‘We were.’
‘He talked about you and the other guys a lot. About what it was like back then. Said you were the best.’
She stopped talking and sobbed. Cahill didn’t know what to say. The info bar on the TV screen continued to scroll, telling Cahill that there were no survivors expected from the crash.
‘Melanie, I’m real sorry about this. Tim was a good man. A friend.’
Cahill ran a hand over his face and up through his hair, feeling like all he wanted to do was sleep. But he knew that he would not get to sleep with images of the plane wreckage seared into his mind.
‘Tim got fired from the Service in the Fall of last year,’ Melanie said. ‘Didn’t even get his pension.’
‘I didn’t know. He seemed fine when I saw him.’
‘He wouldn’t tell me why he got fired. Then he got another job. Said it was something he couldn’t tell me about but that it paid well.’
Cahill’s antennae started to twitch.
‘But it didn’t pay well,’ Melanie went on. ‘I mean, not so far as I could see. It didn’t pay at all. Not officially. But there were always cash deposits in our account. Nothing huge, just enough for what we needed. Like he was being careful not to put any more in the account. I was worried and I looked for something, anything, to show me what he was doing. I mean, a payslip or a contract. Anything.’
‘And you couldn’t find anything, right?’
‘Yes. There was nothing. And he was away for days on end. Sometimes more than a week.’
‘You do know what that sounds like, Melanie.’
She said nothing.
‘It sounds like he was involved in something bad,’ Cahill said. ‘Something criminal.’
‘I know,’ she said.
She sniffed loudly and when she spoke her voice wavered.
‘But I can’t believe that about him. Not Tim. It’s not like him, you know?’
Cahill did know. Stark had been such a Boy Scout — joining the Secret Service from the FBI after receiving a bunch of commendations for his work there. Mr All-American, a smart, tough operator. And he hadn’t changed in all the years Cahill had known him.
‘It doesn’t sound like the man I know,’ Cahill told her.
‘Thank you,’ she said, sounding genuinely pleased.
‘What’s the problem there? Why are the police not talking to you?’
‘Oh, it’s not that they haven’t been talking.’
A man appeared on the TV. The onscreen caption identified him as a Colorado official of the NTSB — the US National Transportation Safety Board. The NTSB would normally be responsible for investigating the cause of the disaster.
‘I don’t understand, Melanie,’ Cahill told her. ‘I thought you said that they wouldn’t tell you anything.’
‘They won’t.’
Cahill sighed.
‘I know he was on that flight, Alex. I mean, he called me from the airport before he boarded and told me the flight number, when he’d get to Washington, the name of his hotel there. But he sounded weird. Not like himself.’
Cahill wasn’t following her at all now and said so.
‘They say they don’t have any record of him on the flight,’ Melanie said. ‘His name isn’t on the passenger manifest.’
2
Now Cahill was wide awake.
‘Have you called Tim’s cell phone?’ he asked.
‘Yes, of course,’ Melanie replied. ‘It defaults to voicemail.’
‘What about his car?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Is it at the airport somewhere, maybe in a long-stay car park or something?’
‘I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘Look, get back in touch with the police and tell them that he said he would be on the flight and that he’s ex-Secret Service. That should get their attention. Ask them to check for his car and call the airline as well.’
She took a few deep breaths.
‘I’ll do that.’
‘They’ll have access to security cameras covering every inch of the airport so if his car is there they’ll find it. But you realise that will just confirm he was at the airport. Not that he got on that flight. Or any flight.’
‘It would be better if he wasn’t on it, you know. They’re saying that there are no survivors.’
‘Take small steps right now. Find out what you can.’
Cahill was about to end the call when something jagged into his mind, a shard of mental glass.
‘Melanie, you said he got fired from the Service. Have you tried calling there?’
‘I did. I couldn’t get past the front desk. It was almost like they fed me a script. I don’t know what’s going on.’ She started crying. ‘I trusted him,’ she said. ‘And he never let me down before.’
‘He was always someone I could trust,’ Cahill told her.
‘He said the same about you. He looked up to you so much.’
Cahill didn’t know how to respond.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘I’m going to go talk to the police again and I’ll call you after. But let me give you my numbers so you know how to get me.’
Cahill jotted down her home and mobile numbers.
‘Is there anyone there with you? Any family?’
‘My son’s coming with his wife. He’ll be here soon.’
‘Good. Take care, Melanie.’
Cahill sat at his desk staring at the TV screen and the devastation wrought by the crash. It would be just past midnight in Washington. He scrolled through his contacts until he found the name he was looking for — Scott Boston, his old boss in the Secret Service.
Cahill called Boston’s office number. Had a hunch that if he was still the same man he might be at his desk even at midnight on a Sunday. He liked to work when it was quiet.
Boston picked up on the second ring.
‘Scott, it’s Alex Cahill.’
Boston said nothing for a moment.
‘Alex, Jesus. It’s been a while. How are you?’
‘I’m good, Scott. How’s life in the Service?’
Standard platitudes.
‘You know, same old same old. What can I do for you at this time on a Sunday?’
‘Actually it’s early Monday for me.’
‘I forgot. How’s it working out for you over there?’
Cahill’s hand went involuntarily to his side. He felt the ribs he had broken in an explosion last September during what was supposed to have been an easy gig protecting an actress at a film premiere. He was sure Boston would have heard about it through government channels — would have heard that Cahill had lost one of his men, Chris Washington, in the same incident.
‘It’s been an interesting couple of years, you know. Listen, I’m calling about one of the guys. Tim Stark.’
‘Uh-huh.’
Cahill heard the caution in Boston’s voice.
‘We stayed in touch after I left and I just heard he got fired from the Service.’
‘Alex, you know I can’t talk to you about that stuff. Who told you that anyway?’
‘His wife.’
‘Melanie? When did you speak to her?’
‘Just now. She called me from Kansas. Said she thinks he was on that plane that went down over there.’
Cahill heard a noise on the other end of the phone, like Boston had stood up quickly and his chair had shot back and hit something.
‘What plane?’
‘You didn’t hear? The one that went down outside Denver. It was headed your way.’
‘He was coming to Washington? Tim Stark was coming here?’
‘Looks that way.’
Boston was quiet.
‘Scott, what’s going on with this?’
‘Alex, I’ve got to go. Sorry.’
Cahill held the phone away from his ear as Boston slammed the receiver down to end the call. He was left in the quiet of his study listening to nothing but the dial tone.
3
Cahill called Tom Hardy: a six-foot-four Texan hard-ass and his second in command at CPO — the company he ran to provide close protection for anyone who needed it and could afford the best. They had set up CPO together after a career in the army and the US Secret Service.
‘You up yet, Tom?’ Cahill asked when Hardy answered.