by Young, Tom
the devil’s tribe gobbled up the nations—
one every day, as an owl gulps a bird . . .
But the devil’s tribe would soon choke on this nation, if Dušic had any say in the matter. The plane crash at Manas could complicate things, but he would not turn back now.
3
BY THE TIME PARSON REACHED the crash site, the rain had stopped and the fires had gone out. Blankets covered the dead. Medics lifted the bodies onto litters and loaded them into the ambulances. Parson’s investigation would include the condition of the bodies—which bones were broken, the nature of internal injuries. That kind of information—coupled with clues from the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder—could tell you what had happened at the moment of impact. Two broken forearms, for example, suggested a pilot with both hands on the yoke.
However, Parson felt grateful that the medics and their blankets spared him the sight of corpses. He’d seen enough dead bodies in his career already. The ambulances drove away, and Parson made a mental note to get autopsy reports.
A strong odor of fuel and ash permeated the debris field. Mist rose from the wet pavement. A combination of firefighting chemicals, hydraulic fluid, and oil formed a coffee-colored slurry that stained Parson’s suede desert boots. He picked his way through the mess, snapping photographs and inspecting parts. The base commander, a full-bird colonel on loan from the Tennessee Air National Guard, accompanied Parson.
“Sad business,” the commander said.
“Yes, sir,” Parson said. Raised the camera, pressed the button halfway to focus on a charred turbine, then pressed harder to take the digital shot. He usually had little patience for people who stated the obvious, but this colonel seemed all right. Sounded genuinely saddened for the Afghan crew. And who knew? Maybe this scene reminded the guy of things he’d like to forget. Sure as hell had that effect on Parson.
“Sorry you have to deal with this in your first week, Michael,” the commander added.
Parson looked at him. Gray hair, almost too long for regulation. An Air Guard patch on his leather A-2 jacket, which, in this theater, made him technically out of uniform. The wings of a command pilot on his name tag, which read Terrence C. Webster, Colonel, USAF.
“It is what it is, sir,” Parson said. “We’ll just deal with it.”
“Call me Terry.”
A good sign, Parson thought. He despised salute-hungry jackasses taking a command assignment just to get a ticket punched for promotion. But Webster apparently cared little for spit-and-polish protocol. Maybe Parson could work with this guy.
Parson stepped away from the tangle of charred aluminum, considered what else he should note. Oh, yeah, point of initial impact. He walked away from the main body of wreckage and counted paces as he strode toward the approach end of Two-Six. Stopped when he found the propeller scars. Took photos of the gray gouges in black pavement—lens-shaped cuts slashed at evenly spaced intervals until they ended at a more general scraping and burning. A flock of sparrows trilled past, exploring a part of the base usually forbidden to them by the constant roar of jet engines.
And that roar needed to start again soon. Webster, to his credit, had not told Parson to hurry. But Parson knew this base had to reopen as quickly as possible. Pakistan had closed its land routes into Afghanistan again, which made Manas all the more important as part of the lifeline for American troops.
Back at the debris area, Parson found Webster directing two maintenance men to find the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder. The mechanics went to work inside the tail section. The empennage had broken away early in the crash sequence, so it had suffered little fire damage.
“What do you do back home, Terry?” Parson asked. He didn’t usually care for small talk, but maybe now it would keep his mind from wandering into dark places.
“I’m a lawyer.”
Well, that was different. So many Guard pilots flew for airlines. Some seemed pretty cool, but others stayed mad at the world because they weren’t 777 captains making three hundred grand. Normally, Parson had little use for lawyers. But at least he wouldn’t have to spend a year listening to Webster whine about airline work rules.
“What kind of lawyer?” Parson asked.
“Prosecutor.”
“You a district attorney?”
“At one time.”
