Matt chortled, “Well, we always have the guest house.”
In her most condescending and irritated tone, Jan imparted, “Right, Matt, that is going to fly with Sherry, to have some dead fucking animal in her living room.”
She had used the F bomb, and right then and there, he knew when he wasn’t going to win, “Look, Babe, I got some things on my mind, okay? I’m sorry, and I promise to be back by three or so.”
Couples knew, friends knew, and especially family knew how to swing low and connect on something painful. Jan knew the things he hated more than anything, so she just had to say, “Whatever,” and then hung up on him, which was the other thing he absolutely hated.
As far as Matt was concerned, the word “whatever” should be banned as a word for all time, he fumed, but he knew better than to call back. Every now and then, old Jan came around and it was best just to stay clear. He still had ten minutes more to drive, so he hit play on his iPod. Cage the Elephant tried to rock his irritation away while he tried to absorb the gravity of Robert’s actions. He broke away to think, but not as a childish response to some crisis he was running away from.
What he did in Mexico was what Jim had taught him: never make a life changing crucial decision on the spot if you don’t have to. And if you don’t have to, break away, clear your head, and really think things out. He had a whole other set of procedures to follow if time was not allowed, but for now, he would stick with the regiment that Jim ingrained into his head.
He was really starting to soften toward TJAC, hell, he could turn around and be there in fifteen minutes. But he still felt the need to stay away, to make Chase understand just how much he disliked the disrespect of his nature and abuse of his patriotism. He had already played the patsy once, and was lucky as hell to have survived.
* * *
She waited below the main platform and it was killing her. She had wanted to scream, “be careful,” but she knew that was breaking their pact and would elicit a harsh rebuttal, so she resisted. No matter how many times they did this, the torture never stopped for her. She would always irrationally imagine him plummeting to a painful death after losing his footing on a ledge that was only inches wide.
Next he expertly shimmied up a pole and made it onto the platform. From there he gave the thumbs up sign and disappeared back out of view on the platform, her anxiety heightened.
After a few moments he showed up in a hurry and launched himself into the escape tube and down to the extraction point. She was waiting for him at the bottom as he slid right into her arms, “I love you, Mommy.”
“I love you, too, Jon Jon.”
He looked at her rather antsy and said, “I have to go pee-pee real bad.”
Jon was not old enough to go to the restroom on his own yet, so they went to the Women’s side. She carried a backpack instead of a purse and coupling that with their jackets, and the fact someone went out of their way to make the stall as small as possible, it was a rather a tight fit. She realized in the middle of her grousing that he’d soon be making this trip on his own and she got sad at the notion that she wouldn’t have to do this hassle much longer. She supposed she was just crazy, but then realized that she was crazy like every other mom in the world.
Thank God little boys didn’t have to sit on anything. She didn’t think having a girl would be too much fun, at least at this age, she would be hunched over.
After he was done she had to step out backwards as there was no turning room in the stall. She took her backpack off and placed it on the sink and had the boy stand right outside the stall while she went number two. Even though he came out of her, she still couldn’t poop in front of him. They were having a nice conversation through the door about his favorite toy store. They were heading there next, and somewhere between wiping and flushing, she didn’t hear his voice any longer.
She said, “Jon,” but there was no answer, so her anxiety heightened quickly. She burst out of the stall and ran out, leaving the backpack on the sink. She turned the corner, scanning, and immediately saw her son, as he was only twenty feet away, looking at a butterfly hop around in a flowerbed.
“Jon,” she admonished, “Why did you do that? You scared mommy very badly, you know to never, ever, leave me. She reached down and picked the boy up and as she was turning to go back for her backpack she abruptly bumped into a short man wearing a fedora and dark glasses. He bumped her so hard that she almost dropped the boy. She automatically protested, “Hey, watch it,” when she smelled something almost sweet. The man said, “Sorry” in heavily accented Spanish and was gone, but suddenly, she was feeling very light headed.
Jon complained, “Mommy, I don’t feel so good,” and it was all she could do to set him down before she face planted unconscious on the sidewalk, the boy on her side, both unresponsive.
* * *
Doug cleared his throat before he addressed the cabin. “Um, this is your captain speaking. This is flight 1812 to Oakland. It will be a one hour and forty minute flight gate to gate. We expect to have clear skies and a pleasant flight, so just sit back and let us get you there in Southwest style.”
It used to be that he only flew as a means to meet women. He never really loved the craft and he feared that it was only going to get worse after he started flying for the big boys. He had read that many pilots equated themselves to underpaid bus drivers and he was sure that would be him, too.
Previously, flying was definitely only a means of getting laid, but now he actually enjoyed the flying. He loved the initial inertia that one felt upon lift off, for it made one feel that one was doing something to defy the limitations that the earth tried to place on all animals except birds. From flying squirrels to flying fish, every animal wanted to fly and the reality was mankind was different enough to make it happen. We were placed here to break all those barriers.
That was the only sappy part though; the other was the great responsibility and he supposed he loved that as well. It was his validation of being part of society, and not just a flying sex machine.
