To Save the Nation Page 3

  “Will I be able to interview them?”

  “I do not think so, Señor Alex. That is not our sistema—our protocol. They make a report, in writing, which may be public, but they do not make statements to the press. Also, they do not accept anyone other than their team or our people assisting in the investigation. That means that you are here strictly to observe, you understand, and if I say you must keep a certain distancia, then you must do that. And no photos. Comprende?”

  “Sure, I get it. No problem. And if I have any questions, I’ll just direct my questions to you, OK?”

  “Ask anything you want, Señor Alex, there is no problema to ask. But understand that I may not always be able to give you an answer.”

  “Fine. When are we leaving?”

  “We are waiting for one more group, the people from the funeral directors. They are coming with us to pick up the remains. The families have already been contacted, and they have given instructions.”

  A black hearse, more like a station wagon, turned the corner and pulled up alongside the convoy. Capitán Ramírez got into the passenger seat of the second Jeep, the crash investigators were in the third Jeep, Alex and Gonzalez climbed into the fourth Jeep, and the waiting Federal Police officers filled in all the seats of the other Jeeps. As the convoy pulled away, the hearse fell in line, just before the last Jeep.

  “How long a trip do we expect?” Alex asked.

  “Based on the information we have at this moment, my guess is less than an hour until we leave the road, then who knows how long off the road until we reach the site. We will be in touch with local people who can direct us as we get closer. Depending on what we find, you may not be back in your hotel tonight. Is that going to be a problem, Señor Alex?”

  “No, not a problem. I was just wondering.”

  “Do not worry about food, water, or accommodations. We have provisions for two days, and tents. It is not Acapulco, but there are villages in the area where we can take more food and drink if necessary. There are peasants living out there who are probably already at the site, checking it out. Unfortunately, there is not a lot we can do about that.”

  Gonzalez knew Alex wasn’t prepared for the horrific things he was going to see.

  This poor gringo isn’t going to sleep tonight, Gonzalez thought, and maybe not for many nights to come.

  CHAPTER 7

  HANDS WAVING IN THE AIR, three peasants signaled to the lead Jeep that the convoy should go no further. The peasants had located the crash site, and from there the members of the investigating team had to leave the road and head up the mountain on foot. It had taken them two hours after leaving the main road to reach that point.

  The two crash investigators, funeral directors, Alex, Gonzalez and most of the police left the Jeeps behind and followed the peasants along a narrow trail up the side of the mountain, through a thick forest. A few of the police stayed behind to watch over the Jeeps.

  It was about an hour before they stopped. Stench and smoke filled the air. One of the investigators dropped back and took Gonzalez aside, chattering to him in rapid-fire Spanish for a minute or so. As he left, Gonzalez motioned to Alex to step to the side as the others continued on.

  “What’s going on?” Alex asked. “Why aren’t we moving forward with the rest of them?”

  “Protocol, Señor Alex,” Gonzalez said. “We must give the lead investigator time to survey the situation before approaching the crash site. He will signal us by radio when we can move forward. We have to hold our position until he clears us to approach.”

  “So, what should I expect when we get up there?”

  “To tell you the truth, Señor Alex, I cannot tell you for sure. Based on the reports of explosion and fire, my guess is that the remains will be rostizado—how do you say? roasted?—charred to such a point that you cannot recognize them. Excuse my use of words, but that is the only way I can describe it. We really do not know if the explosion was first, which might have brought the plane down, or if the plane went down and the explosion was only upon impact. It will certainly be—how do you say in English—gut-wrenching?”

  Alex marveled at his choice of words. “Where do you get a chance to learn this type of word?”

