Todd stepped closer, dipping his head slightly to get into the space.
“Do you know who I am?” Todd spoke calmly despite the torrent of emotions running through him.
“Should I?” Tuesday said with sarcasm.
Todd gritted his teeth. “Keep that shit up and you’ll be dead sooner than you think.”
Tuesday sat up further as Todd made a flicking motion at him with the gun, meaning “get your fucking hands where I can see them.” Tuesday obliged, but took his time. Todd wondered if the punk had a death wish.
“Remember the cop you killed a few years ago? Out the front of the 7-Eleven?”
Tuesday’s eyes went wide.
“I’m his son.”
And the gravity of the situation knocked the attitude right out of Tuesday.
Todd took a deep breath and gripped the gun a little tighter.
“Now you get to feel what it’s like to be killed by a complete stranger.”
Todd had rehearsed this moment nearly every day since he’d learned of his father’s death. He would count in his head to five, and then pull the trigger, aiming for the punk’s head to make sure the guy’s brains would end up on the dirty wall directly behind him.
Tuesday, breathing slowly, waved his hands. His face remained surprisingly calm.
“Before you pull the trigger, man,” Tuesday said with little emotion, “Maybe you should ask me who I am.”
Todd just looked down at the piece of shit and thought, Jesus, this guy doesn’t have a fucking care in the world.
There was that attitude again. He was about to die and was still being a smart-ass.
“Fuck you,” Todd sneered, as he began counting.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
As the word four passed silently through his lips, Tuesday’s left hand darted to his side as if he was trying to grab something.
He never took his eyes off Todd the whole time.
“I’m—”
Five.
Todd’s trigger finger squeezed inwards.
Whatever Tuesday had gone to grab, probably a gun, never left the darkness.
The silencer spat the bullet out. Someone hearing it in the distance might think a car door had slammed shut. The bullet entered Tuesday’s head just above his left eye. His head jerked from the impact, and the sarcastic smile on his face would remain there indefinitely.
Todd knew the guy was dead. The blood spatter left no doubt.
He turned around and checked no one had pulled over on the roads below him. Cars continued in all directions; no one had slowed. Todd knew it was a gift to him that Tuesday had chosen to sleep in his hideout tonight.
Todd stepped over the crap to take one last look at him, curious about what Tuesday had been packing.
As he cleared the dirty cardboard and blankets away, finally getting to Tuesday’s body, he pointed the torch down to the left side of the lifeless bastard who had killed his old man.
There was no gun.
But he noticed something in Tuesday’s left hand.
It was a dirty piece of paper.
He pulled the thing from his grasp, wondering why the guy had grabbed this, and not (thankfully) a gun of his own.
It was an old, crumpled photo.
The first side he saw clearly in the bright light of the torch was the back.
There was something written on it, in what looked like the hand of a very young child, or an older one with bad handwriting. He held the photo closer so he could make the word out.
There it was.
Dad.
He turned the photo over.
It took him a couple of seconds to register who was in the picture.
“What the—” Todd gasped, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling.
His mouth felt bone-dry.
He looked once more, to make sure his eyes weren’t fucking with his mind.
In his police uniform, standing proudly at some ceremony, the man looked 20 years younger than Todd remembered him.
But there was no doubt it was him.
Dad. His dad.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
More of the passengers from the original flight were making their way around the corner of the red-carpet area of the DONR building when the shit hit the fan. People were running in all directions, scared out of their wits by the thought of being in the firing line.
As they came closer to the DONR building, base security staff ushered them in. The guards looked on edge.
A woman lay on the ground, surrounded by security guards, while people stood on the other side of the barricade comforting each other.
Todd reached the DONR building area, frantic.
He knew Emily and his mother would be waiting for him in the building. He’d called them en route and told them he would be there soon. He wanted a private conversation with his mother before he boarded the plane.
As he entered the building, Todd spotted Emily and Kylie standing to the side. Both their faces lit up as they saw him, Emily more than Kylie’s.
He embraced them both before turning to Emily and speaking matter-of-factly, taking her a little by surprise.
“Babe, I need to have a private word with Mom.” He turned and gave Kylie a slightly unnerving look. “Can I meet you on the bus or over at the hangar?”
Emily looked at Kylie and then back to Todd.
“Sure, babe.” She stepped over to Kylie and put her arms out for one last embrace.
“See you soon, honey?” Kylie hugged Emily for a long time before kissing her on the cheek.
“Take care of my boy, won’t you?” She smiled as Emily stepped back.
She held her hand out to Todd, who took it but seemed distracted. He nodded and said, “I’ll see you shortly, alright?” Emily nodded, a shiver of panic passing through her senses.
Todd watched her walk through the door before it closed, and turned back to his mother.
He nodded to the office in the corner of the room, the very one where, only six months earlier, he learned of his father’s death.
“Before I walk through one of those doors,” he said, his face ashen, “we need to talk.”
Kylie’s heart sank.
