Flygirl

by R. D. Kardon

  Deter peered over the newspaper. The scent of coffee and bacon surrounded them as silverware clinked against porcelain plates. Should I tell him?

  “Hello, Tris,” he said. “Sleep well?” Odd question coming from him. Why would he care how she slept? Or was she just being paranoid—after all, she’d heard a door open during Ross’s hallway performance last night.

  “Yeah, not bad. I’m over the hump,” Tris said. Jet lag. “I’m officially on GMT.” Deter smirked in response, although he never took his eyes from the paper.

  “Bulls lost to the Pistons last night. Damn,” he said.

  Tris shared his love of sports. And they were both Bulls fans.

  “Shouldn’t matter. They’re going all the way this year anyway,” she replied and poured some coffee from a pot on the table.

  Deter nodded in agreement and put the paper down.

  “Have you heard from Ross?” she asked.

  He didn’t hesitate. “Nope. After I dropped my bags last night, I went back down to his room and put a chair in front of his door. That way, if he went out again, he’d have to move it.” He took a sip of coffee. “When I checked this morning, I saw it had been moved. Can’t imagine how that happened. Probably housekeeping.” Deter folded his newspaper. “Or he went out again.”

  “He really loosened up last night, eh?”

  “Yup,” Deter said as he picked up the paper again.

  “Anything else going on?” Tris still believed that Deter knew more than he said.

  “Do you want to join me on a bus tour of downtown Vienna? Otherwise, we might as well be in Detroit.” He repeated the joke Tris had made earlier in the trip and they both laughed.

  “Uh, did you ask Ross to join you?” If he was going, she’d politely decline.

  “Nah. Let him sleep it off.”

  “Right. Ok, I’m in.”

  “Meet me in the lobby at 11:00.” And with that, Deter left Tris to finish her breakfast.

  He never saw her bow her head and let out a long, slow breath.

  Tris and Deter returned to the hotel mid-afternoon. He stopped at the desk to pick up some flight planning documents that were faxed to him.

  They took the elevator together, casually reliving the last few hours. “That was actually a pretty good bus tour,” Deter said.

  Tris nodded. “Yeah, at least we saw the Vienna State Opera and St. Stephan’s Cathedral. Too bad there was no time to stop and go inside.”

  Deter’s minimal German helped them navigate the menu at the café they stopped at for lunch. Conversation between the two of them was forced and superficial. They talked about the weather and getting home. There was no mention of, or even allusion to, Ross.

  Tris and Deter were on the same floor, his room further down the hall. They parted ways at her door and were back in the lobby two hours later, packed and in uniform. Ross was there when she arrived. His back was to her as he stuffed a piece of paper in his pocket.

  She was torn. This was not the place or time to confront him. Which meant that Tris had to be cordial. To pretend.

  “Hey, Larry. How’s it going? You have a good day?”

  He flinched when he heard her voice.

  “Oh yeah. Watched TV in German!” He neither turned nor looked over as he spoke. Instead, he assumed his haughty pilot pose, chest out, eyes forward. Yet his voice was friendly.

  “I hear you guys saw the town—or some of it.” Ross nodded at Deter, who was still at the front desk.

  “Yeah. It was a pretty good bus tour.”

  “Oh, I’ve seen it before. You know this ain’t my first rodeo.” Ross chuckled at his own joke. Tris rolled her eyes.

  They packed themselves and their bags into the hotel van. On the way to the airport, Deter went over every detail of the day’s leg with Tris and then passed her the weather package and flight plan documents. Ross read a magazine.

  At the Executive Terminal, Tris rolled her bags toward the reception desk to ask about catering.

  “Come on, Tris, follow me,” Deter called from the exit to the ramp. Surprised, she caught up to him, and when she was astride, he said, “Your pre-flight. You’re upfront for this leg.”

  Tris felt her chest constrict and her hands tingle. She actually dropped one of her roller bags, which met the ground with a loud clunk. She wasn’t sure if it was nerves or excitement. Either way, once her initial reaction passed, she realized she hadn’t reviewed any charts, wasn’t sure of the flight plan, and was otherwise simply not ready.

