Hard Fall (45 page)

She hadn't expected to find him this animated. She thought she would find a man, drinking perhaps, tucked into a corner and cold.

“They won't let me be part of it,” he explained as he headed straight to her papers, energy exploding from his every movement. “I've been put on the sidelines because of my personal involvement. If I go into work they're going to lock me in a room and interrogate me for the hundredth time. And today's the day,” he said in a troubled voice. “The meeting. There's no time for any of that.”

“I think you lost me,” she admitted, putting down her purse.

“I had it in front of me all along,” he explained, running his hand through his hair. He checked his watch for the third time since she had arrived. His nervousness rubbed off on her and she found herself anxious and hot. “Take a look at this.” He slapped down the note Kort had left him on the day of Duncan's abduction.

“What about it?” she asked, wishing she didn't have to, but she saw nothing.

“It's written on my memo pad.” He pointed to the small piece of paper. “That's my name there at the top. Duncan gave me that pad for Christmas last year.”

“You lost me.”

“I keep that memo pad in my briefcase.”

“So?”

“So Kort fucked up.”

“Cam …”

“Kort asked me to deliver the itineraries. The meeting in the subway station—he wanted the itineraries.”

“Yeah … So?”

“This memo pad was in my briefcase. He got it from my
briefcase
. He had already seen the itineraries. Get it?”

“No.”

“If he had
already seen
the itineraries, then why did he ask me to deliver them to him?” He only waited a second before answering himself. She had never seen him like this; she felt afraid of him. “Because he needed a reason—a really good reason—for me to believe he would risk a face-to-face meeting. It's all double-think. It's all outthinking the other guy—putting yourself inside his head. Get it?”

“Then why
did
he ask for the itineraries? No, I don't get it!”

“Because he needed a witness. It had nothing to do with itineraries. He needed me—the head of the investigation—to witness his death. But he wrote his note on the wrong fucking memo pad, and it's going to hang him.”

“He's alive?” She reached for the edge of table in order to balance herself.

“Damn right he's alive.” He scattered a bunch of his own papers and thumbed through the ones she had brought for him. He removed the runway map of LAX. “The scale is too big, so we can't even see Hollywood Park, but take my word for it.” He fished through the debris for a ruler, measured the scale of miles, and then measured off the end of the open map. He signaled her to hand him the salt and pepper. She did so. “Hollywood Park is right here,” he said, placing down the salt shaker.

“I don't have the slightest idea where you're going with this.”

He leaned forward and slammed the salt shaker down once again. She jumped back. “
This
is where sixty-four hit. Right here. Exactly here.” He took the ruler in hand and measured off the distance. “You see the size of Hollywood Park—it's huge. Barnes was the one who told me,” he said, confusing her. “Barnes told me the simulation at Duhning and the crash of sixty-four confirmed the same flight pattern. The real plane and the simulator flew the same distance; and in both cases landed in the same place. If you transpose the simulation to a real map, then the plane crashes in Hollywood Park. He told me that,” Daggett said, “and it went right over my head.”

“You're frightening me.”

“Good,” he said, nodded wildly. “The truth is frightening, isn't it? ‘Physics,' Barnes said. I wasn't listening to him. Physics! You remove pilot control and the plane falls. In effect, the 959 pilots were all trained by Ward—they would all perform these first few minutes of flight in the same manner: Kort could count on that. He
is
counting on that.”

She felt her eyes go hot and scratchy, and she knew she was about to cry. She stepped toward him wanting to comfort him, wanting to give him some peace. He stopped her by taking hold of both her shoulders and waiting for her eyes.

He stepped back, held up a finger, and returned to the maps she had brought.

“Bear with me.” He began tossing papers everywhere, and in doing so, added to the image of insanity. The huge sheets of white snow fell and covered the carpet. Only then did she notice the wheelchair, folded and leaning against the wall. There was no stopping her tears. She let them fall and watched her favorite man slip over the edge. “The question,” he said, resettled, “is what's his target? And which airport will he use, Dulles or National? The plane has to leave from one of the two airports, right? And
that
,” he added, “is why I needed you to bring
this
.” He turned to make sure she was with him and seeing her, he set the map down slowly, a comic who realizes he's no longer funny. “Don't give up on me. Don't do this.”

