Angel Flight

by R. D. Kardon

  The crew of Compassion Royal Four-Five-Quebec were soon climbing into the skies above Iqaluit, where Bruce pointed the airplane toward the US.

  The angel flight had begun.

  An hour out of Bangor, Tris allowed herself to relax. Mike leaned against the bulkhead, his eyes closed. Bruce had run the flight efficiently.

  Tris got up once to check on their passenger, which required clunky choreography. Mike had to raise the jump seat and stand up, and the passageway between the cockpit and the cabin was so narrow, Tris couldn’t help but come in physical contact with him. His hand grazed hers, and she pulled it away as though he’d tried to stab her. A flash of pain crossed his face.

  In the cabin, Christine put down the magazine she’d been reading. Her hands clenched her shoulder bag so tightly they looked like part of the strap.

  “Dr. Edgemon, do you need anything? Are you okay?” Tris asked.

  Christine was quick to reply, “No, no. I’m fine. Fine,” in a way that left no doubt that she wasn’t at all fine. She looked out the window. “Doesn’t seem to be anything down there. Are we close to any cities?”

  “Not really. It’s pretty sparse out here. We’ll be in Bangor soon.”

  “How soon?” Christine abruptly sat up and hugged her shoulder bag to her chest.

  “Less than an hour now. Ma’am, please, if there’s anything you need, anything we can do, let me know. Things—” Tris looked toward where Mike sat on the other side of the cloth barrier, “things will be calmer on the way to Exeter. I promise.” She couldn’t wait to be on the ground in Bangor, offload Mike, and send him on his way.

  Christine smiled awkwardly, maintaining her grip on the bag.

  Just south of Mont Joli airport in southern Quebec, forty-five minutes from Bangor, Tris and Bruce began preparations for landing in the US. Tris pulled the appropriate charts, which were even more of a challenge to review with Mike crowding the cockpit space.

  Tris accidentally poked him with her elbow, and he said, “Look. I’ve got to use the lav anyway. Let me get out of your hair for a few minutes while you guys set up the approach.”

  ATC had just given them instructions to start their descent, so Bruce was busy with the autopilot. “Fine, but hurry up. And do not speak to our passenger at all.” Tris replied, uncertain about letting him go, but unwilling to refuse anyone a trip to the lav. She mentally crossed her fingers and returned to setting up the navigation computer and aircraft radios.

  Then she heard Mike’s voice, followed by Christine’s, talking quietly.

  Damn it. He needs to leave that woman alone.

  Their voices stayed low and a glance through the curtain revealed that they were sitting across the aisle from each other, speaking calmly. She’d finish preparing for the landing, then get up and drag him back to the jump seat.

  A screech obliterated the calm business-like whir of the cockpit.

  “Noooo!” Mike yelled.

  Two loud pops followed, like someone stepped on bubble wrap.

  Tris yanked the curtain aside. Just feet away, Mike’s body was upright in his seat; his eyes open, head thrown back, the chest of his white pilot shirt stained red. Red drops were splattered on the airplane window next to him.

  The Royal’s familiar dust-and-metal smell mixed with the aroma of spent firecrackers. Smoke swirled in the air. It smelled like Lemaster. Tris gagged and swallowed several times to keep from vomiting.

  Bruce’s mouth was open, his eyes agape. A low moan escaped his lips.

  Tris clicked off her shoulder harness to rush to Mike. Bruce grabbed her arm and pushed her back, hard, into her seat.

  “Are you crazy? You can’t go back there.”

  She gasped. “But Mike’s hurt.”

  Bruce tightened his grip. “Stop. Tris. Stop.”

  Breathing hard, Tris took a moment to make sure she didn’t hyperventilate. She whispered into her microphone. “Bruce, our passenger shot him.”

  Bruce’s mouth moved—a pale slit surrounded by ghostly white skin. “Is there a gun? Do you see it?”

  “I’m not sure—there has to be. The . . . blood. That smell.” She coughed. She willed herself to remain calm, but she was shaking, and her teeth chattered.

  The airplane. Focus on the airplane. Aviate. Navigate. Communicate.

  Aviate.

  “Bruce, keep your eyes straight ahead. Fly the plane. I’m going to change our transponder code.”

