As their speed decreased, Mark dutifully called out each twenty knots of airspeed loss. He was in effect telling his captain when it was safe to stow the engine reversers, and when they were finally traveling slow enough to safely exit the runway.
“Nice landing,” noted Mark.
“Thanks,” said Bill.
Though both were aware of it, neither pilot commented about the number one engine flaming-out mere seconds after Bill touched down on the runway.
Finally concluding that he’d been way out of line, Bill began to feel remorse for his treatment of his copilot. He realized that it had all been in his head. But as he taxied the behemoth Boeing toward the gate on three engines, he told himself that that was one of the reasons he was paid a good salary--to never take anything or anyone for granted. But he also reminded himself to pay closer attention to the younger guys. He knew his days were numbered and that they were only there for his benefit. His dad was right. And he was also forced to admit to himself that his copilot was, too.
Once the remaining engines were shut down, Bill looked at Mark and extended his hand, saying, “I’m truly sorry about what I said and the accusations I made. Please accept my apologies. Dinner and drinks are on me if you’re interested.”
“Thanks, Bill,” replied Mark with a wry grin. “Give me a few hours to stop thinking about what a jerk, egomaniac, idiot and worthless loser you are. After that, I might just take you up on your offer.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” said Bill with a nod. “I guess I’ve been about as blind as a fool could be.”
The two pilots secured the airplane and then quickly proceeded aft to help get their crew members to the hospital, and to be sure that John Tacker would be dealt with appropriately. Bill also wanted to make sure that Liesel Tacker’s body was properly cared for.
After the stricken crew members were taken off the airplane in stretchers, and the last passenger deplaned, Mark walked off the airplane and into the terminal. He smiled, feeling content with where his life was heading. Once clear of customs and immigration, Mark whistled as he walked outside to catch the bus to the crew hotel. One door was closing while another was about to open, and Mark was ready.
As the would-be hijacker was escorted off the airplane, a handcuffed John Tacker’s eyes met Bill’s. The tired captain saw the fire of an atom bomb staring back at him. Neither man spoke. Bill felt compelled to pass along his condolences, but wisely decided to remain silent.
Bill briefly recalled the Thanksgiving game against Valley View. He didn’t think he’d get to play in their biggest football game of the season. He remembered that John lobbed the ball on the wrong trajectory and that he had to run with everything he had in order to snatch the football from the sky. He knew John had always believed it was his extraordinary talent that won the game, but Bill knew his friend choked. John was about to get sacked and he panicked. Instead of taking a few steps back, he threw the ball blindly. It was yet one more victory that Bill allowed his good buddy to claim as his own.
The memory reminded him of just how far they’d come from that stadium behind the Grove Street school in their hometown of Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania.
Bill watched from a distance as his old friend struggled into the small police car. In that moment, he felt sorry for many things. Little did he know that he had not heard the last from John Tacker. In the hours before they landed, his arch enemy decided to make it his life’s work to destroy Bill Pratt in whatever way and by whatever means possible. The war was far from over.
Thirty Two
“Holy cow, Grandpa!” shouted Jack. “That’s unreal!”
“Yes, I’d say ‘unreal’ is an apt way of putting it,” said Bill.
“Grandpa, you didn’t kill Mrs. Tacker.”
“I know, but my neighbor believes I did.”
“I think he’s being unreasonable. Would you like me to talk to him?” queried Jack.
“That’s a mighty fine offer, Jack, but I think it would be best if you avoided him altogether.”
Jack nodded with his head down, not wishing to inform his grandfather that he and his worst enemy were already friends, sort of. “Grandpa, whatever happened to the Tackers’ son?”
“Over the years I caught a glimpse of him here and there, but they kept him pretty sequestered throughout his life,” said Bill. Then, noticing Jack’s odd expression, he added, “Hidden from us.”
“Oh,” replied Jack with a knowing nod.
*
After graduating from private school, Kenneth David Tacker became a student at the University of Michigan. Though he majored in chemistry, he read every book he could find about airplanes. Driven by a need to make his father proud, he intended to inform his parents about his newly-planned career as a professional pilot upon graduation. He only hoped he could keep it quiet for that long. He knew the words would make his dad beam. Unfortunately, Kenneth was never given a chance to tell him.
As an only child, in a setting that was as far from city life as one could get, Kenneth had few friends. Lacking any other role models, his dad became his sole source of male guidance. His father ruled with an iron fist, but at times, and quite unexpectedly, he could be as pliable as putty. The problem was that Kenneth never knew which personality was poised to emerge at any given moment. He may not have ever truly understood the man, but Kenneth respected him nonetheless.
As a teenager, Kenneth slowly came to see that his father’s inconsistencies were caused by the demons that haunted his mind. He spent the latter part of his youth trying to figure out just what it was that drove his father to act as he did.
Kenneth’s mom was quiet and patient, yielding to her husband on nearly every decision. Even if he tried to imagine it, he could not possibly think of anyone more loving and caring than she. Kenneth often wished while growing up that his mother would, just once, stand up to her husband when he was being unreasonable, but that was not her way.
