Missing (17 page)

Matt stood rigid for a moment, and then turned back to Boyer, glaring at him.

Boyer was wide-eyed, a look of panic on his face. He looked at Matt. “I didn’t tell them. Management agreed to keep this quiet. Maybe one of the mechanics or ground crew called it in.”

“
No one was supposed to have been in that hangar,” Matt said, his voice louder than he had wanted it to be.

“
As far as I know, no one was. As I said before, we had security on it so no one was supposed to come anywhere near the plane. Someone must have gotten curious and slipped in without security knowing it. Someone had to have seen the plane come in and gotten suspicious.”

“
Well, this is really going to hamper our investigation now. If the passengers, or those behind the plane hijacking see this, they are going to hide even further from us.”

Boyer opened his mouth, but closed it again, saying nothing. He looked to be in a state of shock. Beads of sweat were forming on his forehead. With this news, the wives of the pilot and first officer are going to be very angry. Management isn’t going to be happy either. Matt couldn’t blame them. He wasn’t happy about this either.

“
Do not let anyone give out any information on who was on that flight or there is going to be a media frenzy on this that is going to get out of control very quickly. Not to mention, the pilot’s wives are really going to be on your case.”

Boyer nodded.

Matt shook his head, turned and stomped out of the office, with Colin right behind him.

It was a quiet ride back to the office. Matt was still angry someone had tipped off the media. Whatever security Boyer had placed obviously didn’t work. As they walked back into the office, he took a deep breath and tried to relax. He knew they were just going to have to work around this new problem. Sitting down at his desk, he leaned back in his chair. He let out a deep sigh. Oh well, there is nothing they can do about it now anyway. The word was out and they are just going to have to work around it.

Matt turned to his computer and turned it on. When it was ready, he pulled the CD out of his suit coat pocket and slipped it into the computer’s CD slot. Colin brought his chair around and sat down close to Matt.

The Heathrow Security tape began forty-five minutes before flight 3351’s scheduled departure last Friday morning. There was no sound, but there was a ticker with the date and time on the bottom of the screen, so they could watch what time things happened. At first, there was minimal movement. Ten minutes into the tape, the three flight attendants walked into the passageway. Another ten minutes later, the pilot and first officer, along with two more men dressed in white shirts, dark ties and dark pants entered the passageway. Matt assumed these were the backup pilot and first officer. After that, airline personnel would occasionally walk across the screen as they prepared to admit the passengers on the plane. Fifteen minutes later, they began loading the passengers. One by one, each of the six passengers passed by the camera as they entered the passageway to the plane. They walked singly, with at least ten feet in-between them. None of them appeared to be traveling together. The tape went ten more minutes, but there were no further passengers. When the tape cut off, Matt and Colin sat for a few moments staring at the blank screen.

“
What do you think?” Colin asked.

“
They don’t look like terrorists, but, then again, who knows what a terrorist looks like anymore.”

“
They seemed to be near the same age group.”

Matt nodded. “Yeah, I noticed that too. And, all of them had carry-on luggage. Luggage that wasn’t on the plane.”

“
Yeah, I know. None of them seemed to know each other either.”

Matt nodded. “I noticed that too. But, that doesn’t make sense. Since it now appears the passengers took over the plane, them walking in singly has to be an act.”

“
Like a diversion?”

“
Yeah, sort of.”

“
What now?”

“
Well, first, we need to get pictures printed out of each of the crew and the passengers. Then we need to match the pictures of the passengers with their real names. And we need to report to Petersen.”

“
Sounds like a plan to me.”

Matt took the CD out of the computer, and then walked out of the office, and down the hallway. The FBI had the best computer specialists. They can capture pictures off a security tape. He was sure it was probably easy; he just didn’t know how to do it.

Half an hour later, Matt had the thirteen pictures in his hand.

They had just gotten back to their office when Matt’s office phone rang. He answered, and then listened for a moment. He thanked the caller, hung up the phone and looked over at Colin.

“
That was Petersen. He wants to see us now. In the conference room.” He shook his head. “Something is going on. The tone in his voice tells me something is wrong. So, until we find out what is going on, we won’t mention the security tape.” Colin nodded. Matt tucked the pictures inside a file folder and put the CD in his desk drawer. He grabbed a notepad and they walked out to the hallway.

The conference room was located down the hallway. It was one of the smaller one’s, used mostly for small group staff meetings and interviews. The door was slightly open when they got there. Matt pushed the door open and they walked in. Just inside the door, they both came to a stop. Petersen was sitting at one end of the eight-foot oval oak table. He nodded towards to the right side of the table. Also in the room were two men in suits. Matt didn’t know who the men were. He moved to his right and he and Colin sat down opposite the two men.

The man directly across from Matt was tall; about five foot eleven, had short cut dark brown hair and looked to be in his mid-thirties. He had an expressionless look on his face. Only his glaring cold looking eyes moved. The other man had a similar look on his face, except he was about five years younger, was a bit shorter and had short cut blonde hair. Both were wearing black suits, white shirts and black ties. They were sitting straight as ramrods, both staring back at them. No indication of who they are, or why they are here. Matt wasn’t getting a good feeling.

Peterson started the conversation. “Matt and Colin, I want to introduce you to Agents Michael Bartholomew and Henry Watkins. They are both with the CIA. These are my agents, Matt Palmer and Colin McWilliams.”

