Maddox shrugged. “Well, the fuel’s just about burned off. Hydraulic fluid — for the brake lines and the flight-control systems — that’s combustible but not explosive, and it’s probably burned off by now, too. I doubt that there’s another oxygen cylinder — one’s the standard on a Citation, but some have two. I’ve got somebody tracking down the maintenance guys, back at the hangar, so we’ll know for sure.”
“I haven’t had a chance to read up on the Citation,” McCready said — another surprise to me, since I’d noticed him unfolding a big cutaway diagram of the jet during our cross-country flight. “It’s a twin-engine bizjet? Like a Gulfstream or a Learjet?” Was he doing more fence mending — giving Maddox a chance to demonstrate his knowledge? — or was he testing to see how much the man knew?
Maddox gave a half smile. “Sort of like a Learjet. The first version of the Citation was a little sluggish; some pilots called it a ‘Nearjet.’ Newer ones are faster, though still not as fast as that Gulfstream horse you guys rode in on — that was you that circled on your way in, right?” McCready nodded, and Maddox rattled on. “But the Citation’s a good design. Solid. Simple, relatively speaking — it’s the only jet approved for single-pilot operation. Sensible, for a multimillion-dollar minivan. It—”
McCready broke in. “Excuse me? Did you just say ‘minivan’?”
Maddox nodded. “It’s the Dodge Caravan of bizjets. Not too fast, not too fancy, but functional and roomy, and plenty good enough, you know?”
“So much for the magic of flight,” said McCready.
“Hey, I’m all about the magic of flight,” Maddox answered. “It is magic. But tell me: What’s Europe’s biggest aircraft maker called? Airbus, that’s what. Air. Bus. I rest my case.”
A cell phone at McCready’s belt shrilled; he flipped it open, turning his back to Maddox and me. “McCready,” I heard him say. “Go ahead.” He listened a moment, then said, “Got it; we won’t start the party without you. Thanks.” Snapping the phone shut, he turned to us again. “That was Miles Prescott, from the San Diego field office. He’s the lead agent on this case. He’s on his way up — almost here, he says — and he’s bringing the cavalry with him.”
McCready pointed down at a jeep road, and sure enough, a quarter mile below, I saw a minicaravan snaking up the ridge. “Hail, hail, the gang’s all here,” muttered Maddox.
The lead vehicle, a black Chevrolet Suburban — its windows tinted nearly as dark as its paint — sped past the line of emergency vehicles and pulled onto the concrete pad. It was followed by the familiar, boxy shape of an evidence-recovery truck. Lumbering up behind them was a massive vehicle labeled MOBILE COMMAND CENTER. It looked like the offspring of a Winnebago that had somehow managed to mate with a fire truck.
The doors on all three vehicles opened simultaneously, almost as if the move were choreographed, and a dozen FBI agents emerged, one wearing a suit and spit-shined shoes, the others decked out in cargo pants, boots, and T-shirts. One of these things is not like the others, I thought. It was an absurd echo from my son’s Sesame Street days, twenty years or more ago, and yet it fit. And maybe, I realized, what was silly was not the song, but the wearing of a three-piece suit on a rocky mountaintop in the wilderness.
A round of introductions ensued — a litany of names I promptly forgot, except for that of Prescott, the Suit — and when it was done, Prescott turned to McCready. “So we good to go?”
McCready frowned and shook his head slightly. “I don’t think we can start working it quite yet,” he said.
“I agree,” said Maddox, taking the opportunity to step forward and reclaim a seat at the figurative table. “The fire’s mostly out, but that wreckage is gonna be hot as hell for a while yet. An oxygen cylinder exploded half an hour ago. Why put your men at risk?” He didn’t mention the helicopter’s role in triggering the explosion, and McCready didn’t either, so I kept quiet about it, too.
Prescott looked impatient, and at me. “Dr. Brockton? What’s your take on this, forensically speaking?”
