Fly by Wire

Chapter TWENTY-FOUR

Whittemore heard it first, even before he had reached the mouth of the alley. Sound traveled well in cold air, and the hard, scraping noise was clear, undeniable. It reminded him of two smooth stones being rubbed together. Whittemore edged closer to the alley, peered around the corner and spotted Fatima. She was a hundred feet back, bent at the waist and leaning into the church wall. His view was blocked by the old lectern, but Fatima was definitely busy, her hands working on — something.

While she was distracted, Whittemore crossed the opening and set up watch from a better angle near the espresso shop. A tree of street signs — warnings to not trespass, drive through, or dump trash — gave good cover. Fatima seemed to finish whatever she was doing, and she pulled a wobbly chair from a pile of rubble and sat down.

What the hell?

Then Whittemore heard a new sound. Retching. Coughing. He couldn't see her face, but she was doubled over on the chair. Fatima Adara was puking her guts out. Jesus, he thought, this woman is a piece of work.

It went on for ten minutes. She would blow and hack, sit slumped on the chair for a time, then do it all over again. Whittemore considered his options. Fatima had definitely been busy, digging into the wall. He figured it for a dead drop, a makeshift post office box for messages either to or from Caliph. With this realization, Whittemore s spirits soared. He had just hit sevens. As soon as Fatima got her legs back, she'd come up the alley, walk to the hotel, and pass out.

Which made everything simple. When Fatima emerged, he would duck into the espresso bar, wait for her to pass, then head down the alley fast and find the dead drop. If there was a message, he'd read it, maybe take a picture with his phone. Or even call it in if he thought Caliph's arrival was imminent — Whittemore was ambitious, but he wasn't a fool. If the drop was empty, he'd catch back up with the lumbering Fatima. Then he'd have more decisions to make. But so far, Whittemore was sure he'd made all the right calls.

He took a look around the corner. Fatima was still saddled miserably in the chair. Whittemore eased out of sight and his attention drifted to the church. A woman, tall and slim, was making her way up the sidewalk. She wore a long jacket, but the sway in her hips told Whittemore she was wearing heels, while the jaunty angle of her head and flow of dark hair in the breeze told him she was young. A streetlight cast over her face at the alley entrance. She was a goddess — fiery eyes, high cheekbones, pouty lips. He looked at her openly, and as she passed her eyes flicked to his for just a moment. She entered the espresso shop. Whittemore turned back to the alley with a smile.

A smile that evaporated instantly when he saw the empty chair. Fatima was nowhere in sight.

Dammit! Not again!

Whittemore took in everything. He saw no movement, heard no sound to indicate where she'd gone. He eased to his left, hoping to find her leaning against the wall behind an obstruction. Nothing. Squinting, he tried to make out the other end of the alley. Did it open to a different street? Or was it a dead end? He couldn't tell.

He moved into the alley, slow and alert. He eyed every shadow, every dead spot. Whittemore stepped as lightly as he could, but gravel crunched under his feet, each step sounding like a snap burst from a rock crusher. He reached the chair she'd been sitting on. It was crooked, the high back broken. Whittemore looked to the far end of the alley. There had to be a second way out, he decided, another access. His nerves began to settle, and Plan A fell right back into place.

You're still in control. You know where she's going. Check the dead drop, old boy, then follow her if you need to.

Whittemore knew exactly where to look — waist high, in front of the chair. It turned out to be an old window frame embedded in the church's stone wall, the opening having been mortared and plastered over by some ancient clerical administration. He ran his hand along the base, felt for a loose section. As he did, something registered in the back of Whittemore's mind, a vague discomfort he couldn't quite specify. The impulse was discarded when he found what he was looking for — a dull red brick the size of a man's shoe. Whittemore pulled, the brick moved. It was tight, but began to slide out with the same scraping noise he'd heard earlier. Stone on stone. Working it free, he saw a recess behind, a fist-sized hole. He dropped the brick, twisted his hand inside and hit a home run.

Whittemore pulled out a folded note.

His training kicked in — this was evidence. He handled it by the edges, patiently unfolding. Once. Twice. Again something seemed wrong, and finally Whittemore realized what it was. He was standing right where Fatima had been puking, yet he saw and smelled no sign of it. Whittemore turned the note right side up and read. Felt his blood go cold.

Whittemore heard quiet footsteps behind him. Then he heard an even more disconcerting sound. Chink-chink. Absolutely unmistakable. He'd heard it a thousand times before on the firing range. The sound of a slide being racked on a handgun. But it made no sense. Who carries a gun without a round in the chamber? An idiot. Or… someone who was trying to instill fear.

The voice came as a whisper, colder than the midwinter wind rushing down the alley. "Turn slowly."

Whittemore did, and he saw the one thing he had hoped to never see. A gun sight from the wrong end — front post ahead of the U-notch. Perfectly in line, perfectly steady. Then he saw the sharp eyes behind.

"You seek Caliph?" the voice hissed.

Frozen with fear, Whittemore could not respond. The gun lowered to his chest and his eyes went wide.

A lifeless smile, then, "You have found him."

The first explosion sent him reeling. It seemed to tear his chest apart and he fell against the wall in blinding pain. Two more blasts and a fog descended. He slumped to one side, his face compressed on the gravel-strewn dirt. He saw heavy shoes receding, trotting briskly away.

