Lockout

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Mojave, California (8:40 p.m. PST / 0440 Zulu)

Jaime Lopez, Esquire, had finally reached his personal breaking point. Getting away from Ron Barrett and his manic little group in the dusty airfield office was no longer a desire. It spelled survival. Beyond the embarrassment of a serious, senior attorney pretending to be surprised hours before, when the two federal agents couldn’t locate Pangia’s Airbus on their ramp, the past few hours of waiting for the next shoe to drop had been a special agony. As general counsel, his purposeful deception with the agents had been so beneath his dignity, if not unethical. But then, again, the whole day had been such an unmitigated disaster, it hardly mattered. A few more random indignities seemed trivial.

True, there was something very fishy about the agents’ story and the speed with which they had appeared, and more than likely they were lying about being from the Transportation Safety Administration. But whoever they were, their presence spelled deep trouble.

Jaime had endured the tense atmosphere of Barrett’s vigil as they monitored the media’s sketchy reports on the fate of Pangia Flight 10, everyone present aware of the elephant on the table—the question of whether they would still have jobs when the smoke cleared. But for some reason, the one horrific possibility Jaime could not let go of was the idea that Carl Kanowsky, the employee who had dispatched the wrong jet, was some sort of clandestine operative. The two agents had said as much after one of them spent a half hour in another room with Kanowsky’s file.

“We think,” he told Jaime as they were leaving, “…that the Kanowsky name is an alias, and whoever he really is, the mission he was on required him to get hired by your company. We checked his address. It’s empty desert.”

There had been no time to look into the quality of the due diligence checking of Kanowsky’s application, but on top of all the other worries about massive looming liability for Mojave Aircraft Storage, the thought that they could have stupidly hired a terrorist made his blood run cold.

Jaime finally made excuses and broke away from the group just before ten, leaving the rest of them glued to CNN. He sat down in an adjacent office and read every line of Kanowsky’s folder and application. The overall liability of the company might well turn on the contents, but there was nothing whatever that would have waved a flag at even the most skeptical of interviewers. The agents had said the address was a vacant field, but it was suspicious that they seemed to know that almost instantly. Jaime used the map program on his iPad and carefully typed in the address that Kanowsky had given, watching with a sinking feeling as the map zoomed in on a vacant patch of desert on the eastern edge of Lancaster, just as they’d indicated.

Yet, he had an almost irresistible need to see it for himself. Despite a pounding headache, an empty stomach, and an aching thirst, Jaime climbed into his car and peeled out of the parking lot.

It took a little over twenty minutes to motor south down the Sierra Highway to the outskirts of Lancaster. The address was along East Avenue “I” in the 4000 block, several miles to the east of town, and Jaime’s GPS announced he had arrived as he pulled to a halt alongside a pitch dark, featureless desert landscape.

Kanowsky’s address had a “#3” added, which would indicate an apartment, but there were no buildings of any sort that he could see peering into the nighttime void.

In fact, only one light was out there, he noted, something that looked like no more than an LED bulb, maybe a hundred yards or more to the north.

Comfortable with the desert, Jaime got out of the car and took the flashlight he always carried, playing the light ahead of him to avoid any random rattlesnakes as he picked his way carefully toward the light, skirting desert brush and tumbleweeds as well as an outcropping of barrel cactus. The land was mostly flat, but it descended suddenly into a small depression, and parked in the middle of the miniature arroyo was an ancient trailer, the smallest model Airstream had ever made, with a beat up old Ford pickup parked alongside.

The light was coming from inside, visible through a dusty window. Jaime tried to peer in, but the illumination was too weak and the window too dirty and opaque to make out anything but vague shapes inside.

He knocked on the door and waited, but there was no answer. He tried again, and was weighing the advisability of trying the door when suddenly it swung open, revealing a disheveled, coughing man in shorts and a stained t-shirt, holding a tissue, the stubble of a week-old beard on his face. Kanowsky was supposed to be sixty-two, but the unkempt man before him with sunken eyes and parchment skin looked like he’d just emerged from a sarcophagus.

“So who are you?” the man managed, trying several times to clear his throat, his voice clearly unused for some time.

“I’m Jaime Lopez, from Mojave Aircraft Storage. Are you Carl Kanowsky?”

