Authors: John R. Kess
“Yes, sir.”
“There are very
few details about what happened yesterday, but they know Wittenbel got on the
plane in Baltimore, and they know her cell phone was on the plane when it
passed over Seattle. This one has bad news written all over it. Just find out
what you can and quietly turn in your report.”
* * *
The air was
cooler than the day before, and Jay hoped that meant they could cover more
ground. He was happy the hiking was also easier, with less underbrush and tall
trees providing good cover. Elly seemed to be having an easier time as well. They
hiked for two hours before stopping to take a break in a grove of pine trees.
“Are you from
here originally?” Elly asked.
“Yes, I am. What
do you think of our beautiful state of Montana?” Jay smiled, then said, “You
know you’re getting the deluxe tour. Not just anyone gets this tour.”
“When is the
tour over?” Elly returned his smile.
“It’s hard to
say. I have a feeling we’re just getting started. After all, it’s a rather
large state.”
“And does anyone
else live here, or is it just you?”
“Oh, there are
others, but seeing other people isn’t part of the tour. That’s part of our
super-deluxe package.”
“Can I upgrade?”
Elly asked.
“Sorry, no
upgrades once the tour has begun. Company policy. In fact, we had to
temporarily suspend our ‘no pop singers’ policy just for you.”
“Oh, you did?”
Elly said.
“Why do you
think they sent a Marine as the tour guide?”
“It certainly
wasn’t for his charming sense of humor.” Elly said playfully, then swatted at a
mosquito buzzing near her ear.
Jay yawned and
then closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry
you’re tired,” Elly said. “I didn’t mean to make you sleep outside last night.
It’s your tent, after all.”
“It’s okay. I
wasn’t really sleeping.”
“What were you
doing?”
Jay opened his
eyes. “Guarding our position.”
Elly stared at
him. “You really are a Marine.”
“Well, I barely
stayed awake. But it did give me a lot of time to think about what happened
yesterday. There’s something you should know—” Jay stopped. He jumped to his
feet and looked back in the direction they had come. A low thumping sound was
growing in volume.
“What is that?”
Elly asked.
“Helicopter,”
Jay said.
Elly stood up
next to him. It appeared on the horizon just above the trees heading toward
them.
Elly waved her
cuffed hands above her head. “Over here!” she shouted.
Jay grabbed her
by the arm and pulled her under a pine tree.
“What are you
doing?” she screamed, trying to pull away.
Jay didn’t answer.
Instead he grabbed the chain on her handcuffs and held her arms down. He did
his best to get between her and the approaching helicopter, hoping his
camouflage shirt would conceal them. The thumping noise grew louder.
“What is wrong
with you?” she demanded as the helicopter buzzed over them.
Jay remained
silent, watching the helicopter to make sure it kept going. He let go of Elly,
who pulled away from him. She stopped and stared at the helicopter retreating
into the distance. She let out a huge sigh.
“Why did you do
that?” Elly demanded.
Jay was mad, but
he knew Elly didn’t realize what she was doing. He tried not to show his anger.
“Who is in that helicopter?”
“I don’t care,”
Elly shouted.
Jay raised his
voice. “Who is in that helicopter?”
“I don’t know.
How can you—”
“If you don’t
know, then that helicopter is our enemy.”
“It could have
been anybody.”
“Including our
enemy. You do not reveal our position under any circumstances. I don’t care if
a family member walks by, do you understand that?”
“No, I don’t!
Somebody has to know we’re out here. And you let our ride out of here get away!”
“Who? Who knows
we’re out here?”
“I don’t know
about you, but millions of people know I’m missing by now!”
Jay opened his
mouth to speak but instead just frowned. “No.” He spoke in a soft tone. “No,
that’s not true, Elly. The rest of the world thinks you’re dead.”
The anger in
Elly’s face disappeared as she hung on his last sentence.
