He zipped up Mulligan’s bag and tossed it onto the pile. Davis leaned back and tried to get comfortable, but it was an exercise in futility as the truck battered over every rut. He forced his eyes shut and thought about Jen. He thought about mud and grass on a landing gear assembly, and a gun in a suitcase. He thought about a missing pilot and three dead people on a flight deck, one of whom remained unidentified. Yet most of all, as he bounced along in a two-ton troop carrier at the head of the Amazon basin, Davis found his mind circling back to one increasingly tall obstacle.
Who the hell was Kristin Stewart?
Davis arrived at El Centro shortly before six that evening. The driver parked the truck across the street, in front of a small warehouse that had been requisitioned to house wreckage. He thanked the two men for the ride and walked to the main building.
He found Marquez behind the desk in his office. Davis hesitated, then continued past the door and into the computer room. The only person there was a young woman in jungle fatigues who pretended not to notice him. Davis went to the copy machine, a big Xerox office model whose control panel shone a resolute green light, almost like an invitation. I’m ready to go. Davis ignored it. He instead took a firm grip on the trash can next to the copier and lifted it high.
The young woman got up and left in a rush.
For all its efforts to modernize, Colombia, or at least the city of Bogotá, had apparently not crossed the threshold of recycling. Davis turned the trash can upside down, and all manner of refuse cascaded onto a scuffed linoleum floor. Soft drink cans, food wrappers, Styrofoam packing peanuts — and most of all, paper. It was a big receptacle, and Davis suspected it hadn’t been emptied since the beginning of the crisis. It didn’t take a Holmesian deduction to know which documents would be on top of the inverted pile.
Davis began wrist-flicking pages aside, one by one. Inspecting the seventh, he found what he wanted. He went to Marquez’ office.
“We need to talk,” Davis said without knocking.
A visibly strained Marquez motioned for him to sit. “Did you find something useful at the crash site?”
“Actually, I need something from you. I want to see the flight data recorder information. Is it available yet?”
Marquez’ expression clouded over. He stood, walked to the door, and pulled it gently shut. He looked different from when Davis had met him days earlier. He seemed frail, the countenance of a man who’d survived some kind of wasting disease, but who expected a relapse at any moment. A man living on borrowed time. “There is a problem with the recorders.”
“What kind of problem?”
“I only found out this afternoon. Our technicians tell me the downloads are completely useless, both the flight data and cockpit audio.”
Davis fell very still. “That is a problem.” It had been in the back of his mind — they’d found the recorders early Monday, almost three days ago, yet no information had been forthcoming. An initial read usually didn’t take that long. “Were they damaged in the crash?”
“No, both were recovered in perfect condition.”
“Then how could you not have data?”
A sigh. “Apparently TAC-Air maintenance removed both boxes two days before the crash for a mandatory bench inspection. When the mechanics reinstalled them, they apparently did not reconnect the umbilical to either unit.”
Davis thought this through, and ventured a guess. “So you’ve got perfect data for a flight that happened three days before our crash.”
“Exactly.”
“Aren’t the pilots supposed to check for operability before a flight?”
“There is a self-test feature, yes. The pilots are required to perform it before the first flight of each day, according to TAC-Air’s operating procedures. The test itself has no bearing on day-to-day operations… I have heard that some pilots ignore it.”
Davis wasn’t surprised. He knew pilots became rushed at times, and didn’t always check every bell and whistle in the cockpit. When it came to black boxes, there was only one group of people who cared about operability — investigators like him and Marquez.
“That ties both hands behind our backs,” Davis said in frustration.
“Yes,” agreed Marquez. “The voice recorder would almost certainly have explained what happened on the flight deck.”
Davis wasn’t so sure. He was more interested in the flight data recorder, which would have shown the course the jet had taken to its final resting place. “Did you ever figure out why we didn’t get pings? The emergency locator beacons should have gone off in this crash.”
“That’s something else I learned today. We inspected the ELTs, and apparently one had a bad battery. The other malfunctioned, although we are not sure why. In time the cause will be discovered.”
Davis shifted in his seat. “Does this not strike you as extraordinary? Here we are, you and I, floundering around to explain missing passengers and pilots. Three people on that flight were executed, for Christ’s sake. I’ve never seen an accident with such clear criminal involvement. And now you’re telling me that right before the crash a mechanic inadvertently disabled our two best sources of information? On top of that, both ELTs malfunctioned simultaneously, making the crash more difficult to locate? What are the odds of all that?”
Marquez didn’t reply.
“You know, I just took a long truck ride back from the field. It wasn’t very comfortable, but it gave me time to think. And I wasn’t dwelling on airplane wreckage or pilot profiles. I was thinking about you, Colonel.”
Marquez remained motionless, his face a blank.
“I was thinking about how well organized this investigation is. Twenty-four hours after the crash you had a building arranged, equipment in place, computers up and running. That’s very efficient. No, it’s incredibly efficient. I could never have done that well.” Davis leaned forward and put the page he’d retrieved from the copier room on the desk.
“What is that?” Marquez asked.
“I don’t know. Some kind of procedure for troubleshooting a Windows network backup. It was probably downloaded and printed out because a technician was having trouble installing things on the first day.”
“And that is important to our investigation?”
“Not at all. What’s important is at the bottom… in little tiny letters and numbers. This was printed in that room last Friday night. The day before the crash.”
Marquez stared silently at the paper.
“I’ve also been thinking about the army patrol that just happened to be training in the area when our jet went down. How lucky was that? They were looking for survivors and had the accident site cordoned off before a chopper could even get there.”
“What are you suggesting?” Marquez said, his voice flat and expressionless.
“I talked to a few of the soldiers from that unit. They said they hadn’t been training at all. There were also two other squads in the area, but nobody seemed to be on maneuvers. No tactical exercises or navigation drills. They’d simply been sent out into the jungle, like a camping trip… until an airplane crashed right in their lap.”
“You are saying what — that I planned this crash?”
Davis shook his head. “I don’t think you’re that clever.”
“Get out!” Marquez snapped, his words laced in venom.