Accidental Heroes

by Danielle Steel

  He asked Catherine then about her job, and she said she worked in finance, at a Wall Street firm for the moment, but it had been her dream for years to work in venture capital in Silicon Valley, and now it was happening. The job she was interviewing for had fallen into her lap.

  “I broke up with my boyfriend recently,” she said as they chatted, “so it seemed like a good time to make the move.” Tom had wondered if she was single or divorced and whether she had kids, but hadn’t wanted to ask. And he thought her comment about her recent breakup was an encouraging detail, having noticed again how attractive she was, and how shapely her legs were.

  He was chatting with her when the email from Ben Waterman came in. It said only that they were having some security concerns about the flight, and would appreciate it if he would stop in the cockpit for a few minutes and then give them a temperature reading in New York about the atmosphere he encountered and any observations about the flight crew. Tom frowned as he read it, and Catherine noticed his change of expression immediately. The email also said that they had advised Captain Smith of a courtesy visit from him, once they knew he was on the flight.

  “Something wrong?” Catherine asked. She hoped she didn’t sound too neurotic, but was sure she did. But given what she knew of his job now, she figured he’d be one of the first to know if there was a problem with the plane.

  “Of course not.” He smiled at her. “Everything’s fine,” he said calmly. “In two hours, we’ll be on the ground, and you’ll be off to your meeting, and you’ll knock ’em dead,” he said pleasantly, and as he stood up, presumably to use the restroom, she pulled her legs close to her so he could get by her. She smiled as he walked past. She watched him go, thinking that he was good-looking. She noticed that he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. She was wondering if he just didn’t wear one or wasn’t married, when she saw him walk past the restroom, stop and say something to the purser in first class, and then knock on the cockpit door, and she stiffened.

  The copilot opened it immediately when Tom identified himself, since the captain had been advised of a social visit and she had just notified the purser that Tom had clearance to enter and was expected.

  Catherine saw the exchange, and Tom disappeared inside, which made her anxious again about what the email had said. Why would her seatmate go to the cockpit immediately after receiving an email? He had looked serious as he read it, and had gotten up and gone forward almost immediately. She wondered if he had lied to her, knowing how nervous she was on the flight and had been in the beginning. Maybe something was wrong with the plane. She glanced out the window but saw no sign of smoke or fire in the engines.

  Once inside, Tom greeted all three pilots, and Helen looked happy to see him when he introduced himself. They chatted easily for a few minutes, since she and Tom had both been in the Air Force. He commented that it had been a pleasant flight, and noticed that Jason was watching him intently. Tom turned to talk to him then, and thought the young copilot looked tense.

  Tom asked about the plane’s performance, to justify his visit and not arouse suspicion, and Helen said it was a pleasure to fly.

  “No complaints then? Nothing you’d like to see changed? We like feedback from our pilots on an ongoing basis.” It was true but also covered his appearance in the cockpit. He didn’t know what problems they were having, but he sensed that the atmosphere was strained although Captain Smith seemed cool and professional.

  He lingered with them to try to understand the tension he was feeling. He wasn’t sure if the pilot and copilot didn’t like each other, or if there was a problem or had been a disagreement of some kind. He could sense the newly retired captain watching him too. There was definitely an odd atmosphere among the three pilots, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Nothing in Helen’s face betrayed it. He saw her make some notes in a log as they drew closer to San Francisco, and Jason seemed anxious for Tom to leave.

  He finally ran out of excuses to stay, shook hands with all three of them, thanked Helen for a smooth flight, and was startled to feel a small slip of paper in the palm of his hand when Helen shook his. Fortunately, he had shaken her hand last. As he left with a final wave, he slipped the paper into his pocket, went into the restroom afterward, and read it. She had given him all the emergency access and override codes to the cockpit. Ben had been right. Something was amiss if she felt a need to give them to him. After that, he hurried back to his seat to contact Ben, waiting with the others at Homeland Security for his report.

  “Everything okay?” Catherine asked him again, as he got back into his seat, after carefully stepping over her. “I saw you go into the cockpit,” she said, worried.

  “Courtesy visit.” He smiled at her and picked up his computer again. The codes were in his pocket, and he wanted to fill Ben in immediately. He told him what had happened, and said there was a feeling of tension in the cockpit, but he couldn’t explain it or see any reason for it. The captain had been congenial, Connor Gray was quiet, and the copilot seemed anxious and in a hurry for him to leave. Ben didn’t like the sound of it. The whole day had been fraught with the same kind of feeling, of some major piece of the puzzle missing, and all his instincts shrieking. Why was Jason in a hurry for Tom to leave? And Helen must have sensed danger if she’d given Tom the access codes to the cockpit.

  “I think there’s trouble on the flight,” Ben said to Phil, and told him about the paper Helen had given Tom, and Phil looked unhappy about it.

