By Order of the President (Presidential Agent 1)

“I’m facing facts, is what I’m doing,” Halloran said.

“We just don’t know,” Miller said.

“What we’re wondering is if there’s a Philadelphia connection, ” Castillo said.

“Meaning what?” Mrs. Halloran demanded from behind the handkerchief into which she was sniffing.

“Meaning the airplane was there for over a year,” Miller said. “Maybe somebody here—somebody who works for Lease-Aire—knew it was getting ready to fly . . .”

“Bullshit,” Mrs. Halloran said. “You see what he’s doing, Terry, I hope? He’s trying to get us to say we let somebody know the airplane was there available to get stolen. They stole it and we collect the insurance.”

“That’s just not true, Mrs. Halloran,” Castillo said.

Mrs. Halloran snorted.

“We don’t have many employees,” Halloran said. “We contract out just about everything. But that’s possible, I suppose. ”

“All it would take would be someone who could overhear something, maybe Captain MacIlhenny saying he was going to Africa, saying when he expected to be back, something like that,” Castillo said.

“About the time he was packing up to go over there, we had an MD-10 in the hangar,” Halloran said. “Got it from Delta. We were cleaning it up. I mean, we had ACSInc.— that means ‘Aviation Cleaning Services, Inc.’—in the hangar. But what they send us is a bunch of North Philadelphia blacks. You know, minimum wage. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to wash an airplane. I can’t believe any of them would be smart enough to get into something like that. No offense, Major.”

“None taken,” Miller said. “But maybe if the thieves— let’s go with the idea there are thieves—maybe they told the airplane cleaners what to look for.”

“Yeah,” Halloran said, thoughtfully.

“Have you got the payroll records of these people?” Betty asked.

“No,” he replied. "ASCInc. does all that. We pay by the body/hour. And ASCInc. handles the security, you know, to get them onto the airport. But they’d have a list of the names.”

“Where are they?” Castillo asked.

“Out at the airport,” Halloran said. “Two hangars down from ours.” He looked at Castillo. “Would you like me to go out there with you?”

“We’d appreciate that very much, Mr. Halloran,” Betty said.

“Well, let me change clothes and get a quick shave,” he said. “Could I interest you in a beer while you wait?”

“You certainly could,” Castillo said.

“I sure hope you know what you’re doing, Terry,” Mrs. Halloran said.

“I’m doing the best I can,” he said as he bent over the cooler. He came out with three cans of Budweiser and passed them around. “At least these people don’t think we’re trying to rip off the insurance company.”

The next step, Castillo thought, once they had the names of the work crew, was to see if there was a match with any names the cops had. There were several problems with that. For one thing, if there was a terrorist connection they would probably use a phony name. Or if they used the name they were born with the cops might not have it. They would know John James Smith as Abdullah bin Rag-head, his Muslim name. Or if security was anywhere near as tight as it was supposed to be, airport passes would not be given to anyone on the cops’ suspicious list. That didn’t rule out a bad guy, who couldn’t get a pass because the cops were watching him, getting his brother or girlfriend, who had not come to the attention of the cops, a pass to look for what he wanted to know.

Or a bad guy who couldn’t get an airfield pass knew somebody who had a pass and borrowed it to get on the field. It was unlikely that anyone took a close look at a work gang coming onto the airfield. If they had a pass hanging around their neck, that would be good enough.

They would have to do a check on friends and relatives of everybody who had worked in the Lease-Aire hangar when MacIlhenny had been getting ready to go to Luanda. That was going to take time—a lot of time.

This was likely to be a wild-goose chase.

If anything was going to pop up, it probably would come from the undercover cops Chief Inspector Kramer had inside the AAL—African American Lunatic—groups.

But you never knew. Wild-goose chase or not, it had to be done.

“It won’t take me long,” Halloran said and headed for his house.

Castillo held open the front door of the unmarked car.