He put his left hand to his lips and looked around the hall. He glanced once more at the young specialist from Charles de Gaulle airport. The man continued to speak. Bernard Bajolet switched on his microphone.
“Excuse me,” he interrupted the young man’s five-minute report.
The tense gazes of the seated generals and officials began to search the hall for the one who was asking the question.
“I understand correctly that we have no specifics. We understand that the plane disappeared from radar in the same place where we lost the Nepalese helicopter a few hours ago. Anything else?”
The Indian general turned on the microphone:
“Absolutely correct. No information on the helicopter or the plane. The weather’s getting worse.”
“We have no communication with the crew. We tried to contact the airliner for almost an hour, and then it went off the radar. It started veering off course, and my colleagues tried to relay a message.”
“Is it a fact or an assumption that it crashed?” Bernard Bajolet couldn’t stand it.
“Almost a fact,” the young man reported.
The screen showed a map of Asia and two routes, one marked in gray for the planned course, the other in red for the actual course. A cross marked the point of the proposed crash.
Suggestions came from the audience:
“Drones?”
“Strong electromagnetic radiation. We already lost two,” the Chinese general said.
“Satellites?”
“Working on it!”
“You were talking about the border cordon near the mountain,” someone turned to the Indian general.
“The distance is long. We are thinking over this option.”
“Don’t we have any possibility to send a special team there?” Igor Komarov stepped in.
“Shall we send another helicopter there when the weather is even worse than in the morning?” The Nepalese general asked. “We are definitely not going to do that. We are trying to get a rescue team as close to the quadrant as possible. But the area is very difficult.”
Jean-Jacques Dordain stood up and thanked the young man from the airport.
“Gentlemen, I suggest we take a short break until our colleagues have some concrete information.”
Jean-Jacques Dordain was approached by his assistant and said something in his ear. He nodded and pointed to the screen behind him.
“Gentlemen, we have an update on the weather conditions.”
An image appeared on the screen. The large bright spiral of clouds, captured from the satellite, looked dreadful and fearful.