Blackout

CHAPTER 4

Kat Bronsky stood under the covered drive of the hotel, breathing exhaust fumes, and looked at her watch in disgust. It was time to give up.

That’s it. I’ve been stood up.

Until MacCabe had appeared in the equation, she hadn’t planned to wear the same clothes back to L.A., nor to check out early. But now she was without a room, her luggage sitting on the drive beside her. She could carry her bags back in and go eat at one of the hotel’s restaurants, or she could take a cab by herself to the new airport, which sounded like the better idea.

When MacCabe shows up on that flight, he’s going to get an earful.

Kat caught the eye of the gaudily uniformed doorman and indicated the need for a taxi. He whistled one into the breezeway with practiced flair and opened the door, motioning the bellman to load her two bags. She had one leg in the backseat when another taxi squealed to a halt behind them. The rear door flew open to disgorge the prodigal journalist, his eyes wild as he rushed up to her.

“I… ah, I’m sorry… I’m late. Something happened.”

“Apparently,” she said, getting out of the cab and approaching him with her hands on her hips. He was out of breath, which seemed strange for a man riding in a cab. “Forty-five minutes, you said,” Kat reminded him.

“I can explain, but not here.” He was looking behind him as he turned back to her. “We really need to get the hell out of here.”

They transferred her bags to his taxi and she joined him in the backseat, barely getting the door closed before the driver shot off into traffic again.

“So, where are we going for dinner?”

“Ah… first, we’re going to an overlook of the harbor that I know,” he said.

She shook her head. “I don’t go to overlooks with strange journalists on the first date. Not even on a beautiful evening like this do I watch submarine races.”

He twisted completely around in the seat to search the traffic behind them, oblivious to her attempt at humor. “I think we’re okay,” he said quietly. “I don’t see anyone back there.”

She reached out and grabbed his arm to get his attention. “Earth to Robert MacCabe! What’s going on here? Why are you so spooked?”

He licked his lips and looked around again before sitting back in the seat and relating the events of the previous hour, finishing as they pulled into the overlook.

“Good Lord!” she managed. “What, exactly, did they want?”

“They didn’t say, but there’s nothing else I’ve been exposed to but the… information I was mentioning.”

Kat nodded. “Okay. We’re here. Now tell me the whole story.”

Robert leaned forward and winced. “Oh, jeez! They got my suitcase.”

“Anything important in it?”

He shook his head. “The computer’s all I care about.” Robert slapped several bills in the driver’s hand and asked him to turn his engine off and wait. “If someone comes up to you, you’re just enjoying the night. No passengers, okay?”

“Okay.”

Kat followed Robert MacCabe off the pathway to a grove of trees. The twinkling lights of the city formed a glowing carpet beyond, set off by a freshening breeze that carried the unmistakable aromas of a busy harbor metropolis.

“In here,” he said, motioning her behind one of the tall shrubs into a small glade brightly illuminated by the reflected glow of the city lights. “You want to sit on the grass?” he asked.

“In this suit?” She laughed, motioning to a concrete bench and inspecting it closely before sitting down. “This will do. I think it’s clean.”

He sat down beside her and put his arm on the back of the bench in order to face her. His face was drawn and serious as he waited for the noise of a newly airborne 747 to pass, its lights winking as it climbed past them at what appeared to be a sedate speed.

“Agent Bronsky, I think—”

“Wait,” she said, holding up a finger. “Call me Kat, okay? ‘Agent Bronsky’ sounds too much like my dad.”

“Oh?”

“My father was career FBI, too,” she explained. “An assistant deputy director when he died. Sorry to interrupt.”

He shrugged. “Kat, what I didn’t want to say within earshot of anyone else is this: I think evidence exists that the crash of that SeaAir MD-eleven in Cuban waters was a terrorist act.”

She nodded solemnly. “You think evidence exists? That’s a strange way to put it. What evidence?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said.

She cocked her head and raised her eyebrows. “You don’t know?”

“I need to explain that.”

