Crashers (35 page)

They were quiet for a time. Walter crossed the hangar to Tommy and said, “Tomzak?”

Tommy covered his voice wand. “Ask Peter to explain it. I'll be right there.”

Walter shrugged and walked over to Peter Kim, who'd parked himself at one of the computer stations that lined one wall of the hangar.

Tommy covered his other ear with his palm. The hangar was thrumming with crews and activity. Susan's voice came back over the line, flat, devoid of her usual wry humor. “There were many people in the hangar last night. The airfield crew, the carpenters for the scaffolding. Most of the people in that hangar are not on my Go-Team.”

“I said the same thing, Suze. It could be coincidence. But you know how I feel about coincidence, and I know how you feel about coincidence, so . . .”

“Yes,” she said darkly. “What else?”

“Kiki isolated that tapping sound on the cockpit voice recorder. The copilot had a spoon with his coffee. He tapped the onboard monitor for the Gamelan flight data recorder.”

“Wait a minute. That doesn't make any sense. Last night we were told the Gamelan monitor was showing them a crisis for three minutes and they never noticed it. But Kiki thinks the copilot saw something interesting on that very monitor a second before the crisis started?”

“Go figure,” Tommy agreed. “Makes no kinda sense to me, but I'm just a canoe maker. Kiki and Peter have an idea.”

“All right, Tommy. I'll be there in ten.”

 

Walter Mulroney said, “That's impossible. I mean, I think it's impossible. Isn't it?”

He looked at Peter Kim, who shrugged.

Walter turned to one of his structures crew. “Ben! Can you get your hands on the ops manual for a Gamelan-type FDR?”

One of his crew jogged over. “Maybe. Why?”

Walter explained.

O'Meara rapped on the door. A man opened the door a crack and peered out. He had a thick brown beard, sun-baked skin, and a barrel chest barely restrained in a sleeveless T-shirt. His belt buckle was a duplicate of the Harley logo. Daria guessed he was six-six. “What?”

O'Meara said, “Me mates want to do some bear hunting.”

With an affirmative grunt, the bearded giant let them in. It wasn't until the door was fully open that Daria saw the butt of an old Smith & Wesson .45 jammed into the man's belt.

The room was a rat trap, with a double bed, a small TV, one hard-backed chair and a tinny air conditioner straining madly. An open door led to a bathroom that hadn't met any state inspection codes, maybe ever. Sitting on the bed was a rail-thin man in torn jeans and boots, his sunken chest bare. He held a bottle of Jack Daniel's by the neck with one hand, a remote control in the other. On the TV, a couple screwed to a dull, throbbing jazz beat.

Without a word of greeting, the big, bearded man crossed to the bed and got down on one knee. He pulled a dilapidated golf bag out from underneath and plopped it down next to his associate, who never took his eyes off the porno film.

The big man upturned the golf bag. Several long guns slid out.

“Your friend paid us up front,” the giant said. He grabbed the bottle from his cohort and took a swig, wiped a dirty hand over the top, and held the bottle out to O'Meara.

“Ta,” he said, but waved it aside. He began sorting through the rifles.

Daria said, “Mind if I use your bathroom?” The giant just leered at her. Even crossing in front of the TV screen didn't cause the smaller man to notice her.

She closed the door behind her, then quickly riffled through the crackled, plastic toiletry kit she'd spied from the other room. She found a disposable razor. She unscrewed the lid, popping the razor out into her hand. It was double-sided, which made it close to useless, but better than anything else she had to go with. She flushed the toilet and turned on the sink tap, watching brown water gurgle out. She lodged the razor into her boot, sinking it into the leather and away from her skin.

As she returned to the living room, O'Meara was stuffing the long guns back into the golf bag and hefting it over his shoulder. Daria caught only a brief glimpse, but to her trained eye, the weapons appeared to be in good shape.

The giant's eyes raked Daria from head to foot and back up again. “You and the lady wanna stay and party?”

O'Meara made no effort to keep the disrespect out of his voice. “Another time.” He hoisted the heavy bag and headed for the door.

