Missing (14 page)

An hour later, Matt and Colin entered East Brunswick, New Jersey. The traffic was light, at least for New York City, and they made good time. Matt was driving a silver Chevy Impala with flashers on the grille. He left them on the entire trip, which helped to get them here faster.

The first house was a two-story Colonial house located at the end of a cul-de-sac. He pulled into the driveway, parked the car in front of the garage and they got out. They walked the sidewalk to the steps leading up to the twenty-foot long porch along the front of the house. A swing attached to the ceiling was on one end of the porch. Four comfortable looking lounge chairs were leaning against the front of the house.

Matt knocked on the door. While he waited, he turned and looked at the view from the porch. A large kidney shaped area held trees, shrubs and large rocks. Because of its location, it gave a bit of privacy to the house.

No one had answered, so Matt turned and knocked again. Then he heard the sound of footsteps slowly coming towards the door. A few moments later, the door opened a crack. Through the opening, Matt could see the woman was old. The red front door contrasted her white hair.

“
Can I help you?” the woman asked through the chain across the door.

Matt pulled his badge up and showed her. Colin did too. “I’m Special Agent Palmer with the FBI, and this is my partner, Special Agent McWilliams. We’d like to talk to you for a few minutes.”

“
Okay. Just a moment.” The woman closed the door. Matt heard the slide of the chain, and then she opened the door again, this time a bit wider.

“
Did I do something wrong?” the woman asked, her eyes nervously darting between the two men standing in front of her.

The woman was in her early eighties. She was a petite five foot four and wore a black silky looking pantsuit. It set off her very white hair. And now she was visibly upset.

“
No ma’am. We just want to talk to you about your husband, John Carter.”

The woman put her hand over her mouth and shook her head. “Oh no, you must have the wrong John Carter. He didn’t do anything wrong. Never. He was an upstanding man and treated everyone very well. He was a businessman, you know. He owned his own finance business for fifty years. He always treated his customers and staff fairly and with respect.”

Matt shook his head. “He’s not in trouble, Mrs. Carter. All I need to know if he went on a trip recently?”

Mrs. Carter’s mouth dropped open. Matt looked at the shocked look on her face. His gut feeling told him this wasn’t going to end well. Then he wondered if she was going to answer him.

“
Mrs. Carter?” he asked.

She took a deep breath, as tears began welling in her eyes. “My husband died three years ago.”

Now it was Matt’s turn to go silent for a few seconds, as his mouth dropped open. Finally, he collected himself.

“
I’m sorry, Mrs. Carter. Apparently, we do have the wrong John Carter. I’m sorry to have bothered you.” The woman nodded and shut the door.

Colin and Matt turned and quickly walked off the porch, silently going back to their car. When they got in, Matt looked back at the house a moment, and then backed the car out of the driveway. He started driving to the next location.

“
What do you think?” Colin asked, looking at Matt.

“
Maybe this one was just a fluke.”

Colin shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t.”

Matt nodded. “Yeah, maybe it wasn’t.”

Half an hour later, they got to the next house. The house was located in Sayerville, New Jersey. The homes here were close together, sitting about ten feet off the street. Matt pulled into the driveway that led along the side of the house. The house was a small one-story yellow house. The garage was at the end of the driveway, at the far end of the house. A chain link fence surrounded the house on three sides.

Matt glanced at the house and then took a deep breath. After how the encounter went at the last house, he wondered what they were going to find this time. He wasn’t hopeful. They got out of the car and walked up the sidewalk to the front door. Taking another deep breath, Matt knocked on the door. A young man, who looked to be eighteen, opened the door.

“
Yes, can I help you?”

Matt showed his badge. “I’m Special Agent Palmer of the FBI. Is your mother here?”

The young man narrowed his eyes at him. “I’m sorry, but my mother doesn’t live here. My wife and I do. Is there a problem?”

This is starting off good, Matt thought. “I’m sorry. Alright then, I need to talk to you about Edward Compton.”

