Raider

Chapter 2

2

Miranda hated this.

There were accidents that were going to forever be classified as “No cause determined.”

Sometimes the plane was never found. This only happened once every year or so, and was rarely dramatic enough to make the news. Thankfully, a loss like that of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 was otherwise unheard of.

Occasionally an airplane was unrecoverable despite knowing its location. Early in her career, she’d investigated a flight that had ended up in the bottom of a deep Arctic lake. No question about the location, because of the few pieces that had floated to the cold surface. She still remembered the sharp scent of chilled pine that had pervaded the remote lake as a fishing guide had motored her back and forth across a surface so still and reflective that it looked like the sky continued down into the dark water. A seat cushion, a teenage girl’s gym bag, a disposable coffee mug.

There’d been numerous pilot errors in weather judgment and load planning. The accumulated factors had so clearly indicated human error that no one had been willing to bear the expense of recovering the aircraft itself.

But to have the aircraft, both of the aircraft, available, and still have no clear direction of investigation was…

Miranda pulled out her personal notebook while the other three continued arguing. She flipped to the emotions page.

Negative category.

She began scanning the emojis pasted there and their labels.

Irritated? No. Too frowny.

Not angry. Too red-cheeked.

Irksome! She tried the expression herself, squinting with just one eye, and one cheek pulling a straight-line mouth to just one side.

Yes, irksome was a good word to describe what she was feeling.

She tucked the notebook away and contemplated Jeremy’s list still on the screen. He’d done his usual, very thorough job.

“If I can’t solve this…”

“If you can’t solve it, no one else could, Miranda. You know that, don’t you?” Mike was the only one sitting close enough to overhear her worry.

Did she know that?

Miranda tried to judge Mike’s smile to see if he was joking.

No. He didn’t appear to be.

To calm herself, she closed her eyes and did a round of “box” breathing. Four breaths. Count of four in. Hold for four. Count of four out.

The last exhale of the last breath was jarred out of her by the sudden ringing of her phone.

It was a special ring that she’d programmed for Jill at the NTSB.

It began as a low whine, a TF-39 jet engine winding up from pre-start. She’d made the recording herself quite close to a C-5B Galaxy transport, the same model as her first-ever military crash investigation. It rapidly grew to unnerving, a reminder to answer it quickly.

They all knew the sound of that ringtone. Mike’s groan was emphatic. Jeremy’s shoulders sagged. The team was exhausted and really deserved a break. She didn’t feel much better.

“This is Miranda Chase speaking.”

“Hello, Miranda Chase speaking,” Jill always greeted her that way. Always cheerful and with a ready laugh, though Miranda occasionally thought that she herself might be the target of the latter more than others. Or maybe that upbeat attitude was the reason that Jill ran the NTSB’s launch desk. “We have a launch for you.”

Holly flopped sideways on the couch clutching her throat with both hands as if she was choking. Then she went so suddenly lax that Miranda was afraid she might have actually hurt herself.

Mike poked her in the ribs, at which point Holly flinched, then batted his hand aside. “Leave me alone. I’m dying here.”

She wasn’t dead. That was good.

“Are there any other teams available?”

The others looked at her in shock, she was fairly sure it was shock. Admittedly, it wasn’t like her to turn down a launch for any reason.

“Sorry, Miranda. This is classified military. Rafe is the only other one with sufficient clearance and his team is presently in the Florida Everglades being chased by alligators.”

“Why is he being chased by alligators?”

“Commuter flight went down there. Alligators have this thing about crash investigators; they think we’re extra tasty.”

“Oh,” Miranda would have to be careful to watch out for that in the future, though she was unsure why an NTSB team member would be more, or less for that matter, tasty than a crash victim. She’d never known alligators were so discerning. Was that a Crocodilia order-level trait, or was there a family-level taste differentiation between Alligatoridae and Crocodylidae?

“Besides, it was a by-name request for you and your team. That’s all I have other than a destination.”

When Jill told her where, Miranda could only sigh. Yes, it was a launch she couldn’t turn down.

Even as she looked up, a sleek business jet swooped by the office windows to land on the runway. It was the first aircraft to use the runway since the rest of the team’s arrival an hour ago. She did like the solitude of Tacoma Narrows Airport.

The touchdown was good. The pilot’s timing was impeccable.