careful to put it back where he’d found it. Un petit fait vrais.
He returned to the office, where he found VanRensberg waiting for him. The mechanic said he would like to have another private conversation. Rachel being at lunch, Fitzhugh replied that here was as good a place as any and sat down.
“I’ve been thinking about our talk yesterday,” VanRensberg said. “If Wes suspected someone of pouring dirty water into his tanks, why did he ask you to retrieve the plastic bags in addition to the water jug? I’ve asked myself, If the fuel had water in it, then why wasn’t the contaminant eliminated in preflight? Sloppiness on Wes’s part? Maybe. Or was it this?” He held up a freezer bag and snapped it. “Plastic, like aviation fuel, is made from petroleum. It has hydrocarbons, also like fuel.”
“This is another chemistry lesson?” Fitzhugh asked, bemused.
“A nasty lesson. You pour the muddy water into the plastic bags, seal them, and then squeeze them into the tanks through the fuel-fill. The plastic remains intact for some time. I’m not knowledgeable enough to say how long, but for a time. So when the pilot drains his system prior to takeoff, the contaminants will be sealed up in the bags and will not be eliminated. But eventually the fuel will dissolve the plastic, the mud and water will become mixed with the fuel, and the pilot will have a failure of his high-pressure pumps and then engine failure.”
Fitzhugh felt a catch in his throat.
VanRensberg said, “I understand there is an accident investigation going on?”
“That’s right.”
“So I assume the investigators drained the tanks and took fuel samples for analysis. They may detect the presence of water in the fuel, but they will find no trace of plastic because it has the same chemical makeup as the fuel. It will have vanished without a trace. And the investigators are likely to conclude that the pilot did an improper preflight procedure.”
The simplicity of it! Fitzhugh thought. The elegant simplicity of it!
“And Wesley, besides his reputation for not being thorough in his preflight, was in a rush that day,” he said.
“Yes. I heard that he was,” said the mechanic. “So if I was the one who sabotaged the plane in the way I have just described, that’s what I would want people to think. Wes was careless to begin with, and his hurry made him more careless.”
“That is your opinion?”
VanRensberg hesitated, glancing back and forth as if to make sure no one was listening in. “A theory, not an opinion. No—a suspicion. Wes lost both engines. A catastrophic failure of both engines isn’t likely. I’ve heard he almost made it. What do you think? You were out there.”
“Yes, it looked that way,” Fitzhugh answered.
“If any pilot could land a Hawker-Siddley dead-stick, he could. Maybe he was sloppy, but the man could fly. Nasty business.”
“Thank you, VanRensberg,” Fitzhugh said. “Thank you for the chemistry lesson.”
At the end of the week, routine banking business took him to Nairobi. If it hadn’t, he would have concocted a reason to go. When his business was concluded, he recollected a remark Wesley had made after the shareholders’ meeting and asked to see the branch manager, an Indian gentleman from whom he requested the records for Knight Air Services Limited for the previous twelve months. As a partner in the company, Fitzhugh was authorized to see them. The manager put on a puzzled expression and shook his head. The firm had been dissolved, as you must know, he said. The records had been disposed of. Yes, Fitzhugh replied, he was aware the the firm had been dissolved but was unaware that its bank records had been destroyed. Could he please see the records for Knight Relief Services? These were produced: a sheaf of deposits, withdrawals, and monthly statements in a file folder. Fitzhugh paged through them quickly, stopping when he observed a transfer of funds from the Uganda Central Bank to the account. It came to $72,000. That would be Busy Beaver’s earnings in the first week of its existence, four flights at $18,000 each. The debit column showed a withdrawal for $36,000, presumably the company’s share in the fifty-fifty split with Tony. Beside the figure was the notation “Wire transfer” and on the next page the words “Credit Suisse Bank, Geneva,” followed by several sets of letters and account numbers. Numbers but no names. And what is this? he asked. A request for a wire transfer of funds from this account to that