“I’m looking for a flight to Dayton. I need it at three fifteen.”
“Not a problem. Name, please?”
“I mean this morning. Not tomorrow afternoon.”
“Oh. Hm.”
“Does that create a problem?”
“No, it’s just … What are you carrying?”
“Just myself. My dad is dying.”
“Oh, jeez, I’m sorry. We can get you a plane, sure. Cost triple-time money, though, for the pilots.”
“I gotta be at my dad’s bedside.” Flynn gave him credit card information from one of the aliases he carried. He waited as the card was run.
“Your plane will be waiting. You know how to get here?”
“I do.” Flynn closed the phone. He then went into a men’s room and opened it. He fished out the SIM card and flushed it, then threw the rest of the remains in a trash bin. There was still half an hour before the bus left, so he entered a stall and waited there. Unless necessary, he would not expose himself for more than a few minutes in any public place, not given that there was an active assassination effort under way.
He told himself that he wouldn’t worry about Di, which started him worrying about Di. Now that she was in the facility, surely she would stay there until they got some kind of a handle on this thing. But was the facility secure enough? Could everybody be trusted? There were no biorobots in that shift, but what if some of them were implanted? The whole staff was checked weekly, but maybe somebody had been hit in the past few days. And what about the other two shifts?
He left the john. It was too confining. It felt like a trap. His mind swam with worry and indecision. Maybe he should return to the White House. He’d faced the fact that killing Greene would gain nothing and cause all hell to break loose, so he needed to both protect him and prevent him from carrying out some kind of nuclear strike, but he also needed to figure out why Aeon even wanted to induce a nuclear war.
Watch the president. Check out the missiles. Which one mattered most?
He decided that the missiles were the best move. Greene was being such a jerk, he needed to come back to him with rock-solid evidence.
Of course, the deeper question had to be asked: Was Greene under mind control, or was he still free? And there was no way to get him into an MRI scanner, given his attitude.
The time crawled. Crept. People came and went, trains were called, buses were called. Finally, he was able to get aboard.
He took a seat in the back row and leaned up against the window so his face couldn’t be seen from the outside. As the other passengers came aboard, he watched them. Elderly couple, black. Young woman, cheap coat, gum, furious eyes. Couple of guys, looked like college kids. Why were they on a bus to nowhere? A mother with a baby in a carrier. The baby was asleep. For now. Over ten minutes, the bus filled. That was good; it made it easier to be overlooked. The only better alternative would have been if he was alone. Alone, just him and the driver, what could go wrong?
He abandoned that train of thought. Any damn thing could go wrong. Anything could go wrong now.
Taking a bus was an ordeal, but he felt that it was absolutely necessary. In fact, of all the modes of transportation he’d used in the past, buses had been the safest. There had been only one incident, and it hadn’t been major. By contrast, purchasing a car for cash had been extremely dangerous. They’d found him fast and come damn close. Using a small private plane had been even more nearly lethal. He hoped that this unlikely mode of travel and the fact that he was clean of implants would set them back. But he sat, tense, his shoulders hunched, compulsively feeling his weapon, the modified Raging Bull that hung under his arm, a heavy and reassuring hunk of pure power.
The bus wheezed along. The minutes crept into hours. The bus seemed to stop at every other gas station. People came and went, with the number of passengers dropping steadily.
When the driver called out “Pittsburgh,” he awoke, his eyes flying open and his right hand going for the pistol. He’d been asleep. Dead asleep. And all that time, he’d been horribly vulnerable.
The bus entered the station on 11th Street and emptied quickly. To his surprise, Flynn found a cab easily enough, meaning that he didn’t have to waste another of the throwaway phones. He gave the driver the address out at the airport. The driver didn’t ask questions and Flynn was glad. When he traveled, the talkative troubled him. He always told them that he was an accountant. Their eyes would glaze and silence would fall, blessed silence.
He got out of the cab. Cassey Air Charter was in a trim aluminum structure. Nothing fancy, but it didn’t look like a sty, either.
As the cab drove away, he went to the door, which was locked. He knocked, then rang the buzzer. For a horrible moment, he thought that he’d been ditched, but at length he saw a shadow coming toward the door. A man in a gray coverall appeared and looked out at him suspiciously.
“I have a charter waiting,” he said.
The man opened the door. “You that plane out there? Come on in, sorry, we don’t get many riders this time of night.”
“My dad’s dying. I’ve got to get to Philly.”
“Oh, my, I’m sorry. Well, your plane’s ready to go.”
He went through the empty facility, past a softly rumbling Coke machine and a row of plastic chairs, then through a double door and onto the tarmac, where an elderly Lear 23 stood with its windows glowing. A generator roared under the nose, and as Flynn climbed aboard he saw the lone ground crewman unplug it. The lights flickered as the plane went on batteries. He entered the cabin.
“I’m Gene Curtis,” the pilot said. “Sorry about your dad.”
“It was very sudden. We were golfing two days ago.”
“That’s rough. Look, we’re gonna just go straight across. There’s some weather north and west, but it’s not moving fast enough to catch us, doesn’t look like. We’ll be landing in an hour and fifteen minutes.”