The man looked up at him through sad eyes, his expression one of utter defeat.

“Yes. Am I fired?”

“For… what?”

“Missing work. I have no phone anymore. I asked my neighbor last week to let you guys know I was really, really sick, but… I guess he didn’t.”

“No, he didn’t. We didn’t know you were ill.”

“Bad ill,” he said, coughing again.

“How are you?” Jaime asked, chiding himself for what sounded like a stupid question. Obviously the man was in poor condition.

“A little better. Worst flu I’ve ever had. Thought I was going to die and was equally afraid I wouldn’t.” He negotiated another coughing spell and looked back over his shoulder. “I’d invite you in, Mr. …Lopez?”

“Yes.”

“I’d invite you in, but the place looks like it’s been hit by a bomb and I may still be contagious.”

“No problem. You did list this address as apartment number three, by the way.”

The man looked up, shaking his head as he met Jaime’s eyes.

“I really didn’t want anyone to know I’m living this basic, y’know? It’s embarrassing.”

“Don’t be embarrassed. I once had a law partner who lived on a beach in a tent. He’d clean himself up each morning, put on a sharp suit, and we never knew.”

“You’re a lawyer?”

“Yes. I’m Mojave’s general counsel.”

“Why… would a big lawyer come all the way out here if it isn’t to fire me?”

“Well, that’s what we need to talk about.”

“I was hoping to come back to work next week, Mr. Lopez. I like the job.”

“I see no reason why you can’t, Carl, but it’s not my call.”

“Then, why are you here, sir?”

“First, let me ask you, has anyone else come out here today?”

“No, sir. You’re the first human I’ve seen in a week.”

Jaime shook his head in disgust, letting a few more tumblers fall into place regarding the honesty of the two supposed TSA agents.

“Carl, our company’s got a big problem, and I need to ask you a question, and I need a completely truthful answer.”

“Okay. Sure. I have no reason not to be truthful.”

“Is Carl Kanowsky your true name?”

Jaime saw the man’s expression fall as he looked down at his feet and sighed deeply. He ambled out of the trailer door and flicked on a hanging camp light over a low wooden bench, sitting heavily. A long silence finally gave way to a ragged sigh as he answered in a low, almost inaudible voice.

“How’d you find out?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I suppose I’ll have to go back there now, right?” he looked up with tears forming.

“Back where?”

“The looney bin. In Indiana. The psychiatric hospital. It’s been thirty-five years, but I knew they were still looking for me. Every night, every day, I’ve expected this knock on the door. I’ve been terrified for thirty-five years, and now…”

“Were you… ruled criminally insane for something?”

The man’s eyes flared as he looked up. “Oh, God, no! No, no, no! Nothing like that. I just, had a bad breakdown and… I had several. Actually, they committed me. They said I was schizophrenic, and I’d have to live there for life. Yet one day they left the door to that living hell open, and I… just… walked away. Then I ran, as fast as I could. I hitchhiked west. A lot of truck drivers took pity on me, I guess.” He looked up pleadingly at Jaime before letting his gaze fall to the desert again. “I’d rather die than go back, Mr. Lopez.” He buried his face in his hands.

“What’s your real name?”

It took almost a minute for Kanowsky to compose himself and look up again.

“Vic Stevens. Victor. But you already knew that.”

“No, I didn’t, and I don’t care that you were once committed somewhere if it wasn’t a criminal matter. Even if they are still looking for you, I doubt they’d spend a penny to bring you back, and we have no interest in turning you in. I checked your record with us, Carl… ah, Vic. You’ve been a good employee. If you want to still be known as Carl, no problem with me.”

“I do. I like Carl.”

“It’s a good name.”

“But they’re still looking for me! I just know it. They’ll never stop.”

“Carl, times have changed drastically. People aren’t locked up like that anymore. Not even when they need to be.”

Yet the assurance was not about to counter three and a half decades of visceral fear.

“You’re really from Mojave Aircraft?”

“Yes. Yes, I am, and I’m here because you apparently sent the wrong aircraft back to Tulsa last week.”

In an instant the man’s expression morphed from despair to complete alarm and he seemed to rise from the old wooden bench like a balloon re-inflating, eyes flaring in

concern.

“I did what?”