High flight kirk mcgarve.., p.30
High Flight (Kirk McGarvey 5), page 30
part #4 of Kirk McGarvey Series
"Louis should be finished by tomorrow, and then we'll know where we
stand." Reid glanced across the corridor toward the computer room. "The
FBI has issued a warrant for his arrest in Jeanne Shepard's murder."
HIGH FLIGHT 267
"Has he been told?"
"Not yet. It's going to be difficult moving around the country with him.
You'll have to be careful."
"It was necessary in case he tried to back out," Mueller said, but Reid
held up a hand.
"I agree one-hundred percent. Nevertheless, we'll have to take care of him
until he gets everything set up. 1~
Another thought occurred to Mueller. "Do you think he suspects that once
he's finished he becomes expendable?"
"He's not a stupid man, but if he does suspect I haven't seen any signs of
it."
"Nor I," Mueller replied absently. Yet there was something different about
Zerkel since the morning of the crash. As if the man were smirking. As if
he had a secret.
"Glen will help you," Reid was saying. "He understands the stakes." "Against his own brother?" Reid nodded. "Without a moment's hesitation."
Mueller had no siblings, but he'd always had the vague notion that
brothers, since they were of the same blood, would be staunch allies.
Apparently that wasn't always so. He'd learned something new.
"We'll talk again in the morning," Reid said. "I have to go into the city
to work on my newsletter."
"Have you given thought to what will happen afterward?" Mueller asked,
watching Reid's eyes very carefully.
"What do you mean?" the older man asked without blinking.
"I won't be able to return to Europe for some time to come. Possibly
years." "Have you thought about what you want?" "Not specifically."
"I suggest you do so, Herr Mueller. And when you have decided the course of
your future, we will discuss my role as well as my responsibilities in it." "Very well," Mueller said, and Reid left. From the
268 DAVID HAGBERG
front window he watched the headlights of Reid's car head down the driveway, the night very dark except toward the airport where the accident investigation continued. He wondered where his life was heading.
It was the easiest headline Reid had ever written. He had been building up to this one for several months, so he did not think many of his readers, including Secretary of State Jonathan Stearnes Carter, would be surprised. Some of them, however, would scream for his blood. Everything he'd written to date was nothing but the solid-gold truth, as he saw it. No one had ever gone wrong, not financially wrong, following his advice. Not even his detractors would deny him his track record. People listened.
He maintained a suite of offices for the Lamplighter at the Grand Hyatt
Washington, a half-dozen blocks from the White House. The weekly
newsletter was written completely by him, but it was researched by a
staff of a dozen people, many of whom had been editors of prison
newspapers whose prison releases he had sponsored. His staff was
completely loyal to him.
At three in the morning, however, he was alone in his office, working at
his computer. Despite his drunkenness and tiredness, he never felt more
lucid. His words flowed like a mountain stream-clear, cold, precise, and
very fast.
He didn't bother with his notes, or with the latest stack of reports from
his analysts, but wrote simply and directly from his heart. The passion
was on him.
After this was sent to his six-thousand-plus subscribers the present
relationship between Japan and the United States would change, and the
change would be dramatic.
ARE WE WAITING FOR ANOTHER PEARL HARBOR? his head line demanded. And he proceeded to tell his readers why another Pearl Harbor, this one possibly a strike on the Panama - Canal, bottling the Atlantic fleet, would happen. Combined with an accident at the mouth of Tokyo Bay,
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which would keep the Seventh Fleet from striking, the Japanese MSDF would have a free, if short, reign over the western Pacific. Wiser heads would prevail, of course, and the little war would be stopped almost immediately, but not before Japan got what it wanted, which was economic control of the western Pacific basin. "It's coming," he warned.
The NTSB took over an old TWA maintenance hangar across Dulles field from the terminal, well away from the public's eye. Some of the wreckage had already been transported from the site three miles away, and investigators were piecing the airplane back together. It was hard enough making sense out of the tangled, burned wreckage without the intrusions of television cameras and press photographers. However, each day at noon, a media briefing that lasted exactly twenty minutes was held in one comer of the hangar. No one cared for the arrangement, but that's the way the Board did things.
Kennedy and Socrates showed up ten minutes after the briefing ended, just
as Al Vasilanti and Malcolm O'Toole were emerging from one of the office
trailers set up at the rear of the hangar. Vasilanti had aged ten years
in the last three days, but O'Toole was an ageless English bulldog, his
long white hair and muttonchops in total disarray.
"You just missed the press," Vasilanti told them. "And it's a good thing,
because they're starting to smell blood."
All four men shook hands, but Socrates couldn't keep his eyes away from
the remains of the P522 laid out in pieces like a corpse at a
post-mortem. He shook his head. "It wasn't my airframe's fault," he
muttered.
