Assassin's Silence: A David Slaton Novel (24 page)

Cruz watched his guest put a toe to one of the hard-shell suitcases. “Is this how you found it?” the American asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean both latches are undone on this suitcase.” Davis leaned down and lifted the top half open. “And it’s empty.”

“Yes…” replied a hesitant Cruz. “I’m sure it was forced open on impact and the contents scattered to the sea.”

“The sea,” the American repeated. He bent down and examined the life jacket. “Was the mort wearing this?”

“The who?” Cruz asked, the slang defeating his schoolhouse English.

“The dead guy—was he wearing this?”

“No.”

“The CO
2
cartridge has been activated. Why would anybody do that
before
they strapped it on?”

“I couldn’t say.” Sensing things slipping, Cruz offered, “We also have photographs taken by the search crews.” He led to a nearby table and pointed to a few reports, including the preliminary autopsy, and a short stack of aerial photos. There wasn’t enough yet to bother with a filing system.

The American flipped through it all, spending considerable time on the medical examiner’s report. In the end, he held up a single photograph—an empty stretch of ocean marred by a free-form, rainbow-colored sheen. “This is a fuel slick,” he said.

“Of course.”

“Did you recover any?” Davis asked.

“Sorry?”

“The fuel in this picture—did somebody collect a sample for analysis?”

In a proud moment, Colonel Cruz fished through the short stack of papers on the table. “Yes, here it is. The Coast Guard retrieved a sample and we performed an analysis in our laboratory.” He handed over the report.

The American looked it over, and his square features seemed to bend. “Engine oil?”

“Yes, already identified as the brand and grade used in these engines. The General Electric man confirmed it.” Cruz pointed to a disinterested, fair-skinned man across the hangar who was thoroughly engrossed in an issue of
The Economist
.

The big American dropped the paper and photos onto the evidence table. “The MD-10 Dash-30 has a usable jet fuel capacity of thirty-six thousand gallons, contained in large and relatively thin-skinned tanks. It holds twenty-four gallons of high-grade engine oil tightly encased in the most dense parts of the accessory drive box.”

Cruz stared blankly at the man.

“Does it not strike you as odd that all you found out there was
engine
oil?”

“Our investigation is in its early days … the search continues.”

“Early days,” the American repeated. It was an annoying mannerism, yet trivial compared to what came next. Davis turned and walked away. “Happy hunting,” he called over his shoulder.

“But … where are you going?”

“Home.”

“What? You were sent here to help us!”

On his exit there was no mistaking it—the boorish American opened the door with a good swift kick.

Cruz, a full colonel, was not accustomed to disrespect. Never was he simply ignored. On the other hand, from what he’d seen so far, he wasn’t unhappy to let this man go. He went back to his Cuban desk, put a Brazilian cigar between his teeth, and addressed his mobile phone. He bypassed the contact list where his commanding general’s number was listed, as well as that of the Brazilian Minister of Transportation. Instead he navigated to the calendar and began calculating the number of days to his retirement.

*   *   *

The passenger terminal was nearly two miles away, but Jammer Davis had no intention of waiting for a cab at a remote outbuilding in the gathering equatorial heat. He set out along the service road that connected the hangar to the airport proper, a rutted gravel track threatened on either side by an encroaching jungle. Davis pulled out his phone as he walked and initiated a call.

The phone was a satellite device, and thankfully the connection held on the first try. The signal was received and decrypted in the Washington, D.C. area, although not at L’Enfant Plaza where the National Transportation Safety Board was headquartered, the United States’ recognized body for investigating aeronautical misfortune. Instead, the satellite link reached one of the many antennae on the roof of a large and well-known building in Langley, Virginia.

“What have you got, Jammer?” Sorensen asked.

“An investigation that’s going nowhere. I’m not going to find out anything useful about your two pilots—not anytime soon.”

“You’re sure?”

This mistake Davis met with silence.

“All right,” she said. “You can file a report when you get back tomorrow. That was all I needed to know.”

“No,” Davis said. “You need to know a lot more.”

“What do you mean?”

“You need to look into this. I did a little research of my own.”

