Ghost (21 page)

twenty-five

PUZZLE PIECES

Back at the crash site, we find Colonel Sowada’s team huddled together in a lean-to, absorbed in a discussion. The conversation stops, and everyone listens as we describe the plane’s final maneuvers before it went in. When we finish, somebody says, “Hydraulic failure.”

Somebody else replies, “That could be it.”

Sowada says, “Good work, Fred. You’ve just given us a huge clue.”

“What does it mean?”

“Not sure yet, but it could indicate some sort of control failure.” He turns to his team and says, “Okay, let’s focus on the hydraulic boost system for the elevators. We need to find whatever we can from it.”

The team gets to their feet and starts for the crater and debris field.

“Colonel?” I ask. He stops and waits for my question.

“Let’s say the hydraulics do go out. Is there a backup system or some sort of redundancy built in?”

“Yes. There’s an auxiliary system, and the pilots could fly on manual control only.”

“Could all three systems fail at once?”

“I don’t know.”

The rest of the day, Brad and I continue to make notes as we watch the crash team sift through the wreckage. We measure the size of the crater and the debris field. We note that the ISI guys can’t open the wallet the pathologist recovered. It is too badly burned. Somehow, though, they are sure it belonged to one of the Pakistani passengers.

Later, a few more human remains are unearthed. The doc tell us, “You know, given what your witness described, there could have been enough G-forces to drive the passengers’ organs right out of their bodies.”

I can’t tell if he’s kidding or not. During my time as a cop, I came to know some of the medical examiners in our area. They have a penchant for black humor.

Either way, that’s not something I needed to know.

Later, Brad and I talk things over. If the plane was pitching up and down so radically, would it have been possible for somebody in the VIP area to come forward and reach the controls? Probably not, especially if the pathologist is right. They’d be thrown around in back or pinned in place.

“All of this points to one of two things,” I suggest to Brad.

“What?”

“Okay, mechanical failure is a possibility. The controls could have failed. But it’s much more likely the pilots were incapacitated. However it happened, it was fast. Fast enough that both of them had no time to react and no time to issue a Mayday.”

“That would explain why the plane flew out of control for so long without a distress call. If an assassin stepped into the cockpit and shot both pilots, they’d fall onto the control columns. Given that, maybe it wouldn’t go in right away.” Brad’s right on the mark here. I write this theory down in my notebook.

Was there an assassin on board who gave his life to the cause? It seems possible. This isn’t good news, and it certainly won’t de-escalate the geopolitical situation we’re in right now. We’ve got a lot more work to do before we can draw any firm conclusions.

The next day, we return to the crash site. The air force team recovers many key parts, including pieces of the critical hydraulic system, some of the instruments, a piece of the cargo door, and chunks of the flight deck. Colonel Sowada gains permission to take them back to the United States for testing. By midday, he’s amassed a small pile of additional things to take back and test.

Brad and I spend lots of time with the crash team, learning everything we can about what they’ve found and what it means in relation to the C-130’s onboard systems. So far, the team has concluded that the plane’s electrical system functioned right up to the end of the flight. The engine-driven hydraulic pumps were also working. That’s a possible ding to the theory that hydraulic failure caused the crash. Stateside testing will determine if the hydraulic fluid was contaminated with something. Particles of metal, especially brass, can accumulate in the system and cause valves to stick and controls to jam, which is why changing the hydraulic fluid regularly is important.

If this happened to a valve in the elevator’s hydraulic booster system, it could cause the C-130 to suddenly nose up or down. The crew’s reaction would be to fight that and regain control. It could explain PAK-1’s oscillating flight path before it finally crashed.

What it does not explain is the lack of radio communication during the crisis. Three minutes into the flight, PAK-1 suddenly lost control. For two minutes it gyrated up and down, sending the passengers and crew on a roller-coaster ride. Not once did the Cessna security plane or the Bahawalpur tower hear a Mayday or the pilots giving any sort of indication that something was wrong. In fact, the pilots didn’t use the radio at all after the tower cleared PAK-1 for takeoff.

