Night Talk (19 page)

MELBOURNE
    
Delta Sierra Juliet
roger what are your intentions

PILOT
    My intentions are ah to go to King Island ah Melbourne that strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again //two seconds open microphone// it is hovering and it's not an aircraft

MELBOURNE
    
Delta Sierra Juliet

PILOT
    
Delta Sierra Juliet Melbourne
//17 seconds open microphone//

MELBOURNE
    
Delta Sierra Juliet Melbourne

There is no record of any further transmission from the aircraft.

The weather in the Cape Otway area was clear with a trace of stratocumulus cloud at 5000 to 7000 feet, scattered cirrus clouds at 30,000 feet, excellent visibility and light wind. The end of daylight at Cape Otway was at 1915 hours …

 

NOTE:
The report states that no trace of the aircraft was found after an “intensive air, sea and land search” and the investigators were silent as to the cause of the disappearance.

The report was released nearly four years after the incident.

 

37

He gave it to you.

Greg let the words hang as they drove but they roiled in his head. Despite his denials, she was certain he had the stolen files. So was the government and whoever was on a killing spree. Why?

“‘You killed me,'” he said.

“What?”

“That's what Ethan said to me on the phone just before he went out the window. He told me I had killed him. He told you he gave me the files he stole. He died with a receipt for the money transfer from my account in his pocket.”

“You can see why Mond and the NRO think you have them. They may have found something on his computer showing a transfer. He may have jumped because he knew they were on to him.”

“He didn't jump.”

“Because of the way Rohan was killed? You might be right.”

“Might be right? Oh, I forgot, there's a witness who saw me throw Rohan off his balcony. If you believe I have the file and I'm running around killing people, you should get out of this car and call Mond.”

“I'm sorry, really, I'm sorry. I just—it's so—”

“Insane?”

“Yes, absolutely insane. I even wonder if Rohan couldn't have gone off that balcony in blind panic.”

“What?”

“You said he was all drugged up, he was expecting the police, maybe he went wild and ran.”

He felt like banging his head against the steering wheel.

She let out a nervous laugh. “Doesn't work?”

“It works great if I hadn't been there and I hadn't been escorted to the back door by Rohan because someone had rang the doorbell. He left me to go open the front door to what he thought were the police, not take a dive off his balcony. There's also the kid with the skateboard.” He was tired of defending himself. “In case it slipped your mind, this whole thing started when you and Ethan decided to crack some super-secret government file.”

“I never—”

“Yeah, you're innocent, all you did was pass on to a hacking fanatic the fact that what has to be the Holy Grail of hacking was just sitting there ready for him to crack open and let the world know he'd done it. At some police agencies, like the FBI, they call that treason.”

“You're right. It sounds bad, doesn't it?”

“It sounds like we better find what Ethan did with the file.”

“Okay, I accept the fact you never got anything from Ethan. But why did he tell me he sent it to you? Why—”

“Did he say I killed him, got money from my account, got thrown out a window, got Rohan killed, got me and you on the run? I guess we'll know the answers when we find the file and see what's in it that's so important that maybe even people in our government would kill to get their hands on it. In the meantime, disabuse yourself of the notion that I am sitting on the battle plans of the republic. If we can't get past that I am clueless about everything that has come down, we might as well part company right now.”

“You're right. I'm convinced you're clueless.”

“Thanks. I needed that. While we're floundering in waters over our heads, do you have anyone you need to get in touch with? Or keep in touch with? Mother? Lover? Someone taking care of your cat?”

“No cat. My mother's on a cruise with my father and my relationship went down in flames when my fiancé chose a fabulous job in Manhattan over staying with me on the Left Coast. How about you? I take it you're thinking finding that file might take days rather than hours. Assuming we can keep on the run and stay out of Mond's clutches that long.”

“I'm fine. No sensible, intelligent woman would put up with a workaholic who spends his nights talking on the radio and much of the rest of the time preparing or giving speeches.”

“Divorced?”

He shrugged. “Rightfully so, at least from her point of view. Without hard feelings. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live with someone like me, who deals with aliens and worldwide conspiracies like other people do with the price of pig bellies. I don't blame anyone but myself for failed relationships. Frankly, I don't like me much myself.”

“Sounds like you're not clueless on all levels.”

 

38

Topanga Canyon Boulevard wound and crawled over the Santa Monica Mountains like a long, narrow black snake from beaches near Malibu to the hot, dry San Fernando Valley. Some of the more rugged parts of it have appeared in car chase films even though there isn't much to see except curves and steep, hilly terrain covered with manzanita, scrub oak and pine.

There isn't much to see in terms of civilization, either, until you get near the top, but besides the heavy vegetation where mountain lions, coyotes, kangaroo rats and rattlesnakes still prowl about twenty-five miles from downtown Los Angeles, there exists a particular type of unconventional lifestyle that the area has become famous for: bohemian.

Artists, actors, writers, musicians and hippies are attracted to the area because of cheap living, a laid-back lifestyle and the privacy to party as they want—and smoke what they want. Bohemian isn't a good description for a society that has gone digital on all fronts, but despite the fact that some of the area is actually within the boundaries of the City of Los Angeles, there is still room for a counterculture lifestyle on the back roads. Many of the roads are no more than dirt paths.

It is also a good place to stay below the radar.

Ali asked about Franklin, the man they were going to ask for help.

“Is Franklin his first name or last?”

“I don't think it's either. He called himself simply Franklin when he came on the show. Some people don't like to use their real names. If she thinks they'll be interesting and don't sound like they're going to be trouble, my producer lets them stay anonymous. I met Franklin in person because he has a large stock of used nautical artifacts at his place—anchors, portholes, that sort of thing. I bought something for my beach house from him.”

“What did you mean when you said he dropped below the radar? Dodging creditors, that sort of thing?”