“How about you?” the giant asked Daria. The couple on the TV kept fucking to the bad music.

Daria took the Jack Daniel's bottle from his meaty hand and took a gulp. The booze was nauseatingly sweet, closer to cough syrup than the vodka she normally ordered.

“Another time,” she said and handed the bottle back, then followed O'Meara out the door.

 

In their room—equally as squalid as the bikers'—O'Meara helped himself to a cool shower. This time, he didn't bother to chain Daria up. She took the opportunity to examine the weaponry. They were in possession of three Benelli M1 Super 90 shotguns. She hefted one, admired its matte finish. The Benelli was the shotgun of choice in the Mossad, because it could fire eight shells in two seconds. The other item in the case was a Heckler & Koch PSG1, one of the finest sniper rifles money can buy, with a twenty-four-power night scope and a twenty-round magazine.

These were professional weapons, designed for a specific mission. Unlike the handguns Daria had sold “Jack” in Los Angeles.

Whatever was happening would happen soon.

Dennis Silverman had been excused from all other responsibilities at Gamelan Industries. One of the co-owners of the company, Alexi Jacobian, had come down from The Tower to tell him in person, and to slap his shoulder and tell him how proud they all were of him.

“Really? Hey, you know that micro-electronics convention in California? I'm having trouble getting a flight out and—”

“Take the Gulfstream,” the co-owner had said.

You're proud now
, Dennis thought, tapping the Romulan Warbird over his desk and making it spin.
Wait until the NTSB report is published and our stock climbs through the ionosphere. They'll fucking
give
me the Gulfstream.

Walter Mulroney of the structures crew and Peter Kim of the power-plant crew began poring over the operations manual of the Gamelan brand
flight data recorder. They called over a half dozen of their top crew members. Ricky Sanchez, day-shift foreman of the airfield, scrounged up a seven-foot-high chalkboard on wheels. Several of the technicians stationed themselves at computers on folding tables and logged on to the Internet, accessing Gamelan's Web page. Others logged on to sites dedicated to NASA's Aviation Performance Measuring System and the federal Center for Flight Operational Quality Assurance, or FOQA. One woman logged on to the Dryden Flight Research Center's big mainframes and Ames Research Center, both operated by NASA. She bounced back and forth between sites and downloaded specs for a 6-DOF flight simulator—standing for six degrees of freedom, the simulator could move a virtual airliner in every imaginable direction: up and down, backward and forward, left and right, testing maximum threshold values and exceedence data.

They began around twelve thirty in the afternoon. It wasn't until close to two that they began to see that it was just barely conceivable that the Gamelan's technology could be used to manipulate an airliner.

Dennis Silverman's IBM T43 went
ding
.

It wasn't supposed to ding.

Dennis blinked at it, wondering,
What the hell?

“Hey, Dennis,” his cubicle mate called out. “I heard you were catching a flight today.”

Not bothering to answer, Dennis switched programs. He'd commanded his computer to monitor the Gamelan FDR on board the NTSB's swap-out. Just to keep an eye on those idiots. Now he squinted at the screen, wondering why his spy program had been activated. A three-foot-tall Catbert, Evil H.R. Director, hung by suction cups on his cubical wall, grinning at him.

Dennis jacked in to the Net, the computer opening up on the Gamelan home page. There, he typed in his superuser access codes and began clicking through the active files.

Around the world, eighteen users were accessing Gamelan information that afternoon, either downloading data about the products or uploading the codes for some flights. It took him no time to find the Go-Team's data stream and tap in to it.

In essence, Dennis slaved his terminal to a keyboard being used in the Valence hangar. He could sit back, sip his Red Bull, and observe their every action.

He was so busy doing that, he didn't see the office manager from human resources mounting a plaque by the elevator, announcing that Dennis Silverman had been named employee of the month.

The pilot of the Albion Air Flight 326 toggled his microphone. “Ah, JFK tower, we are feet dry.”

The tower said, “Roger that,” and provided a vector.

The Irish delegates were over North America.

