Breaking Point (17 page)

“I'm not hiding in Montana.”

“No, I'm hiding you in Montana. There's a difference.”

Ray glowered at the idea.

“Did you know this pilot well?”

“Isaiah? Not well. I saw him pull off some of the most amazing stunts any pilot has ever tried. He saved our lives a couple of times. He was a good man.”

Henry offered his hand. “Go. Help if you can.”

Ray's instincts told him to stay and get this feud with J. T. Laney and his so-called Wild Boar Brigade out in the open. But with Isaiah Grey dead, Tommy and Kiki injured …

He took Henry's hand, pumped it once. “Thanks, boss.”

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Nathan Kowalski stepped through the almost-always-open door of Del Wildman's office. “I got that FBI agent in Los Angeles. Tommy's friend. FBI called back, and Agent Calabrese has been assigned as liaison to the Go-Team in Montana.”

Del capped his pen. “Good. That relationship can be dicey. Calabrese's help in Oregon was essential.”

Dicey
was a nice way to put it. By law, all crash investigations on American soil are investigated by the NTSB, right up to the moment that it can be proved that the crash was the result of an illegal act and not just an accident. Once the illegal act is established, command of the investigation switches from the NTSB to the FBI.

“Anything else, sir?”

Del tapped three blunt fingers on his desktop, ruminating. His aide waited. “Close the door.”

Kowalski did so.

“This is Peter Kim's first crash as Investigator in Charge. This is Beth Mancini's first crash as governmental liaison.”

The aide nodded.

“With the complication of Tommy, Kiki, and Isaiah … Plus, I read Beth's daily report about this forest fire. I don't know.”

His voice drifted off.

Kowalski said, “It would be good to have an experienced hand overseeing things. I don't have to tell you how I feel about Peter Kim, sir. He's smart enough, but what an arrogant jackass.”

“Hmm.” Del didn't deny it.

“You know the one person in this entire agency who could keep him from imploding, sir.”

Del made a sour face. “I was the one talked her into taking her husband to Italy for four weeks!”

“I know. Still…”

“How would it look to Beth Mancini, me bringing in a relief pitcher?”

“She wouldn't like it. Probably. Then again, you catch your first crash in the supersensitive role as intergovernmental liaison, you've got Peter Kim, you've got dead and wounded crashers.” The aide shrugged. “Could be Beth would appreciate the help.”

Del pondered it awhile.

“Let's hold off,” he said. “At least for now. But get me Susan Tanaka's phone number, just in case.”

PORTLAND, OREGON

Later that afternoon, the owner of Dennison Records met Calendar's man, Cates, with his U.S. Marshal's shield at Portland International Airport. “You made good time.”

The so-called deputy marshal nodded. “Time's of the essence with these things.”

The recording expert signed a receipt saying he had taken possession of the cockpit voice recorder. “We'll get you a digital recording uploaded to the NTSB site inside of an hour.”

Calendar's soldier shook the man's hand. “That's outstanding work, sir. Your nation thanks you.”

ANNAPOLIS

Renee Malatesta wondered who would inform the other designers at the company and then realized she was supposed to.

She sat on the hardwood floor, staring at the phone. How does one do this, exactly? Is there a script? Are their appropriate colloquialisms? The man on the phone from Polestar had said,
I regret to inform you …
That was good, Renee thought. Cliché, admittedly, but clear. Clarity was a blessing. Short and sweet. Cut to the chase.

Andrew is dead. I regret to inform you that Andrew is dead.

She pressed her palms against her clenched eyes so tightly that amorphous, electrochemical lights danced in the darkness.
Andrew's dead! I'm a widow!

And yet …

She rolled over, onto her side, on the floor, palms pressed against her eyes.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Barry Tichnor returned to his car after his meeting with Gaelen Parks and Liz Proctor. His cell phone rang. He didn't recognize the number.

“Hello?”

“It's me.” He recognized the voice of Jenna Scott. “I want to talk to you about something but I don't want to do it at Langley.”

Barry was tired of surprises. “Rock Creek Park again?”

“Thank you. Twenty minutes?”

