Fly by Night

CHAPTER NINE

The heat was everywhere as Davis walked across the tarmac, as if the world had a fever. It radiated down from the sky, up from the earth, into everything. His shoes, his clothes, his lungs. And there was probably no worse place in all Sudan than right where he was standing — on a busy flight line. Superheated exhaust from big turboprops, jet engines at takeoff power, brake assemblies smoking after high-energy landings. It was all there, seared into the breeze.

He saw two FBN airplanes in the process of being unloaded, men pushing cargo out of the openings, stacking crates on the concrete ramp. Davis adjusted his vector in that direction. Just as Schmitt had said, there was no security in sight. Just two DC-3s parked on a broiling ramp, their cargo doors open wide like a pair of mouths straining for air.

It was for aircraft like the DC-3 that the word venerable had been created. Davis knew they’d been around since before the Second World War, and that tens of thousands had been built. Three quarters of a century later, hundreds were still in the air, plowing through equatorial thunderstorms and landing on Arctic tundra. Davis hadn’t seen one in a long time, and he figured there were more in museums than in the air.

Different airplanes had different looks. Some, like the F-22, looked fast. Some were pretty, like the Boeing-757. The DC-3 in front of him wasn’t any of those things. It was all business, functional and boring. From a distance, these two specimens looked in decent shape. They were dressed in a generic paint scheme, a coat of eggshell white that had been faded by dust from the Sahara and rain from the Amazon and soot from China. There were no corporate marks or logos, no gaudy fin flashes to establish ownership. For a company like FBN Aviation, that was probably the idea — anonymity. From where Davis stood, the only way to tell the two airplanes apart was by their registration numbers, this an unavoidable acquiescence to international law. X85BG and NH33L. Big airlines often paid a little extra to get sequential registration numbers, which helped to keep a fleet organized. These two numbers looked like they’d been chosen using Ping Pong balls from a wire tumbler. As random as you could get. Once again, maybe by design.

When Davis got closer to the airplanes, he started to see differences. Dents on cargo doors and fuselages, hail damage on the wing leading edges. The front aircraft’s radome was pocked, and the paint looked like it had been sandblasted off, probably from flying through a sandstorm. Such minor damage was inevitable on two aircraft that had over a hundred years of service between them. All the same, given their far-flung histories, these DC-3s were about as much alike as any two could be.

The airplane to the rear had already been unloaded, and a flatbed truck parked next to it was piled high with boxes and shrink-wrapped supplies. It looked like a legitimate load, some of the boxes having red crosses, others bearing the caduceus emblem, two snakes around a winged staff, to signify medical supplies. The loading crew was walking away, leaving two people near the truck, a teenage boy and a woman. The woman was securing the load with tie-down straps while the boy buttoned up the cargo door on the airplane.

Davis went the other way, toward the lead airplane, where a guy was sitting on a forklift with his thick arms crossed over the steering wheel. He was watching closely, giving a few directions, as a large wooden crate was being eased out through the cargo door. The box’s length was longer than its width, and with a little tapering at the sides might have passed for a coffin. It was obviously heavy, and the three guys struggling to move it had one edge jutting out into the air. The side panel was covered in Cyrillic writing, which was a mystery to Davis. The translation could have been MEDICAL EQUIPMENT or MOSQUITO NETTING. More likely ROCKET PROPELLED GRENADES OR SURFACE-TO-AIR MISSILES. He hoped they didn’t drop it.

The three guys in the loading crew looked local. The forklift driver didn’t. He was straight from central casting — burly, two-day growth of black beard, brown watch cap, cigar in his mouth — a longshoreman from the docks of Jersey.

Davis walked up to him, and said, “Need any help?”

The guy looked at him, up and down. “Don’t worry yourself, buddy.”

Davis thought, Yep, definitely Jersey. He pointed to the cigar, and said, “That thing’s not lit, is it?” He jabbed a thumb toward a fuel truck parked fifty feet away. The side of the truck had a warning stenciled in bright red letters: NO SMOKING WITHIN 100 FEET.

The guy reached down and turned the key, and the machine went from a rattling diesel idle to silence. He took the cigar out of his mouth. It wasn’t lit. He looked at Davis again, up and down.

“And who the hell are you?” he asked.

“Me? I’m an inspector.” Davis left it at that, glancing at the big crate hanging two feet over the lip of the cargo door. The loading crew had stopped shoving and were looking back and forth between Davis and the driver.

“What the hell kind of inspector?” the man asked.

