Wild Storm

CHAPTER 6

GLEN ROCK, Pennsylvania

Derrick Storm had done disguises. He had been a Venetian gondolier. He had been a reporter for a soy-related trade publication. He had been a doctor, a lawyer, a barista, a math teacher, a race car driver, a Hollywood screenwriter, a ditchdigger, and so many more they blurred together.

Every time he assumed a new identity, he did as much research as possible so he could credibly carry off his cover. Sometimes, he studied his “role” for a week or more, to the point where he felt like he understood the person he was trying to become almost as well as someone who had actually lived that life.

This time he had no such luxury. As he made the ninety-minute drive from Langley up to the rural Pennsylvania town where Flight 76 had come to a tragic rest, he took a crash course in the Federal Aviation Administration, courtesy of “Professor” Kevin Bryan.

But, really, all Storm had to convince the world that he was George Faytok from the FAA’s Office of Accident Investigation and Prevention was a flimsy white badge and his own chutzpah.

His orders from Jones were to figure out what made the plane go down and figure it out fast. He was driving in a white Chevrolet with an FAA seal that one of the nerds had gotten by hacking into an FAA public relations guy’s computer, downloading it, and turning it into a decal that another one of Jones’s agents had hastily slapped on the side. On the back was a bumper sticker that instructed other motorists to call a 1-800 number if they saw the vehicle being driven unsafely.

Like that was even possible, given how underpowered the engine was compared to Storm’s usual standards. Storm hated Chevys. He was a Ford man for a reason.

It was dusk, heading on full darkness, by the time Storm reached Interstate 83’s exit 4. He turned off the highway on Forrest Avenue, which wasn’t actually forested at all. He passed through a small town, then some typical modern housing subdivisions, and then made a turn on Kratz Road. In the way that this part of Pennsylvania did, it quickly transitioned from suburbia to farmland. He followed the winding road through a patchwork of woods and fields until he reached a police checkpoint.

This, Storm knew, was to keep out the riffraff — reporters, especially. Not that the fallen cargo plane had been as interesting to the media. The other crash sites of what were collectively being called the “Pennsylvania Three” were already becoming magnets for grieving family members; and, hence, for cameras. This site had no such hysteria. It was the quietest of the Pennsylvania Three.

Storm rolled down his window and presented his George Faytok badge. The local cop manning the roadblock had no idea that the FAA actually had little to no business at a crash investigation site being run by the National Transportation Safety Board. They were two completely separate federal agencies. The NTSB wasn’t even part of the Department of Transportation.

Luckily for Storm, such administrative distinctions were lost on a young patrolman who was just trying to get to the end of his shift. The cop waved Storm through and told him to park the car along the side of Kratz Road.

Storm followed the instructions and was soon walking toward the crash site, which rose above the road on a small hill. He could already see the temporary light stanchions that had been erected over the field so investigators could continue working through the night. Their sodium halide glow cut through the advancing darkness.

Underneath, a small horde of humanity, moving in no discernible pattern, scurried about. Storm could already make out some of the larger pieces of the plane, strewn in a long line from the point of initial impact to their final resting places. The main fuselage had broken into several parts. He saw an engine here, a wing piece there, a tailpiece somewhere else. There were a lot of other plane parts that were even less identifiable. Confusing matters further was the plane’s cargo, which was scattered over a wide area.

If Storm had an advantage going into this melee, it was simply that there were so many people — with so many different parts to play — and most of them didn’t know what the others were supposed to be doing. It would allow him a certain amount of anonymity. All he had to do was act like he belonged there and had a job to do.

He bypassed the large tent that he could guess was serving as a temporary command center. Most of the people who would have known the FAA had no direct role in the initial phases of an investigation — and would have told him to get lost — were likely under that canvas awning.

Storm made a direct line toward the field. He moved from broken piece to shattered bit, not knowing exactly what he was looking for but, at the same time, not wanting to miss anything. He made brief eye contact with any number of NTSB employees, none of whom seemed to register that he wasn’t one of them.

He stopped to eavesdrop on a few conversations without being obvious. He heard bits of the jargon that Agent Bryan had hastily tried to teach him. But nothing really popped out. Much of it was just loose talk about colleagues, accommodations, travel, or other things that did not interest Storm.

He had started at the back of the debris field and was working his way forward, if only because that was the opposite direction that most of the other people were going. That way, he wouldn’t see the same person twice. Eventually, Storm knew he might have to risk making contact with one of the men or women scurrying around him. For now, he wanted to be a fly on the proverbial wall.