  “I read a lot in English, I think you would call it ‘popular fiction.’ What the investigator told me is that we should keep our distance. He expects there could be pieces of twisted metal just waiting to cut us, parts which could still be hot from the fire, and pools of fuel still burning. One thing is for sure: Whatever you are smelling right now will get much stronger as we approach; there will be a smell that will choke you. Here, cover your mouth and nose with this.” Gonzalez handed Alex a red bandana, then put one on himself. “It is not a protective mask, but it may filter out some of the smoke and stench,” he said, and Alex immediately tied his bandana around his head, covering his nose and mouth.

  Forty-five minutes later, they received a signal over the walkie-talkie that they could advance. After twenty minutes of climbing over fallen trees and jumping from rock to rock to cross several streams, the plane came into view, in a partial clearing.

  The fuselage was virtually intact but completely burned, with its nose dug into the hillside. Three body bags were laid out on the ground about ten feet from the plane, with three corpses laid out next to them—presumably the pilot, co-pilot, and passenger—their charred bodies burned beyond recognition, as Gonzalez had predicted.

  Alex was about fifty yards back, his view partially obstructed by the team of police gathered around the funeral directors, who were working to put the blackened remains into the body bags. Dozens of peasants were also at the scene, but the police kept them off to the side. He tried to get closer, but Gonzalez held him back. He strained his eyes, and as the hot afternoon sun beat down on his head, the sweat dripped down his face and body. He wondered if it was the hike combined with the heat and humidity or the carnage in front of him that weakened his knees. He felt like he was going to heave but held it back.

  Alex wasn’t sure what he was seeing. Two corpses were full-sized, obviously large men, with head, arms and legs intact, though badly burned. The third, however, was truncated. No head, no hands; just a charred torso.

  Alex pulled off his bandana.

  “Señor Gonzalez, am I seeing right? How many corpses are out there on the ground?”

  “Three people—pilot, co-pilot, and passenger,” replied Gonzalez.

  “I didn’t ask who was on the manifest. Just tell me what you see, Señor Gonzalez; look out there, next to the body bags.”

  Gonzalez lifted his eyes and scanned the site again, from left to right and back again. The funeral directors were working quickly. It took them only a couple minutes to put the remains into the three body bags.

  “To tell the truth, Señor Alex, I am not sure what I saw. I think there were three bodies, but the last one, the one on the right, was much shorter, and I do not know if I saw a head, and the arms were very short, like maybe there were no hands. Maybe the head and hands were blown off.

  You know, when all that is left is charred flesh, you really cannot be sure what you are seeing.”

  As bad a scene as it was, Alex was not at all prepared for one of the corpses to be mutilated. He wondered if his mind was playing tricks on him—but then Gonzalez seemed to agree that something wasn’t right with one of the bodies.

  After finding no personal identification papers on any of the corpses, the funeral directors closed the body bags and pulled them aside so the rest of the investigation could continue.

  The investigators started taking photos of the site from several angles, then stretched a tape measure across the site and noted distances between the fuselage and all major parts. They found the wings on the ground about 100 yards away, apparently snapped off as the plane headed toward the ground and slashed through the forest. They took photos of the wings as well, then added their location to the site map.

  They climbed inside the plane and looked for the fl
ight recorder but returned empty-handed. Most of the instrumentation from the plane had been removed. They also found no personal identification papers anywhere in the plane.

  The baggage compartment had the remains of a burned suitcase in it, but it was open and empty. Aside from the fuselage, major components, and corpses, there was fairly little from which to draw any conclusions. Most of whatever might provide clues had apparently been salvaged by the local community, perhaps as curiosities or for later sale as souvenirs.

  The investigation lasted just over an hour. The lead investigator then came back to Alex and Gonzalez, wiped his brow, and related his tentative report in Spanish, which Gonzalez translated:

  “The cause of the crash appears to be pilot error. Although the nose gear was destroyed, the investigator focused on the plane’s flaps, or whatever remained of them. The flaps are used to permit the aircraft to make a steep descent just before landing without significantly increasing its speed. In this case, however, they appear to have been in a position for a steeper descent than the aircraft should have been making at the time. He concludes that the pilot’s timing was off, which led him to descend too rapidly, just before making it over the top of the mountain.