Kat nodded slowly. “You certainly do. What, for instance, makes you think SeaAir was a terrorist act as opposed to a mechanical failure or a Cuban missile?”

“Because my life has been threatened within the past hour, Kat, possibly for talking to you, and definitely because of something that happened in D.C. several days ago. I think our intelligence community is scared to death over something they can’t control and are trying to suppress.”

She raised her hand. “Okay, whoa. Let’s start at the beginning. You said someone had given you information. Is that the evidence you’re talking about?”

“No. And yes. That was Walter Carnegie of the FAA, an old friend of mine. We go back twenty years to when he joined the Defense Intelligence Agency as a terrorist analyst and I was a cub reporter in the Beltway. Wally racked up fifteen years at DIA and then CIA before moving to the Federal Aviation Administration to try to give them a better, more intelligent ability to sort out terrorist threats.”

“But what did he give you?”

“Nothing,” Robert said. “It’s what he told me.”

“What did he tell you?”

“A month after the SeaAir crash near Cuba he called me one afternoon, scared silly, from a pay phone. He told me he’d stumbled into something related to the SeaAir accident that had him very, very upset and worried.”

“Did he tell you what it was?”

“No details or supporting facts, but he said he’d been asking questions about SeaAir that were apparently upsetting someone, because his life had just been threatened by a couple of goons in a Metro station. At first he thought they were Company operatives — CIA. But by the time he called me, he wasn’t sure. He told me that nothing like that had ever happened to him before.”

“But, Robert, what the heck did he have? What was he probing? How was he involved? You say he was asking questions…”

“On behalf of the FAA, in his official antiterrorist role. Wally said that when he went to our intelligence community, he found them totally spooked over SeaAir.”

“You said that.”

“Let me finish. He said they’re spooked and totally uncooperative because they think the crash is the first major act of a new, sophisticated terrorist group about whom CIA and DIA know nothing. They know nothing and don’t want to admit it.”

“What else?”

“Wally also said the airline industry is pushing the President to flat-out tell the public that SeaAir was not a terrorist act. Is FBI getting the same pressure?”

Caution led her to sidestep the question. “Go on about Carnegie.”

“Wally said he had hard evidence, and he was scared. He wouldn’t give me any more details. He wanted a deep-throat meeting, and we set a place and time. He was desperate to tell what he’d found. Time, he said, was running out.”

“Meaning what?”

“I wish I knew. I asked him if he could get me a copy and he said he had the file all locked up. He repeated that twice.”

“‘Locked up’?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Robert held up his hand to stop her from continuing.

“Well, is Wally a credible guy?”

“Completely, though he did sometimes see the shadow of conspiracies that weren’t really there.”

“So, he didn’t tell you what the evidence was, or what he had, and he didn’t give you anything directly. Did he tell you what he thought this so-called new terrorist group wants? It makes no sense to blow an airplane out of the sky if you’re not trying to accomplish something. Even hijackers have a goal.”

“I don’t know. As I say, he never showed for the rendezvous. I couldn’t reach him by phone or with messages the rest of that day or the next. I even dropped by his house. He wasn’t there. A day later I had to leave for Hong Kong on this trip.”

“Have you tried to call him from here?” Kat asked, noting the pained look on his face as he nodded.

“Kat, Walter Carnegie is dead.”

She crossed her arms and looked at him for a moment. “How?”

“Suicide, so his secretary told me.”

“And you don’t believe it.”

He was shaking his head. “The pope would be a better candidate for suicide.”

“Did he leave you anything in writing?” she asked. “Of course there’s no way to know yet. You haven’t been back.”

“That was just this morning. I’ve been trying to assemble the pieces in my mind ever since. Why would someone murder Wally unless they wanted to suppress or reclaim whatever information he had? He said the crash was terrorist-caused, and the group was new and powerful and unknown. Three days later he’s dead. That’s too coincidental for me, even before I have a chance to start asking questions.”

