“Never heard of it at all until just now.”
“Well he went there a few more times,” Bethany said. “Late October and late November, a couple days each trip, corresponding with the final two entries downstairs in the archives, and then one last trip that doesn’t match an entry. That was in mid-December. I’ve looked back through these statements to the beginning of 1984—that’s as far back as it goes—and there are no other Rum Lake charges. No more of them after these four trips either. So it wasn’t just some getaway he went to all the time, with the dates of his trips just happening to match the Scalar entries. This place was directly tied to Scalar, right at the end.”
“Carrie said he flew somewhere for the meeting,” Paige said. “But it was just one meeting—not four of them separated by weeks.”
“I’m thinking the meeting is just the final trip,” Bethany said, “in mid-December. It makes sense that there’s no index entry for that one downstairs, if he purged the files right when he got back from it. Why create a new file just before you get rid of them all?”
Paige nodded, following the logic.
Bethany minimized the window and opened another. “So for starters I’ll focus on the last trip, and see if I can identify anyone else who showed up in Rum Lake at the same time. I’ll get into the merchant accounts of these places where Peter ran his card, and pull up the rest of the transactions over those days. Maybe some other customer’s info will send up a flag—like if it’s someone who lives in D.C. or works in the intelligence business. Power players, right?”
“That sounds like a lot of digging,” Travis said. He thought of all the card charges that would’ve happened at those businesses during the days in question. Once she had that information, Bethany would need to access personal information on every one of those customers to see who stood out.
“It’ll take time,” Bethany said. “There’s not exactly an app for that. Not until I script one, at least. Give me a few minutes.”
Sixty seconds later the three of them were in the elevator, rising toward B4. Bethany held the tablet computer in one hand while the fingertips of the other flew over its touch-screen. She kept her focus on it even as the doors parted and the three of them stepped out. The open doorway to Defense Control was twenty feet ahead and to the left. Light from its numerous LCD screens bled into the corridor, along with the voices of half a dozen people inside. Paige led the way in.
Defense Control was about the same size as the conference room, though more spacious because its ceiling was twice as high. The flat wall that paralleled the corridor was lined with small equipment cabinets and much larger, semi-portable mainframe computers the size of industrial refrigerators. The far wall was a sweeping half circle, covered floor to ceiling with giant high-definition monitors. Each one carried a live video feed from one of nearly a hundred cameras embedded in the desert above.
Evelyn Rossi, Defense’s ranking officer, paced near the room’s central workstation and spoke into a wireless headset. “Air Force One, I have you at one-seven-zero knots, heading zero-eight-five. Maintain course and descent.”
Evelyn caught Paige’s eye and nodded hello.
“Pilot provided the verification code?” Paige said.
“Yeah.”
Travis let his eyes track over the room’s other workstations, set up to handle less-friendly situations. Technicians sat at or stood near these desks, idle but ready to engage in a hurry. Along with the network of cameras, the desert around Border Town hid one of the world’s most formidable defensive systems, designed to counter both ground and airbased attacks. The most critical ingredient, though, was simply the policy of not allowing unauthorized aircraft anywhere near the place. Even Air Force One had to forgo its usual complement of escort fighters when it visited.
Several of the screens on the curved wall had a visual of the giant aircraft, less than a mile out now, though its details were still vague. Every camera up top was either snug with the ground or raised above it by no more than a foot, which meant that when focused on a distant, nearly ground-level subject, they all looked through curtains of heat-ripples rising off the baked landscape. The effect was present now on every screen in the room, reducing the distant 747 to no more than a shimmering blob with wings.
Evelyn turned to Paige again as if to say something, but stopped herself. She’d noticed something on her desk display. She keyed her headset.
“Air Force One, I have you changing to heading zero-eight-seven. You are outside the glide path. Please acknowledge.”
Her eyes narrowed as she waited for a reply. She didn’t appear to get one.
“Air Force One, acknowledge change of heading. You are not on course for the runway.”