Breaking Point

by Dana Haynes

  HELENA

  Gene Whitney didn’t leave his hotel room until after six. He found a liquor shop, thinking, as he often did, that a bit of the hair of the dog … Hey, it’s a cliché because it works.

  He’d intended to buy just a pint of vodka but there was a sale on Hood River vodka, which he’d never heard of before. He could get two liters for twelve bucks. Who could beat that? So he got that instead, thinking, Look at the money I’m saving! Because, after all, he’d be in Helena at least a week.

  He got back to the hotel and took a fingerful of the vodka, feeling the ball-peen hammer inside his temple dial back a bit. He went online and made another reservation to fly to Reagan, sipping his second glass, realizing Hood River wasn’t top-notch vodka but, again, that price … seriously.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, Beth’s aides failed miserably at getting the 160 or so people involved in tomorrow’s All-Thing settled. Helena, Montana, did not have an overabundance of hotel rooms. The crashers alone were already straining the city’s reserves and the copious attendance at the All-Thing stretched it well beyond capacity.

  17

  THE TEAM LEADERS GATHERED around a large table at a family-run restaurant near the airport. The only one missing was Gene Whitney, who handled the flight and ground crews, but they knew he was conducting interviews back in D.C.

  They gathered at 8:00 P.M. and, for the most part, agreed that cheeseburgers and fries would do the job. Jain had the chopped salad with homemade, fried pita bread rather than croutons, dressing on the side. Peter opted for grilled salmon and a salad.

  “Not a bad start,” he said, still wearing the natty suit, tie knotted firmly at his throat fourteen hours after he’d put it on.

  Teresa Santiago pulled her thick, black hair into a cable behind her neck and fixed a leather clip to it. “Credit goes to Tomzak and Duvall. The site was pristine.”

  Peter flashed an icy smile. “Yes. Other thoughts?”

  Reuben Chaykin humphed and raised both hands, palms up, and let them drop. His powerplant was a charred ruin stretching a mile long in the forest. “It’s going to take months to put the pieces together. The fire…” He shook his head. “Thanks to Jack, we got out about half of the avionics, enough to run a pretty good test on the flight deck. We should be able to tell what was working and what wasn’t but we need to get the rest of it.”

  “Left-hand side of the cockpit,” Jack Goodspeed corrected. “The avionics in front of the copilot were pretty smashed up.”

  Peter turned to Dr. Jain, who picked at her iceberg lettuce. “How are the pilots?”

  Lakshmi had a second-language-speaker’s habit of waiting a beat before responding. She also rarely smiled. Between the chipper Jack Goodspeed and the flirtatious Teresa Santiago, Peter was pleased to have a more staid team member.

  “The copilot’s body was badly destroyed. He died before the plane hit the ground. We haven’t even found the majority of him and I suspect we never will. He’s probably back in the portion of the forest that’s on fire. The pilot suffered a broken neck, severe spinal injury. It is he who surprised me.”

  Hector Villareal poured ketchup on his fries. “How?”

  “I … I am not sure. I want to go over his postmortem again.”

  Peter took note of her puzzled frown. “Take your time. Get the pilots’ autopsies right.”

  Lakshmi returned her attention to the salad.

  Peter turned to Hector. “Cockpit voice recorder?”

  “The digital copy was uploaded to our site a couple of hours ago. We can listen to it after dinner.”

  “Good, good. Gene’s in D.C. He’s interviewing the ground crew. He should be back tomorrow.”

  Beth Mancini nibbled on a fry. “The All-Thing is set for eleven A.M. tomorrow. We look to have a pretty good crowd.”

  Reuben chowed down on his burger. “Do we have confirmation on the Bembenek Company?”

  Beth checked a spiral-bound notepad. “Um … Yes. Why?”

  The tough little Chicagoan looked glum. “I’m going to need full replicas of the engines and propellers if I have any hope at all of reassembling that mess out there.”

  Peter turned to Jack Goodspeed. “Speaking of which, are we going to need a reassemble?”

  If necessary, Jack’s team of engineers could reassemble the destroyed Claremont VLE. Jack squinted up at the ceiling of the diner and considered the question. “I’m gonna guess, no. I want to hear the cockpit voice recorder, see what Teresa makes of the flight data recorder, of course. But at first blush? No reconstruct.”

