Chapter 17 -- GNHKDXHJODVNBZPUVRGPV
Carter spent the next week with Jessica and Tommy, most of it at her house
making plans. He wondered how Tommy was affected by his relationship with
Jessica -- if he didn't already know that they were spending their nights
together, he would sooner or later. When he brought it up she laughed.
"I've wondered if he didn't recruit you because he wanted me to have someone,"
she told him. "Tommy is like a brother to me, and while he doesn't show much
emotion about anything, kind of like you, he loves me and Dad like family, and
he thinks a lot of you too.
"If you're wondering about his love life -- well, I don't know any details but
he always has a girlfriend, or maybe more than one at any given time, on the
outside. He's not running any risks, he has the necessary discipline not to
let anything slip. As far as they know he's just a guy who works at the farm
and sees them on weekends."
They were in Jessica's office, an unused bedroom containing not much more than
a table with a couple of computers and several chairs. The sound of the door
from the garage announced Tommy's arrival, and a few seconds later he entered
the room.
"Let me get some coffee," he said "You guys need any?"
"We're good," Jessica replied.
Tommy sat down at the end of the table, with Jessica on one side and Carter on
the other. She had spread a large sheet of poster board on the table, and
several pens and pencils lay about. Carter had drawn two small circles on the board
and marked them 'here' and 'LR'. A rough outline of the states of Missouri
and Arkansas surrounded the two marks.
"So, I guess the first order of business is the flight," Carter said. "Ditch
the tracker, if there is one, and leave town quickly. I'm guessing that even
without a monitor, he'll be watched -- how carefully we don't know. I'd guess
there would be status checks several times a day, the assumption being that he
can't get far in a couple of hours. So it would be a good idea to make his
departure unseen, if possible. We'll know more once we contact him, see where
he's staying, and case the area."
"All right then," Jessica said. "So where to we pick up the action? Once he's
safely away from town, with no followers?"
"I'd say so," Carter replied. "There would be a pickup point, and we go from there.
The reason I asked about air assets was because the fastest way to get him far
away quickly is by air. You know of anything near central Arkansas?"
"There are quite a few private airstrips," Jessica replied, "mostly used by
farmers. I know there's a group of farmers in Arkansas, mostly in the
northeast down into the central area, that make up the Brave Shield freehold.
About a dozen, with big rice farms. Big as in thousands of acres. Some of these
guys own crop dusting businesses, and fly their personal
aircraft from the crop dusting facilities."
"Are any of those among our air assets?" asked Tommy.
Jessica looked at her computer.
"I don't see anything, official, in Arkansas. Wait, Bronze Bull. It's a small
group of wealthy old retired men, lot of military officers. Near Hot Springs,
which is further south... let me see."
She consulted a map.
"It's southeast of Little Rock. Anyway, some of the guys are former pilots,
mostly Air Force I suppose, and several have airplanes. If that works, we'd
need a landing place."
"How are you figuring this?" asked Tommy.
"Small aircraft that could use the farmers' airstrips -- a Cessna 172 or
something like that..."
"Wait," said Carter. "Look at the map. Pick a location up in this area. Do we
have a connection up in this area, where an aircraft could land, refuel if
necessary, and fly back to Hot Springs?"
"Just a second... OK, over near Pittsburgh, Kansas. Just over the state line.
Say you had to fly out a little east of Little Rock, pick up a passenger, fly
to Pittsburgh. We have a contact out there, rich guy with a big estate,
private runway. He's not one of us, but he does things for the right money,
no questions asked. I'm guessing he's not interested in talking about any of
his activities because some at least, may be of questionable legality."
"That looks promising," Carter said. "Who do we know in Kansas? Besides our
contract help?"
"What do you mean?" asked Jessica.
"Where do we hide him after we get him to Kansas?"
"Why not bring him here?" Tommy asked.
Carter looked at Jessica.
"How far is it from here to Pittsburgh?"
"I know its down south." Jessica consulted the computer. "Only a couple of
hundred miles. It's a four hour drive, has to go through Kansas City, or
around it. Which is not a great idea. The main thing we have going for us
is that no one is likely to be looking up here that soon."
"So let's run the scenario," Carter said. "Our guy in Hot Springs flies out
to a ricefield runway in rural Arkansas, sets it down, rolls to a stop,
passenger jumps in, they take off. Fly to Pittsburgh, where the passenger can
deplane under cover of darkness -- this would need to be a night operation --
and we're waiting to pick him up. So far so good. Then it's back over into
Missouri. We get through Kansas City, and the only thing we have to worry
about is a bored highway patrolman stopping us. Or an accident or something.
Since they wouldn't have an APB out so soon, a fake ID for our passenger
would be a good idea. We get him home, stash him on the farm."
"Now we just need to see if all that will work," Tommy said. "We'll need to
confirm our air transport before anything. It's a pretty good ways, so it
will have to have the range and still be small enough to land on a short grass
runway."
"OK," said Jessica, making notes on her computer. "Got it. What's next?"
Carter had looked over at the screen.
"I just noticed, that's an odd screen. It isn't a Mac, is it?"
"No," said Jessica. "Or Windows either. It's Linux. Something techies use.
At least the smartest ones, apparently. Grant, our tech wizard, sets up our
systems. It's possible to completely secure these machines, the encrypted
files can't be read without the passwords, and they're very difficult to
penetrate, even if you have network access."
"Impressive," Carter said. "Does the government know about this stuff? Just
kidding."
"Of course. They use it for their most secure systems. The trick is, they
still can't crack it, if it's set up right, even though they know what it is.
Kind of like the one-time pad in cryptology. It doesn't do any good to
intercept a message, even though you know or suspect how it was encoded,
without the key."
"OK, back to business. Looks like maybe four to five hundred air
miles a from Little Rock to Pittsburgh. There are small planes that can do
that, one way, without refueling. I'm not sure about a round trip. We do
know it can be refueled in Pittsburgh, though." "So that leaves getting our
guest home," said Tommy. "Are you comfortable with just the three of us? We
go in together, he rides back with me. Who's in the lead?"
"Good question," Jessica replied. "I should probably lead. The leader is the one
most likely to be stopped. I'm wondering, though. Should we get some help?"
"If we have trouble in KC," Tommy said, "I don't know if we could have enough.
Out on the highway, a couple more cars could help. But really, our best
chance is not being detected. The usual - no problems with the cars, no
speeding, what we always do."
"You're right about KC," said Jessica. "If we get caught there... well, it won't
be good. Outside the city, in one of the little towns, we can deal with the
locals, if we act quickly."
"How's that?" asked Carter.
"If he ended up in a jail in some small town, we could extricate him, but it
wouldn't be pretty." she said. "And we'd have to move fast -- they'd want him
back in Arkansas as quickly as possible. Probably move him the next day, if
they could process the extradition that fast, or make it a federal case and
have the FBI or marshals come get him. I think our best bet is a four-car
convoy. If something goes wrong, we'll have to make the next move based on
his situation."
"So," Carter said, "the final phase is housing him. If he agrees to go along
with it, he'll know the conditions already. His old life is gone, from now on
he's going to have a rigidly controlled existence in terms of where he goes
and who he associates with. Essentially what we do already. Where does he stay?"
"I'm thinking one of the houses on the north road," Jessica replied. "They're
all empty, so he'll be the only one around. And it's pretty deep into the
property, so getting there unnoticed, for anyone snooping around, won't be easy."
"Well, we have a plan," said Carter. "Let's see what your dad thinks."