The Wreck Emerged

by Joseph Webers

  No, Matt thought, she wasn’t on cloud nine. She was on cloud nine hundred!

  “Oh,” she said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “I completely forgot about Jenny! I was with the one who could make anything and everything happen, and I forgot to ask!”

  “Maggie, remember I said it would be just you and God? He was drawing you to himself and making you his. He wanted you all to himself just then. Don’t worry, he hasn’t forgotten about her!”

  “By the way,” he added, “you are so gloriously radiant right now, that if they don’t find us by nightfall, they would just have to send a plane out to find out where the glow is coming from!”

  Without warning, Maggie stood up and started jumping up and down on the lower coffin lid. Screaming, laughing, shouting, crying, all at once, it seemed. Grinning, Matt grabbed Jenny’s body to keep it on board as the little craft swayed precipitously up and down. Maggie grabbed the top coffin handle to keep from losing her balance, and that coffin came perilously close to ending up in the water. Then, spent, she sat down, looked at Matt, and burst out laughing.

  “Wow!” he said, excited for her. “That was wild!”

  But Maggie was too breathless to respond.

  43

  After the excitement of the plane, and Jenny, the shark, Jenny again, and her spirit coming alive, Maggie needed a rest. They both needed a rest. Time for their bodies to rejuvenate, now that the adrenaline had quit flowing. They both leaned back against the top coffin, and found that their combined weight didn’t push it off into the ocean. Maggie pushed her hair back so she could see. A slight breeze caused very few ripples in the sea around them. They could tell the sun was way past its zenith and was coming back down. It had been over an hour, it seemed, since the Air Force had headed to parts unknown. They never saw the other aircraft again.

  Matt looked over at Maggie, resting quietly about two feet away on the other side of Jenny’s pink cotton pall. Her eyes were closed and although the excitement had waned, the joy on her face remained in full force. Her regular breathing told him she was at peace. He began to sing, softly at first.

  But Maggie wasn’t asleep. She was reliving her visit with Jesus. She heard Matt start to sing. It sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. It sounded like he didn’t know it very well, and knew only one verse. But he had a nice singing voice so she didn’t want to interrupt.

  The words told her it was a worship song, and the way he was singing it made her think he expected the object of that worship to be listening. He was singing directly to God. She opened her eyes to watch. Then it seemed like he switched to a foreign language, and sang with much more confidence, like he had learned the song in the foreign language and had to translate into English each time.

  What struck her was not the words, per se, but the intensity and passion in those words. The melody was slowly changing, too. The song became quick and light, joyful, and as she described it later, dancing. She got goosebumps all over her arms, neck, and scalp. The song morphed into a rich and full, pulsating, rhythmic theme. It was calling her! She felt the tingling in her spine again. Then it was triumphant; he seemed to be singing of a great victory that had just taken place. All at once it was over. He relaxed and opened his eyes. The entire song had taken only a few minutes.

  He smiled at her. “I thought you were asleep. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “I was resting. The quietness was good for me. You have a wonderful voice. I’ve actually been awake the whole time. The song was absolutely beautiful!”

  “Thanks. It really wasn’t me, though.”

  “It sounded like it was you, but I couldn’t tell what language it was. And what were the words, in English?”

  “I hope this doesn’t sound weird to you, but I have no idea what the words were or what they meant. It was a song, it was a prayer, it was the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, singing through me. Jesus breathed his spirit into you, too. It’s the same spirit. Sometimes I can get the drift of what the song is saying, like one time it was a long and continuous battle cry, another time I felt like I was in a swordfight.”

  “Did you win the fight?”

  Matt laughed. “The fight just sort of ended and the song moved on to something else.”

  “What do you call it?”

  “The song? I just call it singing in the spirit. It’s actually a gift from Jesus. At another point in the song, I felt like the words and melody were awakening something in you, a deep calling to deep. The Holy Spirit calling to your new spirit.”

  “I hope so. You’re much deeper than I. I have so much to learn.”

  “When you entered this new relationship with our heavenly father, you became fully alive, and as deep as you’ll ever be. We’re as deep as each other right now. But this new life will be a life of discovery. The old Maggie has died and a new Maggie has come, but there may be things in your past that need to be healed, released, and restored.”

  “It was beautiful. I want you to tell me more about this later, but right now can we talk about Jenny?”

  “You took the words right out of my mouth. While you were with Jesus, God showed me what we need to do to get ready for Jenny to come back. You still believe she’s going to live, don’t you, now that you’ve met your end of the bargain and died?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Matt changed his mind. “There’s one more thing we need to do before that, which is really part of the preparation.”

  “Right, what’s that?”

  Matt proceeded carefully and tenderly. “I saw how your expression changed when I started talking about your own father. I saw great pain and anguish. I saw your impossibility to trust him, so I used your trusting me instead, to show how trustworthy our father in heaven really is. Is there something you’d like to tell me about that? I don’t mean to pry, but our heavenly father gave us natural fathers to show us how our relationship to him is supposed to work, and I don’t want anything to hinder your relationship with him. You don’t have to tell me, or give me any details, or even remember anything you don’t want to remember.”

