Chapter 12
Crash Site
Bodrum, Turkey
Katie drained the last of her coffee as the SUV pulled into the makeshift parking pad near the crash site. She had raided the coffee station in the hotel lobby, but the tiny cup hadn’t done the job.
“I’ve gotta take a page from your book,” she said to Conza, who was driving. His quart-sized travel Yeti was still half full, and he looked even more wired than usual.
“You need that cup for anything?” he asked, gesturing to her Styrofoam empty.
Katie handed it over, knowing what he was going to use if for. He pulled out a tin of tobacco and opened it one-handed. He pinched a big wad and stuffed it under his lower lip.
Conza pulled to a stop next to a twin vehicle. One of Colonel Carter’s men had approached Katie in the hotel lobby and handed over the key to one of the SUVs. It was now, more or less, their private vehicle.
It wasn’t quite daybreak, the sun still a mere glow in the east. The distant crash site resembled a stage, illuminated by a grid of portable floodlights and generators that had been brought in by helicopter.
The Turks had worked through the night, and the perimeter was sealed off by Turkish army MPs.
They walked to the controlled entry point, showed their IDs, and were allowed through.
As they trudged over uneven terrain, Katie was impressed that Conza never wavered.
Anyone who didn’t know him would never have suspected he was wearing a prosthetic leg.
She wasn’t really surprised. Like every operator she’d ever known, Conza met life head-on, a combination of physical intensity and unassailable determination that was hardwired into everything he did.
His good ol’ boy facade was exactly that, a smoke screen that concealed his underlying strength.
They topped a hill, and the field of debris came fully into view.
The investigation team was already busy, and Katie saw Colonel Carter milling through wreckage.
She checked her phone from the high ground before her cell reception degraded.
It was roughly midnight in D.C., so she didn’t expect any important messages.
She was wrong.
“I’ll be darned,” she muttered.
“What’s up?” Conza asked before spitting into the cup.
“I just got an answer on that Learjet.”
“Bravo Sierra?”
“That’s the one. Something about it bugged me, so I spent some time yesterday trying to figure out who owned it.”
“Is that what those phone calls you made were about?”
“Yeah, but I hit a wall. I decided to reach out to Bubba for help.” She was referring to Intelligence Specialist Second Class “Bubba” Pettigrew, Conza’s enlisted soulmate back at headquarters.
“He have any better luck?”
“He did. The jet’s airborne right now, on its way back to the States. He tracked the ownership to some obscure holding company, but that turned out to be a dead end. From there, he started making off-the-books calls to buddies at other agencies.”
“The infamous good ol’ boy network. What did he find?”
“Basically, what I expected. It’s a CIA jet.”
“Guess that’s no surprise. But what was it doing here?”
“That’s the big question. When Bubba pressed his buddy at Langley, he was told ONI doesn’t have a need to know.”
“Stonewalled in the back channels? That’s serious as a heart attack.”
“Maybe…but the intel agencies tend to be pretty provincial. Sometimes one department has no idea what the others are up to.”
“Speaking of intel, I did make some headway last night on our Navy officer.”
“The one who was on board SAM 719?”
“Yeah. Turns out he was a JAG. Pentagon sent him on the trip to finalize an intelligence-sharing agreement with the Turkish Coast Guard. The guy actually had his papers in. He was getting out of the service to take a lobbying job on Capitol Hill.”
Katie stopped walking and took in the scene. Conza did the same. The debris field looked eerie in the wash of the bright floods. Yet it was less overwhelming than yesterday. The smoke had dissipated, and the smells of the desert were returning.
Her distraction ended, and she picked up on their thread. “If that’s the case, it doesn’t sound like he was involved in anything critical.”
“My thoughts exactly. Nobody would take down an airliner to kill an intelligence-cooperation agreement.”
“Which means if this turns out to be sabotage, he wasn’t the reason.”
After a lengthy pause, Conza said, “Does that mean we came here for nothing?”
“Not at all. Our original focus was a brother Navy officer. He might not have been tip-of-the-spear, but he sacrificed his life in service to his country. You could say the same about all the victims of this crash. We owe it to them to find out what happened. Whether this was an intentional act or an accident, a lot of family and friends deserve answers. You and I are going to help get them.”
A waving arm in the distance caught their attention. Colonel Carter was beckoning them over to the crushed nose section. They set out walking again through the tawny brush.
“How were your accommodations?” Carter asked when they arrived.
Katie couldn’t contain a laugh. “Comfortable king bed, hot food from a menu. The hotel even has a spa if we can find the time. Lieutenant Conza and I are more accustomed to hot bunking with strangers on smelly ships in the tropics.”
“Glad to hear you approve. I’ve got a couple of items of interest to share. Last night I talked to the medical examiner—or whatever the hell they call them here. We’ve run into a bit of a discrepancy.”
“Discrepancy? You mean with the remains?”
