Hard Fall Part 24

She took a minute to search her purse and check her appointment book. He couldn't determine if this mention of business had upset her, but he sensed a definite change of her mood, which he regretted. They agreed on a time.

"You're a hard sell," she told him.

"I warned you: if anything, I'm particular."

A dollop of gravy fell from her fork and ran down her blouse. Kort saw it first. He leaned forward, extended a finger and hesitated, allowing her to stop him if she wanted. She lowered her eyes in self-inspection.

"You spilled," he said as he ran his finger deliberately around the soft curve of her breast. He sat back in his seat, placed the gravy-coated fingertip between his lips, and sucked it clean.

Carrie felt a jolt of heat run from her breast to her toes. Her nipple hardened; she was glad for the bra. She tingled. The small of her back went damp, as did the palms of her hands. What he had just done was outrageous. Rude.

She wanted him to do it again.

She wanted privacy.

The way he smiled, he seemed to be reading her thoughts. It frightened her so much that she banged her way out of her chair.

"Let me apologize," he said.

"Carl ... I think I should go." She wondered who was speaking for her. This wasn't what she felt. It was as if a script had been placed in front of her and that these lines were expected of her. She couldn't think straight.

"Caroline. There's no need for this. Honestly! Please, sit. Stay."

"Carl .. ."

"Please. Sit back down. I'll be a perfect gentleman."

She tried to stop herself from saying it. Where had such a thought come from? But it surfaced effortlessly and she heard herself say it: "I don't want you to be." She gasped at her own words, and then there was no choice. She turned and hurried from the restaurant, wondering who was controlling her legs. What was happening to her?

She dared not look back. The waiter bowed his head politely as she reached the door. She could feel Carl only steps behind her. Go away! she willed, reeling in embarra.s.sment.

She reached the street. Thankfully, her car was less than a block away. She headed off in its direction, increasing the length of her strides.

His warm hands fell onto her shoulders, and she felt him slow her and spin her around to face him. She heard "What do you think you're doing?" and she felt his lips press against her mouth, and herself willingly accept them. She withered under his strength. As he drew her against him, she opened her mouth and kissed him fully.

It wasn't right, and somewhere deep inside she knew this. But it was very right. It wasn't fair to Cam, but it was just what he deserved.

"We can't," she finally insisted, though weakly. She drew away from him.

"Can't? Look at you," he said, holding her again by the shoulders. "Look at us! Is this a business relationship? Is this a friendship? We need each other, Caroline. To question that is to "

"No!" she snapped sharply, now separating from him. He was a client, nothing more. It was absurdity. The first rule! Was he even a client? Had she seen a check yet? Who exactly was he? How could she feel so attracted to him so quickly? A few days, a week or so was all ... She hated herself. "Don't stop me, Carl," she demanded, turning and walking to her car. But as she reached her car she wished he would stop her, wished he would do something. She didn't want to leave it like this. "I'll be there tomorrow," she said to him over the roof, knowing he stood immediately behind her.

"I won't apologize, Caroline. If that's what you want "

"That's not what I want," she admitted. You know what I want, she thought. d.a.m.n you.

He didn't speak; didn't say anything. She felt foolish.

What a thing to say! He controlled her now and this frightened her. It thrilled her.

"Then tomorrow it is," he said, his breath hot on her neck.

She heard him walk away. "Thank you for dinner," she said in a choked voice. Said without looking at him. She was tempted to turn and beg him not to leave her this way.

By the time she had turned around, he was gone.

Rationality had nothing to do with it.

Carl had heated her up and she intended to put out the fire at any cost. She felt angry with Cam, whether guilt-driven or not, and she felt like penalizing him somehow, and she had decided that this was the way.

She knocked on the front door and then let herself in with her key. Cam was on the couch wearing a set of headphones, a half-empty gla.s.s of Scotch on the coffee table, his eyes open now, but she could picture how he had been only moments earlier, reclined and deeply into the second movement of Beethoven's Seventh, asleep perhaps, the room speakers switched off, the headphones up loudly enough that she could hear the music faintly from across the room.

