From where he stood, smoking a cigarette, he could look over his shoulder into the computer room, or straight ahead out the window that faced the airport. The accident site was lit up like a small city. So far as he understood the procedure in this country, accident investigators
would remain on site for at least a week, possibly two. They would sort through every single piece of debris, no matter how large or small, catalog it all as to its condition and precise location, and then transport the parts to a hangar where the airplane would be put back together in an effort to understand what happened.
All that would take additional timeâweeks, certainly, and probably months. Long before the NTSB had reached any conclusions the next P522s would have already fallen out of the sky.
For the first time in a very long while Mueller actually felt the stirrings of interest. Killing generally meant little or nothing to him. The act of murdering a human being affected him about the same way swatting a mosquito or a fly would affect a normal person, but what Reid wanted was something different. This was murder on a very grand scale. Scores of people would die. Perhaps dozens of airplanes would crash and burn, the passengers' panic would be agonizing as their airplanes fell out of the sky and they knew they were going to die but couldn't do a thing about it. It was an interesting idea.
He had been trained to wreak havoc on the capitalists, but his training had gone to waste. His masters were all dead or gone. Even his group of former comrades was no more.
His life had been a waste. Until now.
Reid came up from downstairs. He was drunk again, but Mueller had come to appreciate the man's capacity for alcohol. No matter how much he drank he seemed to be in control of himself.
“Have you watched the news?” the older man asked.
“No. Has something interesting happened?”
Reid grinned. “You could say that. It's the Japaneseâthey're doing exactly what I want. There was a riot this morning in Yokosuka. A young American serviceman was killed. Pulled apart by an angry mob of civilians. That ass in the White House will have to say something this time.”
“Why was this man killed?” Mueller asked, his voice soft.
“It doesn't matter. He was trying to defend himself, and the crowd went berserk. It happens. Mob psychology is a strange phenomenon.”
“You say you want this?”
“Yes,” Reid said. “Of course I do. First the incident in the Tatar Strait. Then the airplane crash, which the Japanese will take the blame for. Now this latest atrocity, this violent outbreak of anti-American sentiment. Soon the bastards will go completely over the edge. Something will have to be done, I tell you.”
Mueller could see that Reid almost believed what he was saying. Among other things the man was a consummate actor. Glen Zerkel had told him that their host had once been a rabid anti-communist and for more than thirty years had done everything within his considerable power to keep the Cold War alive and well. “His motto is âIn conflict there is profit,'” Zerkel had explained.
“The Soviet Union was America's enemy, but Japan is your ally. It can't be so easy this time.”
Zerkel had grinned. “Don't count on it. Mr. R. is what we call a mover and a shaker. If he wants to make Japan our enemy, you'd better believe it'll happen. I shit you not.”
“But why Japan?” Mueller had asked.
“I don't know,” Zerkel had shrugged. “I really don't. But whatever his reasons they'll be good, and there'll be more than one of them. He never does anything off the cuff. Before he makes a move he studies it three ways to Sunday. He knows what he's doing. He's never been wrong yet.”
“What are you getting out of it?” Mueller had asked. It was early morning and they'd crossed paths outside.
“I get to fight back,” Zerkel had said, and Mueller hadn't asked him what he meant, because he knew. He felt the same way himself.
“We'll have to move soon,” Mueller told Reid.
“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.”
“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.”
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
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.
Â
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 streamâclear, 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 headline 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,
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.
Â
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 corner 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 OâToole 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.
“It would appear so, George. But I'll swear by the Queen Mother that for whatever reasons the high-pressure 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 AOGâAircraft on the Groundâteam had been Boeing's idea. Airplanes grounded because of maintenance problems were bad publicity. So Guerin, like
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.