Kenneth’s life was forever changed in the fall of his senior year at college. His father, for no explainable reason, flew into a fit of rage--telling him that he was not to come home ever again. The tirade went on for nearly thirty minutes. His sometimes incoherent ramblings sounded practically apologetic one minute, then laced with hate-filled fire and brimstone the next.
“You are no longer welcome here! There is no more love left in my heart for you!” his father shouted. The words wounded him deeply. Kenneth’s tears flowed freely as he could do no more than listen.
A week later he tried reopening the channels of communication, and though his mother was supportive, his father refused to back down.
There was a huge void in his life for which Kenneth had absolutely no explanation. Silent questions were asked but not answered. The unexpected rejection was impossible to accept, especially since there seemed to be no reason for it. He slowly and reluctantly came to understand that he would never again experience his mother’s love, nor would the wonderful guiding hand of his father ever return to his life.
Months later, after receiving a brief and quite unexpected note from his mother, Kenneth finally understood. Though only a handful of sentences in length, she explained his father’s shame and anger. It was then that he knew what had to be done.
With funds from home cut off, Kenneth took a full-time job. Working for Aeronautical Treats, the main supplier of inflight meals for airlines serving the Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Kenneth earned enough money to pay his bills and remain in school. It proved difficult, carrying a full credit load while working forty hours a week, but he made it work.
If there had been any doubt left in Kenneth’s mind regarding the possibility of ever returning home, it disintegrated the day his parents no-showed his college graduation. Nearly a year later, after quitting his job, the young graduate set out to make his way in the world.
As his eastbound flight traversed the skies of southern New York, along the northern border of Pennsylvania, Kenneth stared at his native land below
. Basking in the sunlight, Kenneth thought of his mom and dad. He wondered how they were doing. He hadn’t seen or spoken to either of them in a very long time. His mom’s image popped into his mind. He recalled conversing with his mother in German whenever his dad was out of the house. She wanted him to be a man of the world, so she taught him her native tongue while growing up. It was their little Geheimnis, or secret. He was fluent in German and his dad had no knowledge of it whatsoever.
Kenneth wondered about his dad and whether or not he had slain his demons. He hoped so. After all, he took a big chance doing what he did. In any case, it was, at least for the time being, out of his hands.
*
“Where is he now, Grandpa?” asked Jack.
“I don’t know. From what your grandmother has told me, the kid just seemed to drop off the face of the planet. It’s really kind of sad.”
“Grandpa, what happened to the other pilots that were with you? Did anyone else die? Did they ever figure out if someone tried to poison you? Do they know who it was?” asked Jack in rapid-fire fashion.
“Slow down there. This old brain can’t keep up with you. No, Mrs. Tacker is the only person who passed away on that flight. In fact, she is the only passenger to ever die on one of my airplanes, and believe me that took some getting used to. I was told her immune system, the part of us that keeps us from getting sick, was weakened for some reason. I guess the food poisoning just got the best of her. As far as the crew meals: they tested my second copilot’s meal and didn’t find any signs of poison. At least that’s what they said. They told me it was likely that our particular meals, the ones for the pilots, contained salmonella. That’s something that can make you sick if you eat food that’s undercooked, or if it’s gone bad.”
“You don’t believe that, do you?” asked Jack. “That sounds way too fishy. I mean, all the flight attendants ate their own meals and they were all right. The only difference was that two of them ate the pilot’s shrimp. That would mean the fish was bad, too.”
“I know; none of it makes sense. The story barely even made the newspapers. I think something happened on that airplane that none of us will ever know. What it was and why, I can’t say. But like you said, it sure sounds fishy.”
“Maybe it was the government,” suggested Jack, “and they covered it up.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“You know, it could have been Mr. Tacker’s son,” said Jack.
Bill turned his head slightly and paused. It was something he’d previously never considered. He wanted some time to contemplate that thought further, but in the meantime, he decided he’d had enough of that memory and didn’t want to talk about it any longer. “I suppose it’s possible, Jack, but I doubt he’d try to poison the pilots knowing his parents were on board. But let’s talk about something else.”
“OK, Grandpa. Why do you think Mr. Tacker was so mean to his son?”
“Well, uh, Jack, I think pilots are the type of people who like to work hard and play later. They don’t like unfinished business. If they start something, they feel a need to master it or at least do it as best they can. I think many of them expect their sons to be the same. And if they’re not, well, I suppose they and their sons argue a lot and end up at odds with each other. I know I was a little hard on my son when he was a teenager. But thankfully, I had your grandmother here to keep me from alienating him completely. Uh, in other words, stay out of his hair enough so that he wouldn’t end up hating my guts.”
“I know about aliens, Grandpa. You don’t have to explain it.”
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize.” After the words left his lips, his mind went back. He momentarily wondered if Kenneth had been trying to kill his father. He shook his head and dismissed the idea.
“Did Mr. Tacker go to jail? I mean, he lives next door.”
