A thousand miles due north of Miami, snowflakes fell steadily against the upstairs window of Robert Reyland’s house in Falls Church, Virginia. There was a pretty good wind going as well. Downstairs in the brick chimneys of Reyland’s big new house, the whistling gusts of it sounded almost musical.
But Reyland didn’t see the flakes, didn’t hear the wind.
He was too busy watching it become midnight on his encrypted secure cell phone.
He raised his large bald head and looked around the small silent room. There wasn’t much in it. The eyebrow window above the gun safe, the cardboard boxes in the corner they still hadn’t unpacked.
The Realtor had told them that the tiny space off the master bedroom suite originally was supposed to have been a nursery for the people who had built the place, but the wife had miscarried, so they’d just left it empty.
Unforeseen botched circumstances, Reyland thought, passing a hand back and forth soothingly over the shaved-smooth skin of his head.
He placed his BlackBerry back down on the top of the gun safe he’d just taken it out of.
My, oh, my, can I empathize.
He shifted his weight on his wife’s tiny vanity chair he’d brought in from the bathroom. He was still in the suit and overcoat he was wearing when he’d gotten out of the car from the airport two hours before.
He’d been in London waiting to hear word from his boss when he’d gotten the report about his plane falling completely out of contact. The eight-and-a-half sleepless hours he’d just spent on the British Airways flight back to DC had felt like the most useless of his entire life.
He refused to even consider all the worst-case scenarios. At least not yet. Even for him, some things were just too terrible to contemplate.
He had gone immediately from Reagan International downtown to his office and called everyone he could. Twice. They had done some projections, but there were too many factors. The wind, the orientation of the instruments. It was a needle in a haystack even with the satellites.
Reyland palmed at his head like LeBron on a mid-dunk basketball.
Now he was home to get some sleep.
Yeah, right, he thought as the phone suddenly rang.
He felt his heart thump like a kick drum as he looked at the screen.
It was his right-hand man, Emerson.
Here we go, Reyland thought, closing his eyes as it rang again. In his mind, he pictured a coin flipping.
Heads, you live. Tails, you die.
He forced himself to take a very deliberate breath before he thumbed down the accept button.
“Where?” Reyland said.
“The ocean. Atlantic Ocean, northwest of the Bahamas.”
“The Bahamas! What?” Reyland said as he let out a breath. “How the hell did it get there?”
“It must have happened before the second turn in the flight plan,” Emerson said. “They never made the turn, and it just kept going till the gas ran out.”
“What a damn disaster! Is he alive?”
“No. It got ripped up on impact. Tore in two. Dunning is dead. All of them are dead. No survivors, just like they said.”
Reyland pondered that for a long silent beat. His mentor, the great Dunning, was gone. Just like that. It was hard to wrap his mind around. He put it aside.
“How far out from land?” he said.
“Ten, fifteen miles offshore of... Let’s see... Little Abaco. It landed underwater on a coral shelf.”
“Who called it in? Civilian?”
“No. The coast guard found it. A drug-interdiction cutter out of Miami Beach. They spotted the wreckage with their radar. Thought it was a drug boat.”
“Are we lucky it wasn’t a civilian. But coast guard, huh? I don’t like it. Did they see inside the cabin?”
“No, not really. The bodies are still in the part of the plane that’s underwater. We lucked out there.”
“Wait, wait, wait. What do you mean by ‘not really’?” Reyland said, squinting.
“Well, the coast guard went through standard rescue procedures when they spotted it. One of the rescue divers went down to check for survivors. Don’t worry. I’m already getting any and all tape and making plans to isolate the crew.”
“We on the way?”
“Yes, Ruiz should be wheels up with our team by now. Luckily, there was a salvage vessel out of Norfolk out training. It’s six hours away. Ruiz has some ex-SEALs with him. They’ll go under and get everything that needs getting off. All in all, it’s looking about as good as we could have hoped.”
“I don’t like it,” Reyland said. “The coast guard is out of our purview. I don’t have to tell you the lid we need on this.”
“Don’t worry. It won’t be a problem,” Emerson said. “I’ll send word again that the coast guard is to completely stand down and babysit until Ruiz and the navy vessel show up, and we get it all the hell out of there.
“By the way, London called again. Twice. But I stalled them like you said. Also, have you figured out how you’re going to tell Cathy?”
“Who?”
“Cathy. You know, Dunning’s wife.”
“Oh. No. I haven’t. Not yet. Shit. She thinks he’s at a conference in Italy. I mean, imagine? Add telling her the great Dunning is dead to the list of my magic tricks.”
“I could do it, boss, if you want,” Emerson said quickly.
Reyland’s gray eyes squinted as he sat up, suddenly noticing the eager-beaver tone in Emerson’s voice.
He was really all over everything, wasn’t he? Reyland thought. London. Their military contacts. You bet he was. Trying to use the crisis to climb a rung or two.
What’s the expression? Never let one go to waste?
There was a long beat of silence in the cold of the small room. Down in the living room, Reyland heard the wind in the chimney suddenly chime like a bell.
“You’re right, boss,” Emerson finally said. “I’ll leave it to you.”