The Rule of Nine (26 page)

“Are you telling me that they're armed?” she says.

“Lady, they've got a bomb. What do you call that?” I ask. As I am talking, I hear the jet engines approaching from the distance.

“You don't have to yell,” she says. “I'll see what I can do. But I will tell you that the nearest tactical unit is in San Juan. It would take them at least an hour to get there, maybe longer.”

“Isn't there a military base at this end of the island that can scramble planes?”

“There was, but no more. There's a DEA unit at Ramey,” she says.

“Well, then, damn it, tell them there're drugs on board that plane,” I tell her.

“You didn't say nothing about drugs before.”

“I am now.”

“Listen,” she says. “It's a serious matter to make a false report. You can get into a lot of trouble. Do you understand?” As she is talking I see the giant airliner already in the air heading straight up over our heads. I can no longer hear her on the phone. For almost half a minute the noise of the jet engines drowns her out.

“Yes, and if there's a tape of this conversation and Thorn drops that bomb on a population center, somebody is going to want to boil you and your supervisor in oil,” I tell her. “Never mind, it's too late.”

“We have limited resources. There's only so much we can do,” she says. “And as I tol' you, we don't have no tactical unit at that end of the island. I'll do what I can.”

“Thank you,” I tell her. “In the meantime, do you have the local number for the FBI?”

“You can get that through information,” she says. She tells me that we should wait out on the highway for the police to show up.

I hang up and tell Herman what's happened and he laughs. “Maybe we should just go home,” he says.

“At least one of you is beginning to talk sensibly,” says Joselyn.

B
y the time the cops show up and we get to the airfield, everything is gone, including the plane, Thorn, and his comrades. All that is left is some abandoned equipment—a generator, a compressor, some spray rigs, and a lot of trash.

I try to show them the photo taken on my cell phone but they are not impressed. You have to use your imagination to make out the plane, and the bomb is virtually invisible.

There is a large empty wooden crate marked
MACHINE PARTS
. I try to convince them that the bomb must have been shipped in it. The crate looks about the right size.

The cops tell me it could have been drugs. They will bring the dogs out in the morning and have them sniff around. If there are drugs or munitions, the dogs will pick up the scent.

They tell us they will make a report and conduct an investigation.

Before they could even get started, a call comes in on their radio that a large multiengine jet has gone down out over the ocean following a near collision with another plane.

I look at Herman. “There goes our only lead to Liquida.”

“Look at it this way,” says Joselyn. “At least Thorn's dead. And that bomb is gone.”

“There was no bomb,” says one of the cops. “According to the tower, the pilot admitted there were drugs on board.”

“If you say so,” says Joselyn.

A half hour of driving, and an hour of paperwork, filling out and signing reports at the police station in Ponce, and we finally make it back to the Hotel Melia. The steady flow of adrenaline has left us exhausted, strung out, and depressed.

We put everything we saw in the police report, though the cops virtually dismissed any thought of a bomb. They told us that the Coast Guard would search the waters until dark and go back out in the morning, but that hope of finding anything was slim. The plane had gone down over the Puerto Rico Trench, one of the deepest areas of ocean in the world.

Joselyn, Herman, and I sit around in the bar downstairs having drinks, trying to figure out what to do next. It was a stone wall. With no leads, there was nothing left.

“I'm gonna have to call Sarah and tell her,” I say.

“Tell her what?” says Herman.

“I don't know.”

“You think it's safe to bring her home?” he says.

“No.”

“Then what are you going to do?” says Joselyn.

“I don't know.”

“Well, I know what I have to do,” says Herman. “I'm not sleeping over at the Belgica after what's happened today. Is that extra room still open upstairs?”

“Yeah,” I tell him.

“I gotta go over and pick up my stuff,” he says.

“I'm going to head up and take a shower,” says Joselyn.

I give her the room key. “Guess I'll go with Herman to pick up his bags.”

“Where are you sleeping tonight?” she says.

“I don't know, any ideas?” I ask.

“See you upstairs,” she says.

“Bless you,” says Herman.

