Kate said to me, 'Khalil didn't take any personal items from Phil or Peter. Not their passports, not the creds, not even their wallets.'
I opened Gorman's wallet and saw about two hundred dollars in cash and some French francs. I said, 'He didn't take Gorman's money either. He's telling us he has lots of resources in America, and we can keep the money.' I added,
'He's got all the ID and cash he needs, plus his hair is blond by now, and he's a woman.'
'But you'd think he'd take all this as a screw-you gesture. They usually do. They show it to their buddies. Or bosses.'
'The guy's a pro, Kate. He doesn't want to get caught with hard evidence.'
'He took the guns,' she pointed out.
'He needed the guns,' I said.
Kate nodded and put all the items in the attache cases and said, 'These were good guys.'
I could see she was upset, and her upper lip was trembling.
I got on the phone again and called Foster. I said, 'Phil's and Peter's guns and magazines are missing-yeah. But their creds are intact. Also, the EMS guy on board is dead-shot through the head. That's right. The murder weapon was probably one of the missing Clocks.' I gave him a quick update and said, 'Consider the perp armed and real dangerous.' I signed off.
The cabin was getting warm now, and a faint, unpleasant odor was starting to fill the air. I could hear gases escaping from some of the bodies.
Kate had moved back to the cuffed man and was feeling his face and neck. She said, 'He's definitely warmer. He died only about an hour ago, if that.'
I was trying to piece this together, and I had a few pieces in my hands, but some pieces were scattered around the aircraft, and some were back in Libya.
Kate said, 'If he didn't die with everyone else, how did he die?' She pulled open his jacket, but there were no signs of blood. She pushed his head and shoulders forward to check for wounds. The head, which had been resting comfortably against the back of the seat, rolled to the side in a very unnatural way. She rotated the man's head and said, 'His neck is broken.'
Two Port Authority Emergency Service cops came up the spiral stairs into the dome. They looked around, then they looked at Kate and me. One of them asked, 'Who are you?'
'FBI,' Kate replied.
I motioned the guy toward me and said, 'This man here and that guy behind him are Federal agents, and the guy in cuffs is their… was their prisoner. Okay?'
He nodded.
I continued, 'The FBI crime lab people will want photos and the whole nine yards, so let's leave this whole section as it is.'
One of the guys was looking over my shoulder. 'Where's McGill?' He looked at me. 'We lost radio contact. You see an Emergency Service guy up here?'
'No,' I lied. 'Only dead people. Maybe he went downstairs. All right, let's get out of here.'
Kate and I took both attache cases, and we all moved toward the staircase. I asked one of the Emergency Service cops, 'Can this aircraft land itself? Like on autopilot?'
'Yeah… the autopilot would bring it in… but… jeez, you think they were all dead?… yeah… the NO-RAD.'
The two Emergency Service cops started talking a mile a minute. I heard the words NO-RAD, reverse thrusters, toxic fumes, something called the Saudi Scenario, and the name Andy, who I guessed was McGill.
We were all in the open area below, and I said to one of the PA cops, 'Please stand on these stairs and don't let anyone up to the dome until the FBI crime lab comes.'
'I know the drill.'
The curtains to the Coach and First Class section had been tied back, and I could see that the cabin was clear, but people still congregated at the doors on the mobile staircase.
I could feel and hear thumping below my feet, and I knew that the baggage handlers were clearing out the hold. I said to one of the Port Authority police officers, 'Stop the unloading of the baggage, and please get everyone away from the aircraft.'
We entered the First Class compartment, which held only twenty seats, half of which were empty. We did a quick search of the area. Although I wanted to get moving and off this aircraft, we were the only two Feds on the scene-the only two live Feds-and we needed to gather what information we could. As we poked around, Kate said, 'I think Khalil gassed this whole aircraft.'
'It would appear so.'
'He must have had an accomplice who had those two oxygen bottles that we found in the closet.'
'One oxygen, one not.'
'Yes, I understand that.' She looked at me and said, 'I can't believe Phil and Peter are dead… and Khalil… we lost our prisoner.'
'Defector,' I corrected.
She gave me an annoyed look, but said nothing.
It occurred to me that there were a hundred easier ways for a bad guy to slip into the country. But this guy- Asad Khalil-had picked about the most in-your-face-fuck-you way I could imagine. This was one bad dude. And he was loose in America. A lion in the streets. I didn't even want to think what he was going to do next to top this act.
Kate was thinking along similar lines and said, 'Right under our noses. He killed over three hundred people before he even landed.'
We moved out of the First Class compartment into the open area near the spiral staircase. I said to the Port Authority cop I had asked to guard the staircase, 'By the way, what's the Saudi Scenario?'
The guy explained it to Kate and me, and added, 'This is something different. This is a new one.'
Kate and I moved away from the PA cop, and I said to her, 'How about the Dracula Scenario?'
'What do you mean?'
'You know-Count Dracula is in a coffin on a ship from Transylvania to England. His accomplice opens the coffin, and Dracula gets out and sucks the blood of every man on board. The ship comes in by itself, like magic, with all the crew and passengers dead, and Dracula slips off into the peaceful country of England to commit more unholy horrors.' If I were a good Catholic, I would have crossed myself right there and then.
Kate stared at me, wondering, I guess, if I was nuts or in shock. I'm definitely nuts, and I admit to being a little in shock. I mean, I thought I'd seen it all by now, but there are few people on earth who'd seen anything like this, except maybe in war. Actually, this was war.
I looked into the big Coach cabin and saw that the paramedics had talked themselves on board. They were going through the aisles, making pronouncements of death, and neatly tagging each body with a seat and aisle number. Later, each body would be bagged. Tag and bag. What a mess.
I stood near the starboard side door and breathed some fresh air. I had the feeling we were missing something-something of great importance. I asked Kate, 'Should we look through the dome again?'
She contemplated the question and replied, 'I think we gave it a good once-over. Galley, lav, cockpit, closet, cabin, overheads… Forensics will be happy we didn't pollute the scene too much.'
'Yeah…' There was still something I'd forgotten, or maybe overlooked… I thought about the Fed creds and wallets and passports that Khalil didn't take, and although I'd explained that to Kate and to myself, I was beginning to wonder why Khalil didn't take that stuff. Assuming everything he did had a purpose, what was the purpose of doing the opposite of what we'd expect?
I racked my brains, but nothing was clicking.
Kate was looking through one of the attache cases and said to me, 'There doesn't seem to be anything missing here either, not even Khalil's dossier or the crypto sheets, or even our instruction memo from Zach Weber-'
'Wait a minute.'
'What's the matter?'
It was starting to come together. 'He's trying to make us think he's done with us. Mission complete. He wants us to think he's headed into the International Departures building, and he's clean going in there. He wants us to
