Paper Wings

by Les Abend

  The detective discussed the security tape and the two student witnesses. He mentioned the Escalade and that it had been found in a vacant office parking lot burned to the ground. Initial reaction from the fire department investigators on scene indicated that arson was most likely involved. Alvarez suspected that Mike’s daughters were transferred to another vehicle. Unfortunately, no security video was available from the empty office building.

  Mike lowered his head and said, “I was hoping for better news, Detective.”

  “Believe me, we all were. But not one of us is even close to giving up hope. Every law enforcement agency has received a bulletin about the abduction. The media has been on our side. All the scheduled news broadcasts have included the story. And we have an active Amber Alert in progress.”

  Mike looked up and stared unfocused at a sunset painting on the wall.

  Alvarez said, “I was hoping that you could help with some information.”

  “Anything,” Mike said. He smoothed a wrinkle on the tablecloth with his thumb.

  “This whole event is too coincidental for me.”

  “How so?”

  “The fact that you were involved with an emergency landing…and within a very short period of time, your daughters were taken.”

  “I thought about that myself.”

  “Mr. Townsend, I know that this is a tough time…but is there something you’re not telling me?”

  He stared at the detective and said, “No, Detective. I have nothing to tell you.”

  “Forgive my drama, sir, but your daughters’ lives may be in the balance here. I’ll find out in the end if you have withheld pertinent information.”

  “I don’t need threats right now, Detective.”

  “It wasn’t a threat, Mr. Townsend. It was simply a promise.”

  Mike slowly rose from his chair at the table. Realizing that any further questioning would be futile, Alvarez stood also. Both men offered each other polite smiles. They shook hands. Alvarez reached into a shirt pocket and handed his business card to Mike.

  “If you do think of anything, Mr. Townsend, I’m only a phone call away…anytime of the day or night.”

  “Thank you for your efforts, Detective Alvarez. I am grateful.”

  The two men walked back into the living room. Much of the crowd had begun to funnel out the front door. A few minutes and a few handshakes and hugs later, the house was empty. Only the uniformed cops remained. They stood guard in the driveway. The quiet inside of the house was deafening. Mike longed for the sound of giggling voices to emerge from a bedroom or a bathroom.

  Robin seemed to sense the same. She took a few steps toward her husband. Her eyes began to cloud with tears. She reached for his hand and then pulled away.

  Mike took a deep breath and said, “Robin, it’s okay. We’re on the same page with this. Just because I have become honest with myself, doesn’t mean that we can’t comfort each other.”

  “Why did you live this lie for so long?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t have an answer for you.”

  “You brought our girls into this mess.”

  “It wasn’t my intention, Robin.”

  “Maybe you should have thought of that a long time ago.”

  “Maybe we should focus on how best to get them back.”

  “I don’t think you understand the pain, Mike.”

  “I don’t think you understand the internal conflict I have been dealing with most of our marriage…and my career.” Mike shook his head. He gestured his hands at himself. “Are you aware that my profession does not exactly welcome this…lifestyle, despite the liberal claims in the media?”

  “That’s self-centered and narcissistic.”

  “Is this argument going to get our girls home?”

  A long minute of silence passed between Mike and Robin. They both stared out through the sliding glass doors at the water in the canal. Their boat rocked against the dock in a slow rhythmic motion. The scene seemed to take the sting out of the emotional rollercoaster they were riding.

  Mike said, “Let’s get through this crisis first. Then we can confront the issue between us. Please?”

  A stream of tears streaked down Robin’s cheek. She nodded and said, “The news channels showed the video of your landing in Bermuda. It looked like an awful fire. I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Thanks,” Mike said with a tiny smile.

  Robin walked away toward their bedroom. Mike leaned against the wall and rubbed his forehead. He knew what he had to do next. He just had to succeed.

  10:30 EDT

  Although Hart had expressed a desire to remain at the command center, aka his room, the team insisted that his presence on site was necessary…at least for an initial perspective. The group had a valid argument. If he were to coordinate assignments, an overview of the investigation would help him delegate duties.

  Hart’s resistance was being guided by the mistakes made at the investigation of Flight 57. The PAPA party coordinator at that time had been unprepared for the chaos. In reality, nobody had been prepared. Hart recalled one especially bad day of the investigation.

  At the crash site in San Juan, the NTSB had directed the construction equipment volunteers to move mangled pieces of the wreckage into various piles. Once the piles were established, the recovery workers requested that available Go-Team members identify the parts of the airplane that might be needed in the investigation. Remaining parts were to be discarded. Fragments of airplane pieces were scattered across the two blocks of the impact site. Seats. Landing gear. Fuselage scraps. Luggage. Torn magazines.

  Although the lifeless forms of passengers had been removed, reminders of the human devastation were still embedded in the rubble. Firefighters were seen cradling personal effects in gloved hands to the staging tent where a police officer would tag each item. Watches. Rings. Wallets. Bracelets.