"It was an engine overheat again," O'Toole said, following the engineer's
gaze. Pieces of that wing were still being picked up, whereas most of the
starboard wing had been brought over and reassembled. The absence of the
port wing and engine made for a stark conclusion. "The ceramic blades again?" Socrates asked sharply.
270 DAVID HAGBERG
"It would appear so, George. But I'll swear by the Queen Mother that for
whatever reasons the highpressure blisk turbine overheated, the
temperatures were well within our design parameters." "But the blades broke down?"
"Yes. It should not have happened, but it did. And it looks as if overheat
was the case."
"Could it have been sabotage, Sir Malcolm?" Kennedy asked.
"I sincerely wish it were, but I've found nothing to indicate that the
cat's been in the cream." "What about the heat sensors?"
"We've found nothing on the recording tape to indicate a malfunction of the
port unit. Of course it was completely destroyed. But we've got the
starboard unit on the bench." "Anything?" Kennedy asked.
Sir Malcolm shook his leonine head sadly. "Functions as designed." "Then we're back to 1990," Socrates said bitterly.
"With one important exception," Kennedy interjected. "In '90 it was our
first crash. This is the second one, apparently from the same cause. That
in itself gives us a starting point."
"Rolls goes back to the Gamma titanium aluminide for its blades," Socrates
shot back. "We must immediately ground the fleet and retrofit all the
engines."
"That will take time and money, neither of which we can afford," Vasilanti
said. The remark was so uncharacteristic that it stopped everyone dead.
"But, Mr. Vasilanti, think of the lives that might be lost," Socrates
protested, recovering first.
"As long as the FAA does not issue the grounding order, we will quietly
inspect each engine in the field. Our AOG teams can get the job done within
the month. The airlines won't object, and they'll keep their mouths shut."
The AOG-Aircraft on the Ground-team had been Boeing's idea. Airplanes
grounded because of maintenance problems were bad publicity. So Guerin,
like
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Boeing, fielded rapid-deployment teams of experts who could go anywhere at a moment's notice and fix virtually any problem. Each team had available to it at least one P522 equipped as a flying spare-parts store, machine shop, and electronics repair facility. On more than one occasion an AOG team had completely rebuilt a jetliner that had been so heavily damaged in an accident or hijacking or shelling by a military force that the owners had already contacted their insurance carrier to find out where the carcass should be scrapped. In many cases it was the insurance company that contacted Guerin.
"It will take us some time to supply you with replacement blades," Sir
Malcolm said.
"I didn't say that we were replacing the blades. We're going to inspect
each engine. Top to bottom." "For what?"
"Booby traps. Bombs. Remote-control devices on the fuel ports or air
intake ducts."
He had their attention now. Especially Socrates and Sir Malcolm.
"It would answer some fundamental questions, that," the British engine
designer said.
"Our AOG teams will go out with a pair of brand-new engines from stock
so there'll be no chance they will have been tampered with. We'll work
one airplane at a time. Yank the old engines, replace them with the new,
and before we move on, tear down the old engines. Sooner or later we'll
come across another plane ready to blow."
"If there is another," Sir Malcolm said. "It has been seven years between
incidents."
"There'll be another," Kennedy interjected. "Possibly more than one." Vasilanti eyed him sharply. "What?" Sir Malcolm asked.
"We can't assume that this crash is an isolated incident. Certain facts
have come to our attention that lead me to suspect that something like
this will happen again. Very soon."
272 DAVID HAGBERG
"Then I agree with George, ground the fleet. In the meantime, what are
these certain facts, David?" "I'd rather not say at the moment."
"These are Rolls-Royce engines. We too have a reputation to maintain. Good
Lord, man, think of the consequences if another of your birds goes down.
Think of the lives lost."
"We have," Kennedy said. "Which is why we're glad that you're here. If
anyone can find out how those engines are overheating, it will be you and
George."
Sir Malcolm looked at Kennedy shrewdly, his lips pursed. "There've been
rumors floating about that your company may be under attack. A hostile
takeover of one sort or another. Any validity to this?"
"Possibly," Kennedy said carefully. This was not Rolls-Royce's fight,
although the company would suffer if Guerin went under. But, if Rolls were
to be officially notified that a major problem was looming on the, horizon,
the British government-which controlled the company-might withdraw as
Guerin's primary engine supplier. That in itself would spell disaster. "Would there be a connection to this business?"
"We hope not, Sir Malcolm, but that too is a possibility we cannot ignore."
"What a cockup," the Brit said. "Then we'd best shake a leg and keep it in
the family."
