Flight Risk

by Cara C. Putman

  “I don’t think so, but I can check.” She made a mental note to call the police to get an idea of when Dustin’s body would be released. “We could have a memorial service though. Maybe as early as Monday.”

  “Do you think anyone will come?” The words were so quiet, Savannah almost missed them.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “People will believe he was evil based on what the newspaper said about him and how he died. What if he killed himself because of the article?”

  “That’s a hard what-if.” Savannah considered how to answer the question in a way that honored the asking and yet helped Addy feel safe. “You have to understand, we may never learn exactly what happened.”

  “I need to know.”

  “Me too, kiddo.” Savannah stroked her niece’s hair and then began weaving it into a long braid that would hang down her back, sweet blonde strands curling around her face. “We’ll do the best we can to find answers.”

  “Maybe they’re in his apartment.”

  “I don’t know.” How could she convince the teen that there might not be answers, at least not any that would satisfy her? “We can look as soon as the police let us in.”

  Addy wrapped her arms around her middle as if she’d become suddenly cold or ill. “I can’t go back.”

  Savannah nodded and tugged the girl closer. “You don’t have to. That’s something I can do for you.” While she was there maybe she could find whatever proof Dustin thought he had.

  They stayed huddled under blankets, quiet, and Savannah wondered if she should push or let the silence continue. Her phone dinged and she grimaced when she saw the number. Emilie. “I have to take this, Addy.”

  The girl barely nodded as she leaned her head back against the couch and watched a scene on some spaceship somewhere. Captain Marvel was running back to get her shoes. Savannah slipped upstairs and answered the call. “How’s it going?”

  “Definitely better than your day. I’m so sorry about Dustin.” Emilie’s voice was husky with genuine empathy. She knew what it was like to lose people you cared about to violence. “I hate to ask, but we need you.” She sighed. “I’m trying to understand what this Mnemosyne technology does, but they keep giving me the PhD version when I need something closer to middle school. We need to frame what we give the FBI.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short.”

  “I’m not. I just recognize my strengths. If I understood and loved science, I would have specialized in patent law.”

  “Addy’s still with me.”

  Emilie must have sensed her hesitation. “It’s your firm.” There was a smile in her voice. “I think you can bring your niece to work. She’ll be safe, and you can help me salvage the subpoena production.”

  Addy wanted to go home and sleep, so thirty minutes later Savannah dropped Addy at her apartment only to discover Stasi wasn’t home. She didn’t like leaving Addy, but the girl insisted she would be fine.

  “I’ll call if I need anything.”

  So Savannah texted Stasi that Addy was home and then drove to the office. She didn’t like the subdued air when she walked in the conference room.

  John and Rochelle looked like they hadn’t slept. John’s hair stuck out in all directions, while Rochelle had circles under her eyes that makeup couldn’t hide. Sad thing was Savannah knew she didn’t look any better. “Looks like we’re the walking wounded.”

  John startled and refocused as he looked at her. “Where have you been?”

  “Helping her niece, John. Emilie told us first thing this morning, and if you subscribed to news alerts, you would have known even earlier.”

  “Why should I when I have you, Rochelle.” He waggled his eyebrows at her in a Groucho Marx impersonation.

  The woman didn’t crack a smile. Instead she gave Savannah an apologetic frown. “Here’s where we are.”

  It only took a few minutes to unwind what had gotten tangled. Savannah found herself translating their explanations of the technology as Emilie took rapid-fire notes. While she wasn’t a scientist, she played one in a courtroom, a skill that helped her now. “Let’s look for the information that is related directly to the testing of the device.”

  “Only? Didn’t you say yesterday the FBI wanted everything?” John threw his hands in the air. “There has to be some way to protect our data. Without it—”

  “We’re done.” Rochelle sank back against the padded executive chair. “The bigger problem is how our code got on that plane. I was up all night and can’t divine the answer.”

  John crossed his arms but didn’t add anything as the silence lingered.

