Steve Martini - The Rule of Nine

“A spokesman for the FBI confirmed that James Snyder was the victim of an apparent homicide in Washington, D.C., earlier this summer, but declined further comment, stating that the matter was under investigation by the Metropolitan Police. A spokesperson for the police department confirmed that Bart Snyder had been attempting to assist police in the investigation of his son’s murder, but that at this time police have no credible information concerning any terrorist activities in connection with the case.”

Thorn’s blood ran cold. How in the hell did Bart Snyder get his name? And what else did he know? This was trouble with a capital T. From the tone of the story it sounded as if the cops weren’t taking Snyder seriously, unless they were playing it cool.

It was now Thursday. One thing was clear. If Snyder was planning to go public with further information early next week, Thorn didn’t have much time.

Liquida was smiling from ear to ear as he looked at the tracking data on the laptop computer.

After crawling out from under Madriani’s house and dusting himself off, Liquida went home and retrieved one of the other GPS trackers. This one was called a Lightning Spark Nano. It was highly sensitive and didn’t require an external antenna. You could put it in the glove compartment of a car and track the vehicle anywhere in the world and all you needed was an Internet connection to find it. It ran on a small internal battery that gave it five days of continuous tracking.

Liquida packaged it in a small cardboard box, the kind you might use for a piece of jewelry, and included a short printed note:

Dear Sarah,

This is something I found on my travels. I wanted to send it to you because it may help us keep in touch. Put it in your purse and hang on to it. And don’t tell Harry because I have one coming for him as well, and I want it to be a surprise!!!

Love,

Dad

He wrapped the small box in brown wrapping paper and taped and tied it with cotton twine, but not before he switched on the tracking device. He addressed it to Sarah Madriani at the home address in Coronado, using Madriani’s law office as the return address. Then he hand-carried it to the post office, where he sent it express overnight delivery. Liquida knew it would take longer than that to reach its destination, probably one or two days because of the change of address. But he didn’t care. The battery would still be running by the time it arrived.

He watched the tracking data for three days and when it stopped moving, Liquida knew it had arrived.

The GPS image on the computer showed not only a street map, but a low-level satellite image similar to Google Earth. As he scanned out on the computer to get a smaller scale, he could see that the farmhouse in the satellite photo was located on a rural road just outside a place called Groveport, in the state of Ohio. Express overnight mail from the postal service wasn’t too bad.

The trip to the aviation boneyard in Victorville turned out to be a dead end. Nobody in the office or the shop recognized Thorn from any of the photographs we showed them. It was nearly noon by the time we got back on the highway and headed south toward Arizona.

Joselyn had tried to contact Bart Snyder to see if he had any other information on Thorn and to find out who his source was on the boneyard lead. But she couldn’t get hold of him. Her calls kept ringing through to his voice mail. She left a message along with her cell number.

The trek across the desert turns out to be long, hot, and dry. To top it off, our timing wasn’t good. After two days of hard driving, we reach the outskirts of Tucson on Friday evening. We take a shot and drive out to a place called Evergreen Maintenance. It is the larger of the two airplane boneyards in the Tucson area. According to their Web site, they are a major hub for leasing and sales and are used by federal agencies for some maintenance.

The office is closed, and except for overhead lights in the parking area, the place is dark. The storage area, which we can see in the distance, seems to run for miles. It is loaded with planes, too many to count, all parked neatly under overhead arc lights. An ocean of tall tail rudders with airline logos from around the world stretches toward the horizon as far as I can see. According to the online news articles, we are looking at one of the largest grounded fleets of commercial jetliners in the world. The storage area, runway, and hangars are gated off, locked behind chain-link fencing, all topped off by taut strands of barbed wire. We have no choice but to cool our heels and wait.

Early Monday morning we head back to Evergreen. By the time we reach the parking lot in front of the office, the asphalt is already starting to warm up. The mirrored gleam of polished aluminum airframes in the bright Arizona sunlight is almost too much for the eyes. In daylight, looking at the planes in storage is like staring into a solar collector.

We make for the office and do the routine with several of the employees at the counter. We show them Thorn’s photographs and I give them the spiel. I use my business card and tell them I represent a bank Thorn owed money to and that we are pursuing assets under a court order on the belief that Thorn is purchasing airplanes with bank funds, a loan that was obtained through fraud. We also tell them that he might be using a different name.

The staff in the front office takes a hard look at the photographs, all with the same result. They shake their heads. Nobody recognizes him.

We head back out to the parking lot.

We cross town and head to the second boneyard in Tucson. I’m beginning to think that maybe we’re wasting our time. He may be active again, but Thorn hasn’t come near any of these places.

Herman is wondering if we should even bother to push on to New Mexico if we bomb out at the two shops in Tucson. He tells Joselyn and me that we should take the car and head back to California. He’ll leave his pistol in the trunk of the car and fly on to Kingman in New Mexico, check out the boneyard there, and catch a flight back to California, where we can compare notes.

“Have you heard anything back from your man Snyder?” he asks Joselyn.

“No. Not yet. I left messages on his landline, his cell phone, and sent him a short e-mail from my iPhone. And so far no reply.”

“You called him when, Wednesday morning?” says Herman.

“Whenever we left L.A… Was that Wednesday?”

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” I tell her.

“It’s been five days,” says Herman.

“I know. Maybe he’s busy,” she says.

“Maybe he doesn’t like you anymore,” I tell her. “What did you do, shut him down on a date?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”

Joselyn has the brush out in the backseat, stroking the locks, trying to get the knots out.

“Bad-hair day?” I ask.

“Something like that.”

“Dry air, it splits the ends. Does it to me all the time,” I tell her.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t fret about it. In a few years you won’t have any hair to worry about.”

“Says who?”

“Says that little budding bald spot in the back.”

“What bald spot?”

“In another year the back of your head is going to look like the moon over Miami,” she says.

“You noticed that too,” says Herman. “I was gonna refer him to my barber.”

“Don’t you give her any moral support,” I tell him. “She’s enough trouble on her own.”

“You don’t believe me, check it out with a mirror,” she says. “Better yet, let me take a picture with my cell phone and I’ll post it on the Internet so you can see it.” She leans forward in the backseat and grazes my scalp through the hair with a long feline fingernail. Right there.” She giggles. “You need to start using Rogaine or those few feeble little hairs you use to cover it up are going to die of loneliness pretty soon.”