Fatal Voyage tb-4

by Reichs, Kathy

  Less than an hour out of Knoxville, I'd traversed the Tennessee towns of Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, and Gatlinburg, and was passing east of the dome, awed, as always, by the surreal beauty of the place. Molded by aeons of wind and rain, the Great Smokies roll across the south as a series of gentle valleys and peaks. The forest cover is luxuriant, much of it preserved as national land. The Nantahala. The Pisgah. The Cherokee. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The soft, mohair greens and smokelike haze for which these highlands are named create an unparalleled allure. The earth at its best.

  Death and destruction amid such dreamlike loveliness was a stark contrast.

  Just outside Cherokee, on the North Carolina side, I made another call to Katy. Bad idea. Again, her voice mail answered. Again I left a message: Phone your mother.

  I kept my mind miles from the task ahead. I thought about the pandas at the Atlanta zoo, the fall lineup on NBC, luggage retrieval at the Charlotte airport. Why was it always so slow?

  I thought about Simon Midkiff. What an odd duck. What were the chances a plane would drop precisely on his dig?

  Avoiding the radio, I slipped in a CD of Kiri Te Kanawa, and listened to the diva sing Irving Berlin.

  It was almost two when I approached the site. A pair of cruisers now blocked the county road just below its junction with the Forest Service road. A National Guardsman directed traffic, sending some motorists up the mountain, ordering others back down. I produced ID, and the guardsman checked his clipboard.

  “Yes, ma'am. You're on the list. Park on up at the holding area.”

  He stepped aside, and I squeezed through a gap between the cruisers.

  A holding area had been created from an overlook built to accommodate a fire tower and a small field on the other side of the road. The cliff face had been stripped back to increase the size of the inside tract, and gravel had been spread as a precaution against rain. It was at this location that briefings would take place and relatives counseled until a family assistance center could be established.

  Scores of people and vehicles filled both sides of the road. Red Cross trailers. Television vans with satellite dishes. SUVs. Pickups. A hazardous-materials truck. I squeezed my Mazda between a Dodge Durango and a Ford Bronco on the uphill side, grabbed my overnighter, and wove toward the blacktop.

  Emerging opposite the overlook, I could see a collapsible school table at the base of the tower, outside one of the Red Cross trailers. A convention-sized coffeemaker gleamed in the sun. Family members huddled around it, hugging and leaning on one another, some crying, others stiffly silent. Many clutched Styrofoam cups, a few spoke into cell phones.

  A priest circulated among the mourners, stroking shoulders and squeezing hands. I watched him bend to speak to an elderly woman. With his hunched posture, bald head, and hooked nose he resembled the carrion-eating birds I'd seen on the plains of East Africa, an unfair comparison.

  I remembered another priest. Another death watch. That man's sympathetic hovering had extinguished any hope I'd sustained that my grandmother would recover. I recalled the agony of that vigil, and my heart went out to those gathering to claim their dead.

  Reporters, cameramen, and soundmen jockeyed for position along the low stone wall bordering the overlook, each team seeking the choicest backdrop for its coverage. As with the 1999 Swissair crash in Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, I was certain that scenic panoramas would feature prominently in every broadcast.

  Shouldering my bag, I headed downhill. Another guardsman allowed me onto the logging trail, which had been converted overnight to a two-lane gravel road. An access route now led from the expanded trail into the crash site. Gravel crunched underfoot as I walked through the freshly cut tunnel of trees, the scent of pine tainted by the faint odor of early stage putrefaction.

  Decontamination trailers and Porta-Johns lined barricades blocking access to the primary site, and an Incident Command Center had been set up inside the restricted area. I could see the familiar NTSB trailer, with its satellite dish and generator shed. Refrigerated trucks were parked beside it, and stacks of body bags lay on the ground. This temporary morgue would be the staging site for transfer of remains to a more permanent incident morgue.

  Backhoes, cherry pickers, dump trucks, fire engines, and squad cars were scattered here and there. The solitary ambulance told me that the operation had officially changed from “search and rescue” to “search and recovery.” Its vigil was now for injured workers.

