She shook her head. “Just because you’re paranoid, the old saying goes, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. No,” she sighed, her words coming in a quieter tone. “From what you just told me, they could easily have intended to kill you. The psychology is right. A professional doing a kidnapping who doesn’t mind showing his face is not expecting to have to deal with a witness in the future.”
Robert MacCabe swallowed hard. “Oh, Lord. I just realized that if they knew where to find me, they know what flight I’m on tonight. They could be waiting at the airport.” He turned to her. “You could be in danger, too.”
She got to her feet and began pacing back and forth in front of the bench. “This is nuts, Robert! What you’ve told me is all you have, right?”
He nodded.
“Well, other than speculation on Carnegie’s death and the attempted abduction, all we’ve got is general speculation based on his statements,” she said, turning to look at the harbor lights through the trees. “I’m sorry, but that’s not even enough to launch an investigation of whether an investigation needs to be launched.”
“I don’t understand.”
She whirled back around. “Look, we don’t know for sure that Walter Carnegie had anything but a theory in regard to the SeaAir crash. You said yourself he tended to be spring-loaded to the conspiracy position. And at least as of this moment, standing here with me in Hong Kong, you can’t even be certain he was murdered.”
“So who were those guys who ripped my room apart and tried to kill me?”
“I don’t know, and you don’t know. Do you have enemies?”
“Probably a lot, including the phone company back in Virginia. But no one’s ever come after me before.”
Kat resumed pacing, smoothing her hair against a gust of wind. “If there’s a new terrorist group, and if they found Carnegie had talked to you, and if they know Carnegie had evidence or information they didn’t want released, then they should also be sophisticated enough to know that you two never got together, which means you couldn’t have received any damning information. That, in turn, means they shouldn’t be worried about you.” She turned to look at him for a few seconds of uncomfortable silence. “You don’t have any information, do you?”
“Not a clue! No letters, no calls, no disks.”
“Then why would they chase you all the way to Hong Kong?”
“Maybe they know he sent me something, and I don’t know it yet because I never received it. One of those goons said they’d been searching for my computer. Maybe he expected to find what he was looking for on my hard drive.”
She nodded, deep in thought, her eyes on the brightly lighted cityscape. “That could mean a disk, or they suspect you downloaded something by modem.” She turned to him. “But you did save your computer, right? You got it back before they had a chance to look at it?”
“Yeah. It’s safe back there in the—” He gestured toward the parking lot.
“Taxi.” Kat finished his sentence as he came off the bench, both of them breaking into a run back to where they’d left the taxi.
The cab was still there, the lights out, the engine stopped, but they could see the driver slumped over in the left front window, barely illuminated by the street lamp.
“Oh my God!” Kat exclaimed as they approached the driver’s side, keeping an active lookout for anyone else around. She reached out and touched the cabbie’s arm, fully expecting to see blood.
Instead, the man yelped in fright as he jumped awake.
“Excuse me!” Kat said. “You were leaning over and I thought you were hurt.”
“Sorry! I only fall asleep.”
Kat stood looking at the city. She took a deep breath before turning back to the driver. “Another five minutes, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Robert, you want to bring your computer?”
He reached in and retrieved the case, then followed her a dozen yards away to the edge of the viewpoint, surprised to see her unfolding the antenna on a satellite phone. She pulled a business card from her purse and looked up at him.
“I met the security chief of the Chek Lap Kok Hong Kong Airport today,” she explained. “Let me see what I can do about your security worry.”
Several minutes of relayed calls led to the chief himself. The conversation was swift and she thanked him and disconnected.
“We’ll meet a security team several miles from the terminal and they’ll take us right to the aircraft. If anyone’s lying in wait, he won’t have a chance to spot either of us. Mr. Li was nice enough to say he’d arrange for immigration and customs clearance on board for us, and they’re beefing up security on this flight.”
Robert sighed in relief. “Wonderful. Thank you.”
“Hey. I’m aboard, too. Now, are you booked straight to D.C. out of L.A.?”
“Yes,” he said.
Kat nibbled her lower lip before speaking. “I was going to spend a day lying unconscious on Newport Beach, but now I’m going to go back with you. I’m not sure we’ve got anything, but we’ll take it to my boss, if you agree.”
“I agree,” Robert said.
The two of them fell silent for a few moments as Kat watched another jetliner climb away from the airport into the night. A rumble of thunder had accompanied their exchange for the past few minutes, and flashes of lightning both to the east and the west continued to flicker in the distance. A line of thunderstorms was obviously moving in from the west, crackling with lightning as it drifted closer. The wind was beginning to pick up as well, though the temperature was balmy.
“Kat, I’ve been shot at in Bosnia, Somalia, and Riyadh, but always because I was a reporter they didn’t want there. Any reporter would have drawn the same attention. But I’ve never been personally targeted before, and it isn’t comfortable.”
She nodded. “I can imagine.”
“So what’s your best guess?” he asked.
“You mean, who’s been chasing you and who may have killed Carnegie? Or my guess about whether terrorists brought down the SeaAir MD-eleven in the first place?”
“Both.”
She paused, chewing her lip again, sorting out the logic. “Well, someone’s apparently worried about what Carnegie may have found, and their tactics are not CIA or DIA, to say the least. That means there could be, in theory, I suppose, some dark and dirty new group out there that wants you cashiered. If so, they’ve got to be private and well-organized and probably not Middle Eastern or religious in origin. I don’t know, Robert. Carnegie could have been right about some new, very sophisticated group looking to accomplish some strange, new, unknown goal that they haven’t announced to the rest of us.”
“In my experience, that would surely terrify the Company.”
She nodded. “But a formal, embarrassed cover-up back home?” she said, shaking her head slowly. “I don’t know.” A distant flash of lightning caught her attention.
“Maybe,” Robert said, “it’s a case of ‘we can’t control it, so we’re all going to pretend it doesn’t exist.’”
“That,” Kat replied, “sounds like a conspiracy theory, Robert. As a rule, I don’t believe in such things.”
“Nor do I. Most groups, no matter how focused and intense, can’t even make a group decision on where to go for lunch. The way I look at things, Oswald was a solo act, and the only aliens here are from Guadalajara.”
“But…” she prompted.
“But, well… I can understand why the airline industry doesn’t want the SeaAir crash to be a terrorist act. If Wally was right and there’s a new mad-dog group out there with money, sophistication, and a cause, they won’t stop with SeaAir. They’ll keep on killing airliners until they have our undivided attention.”