Chapter 12 - SOMEONE WANTED FLIGHT 702 TO FALL
Daniel did not call back.
Pauline tried repeatedly.
No answer.
Investigators traced the number.
Burner phone.
Signal bounced through multiple networks.
Useless.
Vance looked at the coordinates Peter had sent.
“Abandoned field. Kansas. Decommissioned 1998.”
“How far?” Pauline asked.
“Aircraft, less than an hour.”
“You have transport.”
“I am not sending you.”
Pauline gave him a long look.
Vance sighed.
“I know that look.”
“You should.”
“Pauline, this person sabotaged a commercial airliner.”
“Which means he needs me alive for something.”
“Until he doesn’t.”
Mark spoke.
“She shouldn’t go alone.”
Vance looked at him.
“You’re not going either.”
Mark shrugged.
“I didn’t ask permission.”
Pauline smiled.
“Careful. Rebellion is contagious.”
Within thirty minutes, a Gulfstream military transport was prepared.
Officially, Pauline was not being sent to meet a terrorist.
Officially, a federal response team was investigating a security lead.
Pauline sat in the cabin beside Mark and Ethan.
Vance remained at Falcon Ridge coordinating agencies.
Lucas Mercer was transported under guard.
Nobody trusted him enough to release him.
Nobody distrusted him enough to ignore him.
Ethan studied Pauline.
“My grandfather knew what happened that night?”
“Some of it.”
“And he never reported it?”
“He may have tried.”
“Why hide the tape?”
“Because sometimes evidence only matters if it survives long enough to be heard.”
Mark looked out the window.
“Do you think Peter is Daniel?”
Pauline turned.
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“After forty-three years?”
“I know his voice.”
“You said someone copied it earlier.”
“I know Daniel.”
Mark nodded.
That answer was emotional, not logical.
But after what he had seen, he accepted it.
The transport landed at a military base ninety miles from the meeting coordinates.
From there, a convoy moved toward the abandoned strip.
Pauline was supposed to stay in the command vehicle until negotiators established contact.
She lasted four minutes.
The old runway appeared under the evening sky.
Cracked concrete.
Weeds.
Rusting hangars.
A control tower missing windows.
The kind of forgotten place secrets liked.
Peter’s helicopter sat near one hangar.
No visible personnel.
Thermal imaging showed two people inside.
One was Sergeant Cole, the medic.
The other unknown.
Pauline’s phone rang.
Peter.
“You brought friends.”
“You sabotaged an airliner. I assumed you weren’t sensitive about social situations.”
Mark looked at Ethan.
“She really talks to everyone like that?”
Ethan whispered:
“Apparently.”
Peter said:
“Walk toward Hangar Two.”
Vance, listening remotely, ordered:
“No.”
Pauline ignored him.
She stepped from the vehicle.
No weapon.
Red jacket still on.
The wind moved her gray hair.
Cameras tracked her from multiple positions.
Ethan stayed behind cover.
Mark muttered:
“This is insane.”
Pauline walked.
One hundred yards.
Fifty.
The hangar door opened.
A man stepped out.
Not Peter from the radio.
Older.
Thin.
White hair.
Dark overcoat.
Pauline stopped.
She knew him.
Dr. Jonathan Kessler.
Former aerospace systems scientist.
Officially dead for twelve years.
He had worked on Night Widow.
Pauline had met him twice in 1983.
Quiet man.
Always carrying a notebook.
Always asking pilots strange questions about instinct, confusion, and reaction time.
“Dr. Kessler.”
He smiled.
“Widow Six.”
Pauline understood.
“The Architect.”
“An ugly name.”
“Accurate?”
“Somewhat dramatic.”
“You murdered pilots.”
Kessler sighed.
“History is rarely that simple.”
“It’s simple when people are dead.”
He gestured toward the hangar.
“Samuel’s tape.”
“You have it.”
“I do.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Because I need you to tell me where the rest is.”
“The rest of what?”
“Samuel copied data.”
Pauline genuinely didn’t know.
Kessler studied her.
“You don’t know.”
“No.”
He smiled.
“That complicates things.”
Pauline looked toward the helicopter.
“Release Sergeant Cole.”
“Eventually.”
“You poisoned Keller?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“One of my associates.”
“Flight 702?”