  Lucy Crowe stood inside the barricades talking with Larke Tyrell.

  “How's it going?” I asked.

  “My phone never stops.” Crowe sounded exhausted. “Almost turned the damn thing off last night.”

  Over her shoulder I could see the debris field where searchers in masks and Tyvek jumpsuits moved in straight lines, eyes to the ground. Occasionally someone squatted, inspected an item, then marked the spot. Behind the team, red, blue, and yellow flags dotted the landscape like colored pins on a city map.

  Other white-suited workers milled around the fuselage, wing tip, and engine, taking pictures, jotting notes, and speaking into tiny Dictaphones. Blue caps identified them as NTSB.

  “The gang's all here,” I said.

  “NTSB, FBI, SBI, FAA, ATF, CBS, ABC. And, of course, the CEO. If they've got letters, they're here.”

  “This is nothing,” said Larke. “Give it a day or two.” He peeled back a latex glove and checked his watch.

  “Most of the DMORTs are at a briefing at the incident morgue, Tempe, so there's no sense you suiting up now. Let's head in.”

  I started to object but Larke cut me off.

  “We'll walk back together.”

  While Larke went to decontamination, Lucy gave me directions to the incident morgue. It wasn't necessary. I'd spotted the activity while driving up the county road.

  “Alarka Fire Department's about eight miles back. Used to be a school. You'll see swing sets and slides, and the engines parked in a field next door.”

  On our hike up to the holding area the ME filled me in on recent developments. Foremost among them, the FBI had received an anonymous tip of an on-board bomb.

  “Good citizen was kind enough to share this information with CNN. The media are slathering like hounds with a brisket.”

  “Forty-two dead students is going to make this a Pulitzer event.”

  “There's the other bad news. Forty-two may be a low number. Turns out more than fifty booked through UGA.”

  “Have you seen the passenger list?” I could barely get the question out.

  “They'll have it at the briefing.”

  I felt icy cold.

  “Yessir,” Larke went on. “We screw up on this one, the press will eat us alive.”

  We separated and hurried to our cars. Somewhere along the road I drove into a pocket of reception, and my phone beeped. I hit the brakes, afraid of losing the signal.

  The message was barely discernible through the static.

  “Dr. Brennan, this is Haley Graham, Katy's roommate. Um. I played your messages, four of them, I think. And Katy's dad. He called a couple of times. Anyway, then I heard about the crash, and” — Rattling—“well, here's the thing. Katy left for the weekend, and I'm not sure where she is. I know Lija phoned a couple of times earlier this week, so I'm kinda worried that maybe Katy went to visit her. I'm sure that's stupid, but I thought I'd call and ask if you'd talked to her. Well” —More rattling. “Anyway. I sound like a geek, but I'd feel better if I knew where Katy was. O.K. 'Bye.”

  I punched the autodial for Pete's number. He still had not spoken to our daughter. I dialed again. Lija still did not answer her phone.

  The cold fear spread through my chest and curled around my breastbone.

  A pickup honked me out of the way.

  I continued down the mountain, craving but dreading the upcoming meeting, certain of my first request.

  ONE OF DMORT'S FIRST DUTIES IN A MASS DISASTER IS THE establishment of an incident morgue as close
to the scene as possible. Favored sites include coroner and medical examiner offices, hospitals, mortuaries, funeral homes, hangars, warehouses, and National Guard armories.

  When I arrived at the Alarka Fire Department, chosen to receive the bodies from Air TransSouth 228, the front lot was already packed, and a score of cars waited at the entrance. I got in line and crept forward, drumming my fingers and looking around.

  The back lot had been set aside for the refrigerated trucks that would transport victims. I watched a pair of middle-aged women drape the fence with opaque sheeting in anticipation of photographers, both professional and amateur, who would arrive to violate the privacy of the dead. A breeze twisted and snapped the plastic as they struggled to secure it to the chain linking.

