Day Zero (28 page)

 

Q
uinn turned to check on Mattie one last time before venturing closer to the body.

She peered over the top of her new book, craning her head in order to sneak a look up the stairs. She had inherited his curiosity for anything that smelled of adventure and danger—even if she was only seven.

“Stay put, you,” Quinn said. “There are some things you just can’t un-see. Got it?”

“I know, Daddy,” Mattie said, sounding decades beyond her years. “I’ve seen them.”

Her directness took Quinn’s breath away. She was definitely his daughter—and he was pretty sure that was not something she’d put on the plus side of her ré-sumé in the future.

Quinn was nearly fourteen when he’d stumbled upon his first body—a hunter who’d frozen to death in the Talkeetna Mountains north of Anchorage. The bears were in hibernation and he’d found him before the wolves did. But pine martens and weasels had begun to nibble away at the man’s hands, leaving nothing but finger bones hanging from the frozen cuffs of a wool shirt that was oddly clean. They radioed the troopers and watched when a ski plane landed in a snowy clearing among the gnarled black spruce. The plane looked barely large enough for the pilot, a tall man with a blue uniform and thin mustache. The Quinn brothers and their father helped the trooper stuff and cram the body into the airplane, frozen in a seated position, where it sat, staring blankly at the back of the trooper pilot’s head as he took off for Anchorage. There was no blood, no guts, nothing but emptiness—and bones where fingers should have been. Quinn’s conscious mind found the experience more reverent than traumatic, but the skeletal hands of that first dead man had shaken him awake from his dreams many times over the decades since.

Violent brushes with evil men already gave Mattie plenty of cause for nightmares. Quinn knew from hard experience that these things had a way of adding up. “Stack-tolerance,” they called it. At some point, the mind couldn’t handle any more. The last thing he wanted to do was put her near another grisly murder scene while she was still young enough to be reading Lemony Snicket.

“That’s how we found him.” Carly’s voice pulled him back to the present.

Quinn moved slowly, searching step by step for any clue before he put his foot down. Apart from a cascading pool of blood and the lifeless body draped across the stairs, the polished teak was remarkably clean.

Early in his OSI career, before he found a natural home in counterintelligence, Quinn put in some time in Criminal Investigations—known as “Crim.” He helped local authorities and the FBI with several homicides where Air Force personnel were involved, both on and off base. Two cases had been robberies gone bad, but most were crimes of passion. In all cases, clutter and chaos ruled the day. The scenes were in shambles.

Even at first glance, Quinn could tell this was no crime of passion. The killing had been quick and precise, by someone who knew exactly what they were doing. It all had to have happened in seconds, while the victim was alone on the stairs, without alerting the other passengers above or below. When done by an expert, assassinations—something with which Quinn had a certain amount of experience—very often appeared as sterile as an operating room.

Still four steps below the body, Quinn squatted to get a better look. The dead man lay facedown, legs trailing, arms above his head, as if he’d been trying to climb the stairs on all fours before he died. He was white and looked to be in his early forties, with a receding hairline and a sizeable spare tire around his waist. A well-worn leather penny loafer hung from the toe of one foot. A gray polo shirt, the back of which was oddly clean for the amount of blood on the stairs, bunched up around his armpits, exposing his back and belly—as if the killer had attempted to lift him off his feet during a struggle.

Quinn looked over his shoulder, checking in on Carly. “You okay?”

She nodded quickly, mouth clenched tightly as if she was trying not to throw up. “I’ve just never seen anything this gruesome before.”

Quinn took a deep breath, wishing he could say the same.

There was a bizarre obscenity in looking at someone who’d died a violent death—especially when that death had come at the hands of another. The dead could not turn away or cover their own nakedness. Investigators, for a time at least, were forced to leave the bodies exposed and twisted, frozen in their final moment of terror. Worse than that, the sight of such a scene drew in the unprepared, making them ponder too long and too hard on the short distance between life and death.

Carly stood behind him, hands at her sides. Her twitchiness disappeared now that she was certain Quinn was going to help.

Still squatting, Quinn studied the curvature of the wall above the body, where the victim would have been standing when he was killed. A swath of blood spatter, four feet wide, flecked the white plastic in tiny specks of red. There was a notable vacancy in the pattern, where someone or something else had blocked the path of the spray.

Quinn glanced back at Carly. “Don’t you carry some nitrile gloves for cleanup in case someone gets airsick?”

“I’ll get you some.” She ducked back down the stairs, apparently happy for the chance to step away from the gore.

“And a camera,” Quinn added. “Something better than a phone if you can find it, with a good flash.”

