"You'll use it in a newsworthy manner"
Helophel and Atoziel arrive at the crash site, and start hunting around. They see the emergency services arriving and leaving, a helicopter parked at the side, and a dull symphonic echo of badness best compared with a nagging toothache. Atoziel uses the Song of Memory to get a better listen, but still doesn't recognise exactly what it is. Helophel meanwhile phones Magariel with the thought that this might be a diversion, and that the real action might be taking place at Heathrow. Magariel still has an attunement to Excel, so he pings it; Excel is in medium-level non-specific danger, and has probably left the airport heading for the crash site — Magariel isn't sure enough of his own location to be certain of Excel's on the map.
Blakely gets a call as he drives in, green light flashing, and is updated on the situation by Magariel. He then phones Philomon at the Tower and redirects some of the snatch squad to cover Heathrow. It is pointed out that this will delay their arrival at the crash. Arriving himself, Blakely first bumps into two constables from his usual police station; PC Wells and WPC Herald. This is not so reassuring, since Wells is suspected of being a Djinn of the Game. The pair, like many policemen, have been drafted as emergency transport to hospitals, and direct Blakely up to the front of the plane where most of what currently passes for organisation is. He goes there, and pokes his nose briefly into the cabin; most of the flight crew are in their seats, dead, except for the pilot who is on the floor and smashed up.
Concluding that the forensics can wait, Blakely turns into First Class and runs straight into Curtis and Keel (who were noticed earlier by Atoziel and Helophel). He introduces himself and is put to work triaging the survivors.
At roughly the same time, Boriel arrives in the field opposite, parks his van neatly and walks over to the motorway carrying a first aid kit and some heavy duty tools. To his disgust, he is directed to the Fire Service people who are getting survivors out of the crashed cars, of which there are many. Their eyes light up on seeing someone approach bearing industrial bolt-cutters! After a while, he sneaks away to phone Atoziel.
Elsewhere in the snow storm, Helophel and Atoziel bounce around looking for anything out of place. The first thing to come to Atoziel's attention is one of the paramedics punching out a TV sound man. The cameraman and reporter are clearly trying to smooth things over, but Atoziel bounds over anyway to "break up the fight", grabbing hold of the sound man and expecting to be thrown off. Helophel heads over for backup. In a marvellous display of acting Atoziel grabs the sound man's arm, discovering that his name is Bill Jennings. Unfortunately in a very un-Ofanitely display of clumsiness he doesn't manage to be thrown into the others, but instead to end up in a pile on the snow underneath the sound engineer. Then his mobile phone rings, and is steadfastly ignored.
The reporter continues to make soothing noises to the paramedic, backing off gently. Atoziel recognises his voice from the initial report of the crash, and recalls the party paranoia about how they got there that fast. He therefore bounces up and shakes the reporter's hand with a cheery "Gosh, you're famous, can I have your autograph." The reporter's name turns out to be Malik. Hmm. Shame he just used the opportunity to Need-read Atoziel. The little group, minus the paramedic, move off into the snowstorm to discuss things further. When they spot the demonic policewoman in the distance, they avoid her by tacit agreement.
Boriel is mildly alarmed by Atoziel's failure to answer, and phones Blakely to report. Blakely in turn phones Magariel, who is still suffering from failing to ping his attunement on Atoziel back before the angels assembled at Heathrow. Worried about his enthusiastic and amazingly danger-prone attuned, Magariel aborts his search down the flight-path for signs of anyone who bailed out of the plane early and starts back to the crash site.
Meanwhile, Atoziel and Malik enter negotiations about who is going to get the Dagger, who can do what to whose career, and pleasant stuff like that. This gets more generous on Malik's part when he Need-reads Helophel, who rates "Kill the demons" quite highly. After a lot of faffing, resonating and generally talking round the subject there is a general agreement to leave each other alone now, something signally not sworn or geased to by either side. Malik leaves in a hurry, while Atoziel phones round an update that Blakely passes on to the Snatch Squad.
Boriel spots a man (in suit and tie) leaning on a crushed car bonnet, in obvious pain. The man attempts to wave away help, but Boriel overrules him; to the angel's practiced eye he has serious internal injuries and needs to be got to hospital quickly. An ambulance is duly summoned.
In the plane, Blakely has been interviewing people as he treated them. There weren't many people in First Class, and most of them are dead of bizarre combinations of blunt trauma (i.e. failure to survive the crash-landing), striking long, hard, relatively sharp edges such as the edges of the overhead lockers (except that there are no traces of blood there) and animal bites. This fails to make much sense. The people in economy class are being got out of their seats as soon as the medics have determined they can be moved safely, apart from those who got out as part of the initial emergency procedure. They tell stories of hearing shots, feeling the plane lurch, panicking, feeling the plane get back under control and start landing, and then realising that they were coming down on the motorway. Many are still hysterical, most are confused, and a number are difficult to get at because of the way that the aircraft has broken up.
In the middle of a check, Blakely hears Curtis call out to Keel. When the latter goes over and swears loudly, Blakely pokes his nose in. He sees someone dressed as a businessman, very dead. His head appears to have been beaten in with his own portable computer, something confirmed by a quick forensic examination. Curtis leaves with the computer, and Keel stays around, looking frustrated but ending up de facto in charge of organising the effort here.
At this point Magariel arrived back at the crash site, and paused to look around. He observed the smug man who worried him so much at the airport, and who now appears to be slowly leaving the area with a mildly pleased expression. Also PC Wells and WPC Herald appear to be packing a "walking wounded" person into their police car and driving off. Also Huzrael and his merry band of idiots are just disappearing from sight into the snow storm, sneaking round on the broken airplane. He solves this abundance of opportunities by phoning Atoziel to alert him and Helophel to Huzrael, ignoring Wells and Herald, and following the smug man.
The smug man crosses the neighbouring field to where most of the crowd of onlookers have parked, and gets into a car. Magariel runs up at this point and accuses him of stealing something. The man hotly denies this — Magariel thinks he is telling the truth, but is overacting — and drives off. Magariel notes his number plate.
As Magariel starts back across the field, he meets Boriel going the other way. The two of them chat quickly, the result being that Boriel quickly nips to his van to pick up a "Sony Walkman" radio receiver while Magariel runs back to try to help out Atoziel and Helophel.
Meanwhile Blakely gets a call from Zephiriel of the Snatch Squad, who has just arrived on scene. Zephiriel is given an update, and assumes command, intending to assist with despatching Huzrael and co. If he can find them.
Atoziel and Helophel start tracking their prey around the airplane, hampered by the fact that all sides are trying to sneak around. Atoziel spots the black leather coats of the idiots, hiding really quite well; they spot the angels, while Huzrael himself is oblivious. Atoziel points to the demons and says something he thought plainly indicated them, then dived behind a snowdrift. Helophel fails to understand and carries on trying to be sneaky. Atoziel is neatly bracketed (but missed) by two rifle shots, while Helophel's reactions are still good enough to mean that she takes only a couple of scratches from the bullets aimed at her. Huzrael reacts by cussing roundly at the idiots, and reaching for his own shotgun.