  PAPA’s party coordinator had been on scene every day. He had witnessed the routine. On this particular occasion he had been asked by the firefighters to help determine the significance of twisted airplane metal amidst a large pile. He donned the hooded coveralls of a Tyvec suit and waded into the mess. After a few minutes he received a tap on the shoulder. The firefighters politely offered to take a deformed piece of metal from his grip. At first he declined but then realized that he had dragged the captain’s control wheel out of the pile. He stared at it for a moment and then understood. Parts of the captain had adhered to the mechanism. With an anguished look, he walked away. He sat on the tailgate of a pickup truck for a half-hour without uttering a word.

  Hart didn’t want to repeat the performance. Fortunately, the devastation of Flight 63 was a mere fraction of the horror at Flight 57.

  The Flight 63 team shuffled out of the van with the eagerness of high school seniors on a field trip. They separated into their appropriate committees at the appropriate staging areas of the airplane. Hart trailed behind, taking a few moments to survey the 767. At a slow pace, he began a walk from underneath the horizontal stabilizer on the right side.

  The evidence of fire and explosion made its first appearance just below the aft-most entry door. Black, oily soot streaked rearward along the fuselage. Scattered dents and hatch marks interrupted the otherwise streamlined body of the 180-foot airliner.

  As Hart continued his methodical advance, various people crisscrossed in front of him. They stopped in different positions around the airplane, some of them taking a moment to scribble notes on a clipboard. A small gaggle of investigators pointed and nodded at the prominent diagonal slices in the aluminum skin just below the passenger windows forward of the wing’s leading edge. Hart didn’t need an explanation. It was the obvious point of entry for the engine shrapnel.

  The slices looked as though a mischievous teenager had treated the fuselage like an empty beer can, plunging the pointy end of a giant Ginsu knife into the metal. Hart shuddered at the thought two passengers’ lives had ended near those slices. Their only mistake that day was
to have accepted that seat assignment.

  Crouching slightly, Hart scanned the underside of the right wing behind the engine. Thick, black soot. More slices. Jagged sections of cut or bent aluminum. When the engine tore itself apart, it peppered everything in the immediate vicinity with its innards.

  Except for the basic shape, from the rear looking forward, the GE power plant barely resembled a piece of machinery that had once provided sixty-one thousand pounds of thrust. From within, the engine was mangled and twisted. Only fragments of the turbine blades remained. Whatever pieces had come loose, they traveled with destructive malice through the entire engine.

  Walking around the footprint of the right wing starting from the trailing edge and around the wingtip down the leading edge, Hart made his way to the front of the engine. Hart nodded at his team member, Matt Mattson. Matt and the other party members were studying the engine from different angles, arms folded across their chest, pensive expressions on their faces. One man would break from the group and point at an area. The rest would shuffle over to his position, conferring about the new observation.

  Hart peered into the front of the engine. As expected, charcoal dust covered the inlet. Some of the fire retardant goop that was sprayed by the rescue unit remained. Many of the compressor blades had been deformed into Twizzler shapes or were just plain missing. Hart shook his head at the chaotic damage.

  Taking a few steps back away from the inlet, Hart had a thought. He motioned for Matt to join him. Matt excused himself and strode away from the group.

  “What’s up, boss?” Matt asked.

  “I’m sure that you guys are going down this road, but I just want to make sure.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Hart clasped his hands behind his back and rocked on the balls of his feet. He gestured his head at the engine. “This thing has as much damage in the back as it does up here at the fan blades. That means that whatever destroyed this piece of GE technology began at the inlet, destroying everything in its path on the way out the back end. If that’s the case, wouldn’t the origin of this mess have to be foreign to the engine…like a big bird or something?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Okay. Maybe… Well, these guys were in cruise configuration at a flight level...three-seven-‘O’ is my understanding. You and I have both heard the unverified stories of Canadian geese--or whatever--flying at ridiculous altitudes, but really? A frozen piece of blue water from the toilet of the International Space Station is more likely.”

  “Can’t disagree with you,” Matt said with a grin.

  “Okay, then what?”

  “Something came apart internally. That’s why we’re scratching our heads. We’ve got company mechanics inbound that just arrived from Miami. They’re on the passenger side of the airport now. They’ll be pulling the engine off this thing and taking it apart.”

  Hart asked, “Matt, can you explain how an internal malfunction from behind the fan blades could send parts and pieces forward. Wouldn’t the destruction occur rearward?”

  “Logically, yes…but we’re not sure.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll let you do your thing.” Hart smirked. “Remember…you guys were the ones that wanted me to pop out here to the field investigation. I was perfectly satisfied with my loneliness at the command center.”

  Matt smiled. Hart began to walk away, but a glint of sun reflecting off something from within the engine inlet caught his attention. Hart strode forward and leaned over the soot-encrusted cowl. Matt moved next to him. Hart pointed at a small, not quite rectangular fragment that was lodged between two broken fan blades.

  “Doesn’t look like it belongs up at the front end,” Hart said.

  “Maybe not,” Matt said, staring at the fragment. “We’ll check it out, boss.”

  Nodding, Hart walked toward the nose of the airplane. He turned to face aft. The view offered a broader perspective of the damage. Such an enormous piece of machinery. But even a tiny mechanical issue could make it a dysfunctional nightmare. That’s why airplane manufacturers built redundant systems and that’s why pilots were trained for almost every conceivable contingency.

