“The reason he tried to call her from space was to see if she answered, if she was really dead,” the FBI decides. “Certainly, he’d not risked contacting her like that before. It was the only time he’d tried her cell phone during the almost three months he’d been up there.”
“He had to know we’d ping on it,” Tron agrees. “But by then he didn’t care. He had a plan and was out of our reach.”
The vice president looks up from her notes, and I can see her quiet outrage.
“Did Jared Horton and Gwen Hainey talk prior to his being in space?” she asks. “Do we have a clue how long the spying has been going on?”
“We’ve found no evidence of communication between the two of them while he was in orbit, as we’ve mentioned,” the CIA says. “It’s possible that the rest of the time he may have used burner phones like most people engaged in activities they don’t want anyone to know about.”
Burner phones, cell phones of any description won’t work in space, Tron explains to the Situation Room. Not easily, and that wasn’t going to be an option up there if Horton wanted to speak to Gwen.
“Whatever the case,” Benton says, “the only record we have is that one call he made from his laptop computer at close to midnight.”
But that doesn’t mean he and Gwen weren’t connected prior to her going to work for Thor Laboratories. A scientist and commercial astronaut employed by them, Horton may have helped her get a job there, Benton suspects.
“I’m guessing she was his boots on the ground, and likely had been for a while,” Tron says. “She may have connections with others involved in espionage, as well. We don’t know yet. But what I expect to emerge is she’d been helping Horton spy for the Russians, to steal any resources she could access.”
“In exchange for money and other compensations that were largely untraceable,” Benton says. “Explaining why she paid for everything in cash and had five thousand dollars in her wallet at the time she was abducted from the townhome she was renting.”
CHAPTER 21
AS I LISTEN TO all this,” says the CIA, “I’m wondering if she’s a hit staged to look like something else. That could explain why her hands were cut off and are missing. It sounds like someone settling a score, sending a message.”
“It could be the Russians thought she was becoming a problem, that it was time to eliminate her,” DARPA contemplates.
“Or her murder may have nothing to do with any of this,” Benton replies skeptically, and I have no doubt he’s thinking about the flattened penny.
That one small detail seems to cry out, and what it has to say flies in the face of a murder for hire. I envision the run-over coin on the rail, an oblong coppery wafer beaded with rainwater, and it’s important somehow. I don’t feel it’s contrived or random.
“Once we have an idea what’s on her computers, hopefully we’ll know what we’re dealing with,” Benton says, precipitating another flurry of questions.
“What about Gwen Hainey’s mobile phone?”
“It hasn’t been recovered. But we’re dealing with the provider,” my husband answers.
“The last call she made? What do the records say?”
“Friday afternoon,” he says. “She called the manager of Colonial Landing.”
Apparently, Gwen was expecting a FedEx. Benton elaborates on yet more information I’ve not heard before this moment. According to the tracking record, it was delivered to the management office at ten-thirty Friday morning, he says as I remember the package I saw on her kitchen counter. Later in the day, she called Cliff Sallow asking where it was.
“What time was it when she finally checked on the package?” Another question.
“Close to four P.M., not long before she died.” Benton looks at me. “Cliff Sallow told her no such package had been delivered. He’d not seen it.”
“Was a signature required?” I ask.
“Apparently, she never requested that when she had things sent to her, the packages usually left on the management office’s front porch,” Benton answers as I envision the unopened package.
“What was in it?” I ask.
“Three Mophie-type chargers.”
“If the package I saw on top of the kitchen counter inside Gwen’s townhome is the one she called the management office about,” I ask next, “then where was it after FedEx dropped it off on the porch at ten-thirty in the morning?”