Spider Bones (7 page)

“Wasn’t that odd?”

“Not given the fact that Lowery was fresh out of jail.” Danny took another pull on his beer. “The burned body was sent to the Tan Son Nhut mortuary, where forensic analysis showed that the victim fit Lowery’s profile, including age, sex, race, and height.”

“What about the fourth crew member?”

Danny shook his head. “A Spec 2 maintenance guy. They ruled him out. Not sure why.”

“Were his remains ever found?”

“I’ll have to ask.” More beer. “Following identification and processing, Lowery’s remains were shipped from Tan Son Nhut to Lumberton, North Carolina, for burial. End of story.”

“Apparently not,” I said.

“Apparently not.” Danny set down his empty bottle and rose. “You and Katy have a nice weekend.”

Despite Katy’s anguish, we did.

K
ATY WAS STILL SLEEPING WHEN I SET OUT MONDAY MORNING.
Her day would be a repeat of both Saturday and Sunday. Reading by the ocean, later by the pool. A bit of snorkeling. A run on the beach. A long nap.

Hawaii hugs the equator, so island weather varies little. Sunny, highs in the eighties, maybe a blink-of-the-eye afternoon shower. In a word, perfect.

That descriptor does not apply to Honolulu’s rush-hour traffic.

Creep and lurch. Creep and lurch.

In addition to JPAC, Hickam Air Force Base is home to the Fifteenth Airlift Wing and sixty-seven partner units, including Pacific Air Forces Headquarters and the Hawaii Air National Guard. As with most military compounds, outsiders don’t just stroll in.

Queuing at the gate took a full ten minutes. When I finally reached the front of the line, an exceedingly spit-and-polished young man saluted me into an office manned by orange-vested security personnel.

Danny had left credentials. Once the car registration and safety-check paperwork were scanned, I was quickly cleared.

After skirting the military airport, I looped the traffic circle and drove past the air wing headquarters. The building’s bullet holes, still visible from the December 7, 1941, attack that pushed the U.S. into World War II, are pointed out to every first-time visitor to the base.

Eventually I made a right, wound past aircraft hangars, turned left, and pulled into a small parking lot. Building 45. The military coins such poetic names.

I dialed Danny on my mobile. He answered and said he’d be right out.

While waiting, I thought about the charge of those working inside the nondescript brown building. About the raison d’être of JPAC.

From 1959 until 1975, North Vietnam, supported by its Communist allies in the south, battled the government and armed forces of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other members of SEATO, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. At its peak, the war kicked the crap out of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

Here’s how the conflict played out.

While the lightly armed Vietcong fought a hit-and-run guerrilla war, the NVA employed more conventional tactics, often committing large-sized units to battle. The U.S. relied on its usual trifecta of ground forces, heavy artillery, and gonzo airpower.

The human toll was enormous: 3 to 4 million Vietnamese from both sides; 1.5 to 2 million Laotians and Cambodians; 58,159 Americans.

Eighteen hundred of those Americans never came home and were not accounted for.

Thus the CIL, later JPAC.

Here come the acronyms.

The Central Identification Laboratory Thailand, CIL-THAI for short, was founded in 1973 to locate American military personnel missing in Southeast Asia. Three years later the lab was moved to Honolulu, its mission expanded. The Central Identification Laboratory Hawaii, CILHI, would henceforth search for, recover, and identify Americans missing from all previous conflicts. Today, in addition to Vietnam, that total includes 120 soldiers from the Cold War, 8,100 from the Korean War, and 78,000 from World War II.

Fast-forward almost two decades from the founding of CILHI.

In 1992, the Joint Task Force–Full Accounting, JTF-FA, was established to ensure the fullest possible resolution of questions surrounding Americans missing in Southeast Asia. Another decade and the Department of Defense, DOD, decided that accounting efforts would best be served by a single entity. Thus, in 2003, the two organizations were merged to form the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, JPAC.

As with its predecessor, JPAC’s mission is to find American war dead and bring them home. Core operations involve the pursuit of leads, the recovery of remains and artifacts, and the identification of individual soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines.

