Free Fall at Angel Creek, page 5
* * *
The entire investigation team assembled in the big hangar in Redmond as the truck bearing the engine rolled in. The General Electric engine specialists maneuvered a special lift to move it from the truck onto a maintenance stand for a detailed examination.
Mike was standing next to River, watching the delicate operation. “That thing is huge.”
“Yes, it is. Each engine puts out more than one hundred thousand pounds of thrust. The diameter of this engine is bigger than the main cabin of a 737.”
River was glad it was relatively intact, with only a few sections of the exterior cowling missing. “Let’s take a look.”
They worked their way through the crowd to get a close-up view.
“What are you looking for?” Mike asked.
“I have just a few important questions about this engine. Was it the direct cause of the accident? Did it malfunction first, or did something else damage it?”
They started at the front with the engine intake.
“I need to know if this engine was producing power at the time of the accident. This is a high-bypass turbofan engine, with most of the thrust coming from the big fan blades of the first stage. Look how the fan blades are bent backward at the tips. This shows the engine was spinning at high speed, then abruptly stopped, which indicates the engine was operating. If they were flat, it would mean the engine was already shut down before the accident.”
“So this engine was working okay?”
“So far. Let’s check the engine tail-cone area.”
They walked to the back of the engine through the crowd of investigators.
“What do you see, Mike?”
“Little dots of color, like tiny rainbows, splattered across the exhaust area.”
“Good catch. That’s a sign of molten titanium, when the temperature inside the engine gets over three thousand degrees from disintegrating metal parts. There aren’t a lot of color dots here, so this damage occurred most likely after it came off the airplane.”
“It sounds like you don’t think this engine caused the crash.”
“No, it didn’t, but we have to wait for them to disassemble the engine to know for sure. Only after they take it apart will we know if any internal fire was present, or contaminated fuel, or any other issue. Let’s find seats. They’re about to start the morning status update.”
They sat down, and River took out her leather notepad.
The incident commander from the Oregon State Police spoke first. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We have secured the site where the engine was found, and that area is now safe. A new area, where additional parts were found, is located northwest of Redmond, near Madras airport. We have confirmed the area is safe from fire danger or other hazards, and it is now open for search operations. The work of the OSP is concluded, and I’m turning control over the accident site to the NTSB representative, Mr. Ronald Moore.”
“Oh, great,” River mumbled.
“What’s the deal with him?” Mike whispered.
“Tell you later.”
River couldn’t stand this guy. She’d had the misfortune to cross paths with him several times, starting when she first worked for the NTSB ten years ago. He was a pompous ass then, as her first boss at the NTSB, and now he was even worse. Every word he said, every action he took was strictly for his own advantage. He was more polished than he used to be, since he loved being in front of the cameras, but he was still the same.
“Thanks, Oregon State Police, for securing our search areas. We’ll take it from here.” He flashed his expensive smile, his voice an immediate irritant to River. She relaxed her death grip on her pen, hoping he would say something helpful or informative.
“We had great success yesterday locating the engine, which has been confirmed as the number-two engine from the tail section. We also identified a metal piece that we have determined is part of the aircraft structure. One of our specialist investigators, River, found it, and the Civil Air Patrol discovered what looks like the main debris field. Good job, CAP. This new area is marked on your updated charts. As expected, it’s a very large area, over one hundred miles across, so be sure to use evidence SOPs. I’m holding a press briefing at one p.m. today, so notify me as soon as you find anything significant. The buses leave in twenty minutes. Let’s roll.”
“What are evidence SOPs?” Mike asked.
“The standard operating procedures for retrieving and cataloging everything we find. You have to photograph it where you found it, stake it with a numbered flag, mark the location on the chart, then bag it and record it.”
“Thanks for explaining. Sorry, but I can’t fly you to Madras today. I’m flying search missions all day.”
“That’s okay. I got a rental Jeep, so I’m driving out there by myself. Keep an eye out for the big parts like the landing gear, wing sections, and the other two engines.”
“Got it. Why aren’t you going in the buses with everyone else?”
“Because I get a lot more done on my own.”
Chapter Seven
Dee tried to call her brother-in-law, Bill, a dozen times, but she couldn’t go through with it. She still had no idea what to say to him and didn’t want to become a pitiful, bawling mess. Instead, she managed to shower and get dressed, but then she had to sit down, immobilized again. Everything seemed pointless. She couldn’t do anything but wait for news.
She wanted a call from River, but she was also afraid to hear what she might say. She’d seen dead bodies before, both in Iraq and in Portland, but she’d never had to identify anyone she knew. Maybe if she saw Naomi’s body, she could accept the reality of her death. But not knowing what happened to her was driving Dee crazy. She had to get out of the house.
