Breaking Point (21 page)

He disconnected.

*   *   *

Beth tucked away her earpiece and voice wand and stepped up to the lectern, on the stage of the downtown conference center. She tapped the end of the microphone with her fingernail three times. “People? Shall we get started?”

One hundred sixty-seven filled the first fourteen rows of the auditorium. And many of them were experienced enough in NTSB protocol to recognize that something was off.

“Let's do introductions.” Beth beamed positivity. She nodded to one of her aides, who was getting everything on video. It had been Beth's idea to create an NTSB blog, to document the public aspects of the investigation and to give survivors and loved ones up-to-the-minute details of their progress. “Polestar? Do you want to get us started, please?”

Polestar Airlines had brought nineteen people to the All-Thing. The company's vice president for operations stood, but motioned for his people to remain seated. “Miss, ah, Mancini? We don't mind waiting for the Go-Team and the Investigator in Charge. If there's a conflict…?”

Beth blushed and hoped no one could tell. “The Go-Team is on the scene of the crash. Time is of the essence, so I'll be handling the All-Thing today. Would you like to introduce—”

A woman two-thirds of the way toward the back stood, raising one arm high over her perfectly coiffed blond bob. “Ms. Mancini?”

“Um, yes?”

“Veronica Manheim, chief counsel with the Airline Pilots Association. At the media briefing yesterday, you were asked if pilot error was a factor. You are quoted as saying, ‘Yes, absolutely.' We would like to know if that was an accurate quote.”

Beth felt the room tip under her shoes. As she struggled for an answer, the vice president from Polestar half turned to address the room. “Do we have the floor still?”

The blond lawyer ignored him. “If the quote is accurate, we have serious concerns about the investigation.”

Polestar wouldn't be shouted down. “We normally get to meet the Investigator in Charge and the team leaders. I've known Delevan Wildman for fifteen years. There's a protocol to these things.”

Beth said, “Folks? Everyone?”

A representative from Leveque Aéronautique, Limited, of Quebec, maker of the aeronautics suite, stood. “Pardon me. Are we meeting the investigators? We're here to help but we were told we were meeting the lead investigators.”

A consultant from the engine makers, Bembenek Company, stood, too. “Yeah. We were told that.”

Beth tried to apply a smile. “People? Can we do the introductions first?”

The pilots' attorney raised her hand again. “Can you answer our question, Ms. Mancini? We officially protest the rush to judgment we feel your statement to the media represents.”

The consultant from Bembenek cut in. “Whoa. Slow down, everyone. If the Go-Team is calling this pilot error, we should assume they know what they're doing.”

Leveque Aéronautics jumped into the fray. “Can we hear this from the Investigator in Charge, please?”

Now fully half of the 167 people in the auditorium were on their feet. Voices tumbled over one another like boulders in an avalanche.

“People?” Beth tried to dim the cacophony. “Excuse me? Everyone?”

The All-Thing continued to spin out for the next twenty minutes. Beth's aides caught it all on video for the Web site.

19

O
NE OF THE NURSES
peeked into the rec room of the Brightenwood Retirement Center in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and said, “Arlen?”

Colonel Arlen Combs turned from his chess game, thick white eyebrows rising.

“You have a visitor.”

He pivoted his wheelchair a quarter turn to the left. The nurse stepped aside.

Arlen Combs's long, thick-jawed face broke into a craggy smile. “I will be God damned.”

The man behind the nurse stepped forward and offered his hand. “Dad.”

*   *   *

They went to the colonel's room, the old man refusing the offer to help with his wheelchair. “I'm fine, I'm fine,” he growled. He'd smoked Camels for sixty-five of his eighty-one years and they'd left his voice so rough it sounded as if he were gargling asphalt. He was six-two—fat lot of good it did him in the damn chair—and his hands were as thick and rough-hewn as a lumberjack's. His skin was leathery and taut with deep wrinkles.

His private room in the retirement village was as tack-sharp and neat as a Pentagon briefing room.

“What brings you around?” Arlen wheeled himself to a maple side table and poured two fingers of Jack Daniel's into mismatched, cheap tumblers. He handed one to his son, eyeing him. His only boy had grown into a tall, broad-shouldered man. He stood at parade rest, hands held behind his back until accepting the drink. He wore jeans and lace-up boots and a T-shirt under a brown blazer. His pale blue eyes scanned the room.

