“Do you have a picture of him?” Banner said.
Stromeyer slid a passport photo at Banner.
Sumner’s face was only vaguely familiar. “Did we send him to Iraq?”
Stromeyer shook her head. “No. His Darkview evaluation sheet says that he was focused, intelligent, extremely proficient in firearms, and damn near unflappable. We made an offer to him, but he chose to continue flying for the suits. That is, until last year. Last year he became a trainer and monitor at the Southern Hemisphere Drug Defense Agency. He was stationed in Key West, where he oversaw training of personnel for the Air Tunnel Denial program.”
“The what?”
“The Air Tunnel Denial program, or ATD. It’s a joint program administered by the United States and Colombia designed to identify and intercept drug running aircraft that enter into U.S. or Colombian airspace.”
Banner stared at Stromeyer. “Are you telling me that the United States has an entire program set up to review suspicious aircraft entering Colombian airspace, and they are still unable to locate a commercial airliner downed in Colombia?”
Stromeyer shrugged. “It’s not as crazy as it sounds. The ATD program is administered from various air bases in both the United States and Colombia, and concentrates its attention on smaller aircraft that fly at low levels. Its mission is to identify the suspicious plane, establish visual and radio contact with it, and order it to land if it appears to be a drug transport. The planes used for drug transport are small private planes that can land in the remote areas using short runways. There was no reason for ATD personnel to be suspicious of a large commercial jet.”
Whitter groaned. “Reason won’t come into it. The press will eat us alive for funding a program that is supposed to spot suspicious aircraft activity and yet doesn’t even notice a huge jet lumbering off its course.”
Much as he hated to, Banner agreed with Whitter. The mistakes were piling up in this disaster.
The gentleman from the Department of Transportation spoke up. He looked to Banner like either an accountant or an engineer. He wrote on a pad lined with tiny grids that he’d brought himself, and he carried a sheaf of papers with him.
“Mr. Whitter, I think you need to be prepared for the eventuality that we may never find this jet. Especially since it landed in a mountainous region with significant jungle coverage. In the last ten years in the United States alone, fifty-three plane crashes have never been recovered.”
“In what type of terrain?” Banner said.
The man shrugged. “All types. One involved a Learjet that crashed only a few miles from a regional airport. Hundreds of searchers on foot and multiple helicopters were deployed for three weeks. That plane, all eight tons of it, has never been found.”
“Where did it crash? Alaska?” Whitter said.
“New Hampshire.”
“You have a missing plane in New Hampshire?” Whitter’s voice registered shock.
The DOT official looked pained. “We do. Of course some UFO enthusiasts have added it to their roster of unexplained events. But their claims are grounded in ignorance. They don’t know, or don’t believe, the statistics.”
Banner rubbed his forehead, where a headache began forming.
Stromeyer reached below the table into a briefcase and pulled out a small tin. She slid it across the desk to Banner while she turned to Whitter.
“Mr. Whitter, wait until you hear the rest of my report. The ATD program isn’t the only one the press is going to excoriate us for,” she said.
The tin contained aspirin. Banner opened it and chugged two down.
Whitter held his hand up to stop Stromeyer. “Great, Ms. Stromeyer—”
Both Banner and Stromeyer interrupted him. “Major Stromeyer,” they said in unison.
Whitter took a breath. “Major Stromeyer, let’s talk about the other problem areas last. Right now, tell me why was this guy flying to Bogotá?”
“He was scheduled to give a quarterly report to Colombian authorities about the Air Tunnel Denial program. What’s interesting is that he requested and received clearance for two pistols to be transported in the cargo hold.”
“Did he now?” Banner said. He circled Sumner’s name over and over again.
“That does seem like an odd request,” Whitter said. “Why would he need guns for a speech about monitoring radar? Do you think he was involved with the hijacking?”
Stromeyer shook her head. “Doubtful, but the request is odd and we can’t overlook the possibility.”
“What about these other two?” Whitter pointed at the manifest list.
“Ah, yes, the Riveras. Both Colombian nationals flying home after a two-week stay in Miami. The Colombian government reports that Carlos used to be a midlevel operative in the terrorist Colombian National Self-Defense paramilitary group, or the CSD, before he was captured by the Colombian army. Now that the CSD has agreed to peace talks, he is one of the first of the former terrorists to claim benefits under the funds set aside by the U.S. and Colombia to aid in repatriating former CSD. Problem is, he was seen outside the real copilot’s door the morning before the flight. He appears to have aided the terrorists by killing the real copilot. So the first beneficiary of our new program to end terrorism ends up using the funds we paid him to expand it.”
“Shit,” Whitter said. He pointed to the tin still on the desk. “Is that aspirin?”
“Be my guest,” Stromeyer said. She slid the tin toward Whitter.
9
THREE HOURS AFTER LEAVING THE AIRSTRIP, RODRIGO AND THE passengers detonated their first land mine. The lead passenger never knew what hit him. One moment he had stopped to hack at the foliage, and the next he blew up, his body thrown several feet into the air with the blast. Shrapnel hit the two passengers next to him, cutting their faces.
The passengers screamed and charged backward. The panicked people ran right into the guerrillas, pushing them aside in the chaos. They poured back down the path like rats fleeing a fire.
Alvarado heard Luis roar from the middle of the pack. “Stop, you stupid fools!” He shot his machine gun into the air.
The people kept running. Several other guerrillas followed Luis’s lead and peppered the sky with bullets in an attempt to slow the stampede. Alvarado used his gun as a club and clubbed the people who pushed past him. Alvarado saw Luis, now standing in the middle of the path, hammering the trees with shot. Low-lying branches cracked and tree branches and bits of bark and leaves flew onto the people, frightening them even more.
Luis roared threats. “Stop running or the next round will kill you all!”
The passengers kept moving. They clawed at one another, each trying to get ahead of his neighbor. They flowed off the path and into the tree line.
“Stop moving! Stay on the path! The mines are laid in patterns. You keep running and you will hit another!” Alvarado screamed.
Tall Man yanked one of the passengers back onto the path just as another plunged off it and triggered a second land mine. The resulting explosion blew off the passenger’s arm from the elbow down.
The passengers froze. A woman sank to her knees and put her hands over her eyes.
Luis stormed up to the injured man, who lay groaning in the leaves next to the path. Luis shot him in the head.
The shot echoed through the mountains. The people left remained still. Only the sound of Luis’s heavy breathing, and a woman gasping, could be heard. Everyone else stood like statues, unmoving.
Rodrigo marched over to the gasping woman. About sixty, with graying hair, she sat on the path, her body heaving in its attempt to get air.