The Blackbird Papers Read Online Free PDF Page B

He smiled. “Do me a favor and leave a note for the students on my office door. Cancel office hours for next Monday and Wednesday, but I'll be back for class next Friday.” Sterling spoke with his usual confidence, but a bad feeling in his gut told him that his plan to be back in a week was overly optimistic.

5
    S terling grabbed his suitcase and caught the elevator down to his garage. Most New York City apartment buildings didn't have garages in the basement, and those that did weren't cheap. Though Sterling made decent money and lived well, he wasn't rich, but he had bought his apartment just after the stock market crash, when the once almighty dot-commers were forced to practically give their apartments away. It also didn't hurt that Pops Bledsoe had lived an excessively frugal life and saved a bundle. That, combined with the life insurance money, allowed the two sons to split a rather generous inheritance with their mother. Wilson saved his money, but Sterling used his to buy the apartment, and what was left over he poured into a life of fast cars and beautiful women.
    He jumped into the shiny black Porsche 911 and turned on the ignition. The twin turbo engine roared awake, then settled on a loud hum. He pulled his cell phone from his jacket and dialed.
    A woman answered. “Travel.”
    “SA 2378,” Sterling said. “Reservation for one this morning.”
    “Agent Bledsoe? Is that you?”
    “Ten-four,” Sterling answered. “Monica?”
    “Yes, sir,” she said. “It's so good to hear your voice again.”
    “Yeah, it's been a while,” Sterling said. “I've been on hiatus.”
    “I hope you enjoyed it. Where are you going now?”
    “Hanover, New Hampshire, just outside of Lebanon.”
    “Lebanon, New Hampshire?” she repeated. “I don't think I've ever sent anyone there before.”
    “No good reason to,” Sterling added. “It's a small, out-of-the-way kind of place in the mountains. Not much action up there. Most of the work in the area is handled by our field offices in Boston or Albany.”
    “When do you want to leave?”
    “The next flight out of any New York City airport.”
    “Let me see what I have.”
    Sterling could hear Monica's rapid-fire typing. She had booked most of his travel since he joined the Bureau, and he liked it that way. Only the higher-ups were allowed to fly first class, but when Sterling playfully whispered to Monica, she always found a way to bend the rules. The irony was that after all these years he had never met her in person. The travel offices were somewhere in North Carolina. Several times he had promised that he'd stop by if a case brought him down there, but the closest he'd ever got was Atlanta for a grisly drug-trafficking case. Twenty-five bodies in all, including five cops. He was there for three weeks straight, but still couldn't string together enough free time to drive up and see her. To this day, he regretted the missed opportunity; a few agents from the Charlotte field office who had seen her happily reported to Sterling that he'd made a big mistake.
    “There's a flight at seven o'clock out of La Guardia,” she said. “Are you close to there?”
    “Twenty minutes away this time of morning,” Sterling said. “How long is the flight?”
    “Only an hour and fifteen minutes. Nonstop. You arrive at eight fifteen. US Airways flight 5991.”
    “Good, that gives me a few minutes to grab something before we take off.”
    “It's a Beechcraft 1900,” Monica added. She remembered that SA 2378 liked to know detailed information about the plane he'd be flying on. She thought it was odd the first time he asked, but then he explained about a college friend of his who was going home to West Virginia for Christmas break. He didn't like flying the small puddle jumpers into Morgantown, so his parents always picked him up at the Pittsburgh airport and drove the hour and a half home. No one was available to come get him this particular Christmas, so he'd agreed to fly the