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“I understand, sir.”
He took the telephone from his ear and exhaled audibly.
“He says he’s going to have to tell the president about the commissioner’s 1615 deadline,” Castillo said.
“Jesus!” Miller said.
“What is the commissioner going to tell the mayor at four-fifteen tomorrow?” Sergeant Schneider asked.
Castillo looked toward the front of the car and saw that Sergeant Schneider had adjusted the rearview mirror so that she could look at him.
He met her eyes in the mirror and thought she had eyes that were at once attractive and intelligent.
“That we think there is a possibility—operative word possibility—that a group of Somalian terrorists who call themselves the Holy Legion of Muhammad, and who may— operative word may—have stolen a Boeing 727 in Luanda may—repeat, may—try to crash it into the Liberty Bell.”
“My God! You’re serious!”
“I’m afraid so.”
“I knew this was important when the commissioner gave you a new unmarked car,” she said. “But nothing like that. The Liberty Bell? Why would they want to do that?”
“Two theories,” Miller said. “One is that they think it’s an important symbol to America, much more so than most of us think it is. And the second—sort of tied in with the first—is that somebody in Philadelphia told these people they should hit the Liberty Bell.”
“What we’re trying to find out is if there is some link between Lease-Aire and the terrorists or between anybody else in Philadelphia and the terrorists,” Castillo continued. “If we can do that, then maybe we can find out exactly what they’re planning and when. That’s why we’re going to the airport, to talk to the Lease-Aire people.”
The Ford suddenly accelerated.
Miller glanced over at the speedometer.
“We don’t want to get pinched for speeding, Sergeant,” he said.
“There’s blue flashers under the grille,” she said. “If there’s a Highway Patrol car out here, he’ll see them.”
“Or die young in a fiery crash,” Miller said. “You’re going almost ninety.”
She laughed.
“Relax,” she said. “And you can call me Betty, too. I thought I told you.”
Castillo saw her eyes on him in the rearview mirror.
“Chief Kramer said you were a Secret Service supervisory agent,” she said.
“I am.”
“You told the White House operator—I assume that was the White House operator . . . ?”
“It was.”
“. . . that you were Secretary Hall’s executive assistant.”
“I am.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” she said and returned her attention to the road.
The corporate headquarters of Lease-Aire, Inc., was on the second floor of an unimpressive two-story, concrete-block building attached to the end of an old and somewhat run-down hangar on a remote corner of Philadelphia International Airport.
> There was a sign—it looked as if it had been printed on a computer’s ink-jet printer—on the steel door announcing, CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS IN THE FAMILY.
