Chapter -6 Elementary

Chapter 6

Elementary

Crash Site Designate “Clemens”, Venezuela

Back in her college days, Hannah McPherson had been considered a gifted and highly analytical person.  Her favorite lecturer had been kindly old professor Clarence.  But she had learned a lot from Doctor Galloway too.

            Galloway had always been impressed by her ability to isolate herself from anything that wasn’t relevant to the study she was working on.  He had said she had the mind of a scientist, pure, detached and clinical.  This had made her very proud.

            But up on a mountainside in Venezuela, she found herself feeling more and more like a helpless child.  She couldn’t seem to focus, to clearly analyze what was happening.  What was happening seemed totally and utterly illogical.

            Captain Barrow had left the group to find a missing man.  Sergeant Jones had become increasingly sullen and grouchy and the Major had done his best to keep the group together.  “I’ll waste no man trying to find Barrow.” He had said.

            Hannah supposed that if it had made no sense to find the missing man from the crash, then it made even less sense trying to find a man looking for him.  But this wasn’t just some dish with algae in it, this was real life.  These were real people.  His name was Henry Barrow and she knew his face.  This was real life.

            Hannah rubbed her eyes, the cold and the wind had taken its toll.  She turned away from the others and looked off at the slowly rising sun.  It was a beautiful scene, even with the fire and the wreckage.  She felt strange and slightly disconnected from everything.

“Lieutenant?” said Wooderson.  Hannah didn’t reply.  Wooderson watched her walking very slowly away from him.

“Lieutenant!” snapped Major Dalton.  Hannah’s instincts, her training took hold.  She snapped to.

“Lieutenant McPherson, we need you over here.”  She nodded and walked over to the semi circle that had formed.

“Right, let’s sum up what we know for a fact now.” Said Major Dalton.

“We’ve got between eight and nine dead here.  The crash site shows that the plane came down at angle but not in a straight dive.  This lends towards the idea of pilot error.  The speed wasn’t catastrophic.  We’ve found shell cases, nearly one hundred now.  So it would seem that there was some sort of skirmish aboard the plane and it crashed, either due to a fatal wound the pilots or some other distraction.”

            The team watched Dalton speak, a head nodding here and there.  McPherson listened to the words and began to focus again.  The situation was strange but she was beginning to form a theory about the crash, about the gunfight and the apparently missing cargo.  She wondered at what point she could evidence such an outlandish theory.

“Dig around, see what you can find.” Came the phantom voice of Professor Clarence.  Hannah thought about it, what more could she find that would prove her theory.

“Any one got anything else to add?  Try to stick to facts.” Said Dalton.

“We need to gather more data.” Said Chung.

“Also we need to find Captain Barrow.” Said Sergeant Harrison.  “I don’t like having a man missing from the site.”

“Captain Barrow’s not our concern at this time.  Command says they can spare us a bird in an hour so that’ll do nicely.” Replied Dietz.

“We’ve still got more rubble to sort out but the parts we’ve done so far lend themselves to the conclusion that the plane was destroyed by the crash and hadnt suffered fatal structural damage before the crash.” Said Wooderson.

“All of this leans towards the above theory.” Said Chung.

“All we’ve got is an operating theory, not a proven one.  The plan now is continued the analysis, maybe widen the search so we can cover a wider area.” Said Dalton.

“Ok you heard him.” Said Dietz.  “Let’s get on with it.”

The team broke up and began walking away.

“What are you thinking?” asked Wooderson as Hannah walked away.

“Nothing much.” She said back.

“Typical dumb blonde.” He said.

“Hey, maybe you need your eyes tested old man but my hair color isn’t blonde.”
“You’ve got some kind of theory going round that big brain of yours.  So I want to hear it.”
“I thought you said I was just a dumb blonde?” replied McPherson, sorting through a pile of wreckage.

“Maybe I did but I’m curious as to what it is you think has happened here.  Or what is really happening here.”
“Careful Woods.” She said back.  “There’s a line and we are right up on it.”
“Sorry Lieutenant.” Said Wooderson, looking genuinely surprised.

“We’ve got a job to do here, let’s try to get it done.”  She turned around and look to find Storm.

“Storm, over here.”
“Sir?” said Storm.

“Is it possible to board a plane, mid flight?” she asked him.

“You seen the movie ‘Cliffhanger?’” he asked.

