Sorensen nodded.
"On the ground," he continued, "molten metal pools, soot goes up. That's the only kind of fire evidence I've seen this morning. And I've been looking."
"Okay, I get the idea. Check off all these things that didn't bring the aircraft down. But any idea what did?"
"This is day one, Honeywell. These investigations can take years."
The rain had stopped, but a look at the sky, charcoal gray curtains all around, suggested it would be a brief reprieve. Sorensen stood straight and took a deep breath.
"This is surreal," she said.
Davis gave no reply, but watched her as she surveyed the disaster. Sorensen squinted, and Davis registered gentle, thin creases at the corners of her eyes. She was the kind of woman who would age well. But then, he had always thought the same about Diane.
Sorensen shifted her gaze, caught him looking in a way that had nothing to do with soot or fires.
"So will you do it, Jammer?"
"What?"
"Help us?"
He found himself wishing she'd used the singular pronoun. "Us" implied helping the CIA — just the kind of big, faceless Washington bureaucracy that drove him crazy. Davis didn't answer. He simply turned away and began to walk.
Chapter SIXTEEN
Sorensen was in tight formation as they stepped carefully through a tapestry of jagged metal and twisted wires. A woman nearby was using a handheld GPS to lay down markers for a reference grid. She glanced up as they passed and everyone nodded cordially.
"There's one more thing I want to show you," Davis said.
He stopped at the piece he was after. It was ten-feet long, two-feet wide, tapered slightly at one end. The materials involved were a combination — metal framework acting as the base for a composite surface. Two actuator rods poked out, bent and sheared off.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It's called an elevon, a primary flight control. Your standard airplane has a different arrangement, but again, the C-500 is a flying wing design. It doesn't have a vertical tail."
"So this controls the airplane aerodynamically?"
"Right. A number of these surfaces along the trailing edge of the body control both the pitch axis, for up and down, and the roll axis for turning. Now — look at this part." He showed her where the trailing section was warped. "I won't bore you with the details, but this surface was damaged in flight. I can tell by the way it failed — it's deformed in a very uniform, consistent way. I found another elevon that shows the same unnatural twist."
She bent down and ran her fingertips over the bowed edge. "So what does that mean?"
"One very significant thing. This is what happens when a flight control surface is under extreme load. Gs were being put on the airplane— I suspect right before impact."
"Gs?"
"Sorry, pilot talk. Gs refers to acceleration. It can be in any of the three axes, but in airplanes we're usually talking about pitch, what you feel in the seat of your pants."
"So in this case, the pilot was trying to pull up?"
"Exactly. In the seconds before this thing hit, one of the two pilots was pulling back desperately on the control stick." Davis stood straight and pointed out over the long, extended debris field. "And hitting at such a low angle — I'd say they came damn close to making it."
Sorensen stood and took it all in.
The sun came out momentarily, and the steady breeze continued its sweep over the accident scene. It seemed almost like a cleansing, a reminder from above that the destruction here was no more than a temporary blight. In time, everything would revert to its natural state, green grass and blue sky.
Davis said, "You see, Honeywell, it's easy to get lost in the bits and pieces, the metal fatigue and fuel lines. But, without getting too philosophical, you have to remember that there was a human element to this crash. There always is."
Sorensen nodded thoughtfully. She pulled down the hood of her jacket and let it fall over her back. A few rebellious strands of blonde fluttered in the breeze. One wisp came over her eyes, and Davis watched her wipe it aside with the back of a wrist. It was a curiously feminine gesture, designed no doubt to avoid fingertips that had to be black with soil and soot.
"Yes," Davis found himself saying.
"Yes what?"
"Yes, I'll help you."
The briefing in the Situation Room took place promptly at eleven. The entire National Security Council was in attendance, minus the vice president who was returning from Bangkok in light of the crisis, but still ten hours away.
The day's intelligence and news reports had not added much to what was already known at this mornings emergency session. Twenty-one refineries hit, massive collateral damage, one primary suspect behind it all. Every news anchor in the country was backed by a photo image of Caliph. The crisis had bumped global warming, health care policy, and tensions in Pakistan right off the media map — nobody cared about any of that when they couldn't fill up their gas tanks to get to work or drive the kids to T-ball practice.
After a few formalities, Darlene Graham gave them her man.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce Dr. Herman Coyle. Dr. Coyle is formerly a professor of Petroleum Engineering at the University of Texas, and now serves as chairman of the OMNI think tank. He is an internationally recognized expert on energy security, and has published a number of papers regarding vulnerabilities and weak points in the design of our country's energy infrastructure. Dr. Coyle—"
Graham yielded the podium to a man who was a good six inches shorter. Coyle was slightly built and wore wire-framed glasses. A textbook receding hairline split two tangles of dark gray hair that sprouted wildly on the sides, giving the appearance of twin bird's nests above his ears. As Truett Townsend studied Coyle, he was encouraged. Here was a man about to brief the president of the United States who hadn't even bothered to stop at a hallway mirror and run a hand through his hair.
"Good morning, everyone," Coyle said. If he was nervous about a rushed briefing to the national command structure, he didn't show it. Coyle began without notes in a voice that was clear and confident — not bravado, but rather the simple strength of a man who knew what he was talking about. "Director Graham has asked me to give my thoughts regarding what occurred last night. As she implied, I am something of an expert on such matters. In truth, of course, if I was really so insightful I would have seen these attacks coming in their exact form and insisted on countermeasures."
The president said, "I can assure you, Dr. Coyle, there will be more than enough blame to go around."
"Yes, I suppose so. To begin, let's admit that most Americans have a limited knowledge of refined fuels. You all know that high octane is better than low, and at some point you've spilled a few drops on your shoes at the pump. But there is great complexity to this industry, and inherent to that, great risk."
DNI Graham broke in. "Dr. Coyle wrote a report outlining specific threats to our refineries."
"I think I read it," the president said. "One scenario had to do with an acid cloud."
"Yes," Coyle picked up. "We uncovered the blueprint of a plot some time ago that involved attacks against domestic oil refineries. The scenario went something like this — pressurized anhydrous fluoride tanks were targeted. If these could be breached, the result would be a cloud of vaporized hydrofluoric acid, highly toxic and traveling on the wind."
General Banks said, "So is this what we're up against, Dr. Coyle? I heard at least one report of a toxic cloud outside a California refinery."