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the other on top. She took out the notepad, dated the first sheet, and hesitated. While Emma itched to leave the airstrip, she knew she should stay with the wreckage. The authorities would search for the plane first. Staying near it would give her the best chance for rescue. Her only other options would be to run down the dirt road Smoking Man used, or follow the passengers into the forest. Emma wanted to avoid Smoking Man and his soldiers at any cost, and the guerrillas holding the passengers were no less frightening.
    She wrote, I’m still alive. The guerrillas took passengers into the jungle. About seventy. Cameron Sumner is one of them. The others I don’t know by name. I will stay near this crash site unless forced to leave.
    She signed the note, ripped it out of the pad, and placed it in her bags on top of the clothes. She stashed Sumner’s luggage under a palm and shoved her own next to it.
    The sky clouded over and an afternoon rainstorm began. Emma moved into the tree line. She sat with her back against a tree and watched the fat raindrops hit the dirt, making little puffs of smoke with each hit. The airplane sides sizzled. The charred bodies simply smoked.
    Emma sank into a torpor. She watched the rain pummel the earth in a hypnotic trance. She gazed at nothing, letting her mind wander. Once she was in the trees, the air felt thick with humidity and smelled like warm earth and green leaves. After the stench on the runway, Emma thought it was one of the sweetest smells she could imagine. She didn’t want to go back near the jet’s wreckage. She shrugged off her pack and lay down, using it as a pillow.
    8
    BANNER’S MEETING ENTERED ITS FIFTH HOUR. MIGUEL AND THE members of the military were gone, and Whitter was slumped in his chair and had untied his tie completely. On the wall a flat-screen television, set to CNN and muted, flashed a map of Colombia and some photos of people that Banner assumed were Colombian. It was the tenth time they’d seen the stock footage.
    Dispatching Miguel solved the immediate problem of search and rescue, and the meeting turned to intelligence gathering. The remaining attendees aired the information they knew about the flight, and now it was Stromeyer’s turn.
    “I’ve analyzed the data from the manifest. There are two or three interesting characters among the passengers.” Stromeyer handed around a copy of the plane’s manifest. Four names were highlighted.
    “First. Manuel Cordova Sanchez is listed as the copilot. He is a Colombian-trained pilot, his license is up-to-date, and his credentials more than adequate.”
    “So what’s the problem?” Banner said.
    “He is not, and never has been, an employee of British Airlines. He boarded the plane in Miami, using false identification and claiming that the real copilot was ill. He was ill all right. The police found him in his hotel room, dead.”
    “So he gets into the cockpit, threatens the pilot, and flies the plane into the mountains.”
    Stromeyer nodded. “That’s the current theory.”
    “Wouldn’t the pilot resist? He’s got a whole plane to assist him,” Whitter said.
    Stromeyer shrugged. “Depends on what was used to threaten him. He’s in charge of the plane, and perhaps he felt that the passengers stood a better chance to live if he didn’t resist.”
    “Isn’t there some action he could take?” Whitter said.
    “Yes, but nothing that would help if the hijacker has already made it to the cockpit. One protocol suggests he put on his mask and send the plane into a deep dive, which causes rapid depressurization and renders the passengers and any hijackers in the main cabin unconscious. But the copilot has his own mask and could use it to stay alert. Honestly, if there are any survivors, then whatever the pilot did was correct.”
    Whitter sighed. “I see what you mean.”
    “And the others?” Banner pointed to another highlighted name. “What about these two, Carlos and Consuelo Rivera?”
    “Let’s