Polar Quest

28

Kilkenny and Tao took a nonstop flight from Detroit to Dallas, then caught an American Eagle commuter flight for the last leg of their journey to Waco. Only two businessmen boarded the twin-engine turboprop for the short flight. Both seated themselves near the front, several rows ahead of Kilkenny and Tao.

En route to Waco, Tao opened a package she’d been given by a courier upon their arrival at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and pulled out two ID wallets and a page of contact information.

‘Here,’ Tao said, handing Kilkenny one of the wallets.

Kilkenny flipped open the wallet and found an FBI identification card with his name and face on it. He leaned closer to Tao.

‘Won’t the folks at the FBI take exception to our impersonating a pair of agents?’ Kilkenny said, his voice barely audible under the drone of the plane’s engines.

‘What they don’t know won’t hurt them,’ Tao replied nonchalantly as she checked her false credentials. ‘This will do.’ She flipped the wallet closed and turned toward Kilkenny. ‘The agency has an arrangement for this sort of thing, just so long as we don’t abuse the privilege.’

‘Or cause the FBI any bad publicity.’

‘You catch on quick. Our cover story doesn’t stray far from the truth. You and I are investigating the report that two planes are missing from the government’s inventory.’

‘Since you seem to have some experience in role play, I’ll follow your lead.’

‘You and I are going to get along just fine,’ Tao said.

The turboprop dropped out of a cloudless sky and touched down at Waco Regional Airport late in the afternoon. After collecting their carry-on bags, Kilkenny and Tao picked up a rental car and drove around to the opposite side of the airport. In a large, fenced-in compound stood the immense white hangars of Raytheon’s Aircraft Integration Systems facility.

Kilkenny brought the Taurus to a stop at the main gate and a blue-uniformed security guard slipped open the side window and leaned out slightly.

‘Can I help you?’ she drawled sweetly.

‘Miss, we’re with the FBI,’ Kilkenny said, offering his fake credentials.

The sweetness quickly turned to wary suspicion. ‘What’s the purpose of your visit?’

Tao skimmed through the page that had accompanied the ID wallets. ‘We’re here to see an AIS manager named David Boyer regarding some planes that are undergoing a retrofit, and no, we don’t have an appointment.’

‘One moment,’ the security guard said before quickly sliding her window shut.

The guard rang her supervisor to explain the situation, her eyes taking nervous glances at Kilkenny and Tao. A moment later, a small white car pulled up on the opposite side of the main gate, then did a U-turn and parked. An overweight man in tan pants and a blue blazer stepped out and walked around the gate to the Taurus.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said politely. ‘May I see your credentials?’

Kilkenny and Tao handed over their ID wallets. The man scrutinized both carefully, then pulled out a cell phone. He stepped away from the Taurus as he waited for his call to be answered, then read off the information from their IDs. A bead of sweat trickled down Kilkenny’s neck as he waited. Tao appeared unaffected.

The man thanked the person on the other end, rang off, and walked back to the Taurus.

‘Sorry about the delay, folks,’ he said as he handed back their IDs. ‘We gotta check, you understand.’

‘Of course,’ Kilkenny replied, dismissing the wait as a minor inconvenience.

‘If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you over to the modification hangar.’

The security chief motioned for the guard to open the gate, then led them into the compound. He pulled beside one of the buildings, and Kilkenny parked in the adjacent space.

‘This way,’ the security chief said as he swiped his ID card through a reader and opened the door.

The modification hangar contained over eighty-four thousand square feet of area, nearly all of which was the open floor beneath a volume of undisturbed space large enough to hold several aircraft.

‘This is what we came to see,’ Kilkenny said to Tao, pointing out a wide ski mounted beneath the nose of a military transport.

The security chief led Kilkenny and Tao to a small office on the hangar’s far wall. The man inside waved as they approached.

‘Sir,’ the security chief said as he opened the office door, ‘I have some people here who’d like to have a word with you.’

‘Send ‘em on in,’ Boyer replied.

The security chief stepped aside, allowing Kilkenny and Tao to enter Boyer’s office. The rumpled senior engineer was ensconced in a disheveled collection of blueprints, technical manuals, computer equipment, and other miscellany.

‘Mr Boyer, I’m Special Agent Tao and this is my partner, Special Agent Kilkenny. We’re here to investigate the whereabouts of three Lockheed LC-130s that were reportedly flown here from the ASRF facility in Arizona. Are you familiar with these planes?’

‘Familiar?’ Boyer replied with a snort. ‘Ma’am, I have done nothing but eat, sleep, and breathe those three planes for the last couple of months, and I don’t expect to have the last of ‘em out of my gray hair until summer.’ Boyer pointed out his office window. ‘There they are.’

‘When did the planes first arrive?’ Kilkenny asked.

‘They were flown in during the first week of January. My people got to work on ‘em right away.’

‘So none of these planes has been flyable since you received them?’

‘That’s right. All three of ‘em were LC-130Rs. We’re upgrading them into 130Hs with new avionics, navigation, and communication systems and displays, so the first thing we did was yank out all the old stuff. We’re also doing a lot of maintenance on ‘em, too, and installing the latest enhanced traffic collision avoidance system.’

‘If you don’t mind,’ Tao said, ‘we’d like to see the identification plates on each of the planes.’

‘That’s not a problem,’ Boyer replied. ‘Follow me.’

The three transports were in various stages of disassembly; in several places their protective skins were opened to reveal the inner mechanisms. Boyer led them to the cockpit of each plane where Kilkenny pulled out his Palm Pilot and checked the numbers against the list provided by the Pentagon.

‘That’s three down,’ Kilkenny said as he slipped the Palm Pilot back into his coat pocket.

‘Mr Boyer, we’re done here. Thank you for your time.’

‘Glad I could help. If you don’t mind my asking, what are you after?’

‘The government has received reports that a South American drug cartel is using a pair of LC-130s to transport their product. The Pentagon’s inventory database shows all aircraft of this type are accounted for, and we’re making a visual inspection of each plane to verify that none are missing.’

‘Don’t you think it’d be a little hard to steal one of these from a military base?’

‘One would think,’ Kilkenny replied. ‘But this isn’t the first time a big piece of hardware has mysteriously disappeared.’