Wild Fire (16 page)
Authors: Nelson DeMille
Monday
U
PSTATE
N
EW
Y
ORK
Given the magnitude of the federal response to a suspected WMD incident, first responders might be reluctant to initiate the mechanisms to set that response in motion.
—
Terrorism in the United States
FBI Publications, 1997
T
wo hours and fifteen minutes after we’d left the Downtown Manhattan Heliport, we flew over the upstate town of Saranac Lake. A few minutes later, three long runways forming a triangle came into view, surrounded by forest. I thought I saw bears lurking at the edge of the clearing.
As we descended, I could see some snazzy corporate jets parked on the ramp, though only one of them sported a corporate logo on the tail. In the case of corporate jets, it did
not
pay to advertise, partly for security reasons, and partly because it pissed off the stockholders. Nevertheless, I looked for a jet that was marked GOCO, but didn’t see any identifying markings as we hovered lower.
The pilot spoke to someone on the radio, then put the chopper down on the pavement behind a long, wood-shingled building that looked like an Adirondack lodge. This building seemed a little incongruous for an airport, but I knew from my infrequent trips into these mountains that the locals took their faux rustic stuff seriously, and I was surprised that the hangars didn’t look like log cabins.
Anyway, the pilot shut down the helicopter’s engine, and the noise level dropped dramatically.
The co-pilot jumped out of the cockpit, swung open the door of the cabin, and took Kate’s hand as she jumped down. I followed without taking the fellow’s hand, and said to him over the sound of the slowing rotor blades, “Did you see any bears?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Are you staying?”
“No. We’ll fuel up, then head back to New York.” As he spoke, I spotted a fuel truck coming in our direction, which is quicker service than I get at my gas station. It must have something to do with the FBI markings on the chopper.
I turned and looked around the mostly empty tarmac. The corporate jets were parked in a row on a blacktop ramp in the distance, and beyond them was a scattering of smaller light airplanes. There was no activity to speak of.
It was much colder up here, and I could see my breath, which is not what I wanted to see at 1:30 in the afternoon on a sunny day in early October.
Kate said, “Smell that air.”
“I don’t smell anything.”
“The mountain air, John. And look at those trees, and those mountains.”
“Where the hell are we?”
“In God’s country.”
“Good. I have a few questions to ask him.”
Apparently the Adirondack lodge building was the main passenger terminal, and we walked around to the front entrance, which had a covered veranda surrounded by a rustic railing. There was a picnic table and Pepsi machine on the veranda, and a security guy was sitting there smoking a cigarette. No one would mistake this place for JFK International Airport.
Kate said to me, “I’ll call Tom.”
“Why?”
“Maybe someone is supposed to meet us here.”
“Well, I don’t see how they can miss us.” In fact, there wasn’t another soul around, and there were hardly more than a dozen vehicles in the parking lot, half of which were probably abandoned by people who had one-way tickets out of this godforsaken wilderness.
We entered the terminal, which was much warmer than the frozen alpine valley outside. The terminal interior was small, functional, and quiet.
As small and isolated as this place was, there was a security checkpoint, complete with a walk-through metal detector and a baggage scanner. There were no security people at the checkpoint, and no passengers for that matter, so I assumed there was no imminent departure.
Kate scanned the empty terminal and said, “I don’t see anyone who might be here to meet us.”
“How can you tell in this crowd?”
She ignored that and observed, “There are the car-rental counters . . . there’s a restaurant, and there are the restrooms. Where do you want to start?”
“Over here.” I turned toward the sole airline ticket counter, whose logo said: CONTINENTAL COMMUTAIR.
Kate asked, “What are you doing?”
“Let’s see what Harry was supposed to find here.”
“That’s not what Tom—”
“Fuck Tom.”
She considered that and agreed, “Yeah, fuck him.”
I approached the small ticket counter, where an imposing middle-aged woman and a young man sat on stools, watching us. They looked like brother and sister, and unfortunately, I think their parents were, too. The lady, whose name tag said BETTY, greeted us. “Good afternoon. How can I help you?”
I replied, “I need a ticket to Paris.”
