Turbulence

by Nance, John J. ;

  Jimmy shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it, not even when I was in high school and a bunch of us would go over to Pecos on Saturday night to raise a ruckus. Right now, I just want to get us to Cape Town before these people start rioting.”

  James Haverston stood at the podium watching the boarding process and his watch at the same time as he spoke quietly to the three agents at the podium.

  “We’ve only fourteen minutes. Let’s look lively, shall we?”

  “We are, James,” the closest one protested, only half smiling.

  “I’m serious, ladies,” he continued, returning what was more a smirk than a smile. “I’ll not tolerate a late push-back due to boarding again today. Understood?”

  One of them broke away and trotted to the jet-way entrance to speak to the boarding agent, who immediately picked up the PA microphone.

  “Boarding all rows now for Cape Town. If you would please … move onto the aircraft as rapidly as possible, so we can get you off on time … for your convenience.”

  James had backed up to one side to monitor the progress, when he felt a tug on his sleeve and turned to find another one of his gate agents. She leaned over, cupping her hand over his ear with irritating familiarity and speaking too loudly. “Sir, we may have a problem. There’s a distraught-looking man sitting over to the right who fits one of our profiles.” She motioned with a small incline of her head toward a seat where a man in a business suit sat staring at nothing. “He’s been sitting there in a near-catatonic state for a half hour, responding to nothing.”

  James Haverston had been a station manager and airline agent for decades. The security profiles of passengers who justified greater scrutiny were second nature, but so was his trust of his own sixth sense. James spotted the man and immediately raised his two-way to call quietly for a security officer. He walked over and sat in an empty seat next to the man his agent had indicated. Something was odd, he concluded, but there was nothing concrete he could put his finger on. Boarding was almost complete and the man had made no move to get to his feet and approach the gate, even though his boarding pass was clearly visible in his lap.

  This fellow could be sleepy, drugged, grief stricken, or have some other logical reason for looking so distracted, James thought.

  But there was always the possibility someone like him could be suicidal or even harboring some other evil intent.

  “Good morning, sir,” James began. “You are headed to Cape Town, are you not?”

  Slowly the man looked over at him, his eyes partially dilated and unfocused. He tried to smile, but it was obviously an effort.

  “Sorry?”

  James held out his hand. “James Haverston. Meridian station manager here in Heathrow. Just wondering if you’re okay.”

  James saw the man’s face harden, his lips tightening in an effort to control himself. He made no attempt to shake hands.

  “I’m fine, thanks. And I’ve got no choice but to fly with you people.”

  He stood up suddenly and lifted his carry-on and briefcase as James dropped his hand and stood, too, partially blocking his path.

  “May I ask your name, sir?”

  “Dr. Brian Logan.”

  “I see. Well, Dr. Logan, have we done something to offend you?”

  The range of expressions crossing Brian’s face prompted James to step back in slight apprehension. He glanced to the side, relieved to see one of the airport police officers he knew approaching. Dr. Logan was trying to speak and apparently searching for the words.

  “You … want to know if you’ve done something to offend me?” Logan said in a staccato growl.

  “Yes, sir, I certainly do. I’m concerned that you seem really upset with us. What on earth have we done? If you tell me, perhaps I can make it right.”

  Brian brushed past him and moved forward toward the agent at the jet-way entrance, effectively pulling James with him as the police officer circled around behind, watching carefully.

  “You want to know what you’ve done,” Brian repeated slowly as he handed his boarding pass to the woman at the door, who watched her boss for any signals. She was aware of the officer approaching from the right side.

  James nodded to her in a signal to continue.

  “Ah, welcome aboard, Dr. Logan.… We have you in first class, seat three-D.”

  Brian took the boarding pass without looking at it. His eyes were boring into James Haverston’s. “Your airline killed my wife and son. Is that enough?” Logan turned away from Haverston and brushed past the agent to hurry down the jetway as the police officer moved forward.

  James raised his hand to stop the officer just as he reached the jetway.

  “No?” the officer asked.

  “Wait a second.” He leaned past his agent and typed a series of commands into the gate computer, waiting for the passenger case-file subdirectory to appear with the answer.

  Logan, Brian, M.D.—Currently plaintiff in a one-hundred-million-dollar wrongful-death action against us for the loss of his wife and unborn son on one of our flights. Do not discuss his case, details of our procedures, or provide copies of any official-use materials under any circumstance. Handle with extreme care and respect. Unlikely ever to fly us again.

  There was a brief recitation of Meridian’s version of Daphne Logan’s death. The moment of decision had arrived, James realized, and the agents he’d spurred to get the boarding done on time were now looking at him.

  James stood for a moment, balancing his customer-service sensibilities and his security responsibilities against the revenue of a first-class passenger and the image of the man, his carry-on bag, and his title of doctor, then turned and nodded to the officer. “My mistake, Alf. Sorry to have bothered you.”

  “A false alarm, then?”

  “Indeed.”

  Unseen at the end of the jetway, Dr. Brian Logan took a deep breath, and forced himself to walk through the entrance.