  Tris carefully twisted the knobs on the transponder until the numbers 7-7-0-0, the universal aircraft mayday code, appeared.

  “Compassion Royal Four-Five-Quebec, Bangor Center. Verify squawking seventy-seven hundred. Say intentions.”

  “Center, Compassion Royal Four-Five-Quebec is declaring an emergency. One passenger may be armed, and another is hurt. He was shot. We—” Stress-induced tears welled in her eyes, and her voice was unsteady. “Our intentions are to land in Bangor, our destination, the closest airport. We have someone aboard with a gun . . . someone’s been . . . shot . . . and we don’t . . . we don’t . . . we can’t lock ourselves in up here. It’s just . . . a curtain . . . that’s our only barrier. The crew is exposed.”

  “Compassion Royal Four-Five-Quebec, understood. Proceed direct Bangor. How many souls aboard?”

  “Four,” Tris replied quickly.

  “Compassion Royal Four-Five-Quebec, roger. Can you tell us the amount of fuel you have in pounds, and the age and gender of the injured passenger?”

  “What is going on Tris? I don’t understand.” Bruce hadn’t panicked. He was intent on flying the airplane. In any emergency, the safety of flight came first.

  She held up her hand toward Bruce and answered ATC. “Bangor, Compassion Four-Five-Quebec has one thousand pounds of fuel. The injured party,” Tris took a break to steady herself, “the person with a gunshot wound is a forty-year-old male.”

  ATC responded immediately. “Compassion Royal Four-Five-Quebec, we copy. You mentioned a firearm. Is there someone on the airplane that is still armed? Is the crew in imminent danger?”

  “Stand by,” Tris said crisply.

  Bruce was monitoring the gauges. He’d leaned as far away from the open space between the cockpit and the cabin as he possibly could.

  “Bruce, you have a better view than I do from here,” Tris said, regretting now that she was in the right seat. “Pretend you’re looking at something on my side of the panel. Can you tell me what Christine is doing?”

  Bruce shook his head. “I don’t want to look. What if she shoots me? I can’t . . .”

  “I hear you, Bruce. I know. Please. Just turn your head a little. I can’t see her clearly from this seat.”

  Reluctantly, Bruce lifted his right hand above his head, pretending to flip an overhead switch while he peeked in the back.

  “Oh man, Tris. Geez. Oh man. Mike’s slumped over.” Bruce’s voice had a touch of hysteria.

  “Okay, Bruce. Take it easy. What’s Christine doing?”

  Bruce angled his head slightly. “There’s a gun, Tris. Right on the seat next to her.”

  “But what’s she doing? Is she holding it? God . . . is she pointing it?

  “You’re not going to believe this.” Bruce’s brows furrowed. He closed his eyes quickly, then opened them. “No. She’s reading National Geographic.”

  Tris and Bruce exchanged looks, and she keyed the mike. “Bangor, Compassion Royal Four-Five-Quebec. Our passenger is armed. And she appears to be reading a magazine.”

  Forty-Eight

  Bruce pushed the engines to just below red-line power as the Royal sped to Bangor. Tris’s hands had barely stopped shaking when they heard another pop.

  “What was that?” Tris jumped up in her seat, straining at the belt and harness that she’d loosened. “Oh, shit. Look behind you, look behind you,” she implored Bruce. “Oh, shit.”

  Bruce turned his head and immediately gagged. His hands tightened on the control column. Thankfully the autopilot was still on.

 
; “I-I-I,” Bruce stuttered, gulped, and tried again. “I think our passenger shot herself.”

  Tris couldn’t make herself look. “How long to Bangor?”

  “Fifteen minutes. Maybe less,” Bruce answered.

  “Bangor Approach, Compassion Royal Four-Five-Quebec.”

  “Four-Five-Quebec, Bangor. Go ahead.”

  “Both passengers are injured. I repeat, we have two wounded parties in the airplane.” Tris checked the pressurization gauges to confirm that the shot hadn’t pierced the fuselage.

  “Understood Four-Five-Quebec. Age and sex of the second party? And is the airplane itself in distress?”

  She choked back a sob. “Female, age 42. An ALS patient. The one we were flying to . . . to save,” Tris could barely finish the sentence. She steeled herself to continue. “It appears that the airplane is not damaged.”