  Maggie was still for a few moments. She felt like there was a closed door, that if she opened it, memories that had long been buried would come flooding out. Matt’s talk of trusting her father had brought her to the door, and she had involuntarily reacted to get away from that door, as she always had. “I don’t want to remember. Not right now, I feel too wonderful!”

  But there were words written on the door, a quiet and calming summary to allow her to acknowledge the door without opening it. She added, as if reading the words, “I was afraid to be near him. And I always thought he would rather have had another son instead of me.”

  How crushing, Matt thought, to suffer parental rejection. “God can and will heal you in your memories,” he said. “It may take some time. I believe that even now our father is beginning to prepare you for that day. Let’s move on to Jenny. The Lord showed me that Jenny would get her life back through you. He showed me that both you and she need to wash with water, the areas where there would be skin-to-skin contact in nursing. He said it would symbolize the free flow of the spirit of life. Here, let’s start with Jenny. Are you ready?”

  She was considering her role in this, and started getting a little nervous. She got out a water bottle. “Will this be enough?”

  “Oh, yes. Enough for both of you. I’ll hold Jenny with her mouth open. You fill her mouth with water and swish it around, cleaning off her tongue, inside her mouth, and her throat. Then wash off her face and lips the same way.”

  It didn’t take long, and Matt turned the body over and let the water drain out. Overhead, the sun was still beaming down on them, and the ever-present haze protected them from its wrath.

  44

  At Terminal 3 of London’s Heathrow Airport, a man and woman approached the line of passengers exiting Britannia Airlines flight 1539.

  “Hullo, Mr. Petrov? Mr. Mikhail Petrov?”

/>   “Yes, I am Petrov.”

  “My name is Andy Nelson. I am a translator for Mrs. Jane Cooper from Britannia Airlines. This is Mrs. Cooper.”

  Mrs. Cooper smiled at Mr. Petrov and said a few words to her translator. They had gone over the script a few minutes earlier, so Andy was aware of where Jane was going, and could phrase the questions more in line with that, if there were difficulties.

  “Mr. Petrov, is that your wife with you?”

  “Yes, this is my wife Katrina.”

  Andy signaled to one of seven other pairs of BA representatives and translators, who joined them and introduced themselves. Tom Barbary from BA and his translator, John Whitfield.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Petrov, there has been a problem with your baggage. You made it in time for this flight, but your baggage did not. It was delayed until the next flight.”

  “That is okay, sir. We have a fairly long layover until our flight to Saint Petersburg. It will probably catch up to us. How long was the delay in Chicago before the next flight here?”

  “That’s not the issue, Mrs. Petrov. Your baggage will not be arriving at all. We would like you both to accompany us to one of the Britannia Airlines offices, to go over the contents of your baggage, and to ask you a few questions about it.”

  Jane Cooper, who wasn’t really from Britannia Airlines at all, but part of a security organization high in the British government, read their faces as they received the news of their lost baggage. A fairly normal response to the announcement, she thought. She was glad BA had enough spare uniforms that each of the eight team members got one that fit well. A glance and nearly imperceptible nod to the other teams indicated her evaluation that the Petrovs didn’t seem to be hiding anything.

  The other six teams were called, one or two at a time, as the other six Russian travelers were identified when they cleared the hastily-erected checkpoint just outside their arrival gate.

  Jane and Andy, the other team, and the Petrovs headed to a bank of twelve identical offices, each about ten feet square, with tables and chairs, a whiteboard, set of maps of the whole world, and unobtrusively placed cameras and microphones. The cameras and mics automatically started recording as soon as the door was shut, and the recordings were generally deleted when the interview was over and no issues had developed.

  Today was different, however. Eight other agents were watching the proceedings; they had encrypted communications back to their headquarters, as well as radio feeds to the earpieces worn by Jane and the rest of the security team.

  Jane, through Andy, explained they needed to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Petrov separately. If questioned, they would explain that when insurance companies are faced with claims like this, they would want to ensure there was an honest accounting for all the baggage. Therefore, it was BA policy to get good descriptions of the contents from each traveler separately, then afterwards to resolve any differences. But this wasn’t necessary for Jane and Tom; it seemed to them that the Petrovs were used to this kind of treatment.

  The whole world would know in a matter of hours that something disastrous had happened to the plane carrying the Petrovs’ baggage, so Jane with Mr. Petrov, and Tom with Mrs. Petrov, started out with that announcement.

  “Mr. Petrov, please call me Jane. May I call you Mikhail?” It sounded strange to Andy to say that.

  “Yes, Jane. Is something serious the matter? We will help in any way we can.”

  “The plane carrying your baggage has been lost at sea, over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. As far as we know, the only survivors are those who didn’t make the flight, namely you and your traveling companions. Are you all travelling together? There are eight Russians who have connecting flights here at Heathrow.”

  “No, we met the Nikolevskis on the flight to the US two weeks ago. Nikola had recently retired, as I have. Over a beer we talked of traveling together on our US tour, but we both knew that would take a change in plans for one of us or the other. They were going to Los Angeles, and we were traveling north to Minneapolis-Saint Paul, to see Minnesota.”

