case, but Lieberman was the only passenger on the plane warranting that
kind of special attention.”
“Why the hell go to all this trouble to kill the Fed chairman?”
Sawyer pulled his coat tighter around him as the cold wind swirled
inside the tent space. “Well, the financial markets took a tremendous
beating when the news broke of Lieberman’s death. The Dow lost almost
twelve hundred points, or about twenty-five percent of its total. In
two days. That makes the Crash of 1929 look like a hiccup. The
overseas markets are being battered too.” Sawyer stared pointedly at
Kaplan. “And wait until news leaks that the plane was sabotaged. That
Lieberman might have been deliberately killed. Who the hell knows what
that will trigger?”
Kaplan’s eyes widened. “Jesus! All that for one guy?”
“Like I said, somebody killed Superman.”
“So you got a lot of potential suspects–foreign governments,
international terrorists, crap like that, right?” Kaplan shook his head
as he contemplated the number of bad people on the increasingly small
sphere they all called home.
Sawyer shrugged. “Let’s just say it’s not going to be your
run-of-the-mill street criminal.”
The two men fell silent and again stared over at the crash site.
They watched the crane’s cable reverse its direction, and within two
minutes a bucket carrying two men appeared above the pit. The crane
swung around and gently rested the bucket on the ground.
The two men clambered out. Sawyer and Kaplan watched with growing
excitement as the pair raced toward them.
The first to arrive was a young man whose white-blond hair partially
obscured a choirboy’s features. In his hand was clenched a plastic
baggie. Inside the baggie was a small, metallic, rectangular object,
heavily charred. The other man lumbered up behind him. He was older,
and his red face and labored breathing spoke of the rarity of his
finding himself racing across wide cornfields.
“I couldn’t believe it,” the younger man almost shouted. “The starboard
wing, or what was left if it, was sitting right on top, pretty much
intact. I guess the left side took the brunt of the explosion with the
full tank. Looks like when the nose burrowed into the ground, it
created an opening slightly larger than the circumference of the
fuselage. When the wings hit the sides of the pit, they crumpled back
and over the fuselage. Damn miracle, if you ask me.”
Kaplan took the baggie and stepped over to the table. “Where’d you find
it?”
“It was attached to the wing’s interior side, right next to the access
panel for the fuel tank. It must have been placed inside the wing on
the inboard side of the starboard engine. I’m not sure what it is, but
I can damn sure tell you it doesn’t belong on a plane.”
“So it was placed to the left of where the wing sheared off?” Kaplan
asked.
“Exactly, Chief. Another couple inches and it would’ve been gone tOO.”
The older man spoke. “From the looks of it, the fuselage shielded the
starboard wing from a good deal of the initial postcrash explosion.
When the sides of the crater collapsed, all the dirt must’ve cut off the
fire almost immediately.” He paused and then added solemnly, “But the
forward section of the cabin’s gone. I mean nothing’s left, like it was
never there.”
Kaplan handed the baggie over to Sawyer. “Do you know what the hell
this is.TM
Sawyer’s face broke into a dark scowl. “Yeah, I do.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Sidney Archer had driven to her office and was now seated at her desk;
her office door was closed and locked. It was a little after eight in
the evening, but she could hear the faint buzz of a fax machine in the
background. She picked up the phone and dialed Kay Vincent’s number at
home.
A man answered.
“Kay Vincent, please. It’s Sidney Archer.”
“Just a minute.”
As Sidney waited, she looked around the confines of her office. A place
normally of deep comfort to her, it looked strangely out of focus. The
diplomas on the wall were hers, but at this moment she could not seem to
remember when or where she had earned them.