City of War (17 page)

“And you never spoke to her again after you left?”

Archer shook her head. “I stayed in touch with Mom. I don’t know why, but I called her every month no matter where I was. Usually on a Sunday when I knew she wouldn’t be at work. We just yakked about small stuff for half an hour or so. Where I was, what I was doing. That kind of crap.”

She hesitated, as if remembering something. “Come to think of it, I did talk to Kim a couple of times. Once, when she was graduating from high school and wanted to come live with me. Go to Columbia or NYU or something. Shit, I could barely feed myself. The other time was when she called to tell me the happy couple was dead.”

The picture was beginning to clear. Kim had been as lonely as Archer, except that she didn’t have an escape option. So she assumed her stepsister’s history. It probably made explanations easier too. And who was going to care? She didn’t have to swear to any affidavits or make a court declaration. It was just between her and her God.

I was now certain Truman York had been molesting his daughter too. That’s why she took Alex Cayne as her fantasy dad. While Alex’s actual daughter was lying awake nights wishing him pain, Kim was pretending big, strong Commander Cayne was watching over her. Twisted, but that’s the kind of thing that happens when a child’s innocence is stolen. But now something else was bothering me.

“Archer, your mother had three burial plots.”

She nodded. “She bought them right after the navy men came and told her the Pentagon was declaring Dad dead. I was in second grade, and when I saw the uniforms coming up the walk, I yelled, ‘Daddy’s home.’ Not a good moment.”

“I’m sorry. So when Truman and your mother were killed—”

“Bess. We keep talking about her, but we never use her name. It was Bess. She was weak, but she still had a name.”

I knew because I’d seen it engraved on the marker at the cemetery, but now that Archer mentioned it, Kim had never used Bess’s name either. Unconscious anger, I guessed.

I began again. “What I’m trying to say is that I’m not sure Kim would want to spend eternity lying next to them, certainly not her father.”

“You’re fucking kidding, right?”

It wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. “I realize they’re dead, but it’s still symbolic.”

“Jesus, you really don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“Bess and Truman’s graves are empty.”

“They didn’t die in a car crash?”

“Is that what Kim told you?”

“That was the implication.”

“This is like the fucking Twilight Zone. There’s symbolism in the graves, all right. And it certainly was a crash. But not the kind you’re talking about. Bess and Truman went down on Egypt Air 990, and their bodies, like most everybody else’s, were never recovered.”

14

Crimes and Tears

At exactly 1:20 a.m. on Halloween morning, 1999, Ahmed El-Habashy, captain of Egypt Air 990, gently eased the nose of his Boeing 767 into the night sky. Seconds later, the last of JFK Runway 22-Right dropped behind him. He retracted his landing gear and felt the bonds of earth loosen, experiencing the familiar and exhilarating rush of raw power as the massive, twin Pratt & Whitney turbines pulled his craft steadily upward.

As the 767 climbed through seven thousand feet, El-Habashy banked the aircraft slightly, turning east. The light fog at ground level was now well beneath him, and he could see lights poking through the low-lying mist along the left side of the aircraft, outlining the southern shore of Long Island. It was the same path followed by hundreds of flights each day, including one three years earlier that was still steeped in controversy—TWA 800.

In the darkened cabin sat a full planeload of tourists, students, businessmen and deadheading crew, along with the two relief pilots and flight engineer who would take over the cockpit sometime during the ten-hour flight to Cairo.
Also aboard were thirty-four Egyptian Air Force officers, a dozen of them generals, returning home from training in California. A total of 217 men, women and children.

They had thirty-two minutes left to live.

El-Habashy keyed the intercom and asked a flight attendant to bring him a cup of coffee—one sugar, two creams. His first officer, Adel Anwar, thirty-six, ordered nothing.

The night ahead was clear, the ride smooth, and like coworkers do, El-Habashy and Anwar engaged in easy banter about their bosses and their company. During the conversation, seemingly apropos of nothing, El-Habashy suddenly raised the issue of a passenger, possibly one of the military officers, who had boarded the flight without some required paperwork.

