“Robert?” Dallas called. “What’s the plan?”
He stopped and turned. “Get to that road, I guess, and then trigger Steve’s radio to call for help.”
For what seemed like hours they moved steadily downslope as the storm passed and the sun came out, filtering through an overhead jungle canopy that was sometimes sparse, sometimes heavy. Steam rose from their bodies as their clothes slowly dried, and as the patina of moisture evaporated from the ferns and plants of the jungle floor, their footing improved. Noises flowing through the underbrush from unseen creatures were a constant companion, as was the sound of hands slapping at the returning clouds of flies and mosquitoes — a steady, annoying counterpoint to the footfalls of five terrified people pushing through the underbrush.
CHAPTER 25
The helicopter carrying Kat Bronsky flew over the western border of the former American air base at Da Nang and slowed for a landing. With both of the sliding side doors open, Kat and her interpreter had spent the twenty-minute flight in a fruitless search for the survivors, but the failure merely reinforced her suspicion that they were probably headed west, and running for their lives. The pilot touched down in front of a shabby servicing facility on a decaying concrete ramp that held several small aircraft, a scattering of military helicopters, and one luxury business jet, the latter looking decidedly out of place.
Curious, Kat thought, looking at the jet and not recognizing its form at first. I wouldn’t have expected to find a corporate jet.… She leaned slightly out the door for a better view, blinking against the windblast, and read the jet’s registration number: N22Z.
Oh my God!
It was the Bombardier Global Express from Hong Kong.
I was right. They were here. No, she corrected herself, they are here! Now what? she asked herself as the rotor slowed. The pilot was looking back at her, but Kat was suddenly too off balance to give a normal response. She struggled not to show her confusion and smiled at him, flashing a sophomoric thumbs-up sign.
“What you want to do?” the Vietnamese major asked.
“Ah… after you refuel, could you just wait here for me?” Kat asked. “We’ll need to go back up and keep searching until dark.”
The major nodded, but Kat’s attention had already shifted back to the $40 million world-girdling Global Express, which sat by itself on the ramp with its doors closed. There was a figure walking around the nose of the jet, a lone Vietnamese soldier standing guard duty with an AK-47.
Kat stepped carefully from the Huey and walked around the rear of the helicopter, taking care to keep out of sight while she pulled out her satellite phone. It would be almost midnight in Washington. She’d memorized Jake Rhoades’s home number and punched it in, listening to it ring after only a few seconds, expecting Jake or his wife to sound cross at getting such a late call.
Jake himself answered, and she could hear him yawn on the other end as they exchanged quick hellos.
“What do you have, Kat?”
“A very scary discovery here in Da Nang!” she said, keeping her voice low. “I’m looking at that Bombardier Global Express, November-Two-Two-Zulu.”
She could hear Jake sit up in bed and whistle. “Whoa!”
“Jake, the crash scene about nine miles from here is predictably horrible. Over two hundred people were obliterated — shredded — in the breakup as the seven-forty-seven slammed into the ridge.”
“No survivors, then?”
She cautioned herself to breathe and slow down. Her voice was sounding shaky and unprofessional. “Ah, that’s the point. I’m told no one has been found alive, but I’ve found very convincing evidence at the scene, around the remains of the cockpit and upper first-class cabin, that at least five or six people survived, possibly including the copilot and the person I alluded to earlier… a reporter who approached me in Hong Kong with information about SeaAir.”
“Then where are they, Kat?”
“I think they’re on the run in the jungle, trying to stay away from something murderous they witnessed at the crash site.” Kat gave him the details, including the clues that led her to the conclusion that a female survivor had been murdered.
“You see any other rational explanation, Jake, from what I just told you? The blood, the shoe, the footprints, the earring?”
There was a long hesitation and then a sigh. “No,” Jake said, “I’m guided to the same conclusion.”
“Now that I find this jet here, it makes twisted sense.”
“Kat, is anyone hanging around that jet?”
“There’s a soldier guarding it. I haven’t approached it.”
“We need that serial number. I’m told it will be on a metal plate under the tail. If you could safely get that, and maybe get a look inside…”
“Understood. I’ll try to see if they’re any special weapons installed, too, like that target designator you said the Air Force was talking about.”
“I don’t want to push you into doing anything dangerous, Kat, but the Bureau is getting kind of desperate for some answers back here. I have to tell you, the media is all but labeling the Meridian crash a terrorist act because of the copilot’s transmission about something exploding in front of him, and Langley’s attempts to call this a midair had pretty much evaporated before your call. Obviously there was no collision. The possibility that this is number two in a series of terror attacks, beginning with SeaAir, is already being openly discussed from Larry King Live to NPR.”
Kat chewed on her lip a second. “I hate to say it, but that pretty accurately sums up my fears!”
He snorted. “I know it. Mine, too. But Langley’s trying to blow it off.”
Kat had been moving steadily around the back of the helicopter’s tail boom as they talked, watching the lone soldier pace slowly around the Global Express, but something Robert MacCabe had said in Hong Kong snapped back into her mind and she dropped her eyes to concentrate.
“Jake, on the subject of Langley, is there a chance they might be soft-pedaling this because they really are afraid it’s a group they don’t have a handle on — maybe one sophisticated enough to steal one of our missile-based weapon systems?”
“I don’t know, Kat. I try to leave the politics to others.”
“Did Langley flat-out say that NRO never saw this business jet from space?”
There was a hesitation before Jake replied. “No, they didn’t.”
“Okay, because I’ll bet NRO could see this bird from orbit, and Langley decided not to share the information. Can you find out?”
Jake’s voice changed slightly, his tone shifting. “Kat, you’re pushing into a delicate area here. Why?”
“Something that reporter said to me. The one I’d dearly love to find alive.”
“Something about Langley’s fears and reaction?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’ve virtually nailed my own suspicions. I’ll call NRO. I’ll bet you’re right, although I don’t know what it proves. And for us, it changes nothing.”
Kat looked back at the soldier, who was now sitting on the ramp and obviously bored to tears. “I’d better go,” she said.
“Be careful! But call immediately if you get anything, whatever the hour.”