Kat was chewing on an index finger, recalling the afternoon conversation with Jake Rhoades. He’d used the word “spooked” to describe the administration’s attitude. But MacCabe was still a dangerous ace reporter for a major paper…

She turned to him suddenly. “On deep, deep, permanent, unbreakable, blood-oath background, okay?” she said, as she tracked another jumbo jet climbing past them with a throaty whine that even a private pilot like her could not resist watching.

He nodded, his eyebrows raised. “Of course. Absolutely deep background and unattributable. You know something?”

Kat shook her head. “Probably not, other than the fact that he was right about the administration wanting a cause other than Cuba or terrorists.”

“That much was accurate, then.”

“But we don’t even have a viable theory, let alone knowledge of a specific terrorist group who might have wanted to shoot down that MD-eleven, and we don’t know what this so-called evidence is.” She slapped at a mosquito, the only one she’d seen.

“But you are getting administration pressure not to label it terrorism?”

“I didn’t say that, Robert. Not officially. In fact, I didn’t say anything,” she said slowly. “Truth is, we’re not even having this conversation, and come to think of it, I’m not even here.”

“Okay, okay. But, Kat, none of that really helps with this mystery. My friend’s dead and I know in my heart he was murdered, especially now that I’ve been attacked. If those guys back at the hotel had pushed me into that backseat, I’d probably be dead by now, too.” He shifted around to face her more squarely. “You disagree? You think I’m paranoid?”

She shook her head. “Just because you’re paranoid, the old saying goes, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. No,” she sighed, her words coming in a quieter tone. “From what you just told me, they could easily have intended to kill you. The psychology is right. A professional doing a kidnapping who doesn’t mind showing his face is not expecting to have to deal with a witness in the future.”

Robert MacCabe swallowed hard. “Oh, Lord. I just realized that if they knew where to find me, they know what flight I’m on tonight. They could be waiting at the airport.” He turned to her. “You could be in danger, too.”

She got to her feet and began pacing back and forth in front of the bench. “This is nuts, Robert! What you’ve told me is all you have, right?”

He nodded.

“Well, other than speculation on Carnegie’s death and the attempted abduction, all we’ve got is general speculation based on his statements,” she said, turning to look at the harbor lights through the trees. “I’m sorry, but that’s not even enough to launch an investigation of whether an investigation needs to be launched.”

“I don’t understand.”

She whirled back around. “Look, we don’t know for sure that Walter Carnegie had anything but a theory in regard to the SeaAir crash. You said yourself he tended to be spring-loaded to the conspiracy position. And at least as of this moment, standing here with me in Hong Kong, you can’t even be certain he was murdered.”

“So who were those guys who ripped my room apart and tried to kill me?”

“I don’t know, and you don’t know. Do you have enemies?”

“Probably a lot, including the phone company back in Virginia. But no one’s ever come after me before.”

Kat resumed pacing, smoothing her hair against a gust of wind. “If there’s a new terrorist group, and if they found Carnegie had talked to you, and if they know Carnegie had evidence or information they didn’t want released, then they should also be sophisticated enough to know that you two never got together, which means you couldn’t have received any damning information. That, in turn, means they shouldn’t be worried about you.” She turned to look at him for a few seconds of uncomfortable silence. “You don’t have any information, do you?”

“Not a clue! No letters, no calls, no disks.”

“Then why would they chase you all the way to Hong Kong?”

“Maybe they know he sent me something, and I don’t know it yet because I never received it. One of those goons said they’d been searching for my computer. Maybe he expected to find what he was looking for on my hard drive.”

She nodded, deep in thought, her eyes on the brightly lighted cityscape. “That could mean a disk, or they suspect you downloaded something by modem.” She turned to him. “But you did save your computer, right? You got it back before they had a chance to look at it?”

“Yeah. It’s safe back there in the—” He gestured toward the parking lot.

“Taxi.” Kat finished his sentence as he came off the bench, both of them breaking into a run back to where they’d left the taxi.

The cab was still there, the lights out, the engine stopped, but they could see the driver slumped over in the left front window, barely illuminated by the street lamp.

