Fifteen of those on board, including the pilot, copilot, and the first-class passengers, had been inside the forward fuselage. The violent energy of the crash had snapped spines and skulls.

  The rest of the passengers had been cut apart and hurled free as the plane flipped and smashed and broke into fourteen large, ragged pieces. It quickly became clear there would be no survivors of AA 839.

  Shortly after midnight, dozens of officers and emergency workers from four different states donned full hazmat gear and began removing the remains that an army of crime scene techs had photographed, bagged, and coded based on their GPS locations. The gruesome job of recovery was so complicated that the last bodies would not leave the airport grounds for another thirty-two hours.

  Around three a.m., NTSB supervising investigator Bob Holland showed us bullet holes in the forward foil of the right wing and in the housing of the right engine.

  “Fifty-caliber,” Holland said. “Looks like he chewed up the left side, nose, and the forward landing gear, which is over there on the other side of the runway.”

  “How many rounds?” I asked.

  “I’m thinking a full belt. Two hundred at close range.”

  “Lot of destruction fast,” Sampson said.

  “Enough to say this is now officially a mass murder,” Mahoney said grimly.

  “You going to announce that?” Holland asked, looking pale.

  “In the morning. I want to see what ATF finds in Gravelly Point Park first.”

  But before we could go there, Ned came under more pressure. A media horde and scores of relatives and friends of passengers on American Airlines Flight 839 had gathered during the night in front of the closed airport and were demanding answers.

  Worse, airport managers were demanding to know when flights could resume. Reagan’s closure was causing a travel nightmare up and down the East Coast.

  After identifying himself, Mahoney had the brutal job of publicly announcing that there were no survivors of the crash, the cause of which was still under investigation. People began to wail and sob. A pregnant woman collapsed into another woman’s arms.

  “People are saying there was machine-gun fire!” one cable news reporter yelled.

  “We’re still working to confirm that,” Mahoney said. “We’ll have more for you later.”

  “Did the jet crash on its own or was it shot down?”

  “We’ll know more in the morning,” he said, and we left.

  Chapter

  9

  It was nearly four a.m. when we finally got to the crime scene perimeter around Gravelly Point Park, which had its own bank of lights shining on it; at least fifteen agents in hazmat suits were there, all wearing big headlamps that they trained on a twisted skeleton of charred steel in the parking lot.

  “Hard to say what kind of vehicle it was. Probably a van,” said ATF supervising special agent Alice Kershaw, who was also clad in hazmat gear. “Looks like he was doing his best to disintegrate whatever was inside.”

  “Did he succeed?” Mahoney said.

  “He blew a lot of it to smithereens, but we’re good at putting puzzle pieces together.”

  “What do you know so far?”

  “I don’t know how it was detonated yet, but it was a fertilizer bomb. A big one.”

  I said, “What about a machine gun?”

  “There was one here,” Kershaw said. “Still is, in parts. My guys found pieces of the receiver and barrel. And fifty-caliber casings, a lot of them in a spray north from the van. They think it’s an old Browning M two. Vietnam era.”

  Sampson said, “Let me get this straight. You think this guy was in the back of the van with his fifty-cal waiting specifically for this flight?”

  The ATF agent shook her head. “I can’t tell you if he was waiting for that particular plane or not, but I know for certain he was not in the van with the machine gun.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “We’ve found no body parts here, for one thing. That bomb was huge and threw a lot of metal, but no flesh so far. And we have witnesses who said the bomb went off within seconds of the plane going down, so he had to have been far away when he triggered it. We also found other pieces of the gun that were attached to brackets and fittings that suggest it might have been remotely controlled, probably hydraulically by a computer program of some kind.”

  She showed us a piece of tripod with melted plastic hydraulic lines fused to it and to part of the barrel, a section of a scorched track that she thought was used to position the rear of the gun, and pieces of the housing of a Dell laptop.

  I said, “Did he control the laptop with a phone?”

