Not for the first time, Khoury questioned the decision he’d made that had brought on this entire quandary. When the airplane had gone down unexpectedly, the issue arose as to whether to report it missing. Khoury had imagined any number of difficult scenarios. The crash might have been witnessed, wreckage could have turned up in the busy Red Sea shipping lanes, or the aircraft might somehow have gone unaccounted for. In the end, Khoury had reported the incident hoping to minimize complications. A simple explanation for an ancient, decrepit airplane going down seemed the least-risk channel of action. Now Khoury realized he had made a mistake. An American had taken over the inquiry, and unlike Schmitt and the others, one he had not handpicked.
“What is his name?” Khoury asked.
“Davis. He’s a big lug, hard to miss. I gave him a room in the residential compound. Figured we could keep an eye on him that way.”
Khoury nodded with approval. He had to admit, his chief pilot had good instincts. Or at least, the instincts of a thief. “That was clever of you. And the man works alone?”
“Yes,” Schmitt said.
“Has he already questioned you?”
“We had a chat.”
“And you cooperated?”
“I told him there had been some suspect work done on the flight controls, and I gave him a copy of the maintenance write-up from the logbook.”
“Did he seem convinced?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t look at it right away.” Schmitt paused before saying, “You know, I’ve still got my own doubts about what really happened. This story about Anatolii and Shevchenko, that they took the airplane out for a joyride — it just doesn’t sound like them.”
“I have been told that alcohol was involved.”
“Really? Who said that?”
“It is not for you to know!” Khoury snapped. “I only mention it because such a scandal would not reflect well upon our operation. And it is all the more reason for you to keep this investigator off balance. Those two fools destroyed one of my airplanes, and in doing so paid the ultimate price for their recklessness. Otherwise, there is no harm, so this entire investigation is pointless. The sooner the man gives up and goes home, the sooner we can get on with running our airline.”
“Davis? He won’t give up. He’d love to—” Schmitt cut his answer short.
“What?”
Another pause fueled Khoury’s suspicion.
Schmitt picked up, “He’d probably love to string up an ex-Air Force guy like me.”
“Why is that?”
“Interservice rivalry. Davis was in the Navy — at least I think that’s what he said.”
Khoury’s mismatched eyes bored into Schmitt, but elicited no reaction. He relented, “Just make sure he works for every scrap.”
“I’m already on it. I told him that if he wants to figure out the cause of this crash, he should go out and find the wreckage.”
Khoury shuddered within, but his eyes remained fixed. “And will he?”
“He’ll try, but without knowing exactly where it went down — Davis could waste weeks. He’s looking for a needle in a haystack.”
A needle in a haystack. Such a curiously American saying, and one Khoury remembered his mother having used. An American by birth, she had done her best to educate him, including teaching him English. Those lessons had ended abruptly when Khoury was twelve years old, on the day his mother died from a sudden illness. Indeed, the very same day that his downward spiral into a life of misery had begun. But even now her phrases stuck in Khoury’s mind. He rather liked this one and committed it to memory. A translated version might sound original to his flock of followers.
He asked, “Where else will he focus his investigative efforts?”
“Who knows. The guy only got here yesterday. Sometimes these things take months, even years.” Schmitt looked at him expectantly, as if anticipating some kind of reaction.
Khoury said, “I think this inquiry will not last quite so long.”
Bypassing that comment, Schmitt said, “Oh, yeah. And I sent those letters you mentioned.”
“Letters?”
“You know, to Ukraine. I am very sorry to inform you, blah, blah, blah. Those letters.”
“Yes, of course. And you mentioned compensation?”
“Just like you said. I told both families there was insurance, but that it would take some time to get a payment. I also told them we’d get in touch right away if any remains were recovered.”
Khoury nodded, satisfied that this would keep the families quiet long enough.
“To tell you the truth,” Schmitt added, “I never knew we had a life insurance policy. I should put that on our list of benefits for our next hiring advertisement.”
“Do as you wish,” Khoury said dismissively.
“And that reminds me — when can you authorize some hiring? Both those guys we lost were captains. I’m two short right now.”
“We will hire replacements soon, but not until this investigation has run its course.”
“I can’t wait that long to—”
“Enough!” Khoury snapped. He was forced to put up with the moods of Jibril, the engineer, but this man was not so vital. “Do not forget, Captain Schmitt, that you serve in your position at my leisure.”
Schmitt settled back into his chair. He fell quiet, yet still looked calm. The man was maddening.
“This investigator, Davis,” Khoury asked, “will he expect to speak with me?”
“Sooner or later.”
“Let us choose later. Time is what we need. Tomorrow we will send him on a flight.”
“One of our flights?”
“Yes. The American captain and Achmed are scheduled to go out.
It would give Davis a chance to see our operation — and perhaps keep him out of the way for another day.”
“You want him to see how we operate? You sure about that?”
“Do it!”
Schmitt shrugged. “You’re the boss.”
“Indeed I am,” Khoury said, his stare turning hawkish.
With that, Schmitt made his exit.
Rafiq Khoury eyed the door long after Schmitt was gone. He had always been good at reading men, and right now he had the impression that his chief pilot wasn’t telling him something. Even more, he didn’t like the idea of another American roaming about. Was Davis simply a nuisance? Or an opportunity? In either case, Khoury disliked what the situation demanded.
He would have to tell General Ali.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
If the operations desk was the nerve center of a flying organization, the bar was its heart — or, in a good unit, its cirrhotic liver. No flying organization could operate without one. It might be situated in a squadron building, outside a main gate, or down the block from corporate headquarters. But there was always a preferred establishment.
At FBN Aviation, it was at the back of the building, as far away from the business end of the operation as possible. Far from the front door where morality police from the Muslim-dominated government might walk in unannounced. Davis heard the bar before he saw it, raucous chatter and bad music. Over the entryway was a sign stenciled in big, colorful block letters: GUNS-R-US. Inside, Davis found a place like a hundred others he’d been in.
The centerpiece was a heavy wooden bar with a scuffed brass foot rail, long enough for ten people to lean on. Different types of flying units had different emphases when it came to décor. A fighter unit would have had an inert missile hanging from the ceiling, maybe an ejection seat all bent to hell that somebody had used, then donated to the squadron as a keepsake. But a trash-hauler outfit was different. Traveling the world was their style, so the bar here had a kind of ram-shackle-voyager theme. There were neon beer signs from Japan and Belgium. Native artisan work from Africa and Asia. Pictures were nailed to the wall, poor quality amateur photographs stuffed crookedly into cheap frames. In one, two pilots were sitting on a mountain of ammunition crates, both holding rocket-propelled grenade launchers in mock firing position. Everything in the room had a story, and Davis decided that even if Bob Schmitt was an idiot, he’d at least gotten the bar right.