  A long pause. “We read you Four-Five-Quebec. Compassion Royal Four-Five-Quebec you are cleared to land, Bangor airport, any runway. Wind three-two-zero at ten knots.”

  Using Runway One-Five would get them on the ground the fastest. Tris didn’t care that they’d have a ten-knot tailwind. One-Five was over 11,000 feet long, and they’d slam the plane on the ground and stand on the brakes. If either Mike or Christine were still breathing, she had to give them the best possible chance at survival.

  “Bruce. Bruce. Do you have the airplane?”

  Bruce responded to Tris as though she’d lost her mind. “Of course. Whaddaya think?”

  This was a bad, bad sign. “I need you, Bruce. I need your help. Listen to me. Just put the airplane down. Land hard, don’t goose it. Drop it and stop it as soon as you can. I don’t know if they’re alive back there.”

  “Roger, Tris. I’ve got it.”

  They were only twenty miles away. Bruce lined the aircraft up perfectly with Runway One-Five. “Gear down, before landing checklist,” he ordered.

  No way. It was too soon.

  “Negative,” Tris replied. “Maintain speed. We agreed. You need to chop and drop. For now, we go fast.”

  “Negative? Hey Tris. I’m flying here. I want the gear down.” He looked at her wide-eyed, with his lips parted. His hands shook.

  “No. Keep your speed up.”

  Bruce reached for the flap handle. Tris slapped it away. “We are way too fast for flaps, man. If you extend them now, they’ll be ripped right off.”

  Bruce dropped his head and hunched over, his forehead practically touching the top of the instrument panel.

  “One. Thousand,” came roaring through the speaker.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he said meekly.

  This is it. “Bruce, I have the airplane.” She took the yoke and pushed his hands from the power levers.

  “Five. Hundred.”

  He straightened up. “What? No, you don’t.”

  “Bruce! My airplane. Do you understand? Hands off the controls.”

  Bruce’s hands flew back. “What the fuck?”

  Tris flew as fast as she could for as long as she could, yanked the power back, lowered the flaps and gear.

  “Fifty. Twenty. Ten.”

  She dumped the airplane on the runway. Her feet jammed on the brakes so hard her butt lifted off of the seat.

  Stopped on the ground, Tris killed the engines and set the parking brake amid a kaleidoscope of flashing lights.

  Bruce stared straight ahead as the door popped open and uniformed emergency crews rushed aboard.

  Forty-Nine

  “Show me your hands!”

  “Come on, hands up. Show ’em to me!”

  Two different voices shouted as uniformed Bangor SRT officers crashed into the Royal in full tactical gear with automatic weapons pointed upwards, searching for Christine’s gun. Their padded vests, helmets, and visors made them look like aliens, but they were all too real.

  “You two, show me your hands!” one of the officers said sharply to Tris and Bruce. Her arms shot up above her head, eyes wide, body frozen in terror. Bruce wore a blank expression, his translucent skin veiled by sweat. His hands stayed on his knees.

  “Do you have any weapons on you, ma’am?”

  “Nothing. No weapons,” Tris whispered.

  “I’ve got it,” the other officer shouted, and gestured toward the cockpit with Christine’s gun in his hand. “Looks like one of these two is the shooter. They’re both unconscious.”

  “Get the medics up here.”

  With that, the officer who held Christine’s gun walked off the airplane, and two people in identical uniforms came aboard.

  “Ma’am and sir, we are EMTs,” one of the new arrivals said to Tris and Bruce, although it wasn’t clear if Bruce heard anything. “My partners are removing the passengers. Are you hurt? Are either of you hurt?”

  “No. I’m not. We’re not,” she said, gesturing to Bruce. “Please. Help the passengers. Are they alive?”

  “No way to know yet, ma’am. You two just sit here while we tend to them. Okay?”

  Tris nodded and the commotion behind her increased steadily.

  “Right here. No, here.”

  “There’s too much blood.”

  “Slowly. Slowly. Damn, this aisle is narrow!”

  Shivering uncontrollably, Tris grabbed Mike’s uniform jacket, hanging from a hook across from her seat. It smelled of black cherries. She buried her face in the sturdy blue garment and cried.

  Then a new odor hit the cockpit. Bruce had wet his pants.

