'I'm going to check the tax rols as soon as the courthouse opens tomorrow. Crowe's folowing up on the MPs.'

'Tomorrow's Saturday.'

'Damn.' I avoided the impulse to slap my forehead.

Preoccupied with Larke's dismissal of me, I'd lost al track of the days. Government buildings are closed on weekends.

'Damn,' I repeated for emphasis, and turned back toward the house. Ryan fel into step beside me.

'Interesting briefing today.'

'Oh?'

'The NTSB has compiled preliminary damage diagrams. Come to headquarters tomorrow and I'l pul them up for you.'

'Wil my presence cause you problems?'

'Cal me crazy.'

===OO=OOO=OO===

The investigation had taken over much of the Bryson City area. Up on Big Laurel, work continued at the NTSB command center and temporary morgue established at the crash site. Victim identification was progressing at the incident morgue housed in the Alarka Fire Department, and a family assistance center had been set up at the Sleep Inn on Veterans' Boulevard.

In addition, the federal government had rented space in the Bryson City Fire Department and alotted portions to the FBI, NTSB, ATF, and other organizations. At ten the next morning Ryan and I were seated at a desktop computer in one of the tiny cubicles honeycombing the building's upper floor. Between us were Jeff Lowrey, of the NTSB's cabin-interior documentation group, and Susan Katzenberg of the structures group.

As Katzenberg explained her group's preliminary ground-wreckage diagram, I kept a wary eye out for Larke Tyrel. Though I was with the feds, and not realy in violation of Larke's banishment, I didn't want a confrontation.

'Here's the wreckage triangle. The apex is at the crash site, then the trail extends back along the flight path for almost four miles. That's consistent with a parabolic descent from twenty-four thousand feet at approximately four miles per minute climbing to pure verticaly down.'

'I processed bodies recovered more than a mile from the primary wreckage field,' I said.

'The pressure hul was breached in midair, permitting the bodies to fal out in flight.'

'Where were the flight recorders?' I asked.

'They were found with pieces of the aft fuselage, about halfway along the wreckage trail.' She pointed at the screen. 'In the F-100 the recorders are located in the unpressurized fuselage aft of the rear pressure bulkhead. They went early when something blew out aft and up.'

'So the wreckage pattern is consistent with a midair disintegration sequence?'

'Yes. Anything without wings, that is, without aerodynamic lift generation, fals in a balistic trajectory, with the heavier stuff going farther horizontaly.'

She indicated a large cluster of items, then moved her finger along the trail.

'The initial wreckage on the ground would be the smal, light stuff.'

She pushed back from the computer and turned to Ryan and me.

'I hope that helps. Gotta run.'