*   *   *

They met in the lovely, sylvan valley that was Rock Creek Park. Barry waited for her to tell him what was up.

“The speech. The sketch pad,” she said. “Calendar didn't recover them.”

“Oh.” He stared up at her.

She turned to walk, so Barry did, too.

“You're the one now running Calendar. What do you recommend?”

Jenna paused. “I'm not sure.”

“I am. NTSB. Their phones, their computers. We need to know what they know.”

Jenna bit her lip. “Well, NTSB Go-Teams use communication gear with dedicated bandwidth. Easy enough to get their frequencies. Their computers are tougher.”

“How much tougher?”

Jenna scanned the park, saw no one loitering. “It's against the law to conduct signal intelligence missions on another federal agency.”

He nodded. “True.”

She dug at the grass with one riding boot, fingers snugged into the back pockets of her jeans. Barry waited for her to get there.

“I can get us up on their phones in a day. Give me some time to get into their computers.”

Barry Tichnor said, “Thank you.”

She glanced up at him, squinting into the sun. “There's something else. I might have to be in the field to make this happen. I don't want to pull anyone from the Agency into this.”

Barry shrugged. “You're the spy.”

ANNAPOLIS

Renee Malatesta chose a black jacket and pants, white shirt, open at the throat. She added a necklace of pearls and a black pearl bracelet, checked the effect in the mirror. The pearls were too much; she took them off. She wore diamonds in her earlobes every day. She took them out but that looked wrong, and she put them back in. She had bought in early for that season's mile-high-shoe fashion—platforms and heels to match—but not today, not today. Her ballet flats were equally wrong. She had no shoes for telling the company that Andrew was dead. She had boots that would do. Boots meant the pants had to go, so it was a pencil skirt and a chocolate sweater with three-quarter sleeves.
I regret to inform you …
That was good. She'd use that. The boots and pencil meant she was showing a little leg above the knee. Was that all right? It was. She wasn't going on a date. The thought made a little laugh burble to the surface.

I regret to inform you …

She went into the office just as the clock struck 6:00
P.M.
It was 4:00
P.M.
mountain time.

TWIN PINES

While part of the Go-Team struggled to get bodies and evidence out of the field, Beth Mancini organized the first press conference. One of her aides informed her that the media was clustering in the little town of Twin Pines, closer to the crash than Helena.

“Okay. Hey, any luck getting the Go-Team into one hotel for tonight?”

The aide admitted, no, the crashers likely would be spread out around Helena. Beth knew Peter would be steamed about that.

Beth had been hogging Adrienne Starbird's office and found the ops manager of Helena Regional in the airport's staff cafeteria. She had transformed one table into her makeshift office, complete with a laptop, piles of papers, and a Red Bull.

Adrienne sat in one chair, her hiking boots up in the adjacent chair, clacking away at her laptop, earbuds in place and MP3 player in her lap. Beth sat opposite her but had to wave a hand in her eyesight to catch her attention. “Hi.”

“Wow!” Adrienne yanked on the white cords and the earbuds popped free. “I am so sorry! I was a mile away.”

Beth smiled. “Are you kidding? You've been great. Thank you. I hereby declare my occupation of your office over. The siege ended.”

Adrienne smiled back. “Now what?”

“I need to get out to that town you told me about. Twin Pines. I need to organize the first press conference, and that's where they're clustered. The media.”

Adrienne slapped down the laptop, shoved it up into the piles of papers, and picked up a ring of keys. “C'mon.”

ANNAPOLIS

It was 6:30
P.M.
on Friday by the time Renee Malatesta met with Antal Borsa and Terri Loew at Malatesta, Inc.

They gathered in Andrew's office. Antal, who favored double-breasted suits and pocket squares, hand-made shoes, and a ubiquitous bottle of San Pellegrino, and Terri, lithe and intense, blond hair cut Agynnes Deyn–short, as usual in jeans, sneakers, and a Manchester United jersey top.

“I, ah…” Renee had brought in a Starbucks cup with five shots of espresso over ice. She drank a couple of those per day. But now she wondered if it sent the wrong signal, standing in line at Starbucks when Andrew was—

I regret to inform you that Andrew is dead.

