Serpentine

by Peter Parken

  The elderly lady nodded and sat down.

  Nate nodded in Andrew’s direction. “Go ahead with your question, Andrew. Then when you’re finished I’m going to break the MC’s rule and allow that polite lady to still have the last question.”

  Andrew smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “That’s okay by me. So, Nate—you don’t mind if I call you that, do you?”

  “You already did—continue with your question, sir.”

  “Well, my question pertains to your use of electromagnets to power your rockets…er, I mean, coasters. Aren’t you tampering with the element of fear to the extreme? It’s terrifying enough for riders plunging down those steep hills that you design. Don’t you think their nerves need a bit of a break in between sensations?”

  “No, I think our use of electromagnets is cutting edge technology, and has been deemed perfectly safe through years of testing.”

  Nate raised his hand to point to the lady, but was interrupted by the booming voice once again.

  “Excuse me. Did you say ‘safe?’ How many safety tests did you conduct on the welds used in that track that seemed to just mysteriously split in half?”

  “Andrew, we conducted exhaustive tests on the track welds.”

  He was trying to keep his cool, but the man was annoying him—and he knew he was doing it deliberately. Nate pointed once again to the woman, but before she could get to her feet Andrew bellowed one more time. Nate could see now that the Press had their cameras pointed in Wingate’s direction—he was no doubt loving this.

  “Part three of my question. Why is the NTSB investigating the accident? I’ve been designing rollercoasters for forty-five years and I’ve never heard of such a thing before. They have no jurisdiction with amusement park rides at all.” Nate heard a collective murmur from the audience.

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Andrew.” He wasn’t going to let Andrew bait him or get under his skin. The man was obviously hoping for that, and hoping that the media would have something to quote in the morning papers that would be embarrassing or perhaps even incriminating for Nate and his company.

  Nate nodded to the lady once more and she jumped to the floor mike before Andrew could interrupt again. “Mr. Morrell—I don’t have a question, just a comment. I think you’re a very brave man for saving that young lady. I know the accident must be weighing heavily on you, but I think what you did for her was remarkable. And…you coming here tonight to make this speech to us after the horrible thing that happened is just another example of your bravery.”

  Before she sat down, she glared over at Andrew Wingate to the sound of thunderous applause from the audience.

  Nate smiled. The feisty old lady reminded him so much of his mother.

  Chapter 9

  Shelby was glad to be home—away from hospital food and the prying questions from nurses and doctors. She was tired of being reminded of what had happened to her. Feeling a lot better—the bruises and cuts were healing nicely—and she had regained almost full movement in her right shoulder.

  Shelby just needed her soul to heal. She had no problem falling asleep at night, but it was the constant waking up that was getting to her. Every night, the same thing. Lurching up in bed, gasping in shock. Seeing the event over and over again. Watching the front of the train buckling as it rammed into the split in the track, the train lifting up in the air and flinging itself over the side.

  She experienced the horror of being airborne, doing somersaults in the air—she could feel the impacts of the trestle against her body, bouncing off it on the way down. Then, finally, by some miracle, grasping onto the trestle with her legs, violently halting her fall to certain death.

  Then her hero leaning over the top of the second hill, calling to her, reassuring her, then hurling himself over the edge and climbing down to her. Climbing back up with her arm wrapped around his neck. Then falling again, him flinging his arm down and grabbing her just before she was out of reach. Twisting her in the air and slamming her backwards against the trestle. Then…darkness.

  She wondered how long these vivid nightmares would continue. It was getting to the point where Shelby was afraid to fall asleep—fearful that the same terrifying movie reel would start up again.

  So…Nathan Morrell was the man who had designed and manufactured the Black Mamba. She was shocked at that moment when she had found out who he was. It was hard to understand how she felt—it brought it all close to home. What she’d suffered, the deaths of her fellow riders, and there she was sitting and chatting with the man who had somehow screwed up, causing unspeakable horror, death and suffering.

  Maybe she just needed someone to blame. It was hard to blame a machine or just a mere Act of God. It was always better, she knew, if there was a real live person to blame. It made the anger and the blame more real. And more satisfying.

  Shelby opened the back door from her kitchen and strolled out to the garden. All the flowers she’d planted last year after she bought this house were starting to bloom in their colorful glory. She laid down on a chaise lounge and savored the soft fragrant breeze. Enjoying this last day of freedom was important to her—she was back to work at the hospital tomorrow. Back to dealing with other people’s miseries and trying her damnedest to forget her own.

  Her little house was at 210 Peacock Ave., just a couple of blocks from the hospital. She loved how close it was, because she could walk there every day and not have to incur the cost of parking. Plus, the exercise was good for her. A great way to start the day and a splendid way to end it. And the weather in Virginia was almost always wonderful, so walking to work was a joy.

  Shelby was a surgical nurse—highly trained and extremely specialized. Heart surgeries were what she was called upon to assist with the most. She was thirty-two years old and had been a nurse for ten years. She loved her profession, because she just loved people. Loved nurturing them in their time of need, loved assisting the surgeons in saving their lives. She had to prep them beforehand, assist with the life saving techniques during the operations, then calm them down and reassure them afterwards in recovery. Nothing in life gave her more satisfaction.

