Passenger 19

TWENTY-FIVE

Delacorte’s finding changed the picture completely. It also created new complications.

“Okay,” said Davis, “so we have a door that came open in flight. Could that have caused the crash?”

“This was my first thought as well, but I do not think it fits. True, the wing was damaged, but not in a way that would affect aerodynamic performance. This aircraft has no leading edge flaps on the wing, which would be prone to causing instability if damaged. The tail is a more critical surface, however, I see no damage there that correlates to door separation.”

“The engine?”

“Yes, I considered this also. The outer cowling was dented, impact damage from the door, I would say. This led me to examine the engine, both the fan and turbine. I found no acute rotational damage — only the graduated distortions one would expect from an impact with the forest.”

Delacorte allowed a moment for Davis to digest it all.

“Of course,” he continued, “this is all no more than one engineer’s opinion. With time, everything can be verified by way of laboratory inspections.”

Davis shook his head. “That would be fine if we had time, but in my opinion you’ve already passed the most critical test — it makes perfect sense.”

“What do you take from it? You realize what must happen for this door to be opened in flight.”

Davis did know. Over the years there had been regular occurrences, often sensationalized in the media, of mentally unbalanced individuals trying to open aircraft exit doors in flight. What on the surface appears dramatic and threatening, however, is in fact a non-event. Passenger aircraft are pressurized to counter the thin air at high altitude, and among manufacturers the design specifications are more or less universal, the differential pressure being roughly eight pounds per square inch at service altitude. Simply put, a cabin door six feet high and three feet wide is held in place during cruise flight by an effective force of over twenty thousand pounds. Davis and his entire rugby team would never budge a fully pressurized door.

That said, there was a way to open a door in flight, a scenario that was problematic for one very good reason — it involved cooperation from the flight deck.

“The pilots could have depressurized the cabin,” said Davis.

“It is the only way,” agreed Delacorte. “But why would a crew do that?”

As Davis thought about it, disjointed details began to mesh. “Remember — we still have the issue of the disappearing Captain Reyna. Let’s say Flight 223 landed on an grass strip somewhere, then took off again and flew to where it crashed. That requires at least one pilot on board to get the jet airborne and pointed in the right direction. We found three people in that cockpit. Two, as far as we know, weren’t even pilots. The other was the first officer, and he was dead before the airplane went down. I’m guessing maybe a long time before, which would mean our copilot, Moreno, had no part in this scheme.”

Davis watched Delacorte struggle to put it all together.

“If you think about it,” Davis said, “there’s only one person who could have made everything work.”

“Captain Reyna.”

“Exactly. I’m guessing he shot his copilot, probably before they even diverted to the remote airstrip. That way he gets no challenges about why they’re changing destination. When they land in the jungle, the two missing girls are taken off, and the body we found in the captain’s seat is brought on board. A John Doe already dead and dressed in a uniform that didn’t fit. That all works, but only if Reyna had help, somebody waiting for him on the ground.”

“C’est incroyable!” said Delacorte.

“No less incredible than the paperwork I came across two nights ago. Captain Reyna’s personnel file was altered so that his physical characteristics matched those of our mystery corpse.”

Delacorte’s gaze narrowed.

“I’m sure of it,” said Davis. “Major Echevarria is looking into the details, but the very fact that he hasn’t shot this down tells me we’re on the right track. Somebody with official access has been altering evidence. The way I figure it, when Flight 223 made its second takeoff that night, the girls were no longer on board and Reyna was in the cockpit with two dead men, probably behind a locked door. The part I’ve been wrestling with was Reyna himself — what happened to him? You just gave me the answer.”

After a long moment, an overwhelmed Delacorte said, “You are now going to tell me he used a parachute? Is that even possible?”

“D.B. Cooper thought so.” Delacorte stared a blank, and Davis realized his reference to the legendary hijacker had fallen flat. “It was back in the seventies. A guy hijacked a Boeing 727, said he was carrying a bomb. The plane landed, and Cooper ordered two bourbon and waters while everything played out, even paid for them and tipped the flight attendant. Once he had his ransom and the passengers were deplaned, they took off again and headed out over the Cascade Mountains east of Seattle. Cooper took off his tie, put on a parachute, and ordered the pilots to depressurize the airplane and lower the aft stairs. Then he jumped.”

