Crashers (29 page)

Simple outline drawings of male and female forms appeared on the screen, one after another. Each contained a scale accounting for height and weight. Each had a designation based on their seat selection aboard the aircraft. Each showed one or more bright red marks for entry wounds and bright blue marks for exit wounds. Yellow lines—some straight, most curved—linked the wounds. Where limbs were missing, the body parts were marked in dotted outlines.

The images flashed onto the screen, stayed for about five seconds, then were replaced by the next. Tommy watched, sipping his coffee.

Laura said, “See it?”

Tommy snapped out of it. “Um . . .”

The girl rolled her black-lined eyes. “The pattern?”

“Ah . . .” For a split second, Tommy thought about salvaging his ego by lying. “Nope. Sorry.”

She started the sequence again.

“What am I looking for?”

“Watch the curve of the yellow lines and the progress of the seat numbers. Okay?”

She ran it again. Tommy concentrated on the screen. He brushed a
curved hank of hair away from his gray eyes. He set down the cup. He folded his arms and rested his chin in one hand. The body language was designed to make him look and feel less like a doofus.

Laura said, “See it?”

“Ah. Well. No.”

She sighed. “It's a pattern.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, yeah.”

Tommy still didn't see any pattern. “Can you link this program with any kind of . . . I don't know, slide-show software or something? Anything that will demonstrate the pattern better?”

She popped a bubble. “I can do better than that. I can overlay the images, especially if you get me an overhead view of the jet. I could superimpose all of it into one dynamic image.”

“Done.” Tommy slid his ear jack out of his pocket and reached for the controls on his belt. “Arachnia, huh?”

The girl blushed, pleased that Tommy had remembered.

IN ONTARIO, CALIFORNIA, DARIA Gibron and Donal O'Meara caught a Greyhound east on Interstate 10. Dressed in jeans and matching UCLA T-shirts, they looked like a romantic couple. They switched buses, vectoring north and east on the 15, curving around San Bernardino.

Donal never spoke. Daria asked no questions.

The temperature began to fall a bit, but there was enough heat and dust in the wind to suggest that tomorrow would be a scorcher.

Ray Calabrese wondered if the small Asian American woman in the designer jacket and skirt was practicing for the time trials at Daytona. She kept the rented Nissan at thirty miles over the speed limit whenever she could, and she handled the car as if she'd passed the Bureau's Automobile Pursuit Course at Quantico with flying colors.

“So where are we going?” Ray asked as they zoomed out of the downtown core that looked like it had been frozen in the early 1960s. They were on a winding four-lane highway parallel to the Willamette River. Fir trees towered over the roadway—green up close, the farther ones turned black
by the night. On the opposite shore, lights shone from the windows of shiny new mansions.

“Valence,” Susan said. She kept both hands on the wheel. “We've moved the Vermeer to a hangar on loan from UPS.”

“This seems like a funny route.”

Susan just shrugged. She'd pored over a Triple A map the night before and was convinced that this route would shave five minutes off the drive time.

“Your IIC doesn't like me much,” said Ray.

“You come on a little strong, Agent Calabrese.” She scooted the Nissan past an SUV, hitting eighty.

“I'm just here as an adviser.”

“Ha!” She cast a quick glance his way. “Sorry, but you all but handed Tommy his hat and told him not to let the door hit him on the butt on his way out. Tommy can be forgiven for being defensive; you're on offense.”

They were quiet for a while. Ray hadn't expected the land outside Portland to be so forested, so pretty. He'd been looking for sprawling suburbs, he guessed. But passing from Oregon City into unincorporated Clackamas County had been like passing through some kind of magic portal: before, there had been urban-style development; now, there wasn't.

“Besides,” Susan said. “There's something else.”

“What's that?”

She blew past a log truck. “I mean, there's something else about you. Something on your mind. You're in a bad mood, sure, but not just a bad mood. You're worried. Or maybe scared.”

Ray studied her. Susan's hair was expertly cut. Her clothes were tasteful and expensive. She wore a diamond engagement ring and a platinum wedding ring, and both looked like antiques. Her almond-shaped eyes reminded Ray of Daria. He said, “You're good with people, aren't you?”

