Gate 76 Read online

  One thing about these small-time crooks who can’t think past a quick scam: they feel sorry for themselves. And it makes them feel a whole lot better when they meet a guy whose life is worse than theirs.

  So he told me about the neighborhood and the schools, and I kept slipping in complaints about how tough things were at home, and how I was everybody’s doormat. “I got a crappy maintenance job with Metro. I can barely afford to ride the buses I clean. And now my wife can’t work. She’s cranky as hell, throwing up every morning, and all of a sudden everything is my goddamn fault.”

  That got him. His wife never stopped being a bitch after the first three months of pregnancy. And that was six years ago. “You think money’s tight now, wait’ll your kid starts going to the dentist.”

  I let him go on for a while, and he had plenty to say, whining about all the projects his wife had him working on around the house. He said he had carried a new toilet into the house the day before, because he wasn’t going to pay no damn plumber a hundred and ten dollars to install the thing. He had also been up on a ladder, cleaning the gutters, because the Salvadorans wanted fifty dollars to do it, and screw them. Those shiftless drunks can go clean gutters in Potomac for that kind of money.

  He seemed lonely, like no one had listened to him for a long time, and he was trying to get it all out now, while he had an audience.

  I was recording the conversation on the phone inside my jacket. Not that we could use the recording in court, but it would make a good threat, and give me details to follow up on later. I gave the audio and the video to the insurance company’s lawyer, who confronted him with it and threatened him with criminal fraud. He dropped the case, and they let him know they’d come after him if he ever bothered them again.

  That’s how it goes. Tomorrow, some other smart-ass will come along and try the same scam. Like no one ever thought of it before and the insurance companies aren’t wise to it. For every dumbass you meet in this business, there are ten more waiting to crawl out of the woodwork. Stick around long enough, you’ll get to meet them too. After a while, you can’t tell one from the next. They all just merge into one universal loser.

  I met Ed, formally, about a week after the interview with Mr. Whiplash, in the lobby of a building in Bethesda. The lawyers who kept me busy had offices on the third floor. The ones who kept him busy worked in DC, on bigger stuff. Ed told me the woman who rear-ended my insurance cheat broke her nose when the airbag popped out. She was rich and pretty, and a broken nose to a woman like that is unforgivable. Her husband was a big shot, paranoid and vindictive. He was a client of Baker/Watson, and wanted Ed to look into the guy. Was he sent by someone? Was he a stalker? A blackmailer? You get to a certain level of wealth and power, and you can no longer understand how small some people think. You just can’t believe that some loser in Rockville was only after a few thousand bucks. Mr. Whiplash picked the rich woman’s car because it was a Mercedes and looked well insured. That’s all there was to it. Ed reached the same conclusion as me. The guy in the cinder-block house wasn’t part of any larger conspiracy, and he wasn’t worth worrying about.

  “I was surprised how you got him talking,” Ed said.

  “It wasn’t hard. He wouldn’t have opened up to you though. You’re too imposing. You look like the law.”

  “Yeah, I know it,” Ed said. “But it works in my favor when I need it to.” Then he said, “You know, I took you for a heavy. An enforcer type. Thought maybe you’d try to beat something out of him.”

  “In the old days, I might have.”

  Ed laughed. “The old days? You must be talking about grade school. You can’t be over thirty.”

  “In the old days,” I repeated, “I used to almost make a living beating the crap out of people.”

  He said, “Well it’s a good skill to have, long as you know there are better ways to do your job. Who are you working for?”

  “A place up in Rockville.”

  “You interested in something more challenging?”

  “Well I don’t need to spend my life jacking with these small-time assholes. You only have to meet two or three like that before you’re sick of them.”

  “Well I can introduce you to some big-time assholes,” he said. “They have lots of money and lots of problems.”

  That’s how we got started. Since then, we’ve done a lot of corporate work. A company thinks someone’s embezzling, taking bribes, selling trade secrets, they call us in. Sometimes they want us to investigate their own executives. Is he racking up gambling debts, having affairs, or being blackmailed? Sometimes they want us to get off-the-record info about a company they’re about to acquire. That’s part of due diligence.

  DC has a few specialties of its own. If it’s a government contractor putting in a bid proposal, and they think they can dig up something to disqualify a competitor, they’ll set us on the case. If a political party wants to back a candidate, they ask us to dig up dirt on him before the press does.

  In general, the white-collar criminals are craftier than the small-time cheats. They take a longer view of their work and put more thought into covering their tracks. It took me a while to get used to working in that world. But here I am.

  The airline VP starts pacing again. “A year ago,” he says, “one of our ticket agents at LAX raped his coworker on the job, in the office behind the main ticket counter. The guy had a record of sexual assault. We didn’t know that, but a jury said we should have. He had applied for the job under his brother’s name, with his brother’s social security card and license. The victim’s lawyers figured that out. It cost us a million and a half to settle that case and keep it quiet.

  “Four months later,” he says, “one of our flight attendants assaulted a passenger on a flight to Atlanta. Another passenger filmed the incident. You might have seen it on YouTube. Turns out our flight attendant had a drug problem and was seeing a counselor about bipolar disorder. We knew none of this until we got the results of a failed drug test three days after the incident. That was another lawsuit and some very bad publicity.”

