“A what?” April asked.
“Environmental application,” Jim replied. “There was fuel and oil aboard that airplane, right?”
“Yes, but…”
“Well, remember this is environmentalist alley, and I can’t even sneeze in the open without five permits.”
“How long will that take?” she asked, apprehension creeping into her tone.
Jim Dobler sighed. “It just depends on where the airplane came to rest. If it’s inside protected waters, it could be anywhere from a few weeks to never, depending on what the state and the federal government decide to do.”
“I can’t wait that long!” She explained the urgency, and the fact that Arlie Rosen was losing large sums of money every day.
“Miss Rosen,” Scott said, “around here, compliance with environmental rules is very important to your economic health.”
Jim was nodding. “If I pull your aircraft up without a permit, April, and it spills a drop of anything but Perrier, the Environmental Attack Agency will harpoon me, and the media will accuse me of killing birds and polar bears and God knows what.”
“That’s crazy! The airplane’s down there leaking as we speak.”
“I know it, but we don’t write the rules. Touch a tree around here and they chase you down with court orders and Uzis.”
“Miss Rosen,” Scott McDermott began, but she cut him off and turned to look him in the eye.
“It’s all right. You can kill the ‘Miss Rosen’ thing now and call me April. I was just ticked at your attitude back in Anchorage.”
“Yeah?” Scott replied, turning to grin at Jim. “She doesn’t like my attitude.”
“Hell, Scott, no woman this side of Atsugi has liked your attitude since you escaped from the Navy,” Jim said.
“Oh, that cuts, Mr. Dobler, sir!” He turned back to April. “And just for the record, Miss Rosen — April — it so happens there was nothing wrong with my attitude in Anchorage.”
“The heck there wasn’t!” she snapped, looking at him incredulously.
“The heck there was!” he countered. “I wasn’t the sweet young thang that came flouncing in the door of an Alaskan hotel in high heels and a high-fallutin’ coat from needless markup, telling the scruffy locals not to smoke in a smoking area.”
“I never saw the sign. And the coat is from Nordstrom’s, thank you.”
“Okay, children,” Jim interjected. “Maybe we should get back to the subject.”
Scott reached over and offered the same large hand she’d shaken so reluctantly in Anchorage, and April took it, this time with more enthusiasm.
“Look,” Scott said, “I do apologize for being a bloody boor.”
“Accepted.”
He held her hand for a second and cocked his head. “You know, you’re, like, totally welcome to counter the ‘boor’ part at any time.”
“I’ll get back to you on that,” she said.
He nodded as she let his hand go and turned back to Jim. “You said if the airplane came down outside of some boundary, the rules don’t apply?”
“Well, maybe. These coordinates may be outside of restricted waters, and, if so, permits probably won’t be needed.”
“Can’t we go try to find the wreckage at least? I understand you have side-scanning sonar to help locate it.”
Jim nodded. “A crude form, yes.”
“And we’ve still got daylight. Can’t we start?”
Jim shook his head. “Well, see, I’ve got a problem. The engine’s down on my tug. They’re working on it, but it won’t be ready until tomorrow. And I only make fifteen knots at full throttle, which means it’ll take at least four hours to get there.”
“April,” Scott McDermott interjected. “Tell me exactly what you’re trying to accomplish.”
“What do you mean? I’m trying to raise my dad’s plane.”
“Time is obviously critical, but what do you need to discover in that wreckage?”
“Oh. Right.” She explained the need to prove a propeller blade had broken away in flight. “And, there are certain items I need to recover from inside the airplane, if they’re still intact.” The image of shattered liquor bottles flashed through her mind. If even one wasn’t intact and sealed, Gracie had warned, the FAA would never let it go. She ignored a cold chill and tried to smile.
“Okay.” Scott turned to Dobler. “You’ve got underwater cameras, don’t you, Jim?”
“Sure. I’ve got your basic fish cam, your little cameras, your big cameras, and even your fancy steerable cameras for underwater hull inspections.”
“And they all operate on battery, or one hundred ten volts?”
“Yes. But—”
“And I know you’ve got one of those little Honda generators.”
Jim was nodding.
“Good. This can work. And there’s obviously a hatch on the nose of my plane. So why don’t we go out to those last known coordinates with the video gear and the generator, drop a camera over the side, and see what we can see. It’ll take all of thirty minutes to get there.”
“It’s open ocean, Scott,” Jim said, looking alarmed.
“Hey, I can handle it. I used to land impossibly large jets on a pitching carrier deck at night for a living. Compared to that, landing in open ocean in a Widgeon is a piece of cake.”
Dobler scratched his chin and nodded. “It’s not you I’m worried about.”
“You mean your stomach?”
Jim nodded as Scott looked at April and gestured toward the veteran mariner. “He can take twelve-foot seas in a dinghy without a problem but he gets seasick whenever my airplane is in open waters.”
“It moves funny,” Jim said.
“And he’s a pilot to boot,” Scott added.
“I guess I’ll be okay, Scott. I’ve got those wristbands.”
“I’ll keep it as smooth as a baby’s…” Scott paused, glancing at April, who rolled her eyes and shrugged.
“Oh, go ahead. I know you’re dying to.”
He flashed her a broad smile. “Baby’s behind! Thanks. That felt better.”
“I can just imagine,” she said.
“April, one thing,” Jim said. “Even with the right coordinates, the chances of finding the wreckage quickly are slim. We could be wasting our time. I’ll almost certainly need the side-scan sonar to locate it, and that’s mounted on my boat.”
“I understand,” she replied, “but I’d really appreciate it if we could at least try right now.”
Both men checked their watches as if on cue before Jim got to his feet with a loud grunt. “Aw, hell, why not,” he said, winking at April. “Nothing else going on.”
“You’ll be okay, Jim. I guarantee it.”
“Yeah,” he grumbled, as he headed out the door to assemble his gear. “Like I haven’t heard that before.”
TWENTY TWO
THURSDAY AFTERNOON, DAY 4 UNIWAVE FIELD OFFICES ELMENDORF AFB, ALASKA
“Hey, Ben?”
Ben Cole jumped off his chair and let out an involuntary cry as he scrambled to his feet, his heart racing.
“Jeez, Ben, it’s just me,” one of his team said, her eyes wide. “Sorry if I scared you.”
He tried to laugh and keep his hand from migrating to his heart, which was still pounding.
“Whoa! Sorry for that response. I was way deep into a problem.”
“Apparently,” she said, shaking her head. “You asked for these folders tracking what we’ve examined so far. We’re eighty percent complete.”
“And… no luck?”
“Not a thing out of place that we can find.”
“And no new theories?”
She shook her head. “I think we’re all of a mind that, provided the last twenty percent shows no sign of contamination, the program is golden and it had to be the circuit board. Somehow it was just partial to flying fifty feet above the water.”