45
That Same Night
Pittsburgh
“Your flight’s ready to board, Senator Jackson,” the VIP lounge’s hostess said.
“Great,” he said. “Thanks.”
Roseann saw Jackson and his aide stand, and put her book in her carry-on bag. Jackson waved for Roseann to join them, and they left the lounge and went to the boarding gate. Airline ramp personnel held large golf umbrellas with the airline’s insignia on them over the passengers as they crossed the tarmac and went up the short flight of stairs into the twin-engine turboprop. Jackson asked if he could sit next to Roseann. She couldn’t refuse, although she hoped he wouldn’t ask more questions about Joe. She was afraid she’d say something that would get him in trouble.
“Welcome aboard, ladies and gentlemen,” the captain said in a deep Southern accent through the intercom. “Sorry for the delay tonight but the weather hasn’t been very cooperative. But we’ll be on our way in a few minutes and get you good folks back to Washington in short order. Just settle back, kick off your shoes, make sure those seat belts are nice and snug, and we’ll get goin’.”
Roseann and Jackson smiled at the captain’s down-home safety announcement. One of two flight attendants came down the narrow aisle to make sure seat belts were fastened, and took her seat next to the other attendant in preparation for departure.
They taxied to the end of the active runway. Roseann looked out the window and saw flashing lights on what appeared to be emergency vehicles. What’s that all about? she wondered, her natural fear of flying kicking in. Senator Jackson saw it, too, and leaned across her to get a better view.
The captain’s voice was heard again: “Ah, ladies and gentlemen, seems like we’re goin’ to have us another short delay. I’ll keep you posted.”
“What’s wrong?” an elderly woman behind them asked.
“I don’t think we’ll ever get off the ground,” a man said in a disgruntled, booming voice.
Jackson stopped a flight attendant. “Is there a mechanical problem?” he asked.
She ignored his question and entered the cockpit.
More lights could be seen outside the plane, and then the sound of helicopters was heard. They passed directly over the aircraft, powerful floodlights turning the area into daylight.
“Something’s going on,” Jackson said to Roseann.
What they couldn’t see, or know, was that an army of FBI special agents, state police, and ATF officers had converged on a clearing a mile from the end of the runway and captured a man with a SAM missile on his shoulder that he was about to launch at the next departing flight.
“Well, folks, we’re cleared now for takeoff,” said the captain.
“It’s about time,” the passenger with the loud voice said.
The plane lifted off and they were Washington-bound.
It wasn’t until they’d landed that Roseann Blackburn and the senior senator from Pennsylvania learned that the FBI’s raid on the Freedom Alliance’s headquarters in Plattsburgh, New York, had revealed a plan to use a fourth missile smuggled in from Russia to down a civilian airliner in Pittsburgh that night, the man wielding the deadly weapon a member of a Pennsylvania right-wing hate group loosely affiliated with the Freedom Alliance group. The information was relayed to Senator Jackson and those with him by an aide who’d come to the airport to pick him up.
Roseann’s legs went to jelly when she heard. Jackson offered to have her driven home, but she declined the offer and called her apartment.
“Hey, babe,” he said, “were you on that flight from Pittsburgh?”
“Yes, I was,” she said, starting to cry.
“Easy, Rosie,” he said. “Where are you?”
“The airport.”
“Here?”
“Uh huh.”
“You sit tight, grab a drink. I’ll head out right now, be there in no time.”
As she sat waiting for him, a Brandy Alexander in front of her, she looked up at the TV suspended behind the bar. Russell Templeton was giving a new statement just outside the Pittsburgh airport: “A tragedy has been averted this evening by swift action taken by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. Information received this afternoon from a white-supremacist group in upstate New York led us this evening to converge on a position near the Pittsburgh airport, where . . .”
Roseann shuddered and closed her eyes. When she opened them, Joe was at her side. She grabbed him and hugged hard, tears flowing, body shaking.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said, taking a stool next to her. “Everything’s okay now. Aristotle’s here.”
46
A Year Later
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Max Pauling glanced out the window of his condominium at the sound of a plane taking off. The condo overlooked the private airport where he’d been teaching flying for the past four months. He’d been reading after having taught two students that morning, and dozing.
Jessica came through the door carrying the mail. “For you,” she said, handing him a letter. “From London.”
He opened the envelope and removed the neatly typed single sheet of paper.
My dear Max,
I suppose you’ve been wondering whatever happened to me, although that might represent wishful thinking on my part. I’ve left Russia and have settled here in London. The change is dramatic, of course, but was necessary. I’ve achieved a position with an international bank, and have found quite a nice flat in an area known as Mayfair, a very fancy area although my flat is rather spartan, better reflecting my Russian experience.
I’m sure you think of Bill often, as do I. His death was unnecessary, but in this day and age, particularly in Russia, one can never be sure of anything. I think of Hesse when I think of Bill: “Strange to wander in the mist, each is alone. No tree knows his neighbor. Each is alone.” That’s so true, isn’t it, Max? We are so painfully alone, from the beginning to the end.
Bill always said he was doing it for me, for us, but I suspect as with most things we do, he did it for himself. Very nasty people he involved himself with. Very nasty, indeed.
I worry that you might think poorly of me because of the way Bill died. I pray that isn’t true, and I hope that one day when you come to London, you will be kind enough to call and say hello. I obtained your new address from someone at your State Department, who was kind enough to pass it along.