  “Given the remoteness of the crash site, he doubts they will bring back the parts of the aircraft for a fuller investigation. He will leave that to his superiors to decide, and that may depend on what the aircraft insurer wants to do and may require an additional trip. He suggests the American NTSB and the manufacturer may want to do their own investigations, but that will be up to them.

  “He says that further work could be done if they could find the black box, but he expects it’s now in the hands of someone who took it for salvage and may eventually put it up for sale in a village flea market. He offers the same comment on the missing instrument panel.

  “He does not care to speculate on the purposes of the present flight; his job is merely to investigate the cause of the crash.

  “As for the dead, based on the information in the flight plan and passenger manifest, and the bodily remains at the scene, he concludes that three people died in the crash: pilot and co-pilot, both Americans, and the passenger, one Ricardo Guttmann, of Argentine nationality.”

  “What happened to the head and hands of the third victim? asked Alex, probing. “Did we see correctly that there was only a charred torso going into the third body bag?”

  “No way of telling,” said the investigator through Gonzalez. “Maybe vandals or animals.” He offers that all three bodies were already removed from the plane and lined up in a row when the investigating team arrived.

  Alex continued to inquire. “But why aren’t the two other bodies touched? Animals wouldn’t be so picky as to focus on only one of three bodies. Which one was mutilated, and does the investigator have any idea why that one was chosen?”

  “The third victim was the passenger,” said Gonzalez, “because the other two wore the same belt, part of their official uniforms, with a heavy metal buckle which, even though melted, was still identifiable. The third had no such buckle on his belt, and thus was the passenger.”

  As to why the passenger’s body was mutilated, the investigator doesn’t know and doesn’t really care, because he has identified the dead based on the passenger list.

  Yes, the investigator had asked the peasants who were still around if they had any idea as to what might have happened to the third victim, what happened to the missing parts of the aircraft, and whether there was any money or drugs on the plane. They know nothing. They all say that by the time they got up to the crash site, everything was pretty much as it is now.

  Gonzalez cautioned Alex to report the official investigation results and not make any mention of the fact that only the passenger’s torso was found. No need to make any more of this than necessary. Small plane crashes aren’t that unusual and, according to Gonzalez, there was no need to torment the family by telling them the head and hands were missing. They were going to cremate anyhow, and the funeral directors had been ordered to deliver the remains directly to the crematorium.

  Given the expected condition of the body, the family had already been told none of them would be required to come to Mexico to make positive identification, and none would be present for the cremation. Only the cremains would be sent to them, in an urn, for a memorial service in Argentina.

  AS THE CONVOY MADE ITS WAY back to Acapulco, images from the crash site flashed through Alex’s mind, especially the mutilated body of the Argentine banker.

  Why in God’s name would someone want the head and hands of a corpse? Was there a bounty involved? Was this a set-up and attempt to avoid positive identification? Why weren’t the Mexican authorities more concerned?

  His nostrils held the stench of death and burning jet fuel.

  Capitán Ramírez was kind enough to stop by the hotel so Alex could pick up his bag. Alex quickly changed into the clothes he’d worn to the beach, still carrying the odor of sweat, but at least they didn’t smell like the horrible sight he’d just seen. They continued to the airport. Curiously, there was little discussion on the way back about the crash site, but Alex knew precisely what he could report. Gonzalez had been clear about that. After a polite goodbye and thank you, Alex raced through the terminal to catch the last flight of the day back to Mexico City, eager to return to his apartment to get working on the story.

  AFTER BREWING A FRESH POT OF COFFEE, Alex started writing, then decided to call Jim Ferguson in Acapulco with an update. Jim picked up on the first ring.

  “Hey, Jim, it’s me, Alex. You been waiting by the phone for my call?”

