“Where the hell is the airport?”
“Be patient, it will reveal itself to you.”
Stone was anxious, but he descended. A few minutes later he looked out the windscreen and saw what looked like an elongated postage stamp in a valley ahead of them. “Is that it? That tiny thing?”
“It will get bigger,” Pat said. “Now just aim for the runway. Slow down and let’s get some flaps in.”
Now it was just an ordinary visual approach, Stone told himself. Try to relax. He slowed enough to get the landing gear down, which slowed them even more, but according to the approach lights, he was still too high. He steepened his descent. And then the runway — all six thousand feet of it — was under them and he was touching down. No sweat.
He taxied to the nearly empty ramp, where a lineman and a fuel truck awaited them. As he taxied to a stop and waited for the nosewheel to be chocked, he saw a tiny Inuit girl in the cab of the fuel truck. She smiled at him, and he waved.
They left the airplane with the refuelers and went into the terminal building and upstairs to where a young man and a beautiful Inuit woman manned the flight department. They got a new weather forecast and a clearance, then used the toilets and walked back to the airplane, which was now replete with fuel.
Pat got out the departure chart and went over it with Stone. “What we’re going to do is take off in the opposite direction of our landing, because there are mountains in the departure direction. After takeoff, we turn right forty-five degrees for a minute or so, then make a standard-rate turn to the left, three hundred and sixty degrees, climbing all the time. We may need a second three-sixty to get to an altitude above the mountains. I’ll be comfortable at twelve thousand feet.”
“Whatever you say,” Stone said. They had a slight tailwind, but the runway was slightly downhill, so they got off the ground easily. Stone made the first 360-degree turn, then, suddenly, they were in the clouds and could see nothing except the moving map in front of them.
“Let’s do another three-sixty,” Pat said.
Stone did so, and then they were above twelve thousand feet, heading for 310. Stone looked at the synthetic vision display in the panel and found a spectacular view of mountains and valleys in front of them. They broke out of the clouds at 180, headed for their first waypoint to Reykjavik. The winds had changed, and now they had a headwind. Their assigned Mach number was down to.64, and they seemed to be making poor progress.
“Something’s wrong with the range ring,” Pat said, pointing to the multi-function display. Stone looked: it showed them with a dry-fuel range of about halfway to Reykjavik.
“Oh, shit,” he said. “What’s wrong?”
“The range ring is wrong,” she said. “Look at your fuel gauges.”
Stone did, and they showed nearly full fuel. “Well, I believe the gauges, not the range ring.”
“Let me try something,” she said. She brought up the fuel display and pressed a button labeled “sync fuel.” When Stone checked the display, the range ring was back where it should be — well past their destination. He breathed a sigh of relief.
Iceland appeared before them in due course, and they flew the ILS 10 at BIRK, Reykjavik Airport. As they taxied to the ramp, Stone saw a Citation Mustang, like his old airplane, parked there.
“I know that airplane,” Pat said. “I did the acceptance for the owner last year. He must be making his first transatlantic, too. Maybe we’ll bump into him.”
They cleared customs and took a taxi to the Hotel Borg, an old hotel that had been redone in a stylish fashion set on a green square in the center of the city. They had dinner at an Indian restaurant around the corner, then got to bed.
They didn’t run into the Mustang’s owner, and when they arrived at the airport the following morning, the airplane was gone.
26
Millie got back to the White House after lunch and found Holly in the mess.
“How’d your fabulous lunch go?” Holly asked.
Millie sat down and told her about what Lev Epstein had said.
“So we have a suspect. Lev Epstein identified a likely man who was an assistant professor in the economics department and knows a lot about the Middle East oil industry. He never knew the man’s name, but I tracked it down through the department office: Jacob Riis. That’s almost certainly made up. It’s the name of a famous journalist, social activist, and photographer from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. That’s a good start. How do you want to proceed?”
“I think we should kick it right back to Lev Epstein,” Millie said. “He’s got the manpower on the coast to run this down, and we don’t want to appear ungrateful for his help.”
“All right, call him and tell him that, before the day is out, the president will call the director and request his counterintelligence unit to identify and locate Mr. Jacob Riis.”
“Perfect,” Millie said.
“And tell him to copy us on all his reports.”
“Will do.” Millie ran back to her desk and called Quentin Phillips.
“Special Agent Phillips.”
“It’s Millie.”
“Hi there.”
“The president will call your director today and ask for your unit to be put on finding Jacob Riis. By the way, you know that’s not his name, don’t you?”
“If it were, he’d be a very old man. How about dinner tonight?”
“Not a bad idea, but I’ll have to call you back when I see what the rest of the day is like. Where?”
“Your place?”
“Nah.”
“My place?”
“All right, my place, but you have to bring food or have it delivered.”
“What time?”
“Seven-thirty, subject to later confirmation.”
“Great!”
“Now go tell Lev he’s on the case. It’ll make you look good if he hears it from you before he hears it from the director.”
“Done. See you at seven-thirty, subject to confirmation.”
Quentin walked quickly down to Epstein’s office. “Please tell him I need to see him,” he said to the secretary, Betty.
She buzzed her boss and got him admitted. “Why is he seeing you, instead of your supervisor?” she asked Quentin.
“It looks like I may be reporting directly on this one.”
“I’m impressed,” she said.
Quentin found Epstein tapping away at his computer. He took a seat and waited.
“Okay,” Epstein said, “what now?”
“The president is calling the director requesting counterintelligence to handle Mr. Riis.”
“I figured,” Epstein replied. “You know that’s not his name, don’t you?”
“I know who Jacob Riis was.”
Epstein’s secretary buzzed. “The director, on line one.”
He picked up the phone. “Good afternoon, Director.”
He listened, nodding to himself. “Yes, sir, I understand. Special Agent Quentin Phillips, a Harvard man.” He listened some more. “Right away, Director. Good day, sir.” He hung up. And turned to Quentin.
“Betty has a ticket to San Francisco and a travel voucher for you. You’re on an early plane tomorrow. Take the night off and collect your reward from Ms. Martindale. The AIC out there will assign a couple of rookies to you. I want to know who and where Jacob Riis is. Get out.”
“Yes, sir!” Quentin replied, bolting for the door. “How did you know—”
“I said get out.”
As he passed out the door, Betty held out an envelope for him. “Good luck,” she said, then went back to her computer.
Quentin glanced at his watch as he ran back to his desk. He had time to pack and get to Millie’s place; he could leave for the airport from there. The phone was ringing as he reached his cubicle. Millie confirmed.