“I was in the vicinity.” He made eye contact with his dad. “Thought I should drop by.”

Arlen Combs took a sip, feeling his ulcer protest and not giving a good shit. “You look good.”

“You, too, sir.”

“Sit.”

His son looked around, found a folding chair pushed up to a table with a three-quarters-finished jigsaw puzzle. He picked up the chair one-handed, spun it around, and sat stiffly, his spine not touching the back of the chair. He had not sipped his drink.

“How goes the war?”

Those pale blue eyes continued to scan the room, although there wasn't much to see. “There are no wars anymore. Just missions.”

“Which you can't talk about.” Arlen sipped his whiskey.

“No, sir.”

The old man smiled a crooked smile. “I sure as hell hope the Special Forces have changed since my day. In Vietnam, they were fucking idiots, the lot of them. Sneaky Pete. Strutting around like their shit don't stink, not giving a good fuck about the grunts who were sweatin' and dyin' in the jungle. Assholes. The lot of them.”

His son nodded.

“Being a regular GI wasn't good enough for you?”

His son looked over the room, the untouched whiskey in his left hand. His face turned to his father, his eyes the last to light. “There are different ways to protect America, Dad.”

The old man barked a laugh and drained his drink. “Protect America!”

“Threats change. How's your health? After the stroke, you—”

“Like when you boys invaded Puerto Rico?” He laughed and reached for the bottle of Jack.

“It was Grenada. It was—”

Arlen Combs poured himself another drink, his arms still knotted with muscles at this age, pale polo shirt open to show a tuft of white hair on this chest. His son could see the chain that dipped into his shirt, knowing, even today, his father wore his dog tags.

“What was that asshole's name? Secretary of dee-fense? Dyed black hair?”

“Secretary of Defense Casper—”

“Cap Weinberger! That was him. Jesus H. Christ!” His son bristled a little when Arlen took the Lord's name in vain. “Little tin soldier, telling America we'd done it! We'd rescued all those medical students! Hell, half of them were still in their dorms, watching fucking television when he said it! You boys screwed that one! Hee!”

“That was before my time, Dad.”

The old man ignored him and wiped his rheumy eyes. “Invaded a country the size of a Ramada Inn. Yeah, that was a man's war, sure enough.”

“Communist forces were—”

The old man said, “Fuck. You want Communist forces? I was a grunt in Korea, boy. And I was a colonel in Vietnam. Now, we had some Communist forces! You had Grenada and, what was it, Panama? Jesus, Joseph, and Mary! What a pussy army. What, Epcot Center was too big a foe? Ha!”

He drained his glass and winced as the ulcer spasmed.

His son sat, back straight, unemotional, still scanning the room as if he could see ghosts. His drink remained untouched.

“Special Forces! You see these?” Arlen wheeled himself four feet to the left, to a picture frame on the wall. Behind the glass was every medal he had ever won, had ever worn on his dress uniform. “You see these? Ask me about any of them. Any goddamn one of them. I can tell you exactly how I got it. Protecting America. You, Special Forces? You're just the CIA in khaki. Just the fucking CIA.”

His son scanned the room, found a coaster near the jigsaw puzzle, pulled it closer, set down his drink, and stood.

“It was good seeing you, Dad.”

“That's it! Run away when the questions get too hot. That's you guys' style. Just like—”

But his son had left the room.

BIG SKY COMMUNITY HOSPITAL

Ray Calabrese returned to the hospital Saturday afternoon and again found Kiki in Tommy's private room. This time, Beth Mancini was there as well.

“… Normally conducts interviews with survivors, but, well, I figured your written report would be every bit as good. You've filled out enough of those.” She turned and smiled politely. “It was … Ray?”

Ray shook her hand. “Right.”

Beth turned back to Kiki. “Here's a report for you and one for Tommy. Though, Tommy, you can wait a day or two, wait for the concussion to subside. Okay, well, thank you.”

They chatted a bit, then Beth excused herself.

Kiki rose and bussed Ray on the cheek. “I'm being released.”

“I figured as much. I reserved a room for you in my hotel.”

She squeezed his arm. “Thank you. Is it the same hotel as the rest of the crashers?”