He seemed shocked to see her. Had it been so long? She couldn't even remember.

He slipped off the headphones and let them fall to the couch, the music, though thin, suddenly louder. "Dune?" she asked.

"In bed," he answered, reaching out for the Scotch.

"Good," she said, unb.u.t.toning her blouse, unfastening her belt and walking defiantly toward the bedroom.

"Carrie?" he asked, following her now. Following her as Carl had. He stepped into the bedroom behind her and she pushed the door shut and switched off the lights and dropped the blouse to the floor. She heard him undress. She didn't want to think of this as Cam. She wanted this to happen quickly, but she wanted to get something out of it.

She worked her way out of her clothes, found him in the limited light, and pushed him to the bed. She pulled his pants off.

"Carrie?" he asked again, this time bewildered and confused. Good, she liked the sound of that.

No, it's not Carrie, she was thinking. I'm not sure who it is. She stripped him naked, climbed over him, kept him pinned to the bed, and then fell on him fully.

In her mind's eye, she saw Carl beneath her. Much too soon, he swelled and flooded inside of her. But she wouldn't let him go. She wanted satisfaction for herself.

"Carrie?" he attempted cautiously. "My G.o.d," he added, "that was incredible!"

Her breathing rapid, her senses heightened but unsatisfied, she felt wild, and unsure of herself. She crawled forward and she lowered herself gently onto his mouth and said in a strange and unfamiliar voice, "Finish it!"

Which he did.

When it was over, she slid off the bed, turned her back, and began to dress in the darkness. Her eyes had adjusted. She didn't want to see him.

"Stay. Please."

"I've got to go," she said.

"Why?" he asked.

"I'm not sure. But I know I've got to."

"This .. . This is all?"

"It wasn't 'enough?" she asked. Where had this new tone of voice of hers come from? She was being purposely cruel to him and she didn't understand it. As she was b.u.t.toning the blouse, she felt the wet spot left by the gravy. All that was left of Carl.

"I've never seen you like this."

"No."

"You used me," he said in astonishment, in realization. She had turned in an effort to find her other shoe. Even in the dim light they caught eyes, and she knew he could read her face. He could always read her face.

There was no use denying it. "Yes," she admitted, "I used you." He said nothing. She reveled in his silence, in her new-found power. She turned and left him lying there.

TWENTY-ONE.

THE RED BMW was registered to a Monique Paine, a name that also appeared on the flight manifest from LAX to Washington, the flight Fragile Ramirez had placed her on using her video skills. This linkage proved enough for a surveillance warrant on the address listed on the registration. Full surveillance, including wiretaps, had begun at midnight the night before, Bradley Levin in charge. Despite the alias, to the FBI she was not Monique Paine but Monique Cheysson. To Paul Pullman and Richard Mumford she was "good, but not enough." Physical evidence linking Bernard's detonators to flight 64 remained the miracle Daggett awaited. Without it, at 5:00 P.M. today his involvement in this investigation came to an end, and his report on the Backman-Bernard bombing began. He had slumped into a deep depression, as much over Carrie's unusual behavior the night before as over his work. Everything seemed to be falling apart.

The miracle came in the form of a phone call.

"It's Chaz," the voice said. "You shouldn't threaten people. Especially when they run the explosives lab. Bad idea."

"I was desperate. You have the one piece of evidence that may save this case for me. Tomorrow won't do, Chaz. It has to be today."

"It is today. Why don't you hop the shuttle and get your b.u.t.t over here? I've got something interesting to show you."

The blue shuttle van appeared in front of the Buzzard Point building at twenty after the hour. Six people got out. A green padlocked chest was removed and transferred over to the security people at the front desk. Daggett and three others loaded and bounced around for the fifteen-minute return ride to headquarters. For Daggett, the ride was interminable.

