Sole Survivor

that Blane broke his nose.”
        Even reading the transcript, Joe could hear Santorelli's terror and his frantic determination to survive.
        SANTORELLI: Oh, Jesus. No, Jesus, no.
        BLANE: (laughter) Whoooaaaa. Here we go, Dr. Ramlock. Dr. Blom, here we go.
        SANTORELLI: Pull!
        BLANE: (laughter) Whoooaaa. (laughter) Are we recording?
        SANTORELLI: Pull up!
         Santorelli is breathing rapidly, wheezing. He's grunting, struggling with something, maybe with Blane, but it sounds more like he's fighting the control wheel. If Blane's respiration rate is elevated at all, it's not registering on the tape.
        SANTORELLI: Shit, shit!
        BLANE: Are we recording?
        Baffled, Joe said, “Why does he keep asking about it being recorded?”
        Barbara shook her head. “I don't know.”
        “He's a pilot for how long?”
        “Over twenty years.”
        “He'd know the cockpit voice recorder is always working. Right?”
        “He should know. Yeah. But he's not exactly in his right mind, is he?”
        Joe read the final words of the two men.
        
        SANTORELLI: Pull!
        BLANE: Oh, wow.
        SANTORELLI: Mother of God
        BLANE: Oh, yeah.
        SANTORELLI: No.
        BLANE: (childlike excitement) Oh, yeah.
        SANTORELLI: Susan.
        BLANE: Now. Look.
         Santorelli begins to scream.
        BLANE: Cool.
         Santorelli's scream is three and a half seconds long, lasting to the end of the recording, which is terminated by impact.
        Wind swept the meadow grass. The sky was swollen with a waiting deluge. Nature was in a cleansing mood.
        Joe folded the three sheets of paper. He tucked them into a jacket pocket.
        For a while he couldn't speak.
        Distant lightning. Thunder. Clouds in motion.
        Finally, gazing into the crater, Joe said, “Santorelli's last word was a name.”
        “Susan.”
        “Who is she?”
        “His wife.”
        “I thought so.”
        At the end, no more entreaties to God, no more pleas for divine mercy. At the end, a bleak acceptance. A name said lovingly, with regret and terrible longing but perhaps also with a measure of hope. And in the mind's eye not the cruel earth hurtling nearer or the darkness after, but a cherished face.
        Again, for a while, Joe could not speak.

----

    11
        
        From the impact crater, Barbara Christman led Joe farther up the sloping meadow and to the north, to a spot no more than twenty yards from the cluster of dead, charred aspens.
        “Here somewhere, in this general area, if I remember right,” she said. “But what does it matter?”
        When they had first stood together in this field, she had told him that on her arrival the morning after the crash, the debris was so finely chopped it didn't appear to be the wreckage of an airliner. Virtually no piece was larger than a car door. Only two objects were immediately recognizable-a portion of one of the engines and a three-unit passenger-seat module.
        He said, “Three seats, side by side?”
        “Yes.”
        “Upright?”
        “Yes. What's your point?”
        “Could you identify what part of the plane the seats were from?”
        “Joe-”
        “From what part of the plane?” he repeated patiently.
        “Couldn't have been from first class, and not from business class on either the main deck or the upper, because those are all two-seat modules. The centre rows in economy class have four seats, so it had to come from the port or starboard rows in economy.”
        “Damaged?”
        “Of course.”
        “Badly?”
        “Not as badly as you'd expect.”
        “Burned?”
        “Not entirely.”
        “Burned at all?”
        “As I remember… there were just a few small scorch marks, a little soot.”
        “In fact, wasn't the upholstery virtually intact?”
        Her broad clear face now clouded with concern. “Joe, no one survived this crash.”
        “Was the upholstery intact?” he pressed.
        “As I remember, it was slightly torn. Nothing serious.”
        “Blood on the upholstery?”
        “I don't recall.”
        “Any bodies in the seats?”
        “No.”
        “Body parts?”
        “No.”
        “Lap belts still attached?”
        “I don't remember. I suppose so.”
        “If the lap belts were