“Shot him?”
“Twice through the heart, nice and clean.”
“That sounds like an execution.”
“Could be. The investigator-in-charge down here is pushing the idea that this whole crash is a hijacking gone bad.”
“If that’s true, then the FBI would be all over it and I’d have seen something in the message traffic. Why haven’t I heard about this already?”
“Because it’s still only a theory, there are a lot of loose ends.” Davis left it at that. “Mulligan — can you find out who he is by tomorrow?”
“If it can be done, I’ll do it.”
“Is there a different number where I can call you, one nobody would expect you to use?”
“Do you think that’s necessary?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Sorensen thought about it and gave a different number. She didn’t say whose phone it was, and Davis didn’t ask. He wrote the number with a pen and stationary he’d taken from the hotel.
“Is there a time I should call?” he asked.
“I’ve been working a pretty regular nine-to-five lately. Give me until lunchtime to work this.”
“Right. Thanks, Anna, I owe you one.”
“One what?”
“We’ll figure that out when Jen and I get home. And like I said, be careful.”
“I will, Jammer. You too.”
The next morning Sorensen dumped her nine-to-five schedule, arriving at CIA Headquarters, formally the George Bush Center for Intelligence, a full one hour before most of her coworkers. On reaching her cluttered desk she undertook some basic housekeeping, deleting e-mails and scanning a few innocuous sit-reps, before launching her quest for Thomas Mulligan.
By virtue of her employment, she had access to a wide array of government databases. Unfortunately, even the CIA hit information roadblocks. The most sensitive material from other agencies required special authorization. Fortunately, the sources she started with did not exceed the classification of “confidential,” and as such were there for the taking. She first screened Department of Homeland Security files, going through a list of U.S. travelers who’d flown to Colombia on the day in question, including those passing through on connections. There was no Thomas Mulligan.
Sorensen performed a secondary search by airline and flight number, and these results clarified why her original search had come up blank. Not a single traveler was listed that day from TAC-Air Flight 223. All information on the flight had been completely scrubbed. Sorensen wasn’t sure how Homeland handled air crashes. Did they immediately sequester passenger lists after an accident? It seemed a reasonable explanation.
She tapped a fingernail on her desk and pondered how else to approach the problem. Customs and Border Protection was encompassed by Homeland Security, as was TSA, so either would likely have the same result. On a whim she accessed the National Joint Terrorism Task Force interagency server. She typed in “TAC-Air 223” and waited for the results. It didn’t take long.
What appeared on her screen was a short event brief, one paragraph carrying a relatively low priority. This meant, as Davis suggested, that the prospect of a hijacking had not yet been officially raised. There was one attachment, and Sorensen called it up to find a passenger list. Or at least a partial one. Davis told her there had been twenty-one passengers on board, yet the NJTTF list fell one name short. Jen Davis was there as clear as day. Thomas Mulligan was not. At the bottom, however, was a note related to the omission.
Passenger 21: DHS, USSS.
Sorensen pushed back ever so slightly from her desk.
Now she understood. Passenger 21 was an internal. DHS stood for the Department of Homeland Security. USSS was a well-known subsidiary of that agency, formerly administered by the Department of Treasury. Thomas Mulligan, in some capacity, was an employee of the United States Secret Service.
Feeling suddenly uncomfortable, Sorensen quickly cut the link by calling up an innocuous e-mail on her computer. Her screen filled with an interoffice memo heralding the new cafeteria menu. She stared with unfocused eyes at the price of chicken soup and beef brisket sandwiches, and thought, What have you lumbered into this time, Jammer?
To this point, her unsanctioned search had been superficial. If Sorensen went further she would have to tread carefully. From the main office you could find out pretty much anything about anybody. But to do so without raising flags or leaving a trail — that was more of an art. The United States Secret Service, she surmised, would not take kindly to intrusion.
There was likely a simple explanation regarding the mystery of Thomas Mulligan. He could be a Secret Service employee on vacation. If so, his identity might have been filtered from the report by some automated process. If he’d been in Colombia on assignment, there were any number of possibilities. Sorensen knew that most Secret Service employees served in the Financial Crimes Unit, combating money laundering, illegal funds transfers, and the counterfeiting of U.S. currency. Of course, there was also the Secret Service’s other mission, but that was a fence over which Sorensen had no desire to climb.
She left her desk, shouldered her purse, and headed for the door. There was one way around official channels. Her former college roommate worked in the Secret Service’s Chicago office, on the Electronic Crimes Task Force. She was an expert in cyber-security, in particular the detection and countering of network intrusions.
Best of all, three years ago Sorensen had introduced Melanie Schwartz to a really nice guy. Now Melanie Brown owed her a favor.
SIXTEEN
Davis was up with the sun, and his first stop that morning was at the restaurant where he was fast becoming a regular. He ordered a large coffee to fuel his walk to headquarters and to fight the fatigue he felt setting in. Davis paid with his diminishing wad of dollars, and he’d just stepped back into the blinding morning sun when his embassy-issued phone chimed with a message. Marquez was requesting his presence at an eight o’clock meeting that would include Echevarria. Having only a ten-minute walk ahead of him, Davis responded that he would arrive an hour early.
The building was quiet and his cup empty when he arrived and passed the bleary-eyed night duty officer who was just on his way out. Davis saw a new face by the main desk, and he walked over and held out a hand.
“Jammer Davis.”
The man turned, and replied, “Pascal Delacorte.” His accent could only be Parisian — Davis knew because he’d been there many times and spoke the language fluently. Delacorte was a big man, slightly taller than Davis, if not as wide in the shoulders. It took less than a minute to confirm that Delacorte was indeed French, and two more to discover that he also played rugby, which Davis took as a clear sign of a sound mind and virtuous character.
“I am a structural engineer for BTA,” said Delacorte. “We manufacture two-thirds of the main fuselage on the ARJ-35.”
Davis was well acquainted with BTA, a European consortium that supplied parts for nearly every airliner in the world. On paper Delacorte would be here as a technical consultant. In reality, of course, he was much like the Pratt & Whitney man, an embedded corporate spy who would provide forewarning to BTA should any unwanted attention come their way. Unlike some investigators, Davis viewed the practice in a positive light. The people sent on such missions were generally top-flight engineers, so it was like having Oz available to explain his machine. Or at least some small part of it.
“I arrived last night,” said Delacorte.
“Have they given you a status briefing yet?”
“No, I was promised one this afternoon. In the meantime, I hope to fly out to the crash site to perform a preliminary analysis.”