Free Changeling by David Wood, Sean Ellis

815.”
    “Wait, the Flight 815?”
    Professor nodded. There was no need for further elaboration. Three weeks after the fact, the disappearance of Flight 815, Sydney to Los Angeles, was still the subject of water-cooler discussions across the globe.
    The plane, a Boeing 777, had been proceeding along its designated trans-Pacific flight plan, the pilots making routine checks with international air traffic controllers, with no hint of trouble, until three hours into the flight, all communication ceased. The plane’s GPS locator and radar transponder failed to return any signals and an exhaustive—and still ongoing—search for the plane had not yielded even a scrap of physical evidence as to its fate. The only thing that could be said with any certainty was that Flight 815 had not crashed anywhere along its intended course.
    The loss of the aircraft was eerily reminiscent of Malaysian Air Flight 370, which had gone missing more than a year earlier, which invariably led to the as yet impossible to refute belief that the two events were connected. The fact that some debris from Flight 370 had recently been discovered did little to silence the speculation. Were the disappearances the work of international terrorists who were hijacking planes in mid-flight in order to build a fleet of jets for a 9-11 style suicide raid? Or was the explanation something even more diabolical? Theories ranged from the improbably mundane to the unthinkably impossible.
    “Roche’s publisher was on the Flight 815,” Jade said again. “Do you realize what that means?”
    “It doesn’t mean anything,.” Professor said, a little more forcefully than he intended. “It’s a coincidence. The kind of thing men like Roche and Stillman use to spin their conspiracy webs. Nothing more.”
    “Except now Roche is dead,” Jade countered.
    Professor lowered his voice an octave, as if afraid that someone might overhear. “Jade, you don’t seriously think that some shadow conspiracy killed hundreds of people just to keep a crazy man from publishing his book. The world doesn’t work that way.”
    Even as he said it, he knew better. The world did work that way, all the time.
    “You know I don’t believe in Changelings or aliens or any crap like that,” Jade said, “but we both know that conspiracies and secret societies do exist. Maybe Roche stumbled on something in his research, something that they don’t want anyone knowing. Probably something that doesn’t have anything to do with Phantom Time. The answer will be in Roche’s book. There’s got to be a copy of the manuscript. Either at his place in London, or with the publisher. If you’re right, and this is all just a bizarre coincidence, then we won’t be in any more danger in London than we are right here. But if Roche was killed to keep this a secret, then whoever did it is going to come after us eventually. We need to know.”
    “Even if you’re right, and there is some kind of conspiracy at work, why go to the trouble of taking out a whole plane just to kill one guy? They could have just popped him on a street corner, made it look like a mugging. Or simply walked up and shot him, like Rafi did. And for that matter, how did our intern get mixed up in this?”
    “Maybe this Parrott guy wasn’t the only target on that plane. As for Rafi, I have no idea, but you’re right. It doesn’t make any sense. That’s why we have to go to London. We have to figure out what Roche’s big secret is.”
    Professor sighed. “You’re insufferable when you’re right. You know that, don’t you?”
    Jade just grinned.

SIX
     
    New York City
     
    Atash Shah opened his front door before the visitor could knock. “Gabrielle. Thank you for coming so quickly.”
    “Of course. I was still at the office when I heard. I came straight away.” Gabrielle Greene gripped Shah’s hand, not shaking but clasping it in both of hers. Her dark eyes, framed by even darker hair, a stark contrast with her pale skin,