I won’t bore you any longer, Max. I simply hope that all goes well for you and that you are happy.
Fondly, Elena
“Who’s it from?” Jessica asked from the bedroom.
“Bill Lerner’s lady in Moscow. She’s living in London now. A good woman.”
The phone rang.
“Hello?” Jessica said.
“Jess, it’s Annabel Reed-Smith in Washington.”
“Annabel, how are you?”
“Just fine.”
“And Mac?”
“Tip-top. Still working, officially and unofficially, still partly nuts, partly wonderful. Catching you at a bad time?”
“No, but I will be leaving in a few minutes. I’ve joined a bird-watching group here in Albuquerque and we’re going up into the mountains this afternoon . . .”
Her voice faded into the background as Pauling picked up the book he’d been reading,
The Vipers,
a nonfiction account of the FBI’s deadly mistaken assault on the Jasper Project in Blaine, Washington, and the role played by an undercover FBI agent, Skip Traxler, in this tragic episode in American history.
He turned the book over in his hands. Looking up at him was a photograph of the author, Joseph Potamos, whose brief bio read: “Veteran print journalist with
The
Washington Post
, now a political reporter for CNN, Mr. Potamos lives in Washington with his wife, Roseann, a professional pianist, and their mixed-breed dog, Jumper.”
He placed the book on the table, closed his eyes, and allowed his thoughts to wander along the lines of Joe’s story. The reporter was good, had gotten most of the story, but not all.
Traxler had been indicted for providing false information to a government agency, and for the kidnapping of his former wife. He was awaiting trial.
The surviving members of the Jasper Project had filed a massive civil lawsuit against the FBI and related agencies for the assault on the Jasper ranch.
A Senate hearing on the event had uncovered the FBI’s attempts to cover up what had really happened at the Jasper ranch. Director Russell Templeton, while maintaining his innocence of any knowledge of the cover-up, retired.
Retired.
Pauling, too, had walked away, along with Jessica, who’d decided to move with him to New Mexico and give their relationship a serious try. He’d had to promise that his days working undercover were behind him, and he meant it—when he said it. It wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be, although it hadn’t been that long since he walked away from life on the edge. As far as Jessica was concerned, going up each day with student pilots in a small, single-engine plane should be danger enough. Maybe so.
His reverie was interrupted by a kiss on the forehead.
“I have to go,” Jessica said.
“Yeah, I know. Be careful, huh? You don’t know these mountains. Might be snakes.”
“Wouldn’t be anything new. Plenty of them in Washington—and elsewhere. Odd birds, too.”
He laughed gently, brought her head down with his hand, and their lips met.
“Annabel and Mac send their best.”
“That’s nice. Great pair. He’s a top-drawer lawyer— and occasional undercover man himself. She’s a beauty, and brainy.” He sighed. “Know what I wish?”
“What?”
“I wish we’d been the ones to blow the whistle on that guy with the missile in Pittsburgh. Kind of a wasted exercise, wasn’t it, driving like a madman in the rain looking for a phone when the Bureau already had the info from those wackos in Plattsburgh?”
She smiled and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t. There’ll be more.”
“More what?”
“Terrorism by domestic groups. That they were able to work together the way they did—Idaho, California, New York, Pennsylvania, even Canada—doesn’t bode well.”
“I don’t want to think about it, Max. I just want to think about peaceful things, like birds, the mountains, the clean air and blue sky . . .”
“I know. Go. Soak it up.”
“I will.”
She started to leave, paused at the door, and looked back. He’d closed his eyes again, and she wondered what dreams he would have this day. She knew the sort of reckless life he’d led was a powerful narcotic, not easily conquered. Like the alcoholic, you took it a day at a time, hoping tomorrow wouldn’t provide temptations too powerful to ignore. And like the alcoholic’s care-giver, you did what you could to offer an attractive alternative to the addiction.
She blew him a silent kiss.
He opened his eyes and smiled, then waved her from the room.
Also by Margaret Truman
FIRST LADIES
BESS W. TRUMAN
SOUVENIR
WOMEN OF COURAGE
HARRY S TRUMAN
LETTERS FROM FATHER: THE TRUMAN FAMILY’S
PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCES
WHERE THE BUCK STOPS
WHITE HOUSE PETS
IN THE CAPITAL CRIMES SERIES
MURDER AT THE WATERGATE
MURDER IN THE HOUSE
MURDER AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY
MURDER ON THE POTOMAC
MURDER AT THE PENTAGON
MURDER IN THE SMITHSONIAN
MURDER AT THE NATIONAL CATHEDRAL
MURDER AT THE KENNEDY CENTER
MURDER IN THE CIA
MURDER IN GEORGETOWN
MURDER AT THE FBI
MURDER ON EMBASSY ROW
MURDER IN THE SUPREME COURT
MURDER IN THE WHITE HOUSE
MURDER ON CAPITOL HILL
MURDER AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
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While set in a real place, this book is a work of fiction. The characters and events are products of the author’s imagination and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual people is unintended. In the few instances where well-known or real names are used, the related characters, incidents, or dialogues are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict any actual people or events.
A Fawcett Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 2000 by Margaret Truman
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First Fawcett Books Edition: February 2002
eISBN: 978-0-307-41612-4
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