Gregg Loomis - The Julian secret

Burt was wide-eyed. "I don't understand, Mr. Reilly. If somebody put a bomb on the plane, why would they turn around and make an anonymous call to report it?"

Lang shifted his weight, his hands behind his back. "Oh, I'd guess some organization we turned down for a grant got pissed, and somebody decided a bomb hoax would be a way of getting even."

"But what about the guy who was in the hangar?" Burt was nervous, afraid he'd somehow get blamed for whatever bad might happen. "I mean, I'm careful to lock up every time I leave-honest."

Lang put a reassuring hand on the young man's shoulder. "I'm surprised you don't guard it twenty-four/seven, careful as you are. No doubt in my mind you locked up."

"But how…" A large uniformed black man wearing a TSA windbreaker approached. "Mr. Reilly? Step over here, please." Lang and Burt followed to the base of a ladder resting against the rear of the aircraft. The man pointed, looking at Burt. "You might want to take a look."

Lang watched Burt climb the ladder and peer into the small hole created by the removal of an inspection plate. Even from the floor, Lang could see the pilot's face go white. "Oh, shit!"

Lang arched a questioning eyebrow at Burt. The pilot's legs were-less than steady as he climbed back down. "Main control cable, one to the horizontal stabilizer," Burt managed with difficulty. "It's all corroded."

"Logbook shows the aircraft had a hundred-hour inspection less than two months ago," the TSA man said. "That cable couldn't corrode that fast." Lang was becoming as uncomfortable as his pilot. "Unless?"

The government man shook his head. "Not sure. There was an odor, though, soon as the A amp; E pulled the plate. That's what made him call me over."

"Give me a swag, some wild-ass guess," Lang said evenly.

The TSA man took one look at the anger burning in Lang's eyes, the threat he seemed to express without words, and decided this was a man who wasn't going to accept the usual government-speak nonsense. He made a most ungovernment like decision to exceed his authority. "Can't be sure, but I'd make a personal guess it was some sort of acid."

"Acid?" Lang was puzzled.

Burt, still looking like he might be ill any moment, nodded. Acid eats almost through the cable. Leaves enough connection to respond to the controls during preflight, then snaps."

"And then?" Lang asked.

"Horizontal stabilizer controls altitude, nose up, nose down. If it went out on takeoff, say, we couldn't lift the nose of the plane to get into the air; we'd crash off the end of the runway."

Lang's knowledge of aeronautics was basic at best. "I thought the air speed controlled when the plane left the ground."

"It does, but unless the plane lifts off, it would just increase velocity until it hit something. Even if the horizontal stabilizer held for takeoff, we'd be unable to climb. For that matter, we couldn't lift the nose on landing, either."

Once again, the TSA man beckoned. "Come with me."

Lang guessed he was used to being obeyed.

Lang spoke to Burt. "Make sure she's properly buttoned up, will you?"

''You can count on it."

Lang followed the man to what he guessed were the airport's administrative offices. In one room, six people were watching a television monitor of Lang's hangar. He had not seen the camera. If there was doubt in Lang's mind that they were all some species of cop, the letters on various windbreakers dispelled them: FBI, ATF, US Marshal, Treasury Department. The only departments missing seemed to be Health and Human Services and the IRS.

A woman, middle-aged and probably once attractive, extended a hand with a badge in it. "Sheila Burns, Special Agent, FBI."

All agents-were "Special Agents" unless they were "Special Agent in Charge" or some other derivation. It had been a subject of humor at the Agency. Lang said nothing, waiting for her to continue.

He wasn't disappointed. "An attempt to sabotage your aircraft, Mr. Reilly. That's a federal crime." Her words capitalized the offense. "Just as effective as a bomb, with the added benefit of maybe passing as an accident."

"Any ideas?" a man from the Marshal's Department asked without introduction. Burns silenced him with a glare. Obviously, she was the chief honcho on the investigation.

She asserted her authority by asking, "Know somebody who'd want you or the executives of your foundation dead?"

"No."

She glanced around the room, making sure she was asking the questions Lang knew they had all agreed upon before he got here. He was well familiar with interrogation by committee. "The Holt Foundation was chartered as a charity a little less than a year ago, right?"

Lang had been wrong. The IRS was here, just not in person. That left Health and Human Services.

"That's correct. We fund programs to provide pediatric care in undeveloped countries."

"Do you mind telling us the source of that funding?"

"Our sources are confidential."

Not entirely a lie. The Pegasus organization would hardly want its identity known.

Burns's eyes narrowed, the equivalent of a horse laying its ears back or a dog growling. Law-enforcement agencies assumed that any information withheld was incriminating. Privacy was a bothersome subterfuge of the guilty.

"You know I can find out." Lang gave her a smile with no humor in it. "Be my guest."

The labyrinth of foreign banks, dummy companies, and assumed identities would take an army of accountants to unravel. Well, a regiment at least.

A half hour of evading further questions left the FBI agent frustrated and Lang mentally fatigued. He could have gone on, however. Agency training included aggressive interrogation, a course its students referred to as "creative obfuscation." This woman was a sweetie compared to the instructors under whom Lang had suffered. His training had also included ascertaining exactly what the person asking the questions did and didn't know from the line of inquiry. Same, similar, and re-asked questions made it clear to him that the Feds suspected the foundation was into something other than charity work. Exactly what, he was fairly certain, they had no idea.

She was clearly winding down, asking, "You're a lawyer, right?"

She made it sound like an accusation.

Lang was tired of standing, but he understood asking to sit would be interpreted as a sign he was weakening. Actually, it was a sign his new toe caps hurt. "That's right."

"No wonder we can't get a straight answer," said an anonymous voice from the back of the room. Lawyer-bashing, a sport even government bureaucrats could play.

Special Agent Burns sounded like she had just discovered his darkest secret. She pounced. "So you're used to interrogation procedures."

"That's what lawyers do, ask witnesses questions." There was a snicker from the back of the room that drew a dagger like stare from the FBI woman.

A few more questions and he was told to go, excused like an unruly child from after-school detention. Since no one had a clue as to the source of the attempted sabotage, he, Lang, was the convenient suspect, he was sure, although it was unclear why an extremely wealthy charitable foundation would want to destroy either a multimillion-dollar aircraft or the executives who flew on it.

Lang did have an idea, though he wasn't about to share it. So far, it had no name, no face. But it was linked to Don Huff. First Lang's car, then his foundation's plane. What was next, the thirty-story building in which he lived? Finding Don's killer had become very personal. Personal and a matter of life and death.

Lang's life and death.

Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Delta Crown Room, Concourse B

The next day

Gurt was sipping a beer, her eyes wandering across the crowded room. "Explain again why we are going to Chicago."