Tracie stared, her heart sinking. Shane had called a supervisor last night to explain why he wasn’t at work, and that person, or someone close to that person, must have leaked details to the press.
This was bad. She looked from the television to the letter still clutched in her hand. Whether it was the KGB or some other entity determined to prevent the communique from reaching President Reagan, they would have no reason to stop until they accomplished their goal, not after committing multiple murders and destroying an airplane worth tens of millions of dollars.
A chill ran down her spine. She glanced at a wall clock hanging over the TV. 8:50 a.m. She hurried to the pile of clothing in the kitchen, dropped her towel onto the floor, and strapped her backup weapon — now the only gun she had left, her main weapon had been lost in the B-52 crash — to her ankle in its holster. Then she stepped into the underwear, jeans and sweater as quickly as she could manage. The clothes were a little loose but would have to do for now.
She took another look at the clock in the living room. Its hands seemed to be moving at double speed. There was a lot to do. She only hoped she wasn’t too late.
24
Shane drove along the access road leading to the air traffic control facility at Bangor International Airport, a bumpy mess consisting of crumbling chunks of decades-old pavement that had at one time made up the runways and taxiways of the old Dow Air Force base. The field had originally been a small civil airport, but had seen three runways hastily constructed at the onset of World War Two, and then a massive 11,400-foot runway built during the darkest days of the Cold War. Dow had been used as a Strategic Air Command Base for two decades, launching B-52s and other military aircraft until its decommissioning in 1968.
After it was taken over as a civilian airfield and renamed Bangor International, almost all of the runways and taxiways had been closed, deemed too expensive to maintain. The one remaining runway was long enough to accept any aircraft in the world, civilian or military, including the space shuttle.
Many of those closed runways and taxiways were turned into access roads, resulting in some of the widest, if bumpiest, motorways a Maine driver would ever utilize. It was on one of these long-ago taxiways Shane was now bouncing along in his Volkswagen. The control tower loomed in the distance, ancient and drafty, sticking into the air like a giant’s middle finger. Next to the control tower was a base building, as old as the tower, which housed the TRACON — the terminal radar approach control facility — in addition to offices and conference rooms.
About fifty yards from the facility, a Bangor Police Department officer had angled his cruiser across the pavement. The vehicle didn’t come close to blocking the wide access road, but Shane decided the sight of the officer standing next to his cruiser, hand resting lightly on the butt of his service weapon, made perfectly clear anyone approaching had better stop.
Shane eased up next to the cruiser. Mirrored sunglasses hid the cop’s eyes and his face was impassive. He shook his head. “Sorry, pal, no access today.”
Shane held his government ID up for the officer’s inspection. “I’m expected. My name is Shane Rowley. I work here, and I’ve come to assist in the accident investigation.”
“Hold on,” the cop said, and opened the cruiser’s door, picked up a clipboard from the front seat, and glanced at it. After a moment he looked again at Shane’s ID, then nodded, his face still a mask. “Go right on ahead, sir.”
Shane, curious, asked, “Have you had a lot of people trying to get up here?”
A trace of a smile flitted across the cop’s face. “Not since I turned away the first couple of media vans. I’m sure they’re waiting until I get pulled out of here, then they’ll be on you guys like flies on shit.”
Shane chuckled. “Don’t be afraid to shoot ’em if you have to.”
As he was pulling away, he heard the cop mutter, “I wish.”
The parking lot was almost full, with a half-dozen or so cars Shane didn’t recognize taking up the few available spaces. He found a spot close to the outer edge and parked, a light breeze ruffling his hair as he crossed the lot to the base building’s front entrance. He pulled open the heavy metal door and entered the building.
A long hallway bisected the interior, with a row of doors running down each side. Immediately to the right was a small kitchen area, equipped with an ancient oven, a slightly newer microwave, a dual-tub sink, a coffeemaker, and a small round table nobody ever used. Twenty feet beyond the kitchen on the right a doorway opened into the radar control room, where on a typical workday a controller would spend half his time, with the other half spent working upstairs in the control tower.
On the left side of the hallway were a series of administrative offices: first came the secretary’s, occupied during weekday business hours by a sweet, white-haired lady named Mrs. Sanderson, who was maybe sixty years old and had worked at the facility as long as anyone could remember. This being a Sunday morning, her office was empty.
Beyond Mrs. Sanderson’s office were aligned the rest of the staff offices, beginning with that of the air traffic manager, Marty Hall. Hall’s name was just similar enough to the host of the popular game show Let’s Make a Deal, Monty Hall, that it was his fate to be forever known as Monty — at least when he wasn’t around.
Shane lifted the carafe off the Mr. Coffee machine and sniffed warily. He could really use another cup of coffee, but the stuff inside the facility’s pot was usually so old it had the consistency and taste of used motor oil. Today was no exception, and Shane grimaced and returned the carafe to the hot plate. He decided he wasn’t that desperate for caffeine.
He left the kitchen and wandered down the hallway, moving toward the sound of voices coming from Marty Hall’s office. He stopped at the open doorway and glanced inside. The facility manager was sitting behind his desk, and a half-dozen people Shane did not recognize were seated in folding metal chairs arranged in a semicircle around Hall’s desk. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, and for a moment no one noticed Shane.
When it seemed like this stalemate might go on forever, and mindful that this was his day off, Shane cleared his throat. Finally Marty Hall noticed him and waved him in. Everyone stopped talking and turned to stare at the new arrival. Hall said, “Gentlemen, this is my controller, Shane Rowley, the man who witnessed the crash while on his way to work last night.”
Shane nodded at the group while Hall continued. “Shane, this is the NTSB Accident Investigation team. They only just arrived about fifteen minutes ago. I’ll let each member of the team introduce himself.”
They all did, Shane shaking hands with each in turn, and then the lead investigator pointed to an empty chair and said, “We’re still awaiting the arrival of the Air Force representatives. Obviously, they wouldn’t be part of the investigation if a military aircraft hadn’t been involved, but it’s their airplane and they will take part as well. It will undoubtedly complicate matters, but we welcome their involvement.”
Shane sat, amused. It was plain by the tone of the investigator’s voice that he was anything but welcoming of more investigators, but that he knew full well there was nothing he could do about it. “How long before you expect the Air Force guys to show up?” Shane asked, picturing Tracie Tanner fast asleep in his bed back home. He felt a strong attraction to the beautiful — if enigmatic — young woman, not that he expected anything to come of it. She had made abundantly clear her desire to leave Bangor in her rearview mirror, and as soon as possible. But if nothing else, he wanted to see her one more time to say goodbye in person, and the longer this interview took, the less likely that was to happen.