Gina Cresse - Devonie Lace 01 - A Deadly Change of Course--Plan B (6 page)

“I just can’t believe this is happening.  Do you have someone to stay with you?  You don’t want to be alone right now.”

“Yes.  My sister is driving down from Los Angeles this afternoon, and my son is flying in tonight from San Antonio.”  She started crying again.  “I just don’t know what I’m going to do without Joe.”

“I know Sarah
—
he was a good man.  But you’ll be fine.  We’ll all see to that.  Anything you need, I want you to let me know.  Okay?”

She nodded as she sobbed into a fresh tissue.

Detective
McNight
walked over and put a hand on Sarah’s shoulder.  “Mrs. Barnes.  We just have a few more questions for you, then I’ll have one of the officers take you home.  Will you please excuse us, Miss Lace?”

“Sure,” I replied as I gave Sarah a hug.  My heart ached as I watched her leave with the detective.

It finally struck me that my dear friend was gone
—
forever.  Tears began to well up and run down my cheeks as I crossed the street.  A car horn blared at me as I hurried to get out of its way.  Visions of the two-headed snake flashed back into my head.

Chapter Seven

Guadalajara
—
1995

F
rank Eastwood, the first FAA inspector to arrive at the crash site, walked stiffly around the rubble.  The location was so remote, he had to be brought in on horseback
—
a form of transportation he wasn’t accustomed to.  The twenty-year veteran had earned the respect of every official in the FAA. 

By the time the others arrived, he had already sifted through much of the wreckage.  He had located the black box and was arranging to have it transported as soon as possible so it could be evaluated. 

Dozens of people were working to locate and remove the charred bodies of the passengers and crew. 
That
was always the first priority.  Frank never got involved in the removal of the dead.  As many crashes as he had seen throughout the years, he could never get used to seeing the victims.  His sole responsibility would be to
determine the cause of the crash.  Was it pilot error? 
Mechanical failure?
 
Was it an act of terrorism?  Tho
se were the questions Frank struggled to answer. 

So far, he had found nothing to lead him to any conclusions.  He wandered downhill, away from the crash site, and started kicking the dirt around in a clump of charred trees.  Something shiny caught his eye
—
the mangled remains of a metal box that appeared to have had a run in with a tree
—
and the tree won.  Frank inspected it suspiciously, bagged it up, and noted a description of the strange item for his preliminary report.  It would have to be sent back, along with the black box, and inspected closer to be identified.  Frank knew it wasn’t any standard equipment from the airliner.  He was intimately familiar with every piece of airplane hardware
—
from the computerized navigation devices down to the toilet flush handles.
 
After careful consideratio
n, Frank decided to deliver that
item to the lab himself rather than sending it down with the black box.  He put it in his pack and continued his investigation.

When Frank arrived at his office in D.C., his superior, along with high-ups from both the FBI and CIA, were wa
iting for him.  “
What’s the word on the Mexico disaster?” Carl Hobson, director of the CIA, asked
—
even before Frank had a chance to sit down.

“I’m just fine, Carl.  How are you and the wife and kids?” Frank replied, doing little to ease the tension in the room.  Frank was not the type to be pressured or
rushed.  When he was ready to give his opinion, he would put it all in his report and make it part of the official record.  Until then, he wasn’t about to speculate or jump to conclusions.

“Sorry, Frank.  We’re just anxious to get to the bottom of this.  The crew on that flight was one of the most experienced in the field.  The White House wants to assure the American public it wasn’t a bomb or some other form of terrorism.  We can’t have the whole country getting nervous and afraid to fly because of this.”

Frank opened his pack and placed the mangled metal box on his desk.  “I’m not so sure the American public shouldn’t be nervous about flying
—
especially when something like this can be placed in the baggage compartment without being noticed.”

They stared in silence.  “Is it a bomb?” one of them asked.

Frank shook his head.  “No.  To be honest, I don’t know for sure what it is.  I don’t want to say what I think it might be, at least until the guys in the lab have a look.  For all I know, it might be part of some kind of new stereo equipment.”