  Shelby’s tiny little house was an old Georgian townhouse. Probably at least 100 years old, but in an excellent state of repair. She’d really had nothing to do except plant her garden, and gardening brought her a lot of joy. She loved seeing things grow, things that she herself had nurtured.

  A voice called out to her from the backyard next door. She turned her head to look. It was her neighbor, an internal medicine resident at the hospital. A nice enough guy, they’d dated a few times, but nothing serious as far as she was concerned. He felt differently than her though.

  “Hey, how are you feeling? I heard about the accident. Horrible!”

  Shelby sat up in the chaise lounge and called back. “I’m doing better, thanks. It’ll take some time, but I’ll be okay.”

  “How about I take you out to dinner tonight? That might relax you a bit.”

  Shelby paused for a second or two as she thought about it. “No, I don’t feel I’m up to socializing yet, Scott. A rain check, okay?”

  She could tell by his face that he was a bit crestfallen. She’d put him off so many times that it was starting to weigh on him, she guessed.

  “Oh, okay. I understand. Maybe I’ll see you at the hospital, then?”

  “Maybe.” Shelby got up and went back inside to the relative safety of her abode, hoping the guy would finally get the message and stop asking her out. She just wasn’t interested, nor did she want to lead him on. Saying ‘no’ was easy.

  But she found herself thinking a lot about one other man. Nathan Morrell. She couldn’t help it. The courage he had displayed in saving her, and also the sheer courage of just coming to see her. She knew he was hurt by her reaction, but she just couldn’t help it at the time.

  He was certainly an attractive man. Bright blue eyes, tall and dark, broad shoulders, and a confident air about him that she found alluring. His voice wa
s also fabulous—like a broadcaster’s. The kind of voice she could fall asleep listening to.

  But her attraction to him was conflicted with her anger and confusion. If it hadn’t been for him and whatever colossal errors he’d made, her ‘Coaster Crazies’ would still be alive, and she wouldn’t be suffering nightmares.

  Maybe she was attracted to him just out of the intense experience they’d gone through together. It brought them together in a strange way and she owed her life to his bravery. But…if it hadn’t been for his faulty invention, he wouldn’t have had to be brave for her in the first place. She would never have suffered the horror she did and they would never have met. She pondered that for a second. Fate?

  No…she wasn’t going to let his heroic act distort her thinking. She walked over to her purse and pulled out the business card for that fat little lawyer who had barged into her hospital room. Shelby picked up the phone and dialed.

  Chapter 10

  John Fletcher stared at the photographs on his desk, and then read over once again the report that he himself had written up. Then he looked at the other report—the report that he’d been ordered to sign. The report that ignored everything he had ascertained.

  He stood up, went to his office window and gazed out over L’Enfant Plaza. This had been his home away from home for the last thirty-five years—the venerable head office of the National Transportation Safety Board. John was the Chief Investigator for the organization, an institution that had been charged by an act of Congress to investigate serious transportation accidents, including air, road and marine.

  But…not rollercoasters.

  That was the first thing that made him scratch his head in confusion a week ago. Why on earth was the NTSB investigating the Black Mamba accident, when it didn’t fall within its jurisdiction? Didn’t make sense. They had enough on their plate right now—a plane crash in Denver, a ship sinking off the coast of South Carolina, a bridge collapse in Florida, and a balloon explosion over Virginia. Amusement parks were a State and Municipal responsibility, not a Federal one.

  His questioning fell on deaf ears. No one listened to him; no one gave him an explanation. He was told to just ‘do it.’ And, on top of all that, he was the most senior person in the investigations department—he didn’t do fieldwork anymore. He had a large staff that did that. Why had he been asked to do this one personally?

  Ignoring protocol as well. Normally, with any accident investigation, a ‘Go Team’ was assigned—usually three or four investigators working under an Investigator-In-Charge. The IIC oversaw every step of the process and assigned every member of the team to their individual specialized tasks. Then the report was compiled after considerable debate and consultation. For this accident, none of that was allowed to happen. No ‘Go Team’ was assigned and the only person permitted to examine the wreckage was John himself. This violated all of the protocols established for the NTSB.

  The only other time he’d seen anything like this was with the TWA 800 incident back in 1996. The NTSB closed ranks and numerous protocols were broken. Resulting in the final official conclusion that a fuel tank explosion caused the jet to tumble into the Atlantic, killing all souls onboard. John had no choice but to live with that conclusion—he and many of his colleagues kept their opinions to themselves after having them ignored. To this day though, he would swear on his mother’s grave that an exploding fuel tank did not bring that plane down.

  So, John was starting to get that sinking feeling again. Was history repeating itself? He was sixty years old, just five years away from full retirement with benefits. But that really didn’t matter—he wasn’t going to make it that long anyway. All he wanted was to have his health benefits continue while he was still alive and have the life insurance proceeds passed along to his wife.