Every investigation begins with paper. JPAC historians and analysts gather correspondence, maps, photographs, unit histories, and medical and personnel records. JPAC’s research and intelligence section backgrounds history.

Most investigations also utilize sources outside JPAC, including the national archives and record depositories maintained by the U.S. and foreign governments. Veterans, civilian historians, private citizens, families of missing Americans, and amateur researchers also routinely provide information.

Ultimately, JPAC experts combine everything into a “loss incident case file.” At any given time, approximately 700 active files are under investigation at the CIL.

Danny emerged wearing a pink aloha shirt and baggy brown pants. Behind the thick lenses, his eyes blinked in the sunlight.

We entered building 45 through a back door and followed a corridor past the general’s staff offices into the main lobby. On the walls, wood-mounted brass plaques named the fallen ID’ed through JPAC efforts.

Danny swiped his badge at a pair of glass doors and we entered the CIL public area. To the left, a long glass wall provided a view of the main lab. Before it, a folding table held skulls, bones, and military equipment used for demonstration purposes.

Straight ahead a hallway led to offices, a copy center, a small kitchen, a conference room, and an autopsy area used for artifact cleaning and analysis. Ahead and to the right, a counter was manned by a young man in army fatigues. Above his shaved head, analogue clocks indicated the hour in five time zones.

The offices of senior JPAC personnel ringed the perimeter. Only two doors stood open.

Roger Merkel is tall, slightly stooped, and balding. Well north of fifty, his face is tanned and scoured with lines from years in the sun.

Merkel was at his desk. Seeing us, he rose and hugged me so tightly my eyes teared, momentarily blurring my view of his office.

Stepping back, I marveled, as usual, at Merkel’s orderliness. Files and papers sat in neatly squared stacks. Books, photos, and mementos hung and stood in perfect formation.

After a few words with Merkel, Danny and I went in search of coffee. Gus Dimitriadus, a CIL anthropologist, was leaving the kitchen as we entered.

Though similar in age to Danny and me, Dimitriadus is someone with whom I’ve never felt a connection. He’s attractive enough, good hair, good eyes, but the guy acts like he lives on embalming fluid.

Gus Dimitriadus never laughs. Ever. Frankly, I’ve never liked him much.

Apparently others share my view. For as long as I’ve known him, Dimitriadus has lived alone in a small apartment near Waikiki Beach.

Dimitriadus looked up from the fax he was skimming. Seeing me, his perpetually dour face went stiff. With a nod, he continued down the hall.

Surprised, I turned to Danny. “What the hell?”

“Come on. You two have never been soul mates.”

“But we’ve always been cordial.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Danny busied himself setting up mugs, dispensing coffee that resembled liquid asphalt.

I tried to think how long it had been since I’d seen Dimitriadus. Twelve years at least. He’d been deployed on missions the last few times I’d been to the CIL.

“Is Dimitriadus still peeved over the Kingston-Washington fiasco?”

Bernard Kingston died along with three others from a skimmer boat on the Mekong River in ’67. Thirty years later, four partial skeletons arrived at the CIL.

Long story. Short version, locals buried the seamen when they washed ashore, told their story in ’95, hoping for cash.

Dimitriadus caught the files. On review, I bonged his report, suspecting that two of the IDs had been reversed. Turned out I was right.

“Is that it?” I pressed.

Danny nodded.

“Jesus, that was ages ago.”

“What can I tell you?” Danny proffered a mug. “The guy’s a grudge holder.”

We passed no one else on the way to Danny’s office.

“Seems quiet.” I remembered a lot more hustle and bustle.

“A lot of folks are out in the field.”

Danny referred to workers away on recovery missions.

Quick primer on JPAC operations.

Once a loss incident case file has been opened and a likely body location has been pinpointed, an investigative team, or IT, is deployed to the scene. Could be anywhere—a rice paddy in Southeast Asia, a cliffside in Papua New Guinea, a mountaintop in the Himalayas, an underwater trench off the coast of Tunisia.