“What, on a computer? You can do that?”

Trudging over gravel in the Amazon heat, Davis flashed a grin. He really liked Sorensen, spook or not. Their relationship had sputtered over long distances, and when they did find themselves in a common time zone their interactions ranged from intimacy to combativeness to amusement. But never boredom. So when Anna had called yesterday, for the first time in a month, he’d been glad. Even more so when she’d asked for his help.

“I didn’t like what I found,” he said. “I need to take a detour on the way home and look into something. If I’m right, you and I need to meet with the director tomorrow.”

“Stop right there, Major! You are not in the military anymore, which means you don’t give orders. You are a retired Air Force pilot who does a little consulting on the side. And consultants don’t demand meetings with the director of the CIA.”

“This one does. And here’s why.” It took Davis less than a minute to capsulize his suspicions.

“Are you sure about this?”

“I wish you’d stop asking me that. Look, Anna, give me one day to get my ducks in a row. In the meantime, you do the same. Find out everything you can about the people involved in this—in particular, who runs the company that bought this airplane.”

There was silence as Sorensen processed the order. “Where are you going?” she asked.

“Oregon. They have lots of ducks out there. If it turns out I’m wrong, I promise to call right away.”

There was no response.

“And if I’m right?” Davis prompted.

“Yeah … I’ll get you that meeting.”

THIRTY-FIVE

The truck clattered roughly over the old gravel road, kicking up a rooster-tail of dust that blossomed into the midday sky. Sam was driving, and Ghazi in the passenger seat—neither man had experience driving such a heavy vehicle, but Ghazi reasoned that the little Indonesian would draw less attention if they were stopped and questioned.

There was nothing incriminating about the truck, particularly since the tank was empty. Even when they drove in the opposite direction tomorrow, toward the airport, their load would be perfectly harmless. The vehicle was a tanker, a fifty-five-hundred-gallon water-hauler they’d bought from an American subcontractor that worked the oil fields. The Americans had a reputation for discarding serviceable equipment before its time, and while the truck had seen better days, Ghazi was sure it would run for another thirty miles. That was all he needed. One trip to the farm to take on its load, and then a return leg back to the airport. The remainder of their equipment would be transferred using the Toyota, the exception being the heavy bricks which they planned to distribute around the tanker, including the passenger-side floor where his feet now rested.

Ghazi rolled down his window, the unseasonably warm day taking its grip as the small clutch of buildings came into view.

“Are you sure the pump is working properly?” Sam asked.

“I am confident,” Ghazi replied. When they had purchased the truck the main transfer pump was inoperable, but the Americans had made good on their promise—an able mechanic had it working before they left the parking lot. The pump was rated at one thousand gallons per minute, but it was old and leaky, and Ghazi knew that number wouldn’t hold. It didn’t matter—even half such a rate would suffice. “I watched very carefully how he primed it, and which valves he used. I will have no trouble repeating the process.”

“That’s good, because otherwise we would have to do the transfer by hand. Five thousand gallons—that is a lot of water to move.”

“Don’t worry, I have a backup pump at the farmhouse if necessary. This contract is important, so I’ve planned for every contingency.”

Sam looked at him. “What exactly does your company do?”

Ghazi had long expected the question. “We have a contract with the Ministry of Oil to study cleanup methods should there ever be a major spill. We must perform an important test tomorrow.”

Sam nodded thoughtfully, and Ghazi sensed a degree of suspicion. He was hardly surprised. For three years the Indonesian had had his boots on the ground in the epicenter of Iraqi oil production, and so he knew the level of concern here for the environment. It struck Ghazi that Sam had never asked more obvious questions. Why had they set up shop in such a remote location? Why did they perform most of their work in the middle of the night? He decided it was to Sam’s credit that he’d never asked. Ghazi reached into his pocket and withdrew Sam’s daily wage. As ever, the Indonesian took it with a smile that absolved any reservations.

When they arrived at the farmhouse, Ghazi scouted all around: the levees, the waterway, the walking paths. There was no one in sight. Sam opened the barn door and Ghazi backed the tanker truck in—it fit, but only just—and together they shut the big door.