Jay set down his
rifle. “I figured it out last night. Think about what happened at the airport
when they came to take you. What were they doing to your plane? And why? The
first thing they did was fuel it. Why do that if they were going to kidnap you
and take you away in a van? The fuel man was involved, so there was no reason
to fool him by fueling the plane. I watched when the van pulled up to the
plane. It was a well-coordinated operation. Every man coming out of the van had
a specific job. One of them started cutting away the plane’s door. Again, ask
yourself, why?”
Elly’s contorted
face showed her confusion.
Jay continued,
“Everything happened so fast you probably didn’t even notice the man cutting on
the door. Did you see the sparks as you walked down the steps?”
“I remember
hearing something loud, but—”
Jay cut her off.
“The plane followed us. That tells me regardless of what they did to the door,
they wanted the plane capable of flying. They planned it that way. You were to
be taken by the van somewhere, and the plane would take off without you.”
Elly stared back
at Jay. “They were going to crash the plane … to make it look like I died.”
“You said you
were flying to Seattle. They were grinding off the door hinges to make it look
like an accident. They probably let the plane run out of fuel or flew it into a
mountain. The pilot probably bailed out once it was airborne. All I know is
these guys are committed, and that tells me they’ll come after us.” Jay pointed
in the direction the helicopter was headed. “What more proof do you need?”
Elly thought for
a moment and then said, “But why go to the trouble?”
“How many people
would search for you if you were kidnapped? As you said, if millions of people
know you’re missing, it’d be huge. They made it look like you died, so no one
will be looking for you.”
Elly sat down,
pulled her legs up to her chest, and put her head down on her knees. “What
about Kevin? If they took him to a hospital, he’d tell everyone.”
Jay took a deep
breath. “I’ve been thinking about that, too. I’m sorry, Elly. I don’t think
they’d have brought him anywhere. I think Kevin was on the plane when it
crashed.”
Elly’s mouth
opened in horror.
“I’m sorry.”
Tears formed in
her eyes. “What about you?” she finally asked. “Won’t someone be looking for
you?”
Jay crouched
next to her. “Only one person knew where I was going, but it’ll be almost a
week before he’ll suspect I’m missing. And we’re miles from where I’m supposed
to be.”
Elly put her
forehead on her knees again. She fought her handcuffs as she reached into her
pocket and pulled out her bottle of pills.
“I’m sorry, Elly,”
Jay said softly. “The only people looking for us are the enemy. We’re alone.”
Beckholm had
just enough time to review the type of aircraft that had carried Elly Wittenbel
before his meeting started. He held the phone to his ear and listened to
everyone gathered in the Big Sky Aircraft conference room introduce themselves.
There were engineers representing each of the design groups: flight controls
and navigation, aerodynamics, fuselage and structure, hydraulics, interior,
engines, and manufacturing. There was also a pack of company lawyers in the
room.
The lead aerodynamics
engineer introduced himself and said, “We’ve rerun all of our computational
fluid dynamics models of an open door on the plane, and it confirms what we’ve
calculated in the past. The forces on the door are not high enough to cause it
to come off.”
“But it did come
off.” Beckholm heard his voice through the speaker of his faceless audience. “Can
someone explain to me how that would happen?” He didn’t like the long silence
that followed. “Are you still there?”
The lead
engineer of fuselage and structure introduced himself and said, “We’ve been
asking ourselves the same question. As soon as we heard what happened we got to
work setting up a quick test. It’s running right now with a full-scale door
that is in the open position in our wind tunnel. The wind speed we are
subjecting it to is higher than what the plane was experiencing. Keep in mind
that the air is denser on the ground than it is at 30,000 feet. It’s like
comparing walking on dry land to walking through mud. What I’m getting at is we
are running a much harsher set of conditions than what the plane would have
had. It’s been running for about an hour, and nothing has pointed us in the
right direction.”
“What would you
need to point you in the right direction?” Beckholm asked.
“Hardware would
be key. It would tell us what went wrong. Have you heard anything about the
chances of finding any wreckage?”