  He stops pacing and looks over at Bill Watson, who’s calmly twiddling his thumbs on top of his big fat belly. “Two months ago,” the airline VP says, “we found out one of our baggage handlers in Chicago was responsible for a series of thefts that resulted in our insurer paying out over $200,000 in claims. This guy was taking things from people’s bags and giving some of it to his supervisor to keep him from reporting it. The baggage handler had a couple of misdemeanor charges on his record. All of them had been dropped and were more than ten years old when he completed his job application. So we let them slide.

  “Our insurer has not been happy about any of this. We’ve had three strikes in the past twelve months, and two of them resulted in costly lawsuits. Yesterday, one hundred and eighty-eight people died, including eight airline employees.”

  He looks at Ed and says, “You know what the average payout is for an individual death in an air crash if it results from the airline’s negligence?”

  Ed shakes his head.

  “It’s around three million dollars,” Bill Watson says.

  “And if it was gross negligence,” the VP says, “like allowing an obvious security threat to load bags onto your plane?”

  “Wait,” says Ed. “Are you talking about Obasanjo? Why is he an obvious threat?”

  “He’s not,” Bill Watson says. “But in a courtroom, it’s easy for a lawyer to paint him as one.”

  Watson gives us some background on Rashad Obasanjo. He’s twenty-two years old. He’s from a rough neighborhood in Oakland. His father emigrated from Nigeria in the 1980s. His mother and his maternal grandmother were both members of the Nation of Islam. The guy posts on Facebook and Twitter almost daily about his faith. You can play that up in court as him being radical or him being devout.

  “And it could play either way in the media,” the VP says. “Our PR guys are trying to figure out how to spin this o
ne. But when it comes right down to it, people will see in him exactly what they want to see.”

  Bill Watson cuts in and says, “The airline disciplined Obasanjo once this year after he got in an argument with a coworker about praying on the job. The coworker said passengers don’t want to see terrorists bowing down anywhere near an airport. That set the kid off on a tirade.”

  Then Watson leans forward in his chair and adds, “Obasanjo also had a criminal trial last year on a battery charge. He claimed self-defense, refused a plea bargain, and was acquitted. You know the media will pick that up. They’re going to be asking why the airline kept him in a position with access to planes and baggage.”

  The airline VP goes back to the money. “So three million per person for negligence, and a lot more for what plaintiffs’ lawyers can easily portray as gross negligence. Then throw in some hot-button political issues, like a Muslim killing Christians. A black guy killing white people. No offense, Ed.”

  “I understand how the country works,” Ed says.

  “Most of those passengers were white, you know. Throw that to a white, middle-class jury and what’s a death worth then? Ten million? Now multiply that by one hundred and eighty-eight bodies. We could be on the hook for close to two billion dollars, and that’s enough to put us under.”

  “But if your guy did it…” Ed says.

  The VP lets out a long breath and shakes his head. “Everyone who worked with the guy says he couldn’t have done it. He just wasn’t the type.”

  Bill Watson says, “Isn’t that what the friends of most terror suspects say?”

  “Look,” says the VP, “to be honest, I don’t even care about the kid. I do care about two billion dollars. We’re going to proceed on two fronts. First, we examine all other possible suspects. The best outcome for us is if someone else did this. Second, we want ears inside the government’s investigation because, frankly, it doesn’t look good. We want you, Ed, in San Francisco talking to the investigators. Work your connections in the FBI, pull every bit of information you can out of them, and pass it back to our legal team so they can prepare.”

  I can see Ed doesn’t like this. He let out a little breath just now, and his shoulders sagged. I don’t think Watson or the VP picked up on it. You wouldn’t notice unless you knew Ed well. But I know he does not like to call in favors from any of his friends within the Bureau unless it’s absolutely necessary. He’s opposed on principal to agents releasing information outside of official channels. But his face shows none of the discomfort that I know he’s feeling.

  Bill Watson says the legal team in San Francisco has already assembled to discuss strategy. “Your plane leaves from Dulles in three hours,” Watson says. “So go pack a bag, get out there, and pull every detail you can from everyone you know.”

  “And me?” I ask.

  “You’re on desk duty,” Watson says. “The passenger list from the Hawaii flight is in your inbox. You and Bethany and Leon go through it name by name. If anything catches your interest, pass it along to the FBI.”

  “Seriously? You want us doing background checks? What are we going to find that the FBI can’t dig up in five minutes?”

  The airline VP says, “Something, we hope.” He’s standing in front of the window with his arms folded across his chest and a big frown on his face. “With that much money on the line, somebody better find something.”

  “All right,” I say. “We’ll go through the list.”

  This is not the kind of work I like. Sitting at a computer all day bores the hell out of me. And with 188 people to look into, I’ll be at my desk for three weeks.

  The VP says to Ed, “Your ticket’s waiting at the check-in counter at Dulles. We’ll send an email with the names of your contacts in San Francisco.”

  I say, “Hey, Bill—” I want to tell him about that blonde in the security line.