The air force engineer admits that the hydraulic failure theory has some holes. Even if a valve had jammed, the command pilot could have reached down and flipped a switch, shutting the hydraulic booster system off completely. That would be like driving a car down the freeway and shutting off its power-steering system. The driver would still be able to control the car, it would just be a lot harder to turn the wheel. Another recent C-130 crash resulted from a broken throttle cable. I ask if that could happen to the mechanical control lines. Not likely. Even if it did, the pilots could still control the C-130 with its electric trim tabs and the engines.

The trim tabs on the elevators are designed to be able to pitch the nose up twenty-seven degrees and pitch it down seven degrees. The ailerons have trim tabs too, as does the rudder. Working carefully, the trim tabs and the engines can keep a C-130 in the air. In fact, in a worst-case scenario, the C-130 crew can fly and maneuver with its engines alone. The two interior turboprops control pitch in that situation. The outboard engines give the pilots control over yaw, roll, and speed. By adjusting the throttles, a good Hercules pilot can overcome total control failure.

By the end of day two out at the crash site, Brad and I have done all we can. We need to let Sowada’s team keep working while we go snoop around some more in Islamabad. For one thing, I’d like to talk to the CIA and see what they know.

Right now, I’m very suspicious. The death of President Zia and his command leadership looks to me like a superbly executed assassination. And if that’s the case, the Pakistanis can take it only as an act of war.

In the morning, we fly back to Islamabad and check in with Mel Harrison and Beth Jones at the embassy. We pass along what we’ve learned. They have precious little information for us in return. The Dark World remains silent on this one. There’ve been no new leads developed, despite our worldwide search through our intelligence networks.

Tensions between Pakistan and India are still high, but it is looking now like cooler heads will prevail. Unless, of course, we discover that the Indians killed Zia.

A day after our return to Islamabad, Brad and I secure a meeting with the CIA’s deputy chief of station (DCOS). The DCOS is not happy to see us when we arrive at his office. He greets us with stony professionalism and doesn’t volunteer anything before we start our interview.

I want to learn if the CIA had any information on a planned hit on Zia. Sometimes, the local stations will get a tip or pick up a nugget of intel that they do not pass along to Washington. Getting D.C. or Langley involved in a situation like this usually ends up creating more work for the field operatives. It also causes a lot of second-guessing from armchair generals and bureaucrats who are far from the Dark World’s front lines. The agents in the field resent this, and sometimes they hold on to something that should have been passed up the chain.

Sitting across from the DCOS, I ask, “Did the CIA pick up any warnings or threat indicators prior to the tank trials that President Zia was going to be targeted?”

The DCOS looks thoroughly annoyed with the question. I suspect he considers us little better than envoys from the D.C. bureaucracy who are searching for a scapegoat. He eyeballs my notebook, which I’ve got open in front of me. The CIA inherently doesn’t like a paper trail. I think he smells a witch hunt.

“No, Agent Burton. Of course not,” he says with barely concealed anger. “If we had, we would have warned the ambassador and passed the information to the RSO.”

Standard procedure, standard answer.

“What about the ISI? Did they pick up anything?”

“No. Our sources inside the ISI didn’t hear anything.” He pauses for emphasis. “If they had reported anything, we would have sent it up the chain of command.”

“Could the ISI have held information on a plot and not shared it with us?” I ask.

The DCOS looks at me like I’m a simpleton. “Sure. Look, this is Pakistan. You people from Washington don’t get that. You’re not in Kansas anymore. Anything is possible here.”

We sit in silence. I’m trying to think of a way to continue without annoying him any more. He’s obviously not going to tell us much, but maybe there’s a way to set him a little more at ease.

Before I can say anything, the DCOS volunteers something extraordinary. “Look,” he tells us, “how Zia’s plane crashed is irrelevant to the CIA.”

What? What did that mean?

“Come on now,” I reply, “the president of Pakistan is dead. So’s his chief of staff and the head of the ISI. The ambassador and our military attaché are dead, too. All this while you’re running a war against the Soviets from here? How can all this not impact the CIA?”