“Would you like to go through Albany or Boston?”
“How about neither?”
Betty informed me, “Sir, there are no direct flights to anywhere from here, except to Albany and Boston.”
“You’re kidding? How about arriving flights?”
“Same. Albany and Boston. Continental CommutAir. Two flights a day. You just missed the last flight to Boston.” She cocked her thumb at the arrival and departure schedules on the wall behind her and informed us, “We go to Albany at three P.M.”
One airline, two cities, two flights to each city. That made my job a little easier and quicker. I said to her, “I’d like to speak to the manager.”
“You’re speaking to her.”
“I thought you were the ticket agent.”
“I am.”
“I hope you’re not also the pilot.”
Kate seemed impatient with my silliness and pulled out her creds. “FBI, ma’am. I’m Special Agent Mayfield and this is Detective Corey, my assistant. May we speak to you in private?”
Betty looked at us and said, “Oh . . . you’re the people who just landed in the helicopter.”
I guess big news traveled fast here. “Yes, ma’am. Where can we go to check out passenger manifests?”
She slid off her stool, told her assistant, Randy, to hold down the fort, then said to us, “Follow me.”
We went around the counter and through an open door into a small, empty office with desks, computers, faxes, and other electronic things.
She sat at one of the desks and asked Kate—I don’t think she liked me—“What do you need?”
Kate replied, “I need a list of passengers who arrived here on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and today. Also, departing passengers for those days, plus tomorrow.”
“Okay . . .”
I asked her, “Has anyone else been here, or called you in the last few days to ask about passenger manifests?”
She shook her head. “Nope.”
“If someone had called or been here when you weren’t here, would you know about it?”
She nodded. “Sure. Jake, Harriet, or Randy would have told me.”
Maybe Kate was right, and I should do what a lot of my colleagues have done and get a job as chief of police in a small town where everybody knows everybody else’s business. Kate could get a job as a school crossing guard, I’d spend all my time at the local tavern, and she’d have an affair with a forest ranger.
I said to Betty, “Okay, can you print out those passenger lists?”
Betty swiveled around and banged away at the keyboard.
As the printer started grinding out paper, I looked at a few pages and said, “Not too many people on these flights.”
Betty replied as she hit the keys, “These are commuter aircraft. Eighteen passengers maximum.”
That was good news. I asked her, “And these are all the arriving and departing passengers for the days in question?”
“As of right now. I can’t tell you who’s actually going to depart on the three o’clock Albany flight, or any flights tomorrow, but I’m getting you the reservation lists for those flights.”
“Good. Do you have a record of incoming and departing private aircraft?” I asked her.
“No, this is an
airline
. Private aircraft is general aviation, and the ramp operations office takes care of that.”
“Of course. What was I thinking? So, where’s the ramp operations office?”
“The other end of the terminal.”
Before I could say this place wasn’t big enough to have another end, Betty added, “They’d have a record of incoming or departing aircraft only if they spent the night or bought fuel.”
That’s what I like about this job—you learn something new every day about something you’ll never use for the rest of your life.
Kate asked, “Can you get us those records?”
“I’ll send Randy to get a copy for you.”
She picked up the phone and said to her assistant, “Do me a favor, sweetie, and go down to ramp operations.” She explained what she needed, hung up, and said to both of us, “Can I ask why you need these passenger lists?”
Kate replied, “We’re not at liberty to say, and I need to ask you not to mention this to anyone.”
I added, “Not even Jake, Harriet, or Randy.”
Betty nodded absently while making a mental list of all the people she was going to tell about her visit from the FBI.
In a few minutes, Randy appeared and handed a few papers to Betty, who then handed them over to Kate. We both looked at the sheets. There were a couple dozen private aircraft that had been registered at the airport on the days in question, but the only information on the printout was the make, model, and tail number of the aircraft. I asked Betty, “Do you know if there’s any information about who owns these aircraft?”
“No, but you can find out from the tail numbers.”
“Right. Can I find out who was on board?”
“No. With general aviation—private flights—there is no record of who was on board. That’s why it’s called private.”
