But here it was, exactly where the latitude and longitude indicated: a plane. Now seeing it for what it was, Fisher understood how even the Turkana and Samburu, so intimately familiar with the area, had missed it. While the jungle had long ago erased any sign of the impact itself, it was clear the Sunstarhad crashed not far from here and ripped through the forest, slowing until the forward half of its fuselage had come to rest perched, hovering, at the edge of this cliff until finally, minutes or hours or days later, physics took over and it tipped over nose first and slid down the cliff face into the river below. Almost six decades of jungle foliage, mold, and lichens had enshrouded the aluminum fuselage, turning it into just another tree trunk.
Fisher dropped his pack and rifle, then pulled a sixty-foot coil of 10mm climbing rope from his pack. As Jimiyu secured the line to a nearby tree, Fisher looped together a makeshift rappelling rig. He stepped to the edge of the cliff and started down.
Pausing every few feet to poke through the vines and leaves with his knife, Fisher walked himself down the cliff until the jabbing of his knife returned not the hollow gong of aluminum, but the screeching of steel on glass. This version of Niles Wondrash's plane, a Curtiss C-46 Commando, had four fuselage windows, starting at the wing and moving forward to the cockpit windows. The cabin door was set behind these, just forward of the tail fin. Fisher saw no wings, and he assumed they'd been sheared off during the crash.
Now with a point of reference, he scaled upward, again tapping his knife. The windows were set roughly ten feet apart, so . . . He stopped climbing and studied the fuselage, trying to discern angles and shapes until finally he could make out an up-sloping curve he felt certain was the rear vertical fin. He spun his body and wedged his feet into the vines, then began cutting at the foliage with his knife until slowly, foot by foot, a patch of fuselage appeared, followed soon after by an inset hatch handle and a vertical seam. He wedged the point of his knife into the seam and began prying, moving inch by inch as though prying open a paint can. After five minutes of work, he heard a groaning screech of metal on metal. The hatch gave way and fell open. Fisher pushed off, avoiding the swinging metal, then swung back and kicked his legs through the opening and wriggled forward until his butt was resting on the hatch jamb.
"I'm in!" he called up to Jimiyu.
On hands and knees the Kenyan leaned over the cliff face and offered him a smile and a thumbs-up. "Be very careful, Sam. Many creatures have probably made that their home, you know."
Great,Fisher thought. He hadn't considered that.
He pulled the LED headlamp from his belt, settled it on his head, and toggled the ON button. The beam illuminated the opposite cabin wall, its smooth aluminum surface mottled with mildew. He played the light down the vertical shaft of the cabin. The wall and floor were empty. No seats, no storage racks, no nothing. All of that, either knocked loose during the crash or simply loosened by time and gravity, had likely tumbled down the length of the cabin and into the cockpit below. Fisher did some mental measurements: The cliff was roughly fifty feet tall and about ten feet of the plane's tail had been jutting above the rim of the cliff. The C-46 Commando was seventy-five feet long, which meant the forward fifteen feet of the craft, including the cockpit, was submerged in the river.
The interior was surprisingly clear of jungle growth. Sealed as it was, with the only breaches probably being the shattered cockpit windows, nothing had had a chance to take root. The Commando was a virtual time capsule. He aimed the headlamp down the length of the cabin, but the walls, having lost their sheen, reflected nothing back. It was like staring down a mine shaft.
Fisher reeled in the rope below him, bunched it in one hand, then tossed it into the cabin. The loose end gave a hollow tingas it bounced off the aluminum, then there was silence.
He lowered himself through the darkness, scanning the light over the walls as he went, until finally his feet touched a horizontal surface--a section of the cockpit bulkhead. Stacked in a jumble around him were the Commando's seats. Through the tangle of braces and armrests and skeletal seat backs he could see the upper curve of the cockpit door opening; a few feet through that, his headlamp beam glinted off water. Just outside the plane's thin aluminum skin he could hear the gurgle of the river's current. The stench of mold was pervasive now, stinging his eyes and making it hard to breathe as though the air itself had grown thick.
It took fifteen minutes to shift and precariously restack the seats enough to allow him access to the cockpit. He lowered himself into a kneeling position, knees braced on either side of the door, rotated the rappelling rig around until it was facing backward, then he lowered himself again until he was lying splayed across the doorway.
Partially blinded by the glare of his flashlight on the water, which had filled the cockpit to a point just below the windshield, Fisher didn't immediately see the skulls.
There were two of them, one on either side of him in the pilot's and copilot's seats. Each was devoid of all traces of flesh, save a few desiccated chunks that hung like beef jerky from the facial bones. The torsos, which were submerged from the waist down, were clothed in tatters and in between the strips of fabric Fisher could see glimpses of white bone. Each skeleton hung suspended from its seat back belt and harness, arms dangling and fingertips dipped in the water.
Fisher scanned the interior, looking for anything that might positively identify the craft or its occupants. Then he saw it, jutting from the pilot's inside jacket pocket, a brown rectangular package. Right arm braced for support on the cockpit bulkhead, Fisher leaned forward and gingerly removed the package.
It was oilskin. Fisher opened the folds. Inside was a well-preserved paperback-size leather journal. On the cover in faded, gold-embossed letters were the initials NW.
Niles Wondrash.
Fisher rewrapped the journal and slid it into the thigh pocket of his cargo pants. He was about to turn and leave, when he saw the glint of steel behind Wondrash's seat back. Fisher carefully tore away a section of the seat's moldering fabric until he could see the object.
It was a screw-top stainless steel canister, roughly the size of two soda cans stacked atop one another.
He grabbed it, then turned and started climbing.
31
PAPONDIT, KENYA
" Iassume you haven't opened it?" Lambert said.
Fisher switched the satellite phone to his left ear and moved out of the sun beneath the low-hanging branches of an olive tree. In the distance, over some scattered kopjes--low, rocky mounds--and forested savanna, he could see the surface of Lake Victoria shimmering blue in the heat. Fifty feet away Jimiyu sat in the Range Rover's driver's seat on the shoulder of the road.
"Which one?" Fisher asked. "The journal or the canister?"
"The canister."
Fisher smiled into the phone. "A mysterious sixty-year-old stainless steel canister I found inside a plane in the middle of the jungle. No, Lamb, I didn't open it."
"Didn't think so."
"As for the journal, the cover looks to be in good shape, but the edges of the pages feel spongy. I think it's best we wait for Quantico. If I open it, there's a good chance we'll lose whatever's in there."