  I finally reached the guard, showed ID, and was allowed to park. Inside, dozens of workers were setting up tables, portable X-ray units and developers, computers, generators, and hot water heaters. Bathrooms were being scrubbed and sanitized, and a staff break room and changing areas were being constructed. A conference room had been created in one rear corner. A computer center and the X-ray station were going up in another.

  The briefing was in progress when I entered. People lined the makeshift walls and sat around portable tables pushed together in the center of the “room.” Fluorescent lights hung by wires from the ceiling, casting a blue tint on tense, pale faces. I slipped to the back and took a seat.

  The NTSB investigator in charge, Magnus Jackson, was finishing an Incident Command System overview. The IIC, as Jackson was called, was lean and hard as a Doberman pinscher, with skin almost as dark. He wore oval wire-rimmed glasses; his graying hair was cropped close to his head.

  Jackson was describing the NTSB “go team” system. One by one he introduced those heading the investigative groups under his command: structures, systems, power plants, human performance, fire and explosion, meteorology, radar data, event recorders, and witness statements. Investigators, each in a cap and shirt marked NTSB in bold yellow letters, rose or waved as Jackson ran down the roster.

  Though I knew these men and women would determine why Air TransSouth 228 fell from the sky, the hollow feeling in my chest would not go away, making it hard to concentrate on anything but the passenger list.

  A question snapped me back.

  “Have the CVR and FDR been located?”

  “Not yet.”

  The cockpit voice recorder captures radio transmissions and sounds in the cockpit, including the pilots' voices and engine noise. The flight data recorder monitors flight operating conditions, such as altitude, airspeed, and heading. Each would play an important role in determining probable cause.

  When Jackson finished, an NTSB family affairs specialist discussed the Federal Family Assistance Plan for Aviation Disasters. He explained that the NTSB would serve as liaison between Air TransSouth and the victims' families. A family assistance center was being established at the Sleep Inn in Bryson City to serve as the collecting point for antemortem identification information, facts that family members would provide to help identify remains as those of a son or daughter. Despite myself, I shivered.

  Charles Hanover stood next. He looked strikingly ordinary, like a pharmacist and member of the Elks rather than the CEO of a regional airline. His face was ashen and his hands trembled. A tic pulled his left eye, another the corner of his mouth, and one side of his face jumped when the two fired simultaneously. There was something benign and sad about the man, and I wondered how Crowe could have found him offensive.

  Hanover reported that Air TransSouth had set up a toll-free number to handle public inquiries. Phones were being installed in the family assistance center, and personnel had been appointed to meet regularly with family members who were present, and to maintain contact with those who were not. Arrangements had been made for mental health and spiritual support.

  My agitation grew as the briefing dragged on. I'd heard it all before, and I wanted to see that list.

  A representative of the Federal Emergency Management Agency discussed communications. NTSB headquarters, the command center at the crash site, and the incident morgue were now linked, and FEMA would assist the NTSB in the dissemination of public information.

  Earl Bliss spoke about DMORT. He was a tall, angular man with thinning brown hair slicked back and severely parted. As a high school student, Earl had taken a part-time job picking up bodies on weekends. Within ten years, he'd purchased his own funeral home. Named Early because of his premature arrival into the world, Earl had lived his entire forty-nine years in Nashville, Tennessee. When not deployed on mass fatality incidents, he favored string ties and played banjo in a country-and-western band.

  Earl reminded the representatives of the other agencies that each DMORT team was composed of private citizens with particular expertise, including pathologists, anthropologists, dentists, fingerprint specialists, funeral directors, medical records technicians and transcribers, X-ray technicians, mental health specialists, and security, administrative, and support personnel.

  One of the ten regional DMORT teams was activated at the request of local officials for natural disasters, aircraft and other transportation accidents, fires, bombings, terrorist attacks, and incidents of mass murder/suicide. Earl mentioned recent deployments. The bombing of the Murrah Federal Building, Oklahoma City, 1995. The Amtrak derailment, Bourbonnais, Illinois, 1999. Commuter aircraft accidents, Quincy, Illinois, 1996, and Monroe, Michigan, 1997. Korean Air Flight 801, Guam, 1997; Egypt Air Flight 990, Rhode Island, 1999; and Alaska Airlines Flight 261, California, 2000.

