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  "I know, Kay. I know. It's all been so sudden. So..." Sidney's voice trailed off, then she steeled herself. She had to know some things, and Kay Vincent was the most honest source she could think of. "Kay, you know that Jason took some time off from the office."

  "Right. He said he was going to paint the kitchen and fix up the garage. He'd been talking about it for a week."

  "He never mentioned the trip to Los Angeles to you?"

  "No. I was shocked to hear he was on that plane."

  "Has anyone been in to talk to you about Jason?"

  "Lots of people. Everyone's devastated."

  "How about Quentin Rowe?"

  "He's been by several times." Kay paused and then said, "Sid, why all these questions?"

  "Kay, this needs to be kept between us, okay?"

  "All right." She sounded very reluctant.

  "I thought Jason was going to L.A. for a job interview with another company because that's what he told me. I recently found out that that wasn't true."

  "My God!"

  While Kay slowly digested the news, Sidney ventured another question. "Kay, is there any reason you could think of why Jason would have lied about that? Was he acting strange at work?"

  There was a considerable pause now. "Kay?" Sidney fidgeted on the steps. The cold from the bricks had begun to chill her. She abruptly stood up.

  "Sid, we have really strict rules about discussing any of the company's business. I don't want to get into trouble."

  "I know that, Kay. I'm one of Triton's attorneys, remember?"

  "Well, this is a little bit different." Kay's voice abruptly disappeared from the line. Sidney wondered if she had hung up, but then the voice reappeared. "Can you call me later tonight? I don't really want to talk on company time about this. I'll be home around eight.

  You still have my home phone?"

  "I've got it, Kay. Thanks."

  Kay Vincent hung up without saying anything else.

  Jason rarely discussed Triton's business with Sidney, although, as an attorney at Tyler, Stone, she was immersed in numerous matters for the company. Her husband took the ethical responsibilities of his position very seriously. He had always been careful not to put his wife in an awkward situation. At least until now. She Slowly walked back to the parking garage.

  After paying the attendant, she started toward her car. Suddenly she turned, but by then the man had disappeared around the corner.

  She walked rapidly back to the street next to the garage and peered down it. No one was in sight. There were numerous shops along there, though. Someone could have disappeared into any one of them in a few seconds. She had first noticed him looking at her while she was seated on the steps of the Rotunda. He had been standing behind one of the many trees sprinkled around the Lawn.

  Busy talking to Kay, she had quickly dismissed him as some guy just checking her out for the obvious reason. He was tall, at least six feet, lean and dressed in a dark overcoat. His face had been partially covered by sunglasses and the overcoat's collar had been turned up, further hiding his features. A brown hat had covered his hair, although she had managed to note that it was light in color, reddish blond, perhaps. For a brief moment she wondered if paranoia had been added to her growing list of problems. She couldn't worry about it right now. She had to get home. Tomorrow she would pick up her daughter. She then remembered that her mother had mentioned a memorial service for Jason. The details of that would have to be gone over. Amid all the mystery surrounding her late husband's last day, the recollection of the memorial service had brought back the crushing knowledge that Jason was indeed dead. No matter how he had deceived her, or for what reason he had done so, he was gone. She headed back home.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Under drifting cloud cover that was quickly overtaking the razor-blue sky, a chilly wind whipped through the crash site. Armies of people walked the grounds, marking debris with red flags, forming a mass of crimson in the cornfield. Near the crater sat a crane with a dangling bucket large enough to hold two grown men. Another such crane hovered over the crater, its long cable and bucket disappearing into the depths of this shallow hell. Other cables connected to motorized winches set on flatbed trucks snaked down into the pit.

  Heavy equipment was lumbering nearby in preparation for the final excavation of the impact crater. The most critical piece, the flight data recorder, had not yet been unearthed.

  Outside the yellow barricades a number of tents had been raised.

  They served as depositories of collected evidence for on-site analysis.

  In one such tent George Kaplan was pouring hot coffee from his thermos into two cups. He briefly scanned the area. Luckily the snow had stopped as quickly as it had started. However, the temperature had remained cool and the weather forecast called for more precipitation. He knew that was not good. Snow would make a logistical nightmare even more daunting.

  Kaplan handed one of the steaming cups to Lee Sawyer, who had followed the NTSB investigator's gaze around the crash site.

  "That was a good call on the fuel tank, George. The evidence was very slight, but lab results show it was an old reliable: hydrochloric acid. Tests indicated that it would've eaten through the aluminum alloy in about two to four hours. Faster if the acid was heated. Doesn't look like it was accidental."

