Passenger 19 by Ward Larsen

Author:Ward Larsen [Larsen, Ward]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-60809-167-6
Publisher: Oceanview Publishing
Published: 2016-01-02T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOUR

It was nearly ten o’clock when Davis got back to his room. He arrived to find a note from Delacorte taped to his door:

I have information that would interest you. Room 302.

Davis climbed one flight of stairs, rounded the building and found 302 on the back side. The door was open and he found Delacorte sitting on a chair near the window. The room was much like his own, except the painting on the wall was of a mission-style church instead of a conquistador.

“I thought they put flankers up at the Ritz,” said Davis.

“I would prefer anywhere but this room. My air conditioner has stopped working.”

Davis saw a window-mounted air conditioner. The control panel had been removed, and wires dangled free like so much overcooked spaghetti. “Looks like you’ve already tried to fix it.”

“The fan motor has seized—there is no hope.” Delacorte fanned himself with a tourist brochure. “It does not get so hot in Paris.”

“If you want to drag your mattress around the corner you can bunk with me.”

“No, but thank you for offering.”

“I got your note. What’s the interesting information?”

“What you said earlier about landing on an unimproved field,” he raised a finger to imply a revelation, “it caused me to think of other possibilities.”

“Such as?”

“You have suggested that Flight 223 made an interim landing, after taking off from Bogotá but before the crash. We also have a dead copilot to consider, and another man dressed in a TAC-Air captain’s uniform, but who has not been identified.”

Davis nodded. “Not to mention the pastry chef who ended up as pilot-in-command.”

“It will be a challenge, I think, to construct a scenario that brings all these things together.”

“To say the least.”

“I’m afraid I have—what is the term in America?—one more wrench to throw in your machine.”

“By all means, toss away.”

Delacorte pulled out a tablet computer and kept talking as he typed. “In studying the hull I have discovered that certain parts remain missing. Of course, this is not at all unusual in such a devastating crash. There was, however, one absence I thought strange.” He turned the screen to show Davis a photograph of the forward side fuselage. “The main entry door is nowhere to be found.”

Davis studied the picture. He had seen the opening before, even stepped through it once, yet he’d attached no particular significance to the missing door. “Nobody mentioned that it hadn’t been found. I assumed it had broken off and was probably retrieved from the undergrowth.”

“A reasonable assumption. You and I often encounter missing doors. It is usually the result of an evacuation, or sometimes they are removed and discarded in haste by firefighting crews.”

Delacorte was right—doors were often absent. Such a normal occurrence, in fact, that he hadn’t seen it as relevant.

Delacorte continued, “The cabin of an ARJ-35 has four access doors. At the front you have a port-side entry door, the one we are missing, and an opposing starboard service door that was undisturbed in the crash sequence. Aft of these are two small emergency exit hatches, one above each wing.

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