He offers no answer. Instead, he stares tight-lipped at us. The room grows so quiet that we can hear him breathing. He won’t break his gaze, and he won’t answer the question. What an odd development.

We can’t get any more information out of this Agency spook, so we end the interview. He doesn’t even shake our hands as we leave.

Brad and I regroup at the U.S. Marine House bar. We sit down and order a couple of beers and some food. While we’re waiting, Brad says, “Well, that was pretty weird.”

“Yeah. Something doesn’t add up with the DCOS.”

“Do you think the Agency’s hiding something?”

“Maybe. I wonder if it’s tied to the station chief ’s absence.”

“What was with that last thing he said? How the plane crashed is irrelevant to the CIA?”

“That really came out of left field,” I agree.

Afterward, I call our CT chief back at Foggy Bottom on a secure embassy line. I give him my thoughts and tell him we’ve done about all we can here. He orders us home on the next flight out, which will also be carrying the pieces the air force team recovered from the crash site. Some of them will go to Lockheed for analysis, others will go to a lab at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. We’ll use the ATF facility instead of the FBI, since the Bureau’s cheesed off at being shut out of the investigation. Maybe the lab results will shed some light on all this.

The call to prayer echoes through the darkened capital. Brad and I climb into an unmarked van for a madcap ride to Chaklala Air Base. We race through the city streets, the driver executing an SDR. I keep a lookout on our rear but see nobody following us. We stop at a safe house deep inside the city, where we’re told to wait. We’ll stage to the airport from here.

Hours pass. Brad and I doze in chairs, our luggage at our feet. Finally, it comes time to leave. Another van pulls up in front of the safe house. We quickly throw our gear inside and pile in. The driver takes us straight to Chaklala and leaves us in a deserted area of the base. We’re out in the open, not even a hangar nearby, waiting for our flight in almost total darkness.

We hear our plane before we see it. Its massive turbojet engines whine and keen as the aircraft taxis toward us. I see it as it swings off the runway and recognize it as a C-5A Galaxy, the same giant we flew in on a week ago. It rolls to a stop right next to us. A convoy of vehicles suddenly appears, and U.S. Air Force security troops pour out of the rigs to surround the C-5. As the Galaxy’s engines are shut down, a steady stream of vans begin arriving. They line up behind the cargo ramp, engines idling. Waiting.

“What is going on?” Brad asks me.

“I don’t know.”

A moment later, the cargo ramp door drops. Dozens of wounded men hobble out of the C-5’s cavernous interior. Some are walking with crutches. Others limp along, supported by one or two buddies. Heads are bandaged, arms are in slings. It is a parade of battered and injured men. They start loading into the vans, and once full, the vehicles speed away, destination unknown.

Brad and I are utterly bewildered.

From out of the darkness around us, Cheech suddenly materializes. He steps in front of us and says, “Gentlemen, your flight home is here. The items recovered from the crash site will be loaded aboard in just a few minutes. I hope that your laboratories can tell us more about what happened.”

“Colonel, who are these men?”

Cheech looks surprised. “Mujahideen, of course!”

When we offer no reply, he continues, “These men were wounded in Afghanistan. Your air force flew them to a hospital in Germany for treatment. They’re coming home to continue the fight.”

I had no idea we were patching up wounded Afghan freedom fighters. “Does this happen often?” Brad asks.

“Several times a month at least.”

The last wounded warrior deplanes. The vans finish loading them up and race off. A truck arrives, and crates with the critical components of PAK-1 stored away inside are carried into the cargo bay. Just before dawn, it is time to get aboard. We grab our things and start for the ramp. Cheech picks this time to say, “Agent Burton, you were right. Thank you for your efforts here. I hope we were able to get you all the information you needed.”

“Yes, Colonel, but we still have a lot of work to do to figure out what happened to PAK-1.”

“At least we know it wasn’t shot down,” Brad injects.

“True, there was no missile hit,” Cheech admits.

“But were there really snakes?” I ask. I can’t help myself. I’ve got to know.

Cheech gives me a sly grin. “I’ll never tell. Have a nice flight home, gentlemen.” Without another word, he turns and disappears into the Pakistani night.