LANGLEY, Virginia
In that strange way that only a spy grows accustomed to, Derrick Storm did not know precisely where he was going. Only that he was in a hurry to get there.
From the moment he retrieved his Ford Taurus from a private garage just off the premises of Dulles airport, he kept the tread of his right hiking boot mashed into the car’s floorboard. He braked only when it was the last means of avoiding collision.
Storm occasionally took grief from D.C.-area acquaintances over his choice of the vehicle while he was there. To them, it seemed staid for a man of Storm’s panache. Storm just smiled and accepted their ribbing. Much like Storm himself, the car preferred to hide its true capabilities. It had a twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter engine with 365 horsepower worth of unruliness under its hood, and a heavy-duty police suspension system that could handle the extreme demands Storm occasionally had to place on it.
The radio was off. The information reported in the early hours of a mass tragedy was usually wrong. In its haste to be first with the news, the media sometimes seemed to prefer guessing over reporting. Storm didn’t want to muddy his mind with it. He concentrated, instead, on keeping the Taurus’s tires on the pavement. He did not always succeed. At least one Nissan Sentra driver was thankful for that fact.
And yet, for all his haste, his final destination was a mystery to him.
Any half-wit troglodyte with Google Earth can get a pretty good gander at the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters, which rests on a leafy campus just across from Washington, D.C., alongside a sweeping bend in the Potomac River. A slightly more sophisticated operator can figure out which buildings house the National Clandestine Service, one of the CIA’s more shadowy branches.
But no one — no matter how good a hacker he is, no matter what he thinks he knows — will ever lay eyes on the cubby, the home to an elite spy unit created by a man named Jedediah Jones.
Not even Storm, who had given the cubby its tongue-in-cheek sobriquet, knew its precise location. He knew of only one way to get there, which he began executing as soon as his Taurus and its smoldering tires came to a rest in the visitors’ parking lot at CIA headquarters.
It involved presenting himself at the main entrance to an agent who responded to Storm with all the excitement of a man receiving patients at a dentist’s office. Normally, this portion of Storm’s journey involved some waiting as another agent was summoned from the cubby. Storm was mildly surprised to see the well-muscled, dark-complexioned shape of Agent Javier Rodriguez already coming down the hallway toward him.
But only mildly. Rodriguez was one of Jones’s most trusted subordinates. He was usually involved when Jones called for Storm.
Rodriguez was grinning as he walked up. Storm was not in a joking mood, in light of the seriousness of what was happening in the world around them. And yet, even in the midst of a crisis — or, perhaps, especially in the midst of a crisis — there were rituals to uphold. Gallows humor helped men like Storm and Rodriguez survive their jobs with their sanity intact. A certain bravado, even if it was false, needed to be maintained.
“Why, Agent Rodriguez, it’s almost like you were watching me drive here and knew exactly when I was going to arrive,” Storm said.
“You owe that Nissan Sentra driver an apology, bro.”
“Send me her address. I’ll write a note.”
Rodriguez’s only response was to hold up a black hood between his thumb and forefinger and give it a brief shake.
“I don’t suppose you’d let me promise to just close my eyes this time?” Storm asked.
“Sure. If I drug you with pentobarbital first.”
“The hood it is,” Storm said, and dipped his head. At six foot two, Storm was a head taller than Rodriguez.
“The cubby it is,” Rodriguez replied, slipping the hood into place.
The unit that called the cubby its command post did not exist — at least not as far as anyone connected to it would admit, even under the most creatively cruel torture. It was a detachment within the National Clandestine Service that had no name, no printed organizational chart, no staff assigned to it, and no budget. The CIA bought a whole lot of $852 toilet seats and $6,318 hammers to hide its expenditures.
