don't know why, but I don't like it.'
'We kill that story,' Martin said, 'and we look ridiculous.'
'We leave it in for the full run, and we look even worse. We look negligent.'
I explained my half-formed fears to him in greater detail.
There was a silence before Martin said, 'I'll do what I can.'
It was a long ride down to the airport, and an even longer walk to my room in the miserable airport hotel where I was forced to spend the night because I had missed the last flight. It all gave me just enough time to convince myself that by completely fucking up, perhaps I learned something about this story far more valuable than anything I previously had.
Tuesday, October 31
When I awoke the next morning, Tuesday morning, I was a jumble of uncharacteristic nerves. In reporting, rare were the times I screwed up, and rare were the stories when I was so dependent on any one person. But here, all my actions were geared toward getting a call from an elderly gentleman who was out of my control. I couldn't help but wonder if he read the version of the Boston Record with my story or without it.
For these reasons, the flight back to Washington seemed arduously long, even with another soft leather seat up in first class. From the airport, as they announced the final boarding, I called my message services at home and work for the third time of the morning, and it wasn't yet 9:00 A.m. Nothing. My pager sounded, and I fairly jumped through the ceiling of the USAIRWAYS Club. 'Jack,' the message scrolled across my Skytel. 'Have important new information. Need to discuss tonight. University Club at eight? I'll buy. Steve.'
I shook my head. It's 6:00 A.m. in DC, and Havlicek was already working the story. Maybe the source called him because he couldn't reach me. I picked up a telephone and belted out Havlicek's number at the bureau, but got no answer, so I left a message saying eight was fine. What could he have?
My only other wish of the morning came true: the seat beside me was vacant, meaning I was at no risk of having a chatterbox salesman spend the next six hours discussing the critical advantages of spreadsheet software for personal accounting. I admit, I'm not much of a good sport on airplanes. I don't make small talk with seatmates, and I don't encourage those who do. Only once do I remember really liking someone I met on a plane. He was an airport fireman, and taking off from Logan in Boston on a late-night flight to Las Vegas, he pointed out for me all the different spots on and around the runways where there had been, in his words, 'aviation mishaps.' 'Look over there,'
he said, pointing his finger against the dark windows at something I couldn't see. 'World Airways jet overshot the runway and slammed into a stone wall. Two dead, father and son. They were sitting in the front of the plane, just like we are. Assume their bodies fell into the harbor, and they probably were carried out to sea.' Absolutely riveting.
I ordered the Sonoma chicken, having absolutely no idea what it would be, and opted for water instead of wine, assuming there might well be work to be done when the plane landed on the other end. Try as I might, with a book, computer hearts, the new November issue of Attach'e magazine, I couldn't shake the questions: Had he called? Would he call? Was he real? What did he have? Is this, I wondered, what it is like to be a woman?
Ends up, the chicken was a smart move. Everyone who ordered the fish seemed to be sick as a dog, and I don't mean a nice purebred dog, like Baker, but some mangy thing with matted-down fur and funny ears, constantly picking up ticks.
A doctor came wandering up from coach to first class to make the rounds. He announced that they had apparently contracted a minor case of food poisoning and that life would go on, just not as well as if they had ordered the chicken. None of this seemed to alleviate any of the pain. The guy in front of me was groaning and moving about in his seat. I had to just get up and get out of there. Mother Teresa I am not. So I headed for the back of the plane on my usual walk. When I pushed through the curtain, everyone seemed so calm, so fresh. They had eaten these meager little boxed lunches-salads with three pieces of lettuce and a chunk of a tomato, a microscopic sliver of cheese lasagna, a hard chocolate chip cookie-and now they were fine. I wondered if this might all be the start of the revolution, right here on US Airways Flight 906. No time, though, for a revolution. I had a story to break.
I dawdled. I chatted with the stewardesses back in the galley, wondering if I sounded like the moronic middle-aged executives who always seem to get such a charge out of engaging the flight attendants.
I probably did, but they didn't seem to mind. We traded hotel stories from Seattle.
'My fucking toilet wouldn't flush at two this morning,' the blonde said.
My goodness. Such a pretty woman; such a tart mouth. I found myself pleasantly aroused as I made my way back up the aisle toward our mile-high version of Chicago Hope.
As I settled back into my seat, several people around me were clutching their stomachs. The captain had come out of the cockpit and announced to them that he could land the plane in Kansas City if the passengers thought this was necessary, or he could carry on through to Philadelphia. The doctor advised them to keep going, saying that the airport wouldn't provide much more relief than this airplane, and that the sickness would pass in a short time anyway. I suspect he had a golf game back east the next morning that he didn't want to miss.
As I leaned toward the seat pocket for a book, I felt something crinkle beneath me. I reached behind my back and pulled out a single sheet of white paper, folded three ways, with my name written across it, by hand. This had an odd feeling of deja vu, as I flashed back to that restaurant in Georgetown. I shot looks all around me to see if I could catch anyone watching me, however discreetly. Nothing. The woman across the aisle was sound asleep. All the other people within view appeared consumed by pain.
I gingerly opened the sheet up and saw just a few lines of perfect penmanship. 'Dear Mr. Flynn,' it began. 'You are on the right track.
I am here to help you. I will be in touch in the next couple of days to guide you. Do not believe what they tell you. The would-be assassin is not Tony Clawson.'
Jesus mother of holy Christ. My informant was right here on the plane.
I was within a few yards of him. Quickly I stood up and flagged a flight attendant hurrying by. I didn't have the time or inclination to be coy.
'Ma'am, did you happen to see the person who dropped this paper on my seat?' I asked, as I held up the folded-up note.
She couldn't have cared less. She said, 'No, I'm sorry, we've been really busy,' as she pushed past me. I scanned everyone's face around me, looking for some reaction. I got none. Then I stared at the sleeping woman across the aisle. Had she been there at the beginning of the flight? I couldn't be sure. Maybe she delivered the note, but wasn't the actual informant. I bore into her with my eyes, looking to see if she was faking, if this sleep was an act. But I couldn't see so much as a flutter of her eyes.
Clutching the note, I walked down the aisle into coach, determined, hoping to spook the writer into some sort of mistake. I looked around hard at virtually everyone, focusing even harder on the few older men.
One man sat by the window doing a crossword puzzle, still wearing a blue blazer in his cramped seat. He looked proper enough to be my voice, so I stopped and stared at him. Eventually, he looked up at me and stared back. Our eyes were locked on each other when he asked,
'Can I help you?'
It was a completely different voice than the one I had heard on the telephone. 'My mistake,' I said. 'I thought I might know you.'
I returned to the front, slumped down into my seat, and read the note again. The writer had repeated, generally, what the voice had told me before: 'Do not believe what they tell you.' Far more important were the first and last parts of the message. I was on the right track, this story would get much bigger, and finally, a piece of concrete information: the assassin was not who the FBI said he was. I would be contacted in a couple of days. Obviously, this guy meant business.
Either he was on the plane, or an emissary was, at no small expense.
He had followed me across the country. He watched me diligently, waiting for me to get up out of my seat so he could drop this. And then he sat back, immune to my desperate, silent appeals for help. Was this some sort of game to him? Was he just having fun? What was the point of catching me midflight, of not waiting until I was on the ground? Did he just want to show me how serious he was? And had he already read the story I had in the