Chaz Meecham was seated behind his generous desk waiting for him. "We could have done this on the phone," he said, "But I hate phones."

"You and me both."

With a flick of the chin, he indicated the file folder in front of Daggett. "There's your report. Your gla.s.s bulb." He rose, shut the office door, and sat down squarely in his high-back leather office chair. He opened a drawer and removed a sealed clear plastic bag containing the remains of the gla.s.s bulb. He handed it to Daggett. "If there was mercury in that thing, Michigan, it's long gone. Probably burned up in the fire." After a few seconds he asked, "You all right?"

"Disappointed is all."

"Jesus! Give me a minute to explain. It's not all bad. The down side of this report is the lack of any evidence of mercury. Not surprising, incidentally. It's a heavy metal. When the gla.s.s bulb broke apart, it was history; and the gla.s.s itself was too burned to give us any trace amounts.

"But one man's ceiling is another man's floor," he continued. "The Lord giveth and he taketh away. The fire robbed us of the mercury, but it gave us something better. It adhered to the outside curve of your gla.s.s bulb. And we were able to identify that as what's left behind when you burn silicon. Silicon, as in what we found in Bernard's hotel room. In fact, the exact same chemical composition as the silicon our people lifted from his hotel room carpet. The same stuff. Page three and four, in the file."

Daggett didn't touch the file. "Translation?"

"The way it works is this: When you build a detonator, you create gates between the power source a battery and the explosive. Every time a gate opens, the electricity from the battery gets that much closer to the explosive." He raised his hand like a teacher. "Let me show you what one of these babies looks like."

Chaz Meecham left the room. When he returned, he slapped a hard cube into Daggett's hand. "We call them 'ice cubes." You can see why." Daggett was holding a small brick of hardened epoxy with four wires sticking out. It was small and clear, like an ice cube. Two of the wires were attached to a nine-volt battery clip. The other two were bare-ended and tipped with solder. "The ones Bernard built might not look exactly like this. I have a feeling he packed it all into the altimeter, or why else would he have cut down the plastic? I don't know .. . The point is, he puts all his works inside some kind of ice cube so the operative can't screw it up, can't d.i.n.k with the electronics. He might leave a way to, say, set the clock, or something like that, but he doesn't want his wiring messed around with. Bernard didn't use epoxy; he used silicon. We know that from the hotel room evidence."

"Is there a reason for that?"

"In bomb-building, there's a reason for everything. Count on it. Silicon dries fast. It's less messy. It flexes easily might have something to do with the sensitivity of altimeter. Who knows?" Meecham glanced over at Daggett. "He's good, Michigan. Real good." Daggett felt a tension he had previously missed. This was some sort of compet.i.tion between Meecham and Bernard. Could Meecham, through a few pieces of microscopic evidence found collectively in a hotel room rug, and the mud of an airplane crash, establish exactly what kind of device Bernard had built and what he intended to use it for?

"That's my job," Meecham said. Daggett hadn't realized he had asked this aloud. Meecham lectured, "A simple example of a gated detonator is a clock timer a single gate. Set the clock to a certain time and, blammo, up she goes. Not so easy on a plane. Not if you want the bird aloft and well away from where it took off. So you use a series of gates: pressure switches, blocks, thermometers, humidistats you name it; each one responds to a different condition, a different requirement alt.i.tude, time, temperature. It can be any number of things."

"You said he had two altimeters."

Meecham clearly didn't like being interrupted. "Before a plane takes off, the copilot cranks up the air packs he pressurizes the cabin. Right? He does it wrong, you feel it in your ears. Know what I mean? If you're Bernard, to make sure the plane is aloft, you use an altimeter present to some given alt.i.tude as your first gate. That way you're insured the other gates aren't activated until the cabin is pressurized. If the bomb goes off in the air, the more damage and the less evidence. Lockerbie was a good example of that; Lockerbie was supposed to blow over water. Anyway, the barometer is your first gate.