  “Do we have a corporate spy inside our company? That seems crazy, but it’s about all I’ve got. We talked with our team about the judge’s order. That alone was reason to ground the project. But we also had indications it wasn’t ready to test on commercial aircraft.” Rochelle rubbed the back of her neck as she watched John. Was that suspicion in her gaze?

  That was new information. “Why not?” Savannah asked.

  John shrugged but kept his gaze on the table. “We may never know. Don’t we need to finish this?”

  Savannah turned to Emilie. “Why don’t you draft the response? Emphasize our concerns regarding the security of the technology in this situation and that it must be protected from FOIA requests.”

  “I can do that.”

  “John, Rochelle, and I will continue working through the documents to determine which we can give to the FBI without negative impact.” While they did that, she’d keep probing for how the tech got on the plane. Someone knew, and if it was one of these two, she needed to find out.

  They all got to work. After thirty minutes, Savannah stepped out to text Addy.

  When Savannah reentered the conference room, Rochelle was on the phone.

  “What do you mean?” Rochelle’s face blanched. “You can’t be serious.”

  In the silence that ensued, the woman mimed writing in the air. Savannah slid a pad of paper and pen across the conference table toward Rochelle. The woman frantically filled a page with notes, then paused.

  “Can you say that again?” Her brow wrinkled as she started to write, then lifted her pen off the paper. “That doesn’t make sense.” She slid the notes toward John and he scanned them.

  He shook his head. “That’s not possible. Something is wrong with their data.”

  “Hold on a second.” Rochelle put her hand over the mouthpiece. “That was a friend who works at NTSB. He said the Coast Guard found Flight 2840’s black box earlier this morning. This is what’s coming off it.”

  John twisted his flop of hair, then stroked his goatee. “No. There’s an anomaly somewhere. We need to get to the office and analyze the actual data.”

  “He says the FBI is only one of a constellation of agencies that will want to talk to us.”

  “We’ve got nothing to hide.” His words were right, but Savannah thought she noted a hesitation. “I mean, we’re responding to the subpoena.”

  Rochelle rubbed her hands over her face in a sweeping heart motion. “But what if we missed something? We’ve spent so much time looking at it this week, but I’m just not sure.”

  Emilie pulled a stack of paper from the side. “This is what we have ready to go to the FBI. We’ve been through it carefully and are fully cooperating or explaining why we feel something can’t be shared in a way that can be captured through a FOIA request.”

  “Be careful.” Savannah gestured to the phone. “You don’t want to say anything that could be misconstrued as an admission of guilt.”

  Rochelle shuddered. “That’s scary.”

  “Scary?” Savannah frowned as she tried to read Rochelle’s notes upside down. “Let’s talk after the call.” She had to protect her clients from potentially incriminating themselves.

  Rochelle turned back to the phone. “Thanks for letting me know. I need to look into this.” Then she set the phone on the table.

  “All right. Time to expl
ain what just happened.” Savannah got her pen ready.

  Rochelle exchanged a glance with John but quickly broke eye contact. “John’s right. We need to get to the office and start running scenarios. There must be something they’ve missed.”

  Savannah held up a hand. “Wait a minute. I’m your attorney, and you need to fill me in. Right now. If the information you just received impacts what we’re ready to tell the FBI, Emilie and I need to know. Now.”

  John looked at Rochelle as if seeking her permission to continue. She tipped her chin an inch, and he sighed. “One of the engineers thought there could be a problem. He’s wrong, but he got Rochelle on his side.”

  Rochelle nodded. “He found a glitch where the program would randomly power cycle. Similar to what they think happened with the 737 MAX.”

  “Make this understandable for a layperson.”

  “If a sensor took in bad information, the code cycled up, sucking energy from other flight systems.”

  “It was just theory, never proven,” John jumped in.

  Rochelle frowned at him. “Until we could figure out the true cause of the power cycle, we agreed to delay testing. The injunction was just coincidental, but it reinforced our decision.”

