Rick Mofina - Free Fall

The hinge creaked as he opened the door.

“May I see your identification, please?”

After Kate and Devon held up their Newslead photo IDs, he nodded.

“Okay, come in,” he said. “Don’t mind the dark. My mother’s sensitive to the light. She’s ill, asleep in her room.”

The air smelled of muscle ointment, baby powder and onions. They passed through the kitchen, where empty pizza boxes were stacked neatly in the corner. Plates, utensils, glasses and mugs had dried on the dish rack near the sink.

“This way.” Malcolm led them into a living room, which was cluttered with a walker, a wheelchair and medical oxygen tanks. A flat-screen TV topped a shelf in front of two sofa chairs. A large desk with a computer filled one side of the room, and the other side held two large metal file cabinets and a credenza overflowing with files. Next to it was a bookcase, stuffed and overflowing with books stacked upon books.

Malcolm sat in the leather high-back chair behind his desk. Devon sat in a sofa chair, and Kate took another small cushioned chair near the desk and surveyed the bookcase. She saw books about conspiracies regarding Roswell, the Kennedy assassination, 9/11, and several titles questioning the lunar landing. When she spotted a ball cap lined with tinfoil she had to force herself not to groan.

Oh my God, he’s a lunatic!

Kate turned and saw that Malcolm had seen what she was looking at.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said.

“No,” Kate said, “I just-”

“Your face doesn’t lie, Ms. Page.”

“Forgive me, I just-”

“It’s understandable, given my appearance, and the fact I’m living here, taking care of my ailing mother. I’m sure I fit the stereotype of a nut, by your definition.”

“I’m sorry, Malcolm. I mean, the hat and the books…”

He arranged the files on his desk.

“I have worked from time to time as a private subcontractor on classified government projects to help pay the bills. I’m not a nut job. I have a master’s degree in astrophysics. I don’t adhere to conspiracy theories, I debunk them. Much like you, I adhere to facts and use them to convey the truth. I lead a small group of investigators and we have a website.”

“I apologize. On the phone you’d called yourself an underground activist.”

“That’s right. We blow away myths and conspiracy theories with the goal of letting the public know the truth about what governments are up to.”

“Are those files-” Kate indicated the desk “-Overlord files?”

“They are. First, a primer. Yes, as your story correctly notes, shortly after 9/11, the president promised technology to land troubled planes safely by remote control.”

“And some airlines got patents for it?”

“Back things up. With Overlord, the government worked with defense and airline experts to develop the technology known as the Unhindered Autopilot System.”

“Right, so what happened?”

“Well most people know that variations of the technology exist. Drones can be operated remotely. Test flights in rocketry can be detonated remotely over the ocean. We’ve even seen the remote-control flight of jetliners by safety experts testing them for crash landings and other research.”

“So where does Overlord come into the picture?”

“It was developed and was set to be applied but a number of issues arose. You touched on them when you were on CTNB. Some experts were skeptical about how well it would work. Pilots were concerned, security officials were concerned, so it was never ever applied.”

“Then what? I know much of this.”

“Well, there were reports. A number of top secret reports that showed Overlord was flawed, that it was susceptible to outside attack, raising the real possibility of remote-control hijackings of commercial passenger jets.”

“Do you have copies of those reports?”

“I do. However, more recently, there have been rumors and theories flying around the contractor community about Overlord. Consequently, copies of classified documents have been coming to me from my sources.”

“What sort of rumors?”

“Well, first there was the fear that Overlord technology had been leaked, and had made its way to North Korea, which might work in concert with Middle East extremist groups to hijack and destroy airliners.”

“Damn,” Devon said.

“We’ve found nothing to substantiate that, and trust me, we looked hard into that one. But as we did, another new thread emerged. Turns out one of the experts who’d worked on Overlord was an engineer with Richlon-Titan who pioneered the fly-by-wire system used in its aircraft and airliners around the world.”

“The London and New York planes had RT systems.”

“Correct. According to the rumors, this engineer had issues with the vulnerability of RT’s systems. He had a profound disagreement with his corporation just before he suffered a terrible personal tragedy where his wife was killed, resulting in him having a breakdown, losing his position and dropping out of sight. We think he’s the primary suspect for what’s happened, that maybe he’s acting on a vendetta.”

“If that’s the case, why not inform the FBI?”

“I told you, some of my documentation is classified. I could face charges for simply possessing it.”

“What are your facts?” Kate asked.

“We’re still working on them, but I can show you this.”

“Munro!” A faint woman’s voice called, interrupting. “I’m thirsty.”

“Coming, Mother!” He looked at Kate. “I expect you did your homework on our address and know our family name is Carlson. Excuse me.” He went to the kitchen, and Kate heard him fill a glass and take it to another room, where he murmured soothing words before returning. “Now, here.” He positioned a number of files on the desk for Kate to look at.

Kate moved closer to see.

“Here you have a list of names of experts who worked on Overlord. Don’t ask how I got these records. And here are a number of photos of the various teams, including the man I noted from Richlon-Titan.”

“Who is he?”

He tapped a finger on the man identified as Robert Cole.

“This man, Robert Cole-he’s one of the world’s leading experts on flight systems. If I were looking into what happened to the New York and London planes, I’d consider Robert Cole a suspect.”

California

Ten minutes after they’d left the house, Kate still felt adrenaline pumping through her.

Munro Carlson, aka Malcolm Grady, had just given her what could be the biggest break in the story so far-Zarathustra’s identity.

Robert Cole.

Her challenge was to verify Cole’s identity and find him.

“That was wild, Kate. Even if half of what that supernerd told you is true, you’ve got a huge story,” Devon said, settling into a booth at the diner they’d driven to. He indicated the fat envelope of Overlord records Kate had set on the table. “It’s like the story with that NSA contractor who leaked stuff a few years ago.”

Kate fanned through the documents, stopping to study the stamps reading “Classified” and “Secret” on pages. They looked authentic to her but she needed confirmation. It had taken some doing but Carlson had agreed to give her copies of the records as promised, and had agreed to let Devon shoot him in shadow, obscuring his face, while Kate continually assured him his identity would be protected. In exchange, Carlson wanted Kate to say in her story that his anonymous blog, Exposita Veritate , Latin for “exposing the truth,” had been the first to raise the question of an Overlord and Robert Cole connection to the London and New York cases.