“More like being left alone to live his life without the government, businesses and neighbors constantly watching him. We leave a public footprint when we get a phone, a job, a house, a computer, credit card, passport, see a doctor, surf the Internet, whatever. Hell, we do it not just going to an ATM but driving down the street. Franklin's one of those people who has set out to erase his tracks. He says it's like being an outlaw on the run rubbing out the hoof prints of his horse to trick a posse.”

“He's been abducted by aliens?”

“Not that I know of. This may come as a surprise to you, but not many of the millions of people who listen to my show say they've been abducted. However, like me, he has a heightened sense of awareness of the intrusions of privacy that governments at all levels practice.”

“He's paranoid.”

“Most realists are. Like you and me.”

She ignored the jab. “What's our story with him? The jealous husband you used with the cowboy?”

“Wouldn't work. He'll need the truth—paranoid people see through BS. The truth or as much of it as we can give him without compromising him or us. It wouldn't be fair to ask for help and not tell him the last person I spoke to is dead.”

The road off Topanga Canyon Boulevard to Franklin's house was on the ocean side of the mountains. It was paved with dirt and deep ruts, not the kind of road anyone would tackle for just for the hell of it. Which was one reason Franklin had his place at the end of it and made sure the road was never smoothed out.

The house and barn were hidden in a pine forest hundreds of feet from the boulevard. So was the clutter that surrounded the house and barn like a lake of castoffs from the sea—the anchors and portholes Greg mentioned, rusty old cannons removed from Davy Jones's locker, the helm to steer an ocean liner or a day fisher, propellers to drive a ship, winches to raise the sails on a ten-meter sloop, lifeboats and dinghies, oars, lines, masts, booms, buoys, engines, figureheads from the bows of sailing ships, bowsprits, galley stoves on gimbals to rock with the sea and a host of other salty artifacts, nautical treasures or junk, depending on your perspective.

Greg found the collection both peculiar and special, like a nautical museum of shipwrecks. “You don't get much of a chance to see the guts and bottoms of boats.”

“He sells this stuff?” Ali asked.

“Mostly he collects and hoards it. He wouldn't take the money I offered for a porthole.”

“Probably professional courtesy. You're both paranoid. Kindred spirits.”

“You keep walking into it—tossed any phone cards lately because you're afraid the government is spying on you?”

“I'm beginning to think paranoia is a virus.”

Franklin came out of the barn to greet them. Fiftyish, wearing work clothes and a big leather apron, with gray-streaked black hair and a beard that was white at the chin, he was carrying a hammer he'd been using at a blacksmith's forge that was smoldering in the barn.

He gave the glowing car a good look-over. “Lucky you came in something no federal agent would have had the guts or imagination to drive. I turned off the IED before you triggered it by running over it.”

“Roadside bomb,” Greg told Ali. “He's telling us he's annoyed we didn't call ahead. But he doesn't have a phone that anyone knows the number to.”

Nodding his head as if he understood their situation, Franklin gave Ali and Greg the same thorough look he had given the car. “Radio personality, attractive professional woman, should be out together on business or pleasure, but you both look grim. What's the matter? Husband or wife trouble?”

Greg shook his head. “That was the line we used on the poor bastard who loaned us this Cad that looks like it's ready to blast off on a mission to Mars. The truth is that we're in trouble, big-time. With the government—the one we all know operates in secret. We didn't want to leave tracks coming here even if we'd had your phone number.”

“What kind of government trouble?”

“Two people are dead,” Greg said. “We're on the run. Some really crazy stuff is going on with the NRO. A secret file is missing. They think I have it. I don't have it and the two men involved in stealing it are both dead.”

Franklin nodded repeatedly. “The NRO, yeah, that makes sense. Know what their motto is? ‘Vigilance from above.' It's really control from above. The NSA can't get to you unless you go on the Internet, use a phone or do something to get into their purview, but the NRO has satellites up there every second of every day ready to spy down anywhere in the world.

“Those bastards have been after me for years. You would think people would have gotten wise to the NRO when they pulled off 9/11 but most of the people on the planet are cattle for slaughter.”

Ali looked from Franklin to Greg. “Pulled off 9/11? The NRO?”

“Conspiracy theory,” Greg said.

Franklin scoffed. “Conspiracy, hell, the damn truth and nothing but.”

Greg told her, “The NRO had scheduled for the morning of September 11, 2001, what they called a safety exercise for their headquarters building. An alarm was to go off and the employees would be told a plane was about to hit it and to abandon the building.”

“You have to be kidding me,” Ali said.

“It gets worse,” Greg said. “The NRO exercise was planned to go off at about the same time that 9/11 actually came off, both the NRO and the Pentagon are in Virginia, the Pentagon did get hit by one of the planes and there was a second plane that went down in a battle with passengers—”

“That would have hit the NRO,” Franklin said. “We know that was the actual target for the second plane because the building drill was for a real attack, not the excuse they gave. And the plane that hit the Pentagon took off from Dulles airport, which was what the NRO plan called for.”

“Why would they warn people about the attack?” Ali asked Franklin.

“They didn't want their whole operation shut down because vital people got killed.”

“How did the NRO explain this?” she asked.

“They call it a bizarre coincidence,” Greg said.

“Called it that because they had to come up with some excuse after the shit hit the fan,” Franklin said.

Ali shook her head. “Wow. When it comes to conspiracy theories, I feel like I've led a sheltered life.”

As they followed Franklin inside, Ali nudged Greg and gestured at her own head, signaling that Franklin had aluminum foil sticking out from under his cap.

Greg nodded up at the roof of the house. It was metal. So was the roof of the barn.

“Metal's the only thing that blocks the satellites,” Franklin said. He glanced back at them. “And yes, I do have eyes in the back of my head.”