“Yes,” said Delacorte, “now I recall. He was never found.”

“Nope. But if nothing else, D.B. proves our point.”

Delacorte wrestled with the idea. “Reyna kills his copilot and flies to a remote airfield where the girls are removed? Then he takes off again, depressurizes the airplane… and jumps leaving no one on board to fly?”

“No one except his dead copilot and a corpse that was put in the cockpit while they were on the ground — that made the body count nice and neat, and it would have worked nicely if the crash had created the usual fireball. After Reyna jumped the passengers had one last hope, a pastry chef who broke into the locked flight deck and did his damnedest to save the day. He didn’t quite do it, but he flew long enough to burn down fuel, and he probably guided the jet to strike at a relatively soft angle. That preserved a lot of evidence for us.”

“You are suggesting that Reyna sacrificed an entire aircraft full of passengers. How could any pilot do such a thing?”

“Morally? I have no idea. The more pertinent question for us is why he would do such a thing.”

Delacorte cast a critical gaze. “I have never heard such an outrageous theory in any investigation.”

“Neither have I,” Davis agreed. “Unfortunately, it’s the only solution that lines up with the facts.”

“Perhaps. But this theory you propose is convenient in one way, my friend. It allows a chance that your daughter is still alive. I must ask — could your heart be driving your solutions more than the evidence?”

Davis looked Delacorte in the eye. “I don’t know, Pascal. I really don’t know.”

Davis got up to leave, and as he made his way back to his room the burden of Delacorte’s question hung like a great weight. Which was leading? His heart or the truth?

At midnight Davis pulled off his boots at the foot of the bed. He was glad to have the Frenchman around. Even if Delacorte was an engineer by training, his instincts were good, and he had that flair of imagination found in all good investigators — the ability to ask with a clear mind, What if?

His own air conditioner blew like an Arctic wind, and he lay on the bed and tried for sleep. He plugged Jen’s songs into his ears, and like the last two nights a tiger-striped iPod became his last tenuous link to his little girl. His last link to sanity. He flicked idly across the screen and saw a camera symbol. He’d never realized the gadget had a camera. Something else he should have known. His thumb hesitated. Was it a violation to look at her pictures? Of course it was. Davis rationalized that if he ever had to explain, he would say he was acting in an investigative capacity.

He hoped to hell he would have to explain.

He tapped the button and began flicking through pictures. There were none of him, but he didn’t take it as a slight. He saw a selfie of Jen with her roommate. Jen with a pair of Asian boys he’d never seen. The oldest was from last Christmas, Jen with three of her old high school friends, all of them sporting Santa hats and shot glasses, a riotous party in the background. Davis held steady. The glasses were full, of what he could only imagine. He wrote it off for what it was — an inevitable rite of passage. Hadn’t he done the same thing at that age? A year ago, certainly two, he would have blown a gasket at underage drinking. Now? Maybe he’d mellowed. More likely — since she’d gone off to school he missed her desperately. Somewhere along the road of adolescence, Jen had grown up, become as much a friend as a daughter. Then again, if he ever caught her drinking and driving he would back her against the nearest wall and do his best drill sergeant impersonation — which was very good.

Davis reached the end of the picture show, the last frame apparently taken from inside her back pocket — what happened when you sat down with the camera mode active. He lowered the Touch briefly, then did a double-take. The last frame wasn’t actually a photograph — an arrow in the middle of the screen told Davis it was a video. He wondered when it had been taken, but there was no obvious date stamp. He hit the little arrow and the movie began to play. The video never changed, only a blank screen with a blurred tinge of brown on one side. The audio that came through the earbuds, however, nearly caused his heart to seize.

Jen’s voice. “I see men with guns outside.”

A different female voice replied, “Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.”

Jen again. “Is there an ambulance? They said the copilot is sick — maybe that’s why we landed here.”

