Robert nodded. “Absolutely. I was watching him, now Dallas is watching him. I know what you’re thinking, but there’s no way he could have communicated.”
“Then it’s pure logic.”
“What?”
“The nearest purely American facility to Vietnam these days is Guam. He was guessing, and I don’t know whether I inadvertently confirmed it or not.”
“But we’re headed to an Air Force base, right? How could they infiltrate a base that fast?”
Kat was shaking her head. “I don’t know, but they simply can’t be everywhere. If there’s any chance there’s really a threat in Guam, we can’t go there.”
“Where, then?”
“Oh, shit, Robert!” Kat’s arms dropped as she sat back and rolled her eyes.
“What?”
“My satellite call to Jake was intercepted. That’s got to be the explanation!”
“You mentioned Guam?”
“Anderson AFB, everything. Lord. That has to be how he knows.”
“How could they know you have a satellite phone?”
She sat on the armrest of a plush swiveling chair, stroking her chin in thought, vaguely aware of young Steve Delaney in an adjacent seat as he punched up song after song on the sophisticated flight entertainment system.
“No,” Kat said, almost under her breath. “That can’t be right. My phone is digital, and even though we don’t consider them secure, they’re extremely hard to intercept, especially with the new satellite network I’m using.”
“Then we’re back to logic? He figured it out on his own?”
Kat looked up at Robert and thought of another chilling possibility she didn’t want to discuss with him or anyone: the potential for a leak at FBI headquarters.
She got to her feet and headed back to the cockpit, waving Dallas back down when she started to get out of the right seat. “Not yet, Dallas.”
“Kat, by the way,” Dallas said, “they’ve got a galley with food and water and Cokes and coffee on this baby. We all needed to eat something. When you’re ready to get back in up here, can I bring you a snack?”
“A bit later, yeah,” Kat said with a slight smile. She looked over at Pollis. “Can you ask this flight computer questions about the distance to another location without causing a change in course?”
“Sure,” he replied. “What do you want to see?”
She hesitated a second, wondering if he could find a way to communicate any change in destination to his employers. Not if we watch him like a hawk, she concluded. “Program in direct to Los Angeles,” she ordered.
“Ah, that’s much too far.” Pollis punched the appropriate buttons and waited for the result. “There,” he said. “We’re six thousand, two hundred fourteen miles, which would be about thirteen hours, depending on winds. We can’t make it.”
“Try direct Seattle.”
Once again he complied, getting a slightly better, but still impossible result.
“Erase that and punch in direct Honolulu,” she said.
The result was under 5,000 miles distance remaining. Ten hours. And we have twelve hours of fuel. “Okay, Pollis. Execute that flight plan direct Honolulu.”
Kat watched as the new destination entered the computer’s official flight plan. The airplane made a subtle turn as the autopilot altered course to accommodate the change. They were now headed on a direct, great circle course to Honolulu International Airport.
“Dallas, I’ll be right back. Make absolutely certain he doesn’t touch a radio or type anything on any keyboard.”
“You got it,” Dallas replied.
Kat returned to the cabin and sat by one of the windows, enjoying the feel and smell of the soft leather seat. A minute later, she unfolded her satellite phone and began punching in the after-hours number that would connect her directly to Jordan James.
CHAPTER 30
“Kat? Wake up. It’s Robert,” a voice said somewhere just beyond the fog surrounding her head.
“What?” Kat opened her eyes, blinking at the brightness of the sun glinting off the Pacific Ocean some 42,000 feet below. She tried to reconcile the ringing sound with Robert MacCabe’s presence in the cockpit.
“Your phone’s ringing, Kat,” he said, inches from her right ear.
She had dozed off in the right seat, for how long she wasn’t sure. She sat up with a start, her eyes going to the distance-remaining numbers on the face of the flight computer.
Calm down! she told herself. We’re still three hundred miles out.
Pollis was still in position in the left seat, watching her passively.
Kat turned to Robert. “Have you been here all along? Has somebody…”
He nodded. “Someone’s watched this guy every second, Kat.”
She unfolded the antenna on the portable phone and punched the button. “Hello?”
“Agent Bronsky?” a male voice asked.
“Right here. Who’s this?”
“This is your contact at CIA headquarters at Langley, calling on behalf of your superior, who wants to avoid direct contact for the reason you worried about earlier.”
Kat felt a chill ripple through her that Jake felt a breach of security at the Bureau was a possibility. Jordan James had been skeptical about a leak, but had agreed nearly nine hours ago to find a safe back-channel to Jake Rhoades’s ear. Obviously Uncle Jordan had done what he promised, as usual.
“Okay, I understand. Is he satisfied that this channel is not compromised?’
“He is, but he thinks a plumber is needed at his home location.”
“I’m… very sorry to hear that,” Kat said. “What do you have for me?”
“On arrival at Honolulu, taxi directly to the corporate fixed-base operation. The Bureau’s team will meet you there.”
“They have a replacement pilot for us?”
“No. You and the others are to be transferred under assumed names to a commercial flight to D.C. Arrangements have been made to get the item you found aboard that aircraft to the appropriate location on a special Air Force flight.”
“Why can’t we just go on the same flight? Why go commercial?” Kat asked, sitting up and rubbing her left eye.
“That, ah, type of aircraft can’t carry passengers.”
Kat nodded to herself, envisioning the very thing she’d suggested, an SR-71, capable of streaking from Honolulu to Washington in approximately two hours, or anywhere else in the continental U.S. with the same lightning speed.
The underwire in Kat’s bra had been progressively digging in to one of her ribs for the past several minutes, and it was getting close to intolerable, but there was no way she could discreetly adjust it with Robert MacCabe standing so close beside her. “Look,” she said, rolling her shoulders in a wheel-like motion to try to relieve the pressure, “I’m really concerned about the commercial idea. My entire group is a target, especially myself and one other. I do not want another commercial flight placed at risk of attack because of our presence.”
“That’s all been handled, Agent Bronsky,” the CIA contact said. “Your presence on the appropriate flight will be known only to us.”
“It still worries me. Please relay… to my superior… that I’d like him to think that over.”
“I will, but do not, repeat, do not attempt to call him directly. Understood?”
“Yes, Sir. That’s clear enough. Is the home leak caused by an electronic problem, or a human problem?”
“I can’t say, Agent. I don’t have that information.”