  Hart sighed and glanced back at the right engine. A crowd had formed in front of the inlet. A man with “NTSB” printed on the back of his windbreaker was hopping inside the cowl. It was one of the close-cropped hair guys, this time the engine committee chairman, Frank. Interesting. Apparently Hart had gotten their attention. Cool.

  Ducking underneath the airplane just behind the nosewheel, Hart walked toward the portable air stairs. The air stairs had been positioned against the left side. He began to climb the steps. Once on the top landing, he walked through the L1 door and down the left side aisle.

  Except for the hanging jungle of oxygen masks from the PSU units, the cabin contained the standard mess seen at the end of a typical long-range international flight. Blankets strewn about the floors and the seats. Newspaper sections and magazines scattered across the aisle. Crumbs and food portions smeared underneath seats and open tray tables.

  As Hart approached the fatal row, he nodded at the committee members standing across the other aisle. They moved around the seats like marbles in a maze. Some were sketching rough diagrams while others were simply absorbing the scene.

  The obvious investigation activity notwithstanding, the sense that something tragic had occurred was palatable, a concept that was difficult to explain to the uninitiated. Perhaps that was why hushed tones were spoken.

  Hart moved closer to the row of the two fatalities. The seats were stained in dark red. The floor beneath the seats and in the immediate vicinity contained similar blotchy stains. Other seats were speckled with varied sizes of crimson dots. Some of the upholstery had been ripped and torn. Puffy pieces of foam material billowed out from the fabric.

  A glance at the inner wall of the cabin told Hart that the difference between life and death was measured in fractions of an inch. The scattered slices where engine pieces had pierced the fuselage skin were allowing thin bands of sunlight to penetrate. It was amazing that the airplane had been able to maintain pressurization for as long as the copilot had reported.

  Old airplane disaster movies depicted passengers being sucked outside through even the smallest of holes--a sensationalized piece of fiction. Depending upon severity, the real story was that a fuselage hole was a simple pressurization problem. If the problem couldn’t be mitigated by the automatic systems, the crew had to take action in the form of an emergency descent. End of story.

  Staring at the headrest of the outermost fatal seat, Hart noticed a scrap of metal protruding from within a portion of the escaping foam. He shuffled across the row of middle seats between him and the opposite side of the airplane. Hart moved behind the headrest and studied the piece of metal. He glanced around the cabin. The other investigators were gathered in an awkward circle, involved in an impromptu discussion. Hart pulled the darkened metal from the headrest and rolled it around in his fingers.

  A turbine or compressor blade fragment? Nope. It didn’t have the appropriate shape let alone the appropriate material. It certainly had to have come from the engine. What the hell was it? Hart cautiously stabbed at the headrest again, squirreling his finger around in the foam. To his surprise, he discovered two more pieces similar in characteristics. He rattled the pieces together and then clenched them tightly in his fist.

  Retracing his path, Hart exited the airplane. He marched down the air stairs and walked around the front of the nosewheel back over to the right side. Hart slowed his pace. The engine committee members were standing in a loosely organized semicircle around the front of a familiar Jeep underneath the wing’s leading edge.

  Special Agent Fredricks was leaning against the hood. He was waving an arm at the right engine while speaking in an authoritative tone. Maureen Blackford had arrived and was positioned behind the line of men, listening intently to the FBI man.

  This didn’t look good. Hart felt the urge to slither away to another part
of the investigation, but Matt Mattson beckoned him over to the group. Hart clenched his teeth and walked toward the crowd. Ryan Fredricks discontinued his discussion.

  “Ah, Captain Lindy. Thanks for joining us,” Ryan said. His tone was slightly patronizing. He grinned. “It appears that we have discovered a potentially interesting bit of evidence. Evidence that may indicate a crime was committed. And apparently, we owe you some gratitude for bringing it to the attention of the investigation team.”

  “Uh…would you clarify for me, Special Agent Fredricks?” Hart asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “Absolutely, Captain. The item you noticed may very well be a fragment from a cell phone battery.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit, Captain Lindy.”

  “What now?”

  “That’s what we were discussing, actually. I’m thinking of shutting down this investigation to the NTSB.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s looking more like a crime scene.”

  Hart puffed out a deep breath and asked, “May I speak with you and Ms. Blackford for a moment?”

  The FBI man nodded. He motioned for Hart and Maureen to step forward toward his Jeep. The line of team members scattered toward the right engine.

  “Look, Ryan, I respect your position,” Hart said. He shuffled his feet. “You’ve got great resources here. Let us do our job. I promise we can conduct this investigation to the benefit of the FBI. I’m sure Ms. Blackford would agree.” Hart glanced at Maureen. She nodded. “People died on this airplane. It’s important that their families know the how and the why. It doesn’t matter from our standpoint that the cause appears at the moment to be nefarious. Let us find out for certain.”

  “Don’t go to my emotional side, Captain. I pay my therapist for that.” The FBI agent grinned. “You’re annoying me a little again. I’ll keep this production in NTSB hands for now, but don’t screw it up.” Ryan snickered and added, “I have a gun.”