  “Thanks! I appreciate it.” Did Zorn know? Had they cleared it with him? When? Maybe this was what Ross tried to tell her last night. Was “buddy” a reference to Zorn? Did he have a real reason to show up at her room?

  She shook it off. There was simply no time to worry about it. I’m First Officer on this leg, and I have work to do.

  Thirty-Five

  TRIS STOOD ON the ramp in the brilliant Vienna sunshine. It was a crisp fifty-two degrees with light winds—a perfect day to get out of town. Each leg brought her one step closer to Exeter. To home.

  Ross came outside during her pre-flight. He walked right past her with his suitcase; he didn’t say a word to her.

  Her focus on Ross turned from last night’s behavior to today’s crew change. “Hey, Larry. I didn’t expect to be flying this leg. What’s up?”

  He responded as though he hadn’t heard. “Ok, I’m heading back in to check on catering.” As he walked away, Tris asked him if he’d ordered fuel. He nodded yes without missing a step. He hadn’t looked her in the eye since the night before.

  Powered by nervous energy, Tris finished the walk-around and climbed the Astral’s airstairs two at a time. She found Deter and Ross sitting in the back of the aircraft. Ross bent over in his seat and spoke softly to Deter, who listened with his usual deadpan.

  She thought she heard Ross say, “Don’t call him.”

  “Ok, you can start it up anytime,” she called to Deter from the front of the Astral. It was Deter’s leg, so per procedure, he needed to start the APU so they’d have power on the ground.

  “Get it started, Tris,” Deter responded, and went back to his conversation with Ross.

  “Sure. You want me to program the nav system?”

  “No. I’ll get that. You do everything else.”

  With the APU running, air poured through the environmental system. That and the whine of the engine made it too loud for Tris to tell if Ross and Deter were still talking. She felt the vibration of someone walking up the aisle and down the airstairs. Out the cockpit window, she saw the two men head back into the terminal.

  The trip came together in routine fashion. The fuel truck finished pumping and pulled away from the wing. Ross loaded the ice and coffee and spread out the USA Today and the salmon-colored Financial Times on an empty seat.

  Tris went to stand on the ramp for a few minutes and try to make sense of things. Jets pushed back from their gates, positioned to taxi. One-One was active, and Tris had a clear view of aircraft moving on and off that runway at regular intervals.

  Once it got closer to the top of the hour, she’d get their clearance. Last reported winds were from the southeast at thirteen knots. All she had to do was look up into the clear blue sky to know they had good weather for departure.

  Back in the cockpit, Tris found Deter programming the nav system. He’d placed the company flight manifest on the center console. For each previous leg, the manifest listed Ross as Captain and Deter as Co-Captain—an acknowledgment that while both held the same position in the Astral, Ross had more time in service at Tetrix. They split the flying evenly. After their names, she saw “Miles, Patricia F.—Crew Observer.” Although these were only internal documents, Zorn was particular about paperwork.

  She held up the manifest. “You want me to move Ross into the observer seat and me into the second-in-command spot for this leg?”

  “What?” Deter didn’t like being interrupted.

  “Ann-Marie’s probably at h
er desk. I can call home and have her change the paperwork.”

  “Change the paperwork? Why?”

  “Why? You told me I’m sitting right seat on this leg. I figured Ross would be in the jump seat. Don’t we need to amend the manifest for the crew change? Or at least tell someone back at Exeter?” She checked her watch. It was well into the business day back home.

  “Don’t do anything. I’ll handle it.”

  “Hey, what’s going on?” Her confusion turned into concern.

  “I’m the pilot-in-command. I control the paperwork. You just keep up. Let’s get to Luxembourg, ok?” Deter’s patronizing comment scratched at her already stimulated nerves. Tris flexed her left hand to keep her nails from digging into her palm.

  “Yes, master,” she said, a bit louder than she intended. Deter pretended not to hear.

  Within seconds, Deter had their flight plan up on the navigation screens on both sides of the cockpit and bounded out of his seat toward the terminal. He hadn’t taken the manifest with him and hadn’t penciled in any changes.