“Right. God bless America.” Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden could be on board a private jet, and no one would know it. And now, a year after 9/11, security for general aviation was still non-existent, while commercial aviation passengers, including babies, flight crew, and little old ladies, got patted down and wanded, even on small commuter aircraft. Go figure.
Kate gathered up the printouts and put them in her briefcase.
I asked Betty the standard question. “You notice anything unusual this weekend?”
She swiveled her chair toward us. “Like what?”
Why do they always ask that? “Unusual,” I said. “Like, not usual.”
She shook her head. “Not that I can think of.”
“More people arriving than usual?”
“Well, yeah, you get a lot of people on holiday weekends. Summer and winter are real big up here. But fall is getting big with the leaf watchers. Then, hunting begins, and then you got Thanksgiving weekend, and then Christmas, skiing, and—”
I stopped her before we got to Groundhog Day, and asked, “Did any of the passengers look unusual?”
“No. But you know what?”
“What?”
“Some big shot flew in from Washington.”
“Was he lost?”
She looked at Kate as if to say, Who is this asshole you’re with?
Kate picked up the ball. “Who was he?”
“I don’t remember. Secretary of something. His name should be on the passenger manifest.”
“How did he arrive?”
“CommutAir from Boston. I think it was Saturday. Yes, Saturday. He came in on the eleven o’clock flight, and one of our security guards recognized him.”
Kate inquired, “Did he rent a vehicle?”
“No. I remember he was met by a guy from the Custer Hill Club—that’s a private club about thirty miles from here. There were three other guys on that flight, and they seemed to be together.”
“How,” I asked, “did you know that the guy who met the secretary of something was from this club?”
“The driver had a uniform on that’s from the Custer Hill Club. They come here now and then to pick up passengers.” She added, “All four passengers got their luggage and went outside, where a van from the club was waiting for them.”
I nodded. Very little escaped notice in small places. “Did this van from the Custer Hill Club pick up any more arriving passengers from other flights?”
“I don’t know. I might have been off-duty.”
“Did the van drop off any departing passengers?”
“I don’t know. I can’t always see what’s going on at curbside.”
“Right.” I didn’t want to show any further interest in the Custer Hill Club so I switched gears to a cover story and said, “What we need to know is if you or anyone else saw someone who looked . . . how can I put this without sounding like I’m engaging in racial profiling . . . ? Anyone who looked, well, like their country of origin may have been someplace where there are lots of camels?”
She nodded in acknowledgment, thought a second, then replied, “No, I think that kind of person would stand out.”
I’ll bet they would. “Can you do us a favor and ask around later?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “I sure can. You want me to call you?”
“I’ll call you, or stop in.”
“Okay. I’ll ask around.” She stood, and stared at us. “What’s this about? Is something going to happen?”
I moved closer to Betty and said in a low tone, “This has to do with the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. Keep that to yourself.”
Betty processed that for a few seconds, then said, “The Winter Olympics were in 1980.”
I looked at Kate and said, “Damn! We’re too late.” I asked Betty, “Hey, did anything happen?”
Kate gave me a mean look, then said to Betty, “That’s Detective Corey’s way of saying we’re not at liberty to discuss this. But we could use your help.”
Normally, this is when you give the good citizen your card, but we were doing a smoke screen now, and Kate was on top of it, so she asked Betty for her card. “We’ll call you. Thanks for your help.”
“Anything I can do, just ask.” She added, “If those people try anything around here, we know how to handle them.”
I replied in my John Wayne accent, “That’s
our
job, ma’am. Don’t take the law into your own hands.”
She made a little snorting sound, then said to us, “While you’re here, you might want to look into that Custer Hill Club.”
“Why?”
“Strange things going on up there.”
I felt like I was in a B movie, where the guy from the city gets warned by a local about the creepy place on the hill, then ignores the advice, which was actually what I was going to do in Act II. I responded, noncommittally, “Thanks. How’s the food at the restaurant?”
“Pretty good, but a little pricey. Try the double bacon cheeseburger.”
Betty looked as if she’d tried several.
She showed us out, and I said to Kate in a foreboding tone, “Whatever you do, miss, do
not
go to the Custer Hill Club.”