One thing that always helped her was shooting, so she drove to the police gun range. When she was there, she was able to focus her mind and tune out the world. She wasn’t a gun nut, but she enjoyed keeping her skills sharp, even during her off time. She loved her service pistol, an H&K forty-caliber compact police special. It was lightweight, accurate, held thirteen rounds, and had never failed her. The feel of the rough grip in her hand, the sound it made when she racked the slide, the balance of it, the smell of the gunpowder, seeing her target through the clean front sight—all these sensations made her feel at one with her weapon. It was an extension of her arm and part of her body.
After the range master gave her paper targets, she put on her hearing protection and set her box of hollow-point bullets on the bench. She started with the target at twenty-five feet away for a warm-up, then mentally went through her shooting mantra: unsnap, draw, front sight, center mass, smooth squeeze, follow through.
“Crap.” Her first shots were high and right. I’m anticipating the recoil. Breathe.
She soon got into a steady rhythm of draw, shoot, holster, pleased with her tight grouping in the center. She moved her target farther away after each magazine of twelve shots. After sixty rounds, she switched to the shotgun, then the M-16 rifle.
Dee was less agitated but still tense after an hour of shooting. She went and picked up a baton for some work on the practice dummy they named Bruno, the bad guy. She liked working on her defensive tactics and hand-to-hand combat skills because she’d more likely need these than her weapon. Plus, she enjoyed beating the crap out of Bruno. She whaled on the poor dummy until her arms were weak. After she wiped the sweat from her face, she felt physical relief for the first time in three days. She was also grateful her mind was calm and she could think clearly.
As she methodically disassembled and cleaned her gun, she had a thought. If I can find a way to help the investigation, maybe she’ll let me in.
Driving back to her apartment, she decided to get in touch with an old friend who worked for the FAA. One of the tedious parts of her job was doing background checks on suspects and witnesses, so maybe she could study the passenger list and find some useful information for River. It was her only shot.
* * *
River drove directly to the area around Angel Creek to continue her search. She had confidence the rest of the team would find all the major aircraft pieces in the main debris path, now that they knew where to look. Instead, she was interested in the first pieces of the jet to fall from the sky. She had a strong feeling this debris was where the problem had begun.
After hiking to the spot where Dee had stepped on the metal fragment, River stopped and shook her head, thinking about her. Detective Dee Rawlings was as much of a mystery as this plane crash. First, she loses a family member in a terrible accident, and then, instead of waiting with the other families, she drives to the middle of nowhere to track down an investigator she met one time. Part of River understood Dee’s irrational behavior as a reaction to sudden, unexplainable death. She understood because she had experienced it herself.
River still didn’t like it that Dee had stuck a gun in her face, but she could comprehend a level of desperation that would drive a person to do something that crazy. Seeing the anguish in Dee’s eyes brought back memories of that terrible time in her own life.
She was only thirteen when her mother was suddenly taken from her, turning her world upside down. She survived that awful experience with help from her remaining family, a special friend, and a skilled therapist. River hoped Dee had someone kind to take care of her during the days ahead, because she would need it.
She shook off thoughts of Dee Rawlings and went to work looking for the needle in the haystack. Her discovery of the huge debris field had confirmed her theory that the airplane broke up in flight. Her preliminary examination of the number-two engine from the tail section showed it was probably not the cause, but what was? Not many things could make an airplane blow up in the sky. Failure of the aircraft structure could come from unknown internal corrosion, an uncontained fire on board, midair collision with another aircraft, or even a bomb.
Whatever the cause, River was determined to find it. The definitive answer could come from something as small as a fingernail, as in the Pan Am 747 that blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland. In that case, a tiny fragment of circuit board had plastic-explosive residue on it from a bomb hidden in a suitcase in the cargo pit. That small bit of evidence proved what caused the accident and that the Libyan military had murdered all those people.
When she’d studied that case during her doctoral program at the University of Southern California, the thing that had struck her was its timing. The Libyans were clever in how they had hidden the bomb inside a small cassette player in a checked suitcase. They’d also studied the route of flight of Pan Am 103 and its flight duration. With the bomb on a timer, they had intended for the aircraft to blow up when they were over the ocean, but they screwed up and set the timer wrong. The 747 was only minutes from crossing the Scottish coastline to fly over the North Atlantic when the bomb went off. Had they set the bomb to explode only fifteen minutes later, when the jet was over the open ocean, the pieces would be at the bottom of the sea and no one would ever know for certain how those passengers died.
She remembered a grim image of that crash. The largest piece found, the side of the flight deck, resembled a great dead bird lying on the ground, shot out of the sky by a hunter. At the time, those images had made River feel the heaviness of the enormous loss of life. And all the accidents she ever worked made her feel the same loss, yet she pushed through because of her mission. She was determined to find the cause so she could prevent future accidents and, hopefully, eliminate the devastation of so many lives from an aircraft crash. Like the devastation Dee was going through right now.