  A full reconstruct was the costliest and most time-consuming duty of a Go-Team. Peter knew that if they could avoid it, Chairman Delevan Wildman would be pleased.

  Teresa Santiago leaned back. “My black box will tell the tale. The FDR is in awesome shape and it’s a DataSave, 1200 Series. Damn good recorder. Not a Gamelan, but the next best thing. Don’t you worry your pretty head.” She leaned over and ruffled Jack’s hair. Jack winked back at her.

  Lakshmi blanched a little at their quick friendship and flirtatiousness.

  “Good.” Peter looked past Reuben’s shoulder and saw a waitress point to their table. A big, dark-haired man with an overnight case in his fist began wending his way through tables.

  Oh, great, he thought. He patted his lips dry with a napkin and stood. “Agent…?”

  “Calabrese. Ray Calabrese.” They shook but it wasn’t cordial. “Peter Kim, right? Hi.”

  Peter waved to the table. “Agent Calabrese was the FBI liaison for the crash in Oregon last year. I take it you’re our liaison again this year?”

  Ray said, “I asked for the gig, after I heard about Tommy and Kiki. And Isaiah.” The big guy’s eyes were pulled down in a grimace. “God, I am so sorry about Isaiah.”

  Peter nodded, his stomach acids kicking in. Another player from the insanely screwed-up operation in Oregon. Worse yet: one of the Big Four: the people who’d flown a jetliner into a dune. Part of the damn legend.

  Beth said, “I’ll call one of the hotels, see if I can get you booked.”

  Teresa Santiago steepled her fingers, elbows on the table, and cradled her chin. She batted her lashes at the big FBI agent. “Hey, if there’s no room at the inn, I’m glad to share.”

  She was pleased to see Ray Calabrese reply with a good-natured smile. She also was perversely pleased to see Peter Kim grimace.

  LANGLEY

  Jenna Scott decided to handle the signal-intelligence duty herself. First, the Malatesta gig was completely and totally illegal, and there was no one in the entire Central Intelligence Agency she trusted to keep this particular secret. Second, she wasn’t a field agent anymore, but when she had been, she’d been a gifted hacker. And it’s good to brush off the old skills now and then.

  She had the Go-Team’s communications locked down. That had been the easy part. She started making digital copies, starting with Beth’s call to the hotel. She jotted down the name Ray Calabrese.

  HELENA

  Gene Whitney only woke up because he’d puked a little bit on his pillow. He staggered to the bathroom and threw up properly. He filled the bathroom sink with cold water and dunked his head in. It helped sweep away some of the barbed wire wrapped around his cerebellum.

  Gene didn’t remember anything about his flight to D.C. Or even getting to this hotel. He knelt over the toilet and dry heaved a little, realizing he must have gone and gotten himself good and pissed last night.

  He found his travel kit and brushed his teeth. He did not look at his reflection in the mirror. He gargled with the travel-size bottle of Listerine, spit it out, and slouched back to the main room in his socks, his creased pants, his untucked dress shirt.

  He stood with his hands on his hips and squinted around the room for several minutes before he realized two things.

  One: he was still in Helena, Montana.

  And two: the two-liter bottle of Hood River vodka was half empty.

  * * *

/>   By the time the team leaders and Ray Calabrese returned to the hotel where Peter and Beth were staying, the cockpit voice recording from Polestar Flight 78 had been uploaded to the NTSB Web site. The team agreed to meet in Beth’s room, which was large enough to seat everyone.

  “You might as well hear this, too,” Beth told Ray as they entered the hotel lobby.

  Peter Kim bristled. “I don’t think so. Until this is proven to be a crime—if it is a crime—the FBI is here in an advisory capacity only. I think it’s better to play this by the rulebook.”

  Beth blinked in confusion. “I’ve read the reports from the Oregon crash. Agent Calabrese was really helpful.”

  “It’s okay with me,” added Hector, and turning to Ray: “You’ve heard CVR downloads before?”

  “Just the one. In Oregon.”

  Hector shrugged. “He could be useful.”

  “No.” Peter made a horizontal, sweeping gesture. “Sorry.”

  Ray studied the slight engineer, and Peter studied him right back. After a beat, Ray hitched the strap of his overnight bag higher on his shoulder. “It’s all right. I have to check in, then catch up with the Montana field office. Good luck, folks.”

