No Man's Land

14- Misnomers and a Message

Maxine
*****

Anyone who watches cop shows knows about the always conveniently destroyed "Black Box". Mr. or Mrs. Protagonist always opens up the shot with a tense talk with some CSU bloke who is holding a black shape in their hand about how the device is too damaged to retrieve any data. In reality, Black Boxes are generally orange and can withstand quite a lot. Most of the time, when Black Boxes are broken it makes it clear that there was some foul play involved.

There was no doubt in any of our minds that the plane had been sabotaged, by this time. However, the state of the Black Box could be an indicator of the level of skill of the saboteur. Crouched at the back end of the plane, next to a lavatory that probably needed to be emptied, I tried to visually locate the orange device. My eyes caught onto a piece of loose metal on the wall, the edges of something barely visible. Using a torn metal rod as a wedge, I began to pry it off of the wall. Just as I thought, it came off to reveal an orange box.

The orange box looked relatively unharmed, save for two drilled holes. A Black Box is made to withstand strong impacts, fire, and water. However, apparently a hole through the power supply and a hole through the actual recorder was enough to render it lifeless. 

I climbed to my feet, box in hand, and began to climb to the ground. In a few minutes I was back at the camp. I taxi whistled to grab everyone's attention and waved all the present agents over as I sat the box on the ground.

"Looks like a pretty clean job." This was Scott Wiley, one of the Bureau agents. I nodded, quickly taking in the crowd. There were 11 agents present, most significantly lacking Magdalen, Chestine, and Jana. "You're the pilot, Mr. Edison. What's your take?" Louie shifted, running his eyes over the piece.

"I don't know as much about these as I'd like. They definitely targeted what they needed to effectively render it useless. An amateur wouldn't know that you can't just bash it in." Louie stared intently at the hunk of metal as if he were trying to decipher it. "Usually they check these before they go, so this would have happened during flight." For a moment, the group was silent. It was one of those instances where you could almost hear the whir of gears spinning in the several genius brains we were in the company of.

"Did you check the cockpit audio recorder?" Carrie asked. I shook my head quickly.

"I didn't know there was one."

"Yeah, it's under the console. It records the intercom feed of the flight attendants, pilot, flight engineer, etc. 2 hours of memory, but private airlines buff it up sometimes. Hold on," Carrie ran her eyes over the passengers, locking onto a man who looked to be in his thirties. She waved him over, and he hesitantly walked over.  They briefly exchanged words before she nodded her head in the direction of the plane.

I followed Carrie and the man into the cockpit, leaving the rest of them behind in the cabin. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the small smear of blood on the console from where Jana had presumably hit her head. I watched as the flight engineer quickly located the device's location and began prying off the metal panel which shielded it.

"Looks intact. I think I can rig it to the intercom if you want to listen to it," he offered.

"Sure, thanks." I replied quickly, sitting down on the pilot's chair. Within a few minutes, the intercom crackled to life. Not wanting to miss any details, we listened to idle chat and standard proceedings for around forty minutes before things started to pick up. Obviously, there had to be something. After all, why would the saboteur presumably keep it on if it could have incriminated them?  potentially?

"Mandy, could you get me a water?"

"Roger that, cap'n. Just need to finish up my second drink run."

"Thanks."

. . .

"Mandy? Could you call Banks in? Fatigue is killer, I must be getting old."

"Sure thing. Says he's in the middle a' something, though. Can ya hold on a couple minutes?"

"Did he tell you that? He's probably playing solitaire on his phone. Solitaire, I tell you! Kid acts older than me!"

The fight attendant laughed.

"He'll be up soon, sir."

. . .

"Well I guess I need to make this quick." I froze at the new voice.

"Pause it. Can you pause it? We need to get the others here," I quickly spoke. The flight engineer nodded, pressing some button or another.

"I'll get them." Carrie said, running off before I could respond. She returned after a few minutes, pulling Jana by the hand, with Parker not far behind. The few remaining agents piled in right outside of the cockpit, and the flight engineer took that as a sign for him to resume the audio.

"You've found the audio. Great job, detectives. Unfortunately, this isn't a solve the riddle and you live type of situation. Most of you will die in the crash, and those who remain won't last long. The passengers will turn to the agents for leadership, but will soon see just how instable many of you are. The odds aren't in your favor- there are traitors among your ranks. Figure out who they are, though, and you may just delay your deaths." There was a brief moment of silence.

"What a shame for so much potential to die so quickly." Jana took a slight step back at the new voice, noticeably biting her lip. Carrie cast her a troubling look, as if she and Jana were thinking the same thing.

"Michael. . ." Jana trailed off, turning to face him. "This is what you were talking about, right?"

"What, Jana?" I asked, taking a step forward.

"Why didn't you tell me?" She muttered, obviously trying to keep her voice low. Her jaw clenched and her hands were in fists at her sides. The false image she had been putting up started to falter.

"Because I knew how you'd react," he said, voice dangerously low as if he was warning her.

"I had the right to know. Not because of my personal position- it's my job to know, Michael."

"Jana, you need to clue us in." Parker interjected.

She looked down, hair swathing her face and concealing her expression.

"That's the voice of Esel Yavuz. Turkish warlord. We think he had a hand in what happened at the 840 Summit."

"Jana," Chestine warned.

"Hold kjeft." I frowned at the foreign language, unsure of what she had said.

"He wants me dead."

Hey everyone! Hope your non-denominational holidays have been great! So story's starting to progress, eh? The story's starting to pick up some momentum and eek it's making me happy so keep spreading the word and don't forget to vote!

Luv, -k