Richard Doetsch - The 13th Hour

“No, wouldn’t work,” Nick said. “If word gets out that even one of his security systems failed-you said he’s the chief designer and the CEO-he’d be out of business and under investigation in a heartbeat.”

“True, but the fact that he is here on the day of the robbery…?”

“On the face of it, he’s the inside guy, but there are others, and he is not the murderer.”

“When my people initially looked for Dreyfus, the name came up as being on the 8:30 out of Philly.”

“You said he got his car at 8:35. That doesn’t make sense,” Nick said.

“I know, but this is what makes things even odder. The Dreyfus on the plane was Sam Dreyfus, his brother. The flight got into Westchester at 10:10 this morning.”

“Brothers working together.”

“So one brother preps everything, picks up the other, they do the job and spend the next several hours erasing their tracks-”

“And killing Julia,” Nick somberly added.

“I’ll bet you the two thousand dollars that Mitch owes me that they were going to fly out of here tonight after killing her. But that’s not going to happen. Is it?” Marcus said with a smile. “’Cause Julia is going to be fine, she’s going to live.”

“Thanks,” Nick said.

“Don’t say thanks. It’s a fact.” Marcus nodded strongly. “You know, you’ve got the names of the Dreyfus brothers, you’ve got a picture of one of them, you’ve got a picture of one of the thieves who broke into Hennicot’s place. If I were you, I’d go to the police with it. Tell them about the robbery, tell them you’re sure they’re after Julia, let them start an investigation while you look separately.”

Nick smiled. “Do me a favor?”

“Another favor? Boy are you going to owe me.”

“Write yourself a note.”

“What, why?”

“Because I still need your help.”

“I’m not going to stop helping you. I’m not going to give up on you.”

“I know.” Nick smiled, glad to have a friend in Marcus. “But when I see you again, it will be a few hours earlier, you won’t remember any of this. And I can’t go through the hell of convincing you again.”

“This is nuts.” Marcus quickly reached into his desk and pulled out a sheet of his personal stationery.

“Be sure to write things only you would know.” Nick said. “If it’s something I know about you, or something obvious, you won’t be convinced.”

“Dear Me,” Marcus said with half a chuckle before growing serious. He wrote quickly, finishing in less than two minutes. He signed the letter, reached into his desk drawer, and pulled out a corporate seal. He slipped it over his signature, squeezing the handle and embossing the quickly written note.

“The raised seal on my signature is my personal seal,” Marcus said. “No one has it. I only use it on corporate documents and only over my signature to verify its validity in transactions. There is only one such seal in existence.”

Marcus folded the note, pulled out an envelope, and slipped it inside.

“Wait a minute,” Marcus said as he spun around to his computer. He clicked on the Internet and pulled up the Wall Street Journal home page. The main headline was all about the crash of Flight 502, and next to it was the financial information on the daily closing numbers for the DOW, the S &P 500, the Russell Index, and the ten-year Treasury, while below were the latest financial headlines. He quickly hit print, grabbed the printout and stuffed it into the envelope.

“If I’m going to tell myself about the future, I might as well give some proof that has profit potential,” Marcus said with a smile as he sealed the envelope and quickly addressed it to himself.

“I’m going to think both you and I are crazy when I read this,” Marcus said as he handed the letter to Nick, who slipped it in the inside pocket of his sport coat.

“As long as it’s convincing, I don’t care what you think.”

Nick looked at his watch: 4:59.

“I need you to get Julia out of here,” Nick said. “Promise me, you’ll take care of her.”

“Hey, it’s me,” Marcus said, trying to reassure him.

“And if something should happen to me…”

“If anything happens to you, I’ll raise an army to find the bastards and they’ll regret every breath they ever took.”

Nick smiled, his eyes filled with appreciation for his friend, and walked out of the library. He went across the foyer and quickly through the front door.

Marcus caught sight of Nick through the bay window walking across the long side yard to his house. He suddenly thought of something and ran out behind him, ripping open the front door. “Hey, what about…?”

But the long side yard, the expansive field between their homes, was empty.

Nick was gone as if he had vanished into thin air.

3:00 P.M.

SULLIVAN FIELD WAS A large stretch of land two miles outside the center of town. A mix of various sporting fields, it had been donated to the town by International Data Systems six years earlier in exchange for generous real estate tax incentives for their sprawling headquarters nearby. They not only provided the land but hired the architects, construction crews, and landscapers to build one of the best public sporting facilities in the state whose sole purpose was to provide a venue for the athletic endeavors, passions, and entertainment of school-age children.

There were baseball fields with dugouts and bleachers, soccer and lacrosse fields, tennis and basketball courts. There were football fields, a full track, an outdoor hockey rink that was open November through March. There was a central building with lockers, bathrooms, and a nursery for young children whose parents wanted to watch their older siblings kick, smack, or just throw a ball around.

The grass was as good as that of golf course, with a full sprinkler system throughout, while landscaping crews saw to the upkeep of lush bushes and flowers that ran about the perimeter.

The fields lay just two miles northwest of the airport and provided a perfect vantage point from which to watch the planes coming and going on their daily journeys to and from Westchester Airport.

Finding a silver lining to a tragic event, an incident involving the deaths of 212 people, would seem an impossibility, except that it was a Friday in summer. School was out. The local camp was on the other side of town. The fields were mercifully vacant as eighty tons of jet slammed into the soccer fields, cratering a hole ten feet deep, the devastation of the tumbling and twisting aircraft dragging on for half a mile through the baseball diamonds and the football fields, finally stopping a quarter mile short of the locker facilities.

Intended for far more joyous purposes, that building had become the staging area for the recovery and cleanup effort of Flight 502.

Fire trucks from all over the county formed a wagon train-like corral around the wreckage. Thousands of gallons of water steamed off the still-hot, smoldering ground. Firemen sat on the running boards of their trucks physically and emotionally exhausted from their efforts, devastated that all their actions couldn’t save a single life.

A small contingent of National Guard stood watch over the site, never having imagined their stateside service would entail such tragedy.

The plane had been torn to shreds, as if some creature had sunk its teeth into a soda can and ripped it apart. The white tail section seemed to rise out of the ground at the edge of the woods, the North East Air logo unblemished by the flames, its registration number, N95301, still legible. It was the only piece that would give any indication that the objects in this debris field had once been part of a passenger jet.