful of traps.

  He had to smile thinking about it. A lot of sharp people worked for InterTech, but he was smarter than all of them. Thinking about the second wrinkle, however, wiped the smile off his face.

  Bruno Mueller meant to kill him as soon as he’d outlived his usefulness. It was up to Zerkel to make sure that didn’t happen.

  Kennedy and his staff used a conference room across the broad corridor from the Rossiya’s three-thousand-seat concert hall. Phone lines and fax machines had been set up for them within the hour, but the news about the crash still hadn’t sunk in. Soderstrom and the others were dead. The ones who’d been left behind felt isolated, cut off from the rest of the world. And they felt lucky and guilty because of it. Yet they had work to do, and they got to it.

  Vasilanti and Bradenton were on a company jet en-route to Washington, D.C., when Kennedy finally made contact with them. “We got the news about an hour ago.”

  “Something’s goddamned fishy, David,” Vasilanti shouted. “It was the same engine as ’90. Has George seen the specs?”

  Kennedy glanced at Socrates standing at one of the fax machines. “I think they’re coming in now,” he told the old man. “What happened, Al? We haven’t been able to get through to the NTSB, so we’re still in the dark.”

  “The port engine disintegrated on the approach to landing. It’s going to be just like the American Airlines crash. We’ll find that the engine swallowed a blade and fell apart. A severe overheat.”

  “We’ll take another look at the sensing system.”

  “You’re damned right we will, but that won’t turn out to be the problem. It’s in the engine. I can feel it in my gut.”

  “Are you talking about the ceramics?” Kennedy asked. The Rolls-Royce engine used a carbon-ceramic composition for some of its turbine blades. They were lighter than steel and supposedly withstood much higher G forces and temperatures. After the crash in ’90, Rolls reverted to titanium blades, but two years ago it switched to an improved ceramic composition. All of Guerin’s P422s and P522s had been retrofitted.

  “That’s right. O’Toole is on the Concorde from London. I want you and George here. Will the Russians fly you, or should I send one of ours?”

  “Al, were there any survivors?”

  “No,” Vasilanti said, heavily. He sounded like an old man suddenly.

  “Then for now I think you should leave the crash investigation to the NTSB and to our engineers. George is setting up a go-team. There’s nothing we can do for Jeff and the others.”

  “Except make goddamned sure it doesn’t happen again,” the CEO retorted.

  “Our technical guys will do that. Right now you need to get Maggie Drewd and Tony Glick out to Washington.” Margaret Drewd was Guerin’s assistant chief financial officer, and Anthony Glick had been Howard Siegel’s number two.

  “They’re on the plane with me. What have you got in mind, David?”

  “I was sending Jeff and the others to Washington to talk to State about loan guarantees for our deal. Maggie and Tony can take over their respective departmental loads for now. But you’re going to have to stand in for Dominick.”

  “You’re staying there?”

  “Until we can get a reading from State. Once that’s in place, the deal will be set and I can come home.”

  Vasilanti took a moment to reply. When he did, his tone was guarded. “What are the Russians saying?”

  “They sympathize, but Aviation Minister Viktor Matushin says our deal will not be affected. They want this just as badly as we do. They’ve even offered us a former tank factory and administration building at Domodedovo Airport. There’s a rail spur already in place out to one of the taxiways where we can load and unload. It looks good.”

  Again Vasilanti hesitated. “I’ll have to talk to Jeff’s wife, and the others.”

  “Sorry, Al. I know it’s something that I should be doing, but we’re at a crucial point here. McGarvey has been very busy.”

  “I understand,” the old man said. “This is a bad time for us.”

  “It is. But if we can get past this one, I think we’ll be okay.”

  “Until the next time,” Vasilanti said, the heaviness back in his voice. It was as if he personally was responsible for Guerin airplanes staying airborne and safe. It gave Kennedy an odd feeling trying to comfort the CEO. It’d always been the other way around.

  “We can only take them one at a time, Al.”

  “Yeah,” Vasilanti said. “But God help us all if this was sabotage and the Japanese were behind it.”

  “Al?”

  “Yes?”

  “It won’t happen again.”

  “I hope not, David,” Vasilanti said, a distant quality in his voice.

  McGarvey came over when Kennedy hung up the telephone. His face was red from the cold.

  “I just heard from one of Lyalin’s people. What happened?”

  “Same as ’90,” Kennedy said. “The port engine flew apart.”

  “Survivors?”

  Kennedy shook his head.

  McGarvey looked away for a moment. Everyone was busy, no one paid them any attention, and for the moment there were no Russians in the room. “Mintori Assurance Corporation,” he said, turning back. “They’re the ones after us.”

  “What else?” Kennedy asked.