Its leader, Jedediah Jones, was a veteran bureaucrat who used his considerable executive talents and cunning to build this agency-within-an-agency-within-an-agency, the CIA’s version of Russian matryoshka dolls. Its missions and achievements were as secretive as everything else associated with it. It had occasionally been credited with saving the world. It had also been accused of trying to destroy it. Either way, it did so quietly.
Storm had long ago given up trying to guess where he was being led when he was taken to the cubby. He assumed it was underground somewhere, though for all he knew it could have been underwater or even in the clouds. The trip there involved the seemingly random application of g-forces from all directions: up, down, left, and right.
Technically, Storm did not work for Jones or for the CIA. He was a former private investigator turned independent contractor. While his adventures had taken him across the world, he was often called on to inquire into matters that had domestic ties, which was — again, technically — illegal. The CIA’s jurisdiction was strictly international. As a result, Storm’s missions did not exist. In the same way the cubby did not exist. He might as well have had DERRICK STORM PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY on his business card, because that’s what he provided the powerful men who required his unique skill set. He was paid handsomely for his services, one of which involved accepting the fact that he would be treated as expendable if it became convenient.
He knew he had reached his destination when he heard the clacking of keyboards. When his hood was finally removed, he was greeted by the usual sight. A cadre of men and women sat in front of a bank of computers, their eyes reflecting the contents of the walls of LCD screens in front of them. Jones called them techs. Storm called them nerds — a term he used with both respect and love, because their digital wizardry had been an invaluable aid to him so many times.
Several of the nerds’ monitors contained satellite images of the crash sites of what were once airplanes, their broken pieces now spread over whatever field or forest where they had come to rest. One of the nerds was zooming in on a piece of what might have once been an engine. Another nerd was comparing a piece of shredded landing equipment to a picture of what it looked like when it came out of the box.
Storm, who had yet to see the repeated loops of television footage that were transfixing the rest of America, stopped to gawk at them. While he didn’t doubt Captain Estes, who had called it another 9/11, seeing the detritus that littered the screens made the disaster more real.
“So it’s that bad,” he said.
“No, bro,” Rodriguez said. “It’s worse.”
THE BRIEFING ROOM WAS JUST OFF the main corridor. It had a wall-sized, flat-screen monitor on one end, but its central feature was a polished conference table surrounded by high-backed leather executive chairs.
Seated in one of the chairs was Agent Kevin Bryan, a small-statured man who appeared to be every bit as Irish as his name. He was also one of Jones’s top lieutenants. He and Rodriguez were often teamed together. If Jones was the bread, Bryan and Rodriguez were the peanut butter and the jelly.
“All right, talk to me like I don’t know anything,” Storm said. “Because right now I don’t know anything other than the fact that I owe my life to the versatility of speed tape.”
“Told you that story was true,” Rodriguez spat at Bryan. “That’s what you get for doubting my boy. Twenty bucks.”
Bryan extracted a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to Rodriguez as he began talking. “Okay, we’re looking at four planes, all of which were heading toward Dulles airport and came into difficulty when they were at approximately twenty thousand feet in altitude. The National Transportation Safety Board has yet to recover any of the black boxes, so we don’t have detailed information for any of these yet. But we were able to, ahh, appropriate some initial information from the Federal Aviation Administration.”
“Go,” Storm said.
“I won’t tell you about Flight 937, because you already know about that one firsthand. So I’ll start with the initial plane to go down. It was Flight 312, coming in from Amsterdam Schiphol.”
An image of an Airbus A300 appeared in hologram as if it were floating above the table.
“It was coming in on the same approach path as 937. As a matter of fact, all four planes were coming in on a northeast approach toward Dulles runway twelve-thirty,” Bryan said. “Four-fourteen was using an Airbus A300 that had reported no recent maintenance problems. It was a perfectly routine flight. Then, at 1:55 P.M., its pilot was reporting he had lost his left engine. Pilots spend hours in simulators training for such things, so he began putting engine failure procedures into place, except they didn’t work. The plane began rapidly losing altitude and the pilot said it was responding as if it hadn’t just lost its left engine, but its entire left wing. That was his last communication before he crashed at a steep angle into a wooded area near Interstate 83.”
