“So we clipped a tree after all,” Davis said.
“Yeah, but the damage is cosmetic. She’ll fly. Come on, let’s go get some lunch.”
Boudreau led the way to an administration building, a relatively new structure that was nicely air-conditioned. Inside, they found free coffee and pastries. Put eight hundred gallons of 100-octane fuel on a company credit card, and the crew got all the sugar and caffeine they could stand. Everybody was happy.
They sat in a lounge that was as comfortable as any Davis had seen in the States, big leather lounge chairs parked in front of a wide-screen TV that was presently showing a cricket match. He was beginning to see why Boudreau had chosen the place. When the skipper excused himself to the head, Davis figured he’d have a few private minutes.
He pulled out his phone, confirmed he had decent reception, and made a call.
Larry Green answered right away, and after a few pleasantries dove into his briefing.
“I got a few things on those tail numbers you asked about, Jammer.”
“I’m listening.”
“X85BG was purchased by FBN three months ago. It was built in 1952 and had at least ten owners over the years.”
Davis thought, It’s way older than I am. He said, “Who was the most recent?”
“FBN bought it from long-term storage, one of the boneyards out in California.”
Davis remembered Boudreau telling him that he’d picked up an airplane in Mojave. “But who bothers to put an airplane that old in storage?” he pondered aloud. “It should have gone straight to the scrap heap — couldn’t possibly have had any value.”
“Actually, this one might have. It was a special airplane, one of a kind. The previous owner was a flight test company called Flightspan. They’re based in Utah, do a lot of contract work for the government and big aerospace contractors.”
“Doing what?”
“Flight testing software. This airplane was a flying testbed. It had two complete sets of flight controls — the normal one, and a secondary set that was used to check out developmental flight software and electronic suites. It could be programmed to simulate any kind of airplane. Manufacturers would rent it out, install their software, and iron out kinks in the flight control code before risking it in an expensive new airplane.”
“So FBN bought a testbed airplane?”
“Not quite. This thing had been in the boneyard for a long time, over ten years. It’s old school, as things like that go. Most of the fancy electronics had been removed.”
Davis decided to chew on that for a while. He asked, “What about the accident airplane, N2012L? Do you have anything on that one yet?”
“It was purchased by FBN last May from a broker in Ecuador. Nothing remarkable in its history. The last operator was a cargo outfit in Antigua. FBN only paid twenty thousand U.S. for it.”
“I spent more on my last car.”
“Me too,” Green said.
“So it was just your basic airplane.”
“As far as I can tell. What do you make of it?”
Davis thought long and hard. “I don’t know, but I’ll tell you why I asked about these tail numbers. The accident airplane, N2012L–I found it.”
“How the heck did you manage that?”
“Easy. It was sitting on the ramp outside FBN Aviation. The registration had been altered to X85BG, including the tail number — you could see where it had been painted over on both sides.”
Davis heard a whistle from across the ocean. Green said, “So if that’s the real N2012L, then where’s X85BG? You think maybe that testbed airframe is the one in the drink?”
“I have no idea. I don’t know if any airplane went down. But N2012L was right there in front of me. I’m sure of it.”
“But this doesn’t compute,” Green said. “Why go to all the trouble?”
“The usual reasons don’t fit, do they? It’s not an insurance scam, because neither airplane is worth anything. Same with a resale angle. If you had an airframe that was due for an expensive maintenance check, and another that wasn’t, you might switch them out before a sale. But here there’s no incentive, no value in either airframe.”
Davis asked, “What about flight plans? Did you track those down?” He heard papers shuffling over the phone.
Green replied, “N2012L was pretty active before the crash, flew all over Africa and the Middle East. One trip to Bulgaria. Pretty much the same routes all their equipment flies.”
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Davis surmised.
“Nope. Nothing at all.”
Boudreau came back from the latrine with things on his mind.
“So you really think Achmed started that whole thing?” he asked.
“I’m sure of it,” Davis said. “I saw him with a rifle. He was shooting from a position near the hut.”
“I guess it wouldn’t have been hard to get a gun. Hell, they were everywhere.”
“He was acting pretty strange on the flight downrange this morning.”
Boudreau shook his head. “But I just don’t get it. I’ve flown with him a bunch of times. The kid never says much, but I’d never have figured him for the violent type.”
“There was one thing different about today’s mission.”
“You?”
Davis nodded. “I spent some time in the military as a ground-pounder, long enough to recognize when I’m being used for target practice.”
“You think you were set up?”
“I can’t see it any other way.”
“Schmitt?”
Davis shook his head doubtfully. “He and I have a history, but not the kind of thing you’d kill a guy over. I think I’m hitting a nerve somewhere else.”
“Your investigation?” Boudreau asked.
“That’d be my guess.”
Davis reached for a pastry from a cardboard platter. He had to pull hard, the sugary drizzle having glued it in place. He took a bite and the sugar hit right away.
Davis said, “But we did have one thing on our side today when Achmed was shooting at us.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s no better an assassin than he is a pilot.”
Larry Green had never been to the White House. To be precise, he wasn’t there now, but the West Wing annex was close enough that he’d consider the square filled.
He was escorted to Darlene Graham’s office by a Marine, a square-jawed young man who addressed him as “General,” a title he hadn’t heard much since retiring from the Air Force. Graham was at her desk, and rose to meet him. Her handshake was warm, but Green thought she looked stressed.
“Good morning, Larry.”
“Hello, Darlene.”
Green looked around the room appreciatively. It wasn’t overdone in a wasteful way, but definitely first class. Freshly painted walls, a few high-end knickknacks and paintings. Everything was clean and well lit, but there wasn’t much to put Graham’s signature on the room. It had an air of anonymity — which, if you were chief of the nation’s combined intelligence services, was probably the way to go.
She said, “I just got back from giving the president his daily intelligence briefing. It was hell.”
“What’s up?”
“This Arab League conference in Cairo next Tuesday has got everyone in a tizzy. The Arab world has been in a state of flux since all the uprisings, but now that things have settled there’s a lot of optimism. We see this as a rare opportunity, a chance to lay a long-term foundation for peace in the region. Israel has been dropping hints that they might ease up on the West Bank settlements, and maybe even talk about Jerusalem. Egypt has long been the heart of the Arab world, and they’re trying to convince the more hard-line players to fall in step. The potential exists for a real agreement. That being the case, the president is pushing hard. He wants us to keep track of everything that’s going on in the area.” Graham went to her desk. “Which leads us to Davis — have you heard from him?”