The next hour was spent hauling lead brick, and lead-lined glass and plywood. Three empty two-thousand-gallon bladders, each folded to the size of a small table, Ghazi secured to the side of the tanker with rope. The remaining equipment, all extracted from the rusted oil drums in which it had been delivered, they loaded into the Toyota’s bed and covered with a tarp. In the end, the little convoy would appear to be just what it was—a pair of industrial vehicles hauling equipment. The only difference from a hundred others that would travel the road to town tomorrow was the nature of their job.

“Seven tomorrow evening,” Ghazi said firmly. “You must be on time.”

“Sure thing, boss,” said Sam, his smile giving way to a more circumspect look. “Boss … how long this contract going to last?”

“Why do you ask?”

“My friend, he tells me they are hiring riggers in Rumaila.”

“How much do they pay?”

Sam shrugged noncommittally. “Pretty good, they say.”

“As good as half again what I’m paying you?”

The kid looked at him in amazement. “Really? You give me that kind of raise?”

Ghazi put a hand on his shoulder. “I can depend on you, Sam. Stay with me, and I promise you’ll never need another job in Iraq.”

Sam’s broad smile returned.

*   *   *

When Slaton woke he was hundreds of miles removed from Wangen, Switzerland. The alarm clock by his bed claimed it was noon. He went to the window of his quaint bed-and-breakfast room and looked out over the streets of Sachsenhausen. A German winter had arrived in full force, three inches of new snow and a sharp wind snapping the black, red, and yellow standards flying from shop fronts down the street. The sky had all but disappeared, curtains of snow and sleet texturing the iron-clad gray above, and his window was edged in a fresh crystalline frame.

He had traveled through the night to reach the main rail station in Frankfurt, and arrived in Sachsenhausen just as the beer halls were closing and the last revelers weaving home. He took a room in the first place he found whose lights were on, and slept uninterrupted until the noon bells of three downtown churches rang in cumbersome disharmony.

To complete his restoration he took an omelet and juice in his room, in the company of
Die Welt,
and later a hot shower down the hall, and by one that afternoon he felt back among the living. In his room Slaton set back to work by taking his first good look at the passport and visa he’d retrieved from the body in Wangen. Slaton knew a good forgery when he saw one, and this passport was excellent. A Lebanese business visa was current, which made two useful points: the men tracking him were soon headed to Lebanon, and they’d been planning it for some time. He studied the slip of paper that had been folded into the passport. On it was an eight-digit character string, letters and numbers, preceded by the capital letters
LH.
Slaton thought he knew what it was, and there was a simple way to find out.

He collected his worldly possessions—a ski jacket to go over the stolen clothes on his back, a solid forged passport, and a still sizable wad of cash—and was soon out the door. He stopped at an electronics retailer and purchased a cheap tablet computer, paying cash, and ten minutes later, with his hair dusted in snow, he ducked into a café that advertised free Wi-Fi. At the counter he ordered a tall café Americano, and soon was seated at a table with an open-network connection—there was a time for security and a time for speed. This was definitely the latter.

With everything up and running, he navigated to the website for Lufthansa Airlines—LH. He typed in the name on the passport and the reference number, and within seconds saw that the man had been booked the previous evening, under his certainly fictitious name, on a direct flight from Munich to Beirut. A second passenger was also listed in the same booking reference—another name that meant nothing to Slaton, but he was sure it was Ben-Meir. It was poor operational security to group multiple operatives on a single reservation. Doing so left a paper trail, albeit in this case an electronic one. It suggested Ben-Meir was getting rushed, probably in response to the trouble Slaton had been giving him.

In any event, he had made his first mistake.

From his pocket Slaton retrieved the encryption codes for his financial accounts and logged in to each one. He found that he remained—in his true name, David Slaton—a very wealthy petro-investor. Yet there was one significant change. A single transfer to a bank in Beirut. Slaton saw no name listed for the receiver, only an account number. Even so, he knew where the money had gone. It was the amount that gave it away. Four hundred and fifty thousand U.S. dollars, the balance due on a transaction that had begun nearly two years earlier.