Fly by Wire: A Novel (40 page)

^{"All right," she said. "But let me do it." She moved back a step and took a firm stance.}

^{Davis put an arm in front of her. "I don't think so."}

^{"I've done this before," she argued.}

^{"Sorry, Honeywell, but you're built to have doors opened for you. I'm the one made for knocking them off their hinges."}

^{Davis studied the door, looked up and down for locks and striker plates. He saw only two, both at hip height. Davis quarter-turned to one side and raised a leg.}

^{She whispered
harshly,
"Jammer, are you sure about this?"}

^"No."

^{He kicked hard, his flat heel slamming into the door right where locks met wood. With a crash, the old jamb splintered and the door flew open, smacking back hard against the inside wall. They stood completely still, watching the dark interior of the apartment. Alert for any movement, any sound. There was nothing.}

^{They stepped inside over splinters and plaster chips that had sprayed across a worn rug. The door was hanging crookedly on one hinge, the other two having pulled away from the wall. Sorensen looked at the door. Then at him.}

^{He shrugged it off. "So I got a little carried away."}

^{The room was chilly, clammy, like it had been closed up all day. Davis found a light switch and snapped it on. The room that came into view wasn't much to look at. The walls were covered with a mix of faded paint and peeling wallpaper. The wood floor and trim were at the stage where dirt, mold, and dry rot had to be declared the winner. If there could be a label for the room's decor it would be "minimalist"--just a few sorry pieces of worn furniture and the basic accessories of life. There was no sign of Ibrahim Jaber.}

^{Davis looked around for confirmation that they had the right apartment. He found it on a table near the door--Jaber s investigation credentials, nested by a lanyard to his CargoAir ID. He held it up for Sorensen to see and said, "This is definitely the place."}

^{Davis saw one adjoining room. He eased over and looked inside, saw a single bed, empty and neatly made. There was a suitcase on the dresser, packed to the brim, its flap lying open like a shucked oyster. One fresh suit hung in the closet amid a lineup of empty hangers. In the adjacent bathroom Davis found a toothbrush, a razor, and two pill bottles. Nothing else.}

^{He went back to the main room. Sorensen was on the far side going through the small kitchen. It was separated by a laminate counter, watermelon red, and on the back wall two stacks of worn wood cabinets were divided by a stove and a naked section of wall that had been splashed years ago with lime green paint, somebody's crude attempt to spruce the place up.}

^{"What do you think?" he asked.}

^{They both looked around. There was a teapot on the stove, a box of breakfast cereal on the table, a few dishes in the sink.}

^{"There's not much here," she said.}

^{"I'm more struck by what's
not
here. No books, no pictures, no artwork. Jaber was supposed to be rooming with a relative, an older woman. If it's true, then she's led a really boring life."}

^{"And if it's not?"}

^{Davis scanned the room and wondered the same thing. His eyes settled on a laptop computer on the kitchen counter. It was already powered up, the lights on the keyboard shining, but a screensaver -- a cute little progressive design of children's blocks snapping together -- had kicked in to indicate standby mode. Davis went closer and saw a scattering of papers and printouts on the counter next to the computer. Most if it was indecipherable, page after page of equations and instructions.}

^{"What do you think this is?" he asked.}

^{Sorensen took a look. "I'm pretty sure it's computer code. You know, lines of instruction. He's a software guy, right?"}

^{Rifling though the stack, Davis found a few pages that looked less daunting. They were flow charts of some kind, groups of rectangular boxes connected by lines. All the boxes were labeled with acronyms and he recognized a few. FCC for flight control computer, ADS for air data system, and FDR -- flight data recorder. At the top was a title: C-500 Standby Three Architecture. Davis sifted through the rest of the papers and found another that pulled his attention. It was titled: Coordinate List.}

^{He drew it from the pile. "Look at this."}

^{"What is it?"}

^{After a good look, he said, "These are all lat-longs."}

^{Sorensen eyed the paper with suspicion, but didn't seem bowled over. "Latitude and longitude coordinates. So what? It's an airplane. You pilot types use that stuff all the time, right?"}

^{Davis shook his head. "I dunno. There's something weird about this." He looked again at the flow diagrams referencing aircraft systems, the pages of computer code. He thought aloud. "Fly by wire. Flight control software, integration. That's Jabers specialty, isn't it?"}

^{She nodded.}

^{"Remember I told you I had looked into that? I explained how the software that controls this airplane is supposed to be shielded from intrusion."}

^"Okay."

