Free Breaking Point by Dana Haynes Page B

what’s on your mind?”
    Jenna smiled. “I’m running Calendar.”
    Barry stared owlishly at her, glasses frozen in the wide end of the tie that he’d wrapped around the lens. Calendar? How does she even know his name?
    She kept smiling but her forehead knotted, just a touch. She was one of those beautiful women whose age is difficult to guess. In her thirties or forties, he thought.
    â€œBarry? I’ve been running Calendar since before you met him. When you had him sabotage the McDonnell Douglas drone tests? I green-lit that. Two years ago, when it was necessary to have Senator McMenwick’s wife killed? We made the sign of the cross.”
    Barry stared at her. His eyes, usually hidden, bulged normally. Jenna Scott touched his knee with one manicured fingernail. “You didn’t know we knew about those incidents. Of course we do. Frankly, there aren’t that many men who do this sort of freelance work.”
    With the door closed and security activated, Barry thought it would be easy enough to grab one of the headset cords in the room and whip it around her throat. He could crush her windpipe before she could even struggle.
    Jenna smiled a languid smile and leaned forward, now resting her hand on Barry’s knee. “This is not now, nor will it ever be, an Agency mission. You understand that. If things go south—”
    He opened his mouth and she squeezed his knee, just a little.
    â€œShh. Barry? If things go south, you are not going to be able to blame the Agency. You’ll find that the communication protocols you have with Calendar have been terminated. If you communicate with him, at all, it will be through me. That’s the way it works. Do you understand me?”
    Now, Barry thought. The windpipe is so easily crushed.
    â€œWell, of course,” he told Jenna Scott, and smiled.
    REAGAN NATIONAL
    The pilot turned to the eight-year-old boy. “Okay, that means you have to fly the plane.”
    â€œNuh-uh!” the kid reeled back.
    â€œJust having a catch, boss.” The copilot grinned, then turned to the boy’s parents. “But your son can come look at the flight deck before we take off, if that’s all right with you.”
    The copilot spoke louder. “Folks, if we could get you to stand on line and punch your tickets, we’ll get everybody on board. No need to wait for your row to be called. We’ve got a light load today. Sorry about the delay.”
    There had been something about the luggage. TSA had allowed the ground crews to load the bags, then had unloaded them and let drug-sniffing dogs do their thing. Eventually it had ended and the baggage was reloaded. The Polestar crew never did find out what that was all about. A United flight to Seattle departed first, and about a dozen passengers opted to take that flight instead, as the others cooled their heels in the terminal, the NTSB crashers among them.
    *   *   *
    Flight attendants Andi Garner and Jolene Solomon studied the computer screen behind the counter as the last of the Flight 78 passengers trudged down the gangway toward the fore entry point.
    â€œWhen was the last time you saw a half-empty plane?” Andi asked.
    â€œPre-nine/eleven,” Jolene replied. “Pre-Travelocity and the other sites. This is weird.”
    *   *   *
    As Andrew and his engineers stood to board the plane, he remembered to turn off his cell phone.
    â€œThis’ll be an interesting expo,” Christian said.
    Andrew and Vejay nodded.

11
    T HE FLIGHT FROM REAGAN National to Sea-Tac takes eight hours, less if there’s a tailwind.
    It was going on ten o’clock mountain time as Pilot-in-Charge Miguel Cervantes stepped out of the flight deck and into the head. Flight Attendant Andi Garner was making a new batch of coffee as he stepped out and flirted with her. She flirted right back. They’d flown together many times over the years and