"If I were building it," he continued, "I'd use a second gate a clock timer of some sort to make sure the bird is well downrange before she blows "

"Casios? We're pretty sure he bought two Casios."

"I saw that in the report." He shrugged. "I don't know. With Bernard, it's possible I suppose. You have to be into microelectronics chip circuit design if you're going to pull the guts out of a Casio and make anything happen. It's certainly possible. So the order is: The air packs crank up the cabin pressure; the first gate, the altimeter, opens, which, by providing electricity, turns on the clock timer. Now that would be a command device we might see. But it's not what Bernard did here. This gla.s.s bulb on yours changes all the rules. This bulb means Bernard's detonator contained a third gate. That's the only explanation."

"Meaning?"

Meecham had prepared himself for this meeting. He reached to his right and retrieved a black dial, a gla.s.s bulb with two wires, and a small clock. He lined them up in this order. "My guess? Three gates, Michigan: an altimeter switch that opens gate number one after the cabin is pressurized; then a mercury switch as gate number two." He tipped the switch. "The nose goes up and the second gate opens. Bernard has established two rules: the cabin is pressurized, the plane has taken off."

"And the Casio?"

"The Casio is the last gate. After the plane is pressurized and the nose has lifted, the clock starts running down."

"Why the weird face?" Daggett asked.

"I gotta tell you, a guy like Bernard doesn't make a detonator this complicated without d.a.m.n good reason. So what's the reason?"

"He wants to make sure the plane is airborne before the thing goes off. Isn't that it?"

Meecham shook his head. "It's too complicated for that. The way you do that is set your timer for a good long time. A couple of hours. If the plane is delayed on the ground, then by setting the clock to run late, you cover yourself. No, it's not that.

"Let me demonstrate the problem here, Michigan." Meecham picked up the gla.s.s bulb. It contained a shifting blob of mercury. He tilted it so the mercury held in the end of the bulb without the two electrodes. "This is the off position. No contact between these poles. No juice. The detonator is inactive. The timer is not yet hot. But during takeoff, this mercury runs to this end of the bulb and it is hot," he said, duplicating the motion. "There is now juice running from the battery to the timer the first and second gates are both open. The timer starts to run. But here's the catch .. ." He tilted the bulb back again; the mercury slid away from the twin contacts, breaking the electrical connection. "As soon as the plane levels off, the mercury switch disconnects the juice. The timer will stop. No juice means no bomb. The whole f.u.c.king thing goes dead."

"So you've got them in the wrong order," Daggett said, after a moment of thought.

"No way. No other order to put them in, Michigan. At least not one that fits with what we know about the way flight sixty-four went down. It made it, what, a mile, two miles downrange? Nothing. What this tells us," he said, pointing to his desk, "is that Bernard built this thing to activate at a specific time, during takeoff, while the plane is still in a climb. That is the only way to explain this. So you tell me: Now how much f.u.c.king sense does that make?"

Daggett found himself back with Dr. Barnes from Duhning. The simulator, with Ward at the wheel, had duplicated a dozen takeoffs, all using differing times between takeoff and loss of pilot control. Barnes had wondered the same thing: Why do it?

"Why do it?" Meecham was still talking. Words and faces were mixing around in Daggett's head. "We have no evidence of an explosion. No evidence of any explosive material on board. We got squat!"

Daggett said, "You mentioned this mini-detonator last time. You said it burned 'hot." Does that mean it would be hot enough to start a fire?"

"Start a fire?" His face lit up. "You kidding me? Does the pope s.h.i.t in the woods? Is a bear Catholic? It'll melt f.u.c.kin' metal!"

Finally, the repet.i.tion inside the simulator made sense. Finally he had something to take Mumford. He came around the desk, took Meecham's head between his hands, and kissed the man on the mouth.

Chaz Meecham, wiping his lips, shouted, "You're f.u.c.king crazy!"

Nodding vigorously, Daggett grabbed the file. "Would you repeat all this for Mumford if I asked?"