The last harrowing minutes aboard the plane had underlined that for him. He’d been in the back with Rudy, in the small, private, windowless, lockable room that the plane had been outfitted with for the precise purpose of transporting individuals like Rudy who were untrustworthy and needed to be contained. Some people might have called it a cell, but no one who had ever been in a real cell would have done so: this one had four big leather chairs that reclined into beds, with basically all the comforts of a very luxurious home readily available. He and Rudy were alone. Rudy was chatty, proud of his exploits and eager to talk about them. One of the reasons Cal personally had been tapped for this job was because of his background in avionic military weapons systems, something he’d studied at the Air Force Academy. He’d been tasked with evaluating Rudy’s claims as to what had happened to Flight 155. His opinion as to the plausibility of Rudy’s story would be included in the oral briefing he would give his employer upon handing Rudy over. He’d been prepared to coax/scare/bully the details out of Rudy, but as it turned out he hadn’t had to do anything but sit there and listen. Among a whole lot of nonessential information, Rudy told him exactly what he was claiming had happened to the plane.
“That Jorgensen guy was the target,” Rudy said. After a hearty meal (the equivalent of a TV dinner zapped in an onboard microwave) and a nap, he kicked back in a chair munching Peanut M&M’s like they guaranteed long life and happiness. Wearing a plaid flannel shirt with chinos, his dark brown hair hanging in an uneven bang across his forehead, he looked as comfortable as if he were sitting in his own living room. During the briefing he’d received before taking off for Kazakhstan, Cal had been given the NTSB report (which basically said that the plane had flown into a mountain for unknown reasons), along with a host of technical information and a dossier on the passengers and crew. On the flight to pick up Rudy, Cal had reviewed that material, and had watched a number of security videos, including one of the passengers passing through security and another of them boarding the plane. He’d done all that as part of his preparation for grilling Rudy later, because in his opinion what Rudy was suggesting had happened to that plane was all but impossible.
Of course, whether to believe Rudy wasn’t his call to make. His job was to get the guy out of Kazakhstan and bring him back to American soil, and add his opinion to all the other opinions and the rest of the material that was being gathered.
“Edward Thomas Jorgensen,” Cal said. He knew precisely whom Rudy was talking about. He’d read the guy’s bio, seen his picture, watched on video as he’d passed through security and boarded the plane. His first impression had been: Special Forces. Then he’d checked and been struck by the paucity of information on the man—no family listed, no employment, no military or criminal record—as well as by something indefinable in the way he carried himself. A constant alertness. An air of expecting trouble.
Cal realized that he recognized it because he moved through the world like that himself: it took one to know one. For those reasons, Cal had flagged him as a person of interest before Rudy ever mentioned him. Not that he meant to share that, or anything else, with Rudy.
His and Rudy’s conversation was strictly one-way.
Cal’s internal radar pinged in response to Rudy’s assertion that Jorgensen had been the target.
“Yeah?” Cal settled more comfortably in his chair and raised a skeptical eyebrow. He’d already learned that skepticism drove Rudy into paroxysms of revelations.
“Jorgensen’s not his real name.” Rudy tossed a couple more Peanut M&M’s into his mouth and crunched. “Steven Carbone. Former DIA, Navy SEAL. Left the military and the US under a cloud. Something about passing secrets. Anyway, after that he did some freelance work for some bad actors. Part of the team that took out Victor Volkov—you know, that Russian billionaire who challenged Putin for the presidency a couple of years ago but got killed in a car accident before the election? Let’s just say that wasn’t no accident. There’s a top-secret investigation going on into that and other murders of Putin opponents in DC right now, and Carbone was on his way to talk to them. Hand them the smoking gun, you might say, in return for a full pardon for anything he might have done in the past. He got whacked before he could.”
“So a whole airplane full of people was taken out to get rid of one guy.” Cal kept the note of skepticism going, although he was starting to get extremely interested in what Rudy was telling him. It meshed with certain rumors he’d heard. That Jorgensen/Carbone was formerly with the Defense Intelligence Agency and a SEAL tracked, too.
“If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t know that Carbone was the target,” Rudy pointed out as he tossed back more M&M’s. “No one would. It’s easy to hide a murder in the middle of a terrible accident with two-hundred-some-odd victims.”
True enough.
Cal got down to the nitty-gritty. “Who did it, and how did they do it?”
Rudy shrugged. “People loyal to Putin. What, I’m supposed to know their names? What I got is how. And I already told your bosses that.”
“Tell me.”
“They hacked the flight controls. Gained access through the plane’s entertainment system, went through a couple of firewalls, and voilà! They got control of the plane. Probably for a few minutes only, but when you’re flying over the Rocky Mountains, losing altitude for a few minutes is all it takes. Boom-pow.” The bag in his hand apparently empty, Rudy turned it upside down, shook it disconsolately, and asked, “Got any more M&M’s?”