Quinn stepped up next to the void in the blood spatter and found, as he suspected he would, that it was roughly the shape of his shoulder. He bent at the knees to make the comparison, which put the person who’d been standing there when the victim’s throat was cut at around five-seven or five-eight.

Carly returned a few moments later with a pair of blue gloves. Quinn hung the camera around his neck, and then slipped the gloves on with a snap. He took photos from every angle, noting the way the man was positioned, the spatter and the blood that pooled on the polished wood beneath the body, before overflowing and dripping down the riser to the next step.

Moving up beside the victim, Quinn stooped to take close-ups of the wound in the man’s neck before he moved him. Whatever it had been, the weapon was sharp, maybe a piece of glass. A deep gash began under the dead man’s left ear, severing both the carotid and jugular before continuing around to open his windpipe.

“So,” Quinn muttered to himself. “You’re right-handed.”

“Pardon?” Carly took a tentative step forward, watching where she put her foot to avoid stepping in blood.

“Our killer is probably right-handed.” Quinn pantomimed grabbing someone from behind and drawing a blade from left to right, as much to get the movement in his own mind as to demonstrate to the flight attendant.

The wound was deep enough to expose the grotesque white of vertebrae and glistening cartilage. Quinn knew from experience that it took someone with a substantial amount of upper-body strength to hold even a small victim still while inflicting this much damage.

After he’d taken far more pictures than he’d ever need, Quinn passed the camera back to Carly. He fished the wallet out of the dead man’s back pocket and flipped it open.

“Aaron Foulger,” he said, reading the man’s driver’s license. “From south Anchorage . . . There’s about five hundred bucks cash US and roughly . . .” He thumbed through the bills and did some quick math in his head. “About two grand worth of 5,000-ruble notes.”

Quinn found a faculty ID for the University of Alaska and passed it back to Carly, along with the wallet. “Have Natalie get somebody to check and see if he’s traveling with anyone. Don’t make contact if he is. Just let me know one way or the other.”

Carly ducked away long enough to use the interphone and find out Foulger was traveling alone. She studied the ID and looked up at the body from her vantage point on the gentle arc of the staircase below Quinn. “Why would anyone want to kill a UAA professor?”

“We’re looking for opportunity, means, and motive,” Quinn said. “Our killer had opportunity when he caught Foulger alone on the stairwell.” Quinn nodded toward the gash in the dead man’s neck. “He had access to some sort of sharp blade, which should theoretically be difficult to come by on a commercial aircraft. I’m guessing it was a piece of glass—maybe a broken wine bottle or something. Anyway, the blade, along with the strength to employ it, gave him means.”

Quinn scanned the body again to see what he’d missed. “What I’m not seeing is motive.” He bent to study the dead man’s hands. “There’s a good chance the professor was a target of opportunity. If this was preplanned, I can think of a dozen better places to kill somebody than in the stairwell of a crowded airplane.”

Carly gave him a weak smile. “You know it doesn’t calm a girl to know you can think of a dozen better places to commit a murder.”

Quinn ignored her, instead working through the odds that someone would risk committing a murder at this exact spot with five hundred potential witnesses.

“Too big a chance that you’d get caught here,” he mused. “Why not wait for him in his house, wire his car to explode, slip something in his coffee? If it just had to be up close and personal, you could even cut him like this when he’s walking past a blind alley in downtown Anchorage.” Quinn paced back and forth on the stairs. “He lives up on the Hillside, not five hundred feet from Chugach State Park. It would be nothing to set up a sniper nest and pop him while he was out walking his dog. . . .”

“Again with the creepy stuff,” Carly said. “You just rattled five ways to kill a man right off the top of your head.”

“Yeah.” Quinn shrugged. “I guess that is a little scary.” He resisted the urge to explain himself further.

Carly cocked her head to one side, pondering. Her long hair hung down, away from her shoulder. She wrestled with her thoughts for a moment before looking up at Quinn.

“What kind of sick person murders a random passenger on board an airplane?” she said.

Quinn took a deep breath, thinking through the ramifications of his theory.

“Somebody who wants a diversion,” he said.

Carly’s eyes narrowed. “A diversion from what?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he said. “It’s still only a theory.”

Quinn stepped down to the base of the stairs so he could talk to both Carly and Natalie and do a quick check on Mattie.

“How many people in the crew?” Quinn asked.

“Twenty-two flight attendants,” Carly said. “And the two up front in the cockpit. We don’t pick up the relief pilots until Vladivostok.”

“Twenty-one,” Natalie corrected. “Stacy Damico called in sick.”

