[Max Fend 01.0] Glidepath

by Andrew Watts

  “Hurry, then.”

  Max pressed the ignition button and the engine rumbled to life. He cursed as the headlights came on automatically, alerting the incoming vehicle to their presence. The headlights also illuminated the second Russian, the one who’d been spun around when Max had shot him. He was still on the ground, but now he was sitting up, aiming his weapon at Max and Renee from thirty feet away.

  The windshield of their vehicle filled with holes as a barrage of bullets whizzed through the glass.

  Max instinctively crouched down, put the SUV in drive, and slammed on the gas, turning the wheel hard left. The vehicle accelerated to near fifty miles per hour, moving through the beach sand.

  Glancing up in the rearview mirror, Max saw that the other vehicle had stopped to pick up the wounded Russians.

  “Where are you going?”

  “If we keep following the beach, I think it connects with the road again.”

  “I thought this was an island.”

  He glanced at her. “Why do women have to question everything?”

  She muttered something in French.

  “You know I spent several years in France, right? I know the word for stupid.”

  Renee began playing with the car’s center display.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Checking the GPS. I want to see if I can find out where they’ve been.”

  Smart, Max thought.

  In the rearview mirror, Max could see the other SUV catching up now, its headlights springing up and down as it raced over the mounds of sand. The beach ended just ahead. But as he suspected, the road met with the beach at that point.

  “I’m going to turn over the dunes and try to make it to the road. Once we get there, we can try and outrun them or get to a police station. They wouldn’t risk making a scene there…I don’t think.”

  Their SUV launched itself over the dunes, bouncing hard against the suspension. Renee yelped as they went.

  “They’re gaining on us,” she said.

  As they reached the road, Max accelerated and turned hard left onto the pavement.

  Loud metallic bangs emanated from the rear of the vehicle, and both Max and Renee ducked. Gunshots.

  They heard a huge pop as one of the tires burst. Streetlights lit up the road as Max held his foot down on the accelerator and they began crossing the bridge. Bright white light revealed dozens of bullet holes throughout the vehicle. Their vehicle was slumping to one side, and the flat tire was making rhythmic slapping noises as they drove.

  “What’s that? Someone’s at the other end of the bridge—who is that?”

  Max saw it too. There was a sedan parked across both lanes of traffic near the end of the bridge they were trying to cross.

  In front of the sedan stood a woman. She was aiming a large semiautomatic rifle at them.

  “I think that’s Charlotte.”

  Max looked in his rearview mirror at the SUV behind them, which was just coming onto the bridge.

  “You need to ram her or go around her,” Renee said.

  “There doesn’t look to be enough room to get around her,” Max said. “And if we ram her, they’ll catch up.” He glanced outside, trying to see where they were. Darkness lay on either side of the bridge. Nothing but a small bay.

  “You’re a good swimmer, right?”

  “I’m sorry?” She sounded afraid.

  “Okay, lower your window and hold on. This is probably going to hurt.”

  He swerved hard left and the tires slammed into the short concrete barrier. At the speed they were traveling, the barrier served as a ramp. The SUV left the ground and launched over the metal bridge rail. Max and Renee went weightless as they fell, the engine’s RPMs spooling up without the resistance of the road.

  The front of the vehicle impacted the water, and both of them were jolted forward, their seat belts restraining them. The airbags burst open on impact, pounding them both in the face, but minimizing the whiplash.

  The vehicle began sinking into the shallow inlet. Max and Renee had lowered their windows several inches before he’d made the jump. The SUV began to fill with rushing water.

  The water rose above their heads and they sank, fast and quiet. The vehicle hit the seafloor seconds later, at a depth of about fifteen feet.

  Max and Renee both unstrapped and swam out and away from the bridge. They were disoriented, but still aware enough to stay underwater as long as possible. After about fifty feet of swimming, Renee tapped Max on the back and signaled that she needed to come up for air.