  “That doesn’t sound good to me.” It confirmed their suspicions and fears about the flight and gave credence to their theories, even if they had no proof of a problem, or solid evidence of it, until the slip of paper with the codes.

  “It doesn’t to me either,” Ben agreed, as Amanda walked into his office and sat down. She had gone back to her own office for a while, in order to get away from what she considered too much testosterone in one place, which in her mind accounted for their refusing to believe any of her theories about Helen Smith. She was a woman and knew how women’s minds worked, and she was sure she’d gotten it right and the captain was about to snap, or already had, and they were going to see some terrifying sign of it. Ben and Phil were afraid of something even worse.

  * * *

  —

  When Tom Birney left the cockpit, Jason looked at Helen suspiciously.

  “What was that about? Was he checking up on me?”

  “Of course not. Why would he?” she said, starting to put her things away, to get ready for their approach and landing. They were still two hundred miles away, which wouldn’t take long to cover, and she was going to report to the tower in a minute. She had already done so earlier, but needed to check with them again when they were in closer range. “He doesn’t work for the airline,” she reminded Jason. “You heard what he said. They like getting feedback from the pilots, about how their planes perform. It’s nice for them to have some input and for us to talk to them directly.”

  “Then why didn’t he ask me?” he asked angrily, glaring at her, and she could see his temper starting to flare.

  “He did, he asked all of us.” She included Connor in her answer too, since he had been flying the same planes until only days before, and Tom didn’t know he was recently retired. “You could have said something if you wanted to.”

  “I didn’t want to,” he snapped at her. “I don’t care how they build their goddamn planes, the airline doesn’t let me fly them anyway.” He sat in the copilot’s chair and sulked, waiting for her to let him do the landing at SFO. She hadn’t told him yet that she wasn’t going to. She was saving that piece of news for the last minute, so he’d have less time to react, in case he flew into a rage over it.

  * * *

  —

  Ben responded to Tom’s email immediately, and told him to be on the alert for anything unusual happening. And Catherine continued to scrutinize him as he answered Ben’s
email. She had a sixth sense that something was wrong and Tom wasn’t telling her. But they were strangers, and he was too professional to say anything about Ben’s warnings to him from the ground.

  * * *

  —

  Nancy was making cookies in the galley, and Joel was plating them to offer passengers before they landed. They still had to pick up the earphones in business and first class and do minor housekeeping before the end of the flight.

  Nancy used the opportunity to send her husband a quick email. She had never done that before but suddenly wanted to, and all she wrote to him was “I love you.”

  His response came back almost instantly, concerned about her. “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “Of course not,” she answered back, and his response was quick. “In that case, I love you too. See you tonight.” He was just leaving Miami on a delayed flight. But she could wait to tell him the news until that night. It had taken twelve years to get here. A few more hours wouldn’t hurt, and they had a lot to talk about, like the adoption of the little girl in China. What were they going to do about that now? And then, trying not to think about it, she took the trays of cookies around, while Joel collected the headphones.

  The Saudi couple each accepted a cookie and smiled at her. They were excited to be approaching their new life in Berkeley. He looked far more relaxed than when he boarded, as he chatted with his wife. Nancy gave two cookies each to Mark and Nicole, who were looking forward to seeing their grandparents, and she noticed that Tom Birney and Catherine James were talking, and they were smiling. She wondered if a romance had started on the flight. They were both good-looking people in their early forties. Stranger things had happened, and they’d had plenty of time to talk.

  When she finished offering the cookies, she went back to the galley and a few minutes later, Joel returned with the headphones. People hated to give them up before their movies were over, but the crew had to pick them up an hour before they landed, and warned people of it at the beginning of the flight, but no one ever remembered, and then got annoyed at the flight attendants when they followed the rules and reclaimed them.

  * * *

  —

  In coach, the screaming baby had gotten worse, and Monique Lalou, the chorus chaperone, turned to Robert again with a look of concern.

  “Your baby is bright red. I think he has a fever.” As she said it, the baby projectile vomited all over her and she looked horrified. The smell was ghastly and Bobbie rushed to the bathroom to bring them wet towels, but there was very little they could do to repair the damage. Robert apologized profusely.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” Robert said, looking panicked.

  “You should take him to a doctor,” Monique said angrily. “He’s been sick for the entire flight. You shouldn’t be traveling with him.” The smell of vomit was everywhere, and the couple on his other side covered their noses in revulsion, as the husband whispered to his wife.

  “You want one of those? I sure don’t.”

  “He was cute before he threw up,” she said halfheartedly.

  “No, he wasn’t. He’s been screaming since we took off.”