“It's over.”

“It's not over.”

“Kort is dead, Cam. They'll find Duncan. You have to believe they'll find him.”

“If you don't pay attention, you'll never convince the others.”

“Don't do this!” she shouted, crossing her arms to fend off the cold, backing away from him.

“I'm not off my rocker, damn it all. I've figured it out! Jesus!” he said, pounding the table so hard, he broke the leaf and all the papers spilled out onto the floor, covering his feet. He watched the papers settle and sadness drained into his face. “You don't believe me? The memo note isn't all.” He dropped to the floor and dug his pile of snow until he located a particular piece of paper. “Gloria, bless her heart, got me the early reports, including one from the hospital where they took what remained of him—whoever he was.” He tried to make the table leaf work again, and when he failed, walked around to the other side. “The thing about being the lead investigator is that you hold dozens—maybe hundreds—of different pieces of data in your head. One department knows this; they tell you. Another finds out that; they write you a memo. But you're the only one with all the pieces.”

“What do you mean, ‘convince the others'?” she asked.

“See? You
are
paying attention. That's good.”

She stepped closer to him, still afraid, though he had calmed and she found herself drawn to him.

“They would have spotted this eventually. Today, maybe. Tomorrow. Next week. Probably next week, because we don't like outside reports. We like to generate our own reports. If it's FBI, then we trust it. If it isn't … We'd rather wait until one of our own comes in. My bet? No one's read this report very carefully. And even if they had, they would think it's a mistake. Why? Because despite all our pissing and moaning about evidence, we trust the agent over all the evidence combined. The lead agent? No one's going to question what I saw down there. They see something wrong in a report, they'll order another report. They find that report comes back wrong, they might even order it done again. That's the way we work—take it or leave it.”

“Spotted what?”

“And I'll tell you something else: You repeat the same story enough times and you start to look at it real carefully, and I just plain didn't like the way it sounded. A guy like Kort fires off a couple rounds point-blank at me and misses. Kort? No way. Not from that distance. So why did he miss? Because he needed me as a witness.”

“Spotted what?” she shouted, shaking the paper he handed her.

“Blood alcohol. The hospital didn't work up a blood type, but when someone does, it won't match either. But by then it'll be way too late. The guy who hit the train was six sheets to the wind. Two-point-one-oh blood alcohol level. Smashed. Blotto. Shitfaced. And believe me—the Anthony Kort I was chasing in that tunnel was stone-cold sober.”

She scanned the hospital report and her eyes found the tiny little box:
2.1
, it read. Now she did believe, though she didn't want to. He was back with the maps, tossing things everywhere.

“Okay … Okay … Let's have a look here. The scale is different … Damn it … Damn it …” He checked the runway map of LAX and that for Dulles and did some math calculations right onto the wood of the table. Then he grabbed the ruler and a pencil and drew a line six inches off the end of a runway, checked his numbers, stopped, measured an angle with Duncan's protractor, and drew another line. His fingers searched the end of this line. She could feel his disappointment. He leaned closer to read the map. “There's nothing out here. Nothing at all. Suburbs. Nothing but suburbs. That
can't
be it.”

“Nothing
where?
” she hollered, her confusion overwhelming her.

As Cam threw the Dulles map onto the floor and unrolled the map of National Airport that she had brought for him, he explained impatiently, “The target isn't the plane. I mean it is, but it isn't. Not really. The target is on the
ground
. The plane is the bomb. He's going to drop a plane, and he knows exactly where it's going to fall.”

She looked over his shoulder as he did some more math and began drawing lines—this time from a runway at National Airport. “Who would believe it, right? He's counting on that.” He smelled as if he hadn't showered, and his whiskers were long. His plotted course ended in the Tidal Basin of West Potomac Park, near the Jefferson Memorial. He checked it twice. “It's not working,” he said. “It's not possible. I
know
I'm right about this. I know the
evidence
is right.”