“Was never supposed to crash.”
“Your equipment disagreed.”
Kessler looked irritated.
“The objective was to force an emergency landing.”
“Why?”
“To separate you from normal law-enforcement channels and recover Samuel’s evidence.”
Pauline laughed.
“You chose a method involving an engine failure.”
“The engine problem was not ours.”
That stopped her.
“What?”
“The data interference, navigation manipulation, and Keller were planned. The engine failure was not.”
Pauline’s mind raced.
“Then someone else damaged the engine.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Kessler smiled.
“Daniel.”
“No.”
“He wanted you to expose Night Widow publicly. A dramatic rescue by Widow Six would make you impossible to silence.”
Pauline shook her head.
“Daniel wouldn’t risk civilians.”
“Wouldn’t he?”
“No.”
“After forty-three years hiding? You know him that well?”
Pauline’s certainty wavered.
Kessler saw it.
He enjoyed that.
“He arranged your ticket. He knew your flight. His son boarded with an interference device. Convenient.”
“Lucas was trying to stop your system.”
“So he claims.”
“Daniel warned us about the bomb.”
“Because he planted it?”
Pauline stared.
The entire day had been shaped by conflicting stories.
Vance lied to protect her.
Samuel lied to protect her.
Daniel lied for forty-three years.
Lucas admitted interference.
Kessler admitted sabotage.
Truth had become layered beneath motive.
“Where is Daniel?” she asked.
Kessler’s smile faded.
“I hoped you would tell me.”
“So you don’t know.”
“No.”
That gave Pauline hope.
Daniel was still free.
Kessler held up the cassette.
“Samuel’s tape contains a reference to something called Athena.”
Pauline remembered.
Not from Night Widow.
From a conversation with Samuel in 1984.
He had once said, “If I disappear, Athena knows where the bodies are buried.”
She assumed Athena was a person.
Maybe not.
“What is Athena?” Pauline asked.
“That is why you are here.”
“I don’t know.”
Kessler studied her face.
Then his expression changed.
“You’ve heard the word.”
Pauline stayed silent.
He smiled.
“Thank you.”
She cursed herself.
Kessler turned toward the hangar.
“Bring her.”
Two men appeared.
Federal teams tensed.
Ethan’s voice sounded in Pauline’s concealed earpiece.
“Say the word.”
Pauline didn’t.
Not yet.
She followed Kessler into Hangar Two.
Inside stood an old aircraft.
Covered in dust.
F-4 Phantom.
Pauline stopped.
On the nose, barely visible beneath faded paint:
W6.
Her aircraft.
Her Widow Six Phantom.
The one she had been told was destroyed decades ago.
Pauline walked closer.
Her hand trembled as she touched the fuselage.
Kessler spoke behind her.
“Samuel hid Athena somewhere in this aircraft.”
Pauline turned.
“What?”
“He preserved it.”
She looked at the cockpit.
Memories flooded back.
Samuel.
Daniel.
Night.
Storm.
Warnings.
Fear.
Kessler continued.
“Only one person knows Widow Six well enough to find what Samuel hid.”
Pauline stared at her old aircraft.
“You brought me here to search my own plane.”
“Yes.”
“And if I refuse?”
Kessler gestured toward Sergeant Cole, tied to a chair across the hangar.
Pauline looked at the medic.
Then back at the Phantom.
She understood what Samuel had done.
Whatever Athena was, he had hidden it somewhere only Pauline might remember.
She climbed the ladder.
Forty-three years disappeared with every step.
Then she settled into the old ejection seat.
Her hands touched the controls.
And she saw something scratched beneath the instrument panel.
Three tiny letters.
D.M.S.
Daniel Mercer Sanders.
Not Sanders.
No.
She leaned closer.
D.M. / S.
Daniel Mercer.
Samuel.
A shared mark.
Pauline pressed the panel.
It moved.
Behind it sat a small metal capsule.
Kessler whispered:
“At last.”
Pauline reached toward it.
Then another voice echoed from the dark end of the hangar.
“Don’t touch it, Professor.”
Pauline froze.
A man stepped from behind the Phantom’s wing.
Tall.
Gray-haired.
Older.
But unmistakable.
Daniel Mercer.
May you like
Alive.
This time, really alive.