  Janie realized Judy Jackson was consciously avoiding her the minute she stepped aboard the cavernous 747–400 and introduced herself to the two crew members working the door, Cindy Simons and Elle Chantrese. She could see Judy turn her back and slip out of the galley.

  Nothing changes with you, does it, Judy? Janie thought in mild amusement.

  “Where do you suppose I can be of the greatest assistance to you girls?” Janie asked Elle and Cindy, who simultaneously arched their thumbs toward the back of the aircraft.

  “Synchronized gesturing. Very nice,” Janie teased as both women laughed in response. Elle broke away to keep greeting passengers as Cindy leaned closer. “We’re one short today, and Jackson’s on the warpath as usual.”

  Janie inclined her head toward first class. “I’ll put my things by my seat and head back there.”

  She moved a few feet up the aisle and turned, watching Cindy with the eye of a veteran as the compact brunette smoothly transitioned back to greeting duty with Elle, who was more than a foot taller.

  Good attitudes, they both look elegant, and they’re both friendly. Why couldn’t I have had them from Chicago? she mused, the task of writing up most of her previous crew still ahead of her.

  Janie checked her boarding pass again, verifying she was in seat 3-A. 3-B was vacant so far, and she hoped it would stay that way. It would be easier to relax if she didn’t have to worry about a seatmate.

  The six seats in row 3 of first class were placed in groupings of two seats each—two on the left, two on the right, and two in the middle, each of them comparatively huge and equipped with its own video screen and ample legroom.

  Three-F was already occupied by a distinguished businessman in an expensive suit who was pulling a folder out of his briefcase.

  There was movement at the rear entrance to first class, and Janie looked up to see a man enter holding a leather briefcase in one hand and his boarding pass in the other. He looked around in confusion, trying to locate his seat. Something about him pulled her attention away from the small task of
putting her carry-on under the seat, and Janie realized with a momentary flash of self-consciousness that she was purposely fumbling with her purse to keep an eye on him as he settled into seat 3-D in the center group. Dark hair, late thirties … no, early forties … hard to tell, she concluded, but handsome and poised and well groomed. He was wearing a hard expression, almost angry, in fact, but somehow it didn’t seem natural for him.

  Janie watched the way he carefully placed the briefcase in his lap, then thought about it and put in under the seat in front of him, only to pull it back to his lap. He sensed her presence and looked around, and she smiled.

  There was a flicker of a smile in return, but he was obviously preoccupied, and she forced herself to stow her bag and head for the rear of the aircraft, stopping briefly in the first-class galley at the rear of the first-class compartment to check the computer printout.

  Three-A, me … Three-D, Dr. Brian Logan. Aha! A doctor. Interesting.

  Janie moved aft through the still-crowded aisles, stopping to smile at the passengers one by one and help with the inevitable task of stowing bulky carry-ons in high places. But she lingered on the image of the doctor in first class wondering if there was a story there she should know.

  In the cockpit overhead, First Officer Garth Abbott sat in the right seat of the ultramodern Boeing flight deck and watched the Heathrow terminal recede slowly in the windscreen. The unseen tug four stories below pushed the loaded 747 steadily backward, and then to one side to make room for another Meridian 777 that had arrived early. Garth could see the triple-seven in the distance, its crew waiting impatiently to nose into the same gate Flight Six had just vacated.

  His mind kept returning to Carol, and the follow-up call he’d made to her while down on the ramp doing the ground inspection of the aircraft. He’d tried to compartmentalize his anxiety, but it wouldn’t rest.

  He’d awakened her and heard that delicious, recently loved rumble in her voice that always excited him.

  “What did you mean, honey, earlier, when I said I’d see you when I got home and you replied, ‘Perhaps’?”

  “Hm-m? What?”

  He repeated his words and heard the bedcovers rustling in the background. “We’ve talked about it before, Garth.”

  “About what?”

  “Us. Look, just … come home safely, and we’ll talk.”

  “That’s always my intention, babe. But talk about what? Are you having some premonition? Some bad feeling about this trip?”

  There was a long silence before she replied, and he heard her clear her throat first. “No. Not the trip.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’ve been trying to tell you for years, Garth. I’ve told you for years, but you’re too in love with airplanes to listen.”

  “Airplanes? What, this is about my being gone so much?”

  Silence, though he could hear her shift the receiver.

  “There’s … something I have to tell you, Garth. But now isn’t the time.”

  “About us?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not happy?”

  “How would you know?”

  There was a noise in the background, and Garth ignored it. “Baby, please! You’re going to make me crazy. What’s going on?”

  “When you get home, we’ll talk. Not now. I’m going to hang up now, Garth. I’ll see you when you get home.” The line went dead, and he’d sat for a few moments in shock before redialing. But this time the call went directly to voice mail, which meant she’d forwarded it.

  Garth glanced over at Phil Knight, who was busy with the engine start sequence. He wanted to rip off his headset, tell Knight to get someone else as copilot, and find the first flight back home. But he couldn’t leave now and keep his job.

  His mind was whirling, his need to fix things immediately feeding a growing panic against the background of well-founded fears. He loved her deeply, he needed her, but he had always been unwilling to put the flying second. A sick feeling washed over him now, a realization that he’d been away for too long.

