Free Night Fall by Nelson DeMille Page B

and wind up in places where it doesn’t belong. That, in and of itself, might not cause an explosion because jet fuel doesn’t ignite that easily. But the vapors in a tank can ignite, and everyone agrees that the empty center fuel tank blew first. So what may have happened to that 747 is that a kinetic missile passed through the air-conditioning units, which are directly behind the center fuel tank. The missile ruptured the air conditioners, then the center fuel tank, and there was a meeting of damaged electrical wires with the vapors, which set off what we call a fuel-air explosion. That in turn blew one of the full wing tanks. The missile continued on through the aircraft, eventually falling into the ocean miles from the debris field.”
    “You think?”
    “It explains why no one has found explosive residue or missile parts.”
    I didn’t reply, which Captain Spruck interpreted as skepticism.
    He said, with a touch of impatience, “Look, it’s very simple. More than two hundred people see a streak of light, and eventually a lot of people are saying missile. Then there is not one trace of a missile found, so the FBI rules out a missile. What they should have said is that there is no evidence of an
explosive
missile. This is not rocket science…” He chuckled. “… Well, I guess it is.” He informed me, “Kinetic projectiles are not exactly new technology. An arrow is a kinetic projectile. So is a musket ball or a bullet. It kills by passing through you.”
    In fact, I had three bullets pass through me on a single occasion, though none of them hit my center fuel tank. I asked, “Why this kind of missile?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe it’s all they had available. The military can pick its ordnance to match its target. Other groups can’t always do that.”
    I wondered who he thought “they” were, but he didn’t know and I didn’t know and maybe there was no “they.” I asked, “Why does such a missile even exist? What’s wrong with a surefire explosive warhead?”
    “Guidance systems today are so accurate you don’t need an explosive warhead to knock down an aircraft, or even another missile, and non-explosive warheads are cheaper and safer to handle, and they leave more room for propellants.” He added, “A kinetic missile would be your choice of weapon if you wanted to take out an aircraft without leaving any evidence. Special Ops kind of stuff.”
    I thought about all this, and I wondered if Captain Spruck had, rightly or wrongly, come up with the only possible scenario that fit his and the other eyewitness accounts. I asked him, “Why didn’t the FBI at least raise this as a possibility?”
    “I don’t know. Ask them.”
    Yeah, right. I said to Captain Spruck, “So, you think there’s a missile out there somewhere?”
    He replied, “I shot an arrow in the air, and where it fell, I know not where.”
    “Is that a yes?”
    “I think there are the remains of a moderately intact kinetic missile lying on the ocean floor. It was probably about twelve feet long, thin, and probably black in color. It is miles and miles from the debris fields where the Navy and FBI divers worked, and from where the naval dredges operated. And no one is looking for this missile because they don’t believe it exists, and also because even if they did, you’d be talking about trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack.”
    “How big is the haystack?”
    “If you guessed at the missile’s trajectory after it passed through the aircraft and fell into the ocean, you could be talking about a hundred square miles of ocean floor.” He added, “For all we know, it could have reached Fire Island and buried itself deep in the sand. The entry hole wouldn’t be noticed, and the sand has long since filled the hole.”
    “Well… if that’s true, no one is going to mount a multimillion-dollar search to find this thing.”
    Captain Spruck had obviously thought about this and replied, “I think they would, if