  “Maybe,” Kershaw said. “Probably. But I think he would have been too far away to do it by Bluetooth. It would be cellular.”

  Mahoney said, “Or satellite. Either way, we should be able to find a data record.”

  “That’s out of my wheelhouse,” she said and yawned. “We will know after my metal detectors get—” Kershaw paused when a female ATF agent came up with a bent, twisted, and punctured chunk of metal that looked like a crumpled magazine. “What have you got, Burns?”

  “Can’t get it open, boss, but I think it’s one of those thin metal clipboard boxes construction guys carry with their estimate forms inside. My dad used to have one.”

  “Okay.”

  Burns turned her flashlight beam on the metal box and into those punctures and gashes, revealing paper inside that had been more baked than incinerated, coal black in places but the rest of it the color of cured tobacco leaves.

  “You can read some of what’s on it through the big hole there,” the ATF agent said and she altered the angle of her flashlight.

  We all peered into the hole. Sampson got it first.

  “Avis,” he said. “The van was a rental.”

  Chapter

  10

  Bree was hovering in a groggy, half-awake state just before her alarm went off when Alex came creaking up the staircase of their home on Fifth Street in Southeast DC. He opened the bedroom door and slipped inside.

  She came alert and pushed herself up on one elbow. Alex was in the shadows, but Bree didn’t have to see her husband’s face to know how things had gone. The night was there in his posture.

  “It looked terrible on the news,” she whispered as he started to take off his clothes.

  “Carnage,” he said dully. “I’ve never seen anything like it. You almost didn’t know where not to look, if that makes sense. Heartbreaking in every direction.”

  “Speaking of—how are you feeling?”

  “I’m okay. Really.”

  “Was the plane shot down?”

  “Ned will announce it later this morning. Fifty-caliber remote-controlled machine gun and a fertilizer bomb to destroy evidence.”

  “No one taking credit?”

  “Not that we’ve heard.”

  Bree pulled back the blankets on Alex’s side of the bed. “Come get some sleep.”

  “I’ve got to get the smell off me or I won’t sleep a wink.” He went into the bathroom.

  Her phone buzzed. A text from Elena Martin, her boss. At 6:15 a.m.? Bree thumbed the screen. The text came up.

  Need you ASAP, Bree. Address to follow. This is urgent.

  Bree rolled out of bed just as the shower went on. She went in with Alex.

  “Here,” she said. She grabbed a large sponge, poured body wash on it, and soaped him from head to toe.

  “I can’t remember the last time someone washed me,” Alex said.

  “You looked like you needed it,” she said. “Now rinse off and get some sleep.”

  Alex mock saluted her, then kissed her. “I don’t know where I’d be mentally if I didn’t have someone like you to come home to.”

  “Ahh, that’s sweet, baby,” she said as she washed herself. “I feel the same way.”

  He got out of the shower, grabbed a towel, and yawned hard. “What’s on your plate today?”

  “Got to meet Elena ASAP,” Bree said. “She just texted me. Said it was urgent.”

  “Be safe, whatever it is,” he said. “Good night, and can you try to keep Ali quiet?”

  “As quiet as is humanly possible with your youngest child,” Bree said, turning off the shower. She got out and grabbed a towel. “I’ll be slinky-quiet going out of here.”

  “I like you slinky,” he said. He trudged to the bed, dropped his towel, and climbed in.

  He was asleep five minutes later when Bree left the bathroom after applying her makeup. She tiptoed into the walk-in closet, closed the door behind her, chose one of the navy-blue pantsuits she’d lived in as a police detective, and quickly dressed.

  Alex was snoring, a pillow over his head, when she crept out, shoes and bag in hand. She closed the bedroom door and made it down the stairs without a sound.

  Nana Mama, Alex’s ninety-something grandmother, was already in the kitchen, breaking eggs for omelets. Coffee dripped into the pot.

  “Was that Alex just coming in?” Nana asked.

