“We know what kind of fuel reserves this plane had when it took off. That allows us to calculate a range, and apply that circular range over the map, centered in Tokyo. Essentially, we draw a circle on the map with a radius equal to the plane’s range, and eliminate everything blue water.”
“Why centered in Tokyo?” Sam asked. “They flew due northeast for a few hours toward San Francisco before falling off the radar.”
“Yes, but Mr. Murphy, the expert who came in yesterday to answer some questions for us, told us that you can pull off this type of hijacking by switching transponder codes between two aircraft. We have no way of knowing where or when that happened, so we’re going with the most conservative scenario, expanding our search area inland by several hundred miles.”
Blake covered his face with his hands and whispered, “This is a needle in a haystack!”
Alex sprung from her chair and went over to him, touching his shoulder. “Don’t despair. Please. I know it’s hard. It’s already been a week since they disappeared, I know, but guess what? The more we work on this, the more I see hijacking as a viable possibility, as opposed to a mid-ocean crash. There’s hope, Blake. We will find her, I promise.”
She searched her soul a little after making the promise. Did she really believe they could find the plane everyone else assumed had crashed at sea? Yes, she did. It was crazy, illogical, and yet she knew in her gut that V was somehow behind it. Why? She still didn’t know.
The fact that everyone avoided mentioning was that any chance to find Adeline alive dropped dramatically with every day, with every hour that went by. They all knew that, but never spoke of it. They all worked around the clock, living mostly off coffee and burgers, in a desperate race against time. Time was in the hands of her unseen enemy, a massive advantage on his part—441 lives…
She refocused on Blake, whose desperation and sadness were engulfing him like a shroud.
“I wanted to ask you, do you know of anyone who’d want to harm you or Adeline?”
“I don’t know… there could be.”
“Motivated enough to pull this off? With means to pull this off?”
“I–I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Have we heard anything about any ransom or political demands? I guess not,” she continued. “Which makes scenario three the most plausible, and Sam, that’s why I needed you here.”
“Scenario three?” Sam asked.
“Yes. I am thinking V might be behind this. I don’t know why, but it just feels right. After all, if that plane is anywhere other than the bottom of the ocean, then it’s in Russia.”
Silence fell around the patio table covered with half-empty plates.
“What’s he after?” Sam asked quietly.
“Don’t know yet, and don’t think I haven’t been trying to figure that out,” she replied angrily, almost snapping at him and instantly regretting it. “But if V is indeed behind this, prepare yourselves.” She paused a little, in an effort to calm herself. After all, it wasn’t Sam’s fault for asking. Whenever she thought of V, she just got angry — angry at herself for not being able to nail that sick bastard, angry at her own ineffectiveness, her failure.
She took a deep breath, and then continued, “Lou is still processing deep backgrounds on all passengers. My guess is that will tell us what he’s trying to pull this time.”
“And satellite imagery analysis?” Blake said, with a shred of panic in his voice. “When can you do that?”
“Backgrounds are processing as we speak,” Lou answered in a pacifying tone. “I wrote some code that does that. It should finish running by late tonight or tomorrow morning, all 441 people onboard that aircraft. We’ll know everything, from call and data usage patterns, to financials, professional information, family issues, everything.”
“But don’t worry, we will proceed with all three scenarios,” Alex added, causing Sam to frown a little. “There’s something else, guys. We need to figure out how to get our hands on some satellite time. Images that are a couple of years old might be a good start, but I need fresh imagery. I’m thinking that if we look real hard from the satellite, with one of Lou’s pattern-recognition modules running, we could find the actual plane.”
…26
Dr. Adenauer’s mind wandered back to the place of his birth, and the disappeared loved ones in his family. He was born in 1963 in rural West Germany, in a small town called Marl, close enough to Dusseldorf to be modern, remote enough to be picturesque and serene. The youngest in a family still recovering from the wounds of war, and still mourning its dead and missing, Theo had very little to be joyful about in his early years. But the most poignant of memories, the one still haunting his thoughts and nightmares, was the memory of his sister, Helga.
Ten years his senior, Helga entered the whirlwind of bipolar affective disorder with the onset of puberty, just when Theo was starting to be old enough to understand and remember. Of course, there was little to understand at first, when he was just a pre-teen, and Helga’s mood swings left him crying and confused, unable to comprehend why his big sister, playful and fun just the day before, could turn into an angry monster, lashing out with words that hurt worse than fist blows.
With time, his parents explained what was going on. They told him that her mean words, crying spells, and bad behavior were not her fault; she was sick. Theo understood, and became committed to helping her. He suddenly realized, about the time that he entered puberty, what he was meant to do with his life. He would become a doctor, a great one, who could cure his sister and end the constant suffering of his family.
He studied hard, and worked desperately to understand everything that he could about the human brain. Since high school, he’d started devouring any book or medical publication he could get his hands on, absorbing, learning, analyzing.
He was admitted to the Universität Düsseldorf in 1981, and his grades gave him recognition from the dean and from his professors. Some took an interest in the highly motivated young man who had the most interesting questions about brain chemistry, about chemical imbalances in the brain, and about understanding the deep synergies among complex psychotropic drugs used in controlled combinations.
He still had a few weeks left before graduation when Helga jumped in front of a train, ending her desperation-filled days just before Theo could return home and help her.
He went home to Marl and mourned with his grief-stricken parents, not in the least concerned about the classes he was missing, or about the risk of being expelled. His guilt was tormenting him, eating at him from within. It was his fault that Helga died. He didn’t find the cure fast enough, didn’t graduate quickly enough.
The dean called one morning, when Theo was still spending his time staring into emptiness, at the home of his and Helga’s childhood, and somehow talked him into returning to school. He graduated a couple of months later, and immediately began the research work that had been his mission ever since he could remember.
His academic record brought him a choice of research engagements, and he chose the path that led him closest to what he wanted to do: heal the invisible wounds of the suffering brain. It was too late for Helga, but there were others just like her, others he could still save.
Achievement after achievement, conference after conference, and award after award, his career soared. But he never stopped, and never slowed down. The most remarkable of his achievements, a drug that reduced the risk of suicide by 90 percent in clinically depressed and bipolar patients, had brought him a nomination for the Nobel Prize. He almost missed the news; that was the year his parents died, within a few months of each other.