  Kaplan grunted loudly. "Shit, like a mechanic would be walking around with acid and just accidentally smear it on the fuel tank."

  "I never thought it was an accident, George."

  Kaplan threw up his hand in apology. "And you can carry hydrochloric acid in a plastic container, could even use a squirt bottle with a modified tip so you can gauge how much you're applying.

  Plastic won't trip a metal detector. It was a good choice." Kaplan's face twisted in disgust.

  He looked out at the crash site for a few more seconds and then stirred, turning to Sawyer. "Nailing down the timing that close is good. Cuts down the list of possible suspects who would've had access."

  Sawyer nodded in agreement. "We're following that up right now." He took a long sip of the coffee.

  "You really think somebody blew up an entire planeload of people to take out one guy?"

  "Maybe."

  "Christ Almighty, I don't mean to sound callous, but if you want to kill the guy, who not just grab him off the street and put a bullet in his head? Why this?" He pointed at the crater and then slumped back in his seat, his eyes half closed, one hand rubbing viciously at his left temple.

  Sawyer sat in one of the folding chairs. "We're not sure that's the case, but Lieberman was the only passenger on the plane warranting that kind of special attention."

  "Why the hell go to all this trouble to kill the Fed chairman?"

  Sawyer pulled his coat tighter around him as the cold wind swirled inside the tent space. "Well, the financial markets took a tremendous beating when the news broke of Lieberman's death. The Dow lost almost twelve hundred points, or about twenty-five percent of its total. In two days. That makes the Crash of 1929 look like a hiccup. The overseas markets are being battered too." Sawyer stared pointedly at Kaplan. "And wait until news leaks that the plane was sabotaged. That Lieberman might have been deliberately killed. Who the hell knows what that will trigger?"

  Kaplan's eyes widened. "Jesus! All that for one guy?"

  "Like I said, somebody killed Superman."

  "So you got a lot of potential suspects--foreign governments, international terrorists, crap like that, right?" Kaplan shook his head as he contemplated the number of bad people on the increasingly small sphere they all called home.

  Sawyer shrugged. "Let's just say it's not going to be your run-of-the-mill street criminal."

  The two men fell silent and again stared over at the crash site.

  They watched the crane's cable reverse its direction, and within two minutes a bucket carrying two men appeared above the pit. The crane swung around and gently rested the bucket on the ground.

  The two men clambered out.
Sawyer and Kaplan watched with growing excitement as the pair raced toward them.

  The first to arrive was a young man whose white-blond hair partially obscured a choirboy's features. In his hand was clenched a plastic baggie. Inside the baggie was a small, metallic, rectangular object, heavily charred. The other man lumbered up behind him. He was older, and his red face and labored breathing spoke of the rarity of his finding himself racing across wide cornfields.

  "I couldn't believe it," the younger man almost shouted. "The starboard wing, or what was left if it, was sitting right on top, pretty much intact. I guess the left side took the brunt of the explosion with the full tank. Looks like when the nose burrowed into the ground, it created an opening slightly larger than the circumference of the fuselage. When the wings hit the sides of the pit, they crumpled back and over the fuselage. Damn miracle, if you ask me."

  Kaplan took the baggie and stepped over to the table. "Where'd you find it?"

  "It was attached to the wing's interior side, right next to the access panel for the fuel tank. It must have been placed inside the wing on the inboard side of the starboard engine. I'm not sure what it is, but I can damn sure tell you it doesn't belong on a plane."

  "So it was placed to the left of where the wing sheared off?" Kaplan asked.

  "Exactly, Chief. Another couple inches and it would've been gone tOO."

  The older man spoke. "From the looks of it, the fuselage shielded the starboard wing from a good deal of the initial postcrash explosion.

  When the sides of the crater collapsed, all the dirt must've cut off the fire almost immediately." He paused and then added solemnly, "But the forward section of the cabin's gone. I mean nothing's left, like it was never there."

  Kaplan handed the baggie over to Sawyer. "Do you know what the hell this is.TM

  Sawyer's face broke into a dark scowl. "Yeah, I do."

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Sidney Archer had driven to her office and was now seated at her desk; her office door was closed and locked. It was a little after eight in the evening, but she could hear the faint buzz of a fax machine in the background. She picked up the phone and dialed Kay Vincent's number at home.

  A man answered.

  "Kay Vincent, please. It's Sidney Archer."

  "Just a minute."