Susan said, “Yes.”

“You married?”

She knew that he was deflecting her question, but she went with the flow. “Fifteen years, this August.”

“And he doesn't mind you bopping all over the country every time a plane drops out of the sky?”

Susan said, “Kirk is a pilot. United. Every time one of my Go-Teams figures out what downed a jet and we order the companies to fix something so it doesn't happen again, I'm doing it for Kirk.”

Ray grinned. “He's a head pilot?”

“Yes.”

“Do they call him Captain Kirk?”

Susan laughed, the notes high and musical. “He's heard that once or twice, yes.” She drove for a while, slowed down as the town of Canby drew near. “I called him last night. He knew Meghan Danvers, the Vermeer's pilot. They'd met at a couple of training sessions over the years. He liked her, said she was a pro.”

“So you're hoping it wasn't pilot error.”

“Yes.” Susan's voice held no equivocation, no doubt. “Absolutely. I'm always pulling for the pilots. I admit that. But don't misunderstand. Our report will reflect the evidence. If it's pilot error, we'll say so.”

Ray settled back in his seat, glad that their speed was down to forty. “Don't worry about it, Ms. Tanaka. This wasn't pilot error. It was a god-damn low-life terrorist.”

“Your Red Fist of Ulster theory.” Ray had explained it to Susan and Tommy over lunch. “Have they taken credit for it? Have they made any threats or demands?”

“No, but it's them.”

“You're sure?”

I have to be,
Ray thought.
If it's not them, then Daria is risking her life for nothing and I'm screwing around on the wrong end of the West Coast.

“My asset is sure,” he said. “Me, too.”

Walter Mulroney rubbed his hands together like a little kid ogling a Christmas tree. “Excellent,” he said. “The carpenters are here.”

The UPS hangar was abuzz with activity. They hadn't unloaded the major pieces of the Vermeer from the flatbeds yet, but much of the smaller detritus was showing up, and crews were sorting fat plastic bins of shrapnel and personal belongings.

The three cranes were being backed off their carriers, their reverse beepers blaring. Hired security guards were keeping out all the roustabout fliers and mechanics who tend to hang around airfields everywhere, but Ricky Sanchez and a handful of airfield staff had been let in to watch. They couldn't have enjoyed Disneyland any more, but every now and then they glanced at the devastated cadaver of the jetliner and remembered that this
was no lark. Sanchez's friends had each made the sign of the cross the first time they caught sight of Flight 818.

A couple of dozen long folding tables had been set up along one wall and Susan Tanaka was busy helping technicians set up computers with Internet links. Several telephones were also being set up. Tommy Tomzak had called ahead from Portland and had asked for a projector hooked up to a Mac with PowerPoint software. Susan didn't know what for, but she'd asked one of her assistants to get the equipment.

Ray Calabrese stood in an isolated corner, arms folded across his chest. He'd taken off his jacket and his Glock 9 hung from his hip in a leather scabbard holster. No one spoke to him.

Now came the carpentry crew, led by a foreman who'd worked with Walter for several years. She eyed the ruined remains of the jetliner. “Hey, Walt. So, where do you want this thing?”

Walter pointed to the southern end of the massive hangar. “Over there. I want it in diagonally, nose to the barn door, tail section in that back corner. I want the belly at least thirty feet up off the floor, so the forklifts and scissor lifts can be driven under it.”

The foreman—calling her a “forewoman” to her face always resulted in a scowl—studied the hangar and made measurements in her head. “We can do that.”

“Have you seen the nose yet?” Walter warned. He pointed to the front end of the jet, which looked as mangled as a bullet dug out of a brick wall.

“Yeesh. That's a mess. The pilot . . . ?”

Walter's face turned dark.

The foreman cocked her head, studied the nose of the aircraft. “We can set her up.”

Walter said, “Outstanding.”

“Hey!” They turned. One of the airfield ground crew with security clearance shot into the hangar like he'd been fired from a cannon. “The other Vermeer is on final!”

“Roger, Valence tower. We're on final. November Tango Sierra Bravo One out.”