  Bree nodded. “He looked like a punching bag.”

  Nana’s face fell. “I hate that he has to see all these things up close. Especially after everything that’s happened to him.”

  “That’s the job,” Bree said.

  “I know. I know, and he’s good at it.”

  “One of the best.”

  “I worry about the toll it takes on him to be one of the best.”

  “I do too, Nana,” Bree said, hugging her. “We just have to be there for him when he hurts.”

  Alex’s grandmother hugged her back. “Is he hurting?”

  “He’s sleeping right now,” Bree said, pulling away. “But he was, yes.”

  “What do you want in your omelet?”

  “Just having coffee this morning, Nana,” Bree said, going to a cabinet for a go-cup.

  “You should eat.”

  Before Bree could reply, her phone buzzed again with an address across the river in Rosslyn, Virginia, and the words Will meet you there in twenty.

  Bree’s car was parked three blocks away; she decided she’d get there faster if she took an Uber. She ordered it and headed to the door.

  “Where are you going now?” Nana asked.

  “Just over to Rosslyn.”

  “When does Alex want to get up?”

  “Let him sleep in. He needs it.”

  Chapter

  11

  Elena Martin was pacing in front of a high-rise in Rosslyn, alternately sipping nervously from a coffee and smoking a cigarette.

  Bree had never seen Elena smoke before. Or pace, for that matter. Bree’s boss, the founder and CEO of the international security firm the Bluestone Group, was ordinarily unflappable and always put together.

  Not that morning. No chic Chanel suit. No designer shoes. Elena wore faded blue sweatpants, old running shoes, and a dark windbreaker. Her light brown hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, and she wore dark sunglasses despite the overcast sky.

  Elena checked her watch when she caught sight of Bree. “At least one of you is on time,” Elena said. She stubbed the cigarette out in a potted plant.

  “Who are we waiting on?”

  Two young, well-dressed men came out of the apartment complex. After they were out of earshot, Elena said, “The personal assistant of a dear friend of mine who hasn’t been in touch with anyone in any way in three days.”

  “And that’s unusual?”

  “In the extreme,” Elena said. “Leigh Anne—she lives in this building, which is why we’re here—is one of those people who have to be connected. Always. If she doesn’t have at least one of her cells on, she feels like she’s stranded on a desert island.”

  “How do you know Leigh Anne’s phones aren’t on?”

  “She’s not answering my texts and when I call either number, it goes straight to voice mail, both of which were full as of shortly before that plane crash last night. I heard it, you know. It rattled the windows on my place.”

  Bree saw her boss’s hands shake as she fished in her windbreaker and came up with a pack of Winstons and a lighter.

  “I didn’t know you smoked, Elena.”

  “Until last night, I hadn’t smoked in fifteen years,” she said, looking disgusted as she stuffed the pack of cigarettes back in her pocket without lighting one.

  Bree said, “I guess I’m not completely understanding why your friend going silent over a weekend has got you this upset.”

  Elena tore off her sunglasses. She wore no makeup to conceal the dark rings under her eyes. “Leigh Anne is more than my best friend, Bree. We’re like sisters,” she said. “Close sisters. We text or talk two or three times a day and have since we were college roommates. Leigh Anne Asher does not go radio silent. Especially on me.”

  Leigh Anne Asher. Bree had heard the name somewhere but couldn’t remember where.

  Her boss said, “She’s the founder and CEO of Amalgam. They do IT, huge subscription service, incredible volume of government work. And they’re about to go public, which is another reason Leigh Anne would not cut everyone off. This is something she’s worked toward, sacrificed for, for more than a decade to achieve. It will make her an instant billionaire.”

  “Maybe the pressure of that got to her and she needed some space,” Bree said.

  “No,” Elena said. “Leigh Anne is good with the stress. She meditates twice a day, and she’s been looking forward to taking a long break after the IPO. She booked a private jet to take us and some other friends to Fiji for three weeks.”