“Oh my God!” Kat exclaimed as they approached the driver’s side, keeping an active lookout for anyone else around. She reached out and touched the cabbie’s arm, fully expecting to see blood.

Instead, the man yelped in fright as he jumped awake.

“Excuse me!” Kat said. “You were leaning over and I thought you were hurt.”

“Sorry! I only fall asleep.”

Kat stood looking at the city. She took a deep breath before turning back to the driver. “Another five minutes, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Robert, you want to bring your computer?”

He reached in and retrieved the case, then followed her a dozen yards away to the edge of the viewpoint, surprised to see her unfolding the antenna on a satellite phone. She pulled a business card from her purse and looked up at him.

“I met the security chief of the Chek Lap Kok Hong Kong Airport today,” she explained. “Let me see what I can do about your security worry.”

Several minutes of relayed calls led to the chief himself. The conversation was swift and she thanked him and disconnected.

“We’ll meet a security team several miles from the terminal and they’ll take us right to the aircraft. If anyone’s lying in wait, he won’t have a chance to spot either of us. Mr. Li was nice enough to say he’d arrange for immigration and customs clearance on board for us, and they’re beefing up security on this flight.”

Robert sighed in relief. “Wonderful. Thank you.”

“Hey. I’m aboard, too. Now, are you booked straight to D.C. out of L.A.?”

“Yes,” he said.

Kat nibbled her lower lip before speaking. “I was going to spend a day lying unconscious on Newport Beach, but now I’m going to go back with you. I’m not sure we’ve got anything, but we’ll take it to my boss, if you agree.”

“I agree,” Robert said.

The two of them fell silent for a few moments as Kat watched another jetliner climb away from the airport into the night. A rumble of thunder had accompanied their exchange for the past few minutes, and flashes of lightning both to the east and the west continued to flicker in the distance. A line of thunderstorms was obviously moving in from the west, crackling with lightning as it drifted closer. The wind was beginning to pick up as well, though the temperature was balmy.

“Kat, I’ve been shot at in Bosnia, Somalia, and Riyadh, but always because I was a reporter they didn’t want there. Any reporter would have drawn the same attention. But I’ve never been personally targeted before, and it isn’t comfortable.”

She nodded. “I can imagine.”

“So what’s your best guess?” he asked.

“You mean, who’s been chasing you and who may have killed Carnegie? Or my guess about whether terrorists brought down the SeaAir MD-eleven in the first place?”

“Both.”

She paused, chewing her lip again, sorting out the logic. “Well, someone’s apparently worried about what Carnegie may have found, and their tactics are not CIA or DIA, to say the least. That means there could be, in theory, I suppose, some dark and dirty new group out there that wants you cashiered. If so, they’ve got to be private and well-organized and probably not Middle Eastern or religious in origin. I don’t know, Robert. Carnegie could have been right about some new, very sophisticated group looking to accomplish some strange, new, unknown goal that they haven’t announced to the rest of us.”

“In my experience, that would surely terrify the Company.”

She nodded. “But a formal, embarrassed cover-up back home?” she said, shaking her head slowly. “I don’t know.” A distant flash of lightning caught her attention.

“Maybe,” Robert said, “it’s a case of ‘we can’t control it, so we’re all going to pretend it doesn’t exist.’”

“That,” Kat replied, “sounds like a conspiracy theory, Robert. As a rule, I don’t believe in such things.”

“Nor do I. Most groups, no matter how focused and intense, can’t even make a group decision on where to go for lunch. The way I look at things, Oswald was a solo act, and the only aliens here are from Guadalajara.”

“But…” she prompted.

“But, well… I can understand why the airline industry doesn’t want the SeaAir crash to be a terrorist act. If Wally was right and there’s a new mad-dog group out there with money, sophistication, and a cause, they won’t stop with SeaAir. They’ll keep on killing airliners until they have our undivided attention.”

Kat was shaking her head as she looked at him. “My God, Robert. Can you imagine the impact on the bottom line of the airline industry if the whole country could hear what you just said?”