“You know — safety.”

The guy crossed his thick forearms, chomped back down on his half-cut stogie. He was wondering why an American dressed for a round of golf was wandering around his cargo ramp. He probably had Davis pegged as being with the United Nations, or maybe an oil company. That would make sense.

“So are we?” the driver asked.

“Are you what?”

“Safe.”

Davis said, “Well, you’re cigar isn’t actually lit, so that fuel truck over there won’t explode. And you probably won’t get lung cancer in twenty years. So, yeah, I’d say you’re safe.”

“Good. Then you won’t bother us anymore.”

Davis looked at him, then looked at the crate. The driver was sweating. Possibly because he was nervous. More likely because it was a hundred and eight degrees in the shade.

Davis lunged forward.

The driver stiffened, put up an arm to defend himself, but Davis went nowhere near him. Instead, he grabbed the crowbar he’d spotted under the seat. Two long strides later, he had it jammed into the crate and was prying off the lid.

“Hey!” the driver protested. “What the hell?”

But protest was all he did. He stayed where he was, because Davis was a lot bigger and had a crowbar in his hand. The loading crew pulled back as well, disappearing into the airplane’s cargo bay. Whatever was happening, they wanted no part of it. Nails in the crate lid gave way, creaking like an old door hinge. Davis pulled the lid open.

He called over his shoulder, “Have you seen this?”

“Listen, buddy, I don’t know what’s in ’em,” the driver stammered. “I just move ’em around.”

Davis reached in and pulled out a sample. He said, “No, I mean — have you seen this?” He held up a packaged DVD. Titanic. It was one of a hundred different titles in the crate. “What about this one?” he asked, holding up Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. “Everybody’s seen this one.”

The driver looked at him like he was crazy. Then he looked at the crowbar and nodded.

“Did you like it?” Davis asked.

Another nod.

“Me too. Only — there was one thing that drove me crazy.” Davis paused.

The driver didn’t ask.

“Those damned Imperial Storm Troopers. How could anybody shoot that bad? I mean, as many rounds as they fired? Blind luck says they hit somebody, right? Or maybe a ricochet. Do laser weapons ricochet?” Davis turned around and smiled.

So did the driver. Sort of.

Davis put the movies, which were undoubtedly counterfeit, back into the crate. He pulled down the lid and, using the crowbar as a hammer, battered a half dozen nails back into place. When he was done, he tossed the crowbar to the driver. This clearly surprised him, but he made the catch. Davis then squatted low and, using his shoulders, pulled the crate through the cargo door, lifted it clear, and heaved it onto the prongs of the forklift. The big machine rocked forward under the weight, then settled.

Davis smiled again.

So did the driver, this time probably meaning it.

“What’s your name?” Davis asked.

“Johnson.”

“You work for FBN, Johnson?”

“Two year contract as an A and P.”

A and P stood for Airframe and Powerplant, shorthand for his professional certificate. “You’re an airplane mechanic?” Davis asked.

“That’s right.”

Davis checked his fingernails. They were dirty, which was good. It was his personal policy to never trust any mechanic who didn’t have grease under his fingernails.

He said, “So how come you’re driving a forklift? Don’t they have loadmasters to do that?”

“It’s a small company, so I do whatever. Get the job done, you know?”

“Yeah, I do know. That’s a good attitude. You like your work?”

“Banging on sheet metal and hauling crates in a hundred and ten degree heat — what’s not to love?”

“Right. So tell me, Johnson, how many mechanics does FBN have here?”

“I do most of the work, as far as taking care of the airplanes. There’s another guy, Muhammed, but I only see him for big things I can’t handle on my own. He spends most of his time on another job.”

“What job is that?”

“He doesn’t say much about it. Something out there.” Johnson pointed toward the remote hangar.

Davis nodded. “What’s his background?”

Johnson paused, like he was deciding how much to give. “He used to work at a big operation over in Riyadh. I think it was depot-level maintenance.”

This got Davis’ attention. Depot maintenance was heavy-duty stuff. Big airplanes taken out of service for months at a time to get stripped down and refurbished. New fittings and engines, corrosion addressed. If there was a spa for airplanes, depot checks were “the works.”

“So your buddy, Muhammed,” Davis suggested, “he must know how to take an airplane apart.”

“Sure,” Johnson said, “I’d guess he’d be pretty good at it.” He then shot Davis a jaundiced look. “But you still haven’t answered my question — who the hell are you?”

