Murder in Foggy Bottom Read Online Free PDF

earlier that a commuter airliner has crashed in Westchester County, New York. The downed flight, we’re told, was bound for Washington and carried a full passenger load, including area residents. Stay tuned for further developments in this breaking story.”
    “Damn!” Pauling muttered as he clicked off the AM radio and focused in on his approach instructions. Traffic was heavy and he had to hold for fifteen minutes, but eventually landed and taxied to the side of the airport reserved for private and corporate aircraft. It cost him what he considered a small fortune to tie down there, but he never toyed with going to a less expensive, private facility out in the country. He liked being around a major airport, enjoyed conversations with professional pilots and serious amateurs like himself.
    He walked into the flight planning room to close out his IFR flight plan and was in the process of doing the paperwork when another private pilot he knew came up to the desk.
    “Coming or going, Max?”
    “Just flew in. I was in Pittsburgh visiting my ex-wife and kids. You?”
    “Going up to Maine to do some bass fishing. Weatherby’s Lodge. Know it?”
    “No. I haven’t been fishing in years. I caught the news about the accident. You have anything new on it?”
    “The
accident
? Make that two.”
    Pauling slowly turned and looked quizzically at his friend. “Two?”
    “Boise, Idaho. Just heard it five minutes ago.”
    “Two in one day? What was the equipment in Boise?”
    “A Dash 8, I think. Commuter flight out of a regional there.”
    Pauling drew a deep, distressed breath, signed his completed flight close-out form, slid it across the counter to the duty officer, and picked up his overnight bag. To his aviator friend, he said, “Safe flight.”
    “Maybe I ought to check how the planets are aligned today, along with the weather.”
    “Not a bad idea. Two in one day. Take care.”
    Pauling drove to his apartment complex in Crystal City, Virginia. The fifteen-minute drive was nothing more than a blur, as though it hadn’t happened. All he’d thought about, the only vision he had, was of a twisted, burning, crushed aircraft strewn over countryside, or suburb or city, body parts sprawled everywhere, acrid smoke searing the throat and nose, and, if lucky, a painful cry from someone who’d survived. He’d once been at an aircraft crash site, and the scene was forever etched in his memory.
    His phone was ringing when he walked through the door, and the digital readout on his answering machine indicated eight messages had been left. He picked up the phone.
    “Max, it’s Colonel Barton.”
    His boss at State was military through and through, always referring to himself by rank, never Walter or Walt, which annoyed Pauling, like a doctor who insists on being called Doctor but uses his patients’ first names. It wasn’t the military thing that bothered Max. He’d liked his tour of duty with the Corps even though it meant Vietnam, and he respected the need for a clear chain of command, all the rules and regulations, the need to forbid fraternization between officers and enlisted men—and women. It had to be that way if you were going to win wars. Pauling always felt a sense of silent pride whenever he saw young men and women in uniform riding the Metro to and from the Pentagon, no rings in the nose, ear, or lip, no scraggly beards, but clean-cut and erect and proud. Or ready to be proud once they’d proved themselves.
    So it wasn’t Barton’s military bearing and mind-set that bothered Pauling. It was the man behind the uniform, more politician than officer. Lots of them in Washington.
    “Hello, Colonel. What’s up?”
    “I’ve been trying your cell phone.”
    “Batteries must have run down.” Truth was, Pauling had turned it off when he left for the weekend.
    “I need you here right away.”
    “I’m on leave . . . Colonel.”
    “You
were
on leave, Max. Can you be here in a half hour?”
    “Yeah, I suppose so,