Bailey smiled. “Best you don’t know, Pat, old son,” he said.
“Sure, whatever,” said Farrell. “Just keep an eye on the sectional and keep below the TCA and you won’t have any problems.”
Bailey nodded. The two men put on their headsets and tested them. Farrell asked him to pick up the plastic laminated checklist and together they ran through it before starting the engine. Bailey ran his eyes across the four by three array of flight gauges and the stack of avionics and radios. The plane was impressively equipped with a Bendix/King KMA 24 audio panel and beacon, dual KX 155 nav-coms and KR 87 ADF and a Cessna 400-series DME. There was also a Phoenix F4 loran receiver which would pinpoint the plane’s position, a WX-10 Stormscope to spot thunderstorm cells and an autopilot.
“You wanna take her up?” Farrell asked, his voice sounding tinny through the headset.
“Sure,” said Bailey.
“Okay, just bear in mind you’ll need every inch of the runway to get airborne. Treat it as a short-field take-off and you won’t go far wrong.”
Bailey ran through the Centurion’s checklist: cowl flaps open, wing flaps set to ten per cent, elevator and rudder trimmed for take-off, autopilot disconnected and controls free. He increased the throttle to 1700 rpm, feeling the plane judder as the engine growled, then checked the gauges, the magneto and the propeller, before taxiing to the end of the grass runway. He kept his feet on the brakes until the engine was running at full power, then released them, allowing the plane to lurch forward. It accelerated smoothly and Bailey soon had the plane in the air, his hands light on the controls. He retracted the gear as they passed over the edge of the field and he levelled off at two thousand feet. “Sweet,” he said. He trimmed the plane for level flight, reset his heading indicator, and then headed east, towards the Chesapeake Bay, while Farrell called up Baltimore Approach.
Joker stopped at a filling station and filled the tank of his rental car. He paid for his fuel and bought a couple of packs of chocolate cookies and a six-pack of Coke. They didn’t sell liquor but he had a half-bottle of Famous Grouse in his glove compartment, so he wasn’t too distressed.
He hid the car in the same spot he’d used the previous afternoon and made his way to the chestnut tree, carrying his whisky and provisions. The gun he left under the passenger seat, wrapped in a newspaper. The grass was damp from the early morning dew so he dropped his pea jacket down and sat on top of it. He checked out the Farrell Aviation building with his binoculars. There were two cars parked outside, but neither was Farrell’s Lincoln Continental. He settled down with his back to the tree and opened the whisky bottle, toasted the building, and drank deeply.
There was a clock radio by the bed and Cole Howard set it for 8 a.m. so that he could telephone his wife first thing in the morning. Bob Sanger had arranged for cars to pick up the FBI agents at eight-thirty prompt. When the alarm went off Howard rolled over, switched it off and groped for the phone. He misdialled the first time and woke up an old man who by the sound of it didn’t have his teeth in. Howard redialled and Lisa answered on the fourth or fifth ring.
“Hiya, honey,” he said.
“Cole?”
Yeah, right, thought Howard. How many early morning phone calls did she get from guys calling her ‘honey’? She was obviously still unhappy. “Yeah, it’s me. How are the kids?”
“They’re fine.”
That was all. No questions, no concern, just the children are fine, why the hell are you bothering me so early in the morning? “You up already?”
“Golf,” she said.
The monosyllabic treatment. Always a bad sign. “Yeah? Who are you playing?”
“Daddy.”
A two-syllable word, but not one that Howard wanted to hear. “Honey, I’m sorry,” he said, the words spilling out before he could stop them. He didn’t feel in the least bit responsible for the argument but he wanted it to end, and if the only way of achieving that was by apologising, then so be it.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” she said, which meant that there was.
“Okay, well, I just wanted to let you know that I got here safely, that’s all.”
“Okay,” she said, as if his safety was the very last thing on her mind. “Well, look, I’m supposed to be teeing off at eight and I’ve a lot to do. Do you know when you’ll be back?”
“Two weeks at the most,” he said. She didn’t complain, she didn’t gasp in horror, she just said okay and ended the call. Ouch, thought Howard, was he in trouble.
He shaved and showered and went down to the reception area, where O’Donnell and Clutesi were already waiting. “Ed says we should go on ahead and he’ll take the second car,” said O’Donnell.
The three men made small-talk during the drive to the White House, not knowing how secure the driver was. They had to show their FBI credentials to gain admittance and the guard checked their names off against a list on his clipboard.
Bob Sanger was already at his desk, working his way through a stack of computer printouts. He greeted them but didn’t ask about Mulholland, so Howard guessed the FBI chief had already called in. Sanger took them along to an office which he’d had made ready for the FBI team, and introduced them to an overweight, middle-aged secretary by the name of Helen who was to be assigned to them for the extent of their stay. She was cheerful and eager to please and had already arranged for their White House passes, which they clipped to the breast pockets of their jackets.
Howard looked around the office, and realised immediately that there wouldn’t be anywhere near enough telephone extensions or desks. He turned back to Helen but before he could speak she told him that she’d already been onto the relevant White House departments and that equipment and supplies would be arriving later in the morning. Howard asked her to show him where Andy Kim and Rick Palmer were working and she smiled brightly and took him down to the ground floor and along a corridor to a mahogany door. “It used to be a secretarial pool,” she said. “I once spent eighteen months behind that door. We called it The Tomb.”
Howard smiled. “I know exactly what you mean,” he said. “I spent a few months in a place called The Tomb, myself.”
She left him at the door and Howard watched her large thighs rub together as she waddled rather than walked down the corridor. He could hear the sound of nylon hissing against nylon long after she’d turned the corner.
Howard knocked on the door and went in. Andy Kim was there, sitting in front of a large colour VDU, with Bonnie standing behind him, her hair tied back in a long ponytail. They both looked dog-tired and Howard realised that neither of them had slept the previous night. There were a dozen desks crammed into the office, a large white board on which computer language and several complex equations had been written in red and black ink. To the left were two small camp beds. The Kims were engrossed in the computer terminal and it was only when Howard went to stand behind them that they realised he was in the room.
“Cole!” said Bonnie. “Hi! Andy said you’d be here for a while.” There were dark bags under her eyes and her hair was less shiny than he remembered. Her husband was clearly tired, too, more so than when he’d seen him the previous night.