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fragments by a precocious child: wings here and thorax there and abdomen over there. It was just a smoldering mess of iron and plastic and composite. Fuselage crushed and rotors snapped off, tail boom flattened and jutting up vertically now like an exclamation mark. The entire thing was burning, fuel tanks rupturing on impact and spraying gasoline in every which direction, creating a flaming wall that kept everyone away from the wreckage. The flames were burning out gradually, but it was still pretty hot and dangerous if you got too close.
    Things were sputtering and popping. Now and again, a sizzling piece of metal broke free or was ejected by pressure and heat.
    â€œShit and shit,” Coyle said.
    â€œOh boy, oh my God,” Special Ed kept saying, circling around in his ECWs, bunny boots crunching on the hardpack.
    Frye’s team—which was composed of Frye, a kid they called Slim, and Flagg, the camp doctor—just stood there hopelessly, knowing there wasn’t a damn thing they could do. The heat was melting the snow and ice, putting out a barrier that was hot like a breath from a kiln.
    Frye just shook his head, unmoved by it all. “Sweet little mess, ain’t she?” he said, spitting tobacco juice into the snow. “Jee-ZUZ-Christ, what a clusterfuck. Where’d this guy get his chopper license? Box of Cracker Jacks?”
    Nobody commented on Frye’s sensitivity to it all. That was Frye. Down deep, he was good as gold, but on the outside just plain crusty.
    â€œSo what’re we supposed to do, Ed?” Horn was saying. “Whoever was on her is toast.”
    â€œShow some respect,” Flagg said, the wind ruffling the fur of his parka.
    Horn shrugged. “It’s cool, Doc.”
    Frye spat another stream of tobacco juice at a smoking shard of metal. “He’s right, though. Ain’t nothing alive in that mess. Crew must be tater tots by now. Can’t even see nothing in there that looks like a man. Unless you got a big spatula to flip ‘em over with, ain’t shit we can do.”
    â€œThat’s enough,” Flagg said. “Good God, there were men on board.”
    â€œAin’t no men there now, Doc. Whatever was on board is bacon fried real crispy.”
    â€œDude, that’s cold,” Slim said.
    â€œI want your opinion, sunshine, I’ll ask for it,” Frye told him.
    Slim was a General Assistant, a GA, which meant he pulled any shit job that came along. And this was beginning to look like one of those.
    Coyle stood there, the heat coming off the wreckage so intense that he could have stripped down to a t-shirt and shorts. As it was, he was sweating in his heavy ECWs, his Extreme Cold Weather gear. He backed away, smelling acrid fumes of burning fuel and scorched metal, less pleasant odors that he figured were probably human flesh and bone. The wind shifted and blew smoke right into everyone’s faces. Coughing and fanning the air, they stepped further back.
    â€œMust’ve come down damn hard,” Frye said. “Looks like she went nose first right into the ice. That’s funny.”
    â€œWhy?” Slim wanted to know.
    â€œBecause, kid, it ain’t right. I’ve seen chopper crashes out here before. What usually happens is that the pilot has mechanical failure or whiteout conditions confuse him and he skims the ice. Either way, the chopper comes in horizontally with the ice, see? Follows the plane. This one looks like it was driven down vertically.”
    â€œOh,” Slim said, not getting it at all.
    But Coyle was getting it and so were the others by the looks on their faces.
    â€œYou’re right,” Horn said, pulling off his hood and hat, wrapping an American flag bandanna over his sweating head which was steaming in the wind. “Looks like that pilot drove her straight down like a nail. Like maybe he did it on purpose.”
    Special Ed kept opening and closing his mouth like a fish