“We have time, Dr. Martin. There’s no urgency.”
Lyle responded, “I know. I appreciate it.” He cleared his throat. “I honestly don’t think this is all that risky. Medically speaking.”
Jerry opened the hatch. Lyle pointed the light toward the ground. He could see damp tarmac, way down there, and wisps of snow in the air, and the wheel base. Big drop, leg-breaking distance. He brought the flashlight angle back inside and looked for a handhold. Next to the door, a rope handle. Lyle tested it with his right hand. Jerry took his point.
“We should look for a ladder.”
“We should,” Lyle said. Then he undercut his meaning by dropping from his knees to his butt, letting his rear touch the cold metal underbelly. “Let’s do the old human ladder. You hold my arms and I’ll drop down.”
“I’ve never seen someone so anxious to walk into a bear cave,” Jerry said. He scoped around, looking for a ladder or tool, rope, or other bit of technology to help the drop. That’s when Lyle saw a box of booze. It was rectangular, with a flap open and those cheap little bottles showing. It was within arm’s reach. Lyle reached. Saliva gathered on his lips. He pulled as gently as he might to keep the bottles from tumbling and getting the attention of Jerry, who was shining a light on the floor to the left, and pushing things around with his toe.
“Rope,” he said.
“I’ll help you,” Lyle said, but only to cover the sound of him groping and succeeding. He got three little bottle necks into his hand and stuffed them into his pocket.
“I got it.” Jerry turned and unfurled a rope and, with some ceremony, tied a fancy knot and flung the rope down into the breach. Jerry clearly had his attributes. He pulled the rope, testing it. “Okay.”
Lyle pulled out the plastic gloves, making a show of it himself, and snapped them on. It echoed a sound he associated with “game on.” The gloves always were the last thing he’d done before he walked into a disease scene. He stuffed the flashlight into his back pocket. He swung his legs into the hole. With his right hand, he grasped the rope handle the makeshift ladder was tied onto. Then he changed his mind. He reached down and felt the dangling rope with his right hand. He extended his left to Jerry. The first officer took it.
After a few seconds of wrangling, he found the position he wanted; his legs wrapped around the rope. He lowered himself, feeling with his right hand and letting Jerry hang tight to his left arm.
“Good,” said Lyle.
Jerry let go.
Lyle slid down the rope. He lost his grip. The flashlight flew from his pocket. He heard it slam to the ground right before he did. Ankle, he thought, just twisted. Just twisted. He winced. He suspected it was worse than that. Nothing broken. But contusions and scrapes.
“Dr. Martin.”
“I’m… I’m okay.”
Holy shit, it was cold. And dark. The only immediate light came from above, Jerry’s flashlight. Some other ambient light shone to the right, distant, a building Lyle couldn’t make out. Lyle tested his left ankle. Definitely a sprain. He decided to give it a rest and sat on the ground. Frozen ground met his ass. He jammed his hand into his right pocket and pulled out a bottle. His brain crackled happily when the vodka hit the back of his throat. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and decided not to have another one.
“Dr. Martin?”
“Just getting my bearings.”
He pawed for the pieces of the flashlight. But he knew it was hopeless. Brittle plastic had collided with frozen ground. He remembered his phone and pulled it out and ignited the flashlight feature. It would drain the battery. The alternative was to ask Jerry for his flashlight and that just meant more complications.
Lit by his phone, he stood and walked toward the man in the orange jumpsuit.
Seven
Eleanor and Alex saw edges of light peek from around Lyle as he appeared beyond the nose of the plane. The slightest phone light framed him.
“Do you think they’re okay? Back home?” Alex asked. “Are they…”
“Hmm,” Eleanor said, focused on Lyle.
“Why not use the big light?” Alex mumbled, referring to the Boeing’s external lights.
“I don’t want to bring attention.” Eleanor clenched her teeth. She even wanted to whisper to Lyle: Turn off the light. It brings attention.
Lyle got within five feet of the orange lump on the ground. He turned off the light. He must’ve been having the same thought as Eleanor. But from the flight deck, who the hell knew what he was doing?
They could see Lyle suddenly pause. He bent at the waist, to about seventy degrees.
“What’s he doing?” Alex said.
“He’s looking for blood.”
Lyle marveled at the silence. It was so quiet as to be distracting. Just him and an unseen power, overwhelming silence as its emblem.
He waited for his eyes to adjust. Five feet away from the body, he concluded there was no bullet or shrapnel that had felled this body. That was evident from the way the man—it was a man, right?—had fallen. Not ripped from the ground, not propelled. But toppled, on his side, more or less, face flat. The man fell as Lyle had seen other bodies fall naturally. In Tanzania, one of the adolescent sons of a tribal elder had taken his last step in the direction of a water tank. His foot sunk into the soft dirt and he fell to the side, midstep, a recently deceased statue in perfect human form.
He took two steps forward and stopped again. Now he was sure it was a man, the jawline gave that away. Caucasian. Stringy long hair appeared from the edge of a wool cap. His hairstyle made Lyle think the man was youngish, twenties or early thirties, maybe someone who snowboarded, though that extraneous observation faded. The man’s right arm stretched forward onto the ground. Did that mean he’d had a second to brace himself for the fall?
Lyle took two steps forward and knelt at the body.
Eleanor tasted blood. She’d bitten her lip. She wanted to call Lyle back. Her gut told her this wasn’t right. She shouldn’t be sending a passenger out there, and, was that motion there, over to the right of the airplane, by the hangar? “Jerry!” she yelled.
Lyle was twenty feet, she guessed, from the tip of the plane. It was too dark to distinguish shapes. His lump of black melded into anything else. “Jerry. Get him back in here!”
Calm overcame Lyle. He put his left hand on the man’s cheek. It was cold. That didn’t tell him a thing, and Lyle quietly cursed the lack of light and tools. That could be solved. He turned on the light on his phone. He shone it on the man’s face, the left eye, the one he could see. Yes, Caucasian, and long hair. Face rosy. That was worth noting. Blood had flowed there, either recently or before death. Lyle put the light beneath the man’s nose, looking for breath. If it was there, it couldn’t be seen in this light or was too faint.
Lyle put his hand on the carotid artery. Where are you, pulse? Nothing. Lyle repositioned his hand. A blip. Was it a blip? He lost it. He repositioned again. He couldn’t tell.
He scooted over and took the man’s right wrist. Same thing. He thought he’d found a pulse, then it seemed he couldn’t. His freezing hands weren’t helping. He blew on them through the rubber gloves.
He heard a scuffling sound.
Lyle turned off the light.
He looked in the direction of the hangar. Nothing. What could he possibly see? He closed his eyes and listened. Whatever scuffling he’d heard, or imagined, was gone. He could hear the distant hum of machinery. A generator, he guessed. Otherwise, the air filled with the silence of falling snow.