  “I see on the manifest that you and your wife had three pieces of checked baggage.” She showed him a baggage chart. “Could you show me which pictures correspond to your baggage? The check-in record shows one weighed 22 kilos, one was 21 kilos, and one was 10 kilos. The first two were close to the weight limit. Show me those first.”

  Mikhail carefully looked the chart over, then pointed. “They were two identical number twenty-twos right here, except for color. Mine was dark green, Katrina’s was brown. The spare was a black number two.”

  A voice in Jane’s earpiece confirmed the information about the Nikolevskis. And later, about the baggage.

  “What do you mean, ‘the spare’?”

  “All we had in the black suitcase was some warm clothes—two sweatshirts and long underwear—in case it got cold while we were in Minnesota. That was all.”

  “For the fee for the extra baggage,” Jane observed, “you probably could have bought that in Minnesota and discarded it before you came back, and been money ahead.”

  “That wasn’t the only purpose for that suitcase. We had planned to fill it with souvenirs for our children and grandchildren. However, when we went to the gift shops and saw something typically American that they might be interested in, all the items were labeled ‘Made in China.’ So we never bought anything. We don’t have anything against China, like some of our comrades, but we wanted to impress them with something made in the USA.”

  “Did you pack your own suitcases before the flight back? Were you in control of them from the time you packed them until you brought them to the airport security station?”

  “Oh, yes! We inventoried the contents often, like we were advised before we left. We had heard stories that hotels do not guarantee the security of baggage, so we were constantly checking. Come to think of it, we never needed the clothes in the spare suitcase, so we never opened it the whole trip. Do you need a list of the contents?”

  “Yes, I was just getting to that. Here are some inventory sheets. Please list everything as detailed as you can remember. Take your time. Accuracy is more important to us than speed right now. Wait, dictate to Andy and he will write it in English.”

  Mikhail took about twenty minutes to remember everything, including the sizes of his wife’s clothing and the color of her shoes. “I was an accountant during my career,” he explained. “I can tell you the number of buttons, if that would help.”

  Jane smiled. “Not necessary, but thanks. Let’s move on to where you have been since you left your home in…”—she consulted the printout again—“Sertolovo. Aside from all your connecting flights, did you visit another country besides the US?”

  “Yes, we drove up to International Falls. We wanted to see the coldest spot in the continental US, and how it compares to Sertolovo. Of course, it’s not winter there. It’s the beginning of summer, but we could tell how they prepared for the cold just by looking around. Then we drove across the Rainy River to Fort Frances in Canada. We went to the McDonald’s to compare Canadian McDonald’s to American, British, and Russian McDonald’s. After that, we drove across the street to the Dairy Queen to make the same comparisons. Then we drove back across the Rainy River to Minnesota.”

  “So you drove? Did you rent a car, or did you have friends you met who brought you places?”

  “No, we were by ourselves. My wife speaks English very well, so I have been little more than a passenger the whole time. It was great!”

  “Right, let’s start out in Sertolovo. Try to remember every detail from getting in your car at home, to when you claimed your baggage at the Minneapolis Airport and picked up the rental car. What you saw and who you talked to. Where you went in the US besides your trip to Canada. Your sequence of events from the time you woke up yesterday morning until you were seated on the plane. I am going to record this, and we will get what we need of it transcribed later. I will try not to interrupt, but I may ask for some clarifications along
the way.”

  She unlocked her phone and tapped the voice recorder app. She knew it was unnecessary; it was just for show; the microphone in the background was picking up both the Russian and the English translation. At the other end, the voice recognition and translation programs were producing English documents as fast as Mikhail, Jane, and Andy were speaking. The security handler for Jane and Andy marveled at how accurately Andy was translating in both directions.

  It took Mikhail about an hour, going to great lengths to itemize every step. Jane didn’t want to miss any of it; there was no telling what little detail might be important later on. After about five minutes, her earpiece told her that Katrina was finished, and five minutes after that, she found out the other six had finished also.

  After all the questions were complete, Mikhail had a question of his own. “It seems to me based on all your questions, that our baggage was not merely ‘lost at sea,’ but something much more serious has happened. Tell me, are we suspects?”

  “We don’t know what happened. We know we lost communication with them as well as radar tracking. Until we find out, then yes, everyone is a suspect. What intrigues me is the suitcase you never opened. Are you sure you never opened it, even for a short time?”

  “Yes. We kept it locked in the boot of the rental car, and we put the other baggage in the back seat for easier access. We did not take it out until we got back to the airport.”

  Jane just remembered the airline baggage glitch. “Did you have anything abnormal happen when you checked in?”

  “No. Well, at first they couldn’t find our reservations in their system, but that happens a lot, so I did not think anything of it. Katrina told me about that later.”

  “Thank you for your cooperation. The British authorities have asked us to turn you and Katrina and the others over to them for a few days, while they sort things out. I hope you can understand. I don’t mean to scare you, but this will be for your protection as well.”