As the man spoke, Flynn watched him. Too bad he couldn’t use the temperature sensor he had with him, but he just could not see how to explain that. He couldn’t afford to raise suspicions. He needed this flight to happen.
He gave the sad sort of smile a grieving son might offer. “Thank you.”
The pilot went into the cockpit. Before he closed the door, Flynn glimpsed the copilot, a woman. A recent hire or not?
He stood and knocked on the door.
The pilot opened it.
“I’m just wondering—I’m sorry to ask—but I’m an uneasy flier, and—”
“I’ve been pushing iron through the sky for thirty years,” Curtis said.
“So have I,” the woman added. “I’m Cassey. The wife and the company’s namesake.”
Flynn took a seat and belted himself in. Maybe they were OK.
The plane started moving at once, and was soon bouncing along the runway. The 23 had not been produced since the 1960s, so this aircraft had to be pushing fifty. Maybe Aeon wouldn’t need to come after him. Maybe the plan would simply fall apart.
Once they were airborne, he sat listening to the shriek of the engines and feeling the uneasy trembling when they encountered pockets of rough air. But that ended quickly. Since 23s cruise at forty-five thousand feet, the air was soon as still as glass, the plane seemingly motionless.
They had been flying for under half an hour when the pilot came back. His face was pale and his eyes full of worry. “There are numerous aircraft out there declaring general emergencies,” he said. “ATC is saying they’re losing instruments.” He fixed steady eyes on Flynn, who looked back with what he hoped was the blank stare of the ignorant passenger.
“Are you saying to turn back?”
“I’m telling you what’s happening. Turn back, keep on, I have no idea. Just want you to know, we could get real busy up front.”
Flynn rarely felt fear, but he felt it now. This was Aeon, had to be, doing this. They knew he was out here somewhere, but not where. In hope of getting him, they were going to strip the sky of planes
. “Let’s land right now.”
“Dayton’s our closest field.”
“Will we make it?”
“I’ve never seen anything like this in all my years of flying, so I don’t know. So far we’re OK, but I might have to put this baby on the ground wherever we happen to be. I just want you to know that.”
Flynn said nothing. He’d been a damn fool to even try flying, but how could he avoid it, and what about the longer flight ahead from Wright-Pat to Minot?
The pilot returned. “Four affected aircraft have landed, two have lost contact.”
“Are they down?”
“Out of contact may mean down. ATC isn’t saying.”
“How many are still in the air?”
“Six. Four affected, two unaffected—us and a Cinci flight out of Louisville. A Citation.”
“Do you know anything else about the affected planes?”
“A couple of UPS haulers, an air force whatever—we don’t get told—some other charters. No sardine cans this time of night.”
A stall horn went off in the cockpit. Curtis turned and hurried back. A moment later, the horn stopped.
The lights went out. From the front, Flynn heard, “Shit!” They flew on. The darkness was absolute, like being in a cave. Only the windows revealed anything—a few stars and, far off, lightning.
The intercom crackled. “We’re having avionics issues, sir. Please remain in your seat. Do you know how the brace position works—” The intercom crackled again and then was silent.
Would he die now? It seemed likely. If so, would the world die with him? That thought made him break out into a sweat. It made him feel both helpless and essential. Maddening.
He felt the plane shudder, then slow. For all he could tell, a normal descent had commenced. A moment later, though, they wallowed to the right, the right engine screamed, and they straightened out. Then the same thing happened as they wallowed left.
Curtis was guiding the plane with engine thrust. He didn’t have his vertical rudder. What else didn’t he have, then?
Flynn could see lights below. Dayton? No way to tell, no way to ask. The plane pitched, the engines dropped back, the nose fell, and the stall horn sounded. Again, the engines screamed. The stall horn stopped. The engines cut back and in a moment the horn was blaring again.
It went on like this as they dropped lower and lower. Flynn now understood that they had no hydraulics and no backup electrics. Wherever they were, this was going to be a very dangerous landing.
Lower they went, and lower still, the engines alternately screaming and cutting back as the plane pitched and yawed and wallowed across the sky like a leaping sea creature.
Immediately below them, Flynn could now see a runway, a wide one. Fire equipment pulled in beside them and dropped back as the plane failed to lose speed. They were coming in much too fast.
Flynn leaped out of his seat and went to the rear of the plane, where he took the seat closest to the bulkhead. He fastened the belt and braced himself wrapping his arms around his knees and bending as far forward as he could.
A roar, the tube of the fuselage twisting, a haze of smoke and fire, then a ferocious pull to the right and a long, screeching slide that never seemed to end.
His head took a blow, he saw flashes of light, then another blow, then he was thrown to one side with such force that he blacked out.
Orange light. Pain in his face. Heat. More heat.
Screams, long and awful with despair. A specter wreathed in fire, dancing across the runway. Then it fell. It kicked, it shook, its fists hammered the air.
Flynn understood that he was still in his seat. Then he further understood that it was lying on its side on the concrete. The burning figure over there was Gene. Gene was burning.
Flynn tried to get out. The man was dying, screaming and writhing and dying.
