Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist Aftermath by Peter Telep Page A

choppers/gunships from the new Russian military base in
     Tskhinvali, Georgia, 120 kilometers southwest of the crash site. Their ETA was approximately
     eight minutes.
    They descended the tree, and once on solid ground, Fisher helped Briggs remove and
     hide his jump gear.
    As the sun disappeared behind the ice-slick canopy and their breaths turned heavy
     on the air, they tugged down their trifocal goggles with high-frequency sonar detection
     and sprinted for the crash site.

7
    AS part of the team’s investigation into Kasperov’s disappearance, Fisher had reviewed
     a lengthy catalog of the software giant’s personal assets—jets, yachts, vacation properties,
     and even an automobile collection that rivaled talk show host Jay Leno’s. In regard
     to planes, Kasperov had a fleet of seven private aircraft that ran the gamut from
     smaller luxury jets to a giant Airbus A380 fit for an Arab sheik. Two years prior,
     Brazilian aerospace conglomerate Embraer S.A. had constructed for Kasperov a Legacy
     650 they described as an airborne palace and state-of-the-art mobile business suite.
     The plane had a crew of two with optional flight attendant and total capacity of thirteen
     passengers plus one in the cockpit jump seat. The 650 was eighty-six feet long, with
     a wingspan of sixty-eight feet, and was powered by two Rolls-Royce AE 3007/A1P turbofans.
     Her max speed was 518 mph, with a service ceiling of 41,000 feet.
    The price tag? A whopping thirty-one million dollars.
    Kasperov probably had great insurance, too, and he’d need it, because as Fisher and
     Briggs ran parallel to the burning trees cordoning off the wreckage like giant torches,
     they thought the plane had entirely disintegrated, leaving only a blackened slash
     mark across the valley. Finally, in the middle of a clearing below more pines littered
     with debris that resembled metallic confetti, they observed a large portion of the
     tail section and fuselage, both miraculously intact.
    Briggs shot HD video of everything, while Fisher slid his goggles up onto his forehead.
     The burning trees were doing an exceptional job of lighting the scene, with waves
     of heat billowing into his face.
    He picked his way around the shattered fuselage, navigating between the twisted and
     charred seats, then he directed a powerful LED penlight into the cabin, whose bulkheads
     had been blackened. He was searching for charred skeletons, imagining one appearing
     in his light, but found only mangled metal and melted plastic.
    With the stench of all that kerosene-based Jet A fuel and a dozen other chemicals
     wafting in the air and beginning to get to him, he hustled back outside and jogged
     forward, following the ragged edge of a huge furrow until he found a small portion
     of the cockpit lying inverted and jammed between two trees.
    The seats were still attached. Seat belts thrown off. No pilots. Had they bailed out?
     Fisher examined the seat belts again: no signs of tearing, stretching, or strain.
    “Hey, Sam? Over here!” cried Briggs.
    Fisher raced away from the cockpit, back along the furrow toward Briggs, who was holding
     a backpack with a large logo embroidered on the outside pocket: four red squares forming
     a diamond pattern with gray shadow boxes behind them. Beneath the image were the letters
     “CSCS.” Briggs proffered the bag, and Fisher zipped it open and rifled through textbooks
     and notebooks.
    “The daughter went to school in Zurich,” whispered Fisher. “We got her bag, but where’d
     she go?”
    “Yeah, and if they wanted to fake their deaths, then where are the bodies?” asked
     Briggs.
    Grim, who’d been analyzing the video Briggs had sent, chimed in over the radio. “Break
     radio silence now, guys. I’ve been monitoring the Russian army’s transmissions, and
     they’re onto us. Picked you up with infrared before Charlie could start the jam and
     GPS spoofing. Those Mi-8s are three minutes out now.”
    “Sam, it’s Charlie. Like