World of Trouble (9786167611136) (29 page)

A British Airways 747 was just touching down
on the runway closest to them. Its huge undercarriages gave off
tiny puffs of smoke when they kissed the concrete, like smoke
signals rising from Indian country in some old black-and-white
movie. Off on the other side of the terminal, there was another set
of parallel runways probably a half mile away. After another minute
or two, Shepherd saw the white 737 lining up for a landing over
there.

“Harvey’s here,” he said.

The plane was still too far out to make out
any details, but he had no doubt he had the right airplane. He
lifted the glasses and nudged the focus wheel until the image was
sharp, and then he watched the 737 slip down the glide path onto
one of the far parallels like a four-year-old coming down a
playground slide. Just above the runway’s threshold, the pilot
lifted the nose slightly and the plane flared and settled so
smoothly onto the concrete that its arrival was entirely
smokeless.

Shepherd was watching the airplane and didn’t
realize Keur and Rachel were standing behind him until Rachel
spoke.

“Who’s Harvey?” she asked.

“It’s what Jack calls the airplane we’re
looking for,” Keur said.

“He has given this airplane a
name
?”

“Yeah. Named it after a big white
rabbit.”

Rachel fell silent after that. Shepherd could
hardly blame her, but he didn’t bother to explain.

He lowered the glasses and they all watched
as the white airplane rolled about halfway down the runway, slowed,
and turned off onto a taxiway.

“Where is this parking spot it’s been
assigned to?” Shepherd asked.

“Over past the end of the cargo terminal,”
Rachel said, pointing. “You see that big DHL sign, the yellow
one?”

Shepherd’s eyes followed her finger until he
located the sign.

“Got it.”

“Now follow the parking apron to the left,
all the way to the end. There’s a yellow line pointing toward that
hanger with the green roof. That’s the marker the pilot follows to
dock at 211A.”

Shepherd lifted the glasses and studied the
area Rachel was indicating. It was isolated, just as she had said
it was. That end of the parking apron was recessed slightly behind
one end of a long white building that was so huge they might have
been building 747s inside it, but he knew it was probably the
airport’s primary freight facility. Sitting at the edge of the
apron, the hanger with the green roof was tiny by comparison, but
it was still large enough to swallow a couple of pretty good-sized
airplanes and close the doors behind them. Right now the doors were
open. There was one small airplane inside that looked like a
Gulfstream executive jet, although he wasn’t sure since he didn’t
know all that much about private airplanes. Other than that, the
hanger appeared to be empty. Which left plenty of room for a
737.

“Who owns that hanger?” Shepherd asked.

Rachel didn’t reply right away so he lowered
the glasses and looked at her.

“Officially,” she said, “it’s a UAE military
hanger.”

“And unofficially?”

Rachel glanced at Keur, but he was watching
Harvey and didn’t appear to notice.

“Unofficially,” Rachel said when she looked
back at Shepherd, “it’s used by the American embassy. Some people
say it’s actually a CIA facility.”

Harvey continued to taxi across the field and
the three of them watched it in silence. When it reached the
freight building, it turned left, followed the apron to the end,
then swung around and lined up its nose wheel with the yellow line
pointing to the hanger with the green roof. Shepherd raised the
glasses again.

A man in white coveralls had appeared from
somewhere and was using a pair of red paddles to direct Harvey into
its parking position. He was standing on the seat of a little
vehicle that looked like a lawn tractor painted yellow. Waiting off
to the side was a pickup truck with a metal box on top about the
size of a small shipping container. The truck was unmarked, but it
looked to Shepherd like one of those aircraft catering vehicles
that are common around all airports.

The man with the paddles had his arms
extended over his head and was pulling the paddles repeatedly back
toward himself, a gesture obviously meant to tell Harvey’s pilots
to keep coming forward, which they did. Then the man stopped waving
and crossed the paddles over his head in the form of an X and
Harvey came to an abrupt stop. The man with the paddles jumped down
from his little tractor and tossed the paddles inside, then took
out a pair of yellow wheel chocks and trotted forward to wedge them
under both the front and rear of Harvey’s nose wheel.