He had just reached a particularly interesting piece of metal and bent over to study it when someone decided to swat at the fly.

“Excuse me? Who are you?” someone asked.

“George Faytok,” Storm said, without a moment’s hesitation. “I’m with the FAA.”

Storm stood. And then, because he had long ago learned the best defense was a good offense, he added, “Who are you?”

“Tim Farrell. I’m with the Structures Working Group.”

Storm nodded, knowingly. Bryan had explained this part to him. The NTSB’s “Go Team” consisted of eight working groups, each responsible for investigating certain aspects of a crash — everything from the Systems Working Group (which studied the plane’s hydraulics, pneumatics, and electronics) to the Human Performance Working Group (which studied the crew’s drug, alcohol, and medical problems).

“Hell of a thing, isn’t it?” Storm said.

Farrell wasn’t distracted. “I’m sorry, Mr. Faytok, but what is the FAA doing out here?”

“Oh,” Storm said. “We’ve had some changes to 8020.11C. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about them.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry, 8020.11C. That’s the number for our Aircraft Accident and Incident Notification, Investigation, and Reporting Policy. There have been some changes to Chapter One, Section Nine, Part…oh, jeez, C or D? I can’t even remember anymore. Don’t ask me to quote line and verse. It’s the part that governs our interactions with the NTSB. What it says is I actually have to lay eyeballs on what you guys are doing.”

Farrell jammed his fists in his side. “I hadn’t heard about that.”

“It’s still your crash site,” Storm said, raising his hands as if to surrender. “That hasn’t changed, obviously. It’s just one of those typical cover-your-ass things. I guess there was a superlight that went down in Ohio or something and some wires got crossed between you guys and us. Some higher-up who felt the need to justify his job decided we had to tighten up on our monitoring. Hence, policy change.”

Farrell fingered a cell phone clipped to his belt. “I think I have to call the IIC.”

Bryan had taught Storm this, too. The IIC was the Investigator-in-Charge, the person responsible for coordinating all the working groups, the highest ranking official at the site. If the IIC got involved, Storm might as well slap handcuffs on himself. Impersonating a federal official to gain access to a secure crash investigation site broke at least four laws he could think of off the top of his head. It would certainly land him in the local jail for a spell. Jones would probably let him rot there as punishment for allowing himself to get caught.

“I already talked to him,” Storm said, breezily. “But waste his time if you want to. I’m sure he’s got nothing better to do.”

Storm bent back over the piece of metal he had been studying. Farrell unclipped his cell phone. Storm readied himself to flee.

Farrell pushed the two-way talk button on the phone and said, “Hey, I’ll be back in a second. I’m just looking at something with this guy from the FAA.”

“The FAA?” the voice on the other end said.

“Yeah, I guess they’ve had some kind of policy change.”

“All right. See you back here in a bit.”

Storm felt his insides relax. He focused his attention — for real this time — on the piece of metal that had caught his eye previously.

“Pretty weird, huh?” Farrell said.

“I’ll say,” Storm replied.

“What do you think? It’s a piece of the forward pressure bulkhead, right?”

“Sure looks that way to me,” Storm said, as if he had personally studied hundreds, if not thousands, of forward pressure bulkheads.

“What do you think did that?” Farrell asked, pointing to a line that had been cut in the metal.

In a field full of things that had been twisted and sheared by the force of impact, this line was perfectly straight. Even Storm’s untrained eye could tell the angle was wrong. And yet the cut was incredibly precise.

“I don’t know,” Storm said.

Except he did know. Among Storm’s abiding interests were high-tech weaponry and gadgets, which he jokingly called “toys.” He was constantly pressing Jones to give him an inside line on the latest toys — the classified stuff that no one else got to see. Not long ago, Jones had arranged for Storm to make a visit to a military contractor for the demonstration of a new high-energy laser beam.

You could take down an airplane with this thing, the engineer had told him.

The words came back to Storm now. The weapon he had seen was still in beta version. It needed to be shrunk down to a more usable size and then made sturdy enough for the battlefield. What it didn’t need was more power. It was already a hundred kilowatts — the equivalent of one thousand 100-watt lightbulbs being focused in one tiny beam, only a few hundred nanometers wide.

The heat that resulted was incredibly intense. Storm had watched a demonstration of the laser easily slicing through a thick sheet of metal.

The incision looked exactly like the one that had been cut in the piece of metal in front of him.