  His son…well, he had no idea where he was, so he wasn’t concerned with him. He had estranged himself from the family years ago and, despite John and Linda’s best efforts, he was no longer in their lives. But Linda—he wanted her taken care of and he didn’t want medical bills to exhaust their savings before he died. His radiation treatments were expensive.

  He had a brain tumor. Inoperable. In fact, it was an unusual one, too—they referred to it as subject to ‘vascularization.’ A tumor that was not only in an inaccessible area of his brain, but also one that was so entangled with blood vessels that it would be too dangerous to the life and well-being of the patient to attempt to remove. He’d been living with it for two years—at least that was when it was discovered, but the oncologist said it had probably been growing in there for at least ten years. He recalled that’s when the first persistent headaches had started and they’d gotten progressively worse every year since.

  John had about a year to go.

  The headaches were probably the only symptom that was debilitating at times for him. Sometimes, his eyes would get a bit blurry, and they’d “tunnel” a bit. Other than that, some nausea at unexpected moments.

  But he’d been able to perform his job just fine. His brain and metallurgical skills were as sharp as ever. His bosses knew about his condition and had been supportive, allowing time off when needed and giving him space when the headaches made him irritable. John couldn’t have expected better support than what they’d shown him.

  This report on his desk that had been sent over to him to sign—he didn’t know what to make of it. Someone must have received the wrong information and had overlooked what he’d already provided. There had to be some mistake. Going on that assumption, he’d asked for a meeting. He expected a knock on his office door any moment now. It would be his direct superior, Gary Tuttle. Somehow they’d sort this out together.

  *****

  “Are these photos still in your hard drive?”

  John was perplexed. “Well, of course they are. Everything is stored on my computer.”

  “We’ll need access to your computer. To clean the hard drive.” This ominous statement came from a man John had never met before. He had no forewarning that the man would be attending this meeting along with Gary.

  “I don’t understand this at all. I’ve shown you the photos and I’ve let you read my report. And another thing I don’t understand is why a senior official from the National Security Agency is even sitting here in my office.”

  John was starting to get agitated—no doubt noticed by Gary, who up until now had been fairly silent. He finally spoke. “John, essentially, we’ve lost control of this investigation. It’s in the hands of the NSA now. I know about as much as you know.”

  John was wringing his hands while sensing that a headache was coming on. He looked at the NSA agent. “Do you have a business card?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “No.”

  John couldn’t resist. “Haven’t you people learned anything from the Edward Snowden affair? He blew the whistle on your spying, Internet tampering, listening in on the phone calls of heads of state, let alone normal everyday Americans—and none of that surprises me with what you’re telling me to do here today.”

  The well-dressed, bald-headed agent adorned with designer tinted prescription lenses, leaned forward in his chair, wearing a stern look that John guessed he probably practiced in the mirror each morning. “This is a national security issue. I can’t stress that enough. We expect your cooperation.”

  “Do I get to understand why I’m cooperating?”

  “No.”

  John pulled the photos back across the desk and pounded his index finger down on the images. “I don’t understand why a rollercoaster accident would be a national security issue. But, from these photos, you can clearly see that the steel was melted right at the split. It didn’t snap, it didn’t break due to a faulty weld—it was melted. By what, I don’t know—but I’m guessing military grade thermate. I’d have to check further for residue, but that’s what it looks like to me. Which means there would have had to have been a fuse or fuses attached to the underside of the track.
Set off by remote control. Which I suspect also caused the lap bars to unlock. The same remote could have caused both things to happen. Two presses of a button—first press for the fuses to light, second press for the bars to unlock. Easily done. And thermate burns fast and clean—wouldn’t take long at all for that steel to burn through. It would have been a rapid intense burn.”

  Neither Gary nor the nameless agent said a word.

  John was on fire now. He reached across the desk and picked up the report that the NSA wanted him to sign. “This report says there was a faulty weld at the point of the split. That is patently false! There was no weld in that section of steel—it was solid with no seams. The split happened in solid seamless steel!”

  The agent spoke once again. “Mr. Fletcher, it won’t help to raise your voice. I have told you this is a matter of national security and the report must read the way I have presented it to you. Some things are for the greater good and being self-righteous isn’t always helpful. Again, we expect your cooperation.”

  The mysterious man’s words were beginning to resonate in John’s head. Along with a severe headache. He was not going to be swayed by anything John had to say and his boss, Gary Tuttle, wasn’t taking John’s side in the least. This whole affair was indeed starting to smell just like TWA 800. If nothing, John was a realist. He had to live to fight another day—or in his case, one year less a day. He had to at least give the impression of cooperation, because no one cared about the arguments he was making.

  “Okay, you have it. I accept that there are things here that I’m just not meant to know.”

  The agent smiled for the first time. “Good.”

  John noticed that Gary crossed his legs and seemed to be relaxing more too.

  “Can I ask a couple of logistical questions?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “There’s going to be a lawsuit. Are we going to allow this man to twist in the wind? He wasn’t negligent—his company did nothing wrong. This was, pure and simple, sabotage—and a very professional version of it.”