She laughs and heads the other way.

Herman finishes his drink and we head for the car.

 

From years of experience Thorn had learned that in his line of work, you never did anything without a backup plan. And if you were smart, you had more than one.

After the near midair collision Thorn took the plane up to twenty thousand feet and flew due west until he was about thirty miles out over the ocean. He turned on the radio and called in a mayday. He reported damage from the near collision and acknowledged that there were drugs on board. He told the air-traffic controllers he was having engine trouble and reported a hydraulic leak.

A couple of minutes later Thorn nosed the plane into a steep dive, but not before lowering his flaps and dropping his wheels to slow his speed. At a thousand feet he turned off the transponder and leveled off. With his speed still reduced and watching his fuel, Thorn lowered the ramp at the back.

The bomb was bolted in place. The rollers that released it from its cradle wouldn't move unless the safety bolts were pulled and the two metal straps holding the bomb in place were removed.

The drag on the plane from the shifting weight and the air resistance from the lowered ramp were considerable. Thorn put the plane into a mild turn, dipping the port wing and adjusting the throttles to give the plane enough power to keep it in the air. Thorn checked the altimeter.

He turned the flight controls over to Ahmed and told him to maintain altitude at five hundred feet and to hold the turn.

Over the horizon and under the radar, the controllers in the
tower at Mercedita would assume that the plane went into the water.

“Okay?” He looked at Ahmed, who glanced at him nervously and nodded as he gripped the controls.

Thorn watched him for a few seconds until he was satisfied, then he and the other pilot went to the back of the plane. They gathered all of the brown paper masking panels from the paint job and tossed them out through the open airstairs in the back. The empty paint drums followed. Thorn was careful not to allow any of them to strike the area near the tail of the bomb where the snap-out fins deployed.

Finally he grabbed the two fuel cans and poured enough diesel fuel out the back end of the plane to leave a sheen on the surface of the water below. Then he tossed the two empty fuel drums out. He took one last look to make sure everything was floating nicely on the surface of the sea down below. “Good!”

Then he went back up to the flight deck and closed the airstairs, bringing up the ramp. Thorn lifted the wheels, brought up the flaps, and took over the controls again. Checking his fuel, he goosed the throttles and brought the plane onto a heading due south.

He hopped the waves, hugging the water for more than eighty miles, and didn't turn on the transponder. He did turn on the radio and listened while the tower at Mercedita called in the Coast Guard and launched a search and rescue for the downed plane.

Thorn stayed under the radar and didn't pop up again, not even when he reached his destination. It was the small island of Vieques, off the southern tip of Puerto Rico. There was a fair-size general aviation airport on the eastern side of the island. From there Thorn could take one of the twin-engine commuter flights to San Juan and catch a direct flight to D.C. in the morning. But at the moment that wasn't where he was headed.

On the western side, near a beautiful cove, the azure waters and white sand beaches concealed a deadly secret. The island was
badly polluted. For fifty years the western side of Vieques had been a bombing range for the U.S. Navy. Tons of high-explosive ordnance had been dropped all over the island, and heavy metals, including mercury and lead, now contaminated large parts of it.

The people who lived there were territorial subjects. They lacked the wealth and political influence to launch the kind of “not in my backyard” movements that had shut down most of the military bombing ranges on the U.S. mainland. It wasn't until the base closure commissions began shutting down military facilities across the country that a coalition of environmentalists and islanders finally waged a successful battle to oust the navy. The old bombing range was turned over to the Department of the Interior, while bureaucrats argued over who was going to clean up the mess.

Meanwhile, the buildings at what had been the navy's old Camp Garcia lay abandoned. All that remained was a five-thousand-foot runway and a small unmanned weather station. It was the perfect location for stashing the plane.

All Thorn needed to buy two nights, two days, and a load of Jet A fuel from the airport on the other side of the island was a plausible story. The empty jet was under a lease arrangement, a replacement craft deadheading from Houston to San Juan to carry freight. The partially completed paint job would enhance the story, and they painted the logos on the side of the plane as they waited. The story would be that they had developed a serious engine problem and that Thorn had to set it down on the abandoned runway when he found it available on his charts. No one would be looking for him there. It would be at least a day or two, maybe longer, before they realized there was no real wreckage in the waters west of Mercedita. By then the plane would be gone, the mission completed.

