“There’s no good spot, Colonel,” Nielsen said tersely. The head of the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigative team tapped the open map on his lap. “But I’ll admit our access to this site stinks. It’s more than fifty miles to the nearest road or railhead. The Russians are going to have to ferry everything in by air. Tents. Food and water. Floodlights. Generators. Everything.”
Thorn glanced back at the large cargo crates piled high across the Mi-26’s rear clamshell doors. Besides the eight Americans and their assigned Russian interpreter, this heavy-lift helicopter held nearly twenty tons of equipment and supplies. He fought down the urge to tell the other man he had an excellent grasp of the obvious. Their situation was awkward enough without crossing swords so early.
Anyway, he understood why the NTSB’s chief investigator was so clearly off balance. When an aircraft went down in the U.S Nielsen and his six-man “go-team” were in complete command from the moment they touched down at the crash site.
Here they were only consultants — and unwanted consultants at that.
Russia’s Federal Aviation Authority was touchy about its prerogatives.
Moscow had only agreed to accept an NTSB observer team because American nuclear experts were among those killed in the An-32 crash. The Americans could ask questions, provide technical assistance, and offer opinions. Final authority, though, would remain firmly in Russian hands.
The Russian argument was simple: It was their aircraft. Flying in their airspace. And it had crashed in their sovereign territory.
All of which put Nielsen in a grade-A bind. Thorn had seen his type before. Like any investigator worth his salt, he was a control freak.
When the cause of any given accident could lie in something as small as a pinhead-sized piece of twisted metal, somebody-one man had to be in charge. And Nielsen was used to being in charge.
Thorn grinned wryly to himself. Perceptive diagnosis, Colonel, he thought. But where exactly does that leave you?
The honest answer was — even further removed from the real action than the NTSB investigator.
If mechanical failure or pilot error had brought down the inspection team’s An-32 transport, Nielsen, his team, and their Russian counterparts would all have roles to play. If terrorism or sabotage were involved, the Russian Ministry of the Interior, the MVD, and the FBI would take over the investigation. In contrast, as a liaison officer from the U.S.“s On-Site Inspection Agency, Thorn had precisely zero real authority. He was an observer — a consultant to consultants.
And that was not a position he found comfortable.
Counting the time he’d spent as a West Point cadet, Thorn had been in the U.S. Army for twenty-two years. He’d commanded troops for most of those years — first an airborne infantry platoon, then a company, then elite Delta Force commandos, and finally a full Delta Force squadron.
He’d viewed his various staff postings as necessary evils — as the hoops the Army made you jump through before you got to do the fun stuff like leading soldiers in the field.
But now he was stuck riding a desk inside the O.S.I.A’s Dulles Airport headquarters. So stuck that he’d never get another chance to command an Army combat unit. Officially, he was there to add his counterterrorist expertise to the O.S.I.A staff. Terrorists with nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons were one of Washington’s biggest nightmares. Unofficially, he knew the powers that be viewed his assignment to the inspection agency as a way to keep him quiet until they could edge him out of the Army altogether.
After all, Thorn thought grimly, you couldn’t tell the President of the United States to go to hell without paying the piper.
Irritated with himself for dwelling unprofitably on the past, he pushed away his regrets. He’d known what he was doing, and he’d known the price he was likely to pay for disobeying a White House order. What mattered now was the job at hand.
Even if Nielsen and the others couldn’t see what he was doing aboard this helicopter, Thorn was determined to make himself useful. If an accident had downed the An-32, he could at least help out with the grunt work- searching for wreckage, bodies, and personal effects. If they turned up evidence that sabotage had brought down the Russian plane, he would move hell and high water to help the FBI and the MVD find the bastards who were responsible. He owed John Avery and the others on the O.S.I.A inspection team that much.
The Mi-26 banked suddenly, spiraling tightly to the right and losing altitude in the turn.
Thorn looked down. They were orbiting a patch of forest that at first looked no different than any other for hundreds of miles around. Even this far from any industrial city, dead pine trees stood out among the survivors — stark brown, branching skeletons against a dark green backdrop.
“There it is!” Nielsen said urgently.
Thorn followed the other man’s nod and saw the An-32 crash site for the first time. When it slammed into the forest canopy, the turboprop had torn a long, jagged scar across the countryside — splintering trees, gouging the earth, and flattening the undergrowth for several hundred yards. Blackened scorch marks showed where aviation fuel spraying from the mangled wreckage had ignited.
The Mi-26 continued its orbit, slowing further to hover over an area several hundred meters east of the crash site.
Orange panels laid across the muddy ground in a ragged clearing marked a makeshift landing pad. A Russianmade Mi-8 helicopter sat off to one side of the clearing. Mechanics and other ground crewmen swarmed over the smaller bird, refueling it and attaching a cargo-carrying sling.
Thorn mentally crossed his fingers. He hoped the Mi-26 pilot had perfect depth perception. With its rotor turning, the giant heavy-lift helicopter was more than a hundred and thirty feet long. From this high up, trying to set it down in the space available looked akin to threading a sewing needle with a garden hose. If they came down too far in one direction, they’d hit the trees. Too far in the other, and they’d slam into the parked Mi8 and half a dozen fuel drums. Neither alternative seemed particularly appealing.
Almost without thinking, he fingered the thin, almost invisible scar running across his nose and down under his right eye.
That scar and a couple of small metal pins in his right cheekbone were souvenirs of a helicopter crash he’d survived as a young captain.
Walking away from one whirlybird crack-up was enough for a lifetime, he decided.
Turbines howling, the Mi-26 slipped lower, slid right, then back left, and settled in to land with a heavy, jarring thump. Almost immediately, the engine noise changed pitch, sliding down the scale as the pilots throttled back. The helicopter’s massive rotors spun slower and slower and then stopped.
They were down.
Thorn breathed out softly, unbuckled his seat belt, snagged his travel kit from under the seat, and stood up — grateful for the chance to stretch his legs. To stay fit at forty, he relied on a rigorous daily exercise regime, and too much sitting left him stiff. Unfortunately, except for a five-minute stop at Arkhangelsk to board this helo, they had been in the air since leaving Andrews Air Force Base the day before. And the aisles aboard Air Force passenger jets were too narrow for running or vigorous calisthenics.
He controlled his mounting impatience while Nielsen and the others carefully gathered their own gear and assembled at the forward left side door. For now, this was the NTSB’s show. They were entitled to set the pace. Air accident investigations always put a premium on slow, methodical, and absolutely painstaking work. No matter how tough it might be, he would have to rein in his own innate impulse to push for rapid, decisive action.
At least he couldn’t fault their working clothes. All of the civilians wore plain jeans, long-sleeve shirts, waterproof jackets, and hiking boots. His woodland camouflage-pattern battle dress and combat boots were equally practical. Suits and neckties and dress uniforms had no place this far out in the wilderness.
A Russian helicopter crewman emerged from the flight deck, pushed his way through the waiting Americans, and unlatched the side door. It fell open, becoming a set of steps down to the ground.
Thorn followed Nielsen, his team, and their interpreter outside, pausing briefly at the top of the stairs to scan the surrounding area.
Stumps and sheared-off branches poked through the mud in places, showing where engineers had blown down trees to make this crude landing pad. Several large drab canvas tents were clustered at the far end of the clearing. Urged on by shouting NCOS and junior officers, teams of young Russian conscripts in mudsmeared uniforms were busy erecting more tents along the treeline.
