Zone

by Jack Lance

  An official at the luggage-inspection desk was, however, unimpressed.

  ‘Would you mind opening your suitcase for me, sir?’ he asked Tremain.

  Joe, wearing a brown suit with a matching brown necktie, felt insulted by what he took to be the supercilious tone of ‘the Uniform’ – his name for everyone on security staff. With an angry gesture he complied, whereupon the official started rummaging through his personal belongings.

  He had hated the Uniforms in airport security ever since one of them had confiscated his letter opener. It was just a bloody souvenir, for God’s sake. He had lost his temper, and why not? The bastards had no right to root around in his belongings.

  Joe’s dudgeon soared to new heights when the official, his expression inscrutable, continued searching through the contents of his green Samsonite suitcase. He zipped open Joe’s toiletry bag and moved his black boxers around, groping for hidden compartments inside the piece of luggage.

  ‘Having trouble finding it?’ Joe asked.

  The official glanced up. ‘Excuse me, sir?’

  ‘What you’re looking for. You must be looking for something specific, otherwise you wouldn’t be doing this. What’s your problem?’

  Unperturbed, the blue Uniform continued his inspection of the suitcase.

  ‘Jesus Christ, man!’ Joe exploded. ‘I don’t have all day. I have a plane to catch.’

  It was like talking to a prison wall. The security officer continued doing what he was doing. ‘What’s your destination, sir?’ he asked, glancing up.

  ‘Sydney,’ Joe hissed between his teeth.

  ‘Business or pleasure?’

  None of your fucking beeswax, Joe was tempted to respond. He felt the stares of other travelers burning holes in his back.

  ‘I’m a businessman,’ he said instead, struggling to keep a lid on his temper. ‘So I’m going there on business.’

  To make money so my tax dollars can pay for your fucking salary, asshole.

  ‘What kind of business?’ the uniform asked calmly.

  ‘Am I obliged to tell you that?’

  Joe inadvertently clenched his fists. This man was seriously getting on his nerves.

  ‘Did you pack this suitcase yourself?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And no one else has touched it?’

  ‘No one. Except you. And you’ve been touching it long enough now, if you don’t mind my saying so.’

  The Uniform’s face split in an evil grin, like a bloodhound smelling a wounded prey. ‘Sir, I could make this very hard on you if I wanted to. I could make this so hard on you that you might even miss your flight. Is that what you want?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like that,’ Joe nearly spat. His eyes flashed; he doubted not for a moment that the Uniform was taking pleasure in harassing him.

  ‘What’s your problem, sir?’ the official asked, turning the tables on Joe.

  Two of the Uniform’s co-workers were watching them. Joe heard someone coughing behind him; other people waiting in line were getting impatient.

  Joe took a deep breath. This was no time to get angry. He had important things to do in Sydney. He had to get to Australia. It wouldn’t do to be held up at LAX by some cork-brained official who was having a bad day. Joe managed to paste a smile on his face.

  ‘No problem at all, sir.’

  The striking blue eyes of the Uniform remained fixed on Joe for a moment, then he shoved the suitcase back toward him. At last Joe could move on. It had been a close call, but everything had turned out all right. He had managed to keep his cool despite the Uniform’s unjust provocation.

  But when he reached the waiting area, he glanced down at his right hand and noticed blood on the palm. In his anger and frustration, he had pressed his fingernails into his flesh.

  Apparently he had not been as cool and collected as he had assumed.

  Phyllis Kirby sat jammed tight in her seemingly tiny bucket seat. Sitting next to her, Jerrod Kirby had more room to move than his wife, only because there was a 150-pound difference in weight between them. He was like a slender, nimble catamaran, while she resembled a beamy river barge.

  He would never dream of uttering such a comparison if she could hear him, of course: she reacted badly to people who commented on her weight. Jerrod had long ago learned to consider every word he said to her carefully. Bitter experience had taught him that colliding with a river barge could cause considerable damage.