  I listened as Earl described the modular design of the incident morgue, and explained how remains would move through it. All victims and personal effects would be tagged, coded, photographed, and X-rayed in the remains identification section. Disaster victim packets, DVPs, would be created, and human bodies, body parts, and tissue would be sent on to the postmortem data collection section for autopsy, including anthropological, dental, and fingerprint examination.

  All postmortem findings would be computerized in the identifi-cation section. Records provided by families would also be entered there, and antemortem and postmortem information would be compared. Following analysis, remains would be sent to a holding area to await release.

  Larke Tyrell was the last to take the floor. The medical examiner thanked Earl, drew a deep breath, and surveyed the room.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we've got a lot of grieving families out there searching for peace of mind. Magnus and his boys are going to help them by figuring out what knocked this plane out of the sky. We'll contribute to that process, but our main job here will be victim identification. Having something to bury speeds the healing, and we're going to try our damndest to send a casket home to each and every family.”

  I remembered my hike through the woods, and knew what many of those coffins would hold. In the coming weeks DMORT, local, and state personnel would go to extraordinary lengths to identify every scrap of tissue associated with the crash. Fingerprints, dental and medical records, DNA, tattoos, and family photos would be the main sources of information, and the team anthropologists would be intimately involved in the ID process. Despite our best efforts, little would be left to put in some caskets. A severed limb. A charred molar crown. A cranial fragment. In many cases, what went home would weigh only grams.

  “Once site processing is complete, all remains will be brought here from the temporary morgue,” Larke continued. “We expect transport to start in the next few hours. That's when the real work begins for us. You all know your jobs, so I've got just a few reminders, then I'll shut up.”

  “That'll be a first.”

  Mild laughter.

  “Don't separate any personal effects from any set of remains until they're fully photographed and written up.”

  My mind slid to Raggedy Ann.

  “Not every set of remains will go through every stage of processing. The folks doing intake will decide what goes where. But if a station
is skipped, indicate that clearly in the disaster victim packet. I don't want to be guessing later if dental wasn't done because there weren't any teeth, or because that station got overlooked. Put something on every sheet in the packet. And be sure that information stays with the body. We want full documentation on every ID.

  “One more thing. As I'm sure you've heard, the FBI received a call about an explosive device. Be alert for blast effects. Check X rays for bomb parts and shrapnel. Examine lungs and eardrums for pressure damage. Look for peppering and flash burns on the skin. You know the drill.”

  Larke paused and looked around the room.

  “Some of you are first-timers, others have done this before. I don't have to tell any of you how hard the next few weeks are going to be. Take breaks. No one works more than twelve hours per day. If you feel overwhelmed, talk to a counselor. There's no weakness in that. These folks are here for your benefit. Use them.”

  Larke clipped his pen to the legal pad he was holding.

  “Guess that about does it, except for thanking my staff and Earl's DMORT folks for getting here so quickly. As for the rest of you, clear out of my morgue.”

  As the room emptied, I crossed to Larke, determined to ask about the passenger list. Magnus Jackson arrived at the same moment and nodded a greeting. I'd met the IIC while working a commuter crash some years back, and knew he was not one for trading pleasantries.

  “Howdy, Tempe,” Larke said to me, then turned to Jackson.

  “I see you've brought a full team.”

  “There's going to be a lot of pressure on this one. We'll have close to fifty on site by tomorrow.”

  I knew that only superficial examination of the wreckage would be done in situ. Once photographed and recorded, the plane's parts would be removed and taken to a permanent location for reassembly and analysis.

  “Anything else on the bomb?” Larke asked.

  “Hell, it's probably a crank, but the media already has this thing wrapped up slicker than snail spit. CNN's calling him the Blue Ridge Bomber, geography be damned. ABC floated the Soccer Bomber, but it just doesn't have the alliterative ring.”