Whittemore tried not to panic. Tried to ignore the searing pain. His left side was useless, immobile, so he went to work with his right, putting every effort into his only chance. He clawed into a pocket and found his phone. It fell to the gravel, and Whittemore groped and pawed and scooped it closer.

God the pain!

His fingers fumbled on the keys as he tried to focus. It seemed he could barely breathe — liquid in his chest, in his mouth. He was drowning.

A stern, beautiful female voice burst from the phone. "Authenticate."

Whittemore croaked, "Help. Ca—" the word was lost in a gurgle. He tried one last time, "Caliph is—"

And then his world went black.

Davis and Sorenson were about to leave the hangar when his phone rang. He saw that it was Larry Green.

"It's my boss," he said.

"I didn't think you had one." She gave him a shrewd look, then, "But maybe you should take the call." Sorensen excused herself, claiming she needed a bottle of water.

He picked up the call. "Hi, Larry."

"Hello, Jammer. How are you?"

Davis thought, Pretty damned lousy. The CIA is trying to recruit me as a spy. He said, "I'm just great."

"How about the investigation — running smoothly?"

"Nothing a little napalm wouldn't fix." Davis thought he heard a slight chuckle beam across the Atlantic. He gave Green a rundown on Bastien, followed by his take on the voice recorder tapes. He didn't mention his suspicion that somebody was tampering with evidence.

A no-nonsense retired general like Larry Green might react badly to that, raise a fuss from the top. The resulting intergovernmental fallout could get in the way of Davis' preferred method of assault — start low, in the trenches, and fight your way up.

"Jammer, I've got that info you were asking for, about the skipper getting in trouble last week."

"Okay."

"It turns out there was a traffic stop, but it wasn't Moore. He was leaving a bar with one of his buddies, another pilot. The other guy was going to do the driving. They got stopped in the parking lot and an HPD officer made him walk a line."

"Did he pass?"

"That part's a little murky."

Davis suggested, "Maybe he didn't, and that's why Moore went to see his flight doc. Advice for a friend. Black is as much a lawyer as he is a doctor."

"Could be. But the point is that Earl Moore wasn't in any trouble here."

"All right — that's a good thing. But keep checking for me, will you, Larry? Find out exactly what happened."

"You've got it."

"Oh, and there's one other thing."

"Shoot."

"You said I got this assignment straight from the director, right?"

"Collins gave me your name personally, told me to accept no substitutes."

"Any idea why?"

"Sorry, Jammer. Not my bailiwick. You think something is screwy?"

Davis thought, Everything is screwy. He said, "Nah, don't worry about it."

They agreed to talk again soon, and Davis ended the call.

He was sure Green was being straight with him, that he knew nothing about an interagency loan to the CIA. Part of him seethed at the lies involved, the backroom dealing. Another part said, To hell with them, just do what needs to be done. His internal strife didn't last long. It rarely did.

Davis pocketed his phone and went to find Sorensen.

He found her sitting at a table in the break room. She'd gotten two bottles of water and held one out.

"Thanks," he said, picking it up.

"That was quick," she commented.

"Neither of us are the chatty type."

The water had a fancy name and claimed to be from a hidden spring in the South Pacific — water from halfway around the world. Davis twisted off a very unfancy plastic cap and took a long swig. It tasted like any other water.

"What did he want?" she asked.

"He wanted to know how the investigation is going."

"And?"

"I told him it made that whole Amelia Earhart thing look pretty straightforward."

"Right."

"But he did have some useful information. Larry checked with the Houston Police and found that Earl Moore and a buddy actually were out drinking last week. But it was his buddy who was doing the driving and had a little run-in with the law."

"What happened to him?"

"That part's not clear, but the important thing is that Moore wasn't in any trouble. The whole thing might have scared him. Maybe his buddy was in the same sad boat, a pilot who'd already been to rehab. I don't know. But the situation wasn't something that was going to put Moore's career on the line."

Sorensen finished her water and tossed the empty neatly into a trash can ten feet away. She said, "So who do you think is messing with our evidence?"

Davis shrugged. "Hard to say. There are a lot of reasons why somebody might pull that circuit breaker. I don't like any of them."

"Bastien?" she suggested.

"He and I won't be exchanging Christmas cards, and I don't think he's much of an investigator. But manipulating evidence like that — it'd be crazy."

"His accusations about Earl Moore are bound to have a lot of people talking, considering the suicide angle."

"Yep," Davis agreed. "That popped circuit breaker helps prove Bastien's case. But besides him, who benefits?"

Sorensen thought about it. "Practically everybody. The contractors, CargoAir, World Express, air traffic control. If Earl Moore pleads nolo contendre from the grave, they're all in the clear. Everybody wins."

"Exactly. Everybody but Luke."

"Who?"

"Luke Moore. Earl's son. He's probably the only person on earth in his dad's corner right now."

"Aside from you."

Davis tipped back his water bottle, drained it, and took aim at the same trash can. He missed badly, the hollow plastic bottle bouncing off a window before clattering to the linoleum.

Sorensen looked straight at him and smiled. She was starting to give as good as she got. Davis liked that.

He got up, retrieved his miss, and said, "Come on, Honeywell. Let's head back."