Chapter 10
Bodrum International Airport
Bodrum, Turkey
She had never been to Turkey, and Bodrum was an uncommon gateway.
It was a midsize city and the airport reflected it.
She saw a modest array of helicopters, business jets, and general aviation aircraft.
A few airliners were parked at a small terminal in the distance.
Aside from the commotion stirred by their own arrival, the airfield was quiet.
Conza hit the ramp right behind her, and he verbalized the same impression.
“You think they shut the airport down?” he asked.
“Could be. Colonel Carter said the weather was lousy last night, low clouds and fog. But it’s clear now.”
“So if nobody’s flying, it’s because of the crash.” He scanned the surrounding countryside. “Looks a lot like Sig outside the fence.”
Katie had to agree. The terrain was remarkably similar to Sicily. Brown hardpan, soft hills, sturdy vegetation. It made sense, she supposed. The flight had been short, less than two hours due east. Same topography, same latitude, same Mediterranean climate.
They retrieved their bags from the first pallet that was unloaded. Carter’s team of investigators seemed well organized. They were already sorting through equipment, and two big SUVs soon appeared. There were four Air Force personnel in Carter’s entourage, two junior officers and two enlisted.
“Looks like we’re getting off on the right foot,” Conza remarked, nodding to their left.
Katie saw Carter talking to a Turkish military officer who’d pulled up in a staff car.
Their gestures were friendly, the nods professional.
The relationship between the two nations, she knew, was both long and testing.
Turkey was inexorably trapped between East and West. They respected Western military might and needed its strategic backing.
But their religion and culture were rooted firmly to the right, in Asia and the Middle East. It was a delicate dance for both sides, and the guarded interaction between the two officers reflected it.
She said, “Yeah, everything looks civil…so far.”
“I wonder who else is going to be involved in this investigation.”
“Carter and I chatted about that on the flight—I think you were sleeping.”
“Hey, sleep is a weapon.”
“The way you snore it is. The wall between our rooms in Sig was way too thin. Anyway, he warned me that these overseas crash investigations can be real clusters. Foreign governments, manufacturers, military services, unions…Everybody with a nose sticks it in.”
“A less positive voice than mine might remind you that we fall in that category.”
“Fair point, but it wasn’t our doing. Orders are orders.”
Carter finished talking to the Turkish officer and walked toward them.
“Saddle up,” he said. “You and your gear go in the second vehicle. We’ll make a quick stop at our hotel to unload, then head straight to the crash site.”
“Copy that,” Katie replied.
She and Conza tossed their duffels through the open tailgate and circled to opposing rear doors. One of Carter’s lieutenants was driving.
Katie was about to sink into the back seat when something in the distance caught her eye.
She noticed a small building on the far side of the runway.
It looked like a typical fixed-base operator, or FBO, a small low-slung structure fronting a half acre of tarmac.
What had really seized her attention, however, was in front of the building on the ramp: a business jet sat parked, its doors buttoned up and the wheels chocked.
The jet itself was nothing special. At first glance, she took it for a Cessna Citation, but on closer examination decided it was a Lear—an instructor from intel school had taught her the difference.
Yet something about this jet seemed curiously familiar to Katie.
The off-white paint job, the lack of any other markings.
It looked perfectly serviceable, but there was an air of… managed neglect.
Most of the world’s business jets flew as showcase items, a manifestation of their owners’ egos.
Irrespective of whether that owner was an individual, a family, or a corporation, private jets were polished to a gleam and emblazoned with logos.
The principal’s initials could be incorporated into their tail numbers like an overpriced monogram.
This aircraft displayed none of that. In fact, it was quite the opposite, as if the owner wanted the jet to be the dowdiest entry in the flying beauty pageant.
That was unusual. Even the most shadowy oligarchs and arms merchants put their marks on their toys.
Katie could think of only one entity that would run a jet like that.
She walked out to get a better angle, until she could see the registration number. As required by law, it was painted clearly on the aft fuselage. N490BS. Katie committed it to memory and then walked back to the car, a slight grin creasing her lips.
Bravo Sierra, she thought. And how perfect is that?
—
The stop at the hotel, as promised, was brief.
It took thirty minutes to reach the crash site, half of the time a trek across unimproved gravel roads.
Bouncing around the final hill, and with a cloud of dust trailing behind them, the scene of the tragedy appeared with jarring suddenness.
The SUVs jerked to a stop amid a dozen Turkish military vehicles.
Katie got out and was transfixed by the scene.