 

The leader of the Catholic delegation whispered, “This all seems hurried.”

Representative Dan Riordan of California sighed. He stood near one of the toilet hubs on the Airbus, along with the Catholic leader and the Protestant leader. Their delegations remained seated.

The delegates had very little in common. Some were ex-cons, some were lawyers. Retired members of parliament and retired snipers. Laborers and academics. They shared only their passion for Ireland and their fervent hope that The Troubles were firmly rooted in history and would have nothing to do with the twenty-first century.

“Yes,” Riordan said. “You have raised that point. Repeatedly.”

“He's not wrong,” growled the Protestant leader.

The three of them stopped talking as a bathroom stall clamored open and a passenger edged out between them. Another passenger entered, activated the Occupied sign.

“I know,” Riordan whispered, thinking,
Will this nightmare never end?
“Yes. It's rushed because the latest round of talks has been stalled for months. It's rushed because—and you know this, you know this—there are elements in both of your parties who are happy with the power-sharing agreement stuck in neutral. They fund-raise on the talks being stalled. They write sermons for the pulpit on the talks being stalled. We have to unstall these talks and we have to do something big and dramatic. You know this.”

The Catholic and Protestant leaders eyed each other, nodded. They'd
heard this speech by Riordan over and over for the last week. He had pleaded, cajoled, lectured. The six Catholics and the six Protestants had eventually agreed to go with the U.S. congressman to his home state of California, partly because they were frustrated at the slowdown of the talks, and partly to get him to shut up.

“It's just,” the Protestant leader held up a beseeching hand, “we don't want to get out five kilometers ahead of leadership. Something big and dramatic, aye. Of course. But leadership will have to—”

“And they will,” Riordan said, nodding, adjusting his silk tie. His face was blotchy and red. “They will, thanks to you. They'll have to. Trust me. You'll meet with the governor. The media will be all over this story. We'll shake loose the peace talks. Trust me!”

 

Ten minutes later, with the Irish once again placated, Representative Dan Riordan ordered his fourth scotch and slumped angrily in his seat. His
economy-class
seat, for Christ's sake!

He gulped the new drink in one swig. It was a nightmare. How had he ended up on this goddamn flight with these fidgety Irishmen? It was madness.

Riordan's thoughts grew sullen as he thought back to the confidential, sealed, intergovernmental pouch that had been delivered to him
on the House floor!
He had opened the pouch, half listening to testimony, and let the pictures pour out onto his desk, only to scoop them up in seconds, jam them back into the envelope.

Pictures of Dan Riordan and the guys. Fooling around. Naked.

He always thought of them as
the guys
and sex as
fooling around.
Not
boys.
Not
young boys.
What was age, anyway? An illusion. Maturity isn't dictated by the days we've spent on the planet. Riordan knew this. America's preoccupation with the bedroom was sick, irresponsible. Yes, sure, he'd campaigned on a ban on same-sex marriage and he'd opposed any mention of sexual preference in housing and employment bills. In his district, it's what you did to get elected. Only a moron would have expected him to vote differently. Still . . .

The sender of the photos had waited six days to contact Riordan. Six agonizing days. Riordan had called in sick, missed important votes, told the press and his staff that he had a flu. On the sixth day, he received a call at his residence.

“Did you like the photos?”

Riordan—drunk, unshaved, unwashed, going mad from the anxiety—had screamed into the phone. Had shouted threats and invectives. The caller had waited. In the end, as Riordan ran out of breath, the caller said. “It all goes away. It goes away easily.”

Riordan had knelt on the Persian carpet in his Georgetown town house, an empty bottle of rye held loosely in his left fist, and whispered, “How?”

“You will bring a delegation of lawmakers from Northern Ireland to California on the date of my choosing, and on the aircraft of my choosing.”

“Why?”

“You don't care. The date of my choosing and the aircraft of my choosing. No media. No one gets a word about this in advance. Use your clout on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. And understand: it's not just photos. There are videotapes. With audio.”

Riordan had debated silently for almost two minutes before whispering, “Okay.”