Whether this man had come aboard at LAX, where the flight had originated, or at JFK, where El-Habashy had assumed command, is not clear. Nor is the passenger’s identity. But El-Habashy indicated that he had been pushed into turning a blind eye to the violation of regulations by others traveling with the man.

What is clear is that Captain El-Habashy, fifty-seven, an organized, meticulous officer with more than thirty years’ flying experience, was perturbed enough by the anomaly to raise it again with his copilot twice in the next few minutes.

Twenty minutes after takeoff, Flight 990 was approaching its cruise altitude of 33,000 feet when the reserve first officer, Gameel Al-Batouti, fifty-nine, nicknamed “Jimmy,” entered the cockpit. Al-Batouti was not due to assume the copilot’s seat for several more hours, when the entire reserve crew would take over, and when he told Anwar that he intended to fly now, Anwar said that he had already slept and wanted to continue.

Words were exchanged, and the disagreement ended only when Al-Batouti invoked his considerable seniority and told Anwar unconditionally that he would be taking over as first officer. It is unknown why El-Habashy did not intervene on
behalf of his friend and first officer, but it appears he did not. Al-Batouti then left the cockpit for a few moments and returned, taking the right seat as Anwar departed.

Captain El-Habashy then also left the cockpit to use the restroom.

Twenty-one seconds later, Al-Batouti, now alone at the controls, uttered the phrase, “I rely on God,” and disengaged the autopilot. He then moved the throttles to idle, thereby cutting off all engine thrust.

As the nose of the plane tilted down, it rolled slightly to the left, and Al-Batouti again said, “I rely on God.” He then shut off the engines.

Captain El-Habashy bolted back into the cockpit, struggled into his seat and began trying to wrestle the nose of the plane up, imploring Al-Batouti to help. “Pull with me! Pull with me!” he screamed.

But in the right seat, Al-Batouti repeated, “I rely on God” several more times and fought to keep the nose of the aircraft down.

During the next ninety seconds, the men struggled for supremacy. Then suddenly, the plane lurched upward again. Whether this was an aerodynamic reaction to the speed brakes applied by El-Habashy or whether it was because he had regained momentary physical superiority is unclear. One can only wonder how those in the back felt as they experienced unimaginable g-forces and perhaps sensed reprieve.

But the captain was no match for the combination of Al-Batouti and gravity, and when he could no longer hold them both off, the 767’s nose once again turned down.

On the cockpit voice recorder, the terrified screams of the passengers can be heard for more than a minute and a half. Finally, 400,000 pounds of aircraft, traveling at six hundred miles per hour, hit the water, and all sound ended.

At 1:52 a.m., Egypt Air Flight 990 ceased to exist.

Despite the usual conspiracy whack-jobs and the spin put on the investigation by the Egyptian government—owing
to both economic and cultural concerns—aviation experts, law enforcement and the intelligence community have no doubt what caused Flight 990 to plunge into the sea. Nor is there any dispute that Gameel Al-Batouti had numerous personal problems that most likely contributed to his actions.

The unanswered question is whether this was the last, lone act of a desperate man or the termination point of a conspiracy. And if it was the latter, who was the target? The Egyptian government? The airline? The military officers? Or perhaps another passenger?

One might think that since 9/11, this would be a serious concern worthy of further investigation. One would be wrong.

Though I had showered at Kim’s, I was still wearing the same gamey clothes. I had also taken my last Vicodin, and the pain was returning. But now that I knew where Marta Videz worked, I wanted to talk to her. As I drove toward Los Feliz, I replayed what Archer had told me about Truman York.

After his military career ended, he bounced from airline to airline but couldn’t manage to hold a job. Unauthorized absences, insubordination, heavy drinking—the common themes of a man with no direction and no plan. Eventually, he ended up flying freight in Canada, but when that didn’t last, he took a job as an air courier, and an old air force contact helped get him certified as a “Special.”

It’s not a job many people know exists. They’re not supposed to. Special couriers are authorized to carry a loaded firearm aboard an aircraft, and they get absolute priority, meaning they can bump almost anybody—CEOs, senior government officials, even celebrities.