  The remainder of the flight in coach was going to be very unpleasant, and Robert was wondering what to do when he landed. He didn’t know where to find a doctor, and he couldn’t call Ellen to ask her. He didn’t want to contact her again until he got to Tokyo. He had a plan, and he was going to stick to it. For once in his life, he was going to do what he wanted, and not what everyone told him to do. But he could feel how hot the baby was in his arms. The woman from the chorus was right, he had a fever. He’d have to take him to an emergency room for some medicine. Robert just hoped they didn’t miss their flight to Japan. He had a nonrefundable ticket that couldn’t be changed, and he didn’t want to lose it. He was sure the baby would be all right once they got to Tokyo.

  Bobbie took refuge in the business class galley again for a few minutes, but when she showed up she reeked of vomit, and they held their noses and told her she had to leave.

  “I’m sorry, that baby threw up all over everyone. I got it all over me, while I tried to help them clean up.”

  “Don’t you have a change of uniform?” Nancy asked her, as Bobbie shook her head and tried to keep her distance. But you could smell her from a block away, and she finally left them to return to coach.

  “I’m not working coach again,” she told them, and then ran back down the aisle, as people’s heads turned, wondering where the awful smell came from. She wondered if the others would even let her take the airport shuttle with them. She’d have to take a cab in from the airport, and the cab driver wouldn’t like it either. It was a hideous end to an already bad flight for her, and she heard the same couple arguing again as she rushed past them. They never stopped and she wondered if they enjoyed it, or why they didn’t just get divorced instead of torturing each other.

  * * *

  —

  In the cockpit, Helen had asked Jason to tidy up their paperwork, and to continue to keep the cockpit sterile after they descended to ten thousand feet until they landed. He did as she said, and then sat down and glared at her, wondering when she was going to give up the controls and let him land the plane, as she had said she would. She didn’t say anything to him, as she continued to watch the skies for visible air traffic. Connor Gray’s eyes were closed, and he looked as though he was praying. He was about to land in his captain’s uniform for the last time. It was a day he had never thought would come, and he knew only too well how much he would miss flying. He hadn’t been ready for this sudden end to his career, but now he had to face it, just as he’d had to come to terms with his wife’s death. He had a sense of inevitability about his life, as though he no longer controlled any of it. Destiny made all the decisions. He didn’t see Jason watching him, with a look of contempt. He thought Connor was a pathetic old man.

  Helen appeared calm as the flight drew to a close. She looked completely unperturbed, and no one would have suspected that her heart was pounding in her chest. She could sense danger all around her. She’d had the same feeling of impending doom when the terrorists had released the video of Jack. It was as though her body knew that something terrible was about to happen before her mind did, and every fiber of her being was on the alert. She just didn’t know for what. But like with the video that had changed their lives forever, she knew she’d find out soon enough. All she could do was brace herself and deal with it when it happened, whatever it was. She was ready, and anticipating the worst.

  Chapter Seven

  Two Homeland Security agents showed up in plain clothes at UCSF hospital, at the new campus downtown in the vicinity of the ballpark, and parked in the garage. It was a long walk to the surgical floor where Jason’s ex-girlfriend worked. They’d been given a code by their boss that told them it was urgent and a top-secret investigation. They knew the identity of the subject they were to ask about, but didn’t know exactly the reason for concern. They knew he was a pilot, he was currently on a plane, and it was time-sensitive, the plane was due to land in less than three hours, but they had no other details. They’d been told he had anger issues, and their boss wanted to know more about his potential for violence.

  Alan Wexler, the head of the San Francisco office, had assigned a man and a woman to do the job. Paul Gilmore and Lucy Hobbs had worked together for two years, and Paul had agreed to let Lucy do the talking. The girl they were seeing was young, and more likely to open up to a woman about her ex-boyfriend. She was twenty-seven years old and a surgical nurse at the hospital. Lucy was only a few years older. In jeans with a long ponytail, running shoes, and a baseball cap, she looked like a kid. Paul Gilmore was fifty, nearing retirement, and had children older than she was, but he had learned from working with her that Lucy was a dedicated agent, and one of the smartest he’d ever worked with. He had done everything possible to avoid work
ing with her when they were assigned to each other as partners, but had defended her hotly ever since. She had kept him from getting shot on their first operation together, and she had won his undying loyalty. He trusted her instincts about the girl they were about to see.

  “How much do you want to bet that if she moved on to a new guy, her ex considers that cheating on him? Guys with anger issues do that,” Lucy commented on their walk to orthopedic surgery, where the girl worked.

  “Stop being such a cynic,” he told her. “Not everybody cheats, only my ex-wife.” She had left him for his former partner, which had caused him to be reassigned to Lucy. He had been a mess when they started working together, but with her easy, breezy, down-to-earth and sensible way of looking at things, she had gotten him through it. He had talked of nothing else for their first year as partners, and had had a crazed moment of wanting to go out with Lucy. She had told him reasonably that it was a dumb idea, he didn’t mean it, and he’d regret it, and she’d been right. For the past six months, he’d been dating an undercover DEA agent, and was happier than he’d been in years.