Ten minutes before landing, just off the southern tip of Puerto Rico, Thorn checked his cell phone for a signal. When he got one he made one phone call, to the front desk at the Hotel Belgica.

T
he Belgica is one of those cozy boutique hotels you often find tucked away in the old world cities of Europe, only this one has a Latin flavor to it.

When I walk through the front door behind Herman, I see that the lobby is small, and at the moment there is no one at the front desk.

Herman and I go up to his room. It takes him five minutes to throw his dirty underwear in his bag and gather his shaving kit and other toiletries from the bathroom. He does one last check of the closet and looks around to make sure he hasn't left anything, and we head out.

As I turn toward the stairs, Herman is behind me.

“Hold on a second,” he says.

I turn. “Did you forget something?”

He shakes his head, puts his finger to his lips in a sign of silence, and then points back behind us down the hallway. “That's Thorn's room,” he whispers. The door is wide open and the light is on.

“You think maybe the cops?” I'm up close in his ear.

He shakes his head. Herman's not sure.

We move slowly down the hall toward the open door. When we get there we see some luggage assembled on the floor, a large black roller and a smaller one. The bed's been stripped, all the sheets and towels in a pile on the floor. The closet door is open and there is a light on in the bathroom but no sign of anyone inside.

Herman slowly steps into the room, looks one way and then the other. He doesn't see anyone. I step in behind him. He checks the closet. There are two shirts hanging inside.

While he's doing that, I check the luggage tags. They are only temporary, paper, the kind of tags you get from the airlines when you check your luggage. The name on them is Charles Johnston, 113 Calle Once, Havana, Cuba.

I look at the smaller case, reach down and start to unzip it.

“Excuse me! What do you think you are doing?”

The voice sends me out of my skin. I turn around and there's a guy standing in the bathroom door looking at me. “Who are you?” he says.

Herman steps out of the closet. The guy looks at him. “Oh, señor, it's you.” The guy in the doorway seems relieved.

Herman says: “Ah, my friend. This is the young man I was telling you about.” Herman looks at me and smiles. “Pablo, correct?”

“That's right,” says the kid.

“This is the young man at the desk,” says Herman. “Very enterprising fellow. This is one of my associates. Pablo, meet Paul. Two Pablos, how about that?” he says.

I laugh and step away from the bag that I was about to rifle, so that I can shake his hand. Perhaps for a smile and a few dollars he'll let us search the bags.

“Were you able to deliver your papers to Señor Johnston?” asks Pablo.

“Sadly, no,” says Herman.

“That's too bad, because I'm afraid he's checked out.”

Herman starts to laugh as if the kid has made a joke about death.

“I take it you've talked to the police?” I say.

“No.” The kid turns serious. “Why would I talk to the police?” It's obvious he doesn't know that Thorn is dead.

“You said he checked out,” says Herman.

“
Sí
, about an hour ago.”

Herman looks at me.

“He was here?” says Herman.

“No. No. He called to say that he couldn't make it back to the hotel. Tol' me to put all the charges on his credit card and have his bags forwarded to his new hotel.”

“Where's that?” I say.

“Oh, well, I'm not sure I should say,” he says.

“Did he say where he was when he called?” I ask.

The kid makes a face, like maybe yes, maybe no.

“Listen, you've been very helpful,” says Herman. “Lemme show you how much we appreciate it.” Herman steps in front of me, then turns his back to the kid and rubs his thumb and forefinger together—the international gesture for money—as I reach for my wallet.

I pull out four twenties. Herman reaches around my hand and plucks out two crisp one-hundred-dollar bills from my open bill-fold. Before I can say a word, he is over in front of Pablo, stuffing them in the kid's breast pocket.

“Oh, thank you, señor.”

“It's nothing,” says Herman. “After all, we're all in business to make a profit, and you are a very good businessman.”