  Phyllis claimed that her metabolism went haywire every time she went on a diet. No matter her low-calorie regimen du jour, it only made her bigger and heavier. Jerrod seriously doubted whether it was purely her internal systems that had fashioned her into such a formidable battle-axe in recent years. He often caught her snacking every hour of the day while she was theoretically on a diet, and he suspected that she raided the fridge even more when he was away from home. But he had learned not to offer comments about that, either.

  ‘Did you remember to bring my book?’ she demanded to know.

  ‘Yes, dear,’ he said meekly.

  Her firm, steady glare indicated that she wanted proof. In reply, Jerrod picked up the overnight bag tucked under the seat in front of him and retrieved her latest Danielle Steel. This he waved at her triumphantly, as if showing off a prize.

  ‘See? Didn’t I tell you?’

  A low growling noise emanating from Phyllis’s throat indicated conditional satisfaction. Jerrod knew all her sounds and the likely import of each. He knew when to tread carefully, and when he was permitted back in her favor.

  His friends sometimes asked him to divulge the secret of their marriage. It was a question he could have answered with confidence when he knelt at the altar beside her. Now, twenty years later, she was simply the woman to whom he was committed. Nothing more, nothing less.

  He tried not to notice that she had turned from a slender reed into a wide oak tree. Usually he was successful. He was resigned to her sudden shifts of moods, just as he accepted the variability of the weather. Sometimes it rained, sometimes it stormed. What was a man to do?

  ‘I hate flying,’ she griped.

  Now she had her book, Phyllis moved on to the next item on her list of complaints.

  ‘We’ll have a great time in Australia,’ he said in as pleasant a voice as he could manage.

  ‘Sure,’ she responded without enthusiasm. ‘But first we get to spend twelve hours on a bloody plane. My butt already hurts and we’re not even on the plane yet.’

  Jerrod was tempted to point out that Phyllis was the one who had picked their destination. She always decided where they would spend their annual vacation. The two weeks in Australia they had booked were costing him an arm and a leg. If it had been up to him, their travel plans would have been a lot simpler and cheaper. It was what it was, but he sure as hell had no desire to listen to her grouse for hours about all her discomforts while crossing the Pacific. Nevertheless, he managed to restrain himself.

  For better or for worse, Phyllis was his life. He had no other life.

  Sometimes he dreamed of turning back the clock and standing with her at the altar again. Only this time, when the vicar asked his solemn question in his holier-than-thou tone, Jerrod would turn around and bolt down the aisle – as fast and as far away from her as he could.

  But this was a pipe dream, an illusion, and nothing more. Unfortunately, time elapsed in an unrelenting straight line. On its way to inevitable destinations, always onward.

  Just like flying.

  One by one, the late arrivals among the 327 passengers for Flight 582 entered the stark waiting area enclosed by glass partitions. The large windows around the next security station, with a monitor overhead displaying the destination SYDNEY and the flight information, afforded a view of the white shape of the Princess of the Pacific parked at the end of the jetway.

  The waiting area was filled with men, women, and children of all colors and descriptions. Among them was a gray-haired man in a checkered blue shirt and a fiftyis
h woman with short hair, without a strand of gray or white. For them, this trip to Sydney was the dream vacation they had anticipated for years. For a broad-shouldered man and his attractive fair-haired bride, Australia was their honeymoon destination. An Asian family – husband, wife, and two young sons – were planning to visit family.

  When the boarding call was announced, Evelyn Hooks – a hefty woman who according to friend and foe alike was an unshakeable Dragon Lady – looked up.

  ‘They’re letting us on the plane,’ she told her adopted daughter, Cassie, who was sitting beside her. Cassie was fourteen, slender to the point of being skinny, and short for her age. Her long dark-brown hair was tied back in a ponytail. She and her mother occupied seats in one of the last rows in the waiting area, and Evelyn kept a close eye on her. Not only was this Cassie’s first flight, this was the first time in two years she was leaving the vicinity of Sugar Creek, a neighborhood which had gradually become a familiar place for her. Evelyn prayed there would be no trouble.

