Blackout

CHAPTER 31

The sleek new Global Express settled effortlessly onto Honolulu International’s Runway 8 Left and slowed as Pollis taxied clear of the runway to a ramp crowded with other corporate jets. Ramp attendants guided them close to where three official-looking black sedans and five dark-suited men were waiting.

Kat waited for Pollis to finish the shutdown check before pulling out another pair of flex cuffs and resecuring him. “If you’re telling me the truth, Pollis, your cooperation will go a long way to vindicating you. If you’ve misled me, God have mercy on you. No one else will.”

“It was the truth, Ma’am. I hope you catch them.”

She got out of the seat to open the door to a balmy wave of Hawaiian breeze and the fragrance of bougainvillea. One of the men was waiting at the bottom of the steps with his credential case open, the light splayed on his face through the moving branches of a palm tree.

“Agent Bronsky? I’m Agent Rick Hawkins, Honolulu office. These are Agents Walz, Moncrief, and Williams.”

She shook Hawkins’s hand as she studied his face. In his late thirties, she figured. A strikingly handsome black man with a smile that reminded her of a dear friend in college. Rick Hawkins was just under six feet with a muscular physique and a cultured voice and she smiled at him in spite of herself. He motioned in the direction of the cabin.

“I understand you have a prisoner for us?” he asked.

Kat sighed and brushed back her hair with her right hand, while her left hand stayed within her handbag to quietly slide the safety in place on the 9mm pistol.

“Yes. Identifies himself as one Bill Pollis. We need to hold him on suspicion of grand theft for being in possession of a stolen aircraft of U.S. registry transported across state and international boundaries, and over two hundred counts of first-degree aggravated murder, and if that’s not enough, I’ll come up with some more.”

Hawkins smiled and grunted agreement. “I doubt hell be going anywhere for a long, long time.”

“You’ll find the scum flex-cuffed in the cockpit,” she said. “But first, let’s get our Meridian pilot to the doctor.”

“He’s waiting inside,” Agent Hawkins told her.

As soon as Dan Wade had come down the stairs to be escorted to the private jet terminal’s comfortable lounge, two of the other agents scrambled up to retrieve Pollis. Rick Hawkins stepped closer to Kat and lowered his voice. “And I’m told there’s a very important item that needs to go express back to the mainland, correct?”

Kat nodded. “In the back. In a metal case. Top security, top secret, top everything. Lose this, don’t bother coming back. That level of security.”

“Understood,” he said.

The agents marched Pollis down the stairs. He tried to catch Kat’s eye, but she ignored him and turned as Graham, Dallas, Robert, and Steve emerged.

“Wait for me in the terminal over there, okay?” Kat said.

Robert hesitated while the others nodded, but Kat flashed him a no-nonsense look accompanied by a toss of her head toward the door.

Hawkins adjusted his aviator glasses and smiled broadly, obviously in love with the image he cut. He turned and motioned another agent into the cabin to retrieve the weapon case, then inclined his head toward the main commercial airport building visible in the distance across the runway. “We’ve got an office in the terminal cleared out, a safe area where you can wait to board your flight. We have it worked out so you won’t be seen when you board. The flight leaves in about four hours. We have your tickets, and full security.”

“I want a favor, Agent Hawkins.”

“Rick, please.”

“Okay, Rick. I appreciate all the arrangements, but if there’s an Air Force flight going back, I’d much rather we be on that. The people we’re dealing with are ruthless killers, and I do not want to imperil another airliner.”

“I understand. Ruthless killers, huh?” He shook his head, looking dismayed. “I do have my orders, but I’ll see what I can do.” He leaned closer and touched her arm. “Agent Bronsky, this is very important. You are not to try to call anyone while on the ground here. That order is a security item and comes directly from Assistant Deputy Director Rhoades. Complete blackout. That means your satellite phone, too.”

“I understand.”

“They hammered that one into me,” he said, smiling, then let his expression return to seriousness. “I understand these people have been through hell.”

She related the basics of the crash and the rescue under fire, but stopped short of discussing the details of her suspicions, or the device they’d found.

“We should go inside,” he said, motioning toward the lounge.

“I agree. I want to see how Dan Wade is doing.”

“Can I ask you an off-the-record question?” Hawkins asked.

“You can ask,” Kat said with a chuckle.

“Did you find any evidence that the SeaAir Cuban crash and this thing in Vietnam had the same cause? I assume you’re on that case, too.”

Kat drew a deep breath, thinking over the evidence, and momentarily stepped away from her normal caution about discussing potentially sensitive details. “Well… that’s a very good question, but I’m going to let the higher pay grades in our esteemed Bureau make that determination, if you don’t mind.”

“Okay. Sure,” he said, shrugging. He reached out to open and hold the door for her, then looked startled, like he’d been caught doing something wrong. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to be sexist.”

Kat cocked her head and smiled as she patted his shoulder. “Don’t ever apologize for being a gentleman, Rick.”

He smiled in return and followed her in.

The ophthalmologist had examined Dan in a darkened inner office. He emerged about the time Kat walked in, and sat with her to explain. “He’s got a chance for at least some vision to return. The receptors — the cones and rods on the retina — have been damaged, but they have not been eradicated. He can see light, but he needs that bandage and he simply needs time. If you’re heading back to D.C., I’d suggest Johns Hopkins, but most of this is the body repairing itself.”

“Thanks, Doctor.”

“I was sorry to hear about your captain.”

“Doctor, how could a beam of light or energy kill a man through his eyes?”

The doctor shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, unless it was so powerful it burned through the back of the eyeballs and caused a massive hemorrhage. Or the trauma of the pain could have caused a heart attack.”

“Could a laser do that? A very, very powerful one?”

He hesitated and studied her before shrugging again. “Maybe.”

“How about a particle beam?”

The doctor smiled and rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “Look, I’m not technically oriented outside of medicine. You’re way over my head with Star Wars stuff like particle beams. Lasers, though? We use them now for cosmetic purposes, to burn off skin one layer at a time, and to cauterize small blood vessels. Could a really powerful laser do extreme eye damage? Absolutely. Could it kill? I don’t know.”