He looked at me a very long moment. I stared back. The tension between us was palpable.

'This is not the place, Tempe, but we do need to talk. I am a fair man, but I have acted unfairly. There have been pressures.'

'Complaints.'

Though Maggie kept her eyes down, the rhythm of her trowel changed. I knew she was listening.

'Even wise people make unwise choices.'

With that, he was gone.

Again, I wondered what he meant. Whose unwise choices? Mine? His? Someone else's?

The next forty-eight hours were spent with trowels and brushes and human bones. My team dug and documented while Crowe's deputies hauled and sifted dirt. Ryan brought me coffee and doughnuts and news of the crash. McMahon brought me reports on the operation upstairs. I gave him Mr. Veckhoff's diary, and explained my notes and theories during lunch breaks.

I forgot the names engraved in stone. I forgot the strange caricatures watching silently from wals and ceilings. I forgot the bizarre underground chambers and caves in which I worked.

We recovered eight people in al, the last on Haloween.

The folowing day we learned who blew up Air TransSouth 228.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

'A pipe. The kind that you put in your mouth and smoke.'

McMahon nodded.

'In a checked bag.' My voice registered my incredulity.

'An airline employee remembers teling this guy arriving at the last moment that his duffel was too large for the overhead bin and he would have to check it. The guy was sweaty and distracted, and puled off his sport jacket and stuffed it into the duffel before giving it to a baggage handler. They're saying he left a hot pipe in the pocket of the jacket.'

'What about smoke detectors? Fire detectors?'

'Baggage compartments don't have them.'

Ryan, McMahon, and I were seated in folding chairs in a briefing room at NTSB central. I could see Larke Tyrel at the end of our row. The front of the room was filed with personnel of the response and investigative teams, the back crammed with journalists.

Magnus Jackson was making a statement, projecting visuals onto a screen behind him.

'Air TransSouth 228 was brought down by an unpredictable confluence of events resulting in fire, explosion, depressurization, and in-flight breakup. In that order. I'l take it step by step, take questions when I'm done.'

Jackson worked the keys of a laptop, bringing up a diagram of the passenger cabin.

'On October fourth, at approximately eleven forty-five A.M. passenger Walter Lindenbaum presented himself to Air TransSouth agent James Sartore for boarding of Flight 228. Agent Sartore had just announced last cal for boarding and stated that Mr. Lindenbaum was extremely agitated, concerned that his late arrival had caused the forfeiture 228. Agent Sartore had just announced last cal for boarding and stated that Mr. Lindenbaum was extremely agitated, concerned that his late arrival had caused the forfeiture of his seat.