“Jammer’s the name. I’m a pilot.”

“You a replacement? For the ones that went down last month?”

“No, I’m not here to take anybody’s place. I’m a crash investigator. I was brought in to find out what happened to that airplane.”

The beefy mechanic climbed down off the forklift, put the crowbar back under his seat. “Well, I hope you figure it out. Those two pilots, they were good guys. Not assholes like most pilots.”

Davis grinned. “So maybe you can help me out. What’s the rumor on the ramp?”

Johnson’s suspicion got the better of him. “I don’t hear nothin’.”

“They tell me it was a maintenance test flight, some kind of aileron rerig. Did you do the work?”

“No.”

“So it must have been Muhammed.”

Johnson thought about that, his thick brow creasing. “I don’t know anything about it. That airplane came from—” he stopped cold. Davis followed his eyes and saw him staring at a spot near the airplane’s cargo door.

“Came from where?” Davis prodded.

“Never mind,” Johnson said. He hopped back onto his loader and started writing on a clipboard.

“From the remote hangar? Is that where they kept it?”

No response. Davis decided he’d pressed far enough. “All right. Thanks anyway.”

Johnson nodded distractedly. The loading crew filed out of the DC-3, and gave Davis a wide berth. Johnson had a few quick words before sending them away. He cranked the forklift and it belched to life in a black cloud of diesel exhaust.

“Hey, Johnson,” Davis said, loud enough to be heard over the rattling engine.

The driver looked up.

Davis jammed his thumb toward the open cargo door. “You mind if I have a look inside?”

Johnson gave him a suit-yourself shrug. “You’re an investigator, right?”

Davis nodded.

“So investigate.”

Davis climbed through the cargo door and made his way up front. He took the captain’s seat and immediately felt right at home. Certain elements of the flight deck looked no different from an airplane that would come out of a factory today. There was a flap lever and landing gear handle, a set of rudder pedals. Yet for every part that cued familiar, Davis saw dozens that belonged in a black-and-white photograph.

The instruments were mechanical round dials, not the vibrant color displays that dominated contemporary aircraft. This particular collection of gauges had most likely been installed in a factory during World War Two, with a select few getting replaced and upgraded over the last seventy years. The end result was like some kind of aeronautical totem, a story of where the airplane had been and what kind of work it had performed. This cluttered presentation made Davis’ search of the front panel a bit harder, but he knew the thing he was looking for had to be there.

Every airplane is required to have a registration number, the aviation equivalent of an automobile VIN number. Assigned by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a registration number is issued to every airplane that leaves a factory, and follows that airframe to its grave.

There are certain conventions involved, and one of the most vital involves the first character. Usually a letter in the Roman alphabet, it signifies the country of registry of the owner. N represents the United States, so the accident airplane, N2012L, had been originally registered there. Also by regulation, this identifier has to be displayed on the fuselage, near the tail, and thus is often referred to as a “tail number.”

Davis, however, had sensed something wrong with the registration of this particular airplane. Outside, he’d seen Johnson staring at the aft fuselage, and there was only one thing there — X85BG in bold block lettering. So Davis decided to cross-check. He knew you could find the tail number of an airplane in any number of places. It would be printed on documents on the cockpit door, and sure enough, Davis confirmed that X85BG was printed on the registration certificate, neat and clean. But anybody could take a registration certificate from one airplane and switch it to another. There was, however, another spot that was easily overlooked, one that was more permanent. A tail number had to be placarded on the cockpit forward instrument panel. Davis found it in front of the captain’s control yoke, below the artificial horizon. It wasn’t any kind of embossed placard, but instead just scribbled on the framework with an indelible marker. The letters and numbers had faded over the years, but there was no mistaking what he saw. And what he saw was a problem.

He went back outside. Johnson was gone, but Davis saw the forklift parked near a small building with a roll-up metal door. Probably a mechanic’s workshop, he guessed, a place to keep tools and cases of engine oil. He walked toward the tail section of the airplane, and stared again at the letters and numbers on the aft fuselage. It wasn’t obvious — you’d have to know to look in the first place — but it was definitely there. X85BG in heavy block letters. New paint — bold, black, and undeniable. But underneath he could just make out a thin coat of white, and under that a ghostly image of the old characters. Numbers and letters the same as the ones he’d seen scribbled in Sharpie on the forward instrument panel. N2012L. The registration number of a DC-3 that was supposed to be at the bottom of the Red Sea.

Somebody was playing musical airplanes.