  “That’s all, but the timing gets you, doesn’t it?” McGarvey replied. “You guys show the world your new design, and one of your airplanes falls out of the sky.”

  “You don’t think it was an accident?”

  “No, I don’t, David. And neither do you.”

  McGarvey took a shower and changed his clothes before he left the hotel again, this time by the front door. He picked up a tail immediately, two men in an old Mosk-vich station wagon who followed his cab over to the Arbat Restaurant on Kalinin Prospekt. Yemlin said it was one of the few places in the city that had anything decent to serve.

  The former Washington rezident was waiting at a table overlooking the
dance floor. “I didn’t know if you’d show up after what happened in Washington. From what I understand there were no survivors.”

  “That’s right.” McGarvey sat across from him. “I hope to Christ I never find out that the FIS heard rumors and didn’t pass them along.”

  “We heard nothing, I swear it. But we’ve queried Tokyo Station.”

  None of McGarvey’s old friends had much bitterness about the old days. They were too busy trying to survive in Russia’s new free-market economy. But McGarvey was still having trouble believing and trusting Yemlin or anyone else from the old KGB. Still, this was his idea, and they didn’t have much choice. Especially not now.

  “Do you have a name for us?” he asked.

  “We know who heads the Mintori Assurance Corporation, but that’s not to say he’s personally involved in any sabotage attempts. He’s a very old man. He may be nothing more than a titular leader.”

  “The Japanese don’t run their corporations like that, and you know it.”

  “His name is Sokichi Kamiya,” Yemlin said. He took an envelope out of his coat pocket and handed it across the table. “He’s eighty-one years old, and by various accounts, he’s the eighth or ninth richest man in Japan.”

  “Is there a zaibatsu?”

  Yemlin nodded. “Kamiya is in the middle of it. Electronics, exotic materials, some petrochemicals, mostly R&D for industry. There’s apparently some linkage between Mintori and a banking zaibatsu at Kobe. Tokyo Station is still working on that.”

  “Any possibility of getting inside Mintori? Bugging its boardroom?”

  “I think you’re expecting too much too soon, Kirk,” Yemlin objected.

  McGarvey sat forward. “There were no survivors of that crash, and I expect there’ll be more disasters to come.”

  “This sort of thing takes time.”

  “We don’t have time,” McGarvey said harshly. “If need be we’ll put this on the table with Minister Matushin as a condition of the deal. And you people can handle the Japanese if it gets out.”

  “I’ll see what can be done,” Yemlin replied tiredly. “We can’t work miracles. You can’t believe how difficult it has become for us.”

  “After seventy years of communism it’s not surprising, Viktor Pavlovich. But pardon me if I have no fucking sympathy for you. Just get the job done for us, and skip the excuses.”

  “Ohay Go-zai-ma-su, Kamiya-san,” Arimoto Yamagata said. He spoke on a secure phone in the Japanese consulate in San Francisco. It was a little past noon on the West Coast, which made it two in the morning in Tokyo. A very bad time for the call. But Yamagata was confused.

  “Are you calling because of the crash?” the old man asked sharply.

  “Yes, Kamiya-dono. Has it begun? Have you given the order?”

  “No, of course not. It must have been a coincidence, or a technical flaw. We sent you to America to prevent such a necessity. What have you accomplished? What information are you offering me this morning?”

  “I am ashamed to admit that I have very little to report. But, Kamiya-san, mightn’t we use this incident to our advantage?”

  “Of course we will. But first we must know how and why it has happened. If someone else is behind it. If someone has discovered what steps were taken seven years ago, we must know this. It may be the Russians. They have begun to spy on us through one of their crude networks here.”

  “For what reason, Kamiya-san?” The world as he understood it, as everyone had understood it, had changed in the past five or six years.

  “I don’t know yet, but Guerin may be behind it somehow. A number of its top executives have been meeting with the Russian Minister of Aviation in Moscow. There were some of them aboard that airplane.”

  “Iie, it was no coincidental crash in that case. But if the cause had been anything other than it was …”

  “It gives one pause for thought, Yamagata-san. Now you know what must be done.”

  “Hai, Kamiya-dono. I will not fail you.”

  “No, you will not fail me.”

  Russians loved to have formal dinner gatherings at midnight—a custom, Kennedy thought, getting to his feet, his people were going to have to get used to.

  Their last meeting at the Council of Ministers building in the Kremlin had been subdued because of the tragedy in Washington. Yet they’d all felt a sense of optimism because the State Department had given its approval in principle to hammer out a loan guarantee package that would work for everybody. The only proviso State had placed on the deal was that the Russians would have to work out their differences with the Japanese first. It was a provision that Kennedy had not brought up with Minister Matushin. Nor did he have any intention of doing so.