Shouting in the background, loud and authoritative in Spanish. Then two unmistakable cracks, sharp and loud. Even through the earbuds Davis recognized the sound of gunshots, and he knew where they had been directed — Special Agent Mulligan. As if to confirm his conclusion, hysterical shouts followed, and then a shriek of, “Thomas! No!”

Jen’s voice came through, shakier now. “Oh my God! They’ve killed him!”

A man began shouting orders over the chaos: “No te muevas!” Don’t move.

Things fell quiet. The invaders had made their point, had assumed control. Davis heard the second, distinctive female voice fall to a whisper. The words were spoken close to the microphone, which meant they could only have come from Jen’s seatmate. The girl he’d seen her talking to in the boarding area video, and who Jen had mentioned in her final phone message.

Kristin Stewart.

Passenger 19.

“Jen, listen to me! If you want to get out of this alive do exactly as I say!”

There was a pause, and he imagined Jen staring at her seatmate, a look of consternation fused with dread: the man in the seat next to her was bleeding out, and multiple assailants stood brandishing weapons. But Jen had always been good under pressure, and in that silent gap Davis could almost sense her bucking up. He envisioned her making eye contact with Kristin Stewart, perhaps giving a deft nod.

Then another whispered command from Passenger 19. “Get rid of your passport and any other ID!” A hesitation. “Do it, for God’s sake!”

He visualized both girls retrieving their passports discreetly and slipping them into the seatback pockets. Exactly where he’d found them.

“Whatever you do,” Kristin implores, “give them my name. Tell them you are Kristin Marie Stewart from Raleigh, North Carolina. That’s what we both say and nothing else! Do you understand?”

Next he heard a new male voice that was stunningly familiar. The words came in English, rumbling as if churned from a rock crusher. The same voice that had asked him what he was doing under a wing. Black boots with a crescent-shaped scar. “Out of my way! Anyone who moves will be shot!” Then closer to the microphone. “Hands on your heads, everyone!”

A last desperate whisper from Kristin Stewart, “Say nothing else, Jen! Nothing! It’s your only chance!”

“Quiet!” the male voice ordered. His next words blasted full volume from the iPod’s tiny speaker. “Kristin Stewart! Which of you is Kristin Stewart?”

There was no audible response, and the question was shouted again. Then Davis heard a sound that caused him to nearly crush the iPod in his hand — the sound of skin slapping skin, followed by the yelp of a young girl. He didn’t know which, but it hardly mattered. Shuffling and grunting was followed by more commands in Spanish. Finally, he heard Jen’s voice one last time. Her tone was matter of fact and cool. She could have been signing off from their daily dorm-room chat.

“Help us, Dad, we’re—”

The last word cut off abruptly.

For three more minutes Davis sat still as the pictureless video ran, capturing the occasional distant shout, but little else. There were no muted conversations among the nearby passengers, which Davis took as evidence that at least one assailant had remained in the cabin to stand guard. The recording ended abruptly. He looked at the time bar and saw six minutes and ten seconds. That was when the iPod had given in. Davis didn’t know why. Perhaps the battery had gotten low, or someone had nudged the off button.

He looked closely at the device to make sure there was nothing else. He saw no other videos or pictures. Further invading Jen’s privacy, he checked her contacts, notepad, and calendar. Nothing held promise. He sat motionless on the edge of the bed, like a statue of carved marble. Jen had been pulled off the aircraft that night, abducted after an unscheduled landing by men who had come for Kristin Stewart. Lawless men who’d shot a Secret Service agent in cold blood. Here Davis paused. Had an unarmed Mulligan resisted? Had he tried to put up a fight against insurmountable force? No, he decided. There had been no sounds of a scuffle, no shouted warnings from Mulligan to Kristin. The bandits had burst aboard and shot him straight out. Shot him because they knew who he was, where he was sitting, and why he was there.

Davis imagined the rest. Two college girls getting pushed and shoved, possibly beaten. An image of pure conjecture, to be sure, and one that made him simmer with rage. As distressing as the recording was, however, it also came as a gift. He now knew with certainty that Jen had survived the crash. He knew she and Kristin Stewart were likely still alive. Somewhere.

All he had to do was find them.