Short answers, Parson noted. That usually meant modesty, secrecy, or plain old rudeness. Parson thought he could rule out the third option. No point pondering it now, though. He walked over to the open crew door, tested the boarding steps with his boot. Parson really didn’t want to climb into what remained of the cockpit, but he knew he must. In the Aircraft Mishap Investigation course at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, his instructors had emphasized thoroughness. He reached into a leg pocket of his flight suit, pulled out his Nomex gloves, and put them on.
Parson placed his hands on either side of the entrance. He pulled himself inside, taking care not to slip on the foam that slickened the charred steps. Daylight streamed from the open fuselage, metal broken and burned away. An angle of light he’d never seen on a flight deck.
In the cockpit, he found little blood. Typical for blunt force trauma. The crew’s personal effects remained in place as if waiting to be used again: A flight jacket draped over the back of a seat. A checklist open to the Before Landing page, its plastic binder partially melted by heat. Headsets on the floor, still plugged into interphone cords. A loose shoulder harness, unspooled from its broken inertial reel.
The instrument panel appeared pretty much intact. Parson made another mental note: He’d ask maintenance to remove the entire panel, then send the panel to a stateside lab. In some instruments, phosphorus paint coated the needles. On impact, the needles might smack against the glass faces of the gauges. The paint residue, seen easily under a black light, could tell you the position of the needles at the moment of the crash. Parson wondered especially about the airspeed indicator. He knew these guys had come in too fast. He could write a better report if he could say exactly how fast.
Parson focused his camera on a wide shot of the panel and snapped a photo. Zoomed in, took a closer shot. Then he took an image of the throttles, still shoved up to the stops. The pilots had probably overtorqued the engines, he thought, and they still didn’t get enough power to save themselves. Few airplanes could blast out enough thrust to escape a fully developed microburst. Parson turned off the camera and stuffed it into the pocket of his flight jacket.
Back outside, he heard the ratcheting of a socket wrench from inside the empennage. Next came metallic bangs, curses, and more ratcheting. The mechanics emerged with two bright orange electronic boxes.
“Found ’em,” one of the mechanics said.
The voice and data recorders usually answered most questions about a mishap. Their orange color made them easy to find amid wreckage. Nobody in aviation ever called them “black boxes” because they were never black.
So what story would those recorders tell? Parson had already heard the pilots’ radio calls, but he didn’t know what they’d said among themselves. The CVR would have recorded at least the last thirty minutes of conversation. The Afghan pilots had probably spoken Pashto to each other, though some Afghan fliers spoke Dari as well.
Parson took the orange boxes from the maintenance men, set the recorders down in a patch of grass well away from oil and foam. He eased himself down on one knee, thought for a moment. Looked over the wreckage, creaking as it cooled. Gazed to the southwest. In that direction, beyond the horizon, lay Afghanistan.
No, he told himself. Don’t even ask her.
His old friend Sophia Gold was the best Pashto interpreter in the business. She possessed a wealth of knowledge about Afghan culture and history. She had shared his greatest trials and deepest pain. In some ways he loved her more than any of the girlfriends he’d had in a long string of short relationships, though h
e’d never been intimate with Sophia. Parson had once saved her life. And then later he’d damn near gotten her killed.
But not even a bullet through her chest could keep her from Afghanistan. She worked there now, in some civilian capacity with the United Nations. After an honorable discharge from the active-duty Army, she remained a sergeant major in the Individual Ready Reserve. Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart.
The last time he’d seen her, she’d looked good. Sitting across from Parson in a German pub, just released from Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Sophia appeared nothing like the wounded troop who had practically been pulled from the grave. Her blond hair spilled across her shoulders. She usually wore it a little shorter, but during her months of recovery, she hadn’t cut it. Parson liked the effect, and he enjoyed just looking at her in civilian clothes. Her sweater and slacks revealed little but could not hide her attractiveness, which seemed only to increase as she approached forty. A career as an airborne-qualified soldier had kept her in better shape than most women half her age.
