The Last Hostage (45 page)

Kat shook her head as if clearing cobwebs. "I... guess I don't understand why you would bring up erased files, Mr. Bostich. Let's see... She sat back slightly, her eyes on the ceiling as if thinking it through.

"If you never had kiddie porn pictures, you couldn't have had the opportunity to erase any kiddie porn pictures. Therefore, you wouldn't be at all concerned with assuring me that you had never erased any such files, because you would know that there never had been any such files, active, erased, or otherwise. Does that make sense to you?"

"Just as I told you, Bronsky. There were never any such files."

"Okay, but if you're not telling me the truth and you had loaded kiddie porn pictures to look at, then later decided to get rid of them, you would obviously have erased them. It would then be a very frightening shock if someone opened your computer and said, 'Hey, Rudy, we found your kiddie porn pictures!' I mean, you would know that those files had been erased. If they were erased, how could they be found? Someone in that pickle would figure, my God, the only way they could be seeing something there is if the computer didn't really obliterate those files when I erased them, and somehow they've been reconstructed. Partially erased files found on a computer hard drive would be conclusive evidence that the files were once active, which would catch the person in a lie."

"I don't know what you're babbling about, but those picture files are not mine. Period."

"Well, Mr. Bostich, logically it comes down to this. An innocent man would scream, 'There were no files there!' A guilty man, who had tried to get rid of the evidence, would say the same thing, but would add the claim, 'There were no erased files there, either!' You did the latter."

Bostich looked confused, and the shadow of uncertainty that crossed his face was precisely what Kat had wanted to see. He came forward again, this time with the palm of his right hand out as if to offer a friendly explanation, his voice subdued and concerned, with none of the bluster of a minute before.

"Look, you're misinterpreting me. You claim I had awful pictures on my computer. I know I didn't have any such pictures there at any time, unless someone, unbeknownst to me, loaded them on, somehow used my password to close them, and... and then, I suppose, stuck the computer back in my case to frame me. And I don't know when that might have happened."

"These files were downloaded by a telephone line, Mr. Bostich, as you know."

"But I don't know, don't you see?"

"I think you do. They were downloaded from a particular Internet address that someone had tried unsuccessfully to erase from the files.

In addition, I found that same Internet address in another section of your computer."

"It's part of a plant, a frame. After all, I'm being considered for high office. I have enemies."

"Why did you mention erased files, Mr. Bostich?"

He let out a frustrated sigh and looked around, his palms up in a frustrated gesture. "Hell, you were pressuring me. I'm in a horrible situation here. Hijacked, targeted by a madman in the cockpit who's managed to convince an FBI agent and all the passengers aboard that I'm a terrible guy, and it's all false!"

"So you only mentioned erased files because I was pressuring you?"

He nodded. "It's just a mistake, for crying out loud. I misspoke.

That was the first time I've even thought about the concept of... of erased anything."

"That's not true? Annette said suddenly.

Her voice was a shock to both of them, and Kat turned to look at her, surprised to see the senior flight attendant's eyes boring into Bos-tich, who looked around at her in amazement.

"Annette," Kat asked, "you know something about this?"

"She knows nothing!" Bostich snapped.

"Be quiet? Kat commanded, turning back to Annette and nodding.

"Tell me."

"In the back, a while ago, I overheard him telling one of the passengers that if the captain had found anything, it would be the remains of files that might have been there once, but were just... He called them shadowy remains of files that had to have been erased before he bought the computer."

Kat nodded to Annette and turned back to Bostich, watching the color drain from his face.

"But you bought your computer new. Were those statements a mistake, too, Mr. Bostich? Did you misspeak? Were you misquoted? Or did your words really mean something other than what they said?"

"Ah, to hell with you, Bronsky. I've sat through manipulative interrogations a thousand times, and you're a rank amateur."

She nodded. "Perhaps. But you mentioned erased files back there, and you mentioned erased files up here, and I want to know the real reason why.

Did you ever erase any pornographic picture files?"

"No! I'm not going to answer any more questions from you."

"Well, I'm going to ask one more question of you, Mr. Bostich.

Since I think you've looked long and hard at each and every one of those pictures, I want to ask you why one in particular didn't affect you."

She leaned forward toward Bostich as he plastered himself against the seatback next to the window. Kat kept after him, confusing him, as she moved her face next to his to speak directly into his right ear.

"There was this one shot, Rudy..." she began in a whisper. "There was this little girl, tied to a chair, horribly bruised and battered. It was Melinda Wolfe, as you know, and the picture was taken by her killer."

She could feel Bostich tense.

"Get away from me!" he snapped.

She pulled back, watching the combination of fury and emotion overwhelm him as he fought against his own better judgment, letting emotion win out.

"How could you have that picture on this computer?" she badgered. "I didn't!"

"But it's there. I saw it myself." "I don't know anything about it."

"You want to see it again?" "No! I've never seen it."

"Why, it's right here, Rudy! It's on your computer, locked by your password! The most horrible shot I've ever seen. The picture on your computer right now, as we speak, is the very sickening shot I just described to you. THE SAME ONE!"

"Nothing like that was there, dammit!" He had his eyes closed, his fists clenched, and his jaw set.

"That could have been your little daughter. The same picture! How could you have had that picture?"

"I didn't!"

"Well, I can show the world that you did! Imagine your daughter like that."

He was shaking now, his teeth grinding.