A baby laughed from somewhere inside the house.

The young man glanced back inside the house, and then looked back at Matt again. “What do you need to talk to him about?”

Matt hesitated a moment. He wasn’t getting a good feeling about this. Again. “Is he here?”

The young man nodded, backed up, opening the door wider. He swept his arm backwards. Matt and Colin looked through the open doorway. In the living room, sitting in a walker, was a little boy, laughing, as the young woman sitting on the floor in front of him was playing peek-a-boo.

“
That’s Edward Compton?” Matt asked.

“
Yep, that’s our Eddy. He is six months old.”

Matt took a deep breath. “My apologies. We’ve obviously gotten the wrong Edward Compton.”

As the man closed the door, Matt could hear the man laughing inside the house as they walked back to the car.

“
Still think this is a fluke?” Colin asked.

Matt shook his head. “No, I don’t, but we’ll try one more.”

This time, they headed off to Newark, New Jersey. It was a quiet forty-five minute drive as Matt picked up Interstate 95 and headed back north. According to the passenger list they had gotten, there were two women among the group of six passengers. While he hoped to have better luck with this next one, he was already beginning to believe the names were bogus. No, actually, the names aren’t bogus. They were real. Real people with the correct addresses.

As they drove the downtown area, Matt got a deepening sense of dread in the pit of his stomach. Driving down University Avenue, he slowed down long enough to verify the address they had for Susan Malcolm. The sign on the front lawn of the building told the rest of the story. It was Rutgers University School of Nursing.

“
Well, I guess this confirms it,” Matt said as he decided it was time to forget this and get back to the office. “The passenger’s names are bogus. Now all we can do is to wait for the tape to come in from Heathrow and then see if we can identify who we are dealing with.”

“
This doesn’t look good.”

“
No, it doesn’t.”

Colin held up his hand and began counting off fingers. “So, let me see if I’ve got this straight. We’ve got seven missing crew members, six missing passengers, one commercial plane that gets parked in Canada, two dead bodies on the plane, there is no indication where the flight crew and passengers are and passengers names who aren’t who they are supposed to be.”

“
Yep, that pretty much sums it up.”

“
Are we dealing with terrorists?”

Matt shook his head. “I don’t think so. There weren’t enough people on-board and it was too far out to hit a U.S. site. I know we should consider some sort of attack. They obviously hid behind other people’s names. There is no way of knowing if they are even in the U.S. Until we get the security tape, we have no way of knowing who we are dealing with.”

“
Even with the security tape, how are we going to find who they are?”

“
We might be able to do a visual recognition. I am sure the guys in the computer department will be able to do something with the pictures. We may also have to put the pictures out and see who knows them. Anyone going to all this trouble to hide themselves is up to no good.” Matt paused a moment. “You know, I hadn’t thought anything about checking the passenger list before now, but, if I had, we might have picked up on the discrepancies.”

“
Would it have made any difference?” Colin asked.

Matt shook his head. “Probably not. But, after what we didn’t find on the plane, we are going to have to look closer at who the passengers really are.”

Just then, Matt’s cell phone rang. It was Boyer. He had contacted Heathrow’s security office, and a copy of the tape from flight 3351’s boarding will be on a late flight tonight. Matt thanked him, and then hung up.

“
The security tape will be here late tonight. We will get it tomorrow morning,” Matt said.

“
That’s good. We can also see who the missing crew is too.”

Matt nodded. “Yes, I hadn’t thought of that. Although I doubt the crew had anything to do with it.”

“
I agree. But, after that, what?”

“
After we find who they are, we have to find them.”

“
Maybe they snuck back into the U.S.”

“
Yeah, maybe. At the moment, there is no way of knowing where they went. We don’t know if they flew out or drove away from the airport. Until someone sees them, we won’t know where they are.”

