Murder in Foggy Bottom - Margaret Truman [118]
“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.”
Chapter 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