The Synapse Sequence by Daniel Godfrey

Author:Daniel Godfrey
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Titan

24

SEAN WAS STILL there.

I opened my eyes, and he was still there. I turned, startled, and found Grace looking at me – inches from my face, her hand resting gently on my shoulder. I shrugged it off, not appreciating the physical contact, and shrank into my chair. Hoping it would swallow me up.

‘I’m fine,’ I said.

‘You were talking about N’Golo Durrant.’

‘I’m fine,’ I repeated. N’Golo was gone. For how long he’d leave me alone, though, I couldn’t be sure. ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

‘I think you’d better start this again tomorrow,’ Grace said.

‘No,’ I said, trying to be firm but failing. ‘I’m fine. I’m enjoying it.’

The stand-off that followed lasted a few seconds, but a sudden flashing light on her belt caused Grace to retreat all the way out of the conservatory. For a moment I wondered if Charley would come and replace her, but she didn’t, and I found myself completely alone with Sean. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

‘On first arriving at a crash site,’ I said, not answering his question, ‘the first thing you do is try to locate the four compass points of the plane. Nose, tail, and the two wings.’

‘You don’t check for survivors?’

‘No. Ambulance and fire teams do that. We just need to know if anyone survived so we can interview them later.’

‘But they were all dead, in Tanzania?’

‘The plane came down all the way from its cruising height,’ I said, reminding him. ‘The entire American negotiation team perished. No survivors. Little in the way of bodies, actually.’

Sean checked over his shoulder. There was no sign of Grace. I squinted in the direction he’d been looking but gave up. I couldn’t really see the doorway from the conservatory through to the main body of the nursing home; it all blurred into the myopic.

‘You can tell a lot about how a plane has been brought down by the pattern of the wreckage,’ I continued. ‘A single bomb will tend to scatter it over a large area, whereas a plane going down in one piece tends to make a more compact crash site.’

‘And what did you find in Tanzania?’

‘Pretty much all of the plane had come down in a small area. Nose first, wing tips where they should be… no problem finding the two black boxes.’

‘But…?’

‘The tail was missing.’ I laughed. ‘We found bits of it over a day later using drones.’

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Drones were still a bit of a gimmick back then. But the one we had was fitted with software to help look for bits of aircraft. We would never have found the damn thing without it. Even when I was stood a few feet away, I didn’t really see it.’

‘So whatever happened, it affected the tail.’

‘The tail came off the plane, which meant the pilot had no control. As soon as it detached, a crash became inevitable. Not even an automated system could have averted it for that type of plane. Game over.’

Sean made some more notes. ‘And what did the black boxes tell you?’

I zoned out a little.

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