“From what I’ve seen so far, I would say the design carried the impact forces quite well. A few sections remain unaccounted for, but that is always the case, is it not?”
“It is.”
“And you? Is there any news of your daughter?”
“Not yet, but I’m hopeful.”
“Have you recovered from your near disaster under the wing?”
“I think so,” Davis said, rolling one shoulder. “I’ve been practicing stiff-arms on the rugby pitch most of my life — I guess I finally found a practical use for it.”
Delacorte smiled.
Davis said, “I’d like your opinion on something.”
“I am glad to help. What is it?”
“Actually, I’d rather talk about it somewhere else, maybe over a beer. There’s a bar down the street.”
“Très bon. Are you buying?”
Davis nodded. “Now I know for sure you play rugby.”
The bar was called La Pista, which Davis thought translated to The Runway. The place was darker than most and had a subdued atmosphere, which fit his mood perfectly. There were twenty square tables with chairs, ten stools at the bar. Half the seats were occupied by working men, and two young waitresses rushed deftly among them. The theme was predictably one of aviation. There was a wooden propeller bolted over the liquor rack, and pictures of old airplanes tacked on the walls. He caught the sporadic aroma of meat cooking on a grill and saw waves of smoke washing past an open back door. They took up station at one end of the bar, facing a picture of a DC-3 and next to a grizzled old man who nodded once, then went back to slurping soup from a bowl.
“I flew one of those once,” Davis said, pointing to the picture.
“Was it challenging to land?” asked Delacorte. “I’ve been told tail-wheel aircraft require different techniques.”
“I had my own technique,” Davis said, thinking, One that didn’t involve the landing gear at all. But that was another day and another place. He ordered dos cervezas from a curious bartender who probably didn’t often entertain pairs of six-and-a-half-foot men from the high northern hemisphere. The beers appeared right away, reasonably cold in sweating bottles.
The two investigators exchanged a santé, and Davis’ first draw went down like it always did, cool and dense. He hadn’t had a beer in four days, which was some kind of record, but the usual gratification was missing. He made arrangements with the bartender to purchase a case of rum, and while he probably could have gotten a better bargain at a liquor store, the bartender was happy to take a credit card, and all Davis had to do to make good on his promise was haul one cardboard box across the street. That settled, he got down to his business with Delacorte.
“I have a theory about this crash, but I need some information about the ARJ-35 to back it up.”
“What kind of information?”
“It relates to aircraft performance. Feel free to shoot holes in my idea. At the moment, Colonel Marquez and I aren’t on the same page, and I could use an impartial opinion.”
“You realize I am an engineer, not a fully trained investigator.”
“All the better.”
After talking to Sorensen, Davis had retrieved the sat-phone from his room, and he took it out now and called up the photographs he’d taken. “Here’s what I found under that wing before it fell on me.” He flicked through the pictures with an index finger and settled on one. “What do you see?”
“A landing gear assembly.”
“What else?”
“Dead grass and dirt.”
“Exactly. Now, BTA makes the gear doors for this airplane, right?”
“Of course.”
“And can we agree that all the evidence we’ve seen so far confirms the landing gear was retracted when the airplane hit? The landing gear handle in the cockpit was up, the uplocks on this assembly are engaged, and there’s no impact damage to the strut or support arms.”
“Agreed,” said Delacorte. “The landing gear was up when the aircraft struck. Are you questioning how this grass and dirt came to be in the wheel assembly?”
“I am.”
Delacorte addressed his beer, adding a classic Gallic shrug. “The airplane slid through a rain forest, so the landing gears doors could have jarred open momentarily, long enough to allow such contamination.”
“My point isn’t that grass and dirt are merely present — look more closely.” Davis enlarged the photo. “That grass is wrapped around the wheel, and the gaps in the brake assemblies are full of debris. In a typical taxi-out, on an asphalt or concrete strip, those spaces would be scrubbed to a metallic shine by brake pressure. And up here,” he pointed to the roof of the wheel well, “you can see a distinct splash pattern of mud and grass. Twin arcs, one above each wheel. The only way to get contamination like that is from a spinning wheel that’s throwing muck.”
Delacorte sat back on his stool.
Davis turned off the phone and slipped it back in his pocket.
The Frenchman said, “You are suggesting the airplane landed somewhere else? On an unimproved airstrip?”
“It would answer a lot of questions.”
“Including what might have happened to your daughter?”
Here Davis hesitated. “It’s possible.”
“Where could it have landed?”
“That’s where I was hoping you could help me. Tell me about the soft field landing capability of this airplane.”
Delacorte’s expression went sour. “It was not designed for ‘soft fields,’ as you put it. The engines are too low to the ground. On a grass or dirt strip there would be a high chance of foreign objects being ingested into the bypass fan.”
“I know it wasn’t designed for that — but is it possible?”
The Frenchman’s mouth maintained its upside-down U. “An airplane is an airplane. If the landing surface was in reasonable condition, and if it was long enough… yes.”
“Define long enough.”
“One thousand meters minimum. Twelve hundred would be better.”
Davis turned his bottle in his hand. It was the answer he’d wanted to hear, yet it widened his field of search considerably.
“Will you suggest this theory to Marquez?” Delacorte asked.
Davis blew out a long breath. “The colonel and I are barely on speaking terms right now.”
“He seems competent enough.”
“He’s very competent. Only I think he’s found himself between a rock and a hard place. The rock is the Colombian Air Force, which means his career is on the line.”
“And the place that is hard?”
Davis grinned at the translation. “I don’t know… it’s strange. I don’t think Marquez ever really believed this was a hijacking. But he kept pushing the idea, even after it clearly didn’t work. It’s almost like… like he was playing for time.”
“Or trying to make everyone look away from the real cause.”
“Maybe so,” said Davis.
“What can you do?”
“I don’t have much choice. I’m convinced this airplane landed somewhere before the crash. It fits everything we know. The evidence in the wheel well, the missing passengers, even the missing captain. I guess there’s no choice — I’ll have to go to Marquez and make my case.”
They drained their bottles. The bartender was good, asking if they wanted refills as soon as glass hit wood. Both men declined. Davis paid for their beers, assured the bartender he would be back for his case of rum, and they headed for the door. Two steps from the entrance he heard the first sirens. Davis took a cautious step outside, and saw a police car skid to a stop in the gravel parking apron across the road. Two officers dismounted and ran toward a crowd of people. Their guns were drawn.