He couldn’t get the belt off, couldn’t reach the pocketknife he carried for such emergencies. Using all his strength, he forced himself to a kneeling position. He dragged himself forward, the seat still attached to him. He had to put that fire out; he had to save that man.
Then it started raining. A storm? No, snow. It was snowing, but not enough to help the poor damn pilot. He had to hurry—people don’t last long in fire. He went to his feet and staggered ahead, bent forward under the weight of the seat.
“What in hell is that? Look at that seat!”
“That’s a guy, asshole, help him!”
The seat suddenly took on a life of its own, then Flynn was on his back looking into the face of a fireman. Then he was free. They hauled him out.
“Careful, get the gurney, get him stabilized.”
“We’ve got fire under the starboard wing tank—move, move, move!”
Flynn pushed them aside. “I’m Ok,” he shouted. “Get the hell out of here.”
“You don’t know if you’re Ok. We’re getting a gurney.”
Flynn ran, trying not to stagger, forcing himself to ignore the pain in his back and leg.
As they followed him, a great light came, casting their shadows far ahead of them, along with the knotted, bulky shadow of Flynn Carroll. Then came heat, searing, like boiling water poured down your back. Flynn kept running, then flung himself down in the grass divider and rolled.
The fire set up a crazy quilt of flickering shadows. The firemen went about their work, their pumps thundering, their foam hissing. A winter wonderland, except it was still autumn and the snow stank of ammonia and jet fuel. Everything stank of jet fuel. A little farther away, the body of Gene looked like a mound of snow somebody had plowed up and left behind.
Gene. Dead because of him. Another notch on his gun, was that it? And the copilot, a woman just glimpsed.
“Sir, you need to get on the gurney.”
“Yeah, later. Where’s the other crew?”
The fireman shook his head sharply.
So it was two more down, poor innocent people out trying to make a little money, trying to help him out. Were there kids at home? If so, Flynn would do what he could.
In the distance, he could see flashing light bars. He walked off toward them, going faster as he regained his orientation and his strength. There was back pain, considerable. Right knee. Also considerable. His head didn’t hurt and there was no blood. Internal injuries? None of the burning sensation such things usually entailed.
Forcing himself not to stagger, not to stumble—in fact, not to just lie down and surrender—he went on.
The light bars resolved into a flood of official vehicles. Flynn shuffled into the lights.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
HE FELT for his throwaway phones, and found that one was still in his pocket. As he walked, he ripped it open. He’d have to hope that Aeon’s surveillance experts weren’t monitoring Diana’s father.
It rang once, twice, three times. A female voice answered, thick with sleep. What time was it? Flynn didn’t care.
“Grace, put the senator on.”
“Who is this?”
“Flynn.”
“Is Di okay?”
“Absolutely fine. She’s safe in the tomb. I need to talk to Walt right now.”
A moment. Silence. Shuffling. Then the senator. “Flynn, what the hell?”
“I want you to go to Langley. Di’s in the tomb. You go down there and tell her to put a spin on the crash story that’ll be developing.”
“What crash story, Flynn? Where? Are you OK?”
“I’m good. There’ve been a number of crashes across the Midwest. We need Homeland Insecurity to spin them as terrorism.”
“My God, what happened?”
“You get to Di, you do it personally.”
“I can’t enter the tomb.”
“I’m going to text you a number sequence. Send it to Di from your phone and she’ll make sure you can get in. Now, listen, you tell her to make certain that I’m listed among the dead. Certain! And no matter who asks, Flynn is dead. That’s all she’s to say. Dead in the crash of a
chartered jet at Dayton International.”
“OK, I’m in motion.”
“Thanks, buddy, I owe you.”
“Hell, Flynn, that tab’s always paid in full. God go with you, wherever you are.”
He closed the primitive little phone, crushed it, then picked up the SIM card and threw it off into the dark.
Now he was among the light bars, meatwagons, local fire, local cops, state cops, uniforms everywhere, radios crackling, general tightness and silence as people waited to hear what the hell was happening. He saw some braid and brass and walked up to it.
“I need transport to Wright-Pat,” he said. “It’s a national emergency.”
“Sir, you need to leave this area.” The officer looked Flynn up and down. “Sir, were you on one of the planes?”
“Lieutenant, you listen up. I need immediate transport to Wright-Pat. Do you hear me?”
“If you were on one of those planes—hey, Mike, get over here—you need to talk to CID.”
“If you want to keep your brass on your shoulders, you need to do as I say. You need to designate a squad car and have that officer drive me to Wright-Pat immediately.”
“I have a survivor here!” the cop shouted over his shoulder.
Flynn would have no more of it. He took the man by his lapels and lifted him off his feet. “This is a national emergency. I’m a federal officer. That’s the end of your need to know.” Shock finally delivered compliance; Flynn could see it in the surprised eyes. He put him down. “Now, I repeat, you will transport me to Wright-Pat, and you will do it forthwith. Personally.”
“Yessir!”
The lieutenant led him to his vehicle. Flynn sat in the back. He didn’t want conversation, and he didn’t want to be observed any more than he already had been. The shadows, the night, were his home. He was not comfortable interacting with outsiders of any kind.