"Can you call us in some help? We'll need to search this ship from stem to stern." Martinez began dialing his cellular phone.
"And find out where in the hell the seamen are who left on the bus earlier," Taft said as he climbed back inside the Windforce to continue searching. Holtz looked down the airport terminal from the gate for his two missing crew members; the rest of the team from the Deep Search were already aboard.
"Here they come, here they come," he yelled to the flight attendant, who was closing the door leading to the boarding ramp.
She stopped as the pair ran toward her carrying duffel bags.
"Just about missed it," the flight attendant said grumpily. "I need your boarding passes. You should seat yourselves immediately. The planes ready to take off." Holtz, followed by the tardy seamen, stepped aboard the plane.
The pair of Boston policemen assigned to follow the sailors were detained at the terminal security checkpoint because of their service handguns. Once cleared, they sprinted toward the gate.
The plane carrying the crew of the Deep Search rolled from the gate, then immediately lined up for takeoff.
The portable radio clipped to one of the policemen's belts went off just as they arrived at the now empty gate. "At the airport," one of the cops said into the radio. "They just got on a plane." He glanced at the sign. "Looks like Nova Scotia. What? You never ordered us to detain them. We were only ordered to follow them," the officer said, rolling his eyes at his partner. "Okay, we'll see if they can call the flight back," the officer replied.
Replacing the radio on his belt he looked at his partner seriously. "I think we're in trouble," he said accurately.
As the two Boston police officers ran toward the airline office, the pilot of the Nova Scotia-bound plane, now airborne, adjusted the planes control surfaces for the last turn over Deer Island and out to sea. Completing the turn, the plane began climbing. As it passed over open water outside the bay, a sensitive liquid altitude sensor in the bomb that had been placed in the nose of the plane reached its critical level. It triggered the fuse.
With a deafening explosion and a huge ball of fire, the front of the plane was blown off. The pilot shot out the opening, still strapped in his seat. Unfortunately, he was speared through his chest like a shish kebab with a piece of wreckage and had died instantly. Debris from the blast in the nose flew back along the length of the plane, ripping off what remained of the left wing. The plane opened up like a peeled banana. The aircraft, or, more correctly, what was left of the fuselage, went spinning into the sea with a fiery splash of metal and fire. It began to sink almost at once. No one on board the plane complained about the rough landing. They were all dead. Like a model airplane blown apart by a firecracker the wreckage plunged through the water and spread out across the ocean floor.
Taft and Martinez stood on the upper deck of the Deep Search. As the explosion ripped apart the commuter plane, they turned toward the noise and witnessed the explosion of flames in the air. At almost exactly the same time at Logan Airport the two Boston police officers burst into the airport office.
"We need some help here," the policemen shouted at several clerks who were staring out the window.
"It'll be a while," one of the clerks shouted back without turning. "Our flight to Nova Scotia just went down."
"Shit!" the policemen said simultaneously.
When the police at the airport radioed Martinez that the seamen from the Deep Search were aboard the plane that had crashed, he immediately phoned the Coast Guard station at Boston Harbor.
"They see an oil slick on the surface, that's about all," he said to Taft after receiving the Coast Guard report. "They have a ship stationed at the crash site and report the depth of the water is under one hundred feet. Why don't I request the navy send down divers to probe the wreckage."
"Go ahead. Have them do a complete and thorough search of the wreckage," Taft said.
"I don't want us to be wondering later."
Taft and Martinez continued with the search of the Deep Search for the next few hours. The search was methodical and diligent but nothing that could be tied to Albert Einstein was found.
CHAPTER 23
Fatigued and feeling dejected, Taft and Martinez checked into the Four Seasons Hotel around ten that night. Though they were covered in grease and slime from searching the Deep Search, the front desk clerk handled their reservation request professionally.
"Would you like me to call a bellman for you?" the clerk asked with only a trace of indifference after handing them their keys.
Taft stared at the battered green carry-on bag at his feet that contained mainly dirty clothes. "I think we can handle our luggage," he said with a straight face. The men were both silent on the elevator ride up to their rooms. The elevator's arrival at their floor broke Taft's thoughts. "Looks like you're right here," he said to Martinez, pointing at a door. "I'm up the hall."
Martinez slid his key into the lock.
"I'll call you after a shower," Taft said as he made his way down the hall. Martinez nodded and opened the door to his room.
Taft walked wearily down the hall. Dropping his bag outside the door, he unlocked his room. A blast of cool air drifted over him as he entered. He tossed the bag on the bed and stripped off his filthy clothes, leaving them in a heap on the floor. In the tile bathroom he quickly adjusted the shower to hot and climbed inside. The heat from the water, combined with the steam, began to relax him as he scrubbed himself clean. The shower was certainly helping, but he felt lonely, tired, and depressed. They had been so close to recovering whatever it was the Chinese were after he could feel it inside. Now he was unsure which way to proceed.
He tuned out his negative thoughts and concentrated. Taft was shampooing his hair when it hit him. He rinsed the remaining shampoo from his hair, shut off the shower, and climbed out. Drying himself with the towel, he walked out of the bathroom and picked up the phone. Surprisingly Martinez answered on the first ring. "They transferred whatever they found before the crash," Taft said before Martinez had a chance to speak.
"Great minds think alike," Martinez said. "I was just thinking the same thing."
"That means that whatever they recovered is still in Boston," Taft said.
"Let's get some sleep," Martinez said. "We'll hit it early tomorrow. I'll inform Benson."
"Find out if we know anything more about the Axial Groups involvement."
"Talk to you in the morning," Martinez said. Taft placed the receiver back in its cradle, lay back on the bed, and tried to watch a comedy show on television. After only a few minutes his eyelids grew heavy. Drifting into a fitful sleep brought about by exhaustion, he passed the night tossing and turning on top of the covers. Taft awoke naturally at five A.M., the television still playing. Standing naked in his room, he looked out the window at the city below. Bathed in the crisp autumn light of the new morning, it looked fresh and clean. No one but he and Martinez knew there was a cancer festering somewhere nearby.
Taft ordered breakfast from room service, then showered again. Dressed in his last set of clean clothes, a pair of khaki pants and a white polo shirt, he sat barefoot at the table, idly watching the morning news on the television.