“Oh, yes, I wish to be one day.”

“Oh, you already are,” says Herman. “It's the information age. The most valuable commodity there is.”

“Yes, of course,” says the kid. “I dunno where he is. He called on his cell phone.”

“When exactly?” I say.

“As I say, maybe an hour ago. Perhaps less.”

“You're sure it was him?” says Herman.

“Oh, yeah. He thank me for putting the muffins and fruit in the bag for him this morning. We're not supposed to open the continental breakfast until seven. But as you know, he left early. He tol' me to put all the room charges on his credit card and ship the bags to a hotel in Washington, D.C., overnight,” he says. “I tol' him we can ship them air freight, express overnight, but it's expensive. Besides, they won't ship until tomorrow, and they don't deliver on Sunday, so he won't get it till Monday. He said he didn't care. To put it on his hotel tab, and to give myself a nice tip. He didn't say how much.”

“I'm sure you'll figure it out,” says Herman.

I am thinking that it probably won't matter, as Thorn no doubt stole the credit card from somebody else.

“I wonder if you could get the address for us, the hotel in Washington where the bags are going?” says Herman. “It would be a big help.”

“It's downstairs. I'll go get it,” he says. He takes two steps toward the door and stops. “Maybe I should take the bags down first.”

“We'll watch them,” says Herman.

“Okay. Be right back.”

The second he leaves the room, Herman and I open both bags. Dirty clothes, two pairs of shoes, one of them dress shoes polished like a mirror, a shaving kit, neatly packed, almost anal. Herman is right. Thorn is military. Everything packed in its proper place.

“The kid didn't pack like this,” I say.

“No,” says Herman.

It's obvious that Thorn was getting ready to leave.

We dump everything out on the bed and start pawing through it. I check the pockets of the pants for anything left behind. They are all empty.

I slide my hand along the inside edge of the small case, into the elastic pouch where small items are sometimes stored. I find a plastic sewing kit, needles and thread, some matches, and a unique
folding knife. It has a clear plastic handle through which you can see the blade.

I wonder how Thorn gets it through airport security until I open it and realize that the four-inch razor-sharp blade is ceramic. The handle is formed from a clear solid block of acrylic. To a scanner the knife would be virtually invisible.

I continue my search along the inside edge until I feel something solid rub against the back of my hand. It's not inside the elastic pouch but behind the lining of the suitcase itself. I open the ceramic knife and slice the lining of the case, reach inside, and pull out not one, but three separate passports: one French, one British, and the last one U.S. I open them. They all have the same photograph of Thorn but different names.

“From my recollection, they look better than the ones you and I bought down in Costa Rica,” says Herman. “And a much clearer picture of the man. No wonder he wants the suitcase back.” Herman grabs all three of the passports and slips them into his pocket.

We're running out of time. I hear the kid coming up the stairs.

Herman grabs the knife, folds it up, and slips it into his pocket. “Keep goin', I'll keep him busy.” He steps out into the hallway. A second later I hear the two of them talking, this time in Spanish, down the hall near the head of the stairs.

I run my hand along the liner until I feel something else. It's not a passport. It's too small. I try to reach it with my fingers through the slit in the lining, but I can't quite get it.

I look for the knife and realize it's gone. The voices are moving this way.

Herman tells Pablo he wants to check out. He tries to draw him back toward the stairs.

“Okay, but I should lock up,” says Pablo. “I must not leave Señor Johnston's bags unattended.”

I rip the lining and reach inside. It's a small black book the size of a pocket calendar. I don't have time to open it. I just jam it in my
pocket and start throwing clothes and shoes, the shaving kit, all of it in a jumbled mess inside the suitcases. I zip up the large bag, set it on the floor, and pull the zipper around on the smaller one just as I hear them approach the doorway. I set it on the floor, then turn and smile.

“Did you get the address?” I ask.

“Absolutely,” says Herman. “Pablo is very efficient and professional. He assures me that he said nothing to Señor Johnston about our efforts to serve him.”

“Good man,” I tell him.