The riots that began in Tokyo's Akasaka District the next morning had not been planned. Japanese newspapers and television over the past month had been filled with grisly stories about a young Japanese woman on vacation in New York who was raped and killed in Central Park. It was the eleventh murder of a Japanese citizen visiting the United States in three years, and the public was sick to death of the mindless violence. The neo-fascist organization Rising Sun, which wanted control of the Diet and wanted to take Japan back to a preWorld War 11 condition of international military might, took full advantage of the growing crowds in front of the
HIGH FLIGHT 273
Suntory Building and nearby New Otani Hotel. The organization, which was an offshoot of the old Red Army faction, was superb. Within twenty minutes of hearing the news, the co-founders and leaders Shotoro Ashia and Takushiro Hatoyama were exhorting the crowd with bullhorns that their enemy was very near. Only blocks away, in fact, in Minato-ku at the U.S. Embassy.
The district, bounded on the northwest by the Akasaka Palace and grounds
and to the east by the Imperial Palace, was a warren of federal
government buildings, international business offices, and foreign
embassies. They were in billionaires' row, and there were more foreigners
per square hectare here than anywhere else in Japan. Which was perfect,
so far as Rising Sun was concerned.
The second step, after agitating the rapidly growing crowd, was to
produce an old woman who purported to be the mother of the girl killed
in New York's Central Park last month and the young woman who'd been
killed yesterday in Yokosuka.
The girls were sisters, Hatoyama claimed. The old woman's only daughters.
Both of them brutally murdered by savages.
Timing the old woman's appearance perfectly, Rising Sun was able to hold
the crowd from marching on the U.S. embassy until the media showed up so
that everyone would know what was happening here, and why. When CNN
arrived the crowd began its march to Minato-ku.
U.S. Consular Officer Philip Webb was on his way into work and had to
skirt the still-growing early crowd, which he estimated to contain at
least ten thousand people. He was off by a factor of ten, but he did get
their purpose and destination right and managed to get into the embassy
compound about five minutes ahead of the first wave.
On hearing what was coming their way, Marine Lieutenant Lloyd Robinson,
chief of the A.M. security watch, called his CO, Major Bob Richards, CIA
Assistant Chief
274 DAVID HAGBERG
of Station Stephen Pelham, and Special Assistant to the Ambassador Judy Bromme, who was the only ranking officer around this morning who could speak Japanese.
The crowd, still orderly despite its size and motivation, filled the
streets immediately surrounding the embassy and spread in all directions
as far as the eye could see. One official estimate placed the final
number of people at one million. No one doubted that figure. Softly the
crowd began to chant a single word, low, and menacing for its gentleness.
"What are they saying?" Lieutenant Robinson asked nervously from his post
within the gates.
"Wakarimasen, wakarimasen, " Judy Bromme repeated the ominous chant. She
was frightened. "It means 'I don't understand."' "They don't understand what?" "I don't know, but I think we'd better find out."
Washington's rush-hour traffic was in full swing.
McGarvey waited for Dominique Kilbourne to come out of her office just
off Thomas Circle a few blocks from the Russian embassy, and he followed
her across the street to the parking lot where she kept her car. It was
already dark, cars and buses ran with headlights, and the streetlights
had come on. She walked as if she were tired, and yet she was wary, even
jumpy. He'd seen the same sort of attitude in field officers who'd lost
their nerve, or who'd gone over the edge thing.
She turned and waited for him to catch up. "I saw you standing out here,"
she said. "Has the Board found anything yet?"
"No," McGarvey said. He'd spent most of the day at Dulles at the crash
hangar. It was depressing. "How are you holding up?"
"I'm keeping busy, if that's what you mean," she said defensively. "But
I sent your CIA goons away. I got tired of them following me around." "Do you still keep all your lights on at night?" he
. or who were hiding some- HIGH FLIGHT 275
asked, cruelly. He wanted to get to her, cut through her bullshit.
"That's right. And I bought a gun, so I suggest the next time you want
to see me you call first. I can't guarantee I won't get jumpy and pull
the trigger by mistake."
"I could talk to your brother. He'd probably pull you out of here, no
matter what you'd say about it. He thinks that you should be in Portland
with him anyway. Kennedy would give you a job."
She laughed derisively. "I talked to him this afternoon. It's funny, you
know, because he doesn't like you. He thinks that you're sleeping with
me."
When she was excited color came to her cheeks. She was flushed now. He
decided that she was beautiful.
"I could arrange to have you arrested and forcibly taken out of
Washington."
"It won't happen," she said. "Do you want me to tell you why?" "All right."
"Because you've come here to ask for my help." She looked back across the
street. "The Japanese are demonstrating in front of our embassy in Tokyo
right now. Did you know that?" "No."
"They think we're a violent people. They want us to get out of Japan.
Which is funny, if you think about what they did during the war. Their
emperor is still apologizing to the Chinese." "Now you're afraid of them."
"That's right, and it's your fault. You pointed out what they were
capable of doing to us. Now every time I pick up a newspaper or watch a
television news show, or even go home to my apartment, I think about
them."
"It's not the Japanese government, or even the people, only one group of
old men."
"What difference does it make who does it if you are violated?" She
stepped closer so that he could almost feel the heat radiating from her.
"They're not so far off the track. We are a violent people."