“No.”
“Well they try it in that.  It doesn’t go very well.  It’d be very difficult, nearly impossible to pull off.  No if you want to steal an army cargo from a prop rotor plane like this, the best way would either to be bring it down and steal the cargo or shoot it down.  But that’d rely on not destroying the cargo.”

“Ok, think like you want whatever was in those boxes.  How would you have gotten them?” she asked him.

“Not sure I would have but if I was, well, I’d have paid off at least one of the crew chiefs.  He’d sabotage the plane and bring it down.  Then I’d meet them at a rendevous point and I’d ex them all out.  I’d kill them all.  Then I’d dismember the bodies and hide them.”

“Christ, remind me not to fuck with you Storm.” Said Wooderson.

“I watch too much CSI.” He said back.

“So what went wrong?” asked McPherson.

“Well, I’m not sure you’re theory is right.  I don’t know what happened.  There is some strange stuff around.  I think when we recover the black box we’ll know almost exactly what happened here.” Said Storm, a thoughtful look on his face.

            McPherson nodded.  She supposed he was right, there was still evidence to find and still things that would help shed some serious light on what was going on here.  She had just finished sorting out another random pile or rubble when Wooderson came back over.

“Not now Woods.” She said.

“No, it’s work related.” He said.

“What?” She said, looking at him.  “Come on, spit it out.”
“Wharton, I’ve found out that he’s a Fed.”

“So what?  We all knew he wasn’t a co-pilot.  So he’s a Fed.  What difference does that make?”
“You sure you aitn blonde.  It lends serious weight to your previously harebrained idea about a hijack.”
“Don’t breathe a word about that.” She said

“No, he’s a Fed, a crime scene guy.  He’s here after a hijacker  So maybe you’re right?”

“Maybe.” She said.  She looked over at Wharton who was sat looking thoughtfully at a few scraps of uniform.

            The discovery of the black box was well timed.  The team had finished another hour of work and finally gotten clearance for it’s rescue bird.  Major Dalton had seemed very surprised that they wouldn’t spare him a helicopter for a critical task.  In the end he had to become quite forceful over the radio.

            It had been Roburn that had found the black box.  It was badly damaged, scuffed and covered in dents.  However it was recoverable and would still work. 

“Allright. “Said Dalton.  He took out his radio mic and called up Ostrow at the helicopter.

“Charlie, bring the bird to within about four hundred metres of the crash site.  Park up there.  Newman, prepare to get this FDR working.”

“I already did Major.  Just get it on the bird and I’ll have her humming a tune.” Said Newman over the comms.  Major Dalton smiled.

“Good man, out.”

The team took a quick break and Hannah moved to where Wharton was stood, alone of course.

“Willing to speak to the pariah?” he said to her as she approached.

“You cant be surprised.” She said.  “You lied to us.  And what’s worse, you donned our uniform, we had to earn that.”
“I’ve earned it too, in another way.” Said Wharton.

“No you haven’t.  Agency isn’t the same as service.” She said.

“Well, whatever.  I’m here. The government wants an eye kept on this.”
“They should have asked.” She said.  Wharton said nothing.

“But they didn’t.  Which means there is someone they don’t trust.” She said

“Yes.” He said.  He knelt down again and looked at the torn shreds of uniform.

“What’s that?” she asked him.

“I’m not sure.” He said.  “What’s your theory here?” He looked at her, the intelligence clear in his eyes. He had very sharp, clear eyes.

“Hijack.  Mid air or on the ground.  But it went wrong and the plane crashed.”

“Yeah, that was mine.” He said.

“So you know something I don’t?” she asked him.

“I know a fair few things you don’t.  But in this case, I think we’re about to find out that the truth is even stranger than we expected.”  Something about the tone of his voice made the hairs on the back of Hannah’s neck stand up.

            She turned and looked at the lights as a helicopter landed in the distance.  The team moved towards the helicopter and Hannah walked alongside the agent.  She wondered what else he knew that she didn’t, what else that she had suspecteted would be proven to be true.

“Hustle up over there.” Shouted Harrison to the two dawdling officers.

“We best move out.” She said to him.  “Come on agent man.”

The two of them moved quickly, stepping around wreckage, rubble and bloodstains.

            The sun was fully up now on the field of debris.  The chaos had been reduced but the inherent violence of the crash was still there for all to see.  At the edge of the field were foot prints, army boots, stained with blood.