  “You mind excusing us?” Watson says and gets up from his desk to walk us out.

  Ed gets up and slides his legal pad into his shoulder bag. He looks at me and says, “You ready?”

  “Bill,” I say. “I was in San Francisco yesterday. I was at the airport—”

  He goes right by me and opens the office door and says, “Strange, huh? Being that close to something like that. Makes you wonder—what if it had been you?”

  “Listen though—”

  “We can talk later,” Watson says. “I need some time in private with this guy.”

  He shuts the door.

  Ed’s already on his phone, talking to someone at the Bureau, saying he’ll be in San Francisco later in the day.

  “Ed,” I say. He looks at me and shakes his head. Then he says into the phone, “Let us know who our guys should contact if their background checks turn up any leads.”

  He’s still on the phone as we leave the building. The thing is glued to his ear as he gets into a cab on Connecticut Avenue.

  “Ed,” I say.

  He nods and says, “Later, Freddy.” Then he shuts the door and off he goes.

  I stand there for a second watching the cab roll down the street. Then I pull out my phone and check my email. I open the message with the passenger list and find the email address of our contact at the airline. I type out a quick message asking for any other documents related to the Hawaii flight, as well as the passenger list for the Chicago flight that left a few minutes later. And if you can get any footage from the security lines before the Hawaii flight boarded, send that too.

  3

  At 7:40 a.m., I’m in the gym trying to work off some frustration. The TV in the corner above the weight rack keeps showing that cell phone video of the plane breaking up over Santa Cruz. The skinny kid who’s in here every morning trying to build his muscles, who follows me around like a stray dog, is sitting on a weight bench staring up at the screen. He asks me what I think of the crash. I tell him I don’t like it.

  Seriously, what kind of question is that? What does he think I think of it?

  This kid hit the heavy bag all wrong when he first came in here a few weeks ago. I had to stop in the middle of my sit-ups and correct him.

  “Straighten your wrists when you punch! What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  I showed him how to do it. I could tell he’s the kind that gets picked on—a sensitive-looking kid with too much soul in his eyes and not enough meat on his bones. He comes in before school trying to bulk up, but it’s not working. I showed him how to wrap his hands so he doesn’t break them when he punches. I should have let him learn the hard way. Now he thinks we’re friends.

  I got off the phone with Ed about ten minutes ago. He called from the road with a list of names the airline singled out from the passenger list.

  “There’s guy from Idaho,” Ed said. “Owen Briscoe. Used to belong to a white separatist militia and has a history of mental illness.”

  “Sounds promising.”

  “Yeah. And a combat engineer from Kansas, just discharged last week. He had access to explosives.”

  “All right,” I say. “Sounds like a good lead for Bethany.”

  “And a guy from Dearborn, Michigan.”

  “What’s his story?”

  “He’s Muslim,” Ed said.

  “Who isn’t in Dearborn? Is that a crime?”

  “No. But if a Muslim extremist took this plane down, the airline would prefer it wasn’t one of their own.”

  “So what am I supposed to do? Pin it on the other guy?”

  “Come on, Freddy. Just do some digging, and if you find anything, pass it to the FBI.”

  “You want me to go to Michigan?”

  “No,” he said. “You’re on desk duty. The airline has their A team out in the field.”

  “Their A team? What the fuck is that?”

  The A team, Ed explained, is a bunch of former federal law enforcement agents, all with twenty-plus years of experience and connections to people inside the FBI, the National Transportation Safety B
oard, and a number of other agencies.

  I don’t fit that bill, so I guess that puts me on the B team doing background checks. Ed knows I don’t like computer work, so he tried to give me a little pep talk.

  “Look, Freddy, the airline has everything to lose here. They’re at the roulette wheel spreading their chips across every number, praying for one of them to pay off. I just sent you the names of your contacts in the Bureau. A guy named Errol Lomax, and his boss, Mitch Rollins.”

  “You know these guys?”

  “I know Rollins,” Ed said, “He’s an old-timer. Just came off a corruption investigation with Lomax. Lomax was the first one at San Francisco International after the crash. He was supposed to be catching a plane back to DC but he wound up sticking around. He’ll be back in DC tomorrow.”

  “All right,” I said.

  “And just between you and me, I think Rollins is burnt out. He’s been at it way too long. I don’t know Lomax, but you might have better luck working with him. I’ll let you make that call. I’ll set up a meet and greet so you know who you’re working with.”

  “Yeah, Ed. Listen—”

  “I got another call coming in,” Ed said. “I’ll let you know when I land in San Francisco.”

  He hung up.

  I’m still stewing about that, and maybe I’m taking it out on the skinny kid. His questions annoy me, but I really don’t need to be so rude.

  I could have been on the A team if it weren’t for some bad decisions I made a few years ago. When I left New York and started over, I wanted to be a cop. I had the skills and the drive, but after the background check, they said I was too volatile to carry a gun. They knew about DiLeo from the write-up that cop did in my hospital room. That’s what did me in. I’m sure of it.

  So now I’m a bench warmer on the B team, throwing weights around in the gym to work off my frustration.