  “When does the stock go public?”

  “Next Tuesday. And we’re supposed to go to Fiji three days later.”

  A freckle-faced redhead in her mid- to late twenties hurried up to them, breathing hard. “I’m so sorry, Elena. The Metro car stopped for ten minutes.”

  “It’s fine. You have the keys?”

  “Yes. And I know most of the security guards,” the young woman said. She looked at Bree. “Jill Jackson. I’m personal assistant to Ms. Asher.”

  “Bree Stone. I work for Elena.”

  “And she used to be chief of detectives for Metro PD,” Elena said. “Let’s go inside.”

  Jill Jackson nodded uncertainly and walked toward the front door. “It’s worth a shot, I guess, but like I said earlier, she’s not living here, she’s staying at an apartment in Alexandria. This apartment is still being renovated.”

  “It’s the only place we haven’t checked,” Elena said firmly.

  They went inside. The security guard recognized Asher’s assistant and when she said they wanted to check on the renovations, he waved them through. Elena asked the guard when Leigh Anne Asher had last been there. He checked his computer and said at ten in the morning on Friday.

  “What time did she leave?” Bree asked.

  “We don’t track that.”

  “What about security cameras? Can you take a look at whatever footage you have around that time, three days ago, ten a.m., while we check the apartment?”

  “What’s going on?” the guard asked.

  Bree was about to say Asher was missing when she caught Elena shaking her head. “We’re just trying to figure out a few things,” she said.

  They went to the elevator. Jackson used a key to unlock the penthouse button.

  “When was the last time you saw or talked to her?” Bree asked the assistant.

  The elevator began to rise. “On Friday, seven in the morning, by phone,” Jackson said. “We went through her schedule because I couldn’t come in. I had an appointment with my oncologist to get some tests done.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  She smiled. “I’m not. The tests came back negative, so I’m good. No cancer.”

  “Congratulations,” Bree said. “Who was the last person to hear from Leigh Anne?”

  Jackson said Chandler Ellison, Amalgam’s chairman of the board, spoke to Asher by phone around eleven on Friday morning.

  “After she came here?” Elena said as the elevator slowed.

  “Apparently,” Jackson said.

  “Tell me about her,” Bree said.

  “Leigh Anne? Smartest person I’ve ever known.”

  “I’ll second that,” Elena said. The elevator stopped and the door slid back, revealing a round foyer that was being plastered.

  “A genius, then?” Bree said, following them to a door on the far side.

  “We hire geniuses every day of the week at Amalgam,” Jill said. “From the Ivy League, MIT, Stanford. But Leigh Anne is like no one else at the company. She knows every detail of the business, from the new technology to customer service. Keeps it all in her head. Knows everyone who works at Amalgam by name, and there are five hundred and sixty-eight employees at the moment.”

  They went through a door and into a cavernous room with dramatic floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked Roosevelt Island and the Potomac River. “I hate to ask this,” Bree said, “but could you ever see her hurting herself?”

  Elena said, “Never. Leigh Anne is at peace.”

  “What do you think?” Bree asked Asher’s assistant.

  “Leigh Anne is the most chill person I know. And honestly, in the past couple of weeks, I’ve never seen her so happy.”

  “How so?”

  Jackson shrugged. “She had a lot to be happy about. The IPO. This incredible penthouse to live in. But it felt like it was more than that.”

  Elena frowned. “In what way?”

  “She was glowing. You know, the way you do when you’ve met someone special and you want to keep it a secret.”

  Chapter

  12

  Captain Marion Davis did not wake up until Johnny Unitas leaped onto the bed and landed on his chest.

  Captain Davis groaned at his cat. “C’mon, Johnny, there’s food in your bowl.” Davis’s head felt like it was going to explode. And his gut felt turbulent, churning with toxins.

  The cat, a Bengal, meowed loud enough for him to at last crack an eyelid open.