^{"But that means protected from
hackers.
What about somebody on the inside? What about an imbedded malware program that comes right from the factory? Commercial aircraft manufacturers don't sell airplanes, they sell safety. Who would ever think to scrub millions of lines of computer code that are sourced straight from the design bureau?"}

^{"You're saying that Jaber
programmed
World Express 801 to crash?"}

^{Davis reached into his mind and strove for an alternate explanation. There wasn't one. As if trying to convince himself, he said, "I can't see it any other way."}

^{Davis turned to the laptop and poked a random key. The machine began to spin through its wake-up call.}

^{Fatima cursed under her breath. Her support arm was going numb.}

^{The man and woman had been in her sights for nearly ten minutes, easy prey from this range. She decided it had to be the two irksome American investigators. She had never seen either, but the descriptions given by her useless Algerians matched perfectly -- the woman a petit blonde, the man a big rough-looking type. She tracked them alternately, watched as they rifled through Jaber's papers and tinkered with his computer. She wondered about that -- was it the computer that held the critical instructions? The one Jaber had told her was in a safe in his office in Marseille?}

^{She decided it probably was.}

^{Fatima kept shifting her sight. First the man, then the woman. She could take them both in seconds, but that wasn't why she was here. She needed Jaber first. For Fatima,
he
was the true threat. If she killed the Americans now there would be two muffled shots, a pair of bloody bodies lying near an open door. Any passerby could spot them. Or if Jaber returned to such a scene, he would know immediately what had happened. He would flee, not give Fatima a second chance. In either case, the alarm would be raised, and the police would come swarming in a matter of minutes.}

^{She put her crosshairs on the head of the big man. Fatima ignored the bullet drop and wind compensation references built into her sight. They were little help at such close range. She sensed her finger putting slight pressure on the trigger. Fatima took a long, deep breath. The pressure eased.}

^{She could not allow herself to lose a shooters most important weapon -- patience.}

^{Sorensen asked, "But why would Jaber sabotage these airplanes? To bring down the CargoAir corporation?"}

^{Davis cupped his chin as he tried to figure that one himself. "I can't believe he'd have a grudge against the company. This whole design, the whole project was under his watch."}

^{"There's no way the chief engineer would sabotage his crowning achievement."}

^{Davis was distracted by a beep. The computer was up and running. He saw a security screen asking for a password. "Great."}

^{She sighed, "Too bad this isn't a movie -- we could just guess his password."}

^{"Yeah, right." He shoved the machine aside. "This is a waste of rime."}

^{Davis went back to the printouts and scanned over the latitude-longitude pairs until he found an eerily familiar set. N45.6 E004.8. He shook his head uncertainly. "That's got to be close, but--"}

^{"Whats close?"}

^{He rapped on the paper with an index finger and showed her. "This lat-long combination. I think it might be our crash site."}

^{"World Express 801? The crash site is on that list? Jammer, this is crazy."}

^{"Yeah, it is. We--"}

^{"What are you doing here?" a strident voice interrupted. Davis and Sorensen both turned to see Dr. Ibrahim Jaber standing in his shattered doorway.}

^{Chapter
THIRTY-NINE}

^{Jaber looked terrible. He was slumped and his face sagged behind skin the color of putty. He was holding onto the shattered doorframe with one hand in a precarious stance, listing like a palm tree that had just come through a hurricane. The other hand gripped a small plastic bag emblazoned with a red cross -- part of a logo Davis recognized as being from a French pharmacy chain. Yet as weak as Jaber looked, there was fury in his yellow eyes. He took a step into the room, raised a finger to lodge his protest.}

^{And then he fell.}

^{Davis watched him go down, pivoting back like a tipped domino. It seemed to happen in slow motion, and when Jaber hit the floor he was slack weight, smacking down hard like a sack full of grain. Some long-dormant instinct kicked in. In a fraction of a second Davis made the connection, recognized the sound -- a sharp, barely audible crack that had been nearly simultaneous with Jaber s drop. It brought a reaction he'd not had since his days as a Marine. Sorensen was standing five feet away. Davis flew across the room, arm outstretched, and knocked her to the ground. He heard the second crack before they hit the floor.}

^{"Gun!" he yelled.}

^{They crashed in a heap and Davis scrambled to right himself. He kept moving toward a wall, dragging a scrambling Sorensen with him. He glanced toward the window and could just make out a subtle flash across the street as a third round splintered into the wood floor next to his head.}

^{Sorensen moved with him now, and they backed up to a wall near a heavy desk. Davis checked the angle. He no longer had line of sight to the window across the street where he'd seen the flash. Which meant the shooter no longer had line of sight to him.}

^{"Honeywell --"}

^{A fourth round slammed in. The laptop on the counter kicked into the air and then crashed to the floor. It came to rest in a wisp of smoke, the keyboard a shattered cluster of alphanumeric characters. Then another pause from the incoming fire. It grew longer and longer. Sorensen pulled a gun from her jacket, held it muzzle up with a cocked elbow.}

^{Davis asked, "Where the hell did that come from?"}

^{"After last night I thought it might be wise," she said tensely. "So who the hell is shooting at us?"}

^{"Hard to say. But I'm pretty sure I saw a muzzle flash across the street, fifth-floor window. I think we're good here. As long as there's only one shooter."}

^{"I heard the bullets come through the glass, but I didn't hear any shots."}

^{"The gun must be sound suppressed," he said.}

^{Davis took stock of Jaber. He was lying motionless in the doorway. There was a black hole centered perfectly on his forehead, a crimson pool blossoming under his skull. "We can't do anything for him."}

^{Sorensen stared at the window. "I'd say somebody across the street is a decent shot."}

^{They exchanged a look.}

^{"Caliph?" she wondered aloud.}

^{"Could be."}

^{"But he didn't stop with Jaber, did he? He tried for us too. Not to mention that--"she pointed toward the devastated laptop.}