Free The Death Trust by David Rollins Page A

black Formica boardroom-style table. “Your English is good,” I said.
    “We have to learn it in school.” He was in a daze, still struggling to come to grips with the revised reality of the general’s demise. “…Assassinated?” he repeated.
    “Murdered, assassinated—take your pick.” I reached inside my coat, pulled out the notebook, and flipped it open. I’ve found that if people think I’m writing things down, it focuses their minds—perhaps because they realize someone further on down the line could well hold them to their answers. “How often did you fly with General Scott?” I asked, getting on with it.
    “I’m a soaring enthusiast; so was Scotty.”
    “Scotty?”
    “Away from Ramstein, we were friends.”
    He licked those red lips and swallowed—that nervous swallow people do. “I saw what happened. One of his wings just…broke off. There was nothing he could have done.”
    Roach’s terrifying description came back to me with a rush. My balls felt like they were falling, dragging me down with them. I crossed my legs. “You haven’t answered my question.”
    “Sorry…which was?”
    “How often did you fly with General Scott?”
    “Whenever the conditions were right and he was around—A dozen, fifteen times a year.”
    “Is that a lot?”
    “It is when you consider that we don’t fly often in winter. Once the weather breaks, it’s almost every weekend.”
    “Did you talk to him before going up the last time?”
    “Yes. We discussed the conditions. We were both keen to get airborne.”
    “Did the general seem concerned about anything that day—anything other than the flying conditions? Anything about his behavior that struck you as odd?” These are the sorts of questions you ask when straws are all you can see and you start clutching at them.
    “No, sir. Scotty usually arrived tense, on edge, but that wouldn’t last long. Soaring’s a Zen experience. Just you and the elements. I can highly recommend it.”
    “Gravity and I don’t get along,” I said. I could tell he was looking at me as if to say, “You could sure use some of that Zen shit, pal.” If I were him, I’d be looking at me strangely, too. Again I reminded myself I should have detoured and cleaned myself up when I had the chance.
    “How was his plane sabotaged, sir?”
    “A clamp that held the wings on failed. It’d been tampered with.”
    Aleveldt shook his head and frowned. “General Scott was a careful pilot. Always did the walk-around—checked everything, sometimes twice. It’s ironic. Is that the right word?”
    “Depends what you mean by it.”
    “He spent several thousand dollars upgrading his sailplane several months ago, over the winter when not much soaring is done—to make it safer.”
    “Yeah, ironic will do nicely,” I said as a tingle went up the back of my neck and shrank the skin on my scalp. This could be a small but important break. Although it was by no means certain, there was a good chance that it was this very upgrade that provided the opportunity for the clamp to be replaced with a faulty unit. “What did he have done?”
    “Avionics. A global positioning system for cross-country flying, a better radio set—more powerful, lighter. Had a couple of instruments replaced, too.”
    “Do you know who did the work?”
    “Sorry. Can’t help you there. I do a lot of the maintenance on my own plane, but the general was in a different league. Some airframe specialist—whoever was on at the time and depending on what was needed—would do it for him.”
    I remembered the conversation I had with Roach on this subject and that feeling across the top of my scalp evaporated.
    “Do you know why anyone would want to kill the general?” Aleveldt asked.
    “That was my next question.”
    “No, no. I don’t understand it. The general was liked and respected. He flew in Vietnam. A war hero. He knew how to look after his people. I could see that. Everyone could.”
    Well, obviously someone