Todd closed the door behind her and walked to the middle of the frightfully small office. He glanced through the dirty windows. There was a lot going out there. People he did not recognize were saying their goodbyes to loved ones, security was checking personal IDs, and others were just milling around waiting for the trip over to the plane.
Kylie’s heart was thumping.
Her son was radiating anger, which made her wish she were back at home in the safety of her little dreamworld, where the images of those she loved would always remain airbrushed and perfect.
Todd stepped forward and looked down at her.
He breathed in audibly, flaring his nostrils. Kylie could tell the look in his eyes signaled he had some serious shit to unload. And right now, by the looks of it.
“Did my father,” his eyes narrowing and boring down on her, “stay faithful to you his whole life?”
Kylie realized why he was asking. She closed her eyes but could not stop the tears.
“Tell me!” Todd snarled. Her tears meant nothing to him at that moment.
Kylie’s emotions overflowed, and she started to sob uncontrollably.
Todd stood back and checked his watch. He wanted the conversation over quickly.
He wanted to board the plane, and to be with Emily and put all this behind him.
As if getting on the A380 could wash the blood off his hands.
“Was he faithful?”
Her tears flowed, as the realization came down with a thud. Todd had discovered the secret, and it would change his views on Andrew forever.
After an agonizing 30 seconds of silence, Kylie finally shook her head.
Todd shut his eyes and took a long, deep, painful breath.
“Did you know about—him
?” was all he said, in a near whisper.
He raised his arm and rested it on his mother’s shoulder.
Kylie looked up at her son, the tears now drowning her beautiful eyes, a resigned look of profound sadness painted on her face. This time, she nodded.
Todd cursed under his breath. He knew he’d have to hold it all together. He couldn’t go back on what he’d done. It was too late. He needed to be on that plane.
Todd reached over and put his arms around Kylie.
He held her for a while before kissing her on the cheek.
“I have a plane to catch,” he said with resolve.
Kylie looked up at him and said, “Please don’t get on that plane. I don’t want to lose you again.”
Todd looked out the office windows and shook his head. “Mom, I can’t stay here.”
He stood in the doorway and looked at his mother for the last time. As if a light had come on in her head, her look of sadness suddenly turned to one of sheer terror.
Todd held his mother’s eyes, giving nothing away.
Then he looked over her shoulder and saw the last vision he would ever have of his father. He had a look of guilt etched on his face.
Todd would have loved to go over and punch his father’s apparition in the nose.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled photo he’d found in his dead half-brother’s hand.
“He killed Dad because he didn’t want to have anything to do with him, right?”
Kylie nodded. He threw the photo at her.
“That fucking asshole. He betrayed you, me, and his other son.”
Kylie cried openly and sat back on the edge of the desk just behind her.
She looked at Todd seconds before he disappeared through one of the doors of no return.
“You killed him, didn’t you?”
Todd gritted his teeth. “You should have goddamn told me he was my half-brother.”
He turned, and in a flash was gone.
Chapter Sixty
If anyone had told me six months earlier that I would be sitting at the end of a runway at a military base in the cockpit of the world’s largest commercial airplane, I would have asked them to share the pot they were smoking.
The nervous, excited mood in the cockpit was palpable. A lot had happened to get us to that point.
Behind me, Melanie took one last look at the cockpit.
“Whoa,” she said, leaning forward and smiling. “One day you’ll have to tell me why they call it a cockpit,” she said flirtatiously.
“Hey-hey-hey, you two need to get a room,” Tony said, grinning, as he checked off his clipboard against some of the gauges directly above him.
“I think Tammy needs some company,” Melanie said, and winked at Tony while nodding toward the exit door. Tony smiled and looked over to Ross as she left.
“Mate, you hit the jackpot there,” he said.
Ross watched Melanie’s very attractive rear end wiggle out through the door.
A fresh wave of exhilaration washed over him.
“You too,” he said, thinking of Tammy. Tony looked out the cockpit windows and nodded.
“She’s a keeper alright,” he said proudly, a second later, adjusting his headset before turning back to Ross and saying, “and I’m sure she doesn’t like carpet, either.”
Ross laughed and noted that someone else had entered the cockpit. There was no use in locking the door when the owner wanted access whenever he felt like it.
“How we holding up, gentlemen?” Darcy said.
He stepped forward and stood between Tony and Ross, and patted both of them on the shoulders.
“We are approaching the takeoff time with all lights green—” Ross said, looking up to Darcy. “Sir,” he added, for comic effect.
Darcy scoffed, “No one on this plane calls me ‘Sir’.” He laughed openly before turning and looking down at Tony, “But you can call me ‘Sir Michael’.”
Ross could tell the guy was nervous. And like many men the world over, Michael E. Darcy glossed over it by reeling off lame jokes.
A moment later, Ross and Tony got the notice they’d been waiting on.
“Darcy Airlines A380—this is Vandenberg control tower. You have clearance to take off, runway zero-zero-two, five minutes, Roger?”