Bryan clicked a button and the hologram changed to a McDonnell Douglas MD-11.
He continued: “Next we have Flight 76, coming in from Stockholm Arlanda. It was a cargo plane registered to a company called Karlsson Logistics. Again, it had been a routine flight. Again, it was a plane with a spotless maintenance record. Three minutes after 312 distress call, at 1:58 P.M., Flight 76 had its last communications with the tower. Then nothing. It was like it simply ceased to exist. It was found in a farm field near Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, a few miles away from the other ones. The theory is that the pilot had no control when the plane hit the ground, because it hit hard and fast. Residents in the area reported thinking it was everything from a bomb to an earthquake.”
Storm only shook his head. Whatever had happened to Flight 76 had obviously been too catastrophic to be fixed with speed tape. He was thankful there were no passengers, but that would be little comfort to the families of the crew members.
Agent Bryan had changed the plane floating above the table to a Boeing 747.
“Finally, we have Flight 494, inbound from Paris Charles de Gaulle,” he said. “Again, there was nothing about this aircraft that would have indicated trouble. At 2:07 P.M. — nine minutes later — it reported a loss of hydraulic pressure in its rear rudder. As I said earlier, pilots are trained for such things, though by this point, flight control was apparently freaking out. They knew what had happened to the first two planes. They were determined to get this one down safely and really thought they could. Then the pilot came back on and said it was far more catastrophic. A pilot can’t see behind himself, of course. But as near as the man could figure, the entire tail section of the airplane was just gone.”
“Gone?”
“Gone. What was left of the plane crashed into a forested area of Spring Valley Park. Your flight was the final one to report difficulty, about five minutes later, and the only one to survive.”
“Have any groups claimed responsibility?”
“Several are trying to, but none that we think have the capability to pull off something like this,” Bryan said. “Whoever is really behind it isn’t bragging about it yet. We don’t know what they want or why they did this.”
Storm concentrated on the desk in front of him for a moment before speaking. “So we have four different aircraft that seemed to suddenly lose valuable parts at approximately 2 P.M.”
“That’s right,” Bryan said.
“And we can be pretty sure it wasn’t some kind of nine-eleven-style hijacking,” Storm said. “There were no hijackers aboard my flight, and none of the other three reported anything. As far as we know, their pilots were still at the controls when the planes went down.”
“That’s right,” Bryan said again.
There was more staring at the desk.
“You think maybe it was sabotage?” Rodriguez asked.
“Talk it out for me.”
“Somebody on the ground was able to plant a small explosive at different points on each plane — the wing, the tail, whatever,” Rodriguez said. “The passengers on your flight said they heard a sound when the aileron came apart. Maybe the explosives were all set to go off within a few minutes of each other.”
Storm shook his head. “I don’t like it. These planes were coming from four different airports in four different countries — four sophisticated countries that have long experience taking terrorism and airport security pretty seriously. It’s hard to imagine what kind of organization could breach all four. And if you did go through all that trouble, why stop at one plane in each place? And why would they fixate on four airplanes that were not only traveling to the same airport but heading there via the exact same location? That’s far too big a coincidence.”
Rodriguez was nodding as Storm continued: “We need to think about that location. The geography has to be the common link here. Bryan, can you compare the four flight plans and find the places where they overlap within a mile or two?”
Bryan began typing furiously. On the flat screen on the far wall, Storm watched as Bryan manipulated the four flight plans on top of each other and began searching for points of intersection. Closer to Dulles, there were many of them — all four planes were on the same approach. Farther from Dulles, they were scattered.
The point of first convergence was slightly south of York, Pennsylvania.
“What’s there?” Storm asked, pointing.
Bryan zoomed in on the spot where Storm had gestured. When he got in close enough, they saw a chunk of green that was labeled, “Richard M. Nixon County Park.”