  They broke the surface, for just a moment, gasping for air as quietly as they could, and then went back under, continuing to swim away from the crash scene. Max had taken a snapshot of the bridge in his mind.

  Charlotte had been standing near the edge of the bridge, where they had broken through the barrier. She was looking down at the wreckage. The Russian security team was in their SUV behind her.

  His instincts told him that Charlotte hadn’t seen them. The streetlights shined bright white light onto the bridge, and the water was quite dark.

  Max and Renee continued to swim underwater, both doing a sort of submarine breaststroke. Max’s shoes and clothes were slowing him down, but he didn’t want to take the time to remove them. Renee was indeed a good swimmer. She was keeping up with him no problem. She tapped him on the back again, and they came up for air.

  Now they were substantially closer to an uninhabited section of shoreline. In the darkness, it looked like nothing more than a large sandbar with a swath of beach grass on top. They were far enough away from the Russians that they were treading water now, slowly sidestroking their way towards the shore.

  “Do you think they saw us?” Renee panted.

  “They would have fired at us if they did. It looks like they’re leaving now. They probably don’t want to be around when the police come to investigate the crash.”

  He felt his toes scrape the slimy bottom of the bay. “We can stand.”

  They swam a little further and soon enough both of them were wading, then walking along the beach, their clothes heavy and drenched with seawater.

  “Where are we?”

  “I’m not sure. I think we’re on the opposite side of Mayport.”

  Max checked his watch. It was almost 6 a.m. The eastern horizon was starting to lighten up. The Fend 100 was scheduled to take off in less than an hour.

  “We need to hurry.”

  20

  The morning had not yet risen over the Atlantic horizon, but the sky was already a fiery red over the shore. The day had arrived. Charles Fend had not slept much. Partly due to his age—sleep was getting harder to come by—and partly due to his anxiety over the day’s events.

  His personal assistant and chef were waiting in the kitchen. The news played on a small TV in the corner.

  “Sir, can we get you anything?”

  “Earl Grey tea, please. And perhaps a grapefruit.”

  “Right away, Mr. Fend,” the chef said.

  His assistant had laid out the usual clippings and daily schedule on Charles’s outdoor table, where he liked to eat during the nicer weather. Small metal weights in the shape of Fend airplanes rested on top of the paper stacks so that an errant sea breeze wouldn’t blow them away.

  His assistant had tried to convince Charles to switch to an iPad or some other electronic device to get his morning briefing, but Charles couldn’t do it. He liked the feel of paper. It was real. And it wasn’t trying to sell him something half the bloody time. Well…it wasn’t trying to sell him products, anyway. Just ideas.

  He ate his grapefruit and sipped his tea, reading over the news clippings that mentioned him and his company. There were quite a lot of them today. The kinder headlines hailed him as a champion in technology and aviation progress. The less friendly news stories were all gossip about his son. One of them showed a picture of Max with women in lingerie, dancing at his French villa.

  Charles wondered how much of that was
real and how much of it had been for show. Now that he knew Max had been working undercover for the DIA in France, things made much more sense. These wild parties didn’t fit with the son he knew. Max was too driven to get caught up in that nonsense.

  “Have I any messages?”

  “Dozens, sir.”

  “Any from a Caleb Wilkes? Or from Max?”

  Charles knew that his assistant wouldn’t have simply taken a message if Max had called, but he asked anyway. The assistant was a loyal man, but Charles had yet to tell him everything about Max. And he had no doubt seen all the headlines. He would naturally be curious. It was even possible that reporters had called to try and fish out details. Charles laughed at the thought. They would have more success breaking into a bank vault.

  “Just Mr. Wilkes, sir. He asked to speak with you when you woke.”

  “Please dial him for me.”

  A moment later, the assistant handed Charles the phone, already ringing. Charles looked at his watch. He needed to be on the road. The Fend 100 team had already been working for hours today, and Charles would be in high demand the moment he walked in to the building.