“Of course, that is your business,” says Pablo. “When I give my word, it is important that I keep it.”

“Yes, indeed,” says Herman. “Let's let Pablo lock up so I can go down and check out. Then we gotta get out of here.”

“Yes, we do,” I tell him.

Less than an hour later, we're back in the room at the Hotel Melia. Joselyn dries her hair with a towel and watches over my shoulder as Herman and I pore over the booty from Thorn's suitcases.

Herman opens up one of the passports and shows her a more current picture of Thorn.

“He hasn't changed much at all,” she says. “That's how I remember him from Seattle. Dorian Gray.”

“What's this, I wonder?” I'm looking through the little black book. The first page is covered in a long series of numbers, dark blue ink pressed firmly into the paper as if the writer has a tendency to push too hard.

“It looks like a code of some kind,” says Joselyn.

There is a separate set of numbers on each line.

“Could be dates,” says Joselyn.

“What do you mean? There're too many numbers on each line,” I say.

“Turn the page,” she says.

I do it and the numbers continue, for two more pages. The
writing is precise, very neat, but looks hard, as if the ballpoint engraved itself in the fine paper.

“What it looks like to me is a series of dates,” says Joselyn, “at least the first six numbers on each line. Look, they're set off by a space from the rest of the numbers on the line. It's like two columns. The dates could be international style, not like we do it in the States. The number of the day followed by the number of the month, and then the last two digits for the year.”

“Then what's the rest of it?” I ask. “The other numbers?”

Joselyn uses her finger and counts the numbers on each line. “Assuming the first six numbers represent dates, then there are ten additional numbers on each line. Could be phone numbers,” she says. “Area code and then seven more for the local number. Give me a second,” she says.

She tosses the towel on the bed and gets her cell phone out of her purse. “Take the numbers on the first line, forget the first six and just give me the last ten,” she says.

I read them to her and she keys them into her phone. She listens for a second, then hangs up. “Nope. It's disconnected. Give me the next one.”

We try again.

“No, it can't be phone numbers, must be something else,” she says.

I flip the pages. “Not necessarily. Try this one.” I read it to her and watch as she dials.

I hear it ring. She gives me a wide-eyed look and a thumbs-up. It answers, a kind of synthesized voice, not human but computer generated. It is loud enough to make out the words from where I am sitting. “Speak clearly in order to be identified.”

“Hello,” says Joselyn. Suddenly the line goes dead. She looks at her phone. “I think I dropped the call.”

“Let me try.” I dial the same number on my cell, get the same synthesized voice with the same message “Speak clearly in order to be identified.” The second I say, “Who is this?” it hangs up.

“What is it?” says Herman.

“It must be set up on some kind of voice-identification system,” I tell him. “If the wrong person calls in, it hangs up. It's obviously a system for Thorn to communicate with someone. Probably a backup copy. He must have another one he works from and keeps this one in the suitcase in case he loses it.”

“How come that number answered but the other ones didn't?” says Joselyn.

“It's the phone number for today's date,” I tell her. “And there is one more for the day after tomorrow, and that's it.”

“So what does that mean?” she says.

“Either Thorn gets another set of communication codes,” says Herman, “or else by then whatever he's up to is gonna be finished. What's today's date?”

“October second,” I say.

“So that means the fourth, which is what, Monday?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“And all we know, at least according to Pablo, is that sometime Monday his luggage is supposed to be in Washington. What's the name of the hotel?” I ask.

“The Washington Court,” says Herman.

“I know it well,” says Joselyn. “It's right downtown, walking distance to the Capitol.”

“So what do we do?” I slowly flip each page of the little book as we talk. After the code, the book is blank, not a mark on it.

“Be a waste of time to call the cops again,” says Herman. “We tell them that Thorn's still alive, they're just gonna say so what. That means he wasn't on the plane. As far as they're concerned, maybe he wasn't even involved in it.”

“I agree,” says Joselyn. “Listen, if Thorn's headed to Washington, why don't you let me make a phone call. I have a contact who I believe should be able to get some action.”

“Who's that?” says Herman.