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CHAPTER 1

HARRY FINN ROSE as usual at six-thirty,out into the fenced backyard for itsconstitutional, showered, shaved, woke the kids for school and oversaw that complicated operation for the next half hour as breakfasts were gulped, backpacks and shoes grabbed and argu sleepy but nonetheless ga a precocious, independent-e boy

Harry Finn was in his thirties with still boyish features and a pair of clear blue eyes thatand loved his wife and three children and even held sincere affection toward the fae Finn was an inch over six feet tall, with a long-limbed, wiry build ideally suited for speed and endurance He was dressed in his usual faded jeans and shirttail-out clothing And with round eyeglasses on and his intelligent, introspective expression, he looked like an accountant who enjoyed listening to Aerosly athletic, living by his as actually how he put bread on the table and iPods in his kids’ ears, and he was very good at his work Indeed, there were very few people who could do what Harry Finn could And live

He kissed his wife good-bye, hugged his kids, even the teenager, grabbed a duffel bag that he’d placed near the front door the night before, slid into his Toyota Prius and drove to National Airport on the Pototon, DC Its official naton National Airport, but to the locals it would be forever simply National Finn parked in one of the lots near the , whose chief architectural feature was a series of connected do in hand, he trudged across a skywalk into the sleek interior of the airport Inside a restroom stall he opened his duffel, pulled on a heavy blue jacket with reflective stripes on the sleeves and a pair of blue workpants, slid a pair of orange noiseID badge onto his jacket

E a standard turnstile crash maneuver, he inserted hih a “special” security line Ironically, this line lacked even the cursory level of scrutiny forced on ordinary passengers Once on the other side of the barrier he bought a cup of coffee and casually followed another airport worker through a secure door to the tarmac area The man actually held the door open for him

“What shift you working?” Finn asked the man, who told him

“I’ on,” Finn said “Which would be okay if I hadn’t stayed up for the daame”

“Tell reed

Finn skittered down theprepped for a short-haul flight to Detroit with continuing service to Seattle He passed several people along the way, including a fuelthe wheels of the Michigan-bound plane No one confronted hiht to be there He made his way around the aircraft as he finished his coffee

He next walked over to an Airbus A320 that would be on its way to Florida in about an hour A baggage train was parked next to it In one practiced e from his jacket and slipped it into a side pocket of one of the bags stacked on the train Then he knelt next to the plane’s rear wheels and pretended to check out its tire tread Again, people around him took no notice because Harry Finn exuded an air of a s A round crew, analyzing the prospects of the Washington Redskins and the deplorable state of e in the aviation industry

“Everyone except the head honchos,” Finn said “Those bastards are printing money”

“You got that right,” the other man said, and the two did a little knuckle sreed of the rich and the ruthless who ruled the not-so-friendly skies