Tony responded, informing the tower crew they had received the order and were ready to take off.
Once he’d done this, Darcy crouched down and said to Tony, “Bloody hell, Tony, what happened out there before?”
All three men knew Darcy was talking about the chaotic scenes that had taken place outside the DONR building.
Tony shook his head; Ross could tell it had shaken him up a lot.
“Thank god for the security guard nearby,” Tony said, looking out the cockpit window and reliving the scene.
“Tammy’s sister was out for blood,” he said, without taking his eyes off the blue sky outside. Then he looked back at to the two men nearby. “Well, she got that, alright.” He shrugged. “She probably didn’t realize it would be hers.”
Todd found Emily sitting in one of the business-class seats. Most of the passengers had congregated in business and first class. Hell, why wouldn’t you, when Darcy had decreed, “sit where the hell you want”?
Emily had saved him the seat next to her. She could tell he was a little frazzled.
“You okay, babe?” she said before leaning over and kissing him.
He kissed her back and looked out the window.
“I’m okay, honey,” he whispered. But those were merely words.
Deep down, he felt more conflicted than he’d ever been. It was all wrong, and now, maybe, he could never change it back.
Maybe.
Melanie sat with Tammy, who was still a little shaken by what had happened earlier. Tammy was more worried about her children than anyone else.
They would be taken into protective custody until the authorities had spoken to their father for close to five hours.
He confirmed that his wife had bought the gun without his knowledge, and had “lost her marbles” in the lead-up to the scuffle—which resulted in her losing her own life.
He was glad she’d failed; he’d already regreted losing Tammy for the rest of his life.
“They’ll be okay,” Melanie said, patting Tammy on the hand. “You’ll see them when we get back; they’ll be fine.”
Directly behind, in the next seat, Tim Erwin sat listening to the two women. He whispered to himself, so quietly they wouldn’t hear, “I wouldn’t count on that, ladies.”
Tim then reached into his daypack, which contained a sandwich, a bottle of water, a couple of magazines, and something small but fascinating.
The pentagonal metallic object sat comfortably in the palm of his hand. It was unusually heavy for its size, and super smooth, with rounded edges. It was about half an inch thick, and about two and a half inches across at the widest point.
Anyone would believe it was Tim’s good-luck charm, or the sort of new-age device someone with arthritis—the ones who talked about the power of magnetism and so on—would run over their sore joints.
But Tim never had arthritis. It had dogged his wife for the last few years of her life, but not him.
Whether it was Tim’s good-luck charm—well, that depended on your definition of good luck.
Tim grasped the object firmly in his left hand and looked out his window, watching the mass of onlookers some distance away, who’d come to look at the ghost plane take off once again.
Tim hoped by bringing the object on-board, it could do the same thing to the plane that it had the last time.
Make it disappear.
Chapter Sixty-One
Sarah hadn’t wanted to go to Vandenberg to watch Darcy’s A380 take off with her father on-board. She had an awful feeling about it. Her gut told her the plane could vanish into thin air again—a view shared by millions worldwide. They would soon find out if they were right.
Sean
had opted to take the day off work to be with his wife. They sat in their living room and tuned their TV screen in to live coverage of Flight 19 2.0, along with vast numbers of others.
When Sarah went to the restroom during a commercial break, Sean pulled the small object from its hiding spot down his side of the couch. It was identical to the one currently in his father-in-law’s possession on the A380. He looked it over, admiring its smoothness, weight—and power.
Tim had told him to guard it with his life, and not to tell Sarah about it unless it was necessary.
Sean wondered what Tim would do if he knew that Sean had swapped the artifacts around. The one Tim had taken was the one he thought he had given Sean to keep. They were identical, so he’d never know the difference.
Sean hoped this would mean Tim’s flight arrived in Honolulu in a few hours’ time in 2024, rather than disappearing again. He had no idea if the switch would make a difference but had done it anyway in the slim hope it would be enough.
Time, as they say, would tell.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Ross said into his microphone, “Vandenberg air traffic control has given us the go-ahead to take off when ready.” Ross looked at Tony, who seemed relaxed, willing to go through the motions as the two men had dozens of times before.
Ross then turned a bit further and smiled at Michael E. Darcy, who had asked if he could sit in the cockpit for takeoff. Ross and Tony had looked at each other with bemusement when Darcy had asked, both thinking the same thing—when you’re the majority owner of the plane, you can sit wherever you want!
Both men had told Darcy they were happy to have his company.
Ross nodded to Darcy, speaking off-mike for a moment. “Do you want to say a few words, Michael?” Darcy nodded before putting on the headset Tony had just turned on for him.
“Well, here we are, people,” Darcy said. He seemed relaxed and in good spirits. He looked out the cockpit window and could see the swarm of news helicopters in the distance, buzzing in midair behind the three-mile exclusion zone around the runway they would be heading down any second.
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