  “This will remain a business deal and nothing more,” he told Vasilanti. They both sidestepped the work the Russian Secret Service was doing for them for the moment.

  “I would like to propose a toast,” Kennedy said, raising his wine glass. Minister Matushin and the others around the table raised their glasses. This deal was going to be good for all of them, despite Soderstrom’s concerns to the contrary. Kennedy could feel it.

  “To our joint venture of developing and producing what will prove to be the most advanced airliner the world has ever seen. An airplane that will take us out of the twentieth century and well into the twenty-first. An airplane that will not only transport the general public in safety and comfort to the far corners of the earth with flight times of minutes rather than hours or days, but to the edge of space. An airplane that will become an important link in building the chain of trust and friendship between our two countries. Minister Matushin, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate us all.”

  Everyone drained their glasses. The Russians banged theirs on the table and the waiters moved in to refill them. Minister Matushin got to his feet and raised his glass of vodka. They’d been drinking for nearly two hours, and his face was flushed, his forehead sweaty.

  “I will toast to the success of our cooperation, but I will also drink to your brave executives and airplane crew who gave their lives. I make the suggestion that the Guerin-Moscow Wing Panel Development and Assembly Facility be named the Soderstrom-Grant-Siegel Assembly Facility Number One,”

  For a long second or two no one said a word, or made a move. The Russians watched the Americans to see their reactions, and Kennedy and his staff were caught off guard.

  But then Kennedy smiled wanly and raised his glass. “It is a wonderful suggestion, Minister Matushin. One which touches us all, and one which I wholeheartedly support.”

  He drank his wine, put his glass down, and turned and walked out of the hall. Time now to go home, he thought, to begin picking up the pieces.

  From his modest home near the Maritime Self Defense Force Academy overlooking the city of Yokosuka and the lower reaches of Tokyo Bay, Lieutenant Commander Kiyoda could see the Samisho at her berth. A barrier had been placed on the quay, lights had been strung up, and guards had been posted.

  Within hours after the Samisho had docked she had been fully provisioned, and Kiyoda had been allowed to take a taxi to his home. That was forty-eight hours ago. Since then no one had been allowed in or out, nor were communications with the crew allowed.

  Minori had been correct when he predicted there would be no parade for them this time. No one from the Admiralty had come to greet them or to accept their patrol report, nor had they received any communication whatsoever. It was, in Kiyoda’s mind, ominous.

  It was early morning, and low dark clouds continued to move in from the northwest, threatening more rain. Whitecaps marched along the broad expanse of the bay. Kiyoda shivered.

  His two children were away at boarding school in Kobe, which left with him only his wife Moriko, their cook, and their gardener. Sitting on a tatami in front of the floor-to-ceiling window in his private sitting room, Kiyoda listened for their sounds as he stared down at the town and the harbor, but he could hear nothing. They were up and about, but they were being discreet fo
r his sake.

  The sinking of the Russian frigate had been in all the newspapers and on all the television channels. Half the country was calling him a warmonger and villain, while the other half was calling him a hero, the hope for Nippon. It placed the MSDF, and in fact the entire government, in a difficult position, because no matter what action was taken half the country would find fault with it.

  Yesterday, Yabe Takagi, his sensei from the Mishima Institute, had come to the house. They had spoken briefly about honor and about self-control, which were so necessary to a Japanese bu-shi.

  “Dishonor is like a scar on a tree, Kiyoda-san,” his instructor told him. “Time will not erase this scar but only enlarge it. Understand that patience and forgiveness are a part of honor.”

  “I understand,” Kiyoda whispered.

  “To bear what you think you cannot bear, Kiyoda-san, is really to bear.”

  Kiyoda heard the car coming up the road from the city, and he sat up straighter.

  The car pulled up in front and stopped. He heard two car doors open and close, and they were at the entry. Two of them. It was to be expected.

  His wife Moriko came to the rice-paper door. “I am sorry for disturbing your peace, my husband, but two officers have come from the admiral. They wish to speak with you.”

  “They are honored guests in our home, Moriko-san. Please offer them tea, and bring them to me,” Kiyoda said.

  “As you wish, my husband,” his wife said softly, and she left.

  Kiyoda remained seated for five full minutes before he got to his feet and faced the open door. He wore his winter dress blues as did the two officers in the doorway. Both of them were full commanders, he was pleased to note.

  “Lieutenant Commander Seiji Kiyoda, you are under arrest,” the tall, fair-skinned officer said. “On orders from the Admiralty, you are requested, sir, to come with us.”

  “What are the charges, sir?” Kiyoda asked.

  “Treason,” the same officer said.