“Forensically speaking,” I said, “this reminds me of something a Tennessee sheriff said to me at a death scene years ago, on a mountainside in the middle of the night.” The other FBI agents and the crash investigator edged closer so they could hear better. “We were discussing whether to start working the scene right then, or to wait until daylight. The sheriff mulled it over and then said, ‘Well, Doc, I reckon he ain’t gonna get any deader by morning.’” Maddox grinned; Prescott gave a tight smile; McCready kept his expression as neutral as Switzerland. “I reckon Richard Janus won’t get any deader if we let things cool down for an hour or so while we figure out the best way to work this thing.”
What I didn’t say, but couldn’t help thinking, was that in an I.D. case with a celebrity victim, every minute we delayed would cost us, too. The throng of reporters — and therefore the authorities whom the reporters would be badgering for updates — would want us to hurry, to push, to make up for lost time. Looming even larger in my mind was another person who would surely be waiting impatiently, perhaps even desperately: Mrs. Richard Janus.
Chapter 7
The FBI agents and I shifted in our chairs in the command center — adjusting and readjusting our personal-space boundaries, like people crammed into an oversized elevator — as crash investigator Patrick Maddox began briefing us on what to expect in the wreckage. Using the command center’s satellite link and computers, Maddox had, in ten minutes or so, downloaded a batch of files and created a PowerPoint presentation. I was impressed. Maddox appeared at least ten years older than I was — a leathery, rode-hard sixty, probably more — but he seemed far more Internet savvy and Power-Point positive. My relationship with PowerPoint could best be characterized not as love-hate, but as loathe-hate. I despised the software, with a deep and abiding passion. Drop my 35-millimeter slides into the slots of a Kodak Carousel projector, and I’m a happy guy; import them into PowerPoint — whose default settings seem to include a permanent “blur” feature — and I’m one pissed-off professor.
“Okay, guys,” Maddox commenced. “I’ll give you the supercondensed version of ‘Aircraft 101.’ So I guess that makes it ‘Aircraft 0.1.’ Maybe some of you know some of this stuff already. Hell, maybe all of you know all this stuff already. Tough shit — I like talking about it. And it’ll be easier to recognize the ‘after’—the debris you’ll be recovering — if you’ve taken a look at the ‘before,’ inside and out.” He reached for the power button on the projector, but stopped before switching it on. “By the way, anybody remember anything particularly relevant about this mountain?” None of the younger guys seemed to, but Prescott, as a San Diego old-timer, nodded, and so did I, a middle-aged Tennessean. “A twin-engine Hawker jet crashed up here thirteen years ago, about a quarter mile from here. It was carrying a band. Doc, what’s the name of that Nashville singer they played for?”
“Reba McEntire,” I said. “She lost her whole band.”
He nodded. “She and her husband were supposed to be on the plane, too, but they decided to spend the night in San Diego and catch a flight the next day. Lucky for them. Too bad for everybody else.”
“What caused that one to crash?” asked Kimball.
“Bad luck and stupidity,” said Maddox, shaking his head. “The night was dark and hazy. The pilots didn’t know the area or the terrain. The FAA briefer they talked to on the radio gave ’em bad advice — practically steered ’em into the mountainside. Shouldn’t’ve happened. But it did. And I can tell you, it was a mess to clean up. Anyhow.” He switched on the projector, and a photo of a sleek little twin-engine jet filled the screen. “Here’s a Cessna Citation.” He clicked forward to another, bigger jet. “Here’s another Citation.” He fast-forwarded through a series of jets, each different from the others. “These are all Citations. Some have straight wings, some have swept wings. Some carry four passengers; some carry sixteen. But they’re all Citations — Cessna calls it the ‘Citation family.’ Confusing as all get-out, unless you’re an airplane geek like me.” He flashed a photo that I recognized from an Airlift Relief newsletter: a smiling Richard Janus standing beside a jet, freshly painted with the agency’s name and symbol. “This is the one we’re recovering here. Donated to Janus’s organization four years ago, in 2000. It’s a 501—an early Citation — built in 1979. Funny thing, most of us wouldn’t dream of driving a car that’s twenty-five years old, but we routinely zip around the sky — six miles up; five, six hundred miles an hour — in vehicles built before some of you guys were even born. This Citation wasn’t new by any stretch, but two years ago, it was upgraded — retrofitted with bigger engines and bigger fuel tanks — so it could fly faster and farther. In the end, of course, that meant it crashed harder and burned longer.”