“Nah! Worry about it in the morning. You have to sort me out tonight: stop me worrying about the jerks. I have so many things in my head at the moment,” said Katherine returning to her cocktail.
“Well… you know that the human mind can only deal with a maximum of eight big ideas at a time?” soothed Planner.
“Really? As many as that! I thought it was only women that could multitask,” She said with a fake laugh.
“Ooh, first sexiest remark of the evening! And not from me!” teased Planner.
Katherine had a more genuine laugh but still seemed ill-at-ease, “You have to excuse me. I guess I’m not use to going drinking with strange men. Boring men, yes. Strange men, no.”
“So tell me about yourself, Katherine. You seem a bit nervous.”
“I guess I am. I prefer talking about work in general. Safer subject.”
“The jerks are a safe subject?”
“I see your point,” she said. Then with feigned good humour, Katherine said, moving uncomfortably in her seat, “I’m pretty much a bitch at work. It’s easier that way. But speaking to another human, this is where the problems begin.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, I find that it is easier to live in the land of lies. I live the life of an ogre devouring all in front of me. But in the real world, I have to admit to being a mere mortal.”
“And that causes a problem because…?” asked Planner wondering where this conversation was leading.
“What normally happens in the real world, is that, say, this salt-of-the-earth type guy rides into town, ties up his horse and wanders into the saloon, leans of bar and orders some drinks, you know, the way they do. He looks around and settles his gaze upon me across the crowded room, as I play my hand at the card table and win another huge kitty…”
“This is the real world, you say?” teased Planner.
Katherine provides a sarcastic half-smile.
“Sorry, go on”
Katherine continued gloomily, “So we meet, have a few laughs, and then, because this is the real world, I fess up. I say, I-have-a-daughter and then, with barely a tip of the hat, I watch my cowboy ride into the sunset…”
Planner responded quickly, “What’s her name?”
“Beth. She’s ten,” said Katherine, lightening up after making this confession.
“Ten? That’s a great age,” said Planner. “Tell me about her.”
“She wants to be a professional baseball player. She’s not very good but very enthusiastic.”
“The best way to be.”
“Not very good?” teased Katherine.
“That too,” Planner laughed. “I was actually talking about enthusiasm but, hey, let’s celebrate the not-naturally-talented too.”
“She probably has talents, just hasn’t found them. Last month, she wanted to be a doctor.”
Planner chuckled, “It’s good to keep your options open.”
“Were you one of those people that knew what they wanted to be at ten years old?” she asked.
“No, not at all. My parents pushed me hard. I complied. Got on well.”
“Ivy League?”
“Cornell,” said Planner. “It was good. I had a great time. My mates and I lived in a big old house close to campus. Every other house down the road was full of students. We had parties every weekend, under the watchful eye of residents that sat out on their front porches watching the commotion. I think they kind of liked it. Went down to the lakes at weekends. Picnicked out. Felt I lived through several lifetimes there.”
“Sounds lovely. Better time than I had at college. So what took over your life?”
“My job? I went into Aircraft Control Systems. Fascinating stuff, loved it. Found I was working with the engineers all night trying to get things fixed and working right; Electronics, Networks, Software, I used to know it all. It was boom-business in the eighties and I was good at my job. Yeah, I used to be good at my job.”
“Just used-to-be?” she queried.
“It’s a different job now. It’s er… political nowadays,” said Planner uneasily.
“You seem like you can handle it.”
“Appearing that-way is one of my strengths.”
“So work has taken over your life?” she asked.
“Oh totally. Several midnighters last week. Mind you, I also went the movies last night, so not all bad,” he said.
“What did you see?”
“Gladiator. On my command unleash hell!” mimicked Planner.
She laughed. Planner was glad she laughed. They continued to laugh together all night; even when there was no joke. They even laughed when they said good night with a peck on the cheek. But they were lovers by the end of the week.
Chapter Six: Rainbow Review
Planner was in a featureless WTC7 conference room with various members of the Rainbow Team including Bates, Turquoise and Indigo. Bates was reading through a set of minutes on his chunky, IBM Thinkpad laptop.
“Can we just run through the list of actions?” said Bates to unenthusiastic murmurs. “First one: passenger list?”
“Complete,” said Turq. “We’ll spread the 200 passengers over the four aircraft. We’re expecting a few more.”
“Extra Flight crew?” Bates asked, and then remembered, “Right, I’m handling that. I have some contacts at the airlines that can help select the right people.”
Turq added, “Assuming these are also destined for the Witness Protection Program, can you let me have their names when you can?”
Indigo added nervously, “There’s also the ground contact team. They need to know.”
Bates fixed him with a stare, “Sure. Ok. Moving on: Extra Hijackers?”
“That’s me, again,” said Turq. “I’ve got some extra names and documents from Hiijii. We need to fill their back-stories a bit more and mix the evidence trails. We have, uh, extra people turning up at each airport. They’re the patsies for the Rainbow Actors.”
Planner sighed, “Patsies for patsies. Is that going to work?”
“Sure,” Turq said nonchalantly. “I’ve done it before in Africa. The Chinese do it all the time. I’ll be at Boston50 to coordinate the switch onto 175 and make sure it runs smoothly.”
“Ok,” said Planner. “Once you have everything, tell Hiijii to leave the country, ok?”
“Right,” said Turq and raising her eyebrows added, “He won’t need telling twice.”
Bates said, “Next action concerns the airlines. Are the contacts aware?”
“Yes,” said Turq. “They’ll keep a lid on things until the second crash.51”
“If they can delay alerting the third and forth aircraft too. That would give us more room to operate,” suggested Planner.
“Sure,” said Turq.
Bates typed into his laptop, before raising the next action, “Physical evidence? Indigo, how’s that going?”
“We have the plans for the evidence trail,” stammered Indigo nervously. “From credit card purchases, letters in the motel, in the trash can, and luggage left in the hire car; flight uniforms, a will, flight manuals52 53…”
“Yes, I know about that,” interrupted Bates with a fake smile. “The action was on the physical evidence at the crash sites.”
“We have four hijacker passports,” Indigo stuttered and added nervously, “One for each site. But that’s probably too many.”
“Two would be plenty. Damaged, of course,” suggested Planner.
“Yes. We’ve burnt through a dozen to get it just right,” Indigo said with a jittery smile. “We also have bandanas and box cutters to add in.”
“Keep it simple,” Planner mused. “A single bandana will do.”
“Right,” said Indigo and gaining more confidence continued, “Obviously, we’ll also be collecting personal belongings. Wallets and watches from the passengers when they change identity. We’ll add that to the crash recovery pile.”
“Remember to tell the Stage C team about that. What about… um… body parts?” Planner said pursing his lips.
“Well,” said Indigo and he became nervous again. “As long as all the DNA sampling takes place by our labs, particularly the military lab in Washington, then… then… this will not be a problem.54 We’ll introduce the WITSEC personnel DNA into the analysis to provide that evidence trail.”