Richard Castle: Wild Storm

“Maybe they were enemies of the thirty-seventh president?” Rodriguez said.

“That wouldn’t narrow it down much,” Storm said. “No, this is our key. This spot. Everyone is talking about what happened in the air. But my bet is it was something on the ground that is responsible for this.”

“What could do that to an airplane from the ground? Some kind of surface-to-air missile?” Rodriguez asked.

“Something like that. If it was, you would think someone would have seen it. A rocket is not exactly invisible. It’s loud and bright and leaves a contrail. Can we dispatch some folks to make some gentle inquiries?”

“Got it,” Bryan said.

“Okay, so that’s getting us closer to figuring out what happened,” Storm said. “Where are we on the why?”

Bryan nodded at Rodriguez, who walked over to the large flat screen. Bryan’s jumble of flight plans disappeared with one touch from Rodriguez.

“Until someone credible claims responsibility, we’re mostly just fumbling in the dark,” Rodriguez said. “The current theory is that this is just random violence by some sick dude or dudes. No one has any clue what they want.”

“That’s not a very satisfying theory,” Storm said. “Are you sure there’s not anything the victims had in common? Maybe this was more targeted than we realize.”

“Not that we’ve been able to sort out so far,” Rodriguez said. “There were definitely some heavy hitters on board all the planes.”

“Like who?”

“We’ve had the nerds at work, searching for patterns among them. Nothing has popped so far. Not sure I have anything to tell you.”

“Humor me. Give me the biggest name on each flight.”

Rodriguez shrugged. “Okay, let’s see here. Flight 312 had Pi aboard.”

A photo of an unshaven, unkempt young man with a mop for a head of hair appeared on the screen. He vaguely resembled a grown Muppet.

Rodriguez continued: “Pi is the leader of the International Order of Fruitarians, a quasi-religious group that tries to convince people that fruit is the original diet of mankind — nutrition as God intended. Really, it’s a cult. It slowly lures innocent college kids, especially unsuspecting young women, into its clutches and then eventually brainwashes them into doing things like selling flowers at the airport.”

“Maybe the father of one of these kids who lost his daughter to this nonsense decided to seek ultimate revenge and fire a rocket at the airplane the guy was on,” Storm said. “A father would go to any length to protect his daughter from a monster like that.”

Rodriguez let that pass. “Flight 76 was the cargo flight. Beyond the crew, the only passenger was a Karlsson executive named Brigitte Bildt, who had some business in the States and decided to hop aboard. She was not the company’s CEO, but she apparently ran the day-to-day operations and was also involved in a lot of its strategic decision-making.”

A photo of a middle-aged woman with blue eyes and kinky brown hair was now being projected. It appeared to be a corporate head shot — no frills, no glamming up. She had been looking at the camera with a certain gravity, almost as if she was aware of the seriousness of the way the photo would someday be used.

“Is it possible Karlsson Logistics had business enemies?” Storm asked. “Maybe it was involved in some kind of leveraged takeover that Bildt was pressing for?”

“We’re looking into all possibilities,” Rodriguez said. “Moving on, Flight 494 had a couple of bigwigs, a professional athlete, some business types. But the biggest name was Congressman Erik Vaughn.”

A new image appeared. It was the beady-eyed, puffy-faced visage of the congressman, topped with helmet hair that never seemed to move.

“Eww…am I allowed to say I hate that guy?” Storm asked.

“You wouldn’t be alone. He chaired the Ways and Means committee and he’s one of those small-government zealots. He has used his position as leverage, refusing to bring any matter involving taxation before Ways and Means unless he gets a guarantee of reduced spending somewhere. I don’t think there’s a group whose funding he hasn’t cut. The young, the old, highway funding, the whole concept of foreign aid….You can go on and on with him.”

“We’d have a long list of people who’d love to see him die in a plane crash,” Storm acknowledged.

“There were others, too. Some more famous than others. And I guess it depends on your definition of famous. One of the people on the first plane down was Rachel McCord.”

“The porn star?” Storm burst.

Rodriguez arched an eyebrow. “Gee, Storm, how did you know about her?”

“I…I…read about her in a magazine once,” Storm said. “Anyhow, what’s my job in all this? Why does Jones want me here?”

As if he had the room bugged — and, really, he probably did — a trim man of about sixty with buzz-cut iron-gray hair and steely blue eyes walked through the door.

JEDEDIAH JONES’S TITLE WAS Head of Internal Division Enforcement. Its acronym was no accident, given that it neatly described his prevailing modus operandi.

Storm owed his existence to Jones in more ways than one. While it was Clara Strike who first discovered Derrick Storm — then a struggling private investigator who was considering changing his name to Derrick Aarons just to move it up a few notches in the Yellow Pages — it was Jones who took Storm’s raw abilities and honed them into polished proficiencies, turning Storm into a rare asset.

Their long association had been mutually beneficial in other ways as well. It had made Storm a rich man, one with a contact list of friends and sources that was even more invaluable than all the money he had amassed. And the missions that Storm had been able to complete — often against impossible odds — had been an invaluable boost to Jones’s career.

And yet there was always tension between the men. Jones knew he could never fully command Storm, who prioritized many things — his own moral code, his sense of patriotism, the welfare of his friends and family — over his orders from Jones.

And Storm, likewise, knew where Jones’s loyalties lay. And it wasn’t in their tenuous relationship. For all Storm had helped him achieve, for all the times Jones had deployed substantial resources to save Storm, Jones lacked sentimentality toward him. After a botched mission in Tangier, Morocco, Jones had faked Storm’s death, leading the world to think he had perished for four long years, not caring about the impact it had on Storm’s loved ones. What’s more, Storm knew that if it ever became expedient to have his death become real, Jones wouldn’t hesitate. He would leave Storm bleeding in a river full of piranhas if it benefited CIA goals or Jones’s sometimes-warped ideas about what was best for the country.

“Is he up to speed?” Jones asked, not bothering to immediately acknowledge Storm.

“As up to speed as any of us are at this point, sir,” Bryan said.

“Excellent,” Jones said, finally turning to his protégé. “Do you have a vehicle here?”

“Yes.”

“Great. We’re going to ask you to ditch it for the time being. Where you’re going, you’re not going to be Derrick Storm, and I don’t want you driving some souped-up hot rod, even if it is wrapped in a bland coating.”

“All right. Who am I and where am I going?”

“Not far. To Glen Rock, Pennsylvania.”

“That’s the Flight 76 crash site.”

“Correct. And it’s also where the National Transportation Safety Board has set up its investigation into what took that plane down. The NTSB will take its sweet time figuring it out, following all their policies and procedures and then coming out with a report in a couple of months outlining what they think might have happened. We don’t have a couple of months. I want to know what they know before they know it.”