“Over there,” Gibbons yelled.
He and his partner were upon the man in seconds. They made a quick assessment, determined he was safe to move, then grasped him by both armpits and rolled him onto an adjacent spine board. After securing him with straps, they dragged the survivor away from the fire’s blazing heat.
Gibbons grabbed a pair of shears from his belt and cut through what remained of the man’s suit coat and dress shirt. “Sir, can you hear me?” he asked.
A groan in response, a half-hearted movement of his left arm.
“I’m a paramedic. We’re gonna take good care of you.”
The man’s face was so badly burned Gibbons couldn’t tell if he was thirty or fifty. “Starting a central line,” Gibbons said.
“A central line? We never do that in the—”
“We’ve gotta infuse him now, no choice. We’ll dress the burns and get him the hell out of here. Medevac?”
Seconds later, his partner lowered the two-way from his ear. “Three minutes.”
Gibbons bit his lip as he worked, keeping his thoughts to himself. He was concerned about the extent of the burns covering the man’s face, hands, and feet.
“Gib — I think I see someone else.”
“Go,” Gibbons said. He watched as his partner ran off in the direction of what appeared to be another prone body crawling slowly across the devastated landscape.
Gibbons finished establishing the IV, then noticed something shiny protruding from the partially burned suit coat he had cut away. He reached into the inside pocket and pulled out a blue and gold Waterman pen. It was thick and heavy, but well balanced. He rolled it between his fingers and saw something engraved on the barreclass="underline" “Vice President Glendon E. Rusch.”
“Holy shit.” He glanced over his shoulder, saw that no one was watching, and slipped the pen into his shirt pocket. Just in case his mother did not believe him.
The wreckage was still partially ablaze, though the army of firefighters had the situation contained. Uzi stepped from the FBI’s Black Hawk helicopter and ran toward the periphery of the crash site. He stopped at the outer border, taking in the carnage the way he’d been taught to view any crime scene: get the big picture first, then move inward for the details. He pulled a toothpick from his jacket pocket, stuck it in his mouth, and twirled it about with his lips and tongue.
Emergency personnel continued to wander the area, though at this point Uzi surmised the rescue aspect had concluded and they were now engaged in recovery efforts.
Uzi walked toward the concentration of investigators, which he estimated as numbering between fifty and sixty. The acrid stench of burning fuel mixed with smoldering electrical and mechanical parts flared his nostrils. He slid past a couple of workers who were placing klieg lights along the periphery, then knelt beside the first technician he came to, a woman in dark coveralls with “NTSB” written in white phosphorescent letters across her back.
He flashed his Bureau credentials and nodded at the ground she was examining. “Special Agent Aaron Uzi,” he said, the toothpick bobbing on his lips. Years ago he got into the habit of truncating his last name during introductions, as most people botched it anyway. “I’m head of JTTF out of WFO,” Uzi said, referring to the Joint Terrorism Task Force at the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
“Angela Bonacelli, Aviation Go Team,” she said. “Structures Specialist.”
“What can you tell me?”
“I can tell you this A-triple-F makes it very hard to do my job.”
“‘A’ what?”
“The foam. Good thing is it smothers everything in its path and puts out the fire. Bad thing is, well, it smothers everything in its path. And you’re not supposed to disturb it or the fire’ll start up again.” She moved past a large piece of metal that was layered with foam and settled herself in a clearing beside loose dirt.
“Other than that,” Uzi said, moving beside her.
Bonacelli spoke without looking up, suddenly fascinated by what lay in front of her, flicking at the soil with a small brush. “Both choppers crashed. Marine Two and its escort. Two survivors, from what I hear. A Secret Service agent and the vice president.”
“You mean president-elect.”
As she sifted through the dirt, she said, “Yeah.”
“Anything else?”
“Wreckage is strewn over a very large area. Radar picked up pieces coming down ten miles from here.”
“Ten miles? On a helicopter crash?”
“First of all, we’ve got two choppers. We don’t know the sequence yet, but one could’ve gone down first, then the other. Leaves a much greater scatter pattern.” Bonacelli shrugged. “It’ll take a while before all the wreckage is sorted out.”
“Still,” Uzi mused. “Ten miles. Doesn’t seem possible, unless…”
“Unless there was an explosion of some sort.” Bonacelli nodded. “Disabling but not totally destructive. Debris falls, but the chopper stays aloft. Finally, she stalls or something else gives out, and she drops out of the sky.”
“An explosion. Are you saying this was intentional?”
“Whoa,” she said, holding her hands out in front of her. “I was just reporting the size of the debris field. My job is to gather evidence, Agent Uzi. In a case like this, someone else who gets paid a lot more than me determines what it all means.”
“Theoretically. If there’s an explosion that’s not caused by a bomb, we’re talking either mechanical or structural failure, right?”
“Right.” She looked out at the smoldering wreckage. “What a mess.” Almost to herself, she said, “How the hell could this have happened?”
Uzi turned away. It was exactly what he was wondering. From what he knew, the executive fleet of helicopters was meticulously maintained. Parts were replaced on a set schedule, whether or not they were worn. The human factor, however, was always something that needed to be ruled out: pilot error, improperly installed equipment, acts of terror. Until they had more information, it was ill advised to jump to conclusions.
But his mind was churning, nonetheless.
Uzi’s tongue played with the toothpick as he glanced out over the field of burning embers and twisted metal. “Who’s here? FAA, Hazmat, you guys, Secret Service, Marines…” He continued scanning the on-scene personnel, guessing affiliation by their dress and body language.
Bonacelli took a sample bag from her kit and scooped a trowel of dirt. “Defense Department, county sheriffs, and the executive branch medical team. I think that covers it.”
“Shitload of people.”
Uzi knew that in a crash scene such as this one, the National Transportation Safety Board ran the show until they determined cause. If it was accidental, the FBI left NTSB to finish their analysis. If it was a criminal act, the Bureau took over. In a case involving the executive branch, parallel investigations ran in the background: DOD, Secret Service, the Marines— They all did their own thing. All agencies were supposed to run their findings through the NTSB, but turf wars often compromised the process.
Uzi’s thighs were beginning to ache. He stood gingerly from his crouch, his old football knee clunking when he straightened it. Bonacelli rose as well.
“Who are your Powerplants and Systems Specialists?”
“John Maguire and Clarice Canfield,” she said, twisting her torso to scan the milling bodies. “They’re out there somewhere.”
Uzi’s glance followed hers and settled on a long-haired brunet in a business suit, walking slowly along the periphery. “Who’s that?” He wasn’t sure if he had said it aloud.
“Haven’t the slightest. Not one of ours.”