Virginia, this guy was alive and kicking in Seattle. “Jesus H. Christ!”
he exclaimed again.
Hardy nodded. “That’s right. Jason Archer was listed as a passenger on
Flight 3223. But he obviously wasn’t on the flight.”
Hardy let the tape run. When the roar of the plane erupted on its sound
track, Sawyer jerked his head to the window. The damn thing sounded
like it was coming right at them. When he looked back at Hardy, his
friend was smiling.
“I did the same thing when I heard it for the first time.”
Sawyer watched as the men on the screen looked skyward until the sound
of the plane in the background drifted away. Sawyer squinted at the
screen. Something caught his eye; he just couldn’t put his finger on
it.
Hardy was watching him closely. “See something?”
Sawyer finally shook his head. “Okay, what was Archer doing in Seattle
on the morning of the Virginia crash if he was supposed to be on a plane
to L.A.? Company business?”
“Triton didn’t even know Archer was gong to L.A., much less Seattle.
They thought he was taking some time off to spend at home with his
family.”
Sawyer narrowed his eyes, searching his memory. “Help me out here,
Frank.”
Hardy’s answer was prompt. “Archer has a wife and young daughter.
His wife, Sidney, is an attorney at Tyler, Stone, Triton’s lead outside
counsel. The wife works on a number of Triton’s business matters,
including heading up Triton’s pursuit of CyberCom.”
“That’s real interesting, and maybe convenient for her and her husband.”
“Gotta admit, that’s the first thought that struck me, Lee.”
“If Archer was in Seattle by, say, ten or ten-thirty in the morning,
Pacific time, he must’ve grabbed an early morning flight from D.C.”
“Western Airlines had one leaving about the same time as the L.A.
departure.”
Sawyer stood up and walked over to the TV screen. He rewound the tape
and then froze it. He scrutinized every detail of Jason Archer’s face,
burning it into his memory. He turned to Hardy. “We know Archer was on
Flight 322Ys passenger manifest, but you say his employer didn’t know
about the trip. How’d they find out he was on the plane? Supposedly
was,” Sawyer corrected himself.
Hardy poured out some more coffee and stood up, moved over to the
window. Both men seemed innately to crave movement while thinking.
“Airline tracks down the wife while she’s on a business trip to New York
and tells her the bad news. At that meeting are a bunch of people from
Triton, including the chairman. They find out then. Pretty soon
everyone knew. This videotape has only been shown to two other people:
Nathan Gamble, the chairman of the board of Triton, and Quentin Rowe,
the second-in-command over there.”
Sawyer rubbed a kink out of his neck, picked up the fresh cup of coffee
and took a gulp. “Western confirmed that he checked in at the ticket
counter and that his boarding pass was collected. They wouldn’t have
informed his family otherwise.”
“You know as well as I do that it could’ve been anyone checking in there
using a dummy I.D. The tickets were probably paid for ahead of time. He
checks a bag, goes through security. Even with the FAA’s recent
heightened security requirements, they don’t require photo
identification to board a plane, only at check-in or with the skycaps.”
“But somebody got on the plane in Archer’s place. The airline has his
boarding pass, and once on, you do not get off an aircraft.”
“Whoever it was, was one very stupid or one very unlucky sonofabitch.
Probably both.”
“Right, but if Archer was on that Seattle flight, that means he had
another ticket.”
“He could’ve checked in twice, once for each flight. He could have used
an alias and dummy I.D. for the Seattle flight.”
“That’s true.” Sawyer pondered the possibilities. “Or he could’re
simply switched tickets with the guy who took his place.”
“Whatever the truth is, you’ve certainly got your work cut out for you.”
Sawyer fingered his coffee mug. “Anyone talk ro the wife?”
In response, Hardy opened the file he had carried in with him.
“Nathan Gamble did, briefly, on two occasions. Quentin Rowe also talked