  Maybe we can salvage it, Garth thought.

  “Oil pressure, number four,” Knight was saying, half under his breath. Garth could see him glancing in puzzlement at his first officer, wondering why there was no echo from the right seat. Engines one and two on the left wing and number three, the inboard on the right wing, were now idling, and Phil was raising the start lever to fire off number four, the outboard engine on the right.

  “EGT rising,” the captain was saying, watching the temperature climb. “But the rpm’s stagnant.”

  “Okay,” Garth said, just to fill the space with something verbal, then realizing what the instruments were saying. “I … think we’ve got a hung start, Phil.” Garth glanced at the sweep-second hand on his watch, estimating how long it had been since Knight had raised the start lever. The exhaust gas temperature indication was rising steadily toward the red-line maximum.

  “Shutting it down,” Phil announced, taking the engine start switch back to the off position. “I’ll let it wind down to zero, and we’ll try again.”

  The second attempt was a mirror image of the first. The engine’s internal fires had lit, but for some reason the engine itself could not accelerate to normal idle speed.

  Once again, he shut it down. Garth relayed the problem to Operations over the radio before turning to Phil Knight.

  “Phil, number four’s also been giving false fire warnings for the past few months. I found a long history in the log book … but I didn’t see anything about it having hung-start problems. There was, however, a bleed valve write-up a week ago.”

  The captain didn’t respond, and before he could say anything more, the Operations frequency came alive.

  “Maintenance is on the way, chaps,” the Operations chief assured them as Heathrow ground directed them to wait on a side ramp just north of Terminal 4.

  “Just find a place to park.”

  “Should, I, uh, tell the folks what’s going on?” Garth asked when they’d set the parking brake.

  “No,” Knight replied immediately.

  “No?”

  “No. We don’t even know what’s going on.”

  “Yeah, I understand, but …”

  “Have the flight attendants do it.” Knight shot a glance to the right. “I don’t want announcements made from up here and then have some idiot back there misinterpret what we mean and find a way to sue us or something.”

  “Sue us? I’m sorry, I don’t—”

  “Look, dammit! When you get to the left seat, you can chatter away on the PA all you like, but this is my ship, and I don’t want any PAs made from my cockpit. Understood? You seem to question every damn thing I do, and I happen to be the captain.”

  “Phil, you’re the one always giving me hell for not following the operations manual, and the manual clearly says …”

  “It says the passengers will be kept informed!” he snapped. “It doesn’t require the pilots to do it.”

  Garth suppressed a flash of pure anger. He was authorized—even required—to challenge a captain on safety-of-flight matters. But PA announcements on the ground weren’t necessarily safety-of-flight items.

  What a jerk! Garth thought, as he picked up the interphone and gave one of the flight attendants a briefing about the balky engine, then toggled his PA monitor to listen through his headset.

  The flight attendant’s voice came on within a half minute:

  Ladies and gentlemen, this is your lead flight attendant. The captain has asked me to inform you that we’re going to have a brief delay here by the runway before we can take off.

  In the alcove of the forward entry, Judy Jackson lowered the PA handset for a moment in thought, then smiled as she raised it back to her mouth.

  They’ve asked us not to tell you, but I’m going to anyway. The Queen’s aircraft is inbound, and just as they do for Air Force One and the American President, when Queen Elizabeth arrives or departs here in London, all air
traffic is held up. Please bear with us. From experience, I’d say we’ll be here about a half hour.

  Judy replaced the handset as Cindy, one of her bright-eyed young crew, came out of the coach cabin.

  “Really?” Cindy asked. “The Queen?”

  “Of course.” Judy smiled.

  “Wow! Oh, by the way, we’re getting complaints that it’s too hot back there. Should I call the cockpit?”

  Judy shook her head no. “I’ll do it. No one on this crew talks to the cockpit or goes up there but me. Understood?”

  “Okay, Judy,” she replied, a confused look crossing her face like a fleeting cloud.

  “Oh, Cindy, is that refugee from Chicago back there? Bretsen?”

  “You mean Janie? Yeah, she’s helping in the rear galley.”

  “Tell her to get her tail up here. They gave her a seat in first class, and I want her in it.”

  “But, we’re short—”

  “Don’t question me, little girl!” Judy snapped. “Do it! We’ve got ten hours. You can handle it one girl short.”

  The young flight attendant nodded and turned to head back down the aisle, missing the smug smile that spread across Judy Jackson’s face.

  In the right seat of the cockpit, Garth Abbott quietly tapped the PA button and turned to the captain with Judy Jackson’s explanation still ringing in his mind.

  “Did you … tell anyone back there on the interphone, or when you came aboard, that the Queen was coming in and causing our delay?”

  Phil Knight turned and shot him an irritated glance. “What? I haven’t talked to them.”

  I’m sure that’s the truth, the copilot thought. Phil Knight never talked to the flight attendants, other than to grunt or mumble a hello if he was forced to. It was up to the copilots to introduce themselves and try to brief the cabin crew. Sometimes getting dinner to the cockpit depended on it, since none of the cabin crew liked Capt. Phil Knight, or wanted to come into his lair.