Flight 19

by Grant Finnegan

  “What the hell did you do that for?”

  But when Annie approached him again only a few weeks later, he had managed to be no more sensible, and knew he was in all sorts of marital trouble.

  That night, after a couple of drinks, she had whispered into his ear that she was going commando.

  It would only take one week, after his wife’s plane mysteriously disappeared, before the results of his betrayal came home. Annie had cried her way into his bed, claiming the loss of her only sister was too much to handle alone.

  She was lying, of course. She just seized the moment and spun it as only a true sociopath could. When she shed a tear at Tammy’s memorial, crocodiles worldwide clapped in unison at the spectacle of her deception.

  Brandon had eventually come to terms with the infidelity. It was easier without Tammy around. At the same time, he managed to bask in the rays of sympathy shining down on him from friends, family, and, for a couple of years afterward, even complete strangers.

  But that was then.

  When it had gone public that Flight 19 had landed at Vandenberg, Brandon, like many partners of passengers on the flight who had since found new relationships, nearly lost his marbles.

  The weight of the guilt he felt, mainly for what he had got up to with Annie before she disappeared, but also for getting together with her straight after, felt to him as though the A380 had landed on his shoulders instead of runway one at Vandenberg.

  He knew Tammy would eventually find out everything.

  As the weeks went on after Tammy returned to St. Louis, his guilt only grew, festering and feeding on itself. It was the main reason he couldn’t bring himself to see her face to face in front of their children. He made out that it was Annie’s idea for him not to go, but deep down, he just couldn’t bring himself to face her.

  When Michael E. Darcy announced that he would be taking the A380 back in the air with any of the passengers and crew who dared come with him, Brandon’s mind began to explore ideas he dared not share with his (current) wife.

  He knew Tammy would never take him back.

  But how could he right the wrong that had haunted him every day and night since his ex-wife had reappeared in 2024?

  Annie stomped off down the hallway and then slammed their bedroom door behind her with force.

  Brandon’s sad, tired eyes drifted from the dark hallway to rest on the solution, resting on the bookshelf against the far wall of the living room, right next to the hall entrance.

  He then smiled.

  It was one of his favorites.

  A picture of his children.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Emily believed getting back on the “Darcy Airlines” A380 was a choice she was old enough to make herself.

  And she also knew she was never likely to get through to her father; he would never accept the reasons why she wanted to reboard the plane, which to him was like looking fate in the eye and saying, “Come on, then—give it your best shot.”

  No amount of money, nor any other type of incentive, could have got Dave even to consider stepping onto that plane.

  He had a well-paid job that he believed would see him into retirement in a few years’ time. He was also a familiar and well-respected figure at LAX. His modest home was paid off. So his life overall was pretty good. His feelings for Kylie were growing, and he wondered if the relationship might lead somewhere.

  But Dave, what if I told you—if you get on that plane, there would be a chance to go back and save your son and wife?

  “Fuck off,” Dave muttered to himself, cursing his inner voice.

  Dave leaned back on the edge of his kitchen sink, looking across the room and out through the living-room window. He’d stood in that position many times over the past few years, taking in the view of the edge of his driveway, his neat-as-a-pin front garden, and the pathway that led to the front door.

  He watched his wife’s car pull up; it stopped a few feet from the top of the driveway. His wife, with her hands full of shopping as always, shifted herself sideways along the front walk, cursing loudly. Dave never understood why making two trips wasn’t a better option. He’d heard the rustle of bags bumping against the front door as she attempted to fish the keys from her enormous handbag—sounds all so familiar he’d never forget them.

  He blinked and caught his breath. It was a memory he’d relived hundreds of times standing in that very position, and he wished that just once it could be real. Just once.

  “Damn it,” Dave said into the empty house.

  Maybe Emily had the right idea.

  Coincidently, less than 25 miles away, Todd Roberts was also standing against a kitchen sink, in his mother’s Santa Monica home.

  Unlike Dave, Todd was not alone.

  His mother stood only a few feet away, and Todd knew his little secret was most probably not a secret anymore.

  “Look me in the eye,” she said, stepping closer and looking up into Todd’s tired eyes, “and tell me you aren’t searching for your father’s killer.”

  Few people intimidated Todd. His father could have physically tried it on with him but had never made him feel threatened or weak. It was part of the bond driving Todd to fulfill his one-man-mission to kill his father’s killer.

  Kylie, on the other hand, had been able to make Todd squirm, in the right environment. Mothers all over the world were renowned for doing this to even the biggest and toughest of men.

  But she was too late to influence him now.

  Since Flight 19, something had changed in Todd, and Kylie could no longer unnerve him as she once had.

  Todd found lying about the subject quite easy. “I’m not looking for him, Mom.” His words were careful, slow, and seemingly sincere.

  Kylie stood closer, right in Todd’s personal space.

  She raised her hand and pointed at him with her index finger.

  Jesus, Todd thought, she’s not fucking around.

  “If I find out you’re bullshitting me,” she nearly hissed, “I will take you to Vandenberg—and shove that goddamn plane up your ass.”

