Again I could hear her talking to Koenig. She came back on the line and said, "Jack says the MO and the description of the assailant in Frankfurt fit-"
"Put him on."
Koenig came on the line and started getting pissy with me.
I cut him off and said, "Jack, the reason the MO and the description fit is because they are trying to trick us. Asad Khalil just pulled off the crime of the century, and he did not fly to Germany to whack a banker, for Christ's sake. And if he was going to Newark Airport, why did he whack his cab AmeiYieioieYie got 't'ttaeiel does not compute, Jack.^cw, you go to Frankfurt if you want, but I'll stay here. Send me a postcard, and bring me back a dozen real frankfurters and some of that hot German mustard. Thanks." I hung up before he could fire me.
I bagged the Incident Report, since I was probably fired, and I went back to my desk work, again wading through stacks of background stuff, reports from various agencies, all of whom had nothing to report. Finally I got to the half ton of paperwork that related to Saturday's incident-forensic, Port Authority police, an FAA complaint with my name prominently featured, photos of dead people in their seats, the toxicology report-it was indeed a cyanide compound-and so forth.
Somewhere in these piles of papers might be a clue to something, but so far all I saw was the work product of people with tunnel vision and access to a word processor with spell check.
Which reminded me that they'd hold my paycheck until I turned in a report, so I swiveled in my chair and again addressed my keyboard and monitor screen. I began my report with a joke about a French Foreign Legionnaire and a camel, then deleted it and tried again.
At about a quarter to nine, Kate walked in and sat at her desk facing me. She watched me as I typed, but said nothing. After a few minutes of being watched, I was starting to make spelling errors, so I looked up at her and said, "How was Frankfurt?"
She didn't reply, and I could see she was a little pissed. I know that look.
I asked, "Where's Jack?"
"He went to Frankfurt."
"Good. Am I fired?"
"No, but you're going to wish you were."
"I don't respond well to threats."
"What do you respond to?"
"Not much. Maybe a cocked pistol pointed at my head. Yeah, that usually gets my attention."
"Tell me again about the interrogation."
So, I went through it again, in more detail, and Kate asked lots of questions. She's very bright, which was why she was sitting in the ICC rather than on a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt.
She said, "So, you think Khalil left the Park and Ride in a car?"
"I think so."
"Why not a commuter bus to Manhattan?"
"I thought about that. That's why people go to the Park and Ride-to catch a commuter bus to Manhattan. But it seems a little excessive to murder your taxi driver while you're waiting for the bus. In fact, I'll bet if Khalil had asked Jabbar to drive him to Manhattan, Jabbar would have."
"Don't get sarcastic with me, John. You're on thin ice."
"Yes, ma'am."
She ruminated a moment, then said, "Okay, so there was a getaway car parked in the Park and Ride. It wouldn't attract any attention, and would be relatively safe there. Jabbar drives Khalil to the lot, Khalil fires a single bullet-forty caliber-through Jabbar's spine, killing him, then gets in this other car. Is there a driver? An accomplice?"
"I don't think so. Why does he need a driver? He's a loner. He's probably driven in Europe. He just needs the keys and papers to the car, which he may have gotten from Jabbar. Jabbar, of course, has now seen too much, and he gets whacked. In the getaway car, or maybe in Jabbar's taxi, would be an overnight bag with some necessities, money, false identity, and maybe a disguise. That's why Khalil took nothing from Phil or Peter. Asad Khalil is now somebody else, and he's on the great American highway system."
"Where is he headed?"
"I don't know. But by now, if he drove with minimum sleep, he could be across the Mexican border. Or he could even be on the West Coast. Fifty hours' driving time at sixty-five miles an hour is a radius of over three thousand miles, and the square miles are-let's see, is that pi r squared?"
"I get the point."
"Good. So, assuming we have a killer loose on the highways, and assuming he wants to do something other than see Disney World, then we have to just wait to see what he does next. There's not much else we can do at this point, except to hope that somebody recognizes this guy."
She nodded, then stood. She said, "I have a taxi waiting outside with my luggage. I'm going home to unpack."
"Can I help?"
"I'll hold the cab." She left.
I sat there a few minutes, during which time my phone rang and someone plopped more papers on my desk.
I was trying to figure out why I said, "Can I help?" I have to learn to keep my mouth shut.
There are times when I'd rather face an armed homicidal maniac than face another night in a lady's apartment. At least with the homicidal maniac, you know where you stand, and the conversation is understandably brief and to the point.
My phone was ringing again, and in fact phones were ringing all over the big room, and it was getting on my nerves.
Anyway, as good as I am about getting into the heads of killers and predicting their moves, I am absolutely clueless about sexual involvements-I don't know how I get into them, what I'm supposed to do when I'm in them, why I'm in them, and how to get out of them. Usually, though, I know who the other person is. I'm good at remembering names, even at 6:00 A.M.
I'm also good at smelling trouble, and this was trouble. Also, I'd been straight as an arrow since my involvement with Beth Penrose, and I didn't want to complicate that relationship or complicate my life.
So, I made the decision to go downstairs and tell Kate I decided to go home. I got up, took my jacket and briefcase, and went downstairs and got into the cab with her.
CHAPTER 39
Asad Khalil continued north on 1-95, retracing his route from Jacksonville, across the Georgia border, then into South Carolina. Along his route, he disposed of the computer disks from Paul Grey's office.
As he drove, he thought about his morning activities. Certainly by this evening, someone would be looking for the cleaning woman, or for Paul Grey. At some point, someone would discover the bodies. The assumed motive for Grey's murder would be the theft of the sensitive software. This was all as planned. What wasn't well thought out, he realized, was the problem of his pilot. Quite possibly, by this evening or tomorrow morning, the murders in Spruce Creek would come to the attention of someone at Alpha Aviation Services, and, of course, his female pilot, who would certainly recall the name Paul Grey. Khalil had not realized that the man's name would be on the hangar.
This woman would call the police and suggest that she may have some knowledge of this crime. In Libya, no one would call the police with any information that would bring them into contact with the authorities. But Boris had been fairly certain that this could happen in America.
Khalil nodded to himself as he drove. Boris had told him to use his judgment regarding the pilot, pointing out, "If you kill the pilot, then you must also kill everyone else who knew of your flight and who saw your face. Dead men cannot go to the police. But the more corpses you leave around, the more determined the police will become to find the murderer. A single murder of a man in his house for the purpose of theft does not cause too much interest. You may be fortunate enough to have it go unnoticed in Jacksonville."
Again, Khalil nodded. But he'd had to kill the cleaning woman, just as he'd done in Washington, in order to give him more time to distance himself from the killing. Someone should tell Boris that Americans did not like to clean their own homes.
In any case, the police were looking for a thief, not Asad Khalil. Also, they were not looking for his automobile, and if the pilot called the police, they would be looking for a Greek on his way to Athens via Washington, D.C. All of this depended on how stupid the police were.