Read Online Endangered Species by Nevada Barr - Free Book Online

as he stopped himself from saying "bodies." The explosion of the
    gas tank destroyed any shred of hope they might have had that anyone in
    the airplane still lived, but they had to operate as if lives could be
    salvaged.  The concept of giving up too soon was abhorrent.
    What was left of the wing and the fuselage formed a smoldering and
    unstable tent of ruined metal.  Leaf litter smoked beneath the wreckage.
    Using the blunt side of the Pulaski, Anna scraped the smoldering
    material into a blackened heap behind her, then, on hands and knees,
    crawled under the amputated stub of wing.  Paint had been burned off the
    door, and the Plexiglas in the side window melted in black sticky tears
    that crept down the denuded metal.  At Anna's request, Guy turned the
    paltry stream from his rapidly depleting water pack onto the door
    handle.  When it had cooled enough so that it wouldn't immediately burn
    through the leather of her gloves, she gave it a pull.  Much to her
    surprise, it worked.  'fh(, door opened half an inch, then stuck fast,
    the top mired in a mess of smoking rubber and crushed metal ." We're
    going to have to pry it out, " she said.
    "Hang on.  I'll get the guys and we'll lift this thing so you can get at
    it."
    The melted window was almost at ground level.  Bending down in the
    attitude of a long-adrift sailor kissing the earth, Anna peered into the
    cabin.  Energies released from the force of the crash, then the
    onslaught of the fire had wreaked havoc inside.  A nauseating odor that
    Anna knew to be roasting human flesh and hair was overlaid with the
    pungent sting of gases created when many petroleum products were melted
    down into their component parts.
    Clothing, upholstery, seat belts-all had been reduced to cinders.  The
    people they'd held in place had fallen down, crumpled with the rest of
    the trash on the ruined instrument panel.  Without stronger light and a
    better angle Anna couldn't tell where organic matter ended and inorganic
    began.
    tery Emer ency medical training taught her to seek the carotid ar to
    separate the living from the dead.  In this tangled mass she saw a
    blackened tube shape that was very possibly what was left of the
    passenger's neck, but she couldn't bring herself to remove her glove and
    press her bare hand in through the melt of flesh.
    Straightening up, she sat back on her heels in the relatively fresh air
    a foot or two from the plane.  While Guy organized the crew she stared
    at the canopy of leaves beyond the burn, her brain in neutral.  Inside
    the Beechcraft there was no life, she was sure of it .
    Training, courage, adrenaline-all the necessary ingredients for
    heroics-were of no use.  Now she hoped only to disturb as little as
    possible and keep her breakfast down.
    "On three.  Ready, Anna?  Anna!"
    She jerked her chin up at the repetition of her name.
    "Sorry to wake you," Guy said ." You want to pry that door off when we
    lift?"
    "Sure thing." Anna dropped back to her knees.  She squirmed down under
    the remnant of wing and forced the blade of her Pulaski between the door
    and the main body of the plane, then braced herself to use the Pulaski
    handle as a lever ." Ready," she said.
    " On three."
    Guy counted down, and as the bulk of the aircraft was lifted from the
    scorched earth, Anna dug her heels in and pulled back .
    Brittle creaks heralded the breakage of fused hinges.  The door popped
    open, swinging out in a crippled are.  The last shred of metal let go
    and it fell away from the fuselage.
    " Okay," Anna said ." High enough."
    She heard scraping as the men wedged a log or limb under the wing stub
    and the faintest of groans as they let the weight settle on the prop.
    .  With the door removed she could better see the carnage within .
    The body furthest from her had burned black but for the right ear,
    horribly pink and lifelike in a nest of hair singed into a likeness of
    wire.  On the left arm, much of the flesh from elbow to knuckle