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“Mendoza?”
“It’s a popular destination for anyone headed toward the Andes.”
“Why would they be headed from the jungle to there?”
Leopold gave him a look that bordered on incredulousness. “Naturally, they have to be looking for a plane crash site.”
“You’re sure?”
“Ludwig Strassmair was killed in a plane crash. They must have a lead on where it went down or they wouldn’t be there.”
At last, Rolfe thought. That much closer to the Romanov Ransom.
And eliminating the Fargos.
78
You’d think this high above the tree line,” Remi said as the helicopter climbed in altitude, “a downed plane would be much easier to spot.”
“Except for the decades of snow covering it.” Sam adjusted the volume on his headset as he pointed out the starboard side of the helicopter, telling the pilot, “That looks promising.”
Dietrich, sitting next to Remi in the back, glanced in that direction. “How can you even tell? From up here, it looks like endless peaks and valleys.”
He was right about that. On the other side of the summit, there was nothing that stood out but snow and gray rock.
Remi leaned over for a better look. “Talk about the proverbial needle in a haystack,” she said.
“Where’s your faith, Remi?” Sam replied. “Assuming the plane was on a direct route from Buenos Aires to Santiago, this fits with the route.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” she told him. “The propeller—”
“Was found on the other side behind us. And no other debris was found with it, odds are that something had to happen for the plane to lose its propeller and yet still be high enough to clear everything below us,” he said as the pilot navigated the area on the other side of the summit. The barren rocks confirmed to Sam that the plane had to have been much higher or there’d be more debris on the other side, never mind a lot on this side as well.
“We’ve searched three of those passes,” she said, sounding tired.
“And we’ve got three left. Hang in there. It’s a good theory. Or it will be if I can figure out what the angle was.” He shifted in his seat, looking back at the glacier, then the high cliff next to it. “Bring it up again,” he told the pilot. “Back over the cliff.”
The helicopter rose, then circled around, hovering above the cliff in front of them. Flurries of snow stuck to the glass as Sam looked out, trying to picture how an airplane could lose one of four propellers in the glacier below and not end up against the cliffs just beyond it. The only way he could see was if it skimmed the higher cliff next to the glacier, clipping the propeller, which fell to the glacier below. If so, the plane was more than likely already on a crash course. But not heading straight down . . . “It had to have cleared those distant peaks,” he said. “One propeller out of four, left side of the cliff, lands on the glacier . . .”
“But which peak?” Remi asked, looking that direction.
“And which side of the plane?” Dietrich said. “That would make a difference.”
“Starboard, would be my guess,” Sam replied. “It all depends on the angle when it hit. A glancing blow on that cliff top might send it up again, so it could clear the peaks on the other side of the glacier field. At least that would be the most likely reason it cleared.”
Remi sighed. “You’re not exactly narrowing it down.”
“Agreed.”
Dietrich shook his head. “Even on a crash course? One direction, hitting the cliff, losing the propeller . . .”
Sam realized in that one moment what he was missing, all because the propeller was found in the glacier. They’d assumed the plane had been traveling west, the logical route. They were looking at the glacier field like it was some marked highway. “What if that plane had been flying northwest or even due north?”
“Why would it?” Dietrich asked.
“Any number of reasons. Jet stream, weather, faulty instruments.”
“Okay,” Remi said. “And what would that do?”