Destiny

FIFTY-SEVEN

A credit card receipt with an address was all that Alicia needed to follow electronic tracks made by Greg Owen. Most of his purchases were within ten miles of greater Boston. She pulled up a satellite map and zoomed down onto his townhouse in Bay Village. She used the street view camera and found a 2014 black Hyundai Sonata with a license plate registered in his name.

Alicia located his private cell phone number in a secure database and uploaded his phone’s GPS tracking grid onto her phone. She looked at the screen on her phone and could tell that if Greg Owen had his cell phone with him, he was at home.

She pulled up the roundtrip flights from Washington, D.C., to Boston, locked her apartment and drove to Reagan International Airport. She parked in the short-term lot and paid cash for a roundtrip flight to Boston. At 8:30 a.m., she boarded United’s flight number 860. At 9:59, the plane landed at Logan International Airport. Within minutes, Alicia rented a car and followed its GPS to 12 Church Street in Bay Village, Mike & Patty’s Sandwich Shop.

Alicia found the black Sonata parked on the street. She entered the deli filled with the scent of espresso coffee, bacon and eggs. Less than ten people were in the shop. She walked up to a man sitting alone in the rear of the restaurant. He had close-cropped blond hair, thick arms and shoulders. He studied his tablet screen and looked up at Alicia. “Do I know you?”

Alicia smiled. “Greg Owen?”

“Who wants to know?”

“My name’s Alicia Quincy. May I sit here?”

Owen glanced around the shop. There were more than a dozen tables. Diners occupied only about half of them. He shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

“Can I buy you breakfast.”

“I just finished eating. I don’t want to come off rude, but what do you want?”

Alicia lowered her voice. “May I call you Greg?”

“Sure.”

“Greg, I spoke with a friend of mine. His name is Mark Rockford, and he used to work as a bartender at Foleys. He said you were his last customer one night a couple of years ago, and you told him an interesting story about John Kennedy Junior’s plane accident.”

Owen stared hard at her. He looked around the deli and lowered his voice. “Who the hell are you, and how’d you find me?”

“Look, I’m a friend. Please, you can trust me. I’m not wearing a wire. I’m simply acquiring information. After I walk out that door, you never existed. I can promise you that.”

“What’s this about? Who do you work for?”

“NSA.”

“Why are they interested after all this time?”

“Because, until I heard about some of what you saw — what you told my friend, Mark, we had no idea that the crash of Kennedy’s plane was anything but an accident.”

Owen watched traffic outside for a moment. “What’d you say your name was?”

“Alicia.”

“Alicia, that sounds like bullshit to me. I reported what I saw. But my superiors informed me that I didn’t see part of the plane’s tail blown up. Travis and I were debriefed on what we saw. We were told that we were mistaken and all of the data was classified.”

“Who’s Travis?”

“A buddy of mine from the Navy.”

“Where’s he today?”

“Dead.”

“May I ask how he died?”

“A .22 bullet through his brain. They said he committed suicide. But anyone who knew Travis would know he didn’t have a suicidal bone in his body. I remember one time we were in Iraq and the talk came around to some of the guys in the service, those who were pulling three and four tours of duty, those who’d lost wives and families to divorce, a few were eating their own bullets. Travis said we didn’t have permission, the right, to commit suicide any more than we have to commit murder.”

“Do you think Kennedy, his wife and sister-in-law, were murdered in that plane?”

“That was the smoking gun. The impact of the ocean probably killed them.”

“Did you see signs of a bomb inside the fuselage?”

“I was in 110 feet of water. It was the hole in the tail that I saw — about the size of a basketball. I did a little outside research right after Travis was killed. I spoke with a mercenary soldier I know, an expert on explosives, and he said that a charge can be exploded in a small plane with a spark generated by a barometric switch that’s triggered by the altitude of the plane. This means that the killer could have picked the altitude for the explosion of Kennedy’s plane. Makes it look like an accident, but it works better over land cause the damage from the crash usually wipes out most everything. Not so much in water.”

“Did you find the bodies?”

Owen deeply inhaled, licked his lower lip and stared out the window. “Yeah. Damn shame.” His eyes met Alicia. “I’d heard the plane had a black box, which is rare for a plane that size. The NTSB said its battery had been removed. Travis said one of the Navy investigators told him the plane’s Emergency Locater Transmitter was shut off and so was the fuel valve, two things that don’t happen by accident.”

“Anything else that you can remember?”

“This whole thing had a bad smell to it. There was a witness to the plane’s explosion, a guy fishing off the beach that night. Try to find him. Gone. Kennedy made a radio call to the flight tower on Martha’s Vineyard on his approach. Try to find that record or the air traffic controller he spoke to. You can’t. So now, all these years later, is the government really going to reopen the investigation, a real investigation? What prompted it?”

“A change in events. Do you have a photograph of the plane wreck?”

Owen smiled. “I must have been pretty drunk that night in the bar. Don’t remember even telling the bartender that. Yes, it was 1999, so I used an underwater film camera. I made one print.”

“May I have it or the negative?”

Owen pursed his lips for a second. “This one will be for Travis. Sure, I have it in a safe deposit box. Today, I’m selling my dive shop. I’ve been battling cancer. I’m told it’s in remission. Where do you live? I can meet you tomorrow.”

“I live in Washington.”

“I guess that makes sense. I have to be in DC this Friday. Maybe we could meet for lunch or dinner, and I’ll bring the picture.”

Alicia smiled. “Lunch sounds good. Meet me at Tabard Inn Restaurant on N Street in DC. Noon.”

“Maybe I should have asked for your ID, but those can be faked. I don’t think the sincerity in your face can be, at least I hope not. Maybe now, after all this time, something will finally happen. The victims deserve it. Too bad Travis won’t be around to see it.”