“Annie, not now.”
“I’ll be right back.” She jumped off the sofa and removed her tshirt, revealing her firm, round breasts. “I won’t need this.” She tossed the shirt onto his lap.
He watched her strut topless towards the stairwell and up the steps. She stopped midway, removed her sweatpants and tossed them over the balustrade. They landed on the sofa next to Kaplan. She turned and disappeared into the bedroom wearing only her white socks.
Kaplan flipped through the channels on the TV and found another news broadcast on CNN Headline News about the accident. He fell deep into thought about the next day’s interview with NTSB and how that would pan out.
Focused on the information the newscasters were reporting about Laurence O’Rourke and the accident, Kaplan didn’t notice Annie come down the stairs.
“Ahem,” she called from the stairway.
She stood there in a black thong, thigh-high black fishnet nylons and black stiletto heels. On her head perched a dark blue police hat. Smiling, she turned her back to him and slowly held up a pair of shiny silver handcuffs and dangled them.
In a sultry voice she taunted, “I’ve been bad — very, very bad.”
He laughed. “Annie, you sure know how to take a man’s mind off of his troubles.”
He got up and walked over to her.
She pushed out her derriere.
The sound of the handcuffs clamping around Annie’s wrists sent Scout darting down the hall and out of sight.
CHAPTER 15
Jake spotted the accident scene as the Suburban crested the top span of the Talmadge Memorial Bridge toward Hutchinson Island. As they crept across the bridge, McGill pointed to the smoke rising from the still smoldering crash site. “There it is.”
“I see it.” Jake said. “But at this rate it’ll take us an hour just to get to it. Damned at the cars.”
McGill looked at Jake, “Since we seem to have time, you ready for a history lesson on Hutchinson Island?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“The first settlers of Savannah used this island as a place for duels before it was turned into a communal farm. Slaves planted hay and rice as well as built the Savannah waterfront and warehouses. As the population started getting sick from fever, the mosquitoes from the rice fields were linked to the illnesses, so the rice fields were destroyed.
"After that, the island was turned into an industrial center with the arrival of the Seaboard Railroad in 1896. Then in 1919, a fire destroyed most of the cotton and turpentine warehouses.”
Jake interrupted, “Good, we’re moving again. Thanks for the history lesson. Am I going to be tested on it later?”
“Maybe.” McGill laughed at Jake’s sarcasm. “Learn from history, Jake. That way you don’t make the same mistakes.”
At the bottom of the north end of the bridge, law enforcement officers directed traffic. A Georgia state trooper feverishly waved his arm demanding travelers to South Carolina keep moving. Another trooper directed all cars exiting onto Hutchinson Island toward the resort end of the island or toward the scene of the accident. A staging area near the exit ramp had been designated for the press. No press was allowed closer than the bridge to view and report on the accident.
The highways in the Savannah area were already jammed with travelers making their way into town for St. Patrick’s Day. Savannah, rich in its Southern heritage and claiming a larger than average population of Irish and Catholic descent, boasted the second largest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the United States.
Jake looked at the sky, noticed how the overcast had reduced their available light, then glanced at his watch and calculated the Go Team had only about two and a half hours of daylight left at best. The long line of rescue vehicles looked like an arrow pointing the way to the accident with their flashing lights. The visibility had fallen to less than five miles and dropping, and the cloud ceiling had lowered below one thousand feet. Low, transparent white wisps of clouds scudded quickly across a darkened overcast sky.
The Suburbans exited the bridge and followed the police blockades to an unpaved access road, then followed the road until they reached a large sweeping left turn, where a Georgia State Patrol officer stopped them.
After showing their credentials, the Go Team was directed off the access road onto a two-rut road. Within fifty feet they reached an impasse of vehicles of every type, rescue, fire and police, and were directed to park in an area just cleared by a bulldozer. A Georgia trooper was arguing with a reporter and his cameraman, apparently disgruntled about being told to move the TV station’s van back to the media staging area. A truck was hauling a small trailer into the clearing to serve as the NTSB’s temporary on-site command center.
Team members put on their standard issue NTSB coveralls and cap, donned their gloves, face masks and goggles, then sealed their gloves and boots to their coveralls with duct tape. Grabbing their cameras, markers, tape, and an assortment of other necessities, they strapped on their accident packs and made their way down a muddy path.
The first person to meet them was FAA Accident Investigator Aaron Kowalski, who oversaw the initial site security. After introductions, Kowalski explained his earlier actions at the site and issues involving the tides and the marsh. “We cordoned off the area as instructed. The fire burned pretty hot and several hotspots reignited and had to be extinguished again. All those on board perished so the bodies or what’s left of them were left the way we found them. We’re hauling in sand bags to place around a wide perimeter to help with the water intrusion. The first truckload should arrive any minute now.” He pointed and led them toward the still smoldering wreckage. “If you’re ready.”
As they reached the clearing, they could see the twisted airframe and other debris resting in a salt flat about the size of a football field, a small area for an aircraft accident Jake noted as he stepped over the yellow police tape marking the perimeter of the crash site.
It was low tide so the site was relatively easy to navigate, but Jake knew at high tide it would be much more difficult.
The smell of burnt metal, fabric, wiring, and jet fuel filled his nostrils. A smell all too familiar to McGill. The tang brought a flood of memories back of the first time he inhaled it. When he found his calling.
In 1988, while studying at Georgia Tech for a degree in Aerospace Engineering, McGill learned his aunt in Savannah had died of a stroke. He and his cousin took her remains to Scotland, her birthplace, to be buried. The cemetery was at a church on the outskirts of the small village of Tundergarth. Almost on cue with the closing “amen” of the ceremony, flaming debris rained down from the sky littering across the open expanse next to the church. Suitcases, clothes, twisted metal of all shapes and sizes, showered across the rolling fields. Mourners scattered about, running for cover, but McGill stood there staring into the debris field.
As if in a trance, he slowly started walking into the field until a thunderous crash stopped him dead in his tracks. The ground shook. He turned to see the right half of a Boeing 747’s cockpit lying on the ground only thirty feet from where he stood.
He walked toward the wreckage. It groaned as it settled onto the ground. He stood back from the cockpit and noticed the words “Maid of the Seas” painted on the side of the aircraft shell. Looking around the area, he noticed no other large debris. He felt a sense of urgency to know where the remainder of the airliner went and what caused such a large, sturdy aircraft to destruct in mid air.
McGill and his cousin left Tundergarth and headed back toward Lockerbie. They saw more debris in fields and on the roads. Civilians and authorities pitched in to move debris out of the roads to make them passable. In Lockerbie, they saw the largest devastation. The bulk of the Pan Am Boeing 747 had plowed through the town, destroying more than twenty homes and forming a linear crater. Lockerbie lay in shambles.