“I only wish I was,” the man said wearily. “Then I’d be home in bed instead of working two shifts out of three.”
“Del Gennio called in sick?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
The man stood up and passed by Bane without saying excuse me.
Bane felt the familiar prickle of fear on the back of his neck. Something was wrong. That Del Gennio might have taken sick was certainly a possibility, but not calling him to revise their plan was simply unthinkable, not the Swan’s style at all. He was a detail man all the way, and the missing jet was too important for him not to make contact.
Bane moved through the narrow corridor toward a pay phone he remembered passing. Del Gennio’s number rang once, twice, three times, and after that Bane was sure there was no one home to answer. Still, he gave it another five rings and almost forgot to retrieve the dime in his hurry to get out of the tower.
He could make it to Jake’s apartment in thirty minutes tops, but his feelings told him it was already too late.
Jake Del Gennio lived on the twelfth floor of a typical Manhattan high-rise, one that advertised top-notch security and burglar-proof doors. In this case, the latter at least was far from true. The door was good all right but nothing a little patience wouldn’t solve. Bane had all three locks picked in under two minutes, and the fact that no chain greeted him when he finally got the door open convinced him beyond all doubt that Jake Del Gennio wasn’t home. The Swan took all precautions.
He felt something as soon as he entered, something cold. Passing the feeling off to nerves, he made a quick check of the apartment and found all three rooms were in perfect, lived-in order. A more thorough examination of the closet revealed that its contents had not been disturbed by a rushed packing job and the same held for the drawers. If Del Gennio had left in a hurry, he hadn’t taken any luggage.
The next check was the one Bane dreaded the most. Del Gennio might have lost a step and gained an inch over the years, but he was still careful and quick. He couldn’t have been taken or killed without a fight. A fight meant blood and blood meant washing and/or disposing of all evidence. Bane moved into the bathroom and pulled a file from his kit. First he carefully scraped the sink drain, found nothing. Then he scraped the underside of the toilet bowl and the drain. Again nothing. Finally he moved into the kitchen and made a similar inspection of the sink and garbage disposal with the same results.
Bane was puzzled. Del Gennio had called in sick, but he wasn’t home. If he had been taken forcibly, the principals behind it must have been damn good because they’d left no traceable evidence at all.
Of course Bane realized he might have been jumping to conclusions. There was nothing to indicate foul play, and Jake had indeed been acting strangely last night. He might have bolted.
Bane started to close the door behind him and then opened it suddenly again. He had realized something, something which sent slabs of ice sliding down his stomach. He checked the bedroom once more, and then the den. The evidence was present all right, not in what was there but in what wasn’t.
On the way out of the building, Bane stopped at the front desk to quiz the doorman. According to the security system coded in red and green lights, Del Gennio was safely upstairs and had been since eight-thirty the preceding night. For Bane, the smell of a professional’s work was even stronger.
The Swan was gone and wouldn’t be coming back.
Bane was back at the airport twenty minutes later.
“Am I to assume that this is a professional inquiry, Mr. Bane?” wondered Burt Cashman, a short, heavyset man with half-closed eyes and a title that made him Administrative Chief of Air Traffic Control at Kennedy.
“No, just a personal one.” Bane could have arranged to meet with a higher official at the airport but under such short notice that would have made his intentions too obvious. The cloak of personal concern would gain him the information he needed. “Frankly, I’m worried about Jake’s nerves. He’s seemed fidgety lately, under a lot of stress.”
“You served together in Vietnam,” Cashman stated.
“How did you know?”
“I knew Jake served, and since I was in Korea I can usually pick out one soldier’s concern for another. Not hard to put together really.”
“I see,” Bane said, trying to appear impressed.
“In any case, I’m glad you’ve come because quite frankly I’ve had the same fears about Jake for some time myself.”
“Really?”
“You know his age.”
“Forty. Maybe forty-one.”
“Closer to forty-two actually. Most controllers are finished by all practical considerations when they’ve reached thirty-five. We let Jake stay on, given his status as a veteran and his spotless record, but we lowered the number of his flight responsibilities. Put him on a reduction console. I didn’t think that was enough personally.”
“Did you speak to Jake about this?”
Cashman hesitated. “To be honest, not in so many words. It’s an extremely sensitive topic and one that’s not brought up routinely. I think he was expecting it, though. I could tell by his eyes. Deep inside he knew it was time to step down. He has a damn good pension to look forward to.”
“Jake isn’t the kind of man to look forward to a pension.”
Cashman smiled uneasily. “You know him better than I thought.”
“He called in sick today.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“He’s not in his apartment.”
“I’m not surprised. As I said, Jake knew he was reaching the end of his effectiveness. It was only a matter of time before he went somewhere and thought it all over. I don’t have to tell you what kind of job this is. It’s harder to get in, but it’s even harder to get out. The pressure and strain of the job will drive you crazy, but you can’t go without them for more than a week. Take a look at all the vacation time most controllers have stored up. Take a look at the low ratio of sick days they use.”
“Del Gennio used one today.” That got Cashman’s attention. It was time to get to the point. “I didn’t come here on a whim, Mr. Cashman. Jake looked me up last night for the first time in a while. He looked like a man on the edge of a tightrope, crazy with strain. Thought somebody was following him.” Bane hesitated, saving the best for last. To maintain the facade of his intentions, he had to lay everything out. Hold something back and before long whoever had taken Jake out would be onto him. “He kept babbling something about a jet that disappeared three days ago.”
Cashman sighed. “He turned the whole airport upside down that morning, screaming it had gone down and nobody could find it. Then he claimed it disappeared right before his eyes. I gave him the rest of the day off. He used it to go pounding on executive doors, the very top, mind you, of both the airport and the airline. Made a lot of people unhappy. My phone rang steadily until six. What could I tell them? Air traffic controllers have a code too, you know, and I piloted a console for twenty years before I started riding this desk. We don’t cover up our mistakes but we don’t give the asses of our people away either. If you don’t stick together this job will kill you. All you’ve got is each other because nobody in the real world has any idea of what goes on behind that monitor.” Cashman stopped suddenly. “I didn’t mean to ramble.”
“There’s pressure behind a desk too.”
“Well, if I could do my job half as good as Jake Del Gennio does his, I’d be happy.”
“Did you check the cockpit tapes?” Bane asked him.
“Absolutely. I went over them once things settled down.” Cashman shook his head. “Nothing. Just Jake’s voice, like he was talking to himself.”
Bane felt Cashman was telling the truth which meant that if the Swan really did see a jet vanish, the cover-up started higher.