Isaiah Grey turned to the copilot seat. Instead of Hayden, Kiki Duvall
sat there. She was tapping monitors with a Bic pen. She'd deduced that the acoustic signature of the tapping sound on the flight data recorder might have been altered by the pressurization of the aircraft, so she'd switched seats with the copilot.

Isaiah caught her eye. “Any luck?”

Scowling, Kiki shook her head.

 

Tommy Tomzak arrived at the hangar just seconds before the eight-o'clock debriefing was scheduled to begin. Laura, the medical examiner's daughter, borrowed her dad's car. She'd toned down the Goth look, changing into black jeans and a black T-shirt beneath a glossy black rain slicker. The lace and theatrical makeup were gone, and she looked even younger than her sixteen years.

“What's this?” Kiki Duvall asked as Tommy and the girl carried in two heavy boxes.

“Hardware,” Tommy said. “How was your d— Whoa.”

He looked around at the now-crowded hangar. The gigantic pieces of the Vermeer were being positioned to one side, while a truck with a long, steel tow bar was backing an identical—but unruined—Vermeer 111 into the other corner. The truck moved at a snail's pace, gingerly backing the aircraft into place. Isaiah Grey stood near the front wheels, holding a sensor with an infrared scanner. He flashed the beam at the Gamelan input controls, on the belly of the plane.

Kiki said, “We've been busy around here, jefe.”

“Yeah. Any luck with the CVR?”

Kiki perched atop one of the folding tables as Tommy and Laura began to unpack the Mac computer liberated from her father's office. “The lab in Portland is running a digital analysis. We should know every organic clank, hoot, and whistle by tomorrow.”

Tommy attached a cable to the Mac. “Organic?”

“All of the sounds made by the plane itself. We have thousands of acoustic samples on file in D.C. We'll ID all of that stuff, or nearly all of it, by week's end. It's the nonorganic sounds—the people sounds, or luggage hitting luggage. That stuff's tougher to identify. There's this sound, right in the cockpit, that's driving me bonkers.”

Tommy laid a hand on her knee. “Put it on the back burner. It'll come to you.”

Kiki smiled. “Hey, you're the Investigator in Charge.”

“Damn right I am.”

“Folks!” Susan Tanaka shouted above the clatter of the carpenters, who were building scaffolding to hold the major sections of the Vermeer in place. “Can we gather over here, please?”

The crew leaders gathered around the table where Laura was booting up the MacBook Air. At the barn doors, a security guard checked a list of names on a clipboard and stepped aside so Dennis Silverman of Gamelan Industries could enter. He wore a Columbia Sportswear microfiber jacket with the Gamelan logo on the breast, a hood up over his head. His eyeglasses fogged over the moment he entered.

People scavenged chairs. Some sat on the tables. Walter Mulroney caught Ricky Sanchez's eye and waved him over. The smile on the younger man's face warmed up the hangar by a few degrees.

Susan waved to Tommy. “You want to go first?”

“Sure. Folks, this here's Laura, newly promoted to be my technical adviser.” The girl blushed, her fingers almost invisible as they glided over the keyboard. “My medical examiners have been taking shrapnel out of the bodies and charting wounds. We're more than halfway done, which sets some kinda record. Laura, here, has been logging them, using map-making software. Laura, show them what you showed me.”

Her eyes went wide. “You can run the program. I'll get out of your—”

“No. This is your gig. Show them.”

Laura gulped. Even though she dressed as a Goth on the streets and at her high school, being center stage was anathema to her. Tommy stepped away from the monitor, fully aware that the images on the screen presented some kind of pattern. What kind, he didn't know. He hoped the others would figure it out.

Laura started the slide show of body outlines, with blue and red wounds and yellow trajectory lines. She ran it through once, recycling it back to the first image.

“Anyone see it?” she asked. “It's like—”

“It's a spiral.”

Every eye turned to Ray Calabrese. He glanced at their faces, then shrugged. “Like one of those seashells. A what-do-you-call-it? A nautilus. The trajectory lines spiral out from the bodies. Clockwise.”

Laura swiveled in her folding chair. “Right. That's it.”

Susan laid a hand on the girl's shoulder. “This is a wonderful bit of work. If you can give us the data on a flash drive, we'll have analysts at our headquarters blend these images into—”