“Okay,” Quinn said. “From this time forward, every attendant needs to find a buddy and stick with them. A murder is too big an incident to keep buttoned up. Word will spread quickly, if it hasn’t already. There’ll be a lot of uncomfortable questions that no one will be able to answer. My advice is to keep up service.”

“To keep people calm.” Carly nodded.

“That, and to give us eyes moving around the aircraft,” Quinn said. “Let the others know right away. Everyone moves in twos.”

He picked up the phone on the bulkhead, reporting his findings to the captain. He spoke in whispered tones so as not to reach Mattie’s straining ears and give her more than she should have to handle.

Ninety seconds after he hung up, the massive Airbus dipped her wing, and began a slow bank to the right. The pilot was taking the plane back to Anchorage.

Quinn felt the white-hot gush of anticipation that came before a conflict. Someone on this plane had cut the throat of a complete stranger to divert attention from something else—a bomb, a hijacking. Quinn didn’t know what, but it was something bigger than murder.

 

T
he actual act of killing happened more quickly than Tang had anticipated. One moment he stood at the top of the stairs, ensuring no one interrupted Gao while he did his work—and the next Gao was there, tiny droplets of blood on his face and neck. There had been no thump, no groan, no scream. Tang didn’t know what he’d expected, but it seemed to him that bloody death should come with some sound. He was still processing when he returned to his seat. Lin knew nothing about the murder and, though they had planned to kill everyone on the plane from the moment they boarded, he kept this death to himself. He would keep the entire secret, until the last possible moment.

Still, many years of marriage made it impossible to hide the concern in his face.

“What has happened?” she asked.

“We are going to try something different,” Tang said. He could see the corner of the recycle bag sitting on the floor of the galley just two rows ahead. There were ninety-six seats in business class, ninety-six meals, ninety-six sheets of aluminum foil. He hoped that would be enough.

“Different?” Lin stared at him, head tilted to one side, trying to make sense of what he was saying. “I find it difficult to believe you would change your mind so easily.”

“I love you,” he said, voice tight and plastic—surely she noticed that. “I am ready to make necessary sacrifices.”

Tang looked away under the heavy burden of her gaze. He checked his watch for something to do. “I must go,” he said.

She took his arm, leaning in close so as not to be heard by other passengers.

“I will not detonate the device,” she said.

“You will not have to,” he said softly. “I told you, I am making some sacrifices because of my feelings for you.”

 

 

Red-and-white uniforms seemed to be everywhere—but any minute there would be even more. He waited for the business-class flight attendant to move down the aisle on her rounds, then grabbed the recycle bag and whisked it into the lavatory. Once behind the safety of the locked door, Tang spread the foil dinner covers out flat, then worked feverishly to rip each sheet into smaller pieces until he had a pile of silver confetti that filled the small sink. The entire process was simple, but it took time, time Tang knew he did not have.

Word of Gao’s bloody handiwork spread among the cabin crew like a grass fire. Those that didn’t go all the way to the back went as least as far as mid cabin, to see for themselves if the rumors were true. While they were looking aft, Tang used the opportunity to slip down the front stairwell with his shirt stuffed full of foil strips. He ducked around the corner to the espresso bar, which was now empty but for the single attendant.

The seat belt chime sounded and the slender man in a crisp red vest nodded politely when he saw Tang. “Can I get you something, sir?” he said. “I’d be happy to bring it back to your seat.” The tag on his vest said his name was Paxton. He had the youthful eyes of a man with lofty dreams, who was only here serving coffee for a time while he worked out his road to somewhere bigger and better.

Tang nodded toward the bulkhead separating the espresso bar from the front of the aircraft. “I cannot be certain,” he said, “but I believe I saw a child go through that door.” Tang stepped closer to the edge of the semicircular bar, resting a hand on the rich leather edge as if to steady himself.

“What door are you talking about?” Paxton said.

“That door around the corner.” Tang pointed toward the cockpit. “By the stairs. It looks as though someone must have left it open. I’m not sure where it leads. . . .”

“Dammit,” the attendant said. He wiped his hands with a bar towel.

“What is it?” Tang asked, though he already knew what it was. “Some kind of coat closet?”

Paxton shook his head. “It’s a rest area for the crew,” he said. “A little girl, you said?”

“A boy.” Tang made up the story as he went. He wouldn’t need it long. “He had a teddy bear.”

“Thank you for letting us know, sir,” the attendant said, coming around the bar. “But I need you to sit down.”

Tang followed on the attendant’s heels. “I heard someone was killed,” he said, grimacing as if the very words were distasteful.