“Maybe they were enemies of the thirty-seventh president?” Rodriguez said.
“That wouldn’t narrow it down much,” Storm said. “No, this is our key. This spot. Everyone is talking about what happened in the air. But my bet is it was something on the ground that is responsible for this.”
“What could do that to an airplane from the ground? Some kind of surface-to-air missile?” Rodriguez asked.
“Something like that. If it was, you would think someone would have seen it. A rocket is not exactly invisible. It’s loud and bright and leaves a contrail. Can we dispatch some folks to make some gentle inquiries?”
“Got it,” Bryan said.
“Okay, so that’s getting us closer to figuring out what happened,” Storm said. “Where are we on the why?”
Bryan nodded at Rodriguez, who walked over to the large flat screen. Bryan’s jumble of flight plans disappeared with one touch from Rodriguez.
“Until someone credible claims responsibility, we’re mostly just fumbling in the dark,” Rodriguez said. “The current theory is that this is just random violence by some sick dude or dudes. No one has any clue what they want.”
“That’s not a very satisfying theory,” Storm said. “Are you sure there’s not anything the victims had in common? Maybe this was more targeted than we realize.”
“Not that we’ve been able to sort out so far,” Rodriguez said. “There were definitely some heavy hitters on board all the planes.”
“Like who?”
“We’ve had the nerds at work, searching for patterns among them. Nothing has popped so far. Not sure I have anything to tell you.”
“Humor me. Give me the biggest name on each flight.”
Rodriguez shrugged. “Okay, let’s see here. Flight 312 had Pi aboard.”
A photo of an unshaven, unkempt young man with a mop for a head of hair appeared on the screen. He vaguely resembled a grown Muppet.
Rodriguez continued: “Pi is the leader of the International Order of Fruitarians, a quasi-religious group that tries to convince people that fruit is the original diet of mankind — nutrition as God intended. Really, it’s a cult. It slowly lures innocent college kids, especially unsuspecting young women, into its clutches and then eventually brainwashes them into doing things like selling flowers at the airport.”
“Maybe the father of one of these kids who lost his daughter to this nonsense decided to seek ultimate revenge and fire a rocket at the airplane the guy was on,” Storm said. “A father would go to any length to protect his daughter from a monster like that.”
Rodriguez let that pass. “Flight 76 was the cargo flight. Beyond the crew, the only passenger was a Karlsson executive named Brigitte Bildt, who had some business in the States and decided to hop aboard. She was not the company’s CEO, but she apparently ran the day-to-day operations and was also involved in a lot of its strategic decision-making.”
A photo of a middle-aged woman with blue eyes and kinky brown hair was now being projected. It appeared to be a corporate head shot — no frills, no glamming up. She had been looking at the camera with a certain gravity, almost as if she was aware of the seriousness of the way the photo would someday be used.
“Is it possible Karlsson Logistics had business enemies?” Storm asked. “Maybe it was involved in some kind of leveraged takeover that Bildt was pressing for?”
“We’re looking into all possibilities,” Rodriguez said. “Moving on, Flight 494 had a couple of bigwigs, a professional athlete, some business types. But the biggest name was Congressman Erik Vaughn.”
A new image appeared. It was the beady-eyed, puffy-faced visage of the congressman, topped with helmet hair that never seemed to move.
“Eww…am I allowed to say I hate that guy?” Storm asked.
“You wouldn’t be alone. He chaired the Ways and Means committee and he’s one of those small-government zealots. He has used his position as leverage, refusing to bring any matter involving taxation before Ways and Means unless he gets a guarantee of reduced spending somewhere. I don’t think there’s a group whose funding he hasn’t cut. The young, the old, highway funding, the whole concept of foreign aid….You can go on and on with him.”
“We’d have a long list of people who’d love to see him die in a plane crash,” Storm acknowledged.