  “Good morning, Mr. Fend.”

  “Morning, Caleb. What’s the good word today?”

  “I’m afraid we’ve had a few setbacks.”

  “Oh? Is Max alright? Anything I need to do?”

  There was no answer.

  “Caleb?”

  Charles checked the phone, but the call had gone dead. After trying to call him back for a minute, he gave up. He tried calling in to work, but his phone wasn’t connecting to the network.

  Charles pointed it out to his assistant, who offered his own phone. But Charles suggested that they just go in to the office. Everyone he needed to see would be there.

  His assistant briefed him as they drove.

  “You’ll be speaking with the Today Show again—live at eight oh five a.m.—followed by two other morning shows later in the morning. Reporters for the Times and the Post both wanted to speak with you, if you could give them a few minutes. And 60 Minutes will be doing a profile on you.”

  “Again?”

  His assistant was diplomatic. “I think they feel that they have more material.”

  Charles grunted. “They’re probably right.”

  The drive from Ponte Vedra to Cecil Field took slightly under an hour. Their car entered the private drive to his headquarters and saw several large dark vehicles parked in a column along the curb. Government vehicles.

  Wilkes and another man stood next to the lead SUV.

  “We were disconnected.”

  Wilkes said, “Good morning Mr. Fend. I’m sorry about that. Several of us have been having phone trouble this morning.” He gestured to Flynn, who was standing beside him. “You know Special Agent Flynn.”

  Charles eyed the man. “Hello again. What are all these vehicles for?”

  Flynn cleared his throat, looking between Wilkes and Charles. “Mr. Fend, we want to make sure we’re ready for anything. So we have a special team of FBI agents ready to step in if anything should go wrong today.”

  “Well, they can’t be seen by the press. That would look suspicious. It’ll ruin the whole event. I know that we need security, but I have a business objective here as well.”

  “I understand, sir. We’ll keep them out here, in your private parking area. Only some of your employees will see them.”

  Charles raised an eyebrow, looking back and forth between the CIA and FBI men. He wondered how much the FBI knew. Did Flynn know everything about Morozov? About Charles’s own history with him? Unlikely. Wilkes played things too close to the vest. Just like all the other handlers Charles had worked with over the years. The CIA was filled with boys who had never learned to share.

  Charles looked at his watch. “Takeoff is coming up. I need to head inside, but I’ve asked my team to set up an office space for you to work out of—have they shown it to you?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Of course. It will be right next to the Fend 100 mission control center, so you’ll be able to monitor the flight”—he shot them a knowing look—“and the personnel involved.”

  “Thank you, Charles. We’ll try to stay out of your way. Have you heard from Max?”

  “No. You were telling me something before we got disconnected—something about setbacks?”

  Wilkes’s face darkened. “I’m concerned that Max might be in trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Morozov. Max never came back from his meeting yesterday afternoon. Listen, we’ll do everything we can to find out where Max is. You just focus on the Fend 100 this morning. I promise you that we’ll let you know the moment we hear anything on Max. I’m sure it will turn out okay.” He didn’t sound convincing.

  Charles stood on the steps of his building entrance, looking into Caleb Wilkes’s eyes. Through gritted teeth, he said, “Please do let me know when you have more.”

  With that, the CEO of Fend Aerospace turned and walked up the steps and through the large revolving door of his building. Several employees were waiting for him inside.

  “Congratulations, Mr. Fend. You’re about to make aviation history. Do you have a minute?”

  Charles looked up at his chief marketing officer. “Yes. Thanks. I’ll be there momentarily.” The other employees took the hint and sauntered off.

  He strode into the open atrium, surrounded by the excited crowd noise and flashes of professional cameras.

  This section of the Fend Aerospace building was of modern architecture. Open floor plans. Lots of high ceilings, stone, and clear glass walls. An upper-deck observation level with a glass barrier.