Matt looked at Petersen. “Is the CIA now in on the case?”

Petersen glanced at the two men, and then turned to Matt. “Yes, and no. There has been a development.”

He narrowed his eyes at him. “What kind of a development?”

“
The two bodies you found on flight 3351 have been identified.”

Matt was getting a knot in his stomach. “Who are they?”

Petersen looked at the two CIA agents. “You want to tell them?” The man across from Matt nodded. He was obviously the senior partner.

“
Their names are James Mitchell and Michael Sawyer. They are both operations managers.”

“
Operation managers? What’s that?”

“
Plainly put, we gather information for national security.”

Better yet, they are agents and probably spies, Matt thought. “Okay, so what were they doing in England? Were they partners?”

Bartholomew nodded. “Yes, they were. They were following up on a tip our office got. Seems someone has been hacking into computer systems in the U.S. from England, as well as systems in England. We traced where it was coming from and then went to find them. We had gotten a tip where they were.”

“
What kind of systems?”

“
Major systems. Like power grids, nuclear plants, that sort of thing. We have been trying to find them for quite a while. When we would finally locate where they were, they moved.”

“
They?”

He nodded. “Yes, they. We aren’t sure how many, but we think about five or six. We believe two people are doing the hacking. The last report we got of their activities, two systems were being compromised at the same time, which means there were two people doing the hacking simultaneously.”

“
So what happened last week?”

He nodded again. “On previous occasions, we had gotten leads on where they were. They had also been hacking into local English banks and we were able to track them through the bank’s system. Only every time we found the location, they had moved. So, this time, we sent the two of our agents to check and make sure they were actually there.”

“
What happened?”

“
We got a call from Jim. He said they had found them at the location. He said there were two people inside the house, a man and a woman. The man was on the computer at the time. About the same time, there was activity going on in a banking database that we were monitoring. This was the second time they were hacking into the local banking company’s computer system, transferring money to an offshore account. So, we knew we had found them. We told them to sit tight for a few minutes and watch the place to make sure they didn’t leave. Then four of us took off for the location. The plan was to do a raid in force to make sure none of them left, since we had failed several times before.”

“
What happened when you got there?”

He shrugged. “No one was there. There was no one inside the house and we couldn’t find either Jim or Michael.”

“
What do you think happened?”

“
Even though they only saw two people, we believe the whole group was there. They had to have seen Michael and Jim go back to their car. We found their car half a block away, but only found their prints. And their blood.”

“
From when they were shot?”

Bartholomew nodded. “Yes. Looked like the shooter came to the passenger side of the car and shot them both.’

Matt nodded. “That’s what we figured when we saw their injuries. What I don’t understand was why they would jump them. Why not just take off again?”

“
Well, one possible reason is they probably knew we were getting close. The last two places they lived at, they left just before we got there.”

“
So when did this take place?”

“
Last Thursday.”

“
Find anything incriminating in the house?”

He shook his head. “No. The house was a rental. There was hardly anything inside. Very little furniture. We checked with the owners and they gave us the names of the renters, but they weren’t the names we knew them to be. They have been using bogus names everywhere they moved to.”

“
So, this took place last Thursday. What time?”

“
The last time we heard from Jim and Michael was about eight o’clock Thursday evening.”

Matt thought for a moment. “Okay. So they were killed about eight o’clock Thursday evening. Then the flight leaves at nine thirty the next morning. We checked the plane Saturday afternoon. What time frame did the coroner give?”

This time Watkins answered the question. He opened a file in front of him.

“
According to the coroner, they had been dead about two days. The cargo area was cooler, so he said it could have been longer, but we doubt it. The time frame fits with what we know the situation was.”

Matt nodded. “Okay, I guess my next question is if you have any identification on any of these hackers?”

“
Of the group, only the man and woman are the hackers,” Bartholomew said. “We can identify both of them. They are always together. I think there is a romantic relationship between them. Four others have been seen at various times, but we’re not sure exactly what they do.”

“
Have you actually seen them?”

He shook his head. “No, I haven’t. They were described to us by various agents who have seen them and people who rented out the apartments to them.”

“
What does the woman look like?”

“
Late twenties, blonde, good looking.”

Matt shook his head. “Well, that describes half the women in New York City. Any distinguishing marks?”

Bartholomew nodded. “Yeah, she has an earring in her right eyebrow.”

Matt dropped his shoulders, and then glanced over at Colin, who raised his eyebrows and nodded.

“
What’s going on?” Petersen asked.

Opening the file folder, Matt shuffled through the photos until he found the one he was looking for. He looked at the photo for a moment, and then handed it to Petersen. Petersen’s mouth dropped open. He handed the photo to Bartholomew. Watkins leaned over to see.

Bartholomew looked up at Matt. “Where did you get this?”

Matt looked at Petersen. “We were coming to tell you about this.” He looked at Bartholomew. “Do you know about flight 3351?”

He nodded. “Yeah. We heard it had disappeared. The coroner’s office told us they were on the plane. Other than that, nothing else. Where exactly did they find the plane?”

Matt figured they knew more than what they were telling. Still, since they had picked up one photograph, then they did know more.

“
The plane was found in the far eastern part of Quebec Province, Canada. No one saw the plane come in. It is a remote airport.”

Bartholomew raised his eyebrows. “How can they land a plane on a remote airport? Those usually only have short runways for smaller planes.”