“There were others, too. Some more famous than others. And I guess it depends on your definition of famous. One of the people on the first plane down was Rachel McCord.”
“The porn star?” Storm burst.
Rodriguez arched an eyebrow. “Gee, Storm, how did you know about her?”
“I…I…read about her in a magazine once,” Storm said. “Anyhow, what’s my job in all this? Why does Jones want me here?”
As if he had the room bugged — and, really, he probably did — a trim man of about sixty with buzz-cut iron-gray hair and steely blue eyes walked through the door.
JEDEDIAH JONES’S TITLE WAS Head of Internal Division Enforcement. Its acronym was no accident, given that it neatly described his prevailing modus operandi.
Storm owed his existence to Jones in more ways than one. While it was Clara Strike who first discovered Derrick Storm — then a struggling private investigator who was considering changing his name to Derrick Aarons just to move it up a few notches in the Yellow Pages — it was Jones who took Storm’s raw abilities and honed them into polished proficiencies, turning Storm into a rare asset.
Their long association had been mutually beneficial in other ways as well. It had made Storm a rich man, one with a contact list of friends and sources that was even more invaluable than all the money he had amassed. And the missions that Storm had been able to complete — often against impossible odds — had been an invaluable boost to Jones’s career.
And yet there was always tension between the men. Jones knew he could never fully command Storm, who prioritized many things — his own moral code, his sense of patriotism, the welfare of his friends and family — over his orders from Jones.
And Storm, likewise, knew where Jones’s loyalties lay. And it wasn’t in their tenuous relationship. For all Storm had helped him achieve, for all the times Jones had deployed substantial resources to save Storm, Jones lacked sentimentality toward him. After a botched mission in Tangier, Morocco, Jones had faked Storm’s death, leading the world to think he had perished for four long years, not caring about the impact it had on Storm’s loved ones. What’s more, Storm knew that if it ever became expedient to have his death become real, Jones wouldn’t hesitate. He would leave Storm bleeding in a river full of piranhas if it benefited CIA goals or Jones’s sometimes-warped ideas about what was best for the country.
“Is he up to speed?” Jones asked, not bothering to immediately acknowledge Storm.
“As up to speed as any of us are at this point, sir,” Bryan said.
“Excellent,” Jones said, finally turning to his protégé. “Do you have a vehicle here?”
“Yes.”
“Great. We’re going to ask you to ditch it for the time being. Where you’re going, you’re not going to be Derrick Storm, and I don’t want you driving some souped-up hot rod, even if it is wrapped in a bland coating.”
“All right. Who am I and where am I going?”
“Not far. To Glen Rock, Pennsylvania.”
“That’s the Flight 76 crash site.”
“Correct. And it’s also where the National Transportation Safety Board has set up its investigation into what took that plane down. The NTSB will take its sweet time figuring it out, following all their policies and procedures and then coming out with a report in a couple of months outlining what they think might have happened. We don’t have a couple of months. I want to know what they know before they know it.”
“Why Flight 76?”
“One, because it’s as good a place to start as any figuring out what happened up there,” Jones said. “Those flatfoots from the FBI allowed this to happen on their turf and we’re going to stick it up their ass by cleaning up the mess for them.
“And, two, because the woman who owns the plane, Ingrid Karlsson, is a friend of mine. She’s been an aide to me and this agency on numerous occasions. She’s asked me for a favor and I don’t want to disappoint her.”
Storm looked for telltale signs of artifice from Jones, even though the man was too cagey to give them with any frequency. Still, Storm knew Jones didn’t do favors without the promise of a significant return. Storm wondered what it was this time — or if he’d ever find out.
There was never just one layer with the Head of Internal Division Enforcement.
“Okay,” Storm said. “And I’m guessing you have a plan for me beyond waltzing into an NTSB-secured crash site and asking them to show me their underwear?”
“Of course,” Jones said. “Follow me.”