Thoughts of her drifted into River’s mind several times as she methodically searched both sides of the creek. She wasn’t looking for a specific component, but she hoped she would get lucky and find something, anything, so she could report it. Maybe if Dee heard that the investigation was progressing, she would have the relief of knowing some answers. River could only hope.
* * *
Dee hadn’t looked up Marci’s phone number in a long time. Her time with Marci had occurred in her distant past, half a world away. They met on Dee’s first deployment to the Middle East in the dining hall at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. Dee’s unit of military police had been sent there to beef up base security after increasing attacks. She smiled, recalling her first encounter with Marci on that hot, dusty day fifteen years ago.
“Hey, soldier. Where’d you get the Tabasco sauce?” The voice of a woman caught Dee’s attention.
Dee stopped with her tray, turned, and saw a very cute US Air Force woman speaking to her. “I brought it with me from Texas. Would you like some?”
From that brief conversation, Dee made a big move and sat at the table next to the woman, instead of with the guys in her squad. She got a few looks from them because army and air force troops generally didn’t mix, but she didn’t care. She and Marci clicked from the beginning and met in the dining hall as often as they could, which soon led to them very carefully coming out to each other. That was during the bad days of “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” when your career could be over from just a rumor of being gay.
After that, Dee had her first real affair with a woman. Marci was an air traffic controller at the busy base, and she worked the swing shift in the tower. Then she had mandatory crew rest because of her critical job. The good part was that Marci had a private room, unlike the army grunts crammed into tents. This arrangement gave Marci and Dee privacy, a luxury very few people had in the service. She and Marci were hot and heavy, sneaking around for three months before Marci got sent back to Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, Louisiana. They planned to see each other when Dee returned to Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, but it never worked out, mainly because Marci already had a lover before she deployed.
Dee remembered feeling crushed when Marci told her she already had a girlfriend. That’s when she realized it had been just a wartime romance. Even though they were never lovers again, Dee remained friends with Marci, and now she needed her. Marci left the air force after her enlistment was up and now worked at the FAA Headquarters in Washington, DC. Dee called her office number.
“How’s my favorite grunt? It’s been a while, Dee. How are you?”
“Not so good. That’s why I’m calling.”
“What’s up?”
The concern for her in Marci’s voice gave Dee the courage to continue. “I assume you heard about flight 402?”
“Of course. This place has been crazy with it the last few days. What about it?”
Dee could hardly choke out the words. “My sister, Naomi, was on that plane.”
Marci was silent. “Oh my God, Dee. That’s so awful.”
“That’s why I’m calling. I really need your help.”
“I’ll do whatever I can. You know I could never say no to you.”
“Can you get me a copy of the passenger information? I need it to do some research.”
“Research? What kind of research? Have you been assigned to the investigation?”
“Well, no, not yet. But if you help me, I think I might be able to work on it.”
Marci paused before answering. “Dee, you know I’d do anything for you, but this is not possible. All that information is under tight lockdown, and I don’t have access to it. I wish I could help you.”
Dee was quiet. She had to find a way to convince Marci to help her.
“I don’t want you to lose your job, but is there any way I can at least see just the names of the passengers and crew? I don’t need anything else, but please help me, Marci. I have to do something, anything, or I won’t make it through this. I’ll never ask you another favor again.”
“First of all, we both know that’s not true about asking for favors, but it’s all right. I do have one idea that might work.”
“What is it? I’ll try anything.” Was there a glimmer of hope?
“I have seen the passenger manifest and the crew list. The Airman Certification Branch sent it to my office as part of their review of the pilot records. They’re looking for any violations, failed check rides, or training problems with the three pilots.”
“There were three pilots on this plane?”
“Yes. The captain, the first officer, who is the copilot, and the flight engineer. I remember the names of the pilots but not all the flight attendants.”
“So how can I see this?”
“Well, I could attach the passenger list to an email on my personal account, save it as a draft, let you open it to look at it, and then I’ll delete the draft. This may not work, but it’s all I can do.”
“That would be great. Thank you, Marci. I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me anything. I wouldn’t have made it through Afghanistan without you, so we’re even. I’m sending it now.”
Dee was overwhelmed by her old girlfriend bending the rules to help her. She’d always wondered if Marci was the one that got away. Maybe she should have waited until Marci was single, which happened six months after they got back stateside when her lover was transferred to South Korea. Very few women were able to make a relationship work in the military, mainly because everyone got sent to different bases every three or four years. If a soldier was legally married to another soldier, as in a male and a female, the army would try to assign the couple to the same base. As lesbians, they had no rights and had to lie about their lives every day to avoid a dishonorable discharge. She still loved Marci and was pretty sure Marci still loved her, but they never spoke of it. Dee was grateful she had one person left who still cared about her enough to help her.
Dee copied the database as soon as she opened the draft email from Marci, then deleted it. She hoped this wouldn’t cause any problems for her at work. She printed the database so she could write notes on it and scanned the sheets. So many names on page after page, each one a life cut short, leaving grieving families behind.
