Chapter 7: Tracking Her Down

I thought about whether I should try and track Nicole and find out where she was. Was it the wrong thing to do? If she knew, or if she found out, was I sending her a message that I didn't trust her? I wrestled with that for a very short period of time. No ... the element of danger made me sure of what I wanted to do.

"Hey, Cory, how are you. It's Will Travers."

"Hi, Will. Long time since we've talked. What's up?"

"I wonder if you can help me. I'm trying to find out who owns a particular aircraft. I have the registration number."

"Sure, no problem. Let me have it."

I read it off to him.

"Hold on about one minute and I can tell you what you want to know."

"Great, Cory. Thanks for the quick service."

"No problem, man. Let's see, here it is. It's registered to Mid-Continent Leasing. That's not unusual. They buy aircraft and lease them out to corporations, individuals, even the government."

"So, how would I go about finding out who was leasing this aircraft at present?"

"Well, you could ask me," he chuckled. "That's not usually secret information."

"So ... I'm asking then," I said.

"I'll have to call you back. It'll take a few minutes. Give me your number."

I did and after some small talk, I hung up. I had doodled some ideas of how to find out where the aircraft was going, but Cory would tell me quick enough if they were practical.

He called back a half-hour later.

"Okay, it's leased to the U.S. Government. Has been for several months. My guy thinks it's either Treasury Department or F.B.I."

"Okay, I kind of guessed it was government. How do I find out where they were going?"

He laughed. "Well, ordinarily you don't. But in this case, my guy let it slip they were headed for Beverly Municipal in Massachusetts."

"Beverly? That's near Boston, isn't it?"

"The same. Not a lot more info on the flight, but I don't know what else you'd want to know."

"No, hell, Cory, you're a huge help. Thanks and I owe you."

"A couple of beers at The Blue Heron will do."

"You got it. How about Friday after work."

"Perfect. See you there."

I hung up. Cory Willis was a long-established contact in the aviation business. I had written up his business in a feature and he was everlastingly grateful for the good publicity. He was also an interesting guy. I could easily spend a couple of hours with him on a Friday afternoon.

So, there it was. Nicole was in the hands of the Federal Government and flying to Boston. But what for? What did they want with her? The F.B.I. or the Treasury Department? Which one and why?

I spent some time thinking about this puzzle before I began to act. I dug out my e-files on my computer at the office searching for the Hepplinger article. I pulled down "find" and looked for Boston. There were several hits, but after going through them carefully, none of them seemed to be any more than generic references to the area.

So, maybe it wasn't Boston. Let's try Massachusetts instead. This brought up five hits and I began going through them carefully. I studied each of my references and narrowed it down to two possibilities.

There had been a grant-in-aid to the Save Our Coast with Knowledge group, working under the acronym SOCK. Their offices were listed as being in Havenport. They appeared to be against a wide variety of practices that created ocean pollution including freighters dumping ballast illegally, oil spills, garbage transportation, newly planned tanker facilities, and more. Sounded completely legitimate from what I could see.

The second group had applied for a large grant, but had received a smaller one, about half their original request. They were called Friends of New England, and they were a clean air group. FONE didn't seem to be very active, and perhaps that was why the grant was smaller than requested. I looked them up on Google and saw they were in Springfield. I checked their news section and discovered it hadn't been updated for almost a year. I wondered if the group was still active.

A quick phone call to the FONE office got me an answering machine. I requested a call back and left my cell phone number. It wasn't until the next morning that I had a call from a young man. I asked about his group and it only took a couple of questions to determine they were a shoestring outfit and pretty much living day-to-day. They hardly seemed like the target of a government investigation, if that's what it was.

I started to dig a little deeper into SOCK. They'd been around about ten years, having grown out of another organization that had found they were going in too many directions at once. SOCK was an information gathering and dissemination organization. They didn't rally, or protest, or lobby from what I could tell. But, and this was the strange part, they were pretty damn big. They had offices right in the town center and according to the records, it was a heritage building. Not exactly beggar's quarters.

They also seemed to be quite generous with their salaries. When I looked at the corporate structure, I saw some salaries attached that looked more like what I would expect in the financial district rather than a volunteer organization looking for handouts and grants. The more I looked, the more I began to sense what might be going on. The I.R.S. could be interested in this organization. Were they dodging taxes they should have been paying? That was one possibility.

But it didn't answer a couple of my main questions. I could see why they might want Nicole for assistance with an audit. She knew the basis on which their grant was made. It would make sense for her to be involved. But what about the possibility of danger? Tax evasion or fraud seldom provoked anyone to violence. Flight, maybe, but violence? It didn't add up.

And those two guys that met her at the airport. They didn't seem in the least bit concerned that I was there. When I looked carefully, however, I was pretty sure they were F.B.I. I didn't see any weapons bulge, but the haircuts and the suits and the physical size of them virtually screamed federal agent. They definitely weren't I.R.S.

What now? She might be in Havenport. Then again, I could be way off. It might be somewhere else altogether. Then another thought struck me. I wondered if her phone calls were being monitored. Maybe even her room. If these people were playing secret agent, then anything was possible. I wondered how I might warn her. There was a way. It wasn't subtle. I'd ask her.

I knew Nicole would call home before she called me. Jimmy's bedtime was eight-thirty, so I expected to hear from her sometime after that. I was right. The Skype video call alert came up at eight-fifty that evening. I answered immediately.

"Hey, sweetheart, how are you?" I said without thinking.

"Sweetheart? You're awfully forward this evening Mr. Travers." I could see by the look on her face that she was kidding.

"How was your flight?"

"Fine. It was the first time I'd ever flown in one of those planes. It was amazing how comfortable and fast they are."

"Yes, I'm sure. Are you in your hotel room now?"

"Yeah, sort of."

"Sort of? I don't understand."

"Actually, I'm staying at a compound that the people I'm with are renting. I guess it was cheaper than a bunch of expensive hotel rooms."

"So, you have a private room?"

"Yes. It's quite nice, but very Spartan. It could use a decorator's touch," she said, looking around her.

"Do I need to worry about someone listening to our conversation?"

"No ... we can talk," she said with a smile. "They aren't quite that paranoid."

"Those two SUV's that were parked beside us at the airport. They were government units."

She nodded. "They are the protection I talked about."

"I know where you are ... approximately."

"You do? How?"

"I'm a reporter, remember. I have friends in low places," I chuckled, trying to keep it light.