As soon as the chocks were in place, the
pickup started moving toward Harvey. The truck swung around and
lined up with the door just behind the cockpit. The door popped
open and Shepherd could see a man in khaki pants and a white golf
shirt pushing on it with both hands from inside the aircraft. It
swung all the way back against the side of the fuselage, the man
gave the ground crew a friendly-looking wave, and then he
disappeared back inside.

The truck stopped at the aircraft door and
the steel box on top of it lifted, scissoring upward on a pair of
yellow-painted struts. When it was level with the door, another man
dressed similarly to the man who had opened the door of the plane
leaned out of the box and pushed a ramp forward until it bumped up
against Harvey. Two men immediately emerged from Harvey, walked
across the ramp, and disappeared inside the metal box. Then it was
lowered back onto the top of the truck.

As Shepherd watched the truck back away from
the aircraft and then turn and drive into the hanger with the green
roof, he ran the scene he had just witnessed back and forth through
his mind. He was not absolutely certain he believed his own eyes.
The men had moved quickly out of the aircraft into the catering
truck and he had only gotten a glimpse of them as they crossed the
short ramp. Perhaps he was mistaken. Perhaps he only
thought
he recognized them.

Who was he trying to kid?
He had
recognized both men. He didn’t have the slightest doubt about
it.

The first man out of Harvey had been Robert
Darling. That Darling had been in Thailand and was flying into a
CIA facility in Dubai on an aircraft operated by a CIA front
company wasn’t that big a surprise to Shepherd. Perhaps it should
have been, but it wasn’t.

The real bolt from the blue was the second
man he had watched emerge from Harvey. His appearance on the scene
was so entirely unexpected that it opened up a whole new and deeply
nasty can of worms.

The second man Shepherd had seen leaving
Harvey right behind Robert Darling was Tommy.

Tommy who was not a Thai spy, but merely the
deputy spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY sure, Jack?”

Keur had already asked the same question
three or four different ways and Shepherd was tired of answering
it. It was Tommy he had seen getting off that plane. He was certain
of that. He just wasn’t certain what that meant.

“Tommy’s a little weasel,” Shepherd said. “If
he’s hooked up with the CIA, he’s operating on his own. It can’t
have anything to do with NIA. And it can’t have anything to do with
Kate.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do.”

Keur just shook his head. “You mean because
she’s a good looking woman—”

“Kate’s not involved with the CIA,” Shepherd
interrupted. “Believe it.”

“Okay, let’s just assume you’re right,” Keur
said. “But this guy who works for her
is
, what’s his
game?”

“I don’t know,” Shepherd conceded.

There was a silence after that. Keur
eventually broke it.

“Why do you even
care
what’s going on
here, Jack? None of it as anything to do with you.”

That was a good question, Shepherd had to
admit. And he wasn’t sure how to answer it.

That he cared because he had a lot of friends
in Thailand and he was growing increasingly concerned about what
might happen to them? Yes, of course. That he cared because he had
personal attachments to both Kate and Charlie and didn’t want to
see them square off against each other? Yes, that, too. That he
cared because the poor, benighted little country of Thailand might
not deserve much, but it did deserve more than to be ripped to
pieces and have its bones picked over by faceless men who only
cared about lining their own pockets? Sure, that as well.

That was all part of it, of course, but
Shepherd knew there was something else, too. Something that had
more to do with him than it did with Thailand.

Once upon a time he had been a player, a
master of his own corner of the universe. He had held a place in
the world that he thought mattered. But for nearly a year now he
had done nothing but push papers and shuffle money for Charlie.
Shepherd knew he was still up to doing something more important
than that. At least he wanted to believe he was.