They were third in line to take off, so he had a moment to daydream, as things were moving a little slow at Sea/Tac today. Prior to that night, he had only flown cargo planes. Of course, the night he was abducted, everything in his life changed. The minute those two kidnapped him and made him fly them at treetop out of the country, he became a footnote in American history.
At first, the traitor threats started along with all the other anti-American shit for not letting them kill him before he flew that plane. Then he went on Nightline and William Kerr thought he would press him hard on the fact that he flew that plane out.
Doug began carefully with Kerr, but the fact he wasn’t afraid was evident. When men went to war, they didn’t come back with less confidence, unless the horrors were too much for the mind to bear. Mostly, they came back with a bit of swagger. Doug had been to war.
He had decided to carefully turn the tables on Mr. Kerr. “Okay, William, I’m going to do a little roll-play with you, if I may.” Kerr hesitated to answer, but Doug went on anyway, “Let’s pretend that you are me, and you just met a beautiful woman who takes you to see her new plane.”
Kerr, still hesitating, but answered an unsteady, “Okay.”
Doug continued, “It is going way better than you could have hoped for and you start making out with her because wow, who wouldn’t, and all of a sudden a guy shows up and knocks you out with a series of martial art moves you are defenseless to stop.”
Kerr immediately started another line of questioning, and Doug willfully snapped back control, “You wake up to the sound of a cork being popped on some fine champagne, only it wasn’t, it was the sound of a silencer. The guy who knocked you out is now dead and only has part of his head left to show for it.”
This was where Kerr decided he was going to draw the line, yet it still didn’t work as Doug out willed him and forced him to face facts instead of wild speculation. “The man that just ended the other man now walks over to you
and says that you are flying him and the female out of the country at tree top level via Southern California to Mexico.”
Before Kerr could rebut a word Doug continued, “You say ‘No,’ and the man shoots the ground inches from your hand, the cement burned into your hand and arm and the acrid smell of cordite fills your nose as he tells to you, ‘That the next shot is through your head.’
“Okay, William, go. Now take in mind that it was an unfolding story that no one had the whole picture of, and these two looked different than the two that the public was looking for. Not to mention, you have a concussion. Now let’s hear your hero move. Unlike you, William, I’m going to give you all the time you need to answer.”
That was it, Doug sat silent as Kerr tried to regain momentum, but he had no snappy comeback. And after that show, it all changed for Doug, as he went from traitor to accepted victim. Now it was regarded that he was a lucky ass guy to be alive. After all, two people who were regarded as putting very little value on a human life abducted him. Not to mention the U.S. tried to shoot them down and failed. That was all before the U.S. military found out that they were up against a new kind of enemy, a shrewd and calculated one built on stolen technology.
His flight crew was finalizing all their checklists and instructions with the passengers, and his was the next plane to go. Doug thought back to when he saw his dad for the first time after the Nightline taping. His dad knew his motives in life were of the selfish variety and he detested the way his son flaunted convention and opportunities and was never the guy to be exceptional. He finally got to see pride when his father saw him reach his potential.
When he applied to the airlines, he figured he would be treated like some kind of plague, but no way, he got offers right away. He chose Southwest as it seemed appropriate somehow, after all, he had lived in the region his whole life.
He sped down the runway and there it was, the second they went from people held to the earth by gravity to people that literally had the sky as their limit. He felt it, that unmistakable feeling that one was part of something bigger than themselves, yet somehow one that was helping to make mankind’s progress happen.
How lucky we are, he thought, to be part of something that was obviously the beginnings of man reaching farther than this planet. As Doug had learned earlier in life, asking rhetorical questions was not something he should ever do.
As they were gaining altitude, something oddly familiar shot past on the port side and a microsecond later, the engine light was on following a rumble that reverberated through the plane. He stabilized the plane, but before Doug could look for a visual on the port engine, another object flew by and the starboard engine light came on also.
Doug was now floating a sixty-ton boat anchor and he was about to learn firsthand what the other Captain had to do to survive in New York. The plane hadn’t risen high enough to get out to open sea, so he was going to have to put it down in Puget Sound. Kingston was on the port and Seattle was on the starboard. He made the commitment and steered the barely responsive dead weight toward the Sound. That was when he saw the ferry . . . yet there was no turning back. It was going to be close.
* * *
Tim Smith and his wife, Julie, were standing on the observation platform of the Kingston Ferry. They were going to go have lunch and spend the day hanging out in Kingston; they’d brought their bikes and were excited to have a whole day to hang out. Tim hated bringing his car over as so many times he’d had to wait for a second ferry for the return trip. There were just too many people; there were just too many cars in this world.
On their last visit, he finally figured out that if they had parked on the mainland and took bikes, none of the waiting would be necessary.
They were standing on an outcrop made for photo opportunities, an extension of the observation deck that resembled a gunwale on a whaling boat, only this one had high rails. The observation deck itself held about thirty outdoor seats on each side, but was recessed in shade whereas the narrow platform was in the sun on the side of the boat. It wasn’t more than ten feet wide yet it allowed enough room so their ten-year-old twin daughters were able to play with some miniaturized toys at their feet.