  He turned to the reception desk.

  The others took the elevator to Beth’s suite. There, Hector set up a Bose speaker shaped like a flying saucer and attached an iPod to its dock. He had downloaded the CVR recording to his laptop and from the laptop to the iPod.

  Beth opened the minibar. A few of the team took diet sodas or bottled water, then settled in. Teresa Santiago kicked off her shoes and nestled into the couch.

  Beth sat, pulled out her cell phone, and sent a text message to Gene Whitney in D.C.: its beth. how did it go?

  Hector consulted his notepad. “I’ve cued it up to just the last minute or so. I listened to the full thirty minutes, three times. I can tell you that the pilots ran a tight flight deck. No horsing around, distractions. We’re going to hear from, ah, Miguel Cervantes. He’s what Polestar calls the Pilot-in-Charge. The other is Jed Holley, copilot or so-called second pilot.

  “Holley is first,” Hector added, and hit the button.

  Holley: We’re at, ah, a thousand feet. Passing outer marker for Helena Regional.

  Cervantes: A thousand?

  Holley: Ah … yeah.

  (beat)

  Cervantes: I don’t think so. I think we’re lower.

  Holley: I got a confirm on the altimeter, now reading nine five zero feet … mark.

  Cervantes: Ah, Helena Regional, this is Polestar Seven-Eight, what elevation do you have for us?

  (beat)

  Cervantes: Helena Regional, Polestar Seven-Eight.

  (beat)

  This feels way low, Jed. We’re lower than we think. Helena Regional, Pole—

  Holley: Trees!

  Cervantes: What?

  Holley: Trees, trees! Pull up!

  Cervantes: Pulling up.

  Holley: C’mon … climb, baby. Do it!

  Cervantes: Okay, pul—

  (Crack!)

  Holley: Mayday! Mayday!

  (CRACK! CRACK!)

  Holley: Polestar Seven-Eight! Mayday! We—

  End of tape.

  The seven crashers sat, ill at ease. No matter how many of these they heard, it still smacked eerily of talking to ghosts.

  Jack Goodspeed broke the silence. “Controlled flight into terrain.”

  Dr. Jain frowned. “Sorry?”

  “Likely cause of the crash,” Peter explained, leaning back in his chair. “The pilots were uninjured and in full control. They simply flew into the trees.”

  Lakshmi Jain still frowned. “Is that likely?”

  Reuben shrugged. “More common than you’d think. Last twenty years, something like—what, Beth? Fifteen percent of domestic crashes are controlled flight into terrain?”

  “About that: fifteen, sixteen percent.”

  Teresa Santiago jumped in. “In this case, likely a binary glitch. Altimeter was wrong, and they lost radio contact with the tower. I mean, we have a long way to go, to be sure. But I’m betting the flight data recorder backs up that diagnosis. I wish Gene were here.”

  He was the only pilot among the Go-Team leaders.

  Reuben shrugged. “Sounds like a slam dunk. Sure didn’t sound like pilot error. The big mystery is going to be the altimeter and the radio. Separate glitches? Or symptoms of another gremlin we haven’t discovered yet?”

  Peter Kim looked pleased with himself. “Jack, Reuben? Getting as much of the avionics out as you did today is going to be invaluable. Thank you both. Nice job.”

  Teresa stood and moved to the door. Others rose, too. “My FDR will fill in the gaps. Five dollars says we’ll be sleeping back in our own beds inside of a week.”

  Reuben said, “Your lips to God’s ear.”

  They were all near the door now, realizing that most of the mystery of Flight 78 had been solved in less than twenty-four hours.

  Peter thought—but didn’t say—that this would get everyone at the NTSB to stop gabbing about the damn Oregon crash. Thank God.

  18

  PETER KIM CALLED HOME but it went right to voice mail. He left a message saying his team was performing very well and he hoped to be home sooner than anyone anticipated.

  He decided a quick drink was in order because the day had gone so well. He checked his diver’s watch: closing in on 10:00 P.M.

  He had spotted a quaint-looking bar down the street from the hotel. A one-story brick-facade affair that looked like something out of the 1950s, right down to the flickering neon sign.