Parson liked looking back on that dinner of pepper steak and Rhine Valley wine. The image of Sophia relaxed and happy—and pretty—countered a more vivid memory: that of a woman with a catheter punched into her rib cage so she could breathe, clinging to life in a rescue helicopter, blood smeared across her breasts and pale skin. He had wondered if that dinner would mark the start of a different sort of relationship with her, but it didn’t seem proper to ask for a date right when she’d gotten out of the hospital. And maybe it wouldn’t be proper, ever. That might just ruin a unique friendship and partnership.
So, instead of talking about a date, they’d chatted about so many things they might have talked about earlier if their circumstances had allowed. She recommended books. He told her about places to hike in national forests. She described what it felt like to jump from an airplane. He told her she should try his venison barbecue sometime, but he doubted he’d sold her on that idea.
It would be great to work with her again. And he did need someone who understood Pashto. Even if the pilots had spoken Dari instead, Sophia might have at least a passing knowledge of that language.
And this time, he wouldn’t be summoning her to a combat zone; he’d be getting her out of one. Parson decided he’d talk to Webster about it. For Sophia, Manas would almost amount to a vacation. Just translate a half hour of conversation, then kick back in a place where she didn’t need to carry a rifle. Good coffee and hot chow. Maybe even get one of those Antonov crews to pick up a case of Georgian wine for her. Parson would find excuses to stretch out her visit for a couple weeks if she wanted. For a change, he could do her a favor.
Parson rose to his feet, went back to the wreckage. Webster was looking through what remained of the fuselage.
“What were these guys hauling, anyway?” Webster asked.
“Let’s find out,” Parson said. The C-27 had carried three pallets of assorted cargo: metal boxes and Pelican cases covered with charred netting. Some of the Pelican cases had melted, and Parson didn’t even try to open those. But he popped the fasteners on one of the metal boxes.
The burned metal left black gunk on Parson’s gloves. The box didn’t want to come open all the way, so he unclipped his boot knife and pried the lid with the blade. He hated to use his prized Damascus steel knife for such a purpose, but at the moment he had no other tool. Inside the box he found an electronic device protected by padding covered in plastic that had partially melted. He lifted the object.
“What you got there?” Webster asked.
“Looks like an IFF transponder for an airplane,” Parson said. “Maybe they were shipping stuff out to get it refurbished or recalibrated. I always used to preach to them never to skimp on maintenance.”
He put the IFF back in the box. Then he kicked at the pile of scorched cargo, dislodged another container. This one opened more easily. Inside, Parson found another electronic component: an inertial navigation unit. A delicate piece of gear that included a ring laser gyro. The box contained even thicker padding. Parson hefted the navigation unit, showed it to Webster, replaced it in the box.
“I’ll need some help on this investigation,” Parson said. He told Webster about Gold, why he wanted to ask her to come to Manas.
“Sure, I’ll approve that,” Webster said. “I remember seeing her name somewhere. I’d love to meet her.”
“We can’t order her here,” Parson said. “She’s a civilian now. She’d have to agree, with the permission of her bosses.”
“Who does she work for?”
“The United Nations.”
“Hmm,” Webster said. “Maybe I can help with that.”
“How?” Parson asked.
“I know some people.”
“At the UN? I thought you were a lawyer from Tennessee.”
“I did a little work in international law.”
Sounded like this guy kept his fingers in all kinds of pies. Parson knew a few people like that: interested in everything, keeping two or three careers going at once. Just listening to them could make you tired. Sometimes they had good stories, if they could tell them.
Parson moved to another charred pallet. On top lay a metal box similar to the others. He released the fasteners and pushed on the lid, but the warped hinges allowed little movement. Once more Parson used his knife as a lever. Damned shame, he thought, to ruin a good edge this way.