As Matt headed back into New York, he was deep in thought. While he hoped this wasn’t a terrorist group, why were the passengers going to all this trouble? What bothered him most was how they did it. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to plan the hijacking of a commercial flight, land the plane in an obscure place, and then get everyone out, along with finding bogus names of real people. Because of the airport’s location, no one would have known how they got out. No one even saw flight 3351 land. His gut feeling was telling him there was going to be a problem. A big problem.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

LATE SUNDAY AFTERNOON

WASHINGTON

Fitzpatrick pulled his car into the garage. It was empty. He had been right; Kim wasn’t going to be back until tomorrow. That was fine with him. Yesterday afternoon, he had taken a break and called his lawyer, explaining what he had in mind. His lawyer, Brent Rushton, had the paperwork ready for his signature when he stopped by his house an hour ago. He figured the paperwork wouldn’t be ready until Monday, but was glad Rushton had expedited it for him. Rushton was also in his second marriage and understood the situation. So, step number one is done, he thought, as he got out of the car. Step number two is tomorrow morning. Rushton will file the divorce paperwork tomorrow. He doubted Kim would find out until the following day, but he wasn’t going to worry about that right now. He had more important things to worry about.

First, is Harper. Fitzpatrick smiled when he thought about how the meeting on Monday morning will go. After that was over, there was only one more thing to do, and then life will be better. He just had to wait for Tuesday. He was sure Kim was going to be livid, but he made sure the paperwork stated she had to move out of the house on Tuesday. He wouldn’t be here, but Rushton would. All she was to take was her clothes, and nothing else. He paid for everything in the house, so she wasn’t going to get any of it.

Harper, on the other hand, would be livid on Monday, but Tuesday will be better. Two days of angry people wasn’t going to be too bad, considering the outcomes of each one. Fitzpatrick knew it was going to be uphill from then on.

He closed the garage door and walked inside the house. The cook hadne.t been in today, so he was on his own for dinner. It is now four o’clock. The coverage of his trip to Texas was going to be on at six o’clock tonight. He hoped Harper saw it. Even if he didn’t, he was sure his friends would let him know about it. He was getting excited about seeing the coverage.

Walking into the living room, he took his luggage upstairs to his bedroom. He unloaded the suitcase and put everything away. Then, he changed into a pair of black dress jeans and a blue dress shirt.

Going back downstairs, he walked into his office. He sat down in the chair and unlocked his desk. He didn’t trust Kim, so he made sure he kept the desk locked. The desk had two built-in file drawers. Opening the bottom drawer, he pulled out a briefcase. It is a different briefcase than he takes to work. This one had a special purpose. He laid it on top of the desk and opened it. Inside, he found everything he had put in there on Thursday, except for one thing. He closed the bottom drawer and then opened the top drawer. From this drawer he pulled out a laptop computer and placed it, the USB internet card and the power cord inside the briefcase. Then he closed the briefcase. He sat for a moment, mentally going over what needed to be in the briefcase. He was sure he had everything he needed. Above all else, he wanted to be prepared for tomorrow. He relocked his desk, stood up, picked up his briefcase and walked out of his office, closing the door behind him.

Not wanting to take the chance that Kim might come back earlier than he thought; he took the briefcase out to his car and locked in the trunk. Then he walked back inside. In the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator and looked inside to see what his choices were. Hannah had made Pasta Vecchia Napoli on Thursday and there was still some left. He brought out the dish and stuck it in the microwave. It wouldn’t be as good as when she made it fresh, but it smelled good and he knew it would taste good too.

While his dinner was heating, he got out a plate and silverware, and a stemmed glass, setting them on the breakfast table. Then he got out a bottle of pinot noir Cheverny and poured himself a glass, setting the bottle on the table. The bell went off and he took the dish out and slid the contents onto his plate. He rinsed the dish and put it in the dishwasher. Going back to the table, he sat down. Picking up his fork, he picked up a forkful of the pasta, stuffing it into his mouth. He relished every bite, taking a sip of his wine in-between bites.