  She wiped away her tears with the arm of Mike’s jacket. “Bruce? Hey Bruce?” Tris put her hand on his shoulder as EMTs struggled to get a second gurney on the aircraft.

  “This one first,” someone yelled. “This one’s alive.”

  Did that mean someone died? On my flight? Mike?

  “Who’s alive? Who’s alive?” she yelled toward the EMTs. No one responded.

  “Hey. Tris. How’s it going?” Bruce licked his lips and moved to undo his seat belt and shoulder harness.

  “Stay put, Bruce. Doctors are here for our passengers. They’ll want to talk to you. And me, too.”

  “Me? I don’t know anything.”

  “Right. Of course. But they’ll want to talk to you about, you know, what happened and everything. A debrief. You know, like we always do.”

  A third EMT, who looked like a teenager, escorted Tris and Bruce from the cockpit. Outside, two ambulance sirens blared as they sped away with Mike and Christine. Tris stole a quick glance at the blood-soaked passenger cabin, the carnage her airplane had become; the grisly remains of the angel flight.

  Tris followed the EMT, bowed under the weight of his heavy equipment bag, into a hastily-set-up tent. Blood pressure normal, eyes able to follow the tiny penlight, and no pain. She wasn’t hurt. They let her go and turned to Bruce, sitting stunned.

  Everyone was attending this party. Airport employees in yellow safety vests milled about. Forensic investigators snapped on gloves and slipped into Tyvek booties. Yellow police tape was everywhere. Beyond the security fence were so many news trucks and cameras, the lights blinded her.

  Tris was drawn to the Royal. As she approached, Bangor police and crime scene techs shooed her away.

  “Where’s the captain? Is he around here somewhere?” someone called from near a wide tent the teams had set up right on the runway. It was easy to hear the voice. Then Tris realized there was only one runway in Bangor, and her airplane was on it. They’d shut down the whole airport.

  “That’s me,” Tris said. A man with a clipboard wearing a gray-blue blazer and a tie that hung several inches above his belt did a double take when he saw her.

  “Hi, uh, captain. I’m Detective Schirmer with the Bangor Police Department.” He grabbed her hand in a slack handshake.

  “Okay. What do you need?”

  “Well, you’ll have to take a urine test. Procedure. And ma’am, of course we need to interview you.”

  His words floated around her like captions in a cartoon. Unreal. Nothing about
this was real.

  Tris pointed toward the Royal. “Can I go in? I’m the captain of this aircraft,” she said softly. “I need to inspect the damage. To tell the owner.”

  “Sorry. No chance. We have to preserve the scene, ma’am. I’ll take you to the station to be interviewed.”

  “Please. I won’t touch anything.”

  He shook his head. “Out of the question. Ma’am, can you follow me please?”

  “Wait. Where’s my co-pilot? Where is he? Bruce? Bruce?” she cried out, frantically searching for him amid shouts of, “Hey, Captain,” from the reporters beyond the fence.

  “Ma’am, please,” the detective said, and took her elbow. “I need you to come with me. Please, ma’am.”

  Tris yanked her elbow away. Surely this man meant her no harm. But, really, who and what could she trust anymore?

  She was freezing. Time to put her jacket on. Then she realized she’d absent-mindedly carried Mike’s jacket instead of her own off of the Royal. She threw it toward the detective as if it were radioactive. “Here. Take this.” The man caught it in mid-air. “It belongs to one of the injured passengers.”

  Mike had lied. His wife was alive. Christine. And she had been petrified when she saw him.

  Danny was right.

  Fifty

  The security line at Denver International Airport was practically out the door. Danny cut to the front and flashed his crew badge. He was desperate.

  Heather was in labor. Em said that they might have to do an emergency C-section. And no one could reach Bruce. All of Danny’s attempts went to voice mail. Surely Bruce had checked his mobile phone by now. Where was he?

  Constantly checking his watch, his phone, his pager, shifting from foot to foot, Danny waited for an international crew of flight attendants to clear security ahead of him. Those wide body crews were endless. He counted at least fifteen. He could say his wife was in labor, and he needed to cut the line. But he was just antsy, and it wouldn’t help—the flight he was jump seating on didn’t leave for another hour.

  His mobile buzzed. Em’s mom. “Elise? What’s up?”