“What about Mr. Kenner?” Locke glanced at her ring finger. It was bare, no tan line.
She followed his gaze and splayed her fingers. “Right. You know my maiden name is Arvadi.”
“Didn’t seem relevant until now.”
“I got divorced two years ago,” she said. “Another archaeologist. You know how it goes when two people don’t see each other much, traveling all over the world separately. Not enough time together. I decided to keep the name since I’d already established my credentials with it.” She paused. “How about you? Any family?”
“A younger sister. We were Air Force brats. My father’s still in active service, a general. Runs the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. I don’t see him much now. He didn’t care for my choice of career. Sounds like you and your dad were a lot closer than I am with mine.”
“Married?” Dilara asked. Her tone was curious, but neutral.
He shook his head. “Widower.” He didn’t elaborate. The silence grew heavy.
“Well,” Dilara said, taking the hint, “I think I will get some sleep.”
“You can have my seat,” a deep voice said from behind Locke. He turned to see Grant standing behind him. “It’s already nice and warm. And Locke told me you wanted to know about some of The Burn’s signature wrestling moves. When you wake up, I’ll tell you about the Detonator. I used that one to win my first match.”
“I can’t wait to hear about it,” she said with a laugh and moved to the back of the plane.
Grant took her seat.
“I like her.” He lowered his voice. “So…it sounded like you two were hitting it off.” He winked. Sometimes Grant went overboard pushing Locke to find someone after his wife died.
“Just making conversation,” Locke said. He glanced back at Dilara. She was already curled up in the seat, her eyes closed, a blanket wrapped around her. It was the first time Locke had really seen her vulnerable, and Locke felt a overwhelming surge of protectiveness flow through him. He turned back to see that Grant had a silly grin on his face.
“You know about my girlfriend?”
“The woman you met two weeks ago in Seattle is now your girlfriend?”
“Tiffany,” Grant said. “She’s perfect.”
“You’ve been on what, two dates?”
“I know it’s early, but she has the all the qualities of the future Mrs. Westfield. Know how we met?”
Locke smiled. “At the strip club?”
“At the athletic club. She just works at a strip club.”
“Bouncer?”
“Waitress,” Grant said, feigning annoyance. “Putting herself through nursing school. She’s strong but petite.”
“I hope she’s not too petite. You could crush her.”
“You should see her on the bench press. Wow! I noticed her. She noticed me. For a few days, no talking, just looking. But we finally made a connection one day. Know how?”
“How?”
“Just making conversation.”
Locke looked at Dilara again. She was fast asleep.
“There’s nothing going on,” he said.
“All right.” Grant didn’t sound convinced.
“You’re going to be a pain in the ass about this, aren’t you?” Locke said.
“Oh yeah,” Grant replied.
Locke sighed. It was going to be a long flight.
SEVENTEEN
After landing at McCarren International in Las Vegas, Locke, refreshed from four-hour’s sleep, took the keys to a rental Jeep that was delivered to the Gordian jet and got into the driver’s seat. A GPS navigational unit sat on the dashboard in front of Grant. In a few minutes, they were on Highway 93, which would take them all the way to the crash site.
“How far away are we?” Dilara asked from the back seat.
“Judy Hodge, the lead Gordian engineer on site, said it was about eighty miles,” Grant replied. “Smack dab in the middle of nothing. Luckily, it’s only about a mile off 93 on flat ground. If it had been in a canyon or on a mountain, the recovery would take ten times as long.”
“How long
“Usually, months for the initial findings, and years for the final report.”
“Years? Sam said we had until Friday, and it’s already Monday morning!”
“Because this doesn’t look like an accident,” Locke said, “I’ll convince the NTSB to put a rush on the investigation. Grant, I want you take over here.”
“Oh, you are mean,” Grant said. “To Tiffany, that is.”
“She’ll live without you for a few more days. We’ll ship all of the wreckage back to the TEC. Put it all in hangar three.”
“What’s the TEC?” Dilara asked, pronouncing it as a word like Locke did.
“Gordian’s Test and Engineering Center. It’s in Phoenix, so it won’t take long to move the wreckage there. It’s a 500-acre facility built way out in the desert twenty years ago. Phoenix grew so much in that time that it’s now right outside the suburbs. We have a seven-mile oval test track, a dirt obstacle course, a skid pad, both an indoor and an outdoor crash test sled, and extensive laboratory facilities. There’s also a mile-long runway and five hangars for flight testing.”
Locke knew he rhapsodized like a proud father when he described the place, but he couldn’t help it. It was Gordian’s crown jewel.
“So you test for the car companies?” Dilara said. “I thought they had their own tracks and pads and everything.”
“They do, but a lot of companies want independent testing. Insurance companies, lawyers, tire companies. Our biggest client is the US government. We can test virtually anything on wheels. Everything from bicycles to heavy trucks. In fact, they’re going to be putting a mining truck through its paces day after tomorrow.”
“Sounds like you enjoy that kind of stuff. Do you get to drive it?”
“Sometimes, if I get the chance. This truck would be especially fun.”
“A truck? You’re kidding. Why?”
“It’s a Liebherr T 282B, a German truck that’s 25-feet tall and an empty weight of 200 tons.”
“That’s 400,000 pounds,” Dilara said. “I can’t imagine something that size.”
“It’s the biggest truck in the world. Essentially a three-story building on wheels. When fully loaded, it weighs twice as much as a 747 at takeoff. The tires alone are 12-feet in diameter and weigh more than any car you’ve ever driven. A Wyoming coal mine asked us to test it for them to see if they want to buy it. Our fee is worth it when you’re thinking of buying 20 of them at $4 million a pop.”
“Sounds incredible.”
“Unfortunately, since we’re going back to Seattle, I’ll have to wait to take it for a spin.”
The rest of the ride passed silently. They crossed over Hoover Dam and into Arizona. The harsh desert terrain was dotted with only a smattering of trees. The air shimmered from the heat, the temperature already into the 90s.
Twenty-six miles north of Kingman, the GPS unit indicated they were at the turnoff, and Locke wheeled the Jeep onto a dirt access road. In another minute, they approached a cluster of vehicles. Thirty vans topped with satellite dishes dotted the sparse landscape. Reporters stood in front of cameras, broadcasting what they knew about the crash that had taken the life of one of the world’s best-known celebrities.
They drove past the vans to a road block of three Arizona State Police cars. A trooper waved them to a stop.
“No press past this point,” the trooper said.