  Hundreds of aviation reporters and industry analysts were gathered around the Fend mission control center—observing through thirty-foot glass walls. Those walls encapsulated the Fend engineers and scientists, clicking and typing as they monitored today’s flight from their rows of computers.

  The Fend mission control center reminded most onlookers of the NASA space shuttle mission control. That was intentional. But there was a major difference—this space was specifically designed to be observed by an audience.

  Ever the marketer, Charles had made sure that his team of industrial designers and advertising gurus had taken part in the creation of the facility. He wanted the building to provide a home court advantage at these sorts of press and media gatherings. Events like these would help feed the frenzy in the technology blogosphere. These test flights were a show. He was the Steve Jobs of flight. And this was his iPhone presentation. Charles would need the positive buzz if he was to succeed in having people begin using his new product.

  As the CEO of Fend Aerospace, he wasn’t just asking people to try a new way of communicating. He was asking them to put their lives in the hands of a robot.

  Fend Aerospace was about to become a pioneer in commercial aviation. The crowd had gathered to witness the first passenger flight of their brand-new aircraft, the Fend 100. The FAA had certified the aircraft type a few months before. A seismic government contract for the technology was in the works. But human acceptance of the technology remained an issue. The FAA and other key stakeholders were watching closely.

  The Fend 100 was the first fully automated airliner. No pilots required. The pilots were there, of course. Three of them, in fact. All test pilots. They would oversee the flight from the cockpit and be ready to take the controls if anything went wrong.

  While the FAA had approved the flight after seeing dozens of demonstrations, most people still weren’t comfortable flying without a human being behind the controls. Charles figured it would take five to ten more years, and many millions of lobbying dollars, before the airlines were allowed to take full advantage of the technology.

  Baby steps.

  Charles’s vision was that, over time, the FAA would allow commercial airliners to become single-piloted, with one Fend 100 AI machine taking the place of the copilot. Eventually, the AI machine wo
uld operate all of the controls and execute all communications. At that point, the pilot would be nothing more than a safety observer. It wouldn’t take long until the pilot stayed on the ground, overseeing multiple automated commercial airliners, similar to the way an air traffic controller was able to guide multiple aircraft simultaneously. This would provide cost savings and improve efficiency. It really would be the dawn of a new era.

  That was, as long as nothing went wrong.

  Charles looked at the office adjacent to the Fend 100 mission control room. Through the open door, he could see the government men in there, trying to look inconspicuous as they observed his team doing their jobs. Wilkes and Flynn looked worried. And they had good reason to be.

  Charles had already been nervous about today’s flight going smoothly. But now—with Max in possible danger, and a counterespionage operation underway, today’s flight had taken on a whole new importance.

  As Charles walked the floor, he could overhear the CMO giving a TV interview with the local news channel.

  The reporter said, “So they’ll be flying up and down the coast of Florida…”

  “That’s right, they’ll be flying up the east coast of Florida—and returning to land here at our headquarters near Jacksonville.”

  “And how many on board?”

  The man smiled. “We’ve got a full flight. As you can imagine, a lot of folks wanted to join. Many are reporters and aviation writers. A few are employees of Fend Aerospace that we wanted to recognize for their hard work on the project.”

  And our lead program manager, who has been placed on board to help protect against a former KGB operative, Charles thought to himself.

  The reporter said, “Well, I’m a little sad that I didn’t get an invite.”

  The CMO laughed. “I’m sorry—but hopefully you’ll get to fly with the technology soon! We want to begin putting this on all airliners in the US within the next few years.”

  “Now what makes this different than autopilot?”

  “We get that question a lot. Our Fend 100 Artificial Intelligence Pilot System is way more advanced than a simple autopilot function that you see today. The Fend 100 aircraft can communicate with air traffic controllers, set up on the approach, complete the landing, and even taxi into the terminal without anyone on board. It’s going to revolutionize the way we travel.”