“Yes. I mentioned earlier that the bodies had been removed by the Turkish authorities. With the exception of the two on the flight deck, most were in relatively good condition. The problem is the count—we ended up at fifteen.”
Katie blinked. “But the manifest clearly listed sixteen passengers and crew.”
“Correct. Some of my people tried to resolve the discrepancy overnight. They spent time in the morgue and went over detailed photos taken as the bodies were removed. It only confirmed what the ME is telling us—this plane went down with fifteen souls on board.”
“How could that be?” Conza asked.
“That, my friends, is our morning mystery. I thought it might be the kind of thing two sharp Navy intelligence officers could get to the bottom of.”
“How many of the fifteen have been positively identified so far?”
“Unofficially, eight. Some were carrying IDs that we correlated to their faces. The government employees have photos and fingerprints on file. DNA is the most certain way, but we don’t have comparative profiles for some of the victims. It’s a process of elimination.
We have to get this right, and that takes time.
But I’m getting pressure from above for some quick preliminary results. ”
“What’s the rush?” asked Conza.
“That relates to my second problem—one that’s far more worrying. The flight data recorder was in good shape, and we managed to get a quick download. We haven’t analyzed everything yet, but we’re seeing serious inconsistencies in the jet’s navigation system.”
“Inconsistencies?” Katie asked. “What does that mean?”
“The navigation platforms in modern airplanes get information from a lot of sources. GPS is generally the most accurate, but radio navigation aids on the ground are also cross-checked. Those inputs are meshed into redundant inertial units on the jet—basically very accurate gyros that measure the slightest movement. It’s all continuously compared to come up with a highly accurate end product.
An aircraft like this pretty much knows where it is within a few feet. ”
“But this one didn’t?” Conza speculated.
“The data shows a big disagreement between the various sources—in particular, the two GPS inputs. I’ve got engineers digging into the digital weeds, but it’s going to take a day or two for them to get a solid answer.
This is a serious-enough discrepancy that I’m making it my main focus.
If the navigation system suffered a sudden position shift, it could have caused the crew to believe they were miles away from their true position. ”
“What could have caused this position shift?” Katie asked.
“It’s not definitive, but we have to consider some type of sabotage. More specifically, I’m talking about GPS spoofing or meaconing.”
“I’m familiar with it. The Navy has been worried about that kind of threat for a long time. False signals that trick an aircraft or a vessel into going off course…and potentially into harm’s way.”
“Correct. There are a number of ways to conduct an attack like that, but in this situation”—Carter gestured toward the surrounding hills—“the most likely method would have been to place hardware in the immediate area.”
“Some kind of transmission device to override the GPS satellite signal?” Katie surmised.
“Exactly. An artfully tailored false signal can overpower the real ones and introduce navigation errors. Screwing with GPS was elevated to an art form at the outset of the Ukraine War. Commercial jets got terrain warnings thirty thousand feet in the air. Transponders gave air traffic controllers bad information. Aircraft clocks would run backward. There’s a lot of geekery involved, but to make anything like that happen you need hardware, a big power source, and the right kind of antenna.
The closer you get to your target, the better chance you have of succeeding. ”
“How far away would it have been from the crash site?” Conza asked.
“I’d start by looking close, say within two miles, then work outward.
The more powerful the system, the farther away it could have been.
A fixed site would be simplest from a technical standpoint, but that has practical drawbacks.
The hardware would need to be in place ahead of time, and you couldn’t remove it without leaving traces.
If this does turn out to be a GPS spoofing attack, I’d guess we’re looking at some kind of mobile system. ”
Katie said, “Like mounted on a ship or a vehicle?”
“Yep. A vehicle seems more likely to me, a truck or a big van. It could have parked beneath the final approach corridor, then driven away right after the crash. No ship could get that close—the coastline is twelve miles away. On the other hand, ships have robust power generation and are usually bristling with antennas. We can’t close that door.
Now, admittedly, I’m not a technical expert on any of this.
Neither are the two of you. But like you said, Katie, the Navy is no stranger to electronic meaconing and spoofing—it’s been around since the Second World War.
That’s why I’d like your help. The Navy has some of the best electronic warfare experts. ”
She nodded. “You want John and me to look into the possibility that this was an electronic attack.”
“There’s nobody on scene in a better position to chase it.
I sent a report detailing what I’ve told you up through the command channels.
If any new black box data comes in, I’ll forward it to you right away.
The cockpit voice recorder might prove particularly helpful.
It could give us hints as to what the pilots were seeing. ”
“Okay. We’ll start working on it.”
Carter thanked them, then diverted to the cockpit section.
After he was gone, Conza said in his signature southern drawl, “You see the problem here. If it turns out this was an intentional act…”
“It’s going to blow up into a lot more than an air crash,” Katie said, finishing the thought.
“This is the kind of thing that ends up on your dad’s desk.”
“Inside scoop…this is the kind of thing that keeps my dad up at night.”