“Aha!” Kat leaned forward, examining the screen. “This is an index. He’s got a long list of items here, and a cover note dated just a week ago.”
“Two days before he died,” Robert said. “Go on. I’ve got to make a pit stop.”
She began reading, occasionally whistling under her breath. She tore through half a dozen pages before Robert returned.
“Robert, no wonder he was terrified!”
“Meaning?”
“I’m reading his summary. He says that someone in the intelligence community found out he was a terrorist expert with the FAA trying to discover how terrorists could have caused the SeaAir accident. That person came to Carnegie to get his help in blowing the whistle on a major governmental cover-up.”
“That would be our Dr. Maverick?”
She shook her head. “No. Someone else. Someone who lives in the Beltway.” She glanced at the screen and toggled the document back a few pages before looking at Robert again. “According to this, there was a classified presidential executive order several years back that prohibited any U.S. involvement in researching or building laser weapons designed to destroy human eyesight.”
“I didn’t know about that. So we are dealing with a powerful laser.”
“Apparently. He says it was a top-secret project. There are references to it, but he says here he hasn’t discovered the name of the project.”
“Did he say the presidential order was violated?” Robert asked.
She read over the page again and shook her head. “No. You need to read all this, too, but Carnegie says his deep throat told him there had been a major black project run by the Defense Department, which had been doing just such research, and it produced some eye-killing portable lasers. After the President’s order, the weapons were stored, instead of destroyed. But he says they weren’t buried deeply enough.”
“Don’t tell me. They were stolen.”
Kat nodded. “That’s what he says, and that’s apparently the nexus of his panic. The whole stockpile went missing, he says, and because of the potential for havoc and the intense worry about public reaction, as well as the potential backlash against the contractor and the Pentagon, Carnegie’s source told him a huge effort got under way to hide the fact that we’d ever been fooling around with the idea, let alone actually building devices to destroy human eyeballs. He claims here that according to his source, DOD, CIA, NSA, DIA, and NRO were all deeply involved in trying to recover the lost prototypes, and that they were gambling they could recover the weapons and protect the technology before some terrorist group started using them.”
“And,” Robert continued, “they promised that a SeaAir or Meridian — type accident would never occur, right?”
She nodded. “That’s implied here but not stated. Also, he says that the FAA has a radar tape of the Key West area when SeaAir’s MD-eleven went down, and there was an F-one-oh-six Air Force test drone, but no other targets except a shadowy intermittent one they never identified.” Kat looked up at Robert. “Obviously, when SeaAir was shot out of the sky, whoever was begging for quiet had to have known it would all hit the fan if any of those stolen weapons were involved, and that does set the stage. That kind of cover-up would be devastating if exposed.”
“Which is,” Robert said, “precisely what Walter was threatening to do by merely looking into the allegations.”
“As are we,” Kat said, feeling a cold chill ripple down her back.
Robert looked toward the hall where more noise from the teen crowd was filtering through the door. “Lord, Kat. I almost said, ‘when the press finds out about this,’ completely forgetting I am the press. No wonder they went ape when Walter contacted me, even if he never gave me anything.”
“Whoever ‘they’ is,” Kat added. “I mean, we’re coming to these conclusions based on Walter Carnegie’s information and his conclusions, but whatever happened to him, somebody’s been after you, and now us. That’s corroboration of at least some of this.”
“My God, do you realize the implications?” he asked, his eyes getting larger. “If this is half the cover-up he’s postulating, it’s just a matter of time before the truth comes out, whether I break the story or someone else does. Our government knew the potential and did nothing to stop it.”
“And there was time, Robert. According to all this”—she gestured to the computer screen—“there was time to sound the alarm and somehow protect commercial aviation.”
“But how long ago did the theft occur?” he asked. “A couple of months? That could be defensible caution.”
“Try four years ago, according to Carnegie’s source. Since then, there’s been false congressional testimony, possible White House involvement, everything. An initial lie compounded by more lies until the entire administration sits in a tangled web of potentially explosive revelation.”
Robert sat back in deep thought for more than a minute before leaning forward again, his eyes finding hers. “Did he say anything about the group that obtained the weapons? Who they might be? Whether they bought them on the black market or whether they stole the laser weapons themselves?”
She shook her head. “I’ve only read his summary, but he was already obsessed with that question. Was it a Middle Eastern, religious-based group, an organization out to extort huge amounts of money, or what? Maybe, as I suspect, one out to profiteer from disrupting the airline stocks? There’s one thing I can’t quite figure out at first glance, though. Where were those weapons for the last four years?”
Robert looked at her in silence. She cocked her head as she watched the progression of worry. “What’s wrong?”
“Kat, who’s chasing us?”
“Beg your pardon?”
“The alphabet-soup agencies. CIA, DIA, NRO. Did you omit one?”
She shook her head as if to clear it. “I’m not following…”
“Did you omit the FBI?”
Kat’s eyebrows climbed, and she sat back suddenly with a disgusted look on her face. “Forget that nonsense!”
He lowered his head and rubbed his temples. “Kat, I’m sorry, but someone killed Walter, and someone’s been trying their best to get us.” He looked up at her again. “Someone who consistently shows up with what you yourself called impeccable FBI credentials.”
She shook her head energetically, her voice terse and low. “Don’t go there, Robert.”
“Look, I—”
“The FBI is not capable as an agency of giving or carrying out such an order.”
“There could always be renegades,” he said quietly. “Perhaps they’re taking their dedication a bit too far.”
“NO!” she snapped. She put her laptop computer on the bed and got to her feet to pace with her arms folded, staying within a few feet and looking down at him only fleetingly as her agitation grew. She leaned over him again. “No! Dammit, I cannot and will not believe that. Maybe the Company, or rogue members within CIA. But not the Bureau.”
“Loyalty talking, Kat? Or logic? Think how many times your messages and calls to Jake Rhoades have backfired.”
“I admit my first response is based on loyalty. But the FBI could not, and would not, do such a thing, Robert. We’re talking about mass murder in cold blood. You don’t know these people. I do. There are some of the world’s most unapologetic Neanderthals in our ranks when it comes to accepting women, but these are good, solid professional people who live to serve their country and the law. Most of them have doctorates. Juris Doctors, sometimes Ph.D.’s. All well-educated, solid people. They can make mistakes, like Ruby Ridge or Waco, but they—we—could not do the things this murderous bunch has been doing.”