16
Clarissa had madeit through the security layers surrounding the disaster of the George and the adjoining block, but was balked at the edge of the partially collapsed hotel.
After a consultation with the fire chief, Taz and Jeremy had donned hard hats and, joined by two firefighters, moved into the wreckage. She wanted to requisition a hard hat of her own, but her heeled boots would be worse than useless in the rubble and her clothes would be in ruins.
They were probably already unsalvageable from a hundred tiny injustices. The sooty handprint on her shoulder where a fireman had steadied her after she tripped over a hose. The touch of a walking wounded on her elbow as he asked her if this was where the tour started. A woman, unaware of her condition, had let a medic guide her away, but not before she’d left behind a bloody outline of her fingers on the forearm of Clarissa’s blouse.
Besides, the fire chief had looked at her like she was a piece of human slime after he glanced at her ID. Obviously not a fan.
“What do you think they’re doing?” Rose had stopped beside her, without a single mark on her. “Are they searching for Hunter?”
Rose must be feeling some degree of shock if she thought that was even possible. Instead, Clarissa focused on Taz and Jeremy, then recognized the action from when she’d assisted Miranda with investigating Clark’s crash.
“That device Jeremy is waving around is looking for the signal from the black box flight recorder.” He looked to be happily explaining all of the details to the firefighters. They were spending all of their attention on the remains of looming walls and cave-ins of rubble into the below-ground stories.
“And it wouldn’t have burned up in the fire?”
“It depends. They’re very tough. The one on Clark’s helicopter survived. I had to listen to his last words as part of the crash investigation.” She managed to finish the sentence, though it tried to strangle her. She’d been so angry at him for dying. And hearing his voice from the grave had given her nightmares for days.
Jeremy stopped and began heaving aside bricks and shards of metal. The firefighters joined him while Taz held a portable floodlight for them. It was only a matter of minutes before Jeremy was carrying a bright orange object the size of a large handbag.
Once they reached where she and Rose waited on the sidewalk where the entrance to Bistro Bis had stood, the firefighters waved and left. They looked very relieved to be out of the guts of the hotel and shifting back to the fire, which had moved down the block.
Jeremy made quick work of disassembling the recorder until he held a section shaped like an oversized soup can.
The fire chief came by to inspect what they’d found. He nodded sagely twice before cutting off Jeremy in mid-excited explanation with a friendly pat on the shoulder. Then after a brief discussion about eventually recovering the cockpit, he returned to his fire.
Jeremy studied the orange case closely. “The chassis is fried, but exposure to temperatures over the melting point of aluminum appear to be brief. That’s based on the limited deformation of the airplane’s structural elements that were co-located with the black box. I anticipate a good chance of data recovery.”
“That’s…nice.” Clarissa’s attempt to sound supportive was so lame that Taz twisted to glare at her.
“It is, isn’t it?” Jeremy slid the orange can into a plastic bag, then slipped it into his pack. “I’d like to get a look at the cockpit, but the fire chief says that we can’t do that until a crane arrives sometime tomorrow.”
Clarissa followed the direction of his upward gesture.
High above, embedded near the very pinnacle of what little structure remained, was a mostly circular imprint.
“It appears to be the broken-off nose section of the aircraft. Severely foreshortened by the impact with the building, then broken free from the rest of the airframe, which is scattered in the rubble. There probably won’t be anything recoverable, but I asked him to see if he can obtain any identity information regarding the pilot or pilots once they can access the wreckage.”
Clarissa should have thought of that, though air-crash investigations weren’t her normal area of expertise. Maybe she could make some quick points with them, and then get them refocused on the aircraft carrier incident. She called the cyber twins.
“You found us,” Heidi answered. Her voicemail sounded exactly the same as when she answered herself.
Clarissa paused for a moment to see if the message continued:Well, you didn’t really, but you found—
It didn’t; she had actually found them.
She didn’t need to ask if Harry was with her, they were inseparable.
Clark would have been that way if she’d let him. He’d claimed that he was never happier than when Clarissa was at his side. It wasn’t an effect she’d ever had on a man before. As annoying as she’d found it, a part of her wondered if she’d ever find that again.
Neither did she need to ask where her two tame hackers were, not even on a Friday night before a holiday. That was the advantage of giving them unlimited access to several of the most powerful computers in existence—they were rarely away from the basement lab under the CIA’s New Headquarters Building.
“An Air Force jet has crashed into the George hotel in downtown.”
“It’s quite the spectacle on TV right now. CNN is all over it.” Heidi was as cheerful as ever. “Wait! Did you say Air Force? It was one of ours?”
“Who were—”