“Well, Jack, now that’s another story. That neighbor of mine simply refused to get on with his life. When they stuck him in that police car in Japan, I thought I’d seen the last of him, but I was wrong. Oh, boy was I wrong!”
Thirty Three
Fall 1992
September and October had always been Bill Pratt’s favorite time of year. For as far back as he could remember, whenever the end of August approached, the lifelong airman could detect a very slight change in the color of the sky. Even the atmosphere’s occasional partner, the clouds, seemed to have a different hue about them. Though the ambient temperatures and humidity struggled to remain relevant, Bill’s finely honed senses told him that things were about to change.
Bill spent his life observing, watching and listening. He noticed when the leaves began to change color, weeks before anyone else. When it would rain, Bill noticed right away that the sound the raindrops made when they hit the ground seemed gentler than in the spring and summer. The long-time captain was even able to discern that the ground smelled different than it did after a summer rainfall.
The warm autumn sun warmed Bill’s face as he strolled along a trail on the mountain behind his home. Well into his walk, he was forced to alter his route around an old and twisted tree that stood directly in his path. He stopped and studied the ancient-looking oak for a long while. The misshapen trunk and bent limbs clearly indicated that the old tree had been obliged to deal with the forces of nature for many, many decades. It stood up to the elements and had somehow survived. Before continuing on, Bill nodded as if telling the old man of the forest, “I understand.”
The fall of 1992 was little different from all the others Bill could recall, except for one thing: He was rapidly closing in on age sixty, the mandatory retirement age for all professional pilots. On one hand he was ready to go. He’d done what he wanted in his career, attaining goals he never thought possible. On the other hand, he resented being subjected to an arbitrary law imposed by the government--a law that he’d long considered overdue for change. But, like thousands of airmen before him, Captain Pratt willingly accepted his fate and actually looked forward to hanging it up. He could feel inside that his health was ever-so-slowly slipping away, and he wanted to enjoy what he truly believed would be the best years of his life. He did, however, have a few more hoops to jump through before he could cash in on his generous, union fought-for, pension.
After his August flight to Tokyo, everything changed in rapid order. Bill was removed from the remainder of his trip and flown to Minneapolis for questioning by, in his estimation, nearly half the people in management. After the first day of grilling, Bill got the distinct impression that they wanted to blame him for the fiasco. After all, one deceased passenger, four ill crew members, one missing first officer and one detained Fed simply begged for answers and blame. It seemed to Bill as though they were quite disappointed when they were unable to directly blame him; unable to show the world that the guilty party had been terminated and the problem solved.
Indeed, Captain Pratt had spent many years as a proud member of the Cobras, fighting for the betterment of pilots’ lives. His union had earned the moniker “Cobra” because they would strike at anything. And as far as he was concerned, this had been on the minds of some of his superiors during his ordeal at headquarters.
Not surprisingly, within days of recovering, Doug Fordham wrote a rather damning letter to the chief pilot regarding Bill’s unorthodox method in getting the fuel pumps to operate on their flight to Tokyo. It wasn’t totally unexpected; Bill figured he would. He also knew the company would use whatever they could against him in their quest to place blame, especially since he was known to be a former union rabble-rouser. But by virtue of the fact that his plan worked and the flight continued on schedule, there wasn’t a whole lot they could say or do. Remarkably, the fact that they’d landed with nearly empty tanks was never even mentioned.
Without so much as a “thanks for coming in,” they allowed him to keep his job and return home. Regardless of what happened next, Bill knew the end of his career had been marred. Things that were beyond his control and the actions of people he had never met came
together at the right time to taint an otherwise spotless career. Bill knew he wasn’t the first pilot to have that happen to him, and he was certain that he wouldn’t be the last.
The following month, Bill’s twelve-day trip to Asia proved to be the worst voyage of his career. A different FAA inspector just happened to be present on every single leg of his journey. At the termination of each flight, the inspector detained the captain and subsequently picked apart every little thing he did or didn’t do properly, at least as far as the Fed was concerned. In many cases, the inspectors contradicted each other by warning him not to do something the previous day’s Fed had ordered him to do.
Bill had prearranged for his wife to be on board for the last trip of his career. In early October they planned to fly to Tokyo and then on to Honolulu. The plan was for Lynn to remain for seven days in the Aloha State before reuniting with her husband on his last flight home. He even purchased a first class ticket to ensure that his wife of forty years would be close by as the seasoned four-striper set his airplane down for the very last time. It was all set.
As the momentous date approached, however, Bill began to experience sizeable misgivings. He seriously considered calling in sick for the last trip of his career. He knew the FAA would be waiting for him, and could tell inside that he was no longer up to the task. Ultimately though, Bill decided that there wasn’t much they could do to him. After all, it would be his last trip. So he resolved to enjoy himself, hoping to give some of the FAA representatives a taste of their own medicine along the way.
With October edging ever closer and the heat of summer behind him, Bill actually began musing about his upcoming flight. Just the idea of screwing with the Feds brightened his spirits and always managed to put a sincere smile on his face.
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