They used to travel with a case handcuffed to their wrists, but that was a walking billboard for someone to lop off their hand and walk away with the goods. If a professional wants to steal something, he’s not squeamish about a quick ampu
tation with a sharp cleaver and a little blood. Or, as occurred in Lagos, Nigeria, where the thief walked into the outdoor baggage claim area, fired up a chainsaw and removed a CIA courier’s entire arm.

In response, courier cases now have high-tensile steel cable molded into their handles which are then run up the courier’s sleeve and down his back and locked around his waist. This refinement has saved hands, but if the bad guys manage to kidnap the courier, he no longer comes back simply needing a hook to eat his cereal.

Since Lagos, special couriers on assignment for the government usually travel by military aircraft. Otherwise, they travel by charter or in one of the half dozen passenger seats fitted into FedEx, UPS and DHL planes. When it is absolutely necessary to fly commercial, they sit in the first row of first class with the seat next to them paid for and unoccupied. No one, not even a flight crew member, is permitted to sit down next to a “Special.” They are escorted onto the aircraft by security personnel well before anyone else and are the first to deplane.

Being a “Special” was the perfect job for Truman York. He traveled well and lived on an expense account. And he was away from home often. By contrast, according to Archer, Bess hated flying and had no interest in visiting any city she couldn’t reach by car in a day. She was on Flight 990 supposedly because she and Truman were going to celebrate their wedding anniversary in Marseilles. Bess told Archer that she would board the flight in Los Angeles, and Truman, who had a job originating in Washington, would get on at JFK. They couldn’t sit together because he was working, so she would be riding in coach while he was in first class. Once they got to Cairo, and he was relieved of his obligation, they would fly on to France together.

I asked Archer what she’d thought about that.

“You ever been to Marseilles?”

“I have.”

“How many people do you think go there to celebrate anything—except maybe escaping prison? I didn’t buy it then, and I don’t buy it now. My mom thought the best meal on the planet was the Admiral’s Feast at Red Lobster, and she was claustrophobic in the extreme. The idea that she would cram herself into a narrow seat and fly halfway around the world to a place she couldn’t pronounce is absurd.”

“So why take her?”

Her eyes hardened. “I’ve thought about it a lot, and there’s only one conclusion that works. Truman was going for what the French call a Marseilles divorce—a thump on the head and midnight swim in the Med. There were almost certainly other women in Truman’s life, and it was time to move on.”

I agreed. Truman York wasn’t a guy whose best friend was his wife. And unless Bess was an aficionado of freight terminals, smokestacks and street crime, Marseilles isn’t anniversary material. It is, however, just down the road from Nice, where Benny Joe caught his ferry to Corsica. And it now seemed that Kim had developed a fondness for the South of France as well.

I didn’t think this was about another woman, but whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be pretty.

Los Feliz is “Old Hollywood.”

Occupying the high ground north of downtown L.A., it’s where the early movie legends like DeMille, Jolson and Lugosi built their mansions, and where the next generation—Gable, Grant and Garbo—unwound at a branch of the Brown Derby. It’s also where the Manson Family scrawled “Healter Skelter” (Tex Watson couldn’t spell) in blood on a refrigerator door.

Recently, Los Feliz has been rediscovered, and an energetic new crop of homeowners has started buying up the old estates and bringing them back to their former glory. The rebirth has attracted some current stars too—the ones who
want to be able to fish the morning paper out of the shrubbery wearing a ratty old bathrobe without having to check the tour bus schedule.

A couple of friends of mine—Stephen Bennett, owner of a chain of hair salons in the Valley, and Warren Van Meter, an Academy Award-winning set designer—bought the old Valentino villa, the one Rudy lived in before he built Falcon Lair, and turned it into a showplace that’s become the backdrop for some of the town’s most talked-about parties.

Redoing the gardens alone cost “The Valentino Boys,” as they call themselves, half a million. But it got them the cover of
California Design
. And when some sultan saw it and sent his lawyer to offer them so much for the place that they could have bought a small country, they slammed the door in his face and threw a “Take Your Cash and Shove It Party” that went on for two days.