  “Actually, I’m just packing up my stuff to head back to Dallas tomorrow. How did you survive your guided tour of the outback?”

  “I made it through. Quite a scene, actually, one I wouldn’t want to have to see again. I suspect some real intrigue. The Mexicans are treating this as an accidental air crash—pilot error, they say—but I think there’s something bigger.”

  “Should I be watching the newspaper for evidence of your literary talents?”

  “This could be really huge. I told you the passenger, the Argentine banker, was a major player on the international banking scene. Something tells me an empire is about to collapse. A guy this important doesn’t just drop out of the sky without other consequences. And I saw some weird things I’m not allowed to report—the Mexican Federal Police have essentially put a ‘gag order’ on me—I’m not supposed to write what I actually saw, just report ‘the official story.’ My boss is beholden to these guys, so if I go beyond, my job is probably at risk, and maybe more. But this is such a hot one, maybe my chance to break out of the mold—”

  “Hey, there’s more to life than a Pulitzer. Don’t let your journalistic ambitions get the best of you! You’re the new kid on the block—relatively new at the job, and new to Mexico. Go by the book and do exactly as you were told. If there are implications of this guy’s demise, you can report them as they happen. And think about your boss: He got a heads-up on this story from the Mexican Federal Police, and if you screw up his relationship with them, there could be hell to pay.”

  “Thanks for the advice, counselor, and for a good time in Acapulco. But I’m still mulling over how to handle this one, and I’ve got some writing to do before I hit the sack. It’s been a really long day. I’ll fax you a copy of the story once it’s out.”

  Alex had barely hung up when the phone rang.

  “Yeah, I’m back at it, Hal. I should have something for you first thing in the morning. Gruesome scene, really.”

  McDonald spent a minute on chit-chat, then tried to get some of the details of what Alex saw, but Alex was determined to keep this his story.

  “OK, whatever you say. I’ll keep it brief, a couple hundred words, and we’ll talk about developing it further over the coming days.”

  Alex resented McDonald’s tight control not only over content, but also length and style, but he didn’t feel he was in any position t
o challenge him directly. He knew he wouldn’t budge and there was no negotiating with the Mexican Federal Police about what could be in the story.

  Several drafts later, Alex turned out the lights and slipped into bed. It was after midnight.

  CHAPTER 8

  ALEX ARRIVED AT THE OFFICE at seven and took the elevator up to the fifth-floor offices of United Press International. He marched straight to McDonald’s office at the end of the hall and, after hesitating briefly, left a draft of the release on his desk.

  At around eight, he appeared at McDonald’s open office door and knocked politely to announce his presence.

  “So what do you think? Have I captured the essence of a twenty-four hour venture to hell and back?” Alex asked, somewhat sarcastically.

  “Not bad, and I’ve taken the liberty to tighten it up a bit for you. Tell me what you think.”

  Hal picked up the draft with his handwritten changes, raised his eyeglasses into position, and read the text aloud:

  “In the late evening hours of November 25, a private charter jet carrying Argentine banker Ricardo Guttmann crashed in a mountainous jungle area minutes prior to its scheduled landing in Acapulco, Mexico. Reported dead were Guttmann, along with a pilot and co-pilot from Executive Air, a New York air charter operator. Mexican authorities investigating the crash have determined the cause was pilot error. The aircraft was a Gates Learjet 24B, which has been in service for many years and has an excellent safety record. Guttmann has banking interests in Argentina, Belgium, Luxembourg, Israel, and New York. Telephone calls to his corporate headquarters in Buenos Aires have gone unanswered.”

  “To tell you the truth, I like your style, Alex. Clearly factual, no drama, and I only tweaked it a bit. Remember, this isn’t literary stuff; it’s financial journalism. Our readers don’t want to smell the jet fuel and burning corpses; they just want to know how this calamity is going to affect the market, the banking and aircraft industries.” McDonald seemed pleased that he’d been able to put his imprint on Alex’s writing.