Tim saw it first; it was off to the left. A plane had made an unusual noise, a grinding sound, and then a puff of black smoke started billowing. Then he heard and saw it again, something had flown into the other engine and now the plane was powerless. He could see two trails of smoke that looked like black jet trails—they were coming out of the engines.
The plane banked left towards them, and then was coming down fast. Julie looked up and joined him. To Tim’s amazement, she was quick on her feet and immediately went to the lockers under the benches on the deck, retrieving three life vests. She called the girls, who had still not caught on that something was amiss. The second she yelled with sternness, they both caught on and came right over. She quickly put the vests on and returned to Tim, as white as a ghost.
She instinctively said, “We have to warn people!” As she was turning, her husband’s arm shot out and grabbed her. Tim Smith was a Seattle Fireman, and he knew it would do no good to warn people, it would just cause wide spread panic in the last seconds of their life, and Julie needed to be here.
“How far down do you think it is?” she asked her husband.
“I don’t know, maybe fifty feet.”
His worried wife asked, “Can we survive that?”
“Yes, no problem.” He looked back up to survey the situation and heard a scream come from up where the cars were on the top deck. It started—widespread pandemonium unfolding, but before anyone who wasn’t already in place could do anything about it, the moment was on him or her, and just like Tim had said, there was no time.
The plane came in howling, an angry ghost town in a windstorm howl. The maw of both engines looked like a mouth that had all its teeth knocked out, and the air passing through was making a sound effect that Tim would never forget. He had both girls and Julie on the rail, legs over and he was ready to push them, but it looked like it was going to barely miss the ferry. Right before he pushed them over, he had hesitated as the angry jet howled overhead in a terrifying moment that anyone who had witnessed it would never forget.
It was so close that it scraped off the communications antennas and masts, the debris raining down on the cars and spectators. In a moment of indecision, Tim did not push them over and the plane missed the ferry and slammed into the water with the force of a thousand killer whales. After the huge splash of water and mist cleared, they could see the plane was intact. It was a miracle.
* * *
Just as Doug had committed to the channel, he saw the ferry right in the middle. His options were limited as time was no friend. In his quick assessment, he determined he would clear the ferry as it was moving west at a good clip. He could hear his howling engines, sounding like some fucked up haunted house. The stick was dead, but at least he had it lined up. Then the moment was on them, the plane was coming in. He had already warned the passengers about a water landing and the crew was bracing for the impact.
In his best initial estimation, he figured they would miss the ferry. But as they approached, he had serious doubt and pulled the stick back with all his might. The plane cleared the top of the ferry by feet as he could feel the collision with the mast as it vibrated the through the dead stick.
The jet hit the water with a tremendous jolt and roar, the ocean vehemently resisting with all it had. Once Doug realized they were alive and intact he immediately went into action, leaving the cockpit to get to the starboard door and stop anyone from opening the middle doors.
When he exited the cabin, he heard a small applause, but he quickly extinguished it as he opened the port door and the slide came out. He could see the ferry and the commotion that was transpiring and was glad to see that they had sustained no major damage.
Then without any warning the explosion knocked him right off his feet and he waited for the quick death he knew was co
ming.
Only that nanosecond did not yield his untimely death by explosive fireball. Even though he could feel the heat and hear the screams, they weren’t coming from his plane, initially anyway. And then they started from his plane as well. He stood up and was looking at a scene unfolding, never in a million years thinking he would ever see such a sight. The ferry had literally split in half.
There was a mass of people, fire, and hysteria that would only be analogous to a water-borne 9/11, a scene from Hell. Doug’s mind could not begin to wrap around it. What could have done that? Then he had a chilling thought—maybe a different plane hit it?
Then he reasoned that a plane would have had to have been right on his tail, but his proximity radar had not gone off nor had the tower interjected. So if it wasn’t a plane, what could have done that to the ferry? It was sinking fast in two pieces. He would have loved to be able to throw all their floating devices out there to help people, but his plane was full and they might need them. Doug knew this was an area with a lot rescue personnel stationed nearby, and thankfully he could already hear them coming.
He was initially thinking that a bird strike did this, but after he got the plane lined up he was able to sneak a peek at the port engine and saw that it was blown out. Something hit the engine, and it was explosive enough to blow the engine out, but not sheer off the wing? When the projectiles zipped by, they had an air of eerie familiarity. Once upon a time the U.S. Military had tried to kill him while he flew a Cesena. He remembered two of those things zipping by, and then two more. The next thing he knew, the U.S. was out two jet fighters and he was in Mexico.
Those were the first sightings of Pablo Manuel’s drone army. If these were the same things, then why him again, and why not just use big ones and wipe him out of the sky? What a fucked up thing, to be so elated at their survival and then immediately horrified at the death and destruction two football fields away. He now knew what it was like to be on the ground for something like the Hindenburg tragedy or 9/11.
Without Wrath (Harbinger of Change Book 3) Page 14