Ray shrugged. “They're spread out all over town. Hunting season, I guess.”

Tommy said, “That sounds inefficient.”

Ray turned to Kiki. “Hey, I got no love, regarding the cockpit recorder. I asked, but Peter Kim…” He shrugged.

“That jerk! I want to help!”

“I know. Hey, how're you doing, Texas?”

Tommy looked marginally better, with maybe a little more color in his cheeks. “Bored out of my fucking mind. Reading gives me headaches and daytime TV just makes me hate humanity.”

Ray smiled. “Bitch and moan, bitch and moan.”

All three turned at a knock on the door. A very tall, willow-thin woman stood there.

Ray said, “Hey. Guys, this is the team leader for pathology and, ah, I just absolutely don't remember your name.”

“Dr. Lakshmi Jain. Dr. Tomzak?”

“Yeah. Howdy.”

Dr. Jain looked uncomfortable. She held herself rigid, her feet close together, a hand on her shoulder bag as if facing muggers.

“I'm Kiki Duvall. Cockpit voice recorder.” Kiki limped forward on her metal cane, offered her hand. A brief pause, and Lakshmi took her hand. One formal pump, up and down.

Kiki realized the pathologist's clothes smelled of woodsmoke.

“Dr. Tomzak, I thought it proper to look in on you, to see how you are doing.”

“It's Tommy, and that's mighty nice of you. What's the condition of the pilots?”

“The copilot died on impact with trees, not the ground. We have found very little of him. The pilot … puzzles me.”

Kiki perched on the edge of Tommy's bed. Ray slid the room's one chair over to Dr. Jain, saying, “Yeah?”

Lakshmi sat, looking like she'd been called into the principal's office. “Yes. I … Dr. Tomzak, you have a reputation for … creative analysis of situations.”

“It's Tommy, and thanks. What is it?”

Lakshmi nodded. “By following a thumbprint and a blood trail, it appears the Pilot-in-Charge woke up after the crash, used his left hand to undo his safety harness, rolled or fell out of his seat to the forest floor below. Then probably pushed himself toward the flight-deck door on his knees. His right arm would have been useless at this point, the nerves sheared at the elbow by shrapnel. He … likely rose to his feet. When I found him, he was slumped over with a blood smear on the wall that indicated he'd leaned against it and slowly collapsed.”

“Okay.” Tommy was seeing the scene in his mind.

“Cause of death was a broken neck. C4. And I confirmed in the postmortem that the spinal cord was badly damaged.”

Kiki said, “I'm with you so far. It's—”

But Tommy was sitting up now, a hand on his lover's arm. “Whoa, whoa. C4?”

Lakshmi nodded. Ray and Kiki waited. They looked to Tommy.

“No shittin' way. C4 spinal damage and the guy's a quadriplegic. There's no getting out of the harness, dragging your ass back to the door. Certainly no standing up.”

“Not just quadriplegic,” Lakshmi added softly. “The nerves controlling breathing were badly damaged. There was no way he could breathe.”

Ray absorbed all that. “So the lesser injuries were from the crash. But the broken neck…?”

Tommy said, “Happened after the crash.”

Kiki said, “What about the deer?”

Ray and Tommy slowly turned to her, Ray going, “The
deer
?”

Kiki nodded. “There was a dead deer on the flight deck. It got scooped up somehow as we were skidding. Could it have killed the pilot?”

Tommy turned to Ray. “Sometime in the not-too-distant future, I'm gonna say to you,
That's the damnedest thing I ever heard.
When I do, you got permission to say,
There was a dead deer on the flight deck.”

Ray said, “Check.”

Lakshmi thought it over. “Perhaps. If it did not die on impact. If it was struggling, it might have hit the pilot, broken his spine.”

The others agreed that, yes, it was possible. Weird, unlikely as hell, but possible. One thing was certain: the pilot's severed spine had happened minutes after the crash.

Lakshmi stood up to leave. “I also wish to convey my regrets regarding the death of Isaiah Grey. I had met him but we had not worked on a crash before. He seemed most professional.”

Kiki said, “Thank you. Really.” She was a hugger by nature but was pretty sure that wouldn't fly with the tense Dr. Jain. “Listen, I'm sorry but I have to know what killed Isaiah.”