“May I?” She nodded.
“I guess it’s for the best, right?”
“Definitely,” he said. He secured the bracelet then placed the necklace on her.
“Now, what?” she said looking at the table.
“I have it,” said Victoria running toward them. She wore a blue lab suit, covering her head to toe with rubber gloves on her hands, holding the small rolling bag.
“Hey, uh we’re eating. Should you be in here?” frowned Ham.
“Don’t be a baby. It’s just for precaution.”
“Okay, what do you have?” asked Matt.
“The suitcase.” She pulled a chair over and lifted the small case to lay on top of it. She opened the zippered top and flipped it back. “It looks and feels like the standard industry canvas that’s used on suitcases. Almost every manufacturer uses it because it’s so durable. But this case is different.”
“How?” asked April. “Sorry, I’m April and that’s my bag. What didn’t I see?”
“It’s not your fault. I’m Victoria,” she smiled. “Normally, TSA would tear apart a suitcase at the nylon inside seams of the bottom of the case. You can feel around and know if something is hidden there. Cash, drugs, jewelry, anything. Someone figured out something else on this suitcase.”
April stood and moved to the suitcase, staring at it. She looked at the bottom where the broken wheel was gone and frowned. Then looking inside the bag, she noticed that there was something missing. Her initials which she’d painted on the inside in red nail polish.
“This isn’t my bag,” she whispered. “I thought it was mine but it’s not.”
“No, it’s not,” smiled Victoria. “I know that because the prints all over this thing belonged to Jerry Sullivan. This was his bag but he must have realized that he was in big trouble. You have to get close but when you examine the fibers of the weave of the bag, they’re different. When you went to buy the new bag, he must have switched it out for his bag, breaking the wheel off. You can see that it was snapped.”
April leaned closer, looking at the canvas top of the bag she thought was hers, and then looked at the sides.
“She’s right. The top is a mix of what looks like new threads and old. They’re worn in different ways. The sides look brand new.”
“Bingo!” smiled Victoria.
“Victoria, you know we love your brilliance honey but do you think you could move this along?” asked Ham.
“You’re no fun anymore,” she frowned with a playful wink. “The darker fibers aren’t fibers at all. I mean, they are but not cloth fibers.”
“Victoria,” said Rush with a warning.
“They’re fiberoptic communication threads. More specifically, fiberoptic communication threads containing information about every flight, commercial or military, going in and out of this country.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“It wasn’t drugs,” said Patrick. “Do you realize the effort that they went to with these fibers?”
“I haven’t even gotten to the coolest part,” smiled Victoria. She noticed that no one else was smiling and cleared her throat. “Well, I think it’s cool. Look. Right here at the bottom of the suitcase. It looks like a regular USB connector but it’s not. It allows them to download the information to the fibers over and over again. This means they were just getting new information downloaded continuously.”
“Jerry and Daniel,” whispered April. “Daniel controlled the schedules of the flight attendants which would have the information for all the flights. This wasn’t my suitcase, he was swapping bags with me to keep himself safe. Daniel knew that.”
“I think he does,” nodded Quinn hugging her tightly.
“Anymore cool revelations?” smirked Patrick looking at Victoria.
“One,” said Victoria looking at April with a sad expression. “Before your grandfather’s death, he made an appeal to the department of defense to handle flight information more securely for our military. He encouraged them to move away from traditional telecommunication methods. In fact, he was hoping to use a new system that we’d presented to him. It was rejected, stating it was too much money. He tried to do something before any of this actually happened.”
“Victoria, if they were downloading this information what exactly did they have at their fingertips?” asked Matt.
“They knew which flights were going where. They had passenger lists, flight crew, all of it. On the military flights they knew what and who was deployed and where they were at any moment, and where they were going. If I were a drug smuggler, terrorist, or any other criminal character, I would pay good money for that information because I would know wherenotto be.”