  The passengers were invited to board. Business Class first, followed by parents with infants and young children, and anyone needing assistance. Evelyn remained seated with Cassie, waiting for their turn to join the line. Normally she would not have been nervous before a flight. But this time, for a reason she could not explain, she was. When the attractively uniformed employee announced that all other rows were now permitted to board, Evelyn stood and picked up her purse.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said to Cassie.

  Cassie slowly rose to her feet. Evelyn took her by the hand and led her toward the boarding desk. Cassie glanced around skittishly, as if she was looking for an opening to make a run for it. Evelyn tightened her fingers around her thin wrist. With Cassie, you never knew what to expect.

  Before they reached the desk, where two Oceans Airways employees were checking tickets, a man in uniform strode toward them, his eyes hard on Cassie. ‘Young lady,’ he said to her, ‘would you come with me, please?’

  Cassie stared back at him, with a look suggesting she had just been caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

  ‘I’m her mother,’ Evelyn said calmly. ‘If you have any questions for my daughter, I will answer them.’

  The man nodded. ‘In that case, would you both please come with me?’

  He gestured toward another desk, slightly set back from the line of passengers. Behind it stood two other men in uniform. If they had been singled out for an extra security check, they must have signaled something questionable. Although Evelyn had grown accustomed to such treatment, it still frustrated her. They stepped from the line.

  As they did so, a burly security officer with a bald head stepped forward. ‘What is your travel destination?’ he demanded to know. He towered over her, and she felt pinned down by his piercing gaze.

  ‘Sydney,’ she said forthrightly.

  ‘On business or pleasure?’

  ‘Both,’ Evelyn explained ‘My daughter and I are attending a minerals exposition there. But we hope to travel about the area, too.’

  ‘May I see some ID, please?’

  Evelyn handed him her passport and Cassie’s identification card. ‘She’s my adopted daughter,’ she added, before the officer could ask.

  She hoped the man wouldn’t force her to tell him their entire life story. If he did, they would be here a while. She felt the curious glances of other passengers shuffling by behind her.

  ‘How long will you be staying in Australia?’

  ‘One week.’

  ‘And what’s your destination after that?’

  ‘Back home to Los Angeles. We have round-trip tickets. Would you like to see them?’

  ‘If it’s no trouble.’

  Evelyn showed him their tickets for the return flight.

  ‘One moment, please,’ the man said.

  He handed their documents to the two men behind the counter, who spent several minutes checking the validity of her passport and Cassie’s ID. It seemed to take forever for the men to be convinced that Evelyn Hooks and her adopted daughter had nothing to hide.

  This time Cassie kept quiet while they waited. By the grace of God she did not make a scene. That was the very last thing Evelyn wanted right now. Another horrible scene.

  At length the bald security officer waved them on. Their boarding passes were checked, and they walked down the gangway and boarded the plane. Their seats were located in the middle section of row 31, seats D and E.

  As Evelyn stowed her purse in the luggage bin above her seat, she temporarily blocked the aisle for a flight attendant with long blonde hair, who waited patiently. Her task done, Evelyn moved aside, allowing the flight attendant to continue on her way. Which she did, but not before throwing Cassie a strange look similar to the one the security officer had given her a few minutes earlier in the terminal.

  Let her have some peace, finally! Evelyn mused, her mood turning sour and angry.

  She took her seat.

  ‘Sit down, Cassie,’ she said quietly, pulling on her daughter’s arm, forcing her to sit down in the aisle seat.

  Cassie complied, staring fixedly ahead, ignoring everyone. She pinched her lips into a tight line and made not a sound.

  Evelyn settled in, saying nothing further. Her neighbor on the other side in seat F was a beautiful young woman with shoulder-length brown hair. The last seat in their row, seat G, remained unoccupied.

  Evelyn prepared for the long flight. Please God, she silently prayed, may Cassie see it through the next twelve hours, or however long the trip might take.