An IT is composed of ten to fourteen people, led by a team leader and a forensic anthropologist, the former responsible for the overall safety and success of the mission, the latter for the actual excavation. Other members include a team sergeant, linguist, medic, life-support technician, forensic photographer, and explosive ordnance disposal technician. Additional experts patch in as needed—mountaineering specialists, divers, and such.

Recovery sites range from a few square meters, as with single burials, to areas larger than football fields, as with aircraft crashes. The anthropologist kicks things off by laying out a grid with stakes and string, then, one by one, individual sections are dug. All soil is hand-sifted to maximize retrieval of the tiniest skeletal bits or fragments of associated artifacts. Depending on circumstances, a handful or a hundred local workers may be hired for a project.

Once everything’s back at the CIL, the lab rats gear up, examining bones, teeth, and material evidence and correlating all findings with historical records.

The anthropologist constructs as complete a biological profile as possible, analyzes trauma, and describes pathological conditions such as arthritis or old healed fractures. The odontologist compares recovered dentition to X-rays, handwritten charts, and treatment notes in antemortem records. Each collects a sample for mitochondrial DNA testing.

Material evidence varies from case to case. Aircraft data plates. Ordnance or weapons. Packs, mess kits, uniforms. Life-support equipment. Personal effects, such as rings, watches, or combs. Every shred, splinter, and chip is scrutinized.

As you can imagine, all this research, recovery, and analysis is labor-intensive, and an identification may take years for completion. If mtDNA is obtained from the bones or teeth, the search for family reference samples can add more time to the process.

Even then it’s not over. Every positive ID requires review at multiple levels, including external study by independent experts. That’s where I came in. For years I evaluated dossiers, dissecting the overlapping lines of evidence relevant to a particular set of remains.

Seems like beaucoup bother and bucks, you say? Trust me. The effort and expense pay off. On average, JPAC identifies six individuals each month. To date, more than 1,400 military personnel have been returned to their families. The gratitude of relatives is incalculable.

Bottom line, our troops know: should they march off to war, one way or another, we’re bringing them home.

“How many recovery missions are deployed each year?” No longer affiliated with JPAC, I hadn’t a sense of current numbers.

“At least ten in Southeast Asia, maybe five associated with the Korean War.” Danny twisted his lips in thought. “Ten others wherever, you know, for World War II cases, or the Cold War. Teams are always coming or going.”

Danny’s office was the polar opposite of Merkel’s. Papers and books lay scattered about, files threatened to topple from unsteady stacks. Mementos lay tossed where they’d landed coming through the door. A signed softball. A kite. A photo of Danny digging on a mountain.

The desk held a similar array of memorabilia. A Micronesian sculpture made of what looked like pig tusks. A painted coconut. A miniature skeleton with Danny’s face glued to the skull. A stuffed lizard whose species was a mystery to me.

Danny cleared files from a chair so that I could sit. Before my arrival, he’d laid out Spider Lowery’s file. Though familiar with the contents, we started there.

Working through the documents reminded me how much time I’d spent squinting at smeared carbon copies of forms, faded message traffic, and illegible script. Spider’s record review took an hour.

“You’ve been swabbed?”

Danny referred to the DNA sampling required of anyone entering the lab. No big deal, a Q-tip swipe of the inner cheek. Specimens are kept on file should contamination become an issue with an ID.

I nodded.

We crossed to the glass wall and Danny placed his badge over the sensor. The door clicked. We entered and wove through a maze of tables, some empty, some holding bones, toward a man in a red sweater seated at a desk at the back of the room.

The Lumberton remains had been accessioned as 2010-37. Danny presented his badge and requested the case by number.

Red Sweater rose and pressed a button. Floor-to-ceiling shelving opened and he disappeared down a row. Moments later he reappeared with a long, white cardboard box.

I knew the routine. The remains would be assigned a specific table where they would be allowed to remain for thirty days. The transaction would be entered into the computer tracking system, and the location of the bones would be diagrammed on a blackboard on one wall of the room.

Danny swiped his badge, collected the box, and moved to the designated table. I followed.

We both gloved, then Danny gestured me the honors.