“It doesn’t look
good. I’m being told by my FAA contact that the plane crashed in deep water. On
top of that, there are high seas right now in that area. They’ve got a ship
headed out there, but they told me any chance of bringing up significant
wreckage is highly unlikely.”
“What about the
door, Agent Beckholm?”
“From what I
know right now, the door has not been found, but I don’t think anybody is
looking. We know the last transmission with the aircraft happened over the
Dakotas, so it could have fallen off anywhere between there and Idaho, where the F-16s caught it. I don’t know if we’re ever going to find it.”
“I would bet my
firstborn we’d be able to tell you how the door failed if we had it.”
“I’ll see if
anything can be done to find it.” Beckholm did not pick up his pen. He wondered
how in the world they could possibly find the door.
The lead engineer
of flight controls and navigation introduced himself and said, “There was no
indication in any of the news stories about the plane having stopped along the
way. Is that true?”
Beckholm paused
as he thought about where he could be going with this. “Yes, that’s correct.”
“You’re sure
there were no stops?”
“I’ve seen a
copy of the flight plan the pilot submitted, and it showed Baltimore to Seattle nonstop. Why do you ask?”
“Before this
meeting a few engineers from our aero and our engine teams got together to talk
about the crash. They made some rough calculations based on altitude, drag
coefficient, and engine performance. And if you assume optimal conditions for
air speed, fuel efficiency, a tailwind, maximum fuel load, air pressure … One of
our guys even called the National Weather Service to find out where the jet
stream was on Sunday—”
“Hey, you’re
losing me here,” Beckholm said.
“What I’m trying
to tell you is there isn’t a chance in hell the plane made it from Baltimore to three hundred miles west of Seattle without refueling. It just isn’t
possible. That plane didn’t have the range. If they hadn’t stopped to refuel,
they would have crashed before they ever got to Seattle.”
* * *
“West,” Beckholm
said into his phone. “It’s Beckholm.”
“Hey, what’s
going on, man?” Agent West asked.
Beckholm knew
Agent West from their college days at Dartmouth. Beckholm knew his friend was a
master when it came to computers and information technology. He’d graduated
fifth in his class and went right into the FBI.
“I need a
favor.”
“You and
everybody else. What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for
an airport that would have sold aviation fuel between the hours of six AM and
eleven AM Eastern Standard Time last Sunday morning. The credit card used would
have belonged to Revolution Records—it was for one of their planes. The airport
would have been between Wisconsin and Idaho.”
“Wait a minute.
Are you investigating the Wittenbel crash?”
“As far as the
public is concerned, the answer is no, the bureau is not involved. Between you
and me, I’m the man.”
“So, the fuel
stop is not on the flight plan?”
“No, the flight
plan showed Baltimore to Seattle with no stops. According to the engineers at
Big Sky, there is no way the plane could fly that far without refueling.”
“Oh, I bet
they’re sweating bullets right now.”
“They’re a
little flustered. Hey, are you familiar with, oh, what did he call it,
computational fluid dy—”
“Computational
fluid dynamics?”
“That’s it. How
accurate is that?”
“It depends on a
whole bunch of variables and the software, but if you have a competent user and
a good software package, it can be very accurate. Why?”
“They were
talking about how the door shouldn’t have come off. They used this program to
verify the forces on the door hinges and said it was way too low to make the
door fail.”
“But there are
other things that could make the door fail. It’s possible that vibration alone
could do it.”
“They’ve been
running an open door in their wind tunnel. It’s been in there for a while, and
they can’t get it to fail. The bigger question for me is why would the pilot
leave the refueling point off the flight plan?”
West thought
about it and then said, “Are you smelling something you don’t like?”
“The thought
crossed my mind that maybe she faked her own death. Maybe she’d made enough
money and didn’t want to be a celebrity anymore. But, from talking with a few people
she knew, I know she got along with her bodyguard. The F-16 pilots confirmed a
male was visible inside the back of the plane, and if that was her bodyguard,
then it makes me believe she was on the plane, too.”