  ‘Everything’s OK. I’m here,’ Evelyn said to her daughter. She gave her a reassuring squeeze on the arm, but it did not have the desired effect. Cassie began glancing around furtively, casting nasty looks at passengers stowing their cabin luggage and taking their seats. She seemed frightened, petrified.

  Evelyn sighed inwardly. What was it this time?

  Sharlene was conducting a quick check to see if she could assist any of the passengers when that portly woman blocked the aisle. A young girl standing behind her, probably her daughter, suddenly turned and touched Sharlene briefly.

  The girl moved her lips, murmuring something that Sharlene could not make out. She considered asking the girl what she had said, but thought better of it.

  The mother, who couldn’t have overheard her daughter, turned sideways to make room for Sharlene to pass. Sharlene maintained eye contact with the girl until the mother gave her a surly look, signaling her displeasure.

  Although Sharlene found this odd, she decided to leave it be. A passenger down the aisle looked as if she required assistance. She was a short, heavy-set woman wearing a long black dress and an oversized pair of Ray-Bans, as if she were either a nun or a Goth in a midlife crisis. At least that was Sharlene’s first impression. The woman clearly was too short to lift her cabin luggage up into the overhead bin.

  Sharlene strode up to her. ‘Do you need some help, madam?’ she offered pleasantly.

  The woman curled her lips. ‘Thank you, I would appreciate that,’ she said in a thin sing-song tone of voice. Sharlene could not see the woman’s eyes. They were hidden behind the enormous pitch-black lenses of her sunglasses.

  FOUR

  Princess of the Pacific

  The airplane dubbed Princess of the Pacific was 230 feet long from stem to stern, and almost as wide from wingtip to wingtip. Her skin was aluminum, and without fuel, cargo, and passengers she weighed 400,000 pounds. She could hold 63,400 gallons of fuel, and her maximum take-off weight was 800,000 pounds. Her nose, high above the ground, was awe-inspiring, even in the gathering dusk of the day. Coiled inside her belly were 170 miles of wiring and 5 miles of vein-like tubing. The first of her breed had flown in 1969, thirteen years after the death of her creator, William E. Boeing, founder of the Boeing Company.

  The Princess of the Pacific, type 747-400, was ready for her next crossing of the ocean, on this run to Sydney, Australia. In the twelve years since her construction, she had
transported hundreds of thousands of people to every corner of the world, across every sea and continent.

  She had always been good to her passengers and had suffered few defects. On one memorable occasion, one of her four engines had stalled over the Atlantic Ocean. That had initiated a precautionary emergency landing at JFK Airport in New York. The passengers hadn’t noticed anything amiss. After all, the plane could still fly smoothly with only two engines functioning.

  Tonight, proud and ready, she was set to welcome yet another shipload of passengers.

  ‘Start pushing in 330,000 pounds, but keep the fuel hose locked,’ Jim Nichols told the fuel-truck driver, who was standing next to him in the cockpit. ‘I have yet to determine exactly how much fuel we’ll need.’

  ‘Will do,’ the man said, before turning and walking away.

  Next, Jim received a visit from two LAX mechanics for a routine check of the 747-400 and to sign off on the technical manuals. After they left, Jim inspected the overhead panel inside the cockpit indicating the status of fuel, hydraulics, and air conditioning. He paid special attention to the flight instruments and the EICAS display. EICAS – an acronym for the Engine Indication and Crew Alerting System – supplied the pilots with information on engine power, speed, and temperatures. To the right of EICAS were red and yellow readings for details that still needed resolution. Protocol dictated that this screen had to be empty before the plane could take off. Greg’s job was to ensure that it was empty.

  The cockpit of a 747-400 houses two pilots: the commander and the copilot, also referred to as the first officer. The two pilots can hold the same rank – Jim Nichols and Greg Huffstutter were both captains – but during a flight there is a specific chain of command that has to be followed.