Stopping a civil war in Thailand wasn’t his
cause, that was true, but it was a
good
cause. And right
then, he needed a good cause as much as any good cause needed him.
Maybe more.

Shepherd didn’t have a clue how to explain
any of that to Keur, so he didn’t even try. Instead, he shifted his
eyes to Rachel.

“Can you get me onto the field?”

“Should I ask what for?”

“Probably not.”

“You won’t be able to get anywhere near that
hanger, Jack. And those two men are probably long gone by now.”

“What difference does it make anyway?” Keur
asked. “What are you going to do even if they’re still there. Walk
right in, baffle them with bullshit, and then break their little
airplane?”

Shepherd let his eyes drift to the big flat
panel monitors hanging on the wall and watched the silent images
for a moment.

“If you wanted to keep that plane here for a
few days,” he asked Rachel, “how would you do it?”

“A mechanical problem would ground it, of
course,” she said. “Anything serious enough for spare parts to have
to be flown in would keep it here for a day or two.”

That was getting back to the Bruce Willis
thing again and Shepherd knew that wasn’t going to work. He shook
his head.

“And I suppose,” Rachel went on, “some kind
of law enforcement order might work.”

“Law enforcement order?”

“You know, the police could prevent the plane
from leaving on some kind of legal grounds.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t really know,” Rachel said. “I was
just thinking out loud. Maybe some kind of national security
threat?”

“Couldn’t they just take off anyway? It’s not
likely Dubai would scramble jet fighters and shoot it down, is
it?”

“They wouldn’t have to. There are a lot of
moving parts involved in getting a big commercial jet into the air.
The process involves way too many people to do it without the
necessary approvals. It’s not a car. You can’t just get into it and
drive away.”

As Shepherd thought about what Rachel was
saying, he could feel the beginnings of an idea stirring in his
mind.

“How would an order like that be put into
effect?”

“The authorities would inform the airport
administration that an order had been issued barring the plane’s
departure,” Rachel said. “Then they would notify air traffic
control not to accept any flight plans for the plane or grant any
take off clearance. They would also instruct ground handling not to
fuel or load the aircraft.”

The idea stretched a little and moved up to
the front of Shepherd’s mind.

“And they couldn’t just fly the plane out
without clearance?”

“They’re not going anywhere without
fuel.”

The idea rose to its feet and strutted back
and forth a few times. Shepherd had to admit he liked the look of
it. He would have liked to reflect on it a little more before
introducing it around, but there wasn’t enough time for measured
reflection.

“I think I can get an order issued to impound
the plane.”

“Why would the cops, do that?” Keur asked.
“You got nothing on anybody. Even if you did, once they figure out
they’re fucking with the CIA, the locals won’t do jackshit.”

“Not the cops. I mean a civil impoundment
order.”

“What the fuck are you talking about,
Jack?”

“The courts in Dubai are very sensitive to
demonstrating to the international business community that the rule
of law prevails here,” Shepherd said. “What if I seek an emergency
order impounding Harvey because the operator hasn’t made its
payments to the owner under the terms of the aircraft operating
lease?”

“How do you know they haven’t?” Keur
asked.

“I don’t have the slightest idea whether they
have or not. I’m making this shit up as I go along.”

“It might work,” Rachel said, nodding slowly.
“It would take the operating company a day or two to show that the
lease payments had been made, maybe more than that if the real
operator of the aircraft actually
is
the CIA and they want
to stay out of the picture. Meanwhile, the plane would be held here
under a civil impoundment order. That would get you a couple of
days, maybe a little more.”

“Good enough.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Keur shook his head. “It’s
all just academic. The owner of the airplane is the only person
with standing to apply for an order like that. You couldn’t do it
since you’re not the owner.”

“But I am,” Shepherd said, “in a manner of
speaking.”

Keur and Rachel just looked at him.

“The Kitnarok Foundation is the registered
owner of the plane. I’m a trustee of the Kitnarok Foundation. As a
trustee, I have the legal authority to act for the foundation.”