Frank’s boss, Hal, picked up the box and carefully inspected it.  “Frank, I’m going to have Clara take this down to the lab right now, while we’re meeting.  The sooner they get on this, the better.  I’ll be right back,” he said as he left the room with the box.  The discussion continued during his absence.  By the time Hal returned,
Frank was ready to dismiss everyone so he could get to work.

“I have a lot of work to do before I can have a preliminary report ready for you.  I was planning to take a vacation next week, but I guess I’ll put that on hold until we get this ironed out,” Frank told the group.

Hal spoke up.  “I don’t think that’ll be necessary, Frank.  You can take a couple days to put together your preliminary report, and the boys in the lab can put the rest of the picture together.  Go ahead and take your vacation.  When you get back, everything should be ready for your final stamp of approval and we can put this thing to bed.”

Frank eyed his boss curiously.  It wasn’t like Hal to be generous with time off.  If he had his way, no one would ever take a vacation, a sick day, or for that matter, a weekend off.  “That’s okay, Hal.  I can reschedule for another time.”

“No.  I insist.  If I ruin this vacation for Helen, I’ll never hear the end of it.  Your wife will tell my wife what an ogre I am, and I’ll be sleeping on the couch for the next three months.”

“Well, okay Hal.  If you insist,” Frank said, still a little confused, but pleased just the same.  The personnel in the lab had t
he most work to do on this case, anyway.

“Where are you going this year?” Carl asked.

“Helen and I are taking a trip up to Alaska.  I’ve wanted to take the Thorp on an extended flight ever since I finished building it.”

“Really?
  That’s a pretty small plane, isn’t it?  How are you going to carry the required survival gear over Canadian airspace and still have room for luggage?”

Frank chuckled to himself before he replied.  “I had a heck of a time convincing Helen we should take the Thorp.  She wanted to cruise the inside passage and go in luxury.  I had to promise her when we get
there,
I’ll buy her a whole new wardrobe.  Before we return home, we’ll have all her new clothes shipped back here.”

“Big mistake, Frank.
  You sho
uld’ve done the inside passage—
would’ve saved yourself a bunch of money,” his boss joked.  The group laughed as they filed out of Frank’s office.

Frank laid the preliminary report on his boss’s desk.  “Here you go, Hal.  When I get back from Alaska, I’ll go over the data with the boys from the lab, and we’ll put our stamp of approval on it.”

“Thanks, Frank.  You and Helen have a good time, and
be
careful.”

“I will.  See you in a couple weeks.”

Frank picked Helen up and drove straight to the airport.  He had already loaded the plane with survival gear and fuel.  He just wanted to do a last minute check of the engine to make sure everything was in good condition.  Helen sat in the cockpit, reading one of her romance novels while she waited.  Frank had built
the
little experim
ental plane from the ground up—
intimately familiar with every single detail on it.  Frank’s keen eyes carefully felt their way over every hose an
d line—
every
nut and bolt
—
every rivet and fastener.  He noticed something unusual and pulled a screw driver from his tool kit.  He removed a small object from an obscure section of the oil line and inspected it carefully, then walked over to the opened
Plexiglass
cockpit.

“Helen, get out of the plane,” he said.

“What’s the matter?” she asked as she climbed out onto the wing and stepped gingerly down onto the asphalt.

“I forgot something at the office.  Why don’t you have a cup of coffee over in the coffee shop while I run back and get it.”

“Okay,
h
oney.  What did you forget that’s so important?” she asked. 

“I’ll tell you later.  Could you keep an eye on the plane from the coffee shop for me?  Just make sure no one comes around it.  I’d hate to lose any of our gear.”

“Sure,
h
oney,” she said as she marked her place in the novel and headed for the airport restaurant
—she seemed
puzzled by her husband’s abrupt change of plans.