  The saloon itself was dark and neat, with a red leather bar and black-and-white photos of San Francisco cityscapes on the walls. Sinatra played softly. Only a few of the round tables were taken. Two of eight stools at the bar were in use. Peter selected a third.

  “What do you have in the way of single-malt Irish whiskeys?”

  The bartender pointed to a bottle of Bushmills.

  “That’ll do.”

  “Peter?”

  He glanced to his left. Jack Goodspeed sat at the bar, a beer in front of him. Peter thinking, Oh, great.

  Predictably, Jack stood and scooted over to an adjacent stool. He’d changed into jeans and sneakers and a Utah Jazz sweatshirt, sleeves pushed up his muscled forearms. Peter’s glass arrived and Jack held his stein up in toast. Peter decided to gulp his whiskey and escape quickly.

  “To a good first day,” Jack said. “Quick, clean, by the book.”

  That, actually, was a toast Peter could get behind. They touched glasses and sipped.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  Peter said, “Shoot.”

  “So what’s up with everyone’s reverence for last year’s Oregon crash?”

  Peter was surprised. “What do you mean?”

  “No offense, here. You guys, that Go-Team. Remarkable work. You saved thousands of lives. I’m just saying: from an outsider’s perspective, it appears that absolutely nothing went according to protocol.”

  Peter decided not to gulp the Bushmills after all. “Honestly? It’s worse than you know. We soft-sold some of that absolute clusterfuck to give Del Wildman the political cover to not fire Tomzak and Isaiah Grey.”

  “No kidding? Hell.”

  Peter was thinking maybe he’d underestimated the affable Jack Goodspeed.

  “Laws were broken, protocol was broken. It was pure dumb luck that solved the crash. But trying telling that to Wildman.”

  “Why’d they put a pathologist in charge of the team? That’d be like—and again, no offense—Dr. Jain running our investigation. Thanks. I’ll pass on that.”

  “That was Susan Tanaka’s stupid idea. Do you know her?’

  Jack said, “A little. We haven’t caught a crash together.”

  “She was with Tomzak at the Kentucky crash, three years ago.”

  “The unsolved crash. I remember.”

  “Right. She was using Oregon as … I don’t
know. Therapy for Tomzak’s bruised ego over not solving Kentucky.”

  “Well.” Jack raised his beer. “Here’s to the book. And going by it.”

  “To the book.”

  Peter ordered another.

  * * *

  Gene Whitney sent a text message to Beth Mancini that read, “all looks normal in d.c. see you A.M. tomorrow.”

  He sent it from two miles away at a bar—a different bar from the one with the fistfight because, on the ground, what? a day, day and a half, and he’d already been kicked out of one local watering hole. City wasn’t that big. And he might be around for a while. Best to slow that shit down.

  Gene caught the eye of the cute-as-pie waitress with the spiky hair and full-sleeve tattoos and said, “Hit me.”

  ANNAPOLIS

  At 8:00 A.M. eastern, Saturday, Renee, Antal, and Terri met in the little conference room of the company headquarters. Two full walls were covered in wipe board, with trays of dry-erase markers everywhere. Engineers were encouraged to toss up notions, quotes, mathematical formulas, whatever. The quote nearest the light switch today read: “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. And inside a dog, it’s too dark to read—Groucho Marx.”

  Renee sat on the conference table, her feet in a chair, elbows on her knees, spine curved, hunched in. She hadn’t slept and it was obvious. Her voice was thick, as though she had a cold. “There’s a plane, going to Helena. Helena, Montana, where … Anyway. I can go.”

  Antal took a sip of fizzy water. “Do you want us to go with you?”

  “No. I’ll represent us.”

  Terri reached out and they grasped hands for a moment.

  Renee wiped her cheeks. She held a wadded Kleenex in her fist like it was a life raft. She smiled a brittle smile at Terri, thinking, Were you fucking Andrew? He said you weren’t. I think you were. She said, “The company…”

  Terri said, “The company’s fine. There’s nothing we need to do today, tomorrow, that can’t wait. We’ll come with—”

  “We’re maintaining our contract with Halcyon.”

  Terri and Antal exchanged looks. The natty Hungarian engineer cleared his throat. “Ah. Okay. That’s a talk for later. We should come with you. To heck with the airline’s plane. We’ll charter a jet. I’ll foot the bill. Let’s go to Montana, go get our people.”