  Savannah was starting to understand. “But now you think your code was on Flight 2840.”

  Rochelle nodded.

  Savannah’s stomach dropped. “Okay. So what’s the worst that could happen if it cycled while on a flight? Would it cause a crash?”

  John shook his head. “We aren’t sure . . .”

  Savannah’s phone rang, and she swiveled from the table to take it. “Addy? You okay?”

  “The police are here and want to call something called Child Protective Services.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  An Ode to Dustin Tate

  Men hide from the trueth

  because their evil will destroy them.

  They harm children knowing that

  destruction is coming. Vengeance is

  mine.

  Jett studied the tweet on his monitor. What did it mean, if it wasn’t gobbledygook? But this post had 8,628 likes and several hundred retweets. It didn’t make sense, but he’d checked the numbers a couple of times.

  He checked the handle. UndergroundVigil486. That was familiar, so he flipped back through his notes on his tablet. Yep, there it was with an earlier tweet. What was this person’s thing with the innocent and children? Was the first tweet connected to this one?

  Jett scrolled through prior posts, but there weren’t many. A few retweets of people Jett didn’t know. Then he saw a retweet of InsiderWDCStyle. Yep, another one of the tweets he’d noticed. Interesting.

  But that tweet hadn’t taken off like this one. This one was gaining traction in the aftermath of Dustin Tate’s death. He should check into them further. His leads were dwindling.

  Tweets = not much to go on.

  Agency = nada.

  Bernard Julius = zilch.

  The cacophony of background noise wasn’t providing the soundtrack he needed to keep his thoughts focused.

  What he needed was a combination square in his hand, so he could use the ruler and leveler to find the corners of the truth and gauge the importance of the tweets. In the careful placement of the ruler he might let his subconscious work on the problem.

  Someone rapped on his cube wall, and he pivoted in his chair to find Chase standing there. The young reporter held a sheaf of papers. “Hey, boss. Wanted you to know I haven’t found any nonprofits or other businesses with the name you gave me today.”

  “Hmm. Can you show me what you did?” He stood and followed the young man back to his small cube.

  Chase looked a bit like a kid who was trying to make a spontaneous presentation. Was that sweat breaking out on his forehead? “I looked everywhere you told me to.”

  “I believe you. I just want to see, so I can figure out where to look next.”

  The kid sank onto his chair and then pushed hair out of his eyes. He began clicking through websites with running commentary. “See, I checked Guidestar and each of the secretary of states’ websites. Do you have any idea how long that took?”

  “I’m guessing a couple hours.”

  The young man’s eyes widened. “Exactly. How do you do that?”

  “I had these kinds of assignments when I started out. It’s also why I decided to ask you to do it. Save my time for harder work.” Like beating his head against a wall studying the language in a tweet. Such a great use of the time.

  “What now?” Chase poised his fingers over his keyboard as if ready to launch into the next assignment.

  “Hold up. Let’s think strategically.” He thought a minute. “You’ve checked all the obvious places. What about the IRS website?”

  “What do you mean?” Chase grabbed a pad of paper and a pen.

  “We can check the tax-exempt organization database. It’s a record of all 501(c)(3)s that people can search prior to making donations. It might capture the information if the organization is using a DBA in the origination state.”

  “I’m not sure I’m clear.”

  “Just type it in.”

  Chase’s fingers flew over the keyboard and he hit enter. “Nothing.”

  “All right.” Maybe he’d gotten bad information from his caller. “We’ll keep trying, but I need time to come up with an idea.” Usually these kinds of searches would pull up the information.

  “No problem.” The kid handed a stack of papers to Jett. “Here’s the printout from each state showing nothing.” Then he picked up another stack. “While you think, Mr. Lance wanted you to have this.”

  “What is it?”

  The kid shrugged. “Flight 2840 stuff. I cross-checked who survived and didn’t based on where they were sitting.”