When he pulled up on the knife handle, the lid squeaked open. But the blade slipped and the tip dug into the padding that protected more electronic components. The padding consisted of some kind of soft material covered by partially melted plastic. As Parson pulled out the knife, he noticed a brown sticky substance along the blade. He took off his gloves, touched the stuff with his index finger. Tacky consistency. He sniffed it, and it gave off a slightly sour smell, almost like pickles.
Parson lifted an INU out of the box, and he stabbed again into the padding. More of the brown substance spilled out.
“What the hell is this?” Parson asked.
Webster leaned toward the metal container, inhaled through his nose.
“Opium,” he said.
4
AS THE KYRGYZSTAN AIRLINES Yak-40 descended toward Manas, Sophia Gold felt a little airsick. Rough air rocked the commuter jet, and in the tight confines of her seat, she could not find a comfortable position. A jolt of turbulence sloshed hot coffee out of her paper cup and onto her khaki trousers. The liquid dripped from her fingers and, lacking a napkin, she wiped her hand on her Barbour field jacket. Gold had not yet grown used to working in civilian clothes, and her attire still tended toward military.
She wasn’t used to flying like this, either. She’d spent her professional life as a translator/interpreter with the U.S. Army, mostly with the 82nd Airborne Division. Gold would have felt more at home in the cargo compartment of a C-130 with a parachute strapped to her back. Or in an Afghan helicopter, on headset with the crew.
Two things had led her to leave the Army she loved: One, the United States was winding down its presence in Afghanistan; inevitably the Americans would withdraw altogether, and the Pentagon would need fewer Pashto speakers. If she wanted to continue working with the Afghan people—whom she’d also grown to love—she’d have to find another way. And two, on her final military mission, while working as an interpreter for Lieutenant Colonel Parson, she’d suffered a bullet wound that nearly killed her. Gold had healed well enough to continue to pass the Army physical. But after seeing more than her share of combat, she felt she could best continue to serve as a civilian. When she contacted the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UNHCR, they hired her over the phone without asking for a résumé. As a reservist, she kept a current military ID card.
The Yak touched down hard enough to send a stab of pain through her torso. Those pains still happened from time to time. The enemy bullet about
a year ago had done a lot of tissue damage, and the soreness never completely left her. Gold had experienced other kinds of wounds as well. She’d suffered the night sweats and intrusive memories of post-traumatic stress disorder even before she was shot. Ironically, the PTSD symptoms eased after the nearly fatal bullet wound.
As the aircraft decelerated, it rolled past a blackened spot on the pavement. The crash site, Gold assumed.
Inside the passenger terminal, she found Parson waiting, along with a gray-haired man who looked older than Parson. Gold could not tell the man’s rank; he wore a Bass Pro Shops baseball cap and a Vanderbilt University sweatshirt. Parson also wore civilian clothes—jeans and a wrinkled shooting shirt with a pad on the right shoulder. It was nearly six p.m. local time. Evidently, new base regs permitted civvies after duty hours.
Parson had aged little in the months since she’d last seen him. And his old limp seemed less pronounced, old scars on his arms and fingers less noticeable. Eyes still alert, but without that hint of hypervigilance. The years might have eroded his youth, but maybe they’d given something back in healing. Gold hoped so, anyway.
She embraced him. Parson held her tightly enough that it hurt her chest. She uttered a little inadvertent cry of discomfort. He let go.
“Sorry, Sophia,” he said. “Stupid of me.” She took a step back from him but held on to his arm long enough to let him know it was all right. “This is Colonel Webster,” Parson added.
“Terry,” the colonel said. He shook Gold’s hand.
“Good to meet you, sir,” Gold said. “Thank you for your e-mails. How did you know people at the UN?”
“Let’s talk about it over a beer,” Webster said.
“We’ll take you to Pete’s Place,” Parson added.
Whose place? Gold wondered, until she saw that the bar in the Manas rec center was named for Peter Ganci, the New York City fire chief who died on 9/11. A sign read THIS BAR DEDICATED TO COALITION MEMBERS WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN THE WAR ON TERROR.