She leaned over him. He moved aside, his eyes glazed. He had grown suddenly distant. “Runway thirty-six is the more common,” she said, pointing. He didn't move. “Depends on the winds.” She took the ruler from him and duplicated the first leg of the 7 he had drawn. She measured the angle off this new stem, and drew the final short leg of the projected flight—where the plane would slip left as it fell. The pen stopped before it reached its destination, before she completed the work, because she had raised her head in disbelief. Cam stared at the point of the pen too. He looked as terrified as she felt. The tip of the pen rested on the Pentagon.

“The meeting,” Daggett said in a forced whisper that revealed his fear. “That must be where they're holding the meeting!”

The phone rang. He turned and stared at it. “He's going to crash a plane into the Pentagon.”

“Cam?” she said, drawn by the ringing phone.

He was frozen. “My God. He's going to kill them
all
.”

She hurried to the phone and answered it. “Just a minute please,” she added as she reached it out to him. “Quik-Link Courier, or something like that.”

“Daggett,” he said, accepting the phone's receiver from her. He listened, searched for a pen and, finding one, said, “This Boote, you tried calling him? … Nothing? … Can you give me his home address, please?” He scribbled out an Alexandria address. “You have a Duhning 959 in your fleet,” he stated emphatically. “I'm psychic,” he said, obviously answering the man. “Ground it … What are you talking about: ‘in person'?” He checked his watch. “There's no time for that. Ground the fucking plane … I'm telling you, I'm FBI! No … No … You can't call me at the FBI. I'm not at the FBI, I'm home … Okay … Okay … I'm on my way. How long until that plane goes? How long? Shit! You better stall it, mister, or you'll be looking for work … Damn!” He slammed the receiver down. To Lynn he said, “The guy hung up on me. He wanted to call me back at the office to make sure I'm for real. He thinks I'm a hoax.”

“They have a 959?”

“It goes in half an hour.” He pointed into the dining room. “Take all this stuff to Buzzard Point. To Pullman. Mumford, if you can get to him. Tell him you know the meeting is at the Pentagon. That ought to do it. Explain it as best you can, but whatever you do, get someone to ground that plane.”

She checked her watch. “You'll make it before I will.”

“Put your foot into it.” He had the front door open. He pointed to the phone. “And have someone check that address for a David Boote. Kort's doing this one the same way he did L.A. Tell them that. L.A. was nothing but a rehearsal. This is the real show. Tell him I gotta have some backup.”

He said something else, but she didn't hear. He was still shouting at her as his van knocked over the mailbox, raced ahead tires screaming, and disappeared down the quiet suburban street.

Carrie Stevenson knew what had to be done. She couldn't be sure they had left together, and so rather than bang on the door that communicated with the room in which Duncan was kept, she stood and searched the medicine cabinet, remembering this Frenchwoman had put on some fresh makeup that morning. She found a dark brown eye-lining pencil, and with this she wrote
SMOKE ALARM
on a piece of bathroom tissue.

She stretched out fully then, her ankle bound by the rope to the pipe, and was just able to reach the crack beneath the communicating door. It was a substantial gap, the door having been cut to accommodate the carpet on the other side. She took a drag on the Sobranie and then scratched lightly on the door until she heard the distinct sound of Duncan dragging himself across the carpet. She pushed the tissue through first, relieved as it vanished. Next, she carefully stuffed the cigarette under, butt first. She scratched again. It disappeared.

She sat back and prayed. One of the selling points of this cabin was that the smoke alarm system was tied in directly to the fire station. There was no such alarm in the bathroom, and even if there had been, with her leg bound to the pipe she never could have reached it. But Duncan, because of his disability, had not been tied down, and having been here only days ago with Kort, she remembered the layout of the room well enough to recall the substantial floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. So now, it all came down to Duncan.