  “Sounds like you did the legwork. Why give it to me?”

  “You’re the established reporter.” The kid did an admirable job of keeping whine out of his voice.

  “Pull up a chair and let’s look at it together.”

  They spent the next twenty minutes reviewing what Chase had mapped out. It was good. Insightful stuff. Essentially he’d showed that those in the front third of the plane hadn’t stood a chance. Ninety percent of them had died, with the rest experiencing terrible injuries. The crash became survivable the closer to the tail of the plane one sat. With seats in row 30, it was no surprise that Logan and Dustin both survived. Logan Donnelly could have saved himself if he’d just swam away from the crash and let everyone fend for themselves. Instead, after his body was recovered, the coroner reported Logan had drowned, likely after the cold and fatigue weakened him.

  The plane had broken apart, with the tail and nose cracking under the stress. It had taken a technological marvel to raise the fuselage and keep it on the surface until it could be safely removed.

  “Let’s think about the logistics.”

  Chase nodded. “Okay.”

  “What happens in the event of an emergency?”

  The kid looked at him with big eyes and shrugged. “I don’t know. Never been on a plane that crashed.”

  “Me neither, but every time you get on a plane they tell us the protocol. Follow the lights to the emergency exits. Obey the flight attendants’ instructions.”

  “Yeah. All things I never want to have to do.”

  “But we all know the system if there’s an emergency. The plane hasn’t even gotten into the sky, and now it’s in the water. What would cause that?”

  “They found the black box today, but nobody’s talking. Yet anyway.”

  “And the plane crashed so fast, nobody’s expecting that. Bet the pilot didn’t have time to warn the passengers.” Jett made a note. “So we need to talk to someone at NTSB and figure out what they know.” He tapped his pen against his notepad. “Something happened. A plane doesn’t crash without a reason. Something failed.”

  “Or caused it.”

  Jett eyed the young man. “You thinking terrorism?
”

  “Not really, but like you said, something happened. The black box will help the investigators determine if it was engine or system failure.” He glanced at the diagram he’d made. “But I know that it didn’t just go down. The plane was only two years old.”

  “Nope. Think about the 737 MAX. Brand-new planes that failed.”

  Chase pointed to a spot on the diagram. “When you look at the video that was taken immediately after the crash, you can see a break here.” He pointed along a line close to the forwardmost doors.

  “Did any of the crew from the flight survive?”

  “No, they all perished trying to get the passengers out.”

  A minute later, Jett headed back to his desk. The kid had promise. He showed a dogged determination and willingness to learn that Jett wanted to think was like him when he was a young reporter out of grad school.

  There was something here. Something related to who made it off the plane and who didn’t. Maybe it was dumb luck, but over one hundred people made it off.

  He felt it in his gut, where his best ideas originated. He picked up his phone and dialed Brett Sanderson. “Who’s interviewing survivors?”

  “A few people are working through the list.”

  “We’re interviewing all of them, right?”

  “About twenty, I think. A few of the bigger names about town. Folks who work on Capitol Hill or other interesting context. Also talking to those in different positions around the plane. Trying to compile an overview of what happened in the minutes leading up to the crash.”

  “Makes sense.”

  Jett heard rustling as if Brett was picking up paper and pen. “What questions do you want asked?”

  “Where were they, how did they get off the plane, etcetera. Pretty standard.”

  “I think they’re asking those questions, but will confirm. Why?”

  “Call it a hunch.” He wished he could articulate what he was looking for. “Thanks.”

  He turned back and ran a finger down the sheets of paper filled with his scrawled notes. Some of the writing was so rough he could barely read what he’d written. It wasn’t there. He knew the crash couldn’t be connected to his article, but two of the subjects of his investigation had been on the plane and had died soon after. Had the unidentified team member been on the plane too? Those were questions he couldn’t answer until he learned the identity. No one had responded to his social media requests with more than “good luck.” He wasn’t sure where else to look but would come up with something.