  Tris hugged herself and rubbed her palms on her upper arms. Did anyone back home at Exeter know about the crew change? Did Deter decide to make her the co-pilot to Luxembourg? Or was that Ross’s call? And why?

  The Astral had a satellite phone. She could use it to call the office and talk to Zorn, or at least speak with Ann-Marie. In an environment that depended on crew coordination and com-munication to stay alive, Tris was alone, with a problem, and no one to talk to about it. Nothing about this situation felt right.

  I’m calling. She walked to the SAT phone, which was embedded in the armrest next to one of the passenger seats. She picked it up and jiggled the hook to get a dial tone. Tris heard the hum, then depressed the hook and held it in. She had to organize her thoughts before she dialed.

  She was co-pilot for this leg. They told her at the last minute and didn’t say why. As drunk as Ross was last night, this trip departed at 7:00 p.m. Working backward, Ross would still have to be drinking at 11:00 this morning to be outside the eight-hour bottle-to-throttle rule.

  And at that moment, it finally made sense. Of course Ross wasn’t concerned about the eight-hour rule. He satisfied that easily. But the rest of the regulation prohibited anyone with a blood alcohol level of .04 or higher from flying no matter when they took their last drink.

  Ross was smashed last night. He’s afraid he’ll blow .04.

  Tris looked at the receiver. Every nerve in her body fired, and she didn’t know how to make them stop. She sat down, then stood back up, the phone still in her hand. If she told Zorn what she thought, this trip would be over. Deter would be furious, but that was the least of her concerns. And Ross. A drunk. A predator. “Erratic,” Ann-Marie had called him.

  Tris still didn’t know exactly where she’d start when she released the hook and dialed. She’d punched in the numbers 0-1-1-1 when someone stepped on to the airplane. Ross stood at the galley carrying a number of plastic bags and a tray. The rest of the catering. Deter moved slowly behind him with the passengers in tow to give Ross a chance to get the food onboard.

  Tris had to abandon her plan and reluctantly put the receiver down. Ross wasn’t flying. If he had begged off for the reason she thought, they were legal to launch. She’d be fine. They’d be fine.

  She went to help Ross with the food, and their eyes finally met. Her visceral reaction was to move back and shield her face. In response, Ross’s eyes softened, and he slumped forward. He knew what he did.

  He opened his mouth, about to speak what she hoped was an apology. “Here’s the stuff,” he said. “The food in these trays needs to be heated. Can you turn the galley ovens on?”

  Technically, that was his job now that she was flying. She elected not to argue; she just did it. Even if she did push back, she had no support here, and she knew it.

  But Tris had to try to get some answers one last time before the passengers boarded. “Hey, look, I’m happy to fly to Luxembourg. But did Deter change the paperwork?” That’s when she realized she’d only thought about the Tetrix paperwork. That was an easy fix. But every time the Astral flew anywhere in the world, the crew had to file an instrument flight plan with the FAA. And it had to have the name and number of the pilot-in-command. It was the law.

  Tris squared her shoulders and faced Ross. “Hey, are you still PIC on the flight plan?”

  A look of panic crossed Ross’s face, and then quickly vanished. Surely they’d taken his name off; in case something happened, authorities would call the captain. And today that wasn’t Ross.

  Ross ignored her, but she kept going. “Larry? Wait! Did you change it?” Ross continued walking to the back of the airplane.

  Frustrated and angry, Tris turned so suddenly she knocked a bag of paper plates and plastic utensils on the floor. They scattered all over and blocked the narrow aisle in the cabin. She bent over to pick them up just as the passengers boarded. Focus. Focus.

  The two executives nodded and squeezed around Tris, who, in a crouch, apologized while she cleaned up the mess. She grabbed the hot meals and popped them in the oven, then ripped the cellophane cover from a cheese tray big enough to feed a dozen people.

  “Have a seat, gentlemen. We’ll get going in a few minutes,” Deter called back to the passengers and climbed into the left seat. “Get the clearance, Tris.”

  “Standby.” Tris still hadn’t sat down in the co-pilot’s seat.

  “C’mon, c’mon. Radios set?” Deter pushed.

  “Hey, wait a second. I’m working as fast as I can.” She clicked her seat belt and shoulder harness, quickly tuning in the departure frequencies.