  Todd was impressed. His mother was not one to get this tough, but when she did it made him proud. He’d have preferred not to be up against the kitchen sink with his pissed-off mom ripping him a new one, but he was chuffed all the same.

  He blinked a few times and a few words stumbled through his lips.

  The ruse worked. Kylie stood back and lowered her hand. She let a small grin pass across her face, believing she had made her point. She thought they might have finally gotten through to him.

  But that was overconfidence.

  Todd had come up with a new plan only a few hours ago.

  He would be getting on that plane with Emily.

  And on the way, he would, unbeknown to his girlfriend, mother, and father-in-law, pay someone a final visit.

  The timing, he believed, could not be better.

  Before anyone discovered what he had done, he would be gone.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  “Do you believe Ben and his family are dead?”

  Tim met Sean’s eyes before his looking off beyond his son-in-law’s left shoulder.

  “I used to believe they were.” Tim held his gaze on the darkness of his workshop a moment, before looking back to Sean, his expression turning serious. “But now I have to admit—I’m having second thoughts.”

  “Did he know about the Vernon thing?” Sean said.

  Hearing the V-word, from someone who was neither a blood relation nor the holder of a top-secret clearance given to less than two dozen people in North America made Tim feel suddenly uncomfortable.

  It was as if a family secret, kept safe from the outside world, was nudging itself out of its tightly woven cocoon. He felt as if he was letting his ancestors down, and even his son, by being the one to let it spill out into the open. But in a heartbeat, he reminded himself how little of his family there was left: Sandra, and Ben and his wife and children, were already gone. He wondered
what would happen to him, now life no longer seemed to matter.

  “Ben was one of the few people who knew about Vernon,” Tim said in hushed tones. Sean was close enough to hear every word.

  Tim could feel the words struggling to come out. But he could see Sean was already connecting the dots, and strangely, for the first time in his life, a part of him didn’t care if the secret got out. He’d been carrying it around just about all his adult life, and he was growing damn tired of the burden.

  Sean sat back and looked around the workshop; his mind was spinning faster than a computer’s tiny fan on a hot day. He stepped off his stool to stretch his legs, and on instinct, walked over to the garage door to look down the driveway, just to make sure no one was anywhere near them and their conversation.

  He looked back to Tim.

  “Was something on what was found in Vernon—” Sean waited until Tim made eye contact. “Was that what caused so many plane disappearances over the last near-hundred years—”

  Sean leaned forward, and this time it was his turn to whisper. “Including yours?”

  Tim’s head fell forward. The weight of a lifetime of secrecy pushed down on the back of his neck, and he found himself looking at his homemade bar stools, hoping one day the feeling of despair spinning around his stomach would end.

  He didn’t bother looking back up to Sean.

  He just nodded his head slowly.

  Hours later, Tim was dozing on his couch in front of the television, tired out by the arduous revelations to his son-in-law followed by a little nip of whiskey, when his cell phone rang.

  He woke from his slumber suddenly; it had scared the hell out of him. He fumbled with the phone for a second before finally answering.

  “You’re getting back on that plane?” Sarah’s words came quickly, and so loud that Tim had to hold the phone away from him for fear of his eardrum bursting.

  Tim waited for her to finish ranting, and when he heard her taking long, deep breaths, he looked to his wife for guidance—well, to their last photo together, anyway—and knew his decision wouldn’t change.

  “Darling,” he said. He always called Sarah darling when he knew she wasn’t going to like what he had to say, “I know you may never understand why, but yes—I want to get back on that plane.”

  He could hear Sarah’s sobs, and his heart sank for his only daughter. But he’d decided not long after the conversation with Sean.

  “But Daddy,” Sarah said, struggling to speak through tears and shallow breaths, “what if it happens again?”

  Tim looked back at the photo of his late wife. Her eyes and smile were a magnet to his heart, and brought back his lifelong feelings of love for her. Tim had spent most of his life loving Sandra, and life without her was beyond empty to him. He would do anything to be with her again.

  “Hopefully it will,” he said, bringing more tears from Sarah, “and it’ll take us back five years, to where we should have been.”

  Sarah told Tim she wished he would just stay put. She said she did not want to lose him as well as her mother in such a short space of time.

  But Tim was way past any of that.

  He knew he could make it happen the way he envisaged.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  With only a few days to go before the maiden flight of Darcy Airlines from Vandenberg Air Force Base, it was the hottest news story around the world. Every broadcaster on earth was giving it round-the-clock coverage. It was overkill.

  The flight would see a television audience higher than anything ever recorded in the digital age. It would be one of those occasions that people talked about for years, recalling where they were when they watched the plane take off. Social, political, and religious leaders, and anyone else who could hold a microphone or camera, gave their opinion of Flight 19 2.0.

  “You’d think the fucking plane was taking off for Mars, for God’s sake,” said one crusty old lady stopped on the street in downtown New York, by a news reporter live on the six o’clock news.

