The Manifest

Chapter 14

     "I remember you saying something about fuel the last time we talked about this." Edgar said, trying to push things along.

     "I was just getting to that," Jerome said, as he put the chalk back down, "According to the 'experts', when two planes hit the towers at the World Trade Center, they created a flame so hot that it melted the metal foundations which was claimed to be 'the official cause' of their record collapse. While I'm ready to debate that part right now, there are photos that show the pentagon after the fire was put out. I downloaded them off the internet for you to look at." Jerome took out some photos and started to pass them around.

     "That would explain why the printer is out of toner." Tuck said as Jerome handed a copy of the photo over to Edgar.

     "I think we can afford a little more now," Edgar retorted as he began to inspect the photo of the post-attack pentagon, "I don't understand, what exactly are looking for here?"

     Jerome walked up and pointed to a small corner of his photo. Edgar couldn't make out what it was so he grabbed a magnifying glass and took a closer look. He inspected the corner that Jerome had pointed at for a few moments and then he saw it.

     "Son of a bitch." Edgar said as he made the discovery.

     On the third floor of the Pentagon, there was a filing cabinet with a computer monitor stashed on top of it. Both are almost on the edge of where the gap of damage began and were clear as day to look at. There was one thing missing from this room and Edgar could tell immediately: fire damage. Both the cabinet and the monitor were not even singed, and the wall behind the monitor was white as if it had been painted that day... all inconsistent with a fire that Jerome was describing.

     "This doesn't look right, these things look brand new." Edgar concluded as he handed the photo for Tuck to look at.

     "Every one of the planes involved in the attacks was scheduled to make cross continental flights." Jerome reminded the detectives. "They all left the east coast and were direct flights to California, which means Flight 77's fuel tanks were near capacity when it hit the Pentagon. That means the plane was carrying over eight thousand gallons of jet fuel that would and should have been ignited on impact. Can anyone here look at these photos and think that the damage on these rooms is consistent with a fire that has that much fuel involved?"

     Jerome paused for a moment to let that question digest. Edgar himself while not full convinced started to get that nagging feeling in the back of his head. Something was starting to look rotten in the state of Denmark.

     "What kind of fire would that much fuel make?" Jessica asked, pretty much hanging off every word Jerome was saying.

     "There was a study done by the Environmental Assessment Association concerning this issue," Jerome said, "And their findings were quite remarkable. According to the EAA, the amount of fuel that was remaining on Flight 77 should have burned for days and reduced most of that wing of the Pentagon to ashes. All that rocket fuel also should have had a BTU rate of over eighty-six million. The EAA also stated that the fire should have been over three thousand degrees, so we're talking a fire almost as hot as napalm. They also concluded that the velocity of the plane and the impact should have reduced that portion of the Pentagon to a pancake. That amount of rocket fuel also should have resulted in the removal of soil from the front yard of the Pentagon, as it should have been considered a hazardous spill and quarantined off for weeks until cleaned up. Yet none of the Pentagon's front yard was damaged, nor was some parts of the inside, as you can see on those photos. So what happened to the fuel? If this was a terrorist attack, I doubt the attackers would have dumped any fuel before crashing. They would have wanted this sucker to be fully loaded for impact so that the fire would do as much damage as possible, which would explain why they selected cross continental flights for their attacks. So the damage that we see in these photos puts into question of what hit the pentagon because it's not damaged enough to be by something that had that much fuel. This doesn't make sense, and doesn't fit just like an airliner with a wingspan of over a hundred and twenty feet doesn't fit into a sixty five foot hole."