Paxton looked over his shoulder as he punched the code into the cipher lock. “Sir,” he finally said, “do me a favor and sit down.”

All the seats were aft of the espresso station, so Tang had the attendant alone as soon as they made it to the corner.

When Paxton turned around to descend the ladder into the crew rest area, Tang kicked him in the face.

Tang jumped into the darkness. He assumed all personnel had reported topside as soon as they’d learned of the murder, but there would surely be an intercom. He moved quickly before Paxton could cry out for help.

The only light came from an orange strip of ribbon that ran along the ceiling of the small cabin and gave off little more than a faint glow. The rest area was hardly more than a narrow aisle with three sets of bunks on either side, and the two men had little room to fight. Tang didn’t need much. He’d undergone months of physical training during police academy—and though he was far from the strongest or quickest in his class, he was certainly more experienced than the hapless flight attendant.

Paxton outweighed him by at least thirty pounds and had a much greater reach—but Tang doubted the young attendant had ever seen real violence. Rather than fight back, the young man tried to get away, fleeing toward the ladder and the brighter light above.

Tang pushed him the way he was already trying to go, but redirecting his head into the hard plastic upright of one of the bunks. It was a stunning blow that sent Paxton reeling. Tang grabbed a handful of hair and slammed the dazed man’s head again and again into the sharp plastic edge. The flight attendant went limp at the first blow, but Tang took him with both hands and bashed his forehead against the upright until the man’s eyes rolled upward, glassy and lifeless. A trickle of blood ran from his ear.

Tang wrestled the body into the bunk farthest from the hatch and covered it with a blanket. By the time anyone had a chance to look for him, the plan would either have worked or failed miserably. Either way, it wouldn’t matter.

Tang climbed back up the ladder and opened the door a crack to find Ma Zhen standing outside. Lin was behind him, just as he planned, though she knew nothing of the dead man below. Ma’s intensity frightened her from the first time she’d met him. Her face was creased with worry until she saw Tang on the other side of the door.

“What is happening?” she whispered. “The other passengers are saying a man has died.”

“I have heard the same thing,” Tang said. “Hurry, I will explain.” He turned to descend the ladder, knowing that she would follow, but half hoping she would not.

Ma came down behind her, carrying the coffee grinder he’d stolen from the espresso stand. He reached around Lin when they were at the bottom of the ladder, crowding her as he handed the grinder to Tang.

“What are you doing?” She looked over her shoulder at Ma, then back at her husband. “Dalu?”

“I am sorry, my love,” Tang said. “But you must understand . . .”

Lin’s jaw dropped when she realized what was happening. Ma Zhen looped a charging cord from his computer around her throat, hauling her backwards. He was taller by six inches and easily lifted her tiny body off the floor. The intensity of the attack pulled her blouse to one side, exposing the tender flesh of her collarbone. Ropelike veins on her slender neck swelled above the biting electrical cord as if ready to burst. Her eyes flew wide. Tiny hands clawed the air. Hands that once caressed him reached out, trembling, pleading for help.

When it was done, Ma let her body slide to the ground. Even in the shadows, his face was bright from the frenzy of killing. He dropped the cord and wiped his hands on a pillowcase from one of the bunks.

“I did my best to make it quick,” he said.

Tang’s eye began to twitch. It was impossible to erase Lin’s final look of betrayal from his memory. But that could not be helped. Ma did what had to be done. Lin had agreed to die. That was the plan since they had met the man from Pakistan. She had even embraced the idea. Tang told himself that this was quicker, perhaps, he thought, even less cruel since she would not have to pull the trigger. Death had freed her from the awful state of confusion brought on by the little
guizi
bitch. The child would pay for forcing him to take such drastic measures.

Ma put a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you all right, my brother?”

“We have to hurry,” Tang snapped. The killing had to be done, but that did not keep him from hating the man who did it. “Go and see to the others.”

Ma paused, dark eyes still frenzied. “She . . . she was to detonate the device.”

“I am aware of our plan.” Tang draped a flimsy airline blanket over his wife’s body. “Go and tell the others we are back on track.”

Eager to move toward his own end, he found an outlet for the coffee grinder and some pillows to muffle the noise. He dropped a handful of the aluminum foil strips into the grinder and turned it on.

Ma Zhen steadied himself on the edge of a bunk as the plane dipped suddenly, beginning a slow 180-degree turn back toward the United States.

“Will you take her place?” the young man asked. His hands shook from the aftermath of killing.

“You will have that honor,” Tang said, staring at his dead wife. “This is a large aircraft. There is always a chance that there will be a few survivors. I will make certain the
guizi
child is not among them.”