The helicopter put down on a high knoll. It overlooked the heather-grown moor for at least a mile in all directions. Skinner stared all around him, at the acres of brownish heather.
The landscape had been turned into a sort of patchwork by the watery autumn sun, as it picked out gold highlights on the tops of the bushes, and cast long shadows upon the rest.
On another day, the countryman in Skinner would have thought it beautiful.
`Where is it, Major?' he asked as he, Arrow, and the four uniformed soldiers of the Bomb Unit stood alongside the silent bulk of the helicopter.
Over here.' The Ulsterman pointed south. 'You can barely make it out from here, but if you look hard you'll see a solid, darker shadow across the ground. As I said, it's a sort of crevice, and from the air, it looked as if it goes down very sharply.'
Skinner strained his eyes until he picked it out, a sudden blackness amid the light and shade of the sun-washed moorland. He guessed that it was around half a mile away.
They made slow headway as they moved through the scrubs, spread out in a broad line.
They walked with their eyes cast downwards in case there was debris tangled up among the undergrowth; but they found none, and in just under fifteen minutes they came to the edge of the ravine. It was around forty Yards wide, bisecting the moor from east to west.
No heather grew within it; instead its sides were grassy. They fell steeply towards a stream which ran through it, around a hundred feet below where the six men stood, looking downwards in horror.
Where the debris in the main crash-site had been spread around the shallow valley, here it was concentrated in a single area. Even looking down into the shadows they could see that little or nothing had survived the crash intact. Most of the plunging wreckage had smashed into the northern slope of the gully, more or less beneath their feet, but a few pieces had skidded down the opposite bank, tearing gashes in the grass. Others lay in the narrow stream, which was blocked in one place by a particularly large object.
Skinner waved and his five companions gathered around him. 'We have to go down there, lads. It'll be ugly, I'm sure, but nothing we haven't seen before. Apart from the bodies, we are looking to recover two red leather-bound steel boxes, one belonging to Colin Davey, the Defence Secretary, one belonging to my own Minister, Roland McGrath.
`They may not be here. There may be more wreckage further on, but let's get this lot searched right now.'
Arrow stopped him with a hand on his arm. 'Wait a minute, Bob. 'Ow many passengers are we short from the front rows?' Eleven.'
`Right. Let's count the flight seats. I can see quite a few down there.'
`Good idea,' said Skinner. He looked down again. Smashed and distorted against the slope at his feet, he could see clearly six seats still attached in rows of three. At other points in the ravine, lay other twisted pieces of metal which could have been seats. Most were blackened. Scorched stuffing protruded from one or two. Others seemed still to be occupied.
I think there are twelve seats down there,' said the DCC.
'Let's hope so. I'd like to find everything before the Americans arrive.
'My FBI pal Joe Doherty was promoted out of the Embassy a month ago,' he muttered to Arrow, `to a big job on the National Security Council. I've no idea who they'll send up here, or how many. But with Shaun Massey among the victims you can bet that whoever it is, they'll be gung-ho and looking for action!'
He turned to the pilot. 'Gerald, I'd like you to go back to the main site and bring up a recovery team with stretchers and body-bags:
The young man nodded, saluted briefly and turned to jog back towards the helicopter.
The rest of us…' said Skinner grimly.. well, let's get on with it!'