He looked over at her. “I know this probably cuts no mustard with you, Agent, but would you please consider that I might be telling the truth? I was just hired to fly copilot for this trip, and I honest-to-God had no idea what they were doing. I don’t even know where they leased this airplane, since I doubt the Bureau owns it.”
Kat shot him a puzzled, glance. “What are you talking about, ‘the Bureau’?”
“FBI.”
“What?” Kat asked, cocking her head with a pained expression.
“You’re an FBI agent, just like them, right?”
Kat shook her head as if to clear the confusion. She could see Robert leaning forward in the jump seat to looking at Pollis’s face. “All right, Pollis,” she said. “Are you attempting to tell me that the people who hired you to fly this aircraft represented themselves to be FBI agents?”
“You mean they weren’t?” he said, with an expression of pure shock.
This guy is a really good actor! Kat thought. His eyes were now huge, and his voice shook slightly.
“I… Ma’am, they told me they were FBI agents. They had IDs just like yours.”
Robert MacCabe’s left hand lashed out to grab Pollis’s collar, getting a tight grip on it as Pollis fought to keep the aircraft steady. “Hey! You want me to lose control?”
“How long,” Robert began, snarling his words, “have you been working on that stupid story?” He aped a whining, high-pitched voice: “If I’m caught, I’ll just pretend I was hired by the FBI.”
“It’s the truth!” Pollis replied. “Every time I asked what they were doing, the head guy would warn me that I was interfering with a federal operation.”
Robert tightened his grip and shook Pollis hard. “Now what’s the real story, bastard? Who’re you really working for?”
“I told you. I thought they were FBI. But they weren’t federal agents?”
Kat’s eyes were on the instruments and outside the aircraft, searching the sky ahead. She knew his ploy didn’t justify a response, but she couldn’t help herself. “Whatever you might think, Pollis, and whoever you really are, the fact is, FBI agents do not run around the world like CIA covert operatives destabilizing governments, and we don’t shoot down jumbo jets.”
CHAPTER 29
Jake Rhoades had slept no more than two hours on his office couch when he was jolted awake from a deep REM sleep by a call from Kat Bronsky.
“I hate to ask where in the holy hell you’ve been,” Jake said, trying to adjust his eyes to the ceiling light his assistant had flipped on, “but where in the holy hell have you been?”
“Where do you think, Jake? Taking a city tour of Hanoi?” she asked, sounding slightly hurt.
“I’ve just been worried,” Jake replied. “It’s been hours. What’s your status?”
“A lot of missions accomplished, Boss. In a nutshell, we picked up the five survivors, including Mr. MacCabe and the copilot, and in the process we were fired on by the same people, I believe, who flew the Global Express into Da Nang.”
“So where are you now?” Jake asked.
“Flying the same Global Express out of Da Nang. We’ve left Vietnam.”
Jake transferred the receiver to his other ear. “You’re what?”
“There’s a lot to tell, Jake.” She gave him the details of the rescue and the ambush. “Our Vietnamese helicopter pilot was killed before we lifted off, and then we ended up in a midair collision with the attackers’ helicopter.”
“How’d that happen?” Jake asked.
“I made a mistake and hit him.”
“You… hit him? You were flying the helicopter? How?”
“We were fresh out of pilots at the time, and it was raining bullets.”
“Kat, I didn’t know you could fly helicopters.”
“Neither did I. Funny what you can do when someone’s hosing you down with assault rifles.”
“I know you’re a pilot, but…”
“Actually, I had a couple of hours of helicopter instruction last year. Anyway, the group that was trying to kill us gave chase and kept shooting at us until we collided and they crashed. We don’t think there were any survivors.”
“So naturally… you flew to Da Nang and took their aircraft.”
“Correct. Global Express November-Two-Two-Zero, or at least the bogus version. That’s where I’m calling you from now. But there’s more.”
“I was afraid of that,” Jake replied, rubbing his forehead.
“They left a pilot behind. I arrested him and have him in custody. Actually, he’s flying this aircraft for us under guard, and I’ve left him in the cockpit with one of our survivors holding a gun on him.” She passed on the names of the prisoner and the two men he’d identified.
“Your… prisoner is flying the airplane? No, wait. Don’t explain.”
“It’s complicated,” she said. “He’s told us nothing useful yet besides those two names. You also need to know that I elected to leave Da Nang without authorization or takeoff clearance, which may cause diplomatic problems, and our current status is that we’re in flight in the Global Express headed for Anderson Air Force Base on Guam, where I’m going to need all sorts of coordination.”
Jake had started taking notes furiously. “You’ve been a busy lady,” he said, plopping in his desk chair. “I’m ecstatic you found and rescued the survivors, but I can’t believe you took that jet!”
“Hey, Boss, I’m a federal law enforcement officer recovering stolen property.”
He thought for a second before answering. “Yeah, you’re right.”
She told him about the copilot’s assertion that he believed himself to be working for the FBI.
“That’s absurd!” Jake responded.
“I know it’s absurd, but he claims they represented themselves as FBI, and frankly, I don’t know whether to believe him or not.” She relayed the numbers on Pollis’s passport, pilot’s license, and driver’s license. “The pictures on those IDs match his face,” Kat said, “for what that’s worth, but I want to turn him over to our people in Guam, I want him charged with enough counts of murder to hold him through the next Ice Age, and I want to protect him from any cleanup assassins.”
“We can handle all that, I think. Hold on a second.” Two other agents had been sitting in Jake’s office. He motioned them over to the desk and ripped off the sheet of yellow legal pad on which he’d been writing. “Run a full ID cross-check, and get FAA out of bed in Oklahoma City to do a complete check on this guy’s record as a pilot. Then get me our Senior Resident Agent on Guam.”
Jake put the receiver back to his ear. “By the way, Kat, we matched up the serial number on that jet you’re flying.”
“Oh? And from whom was it appropriated? Is this Warren Buffet’s personal jet, or does it belong to Ross Perot?”
“Close. It’s brand-new, and belongs to a corporation in Dallas. It was in San Antonio for some custom electronics work but disappeared eight days ago. The company in San Antonio thought the owner had taken it early. They’re all a bit upset. The aircraft is worth over forty million.”
“Good grief! Well, it is pretty.” Kat’s voice became low and serious. “Jake, we found something here on this jet that may be a key to the whole mystery”
“What is it?”