“WHAT?” Schoen yelled, trying to be heard over the noise of the helicopter.
“I FOUND A KEY CASE ON THIS GUY, WITH A NAME INSIDE,” the man yelled back.
Schoen moved to him quickly and took the key case, looking carefully at an identification card with the name of the owner: Rick Barnes, CEO, Meridian Airlines.
“What the hell is this?” Schoen mumbled to himself. “WHO IS RICK BARNES?”
The subordinate pointed to the body. “HIM.”
Schoen shook his head. “NO! WE CHECKED…” Schoen leaned toward his subordinate so they could stop shouting. “We checked his coat pockets. He had business cards and receipts and all of them said MacCabe!”
Schoen knelt and inspected the pockets of the man’s blood-soaked sport coat. There were two more receipts, one an American Express charge slip with MacCabe’s name on it, which he handed to the other man.
“See?” Schoen proclaimed. “I told you. This guy was Robert MacCabe, and…” His eye caught a difference between the sport coat and the pants, and he peered more closely, realizing with a start that they didn’t match.
“Oh, Jesus H. Christ!”
Schoen examined the right pants pocket, turning it inside and finding two more charge receipts. Each bore the name of Rick Barnes.
Arlin Schoen got to his feet in disgust. “Godammit! We’ve blown it!” Schoen held on to the door frame and took a deep breath, shaking his head and trying to think. He had killed the wrong man and let an innocent woman fall to her death for nothing, not to mention losing one more of his team. Somehow the man named Barnes had been wearing MacCabe’s coat.
Schoen’s assistant was at his side, looking worried. “What are we going to do, Arlin?”
“Just a second. I’m thinking,” Arlin snapped, and turned to the pilot. “Land this damn thing in the nearest clearing. Make sure no one’s anywhere close.”
The pilot nodded and banked the Huey to the right to find a spot. Schoen turned to the other man. “We’ll dump the bodies, clean out this interior, and get back to the crash site to search for the bastard.”
“Who?”
“Who do you think? MacCabe. The only reason we penetrated this stinking place was to make sure MacCabe was silenced.”
“So he’s probably dead in the wreckage back there, and this guy just used his coat. We need to get out of here before that pipsqueak commander in Da Nang decides to double-cross us and impound the jet. We don’t have much time.”
Schoen was shaking his head, his mouth a thin line. “That guy was wearing MacCabe’s coat because MacCabe survived. We know he was assigned a seat in the upper-deck section and our search proved his computer was not there. If he has his computer with him and gets back to civilization with that disk drive intact, we’re toast. We’ve got to find him. They’re out there trying to walk to the coast.”
Schoen could see the sudden panicked look on his assistant’s face.
“What?” Schoen demanded.
“I… was just thinking. We got there pretty quick after the crash. If that was me trying to walk out, and I heard a helicopter arriving on the scene, I’d turn around and go back, figuring it was a rescue force. They could have seen us dump the woman.”
Arlin Schoen looked back out the door, an old fear gripping his spine: the fear that a loose end could suddenly whip around and snare him in his own trap. His man was right. There could be witnesses to two cold-blooded murders.
Schoen turned back to his subordinate. “We’ve got to kill anyone who might have seen us back there. We don’t have a choice.”
“What if we’re talking about twenty or thirty people, Arlin? We can’t just shoot all the survivors.”
The Huey was thirty feet off the ground and settling toward a small clearing.
“Yes, we can. For Chrissake, man, we just blew away a seven-forty-seven full of people. We don’t have the luxury of quibbling over a few more. And may I remind you what’s at stake? A couple of billion dollars and our lives.”
The warm rumble of the familiar voice on the other end of the satellite phone brought back a lifetime of happy memories.
“Katherine, how are you?”
“Just fine, Uncle Jordan, but a bit pressed for time and in need of a favor.”
“Where are you? Not that your dad and I ever knew where you were.”
“Hong Kong, and in immediate need of diplomatic clearance into Vietnam.” She briefed him quickly on the mission and the problem. “This one has me spooked. I was pulled off that very flight to do an FBI favor for the Consulate here.”
“Good heavens, really?” Jordan replied, shock evident in his tone. “My God, Kat, that’s too close. I had no idea State was involved with anything you were doing.”
“Well, you promised Dad you’d look after me, and you did this time, too.”
“Indirectly, perhaps, but thank God. You said you’re leaving in a half hour, so I’d better get busy. What number do I use to call you back?”
She gave him the satellite phone number.
“Uncle Jordan, are you going to get the permanent appointment as Secretary of State?” For decades he’d been known as the quintessential Presidential Adviser.
“I don’t want it, Kat. I didn’t want this acting position, but when your President calls, you come. Give me ten minutes.”
“Thanks, Uncle Jordan.”
Robert MacCabe stood at the edge of the clearing, still clutching his computer case, his eyes wild as he begged the other five survivors to run before the helicopter came back. He explained his suspicions about Walter Carnegie and the possible connection to the SeaAir crash and the attempted Hong Kong kidnapping, and finally convinced them that he could be right.
With Graham Tash all but catatonic, the rest of them looted the remains of the upper deck of first-aid kits, blankets, food, water, and various bags to carry them in, while Steve Delaney managed to find the backpack he’d left outside the cockpit. The helicopter had been gone less than ten minutes when they assembled back at the edge of the clearing, ready to go.
“Question is, which way?” Britta asked.
“Back to the coast as fast as possible, kids,” Dallas said.
“No!” Robert replied, breathing hard. “No. They’ll be expecting just that. They’ll look along that pathway, and there isn’t enough jungle vegetation to hide under on that eastern slope. You saw it.”
“Where do you want to go, then?” Dallas asked, her hands on her hips.
“West. As fast as we can. More vegetation, more hiding places, and they wouldn’t start the search there.”
“So what’s to the west, Robert?” Dallas replied.
Dan’s voice reached them before Robert could speak. “West from here goes through a number of miles of this type of jungle, but empties to a flat valley five or six miles away. On the ridge going down to the valley, if we need them, are a lot of very deep caves that the Vietcong used to use. There’s a highway around here, too, which runs from Da Nang to the valley, and there’re probably some airfields in the valley.”
“So we want to stay away from highways, right?” Dallas asked.
Robert pointed west. “We need to stop debating and move. Let’s go!”
Dallas looked at the reporter with undisguised irritation, wondering when he’d been elected to take over. The fact that he was still clutching his computer case was irritating as well. But what he said made some sense, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the men in the Huey were killers uninterested in leaving witnesses.