She had been in the thick of combat before.
She’d stood on the conn of the USS Blackfish during a torpedo battle, and watched a missile engagement from the combat information center of the USS Jason Dunham.
The hillside before her was an entirely different manner of chaos.
It was raw and devastating, the aftermath of a tragedy.
A two-acre apocalypse on the side of a minor mountain.
The wreckage was strewn over a relatively small area, and a giant scar in the brown earth marked the primary point of impact.
From there, the aircraft had tumbled and shattered, its remains careening in all directions.
Scorch marks from secondary fires pocked the terrain like spent campfires, and even after half a day smoke trickled skyward.
The acrid stench of scorched jet fuel tainted the morning breeze.
Some sections of the wreckage were identifiable.
The tail was most prominent, its three fins intact.
A painted American flag on the vertical stabilizer took on the bleak aura of an epitaph on a headstone.
The main fuselage was shattered, broken into three segments, and the wings lay detached on either side.
All around those reference points were unidentifiable shards of debris.
A dozen men in colored vests roamed the area, mostly planting reference flags and taking pictures.
“Damn,” said Conza, pulling up beside her.
“Yeah. I didn’t know quite what to expect, but this…this is surreal.”
“The first one can be a little overwhelming,” said Colonel Carter, approaching from behind. “It’s not as bad when you get up close and narrow your focus.”
Katie said, “What about the…loss of life?”
“I’ve been told most of the human remains have been recovered.” He pointed to a team in red vests. “The Turks have been working on that since before daybreak. Come on, I’ll walk you through.”
They hiked a makeshift path rutted by fresh tire tracks.
“Were these caused by the first responders?” she asked, pointing down.
“Very good,” Carter replied. “The ground was pretty wet when they showed up.”
And with that, something clicked in Katie’s head. It occurred to her that, despite the obvious disarray, she could process this scene logically. It would be detective work, pure and simple. And she was good at that.
Carter veered toward the tail section, where two of his men had joined up with a pair of Turks. They were working on the vertical tail and had removed a panel to dig around inside.
“Stay here for a minute,” Carter said. He broke off, climbed the mound of debris, and spoke to one of his lieutenants. The young woman pointed inside the cavity and the colonel leaned in for a look. He then rejoined Katie and Conza.
“They’re trying to recover the black boxes. I got a look, and they appear to be in pretty good shape. Hopefully the first read will give us an idea of what went wrong.”
“How long will that take?” Katie asked.
“If no damage was done, we might have something tomorrow.”
Staring across the devastation, Conza asked, “Do you have any theories yet, Colonel?”
He tipped his head noncommittally. “This early in an inquiry you can never close doors…but I do see some inconsistencies.”
“It hit this mountain at the bottom,” Katie said. “They weren’t even close to clearing it.”
“A good observation. That doesn’t compute to me, either.
This happened at night, and the weather was lousy, so the pilots would have been flying on instruments.
But this aircraft was equipped with what we call GPWS.
It’s a worldwide terrain database that ties into the aircraft’s GPS navigation.
That system should have given a terrain warning long before the situation turned critical, with enough time to initiate a recovery. ”
“Will the black boxes tell you if the crew got that warning?”
“They will. I’m also looking at the way the airplane hit.” He held out an arm that aligned with the wreckage pattern.
“What’s the issue there?” Katie asked.
“We’re standing roughly ten miles from the airport, so they should have been lined up for landing. But the airport is over there.” With his other hand, he pointed forty degrees to the left.
Katie tried to map it out in her head. “So they weren’t lined up with the runway.”
“At the moment of impact, they were way off—which should have resulted in other warnings.”
The Air Force lieutenant beckoned Carter, who climbed back up toward the tail.
When he was out of earshot, Conza said to Katie, “Sounds like we’ve got a few things that don’t add up.”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Carter seems to know his stuff.”
“Agreed.” His gaze drifted over the hillside. “I feel like we should be doing something to help, but I don’t know where to start.”
“The colonel said he’d put us to work—I’m sure he’ll come up with something.”
Conza reached down, picked up a jagged piece of metal, and began inspecting it.
Katie’s attention settled on the shattered fuselage.
That was where the passengers would have been.
She thought about John Moore, and also the Navy commander who’d been on board.
Yet for reasons she didn’t understand, her thoughts then veered away.
Back to the distant airport and the dirty-white Learjet.
“I’m gonna head back to the car,” she said to Conza.
“Why?”
“The phone reception was better on the hill. I need to do a little research.”