“It's, ah…”

Terri stepped forward and opened her arms and hugged Renee so very hard. Terri was not, by nature, a hugger. This was one of their first, and they'd known each other fifteen years. She held the deep squeeze for ten seconds. When she stepped back, her eyes were red, her nose running.

Antal put his left hand on Renee's shoulder, his right hand on Terri's. “God. I'm sorry. We're sorry. Renee, there's just no words. I…” His voice faded away.

So they'd heard. So much for the rehearsal. Renee put down the damning coffee cup. “Thank you. Both of you. This is a tragedy. I haven't—”

She checked her dime-thin gold watch. “Have you heard from Vejay or Christian? Are they on their way in?”

Terri bit her lips so hard that they turned white.

Antal said, “I'm sorry. We thought you knew. They were on the flight with Andrew. They died.”

Renee blinked. “They…? They're dead, too?”

The engineers nodded.

The three of them stood in Andrew's toy-cluttered office, his desk adorned, as always, with a Mr. Potato Head and a Rubik's Cube, solved. On the wall was the
Wired
cover showing a young Andrew. Renee had framed it herself at a U-frame-it shop. A picture of the Starting Five, plus Renee, at that little fish-taco stand in the Dominican Republic.

Renee said, “
Keeeeeee…”
and it wasn't a word. It was a sound, an exhalation of terror and sorrow and guilt. “
Eeeeeee
…” until she fell to her knees and the designers were on their knees, too, a three-way hug, and both were crying;
“Eeeeee…”
until the air ran out of her lungs and then it was just good, old-fashioned sobbing until she collapsed, sideways, on the rug, fingers grasping at the nap, barking sobs, the two engineers holding each other still, on their knees, lost.

MONTANA

The remains of most of the dead were taken to Twin Pines, to a cold-storage facility arranged by the mayor.

The bodies of the pilot and copilot went to the office of the Lewis and Clark County medical examiner. At 5:00
P.M.
Friday, Dr. Lakshmi Jain stood by and observed as the medical examiner examined what remained of Second Pilot Jed Holley. The body bag contained his right arm, portions of his thorax, and a left shoe.

“We'll do what we can with this, but…” The medical examiner shook his head.

He looked at the whisper-thin Indian woman, who nodded solemnly. Her NTSB photo ID was clipped to her belt and her black hair was pulled back in a severe bun. If she felt any emotion about the tangle of ex-human parts in the viscera-stained body bag, she didn't show it.

Together, they moved to the operating table where the body of Miguel Cervantes lay. He had been stripped naked, his clothes in a sealed, plastic container taped shut and properly marked. Cervantes had taken good care of his body. He was trim and muscled. He looked like a runner.

Lakshmi and the medical examiner both knew the cause of death. The C4 break in his spine. But there are proper procedures that must be taken, and nothing in an NTSB investigation is taken for granted.

Lakshmi could have conducted the autopsy but she had confidence in the medical examiner. He began with the classic Y incision to open up the breastplate and gain access to the heart, lungs, liver, stomach, spleen, and the rest. The cuts begin at both shoulders and come together at the lower end of the sternum. The cut then descends in a straight line to the pubis.

The organs were removed and weighed. Blood and other samples were taken for toxicology tests. The contents of Miguel Cervantes's stomach were examined.

Through it all, Dr. Lakshmi Jain said not a word, showed no hint of emotion. It was her job to confirm all available facts about the flight crew. Not to mourn them.

TWIN PINES

For NTSB intergovernmental liaisons, the first week's press conferences were always the worst. Reporters seemed not to understand exactly how little they would know about the crash, and how the investigation itself could be painstakingly slow.

Beth attended without the rest of the crashers, promising Peter Kim she'd keep the media at bay. Adrienne Starbird drove her out to Twin Pines. The two women, in Adrienne's Civic, caught their first glimpse of the small town as they pulled off State Highway 12. It was a small, quiet village snugged up against farmland to the west, scrub brush to the east. Past the scrub brush was the state forest and their downed airliner. The streets of Twin Pines appeared nearly empty and, with the exception of a basketball game between teenagers at the local park, they saw hardly anyone.