  As Sidney waited, she looked around the confines of her office. A place normally of deep comfort to her, it looked strangely out of focus. The diplomas on the wall were hers, but at this moment she could not seem to remember when or where she had earned them.

  She had become purely reactive, battered by one shock after another.

  She wondered if a new surprise was awaiting her at the other end of the phone line.

  "Sidney?"

  "Hello, Kay."

  The voice sounded ashamed. "I feel so bad, I didn't even ask you this morning about Amy. How is she?"

  "She's at my parents' right now." She swallowed hard and then added, "She doesn't know, of course."

  "I'm sorry I acted the way I did at work. You know how that place is. They get uptight if they think you're taking personal calls on their time."

  "I know, Kay. I didn't know who else to talk to over there." She didn't add, whom she could trust.

  "I understand, Sid."

  Sidney took a deep breath. She might as well get right down to it. Had she looked up, she might have noticed the doorknob on her door slowly turn and then stop as the locking mechanism prohibited further movement.

  "Kay, is there something you wanted to tell me? About Jason?"

  There was a perceptible pause on the other end of the line before Kay answered. "I couldn't have asked for a better boss. He worked real hard, was moving up fast. But he still took the time to talk to everybody, spend time with them." Kay stopped talking, perhaps trying to collect her thoughts before plunging ahead, Sidney wasn't sure. When Kay didn't say anything, Sidney floated a question.

  "Well, did that change? Was Jason acting differently?"

  "Yes." The word was blurted out so quickly, Sidney almost didn't catch it.

  "How so?"

  "It was a bunch of little things, really. The first thing that had me concerned was Jason ordering a lock for his door."

  "A lock on an office door isn't so unusual, Kay. I have one on mine." Sidney glanced over at her own office door. The doorknob was now motionless.

  "I know that, Sid. The thing is, Jason already had a lock on his door."

  "I don't understand, Kay. If he already had a lock, why did he order another one?"

  "The lock he had on his door was a pretty simple one, a pop-out lock on the doorknob. Yours is probably one of those."

  Sidney again glanced at her door. "That's right, it is. Aren't all office door locks pretty much the same?"

  "Not these days, Sid. Jason had a computerized lock put on his system that required a smart caM."

  "Smart card?"

  "You know, a plastic card with a microchip thing in it. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but you need it to get into the building here, and certain restricted access areas, among other things."

  Sidney fumbled through her purse and pulled out the plastic card she had taken from Jason's desk at home.

  "Does anyone else at Triton have those kinds of locks on their office doors?"

  "About a half dozen. Most of them are in finance, though."

  "Did Jason tell you why he had ordered the additional security for his office?"

  "I asked him, because I was concerned that maybe there had been a break-in and nobody told us. But Jason said he had taken on some additional responsibilities with the company and had some items in his keeping that he wanted additional protection for."

  Tired of sitting, Sidney stood up and paced. She looked out the window into the darkness. Across the street, the lights of Spencers, a posh new restaurant, gleamed back at her. A stream of taxis and luxury cars disgorged elegantly dressed parties who sauntered into the establishment for a night of fine food, drink and the latest city gossip. Sidney pulled the blind down. She let out her breath and sat on her credenza, slipping out of her shoes and absently rubbing sore and tired feet.

  "Why didn't Jason want you to tell anyone that he had taken on additional responsibilities?"

  "I don't know. He's been promoted three times already in the company. So ! know it wasn't that. You wouldn't be secretive about something like that anyway, would you?"

  Sidney pondered this information for a few seconds. Jason hadn't mentioned a promotion to her and it was inconceivable that he would not. "Did he tell you who had given him the additional responsibilities?"

  "No. And I really didn't want to pry."

  "Did you tell anyone else what Jason had told you?"

  "No one," Kay said firmly.

  Sidney tended to believe her. She shook her head. "What else had you concerned?"

  "Well, Jason kept a lot more to himself lately. He also made excuses for missing staff meetings, things like that. This had been going on for at least a month."

  Sidney stopped rubbing nervously at her foot.

  "Jason never mentioned testing the waters with another company?"

  "Never." Sidney could almost feel the firm shake of Kay's head through the phone line.

  "Did you ever ask Jason if anything was bothering him?"

  "I did once, only he wasn't real receptive. He was a good friend, but he was also my boss. ! didn't want to push it."

  "I understand, Kay." Sidney slid off the credenza and replaced her shoes. She noticed a shadow pass under her door and then it stopped.

  She waited for a few more seconds, but the shadow did not budge.

  She clicked the button on her receiver to portable use and disconnected the cord. A thought had occurred to her.