  But millions of people around the world were counting down the days and hours until the A380 taxied to its designated runway at Vandenberg.

  Melanie stroked the back of Ross’s neck. “You seem relaxed, considering it’s less than three days till the flight.” Ross almost ignored her words; her touch was making him wonder if he’d been a cat in his previous life.

  He almost purred before turning to her, with a distant look in his eyes, and smiling. “You keep doing that,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her passionately, “and I may want to keep you forever.”

  Melanie’s heart skipped a beat. She’d fallen for him, for sure. The L-word was not far off, and she could feel the authenticity in his tone and words. It was so unlike her last relationship. She leaned back into him and whispered provocatively in his ear, “I may just let you.”

  Ross wrapped his arms around her, and while squeezing her tight, peered over her head and out into the hotel grounds. For the first time, he had the thought of one day placing a large diamond ring on one of her fingers. Unbeknown to him, when the time came, someone would make it a bit difficult. And very, very awkward.

  In the adjacent room of Ross’s Beverly Hills bungalow, Tony and Tammy were also giving each other a little affection. Tony had almost forgotten about his ex-wife; he was smitten with Tammy and looking forward to making Tony and Tammy a bit more of a thing. Just that morning, they had agreed they wanted to be an item.

  The two discussed where they would both live after the Darcy Flight in a few days, so they could continue seeing each other regularly. Tony would return to the air, hoping to get work somewhere in the States between LA and St. Louis, or even in New York. Tammy would continue to spend some of her time in St. Louis, for her kids, but would have access to them only every second weekend.

  Tammy had a gotten a strange text from her ex-husband late the night before but hadn’t told Tony yet. She was trying to work out what he was on about; cryptically, he had sort of implied he wanted to bring all of them to Vandenberg to watch the plane take off.

  She planned to tell Tony about it later, once she’d read it a few more times and figured out if it said what she thought it did.

  Tammy’s first appearance on Ellen had been a ratings smash, and DeGeneres had invited her back on her show after Darcy’s flight.

  Ellen had told Tammy, during a break in filming for her first appearance, that she thought the Darcy flight was a good idea for the passengers, including Tammy herself. It would give them all an opportunity to have final closure, and they could all finally move on from the nightmare and put it in the past—or, more precisely, the future.

  But things would unfortunately not play out the way the talk-show host had hoped.

  A stone’s throw from the lovebirds’ bungalow, Michael E. Darcy sat at the desk in his suite, drinking freshly percolated coffee. He scanned his paperwork before peering at the screen of his laptop and flicking through emails from his support staff for the flight.

  Much to his delight, the email at the top confirmed that the US Government had agreed to some of his requests related to the flight. For one thing, they had agreed to beefed-up security in and around Vandenberg. Reporters and a small contingent of the public would be allowed on the grounds to watch the A380 take off from close by.

  He had also asked for air support and a no-fly zone. Darcy’s plane would have fighter-jet escorts up to 120 miles from Vandenberg, at which point they would peel off and let the A380 fly on alone. Darcy nodded with satisfaction as he saw the email confirmed that no other jets, commercial or military, would be permitted within 60 miles of the A380 at any time.

  Darcy didn’t want anything, or anyone looking on, to jinx his flight. He’d accepted, though, that his plane would have radar coverage the whole time; this was unavoidable, and the only way the rest of the world could monitor his flight of fancy.

  Or his disappearing act.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Kylie was disappointed Dave had
decided not to come with her to Vandenberg to watch Darcy’s A380 take to the Californian sky. Their relationship with each other appeared to have taken a back seat when Emily and Todd announced to their respective parents that they would be getting on that plane.

  They had entered, in the words Dave used to describe it to one of his colleagues in the control tower, “the fantasy world of Michael E. Darcy and his band of dreamers.” Dave was not alone in believing Darcy had lost his marbles.

  Kylie and Dave were feeling the weight of the possibility they would lose their children all over again, and it seemed to drive a wedge between them rather than bringing them closer.

  Dave would be in his beloved tower, far above the tarmac at LAX, when the A380 took off from Vandenberg on Thursday. He was happy to be rostered that day—it was where he’d wanted to be.

  His colleagues and his closest friends all knew this was where he felt most at home since losing his wife and son, and then Emily. He and his team at LAX, via the link to the en-route air traffic control center in Fremont, San Francisco, would be able to watch the A380 on its course to the Hawaiian Islands anyway.

  And since just about every commercial and cable network in North America would be televising the event, Dave and those of his team who were not on panel duty would tune in and watch it on the large screen on the back wall of the tower as well.

  “Lee, its Brandon. Brandon Hourigan. Can I have a quick word with you?”

  Lee Lather hadn’t spoken to Tammy’s ex-husband for years. And thanks to his recent gutless behavior, she hadn’t seen him at all even after Tammy had returned from her long-overdue flight. Not once had he ever handed his children over to Tammy in person. Lee wondered if he’d had his testicles removed in the last five years, or if Teflon Fanny had worn them down to the size of chickpeas.