"I-- don't--know--WHAT THE HELL YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!"

She leaned close to his ear again to deliver the last portion of the description.

"In this picture, Rudy, Lumin had already used his knife and butchered her. You know what she'd lost, and you know the picture shows it.

Imagine your little daughter sitting there, bloody and butchered.''

Kat whispered the last few specifics of the butchery, knowing that the picture in Bostich's computer did not contain such details-and knowing that Rudy Bostich knew it as well.

"WHAT?" he yelped in reaction. "It's right here, in your computer."

"The hell it is!"

"You, a father, with a daughter who was once eleven years old, too.

How on earth could you carry such a picture?"

"I didn't! There's no such picture!"

"Are you going to tell me it was an evidence file, Rudy?"

He hesitated, obviously calculating whether such a claim could work, but realized he'd trapped himself. "NO! There's no such picture.''

"You can see the ragged skin, the blood, and the agony she's in!"

"Not in MY computer! NEVER in my computer!"

"It's here, in my lap, in your computer. THE SAME PICTURE, DAMN YOU!" she yelled suddenly, watching his eyelids pop open as he came forward to yell back.

"THAT'S A DIFFERENT SHOT THAN I HAD?

Kat left the stunned silence undisturbed as she watched Bostich's expression change from quaking fury to wide-eyed horror.

She looked down and nodded. "I know it is, Mr. Bostich." She looked him in the eye. "I wanted to make sure you knew as well.

You're right, as you well know. The picture of Melinda Wolfe in your computer does not show any mutilation, but you didn't know you were going to get any shots of a little murder victim, did you? You thought you were just buying the usual package from your supplier."

His eyes were wide, his mouth open, and there was no attempt to answer.

She glanced down again. "Look, Rudy. Men sometimes have some pretty weird feelings about women, and even though possessing pictures like you have on your computer breaks the law, I know that sometimes that sort of lurid interest begins as a deviant urge and grows, until one day, stupidly, you let your twisted fantasies take over, and you buy something you shouldn't have ever touched. Your supplier sent Melinda's picture as a warning not to expose him, didn't he?

DIDN'T HE?"

She saw him moisten his lips, his breathing accelerating as he watched her.

"You see, Rudy, I already know it was the supplier who gave you the tip about Melinda's murderer. You called Detective Matson in all innocence, trying to catch a murderer, but when the judge wanted to talk to you about it, your supplier, who gave you the information to begin with, warned you to say nothing about your source, or he'd expose your nasty little habit of looking at pictures of children being forced to have sex."

"Bullshit! I have no interest in such things!"

"That, of course," she continued, "would destroy your career, so you lied on the stand to protect yourself. Then you discovered Melinda's picture in the latest bunch, you got scared, you frantically erased everything, but you didn't know how to totally obliterate a file. You had no idea those pictures were really still there, just waiting for someone to hit the right button and reassemble them. Have I got it right so far?"

Bostich swallowed hard and pushed himself up slightly in the seat.

"That's all a complete fabrication, Bronsky."

"Oh, and I can't prove any of it?"

"You can't prove a thing because it's not true."

Kat looked over at Annette.

"You've heard everything he's said, haven't you, Annette?"

She nodded resolutely. "I'm going to write it down in lurid detail."

Kat looked back at Bostich.

"And thanks to the loan of your tape recorder, we have it all on tape as well. Okay, Rudy. Here's the deal. We're both still hostages here, as are all the people in the back. Despite the trouble you're in, we all may still die if Ken Wolfe doesn't get what he wants, which is your admission that you lied to that Connecticut judge."

She began counting off points on her fingers.

"One, we have the evidence from your computer, and that's enough to convict. Two, we know who your supplier is, and he's already been arrested and has agreed to testify he was the tipster because Lumin was his customer, too."

"That's a lie? Bostich snapped without conviction.

Of course it is, you slime! Kat thought to herself while maintaining a neutral expression. But you can't be sure, can you?

"We've got him, Rudy, and he'll give you up in a split second for a deal."

She looked at her hand and extended a third finger.

"Okay, and three, we have numerous witnesses to your contradictory statements and your interesting conduct aboard this aircraft." She looked up at him. "I don't think you're going to be heading up the Justice Department anytime soon, Rudy. The real question here is jail time, and if we survive this ordeal without your help and you're later convicted, I doubt anyone is going to be interested in leniency when you could have confessed and ended this hijacking."

"Go to hell!" he said quietly.

"It's over, Rudy! Face it. Make the best of it. You have some wiggle room to do the right thing for once. Let's get you on the phone to that judge in Connecticut. After all, as long as Lumin is out there, your daughter is vulnerable, too."

"My daughter is grown, and I don't even know where she is."

Kat looked concerned. "She won't have anything to do with you?"

"No."

"How about her mother?"

"We're divorced."

"And your daughter lived with her mother after the divorce?"

"No. She ran away at sixteen." There was anguish on his face, and Kat calculated the odds of trusting her premonition.

"Rudy, you know, don't you?"

"Know what?"

"Why she ran away."

"No. I don't know."

"Oh, yes you do. It's been killing you for a long time. Knowing your sickness--and it is a mental problem, Rudy--your sickness is responsible."

He sat rubbing his temple with both hands, his eyes looking up at her in numb defeat.

"What're you saying? That I'm an alcoholic or something?"

"You wish it were that simple, Rudy, but you know it isn't."