Frank returned to the office and walked silently down to the lab, avoiding being seen by anyone.  He peered through the window in the door.  Hal sat on a workbench, his back to the door.  He fingered the electronic box from the crash site with one hand and held the phone to his ear with the other.  Frank watched him for several moments.  When he hung up the phone, Hal stood, placed the box under his arm, and said something to the lab personnel as he carried it toward the door.  Frank ducked out of sight before Hal exited the lab. 

Frank made his way quietly back to his office and pulled a file from his cabinet.  He carried the preliminary report on the Guadalajara accident to a copy machine and began making copies.  When he heard footsteps coming toward the copy room, he quickly ducked around the corner behind a large file cabinet. 

Hal’s secretary approached the busy copy machine and watched curiously as it proceeded to make copies while unattended.  She looked around the room to see who was minding this job, then gazed at the stack of documents she had to copy and turned around and left. 

Frank breathed a sigh of relief and emerged from behind the file cabinet.  He hoped she hadn’t paid enough attention to the machine to notice the specifics of the documents being copied.  When the machine finished, he gathered up everything and slipped back to his office.  He replaced the original report in his file cabinet and placed the copies in his flight case.  Frank left the building, having gone unnoticed
,
then
he
returned to the airport.

“Did anyone go near the plane?” he asked Helen.

“No.  I watched it the whole time.  What’s wrong Frank?  You’re acting very strange.”

“I’ll explain after we get in the air.  I just want to go over the Thorp one more time before we take off.”

Four hours later, after he had practically taken the whole plane apart and put it back together, he was satisfied that all was safe.

“Okay.  Hop in
,” he said to Helen, who had finished her novel and was starting a new one.

“No way, Frank.
  You’re crazy if you think I’m getting in that plane the way you’re acting.  You’ve just given it the bomb-sniffing-dog treatment, and I’m not stepping one foot closer to it until you tell me what’s going on.”

Frank explained that he had discovered a barometric pressure sensitive explosive device attached to the oil line during his first inspection.  It was a small explosive
—
just enough to rupture the oil line and cause engine failure.  It probably wouldn’t have been triggered until the plane was going over the highest mountains of their trip, where an emergency landing would be impossible.

Helen struggled to get her words out.  “Why in the… what would… who in the world would do something like that, Frank?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I have a suspicion.  Anyhow, the plane is perfectly safe now.  You have to trust me.  The safest thing we can do is just get out of here.  I have a plan.  I’ll explain it on the way
, but
I need
you to be with me on this
.  Okay?”

“Okay,” she said, a little uneasy, then something in her demeanor changed.  “Oh. 
Why not.
 
Beats the heck out of these crazy dime store romance novels.”

Frank gave her a smile.

“Reminds me why I ran off with a daredevil air force pilot in the first place,” she said, then forced a laugh.

The Thorp taxied to the runway and took off, heading northwest.  The one-hundred-eighty-mile-per-hour cruising speed allowed Frank several days to formulate his plan.  Frank and Helen came up with a scheme they
thought would be effective.  They practiced it several times, then, when the time was right, set it into motion.

Somewhere over Canadian airspace, Frank got on the radio to flight service. 
“Mayday!
  Mayday!  This is Thorp N4075K.  I have an emergency!  I’ve lost all oil pressure and my engine has stalled.  I’m on a flight plan from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert.  There’s nothing in sight but mountains, trees, lakes, and a whole lot of ocean.  I’m going down!  I’m going down!” Frank shouted. He even had Helen a little nervous.

Helen played along and screamed as if she were a hysterical passenger faced with impending disaster. 
“Oh my God!
  We’re going to die!  We’re going to die, and I haven’t even seen Graceland yet!” Helen frantically shouted.  She picked up a map and bonked Frank on the head with it. 

Frank ducked her swat, eyeing her with surprise.

“Oops.  Sorry,” she mouthed, realizing she had gotten a little carried away with her role. 

Frank announced again that his engine had quit and he was going down.  Finally, he cut the radio off and changed his course.  The next time the little plane would get an extended rest would be in the Bahamas.