  “Work faster.”

  It was go time.

  Thirty-Six

  WITHIN MINUTES, THE Astral settled at cruise altitude en route to Luxembourg. With no one but ATC to speak with, Tris concentrated on her stunning view of the Swiss Alps. They looked so close, like she could touch the tips of their peaks.

  Their flight plan took them over Nuremberg, south of the Czech Republic, and around Frankfurt into ELLX, the local airport in Luxembourg. The plane performed perfectly, and tension in the cockpit had dissipated. Tris leaned back, letting her shoulders drop for the first time in hours.

  She loved the peace of a stable cockpit, where she could appreciate this view of Europe from her special perch at thirty-eight thousand feet. Tris and the Astral were part of this vista, the uneven terrain, whitecaps that hovered over wide-open valleys below. This was the real prize. It answered the question she asked herself more and more frequently about why she had chosen Tetrix.

  Tris turned around to check on their three passengers. The executives were working. Ross laid asleep, his head thrown back, tie loose, the top button of his shirt open and his uniform jacket removed. His hands were folded neatly in his lap.

  She checked the navigation program, which could correctly estimate within seconds where they were along the route. They had at least twenty minutes before they could begin a descent into Lux.

  Deter hadn’t said much since takeoff, mostly operational talk. She rotated in her seat to face him, but he kept his gaze straight ahead or on the instrument and radio panels. Tired of trying to edge her way into information, Tris flat out asked him what she wanted to know.

  “So. Why isn’t Ross flying this leg?”

  It took a few seconds for Deter to acknowledge her. “He wasn’t up to it. He wasn’t feeling well. He called me right before you and I met for sight-seeing.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? We were together all afternoon.” She could have had hours to prepare for the flight.

  “I briefed you in the van and told you once we got to the airport. You had almost two hours to get ready. He took over your chores. What’s the big deal?”

  “Did Zorn ok this?” She thought she saw his jaw tense, just slightly. There was no way Deter could make a crew change without notifying Zorn first.

  “I had a qualified co-pilot on the trip with me, and
as pilot-in-command, I made the decision to have you fly the leg. And that’s the end of it.” With that short twist of words, she was dismissed. Her own anger rose, a vise that tightened in her throat to the beat of its own pulse.

  “Astral November Nine Tango X-ray, Wien Center. Descend and maintain flight level Two-Four-Zero and report leaving Three-Eight-Zero.” Tris glanced over as Deter nodded.

  Tris could only do her job. She keyed the mike to answer ATC.

  “Wein Center, November Nine Tango X-ray leaving Three-Eight-Zero for Two-Four-Zero.”

  “November Nine-Tango-X-ray, expect the Vetil Two Mike Arrival into Luxembourg.”

  “Roger, Nine Tango X-ray will expect the Vetil Two Mike.”

  Tris entered the details of the arrival into their navigation system. The straightforward procedure would put them on a long final approach for Runway Two-Four.

  Tris studied the airport diagram and saw that it would be a short taxi to the executive ramp. They were slightly early, and the ground handlers confirmed that the limo was waiting with engines running. Soon they’d be at their hotel for the final overnight in Europe before the long flight back over the Atlantic. Tris could not stop thinking of home.

  Just then, ATC cleared them down to nine thousand feet. Once they flew below ten thousand, conversation upfront was limited to items essential to flight. She wasn’t done with Deter. But for now, it was a relief to focus on approach and landing.

  At five miles out, Deter called, “Slats and flaps fifteen.” The aircraft rumbled and slowed as the wing expanded. A minute later, they were cleared by ATC for a visual approach into Luxembourg and told to contact the tower. As the approach controller spoke, Deter asked for more flaps. Tris answered ATC and lowered the flaps simultaneously. A second later, she heard the expected increase in engine power. The aircraft’s nose pitched up slightly. They were fifteen hundred feet above the ground. Tris checked on with tower.

  “Welcome to Luxembourg, Astral November Nine Tango X-ray. Runway Two-Four, cleared to land, wind two-five-zero at six knots, right turn off.” Tris acknowledged the landing clearance.