Accidental Heroes

by Danielle Steel

  “You were a lot more than that, Tom,” she said seriously. She was fully aware of it, even though she didn’t know all the details, and knew she probably never would.

  “Are we still on for dinner on Friday night, or will I just be part of a bad memory for you now?” he asked wistfully, hoping that wouldn’t be the case. But given how she felt about flying, it wouldn’t surprise him.

  “Of course we are. You’re the hero in the piece, not the villain. Thank you for telling me to get out fast. That Arab couple were really nice to the two little kids flying alone. He grabbed them and got them out as quickly as he could. I think they were the first off the plane, and I was right behind them, thanks to you.”

  “I’ll pick you up at seven on Friday, and try to think of someplace fun for dinner,” he said sleepily. He was too tired to talk to her any longer, although he was enjoying it. He liked her looks too. She was tall and sexy and in great shape. She looked athletic and he guessed correctly that she went to a gym every day. “Good luck with the meeting.”

  “Thank you. I have to go shopping tomorrow. It sounds stupid, given everything else that happened, but I hate to lose those shoes. They were new Manolo Blahniks and my current favorites. I just got them.”

  “That’s a new language for me. You’ll have to teach me about it over dinner.” They both laughed. “My wife wasn’t interested in fashion, and I only know about airplanes. Get some rest,” he told her gently.

  “You too. I’ll watch you at the press conference tomorrow.

  “See you Friday,” she said, looking forward to it. A moment later they hung up, as she lay on her bed and thought about him. And before she could reach up to turn off the light, she was asleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Bernice didn’t get up to go to work the next day, and she kept Toby home from school. She wanted to spend the day with him, to savor every moment, after the stress of the day before.

  She tried to explain to him in simple terms what had happened, without frightening him unduly, in case they ever flew somewhere, which hadn’t happened yet. She couldn’t afford it, but one day she hoped she could take him to Disney World in Florida or on a nice vacation, when she was a lawyer. She had big dreams for them.

  She explained to him over breakfast that she had found a postcard at her job that had a picture of a bridge on it, and a bad man had left it there.

  “For you?” Toby was fascinated.

  “No, he just left it there. I think he forgot it. He wrote something on it that I thought was weird, like a message. It was a picture of a famous bridge in San Francisco. So I called the airport police and showed it to them, and after a while they figured out what plane he was on, but it took a while. He wanted to hurt the bridge, but they wouldn’t let him. And everybody was safe.” It was a severely shortened version, but told him what he needed to know. At his age, he didn’t need to know about murder and suicide, water rescue, and a plane going down in the water.

  “What happened to the bad man? Did he go to jail?” She hesitated for a minute before she answered, and took the easy way out. There was no way she could tell him the truth, although she might one day when he was older. Nothing like it was ever going to happen to her again.

  “Yes, he went to jail,” she lied to him. “Forever,” she said echoing the word he had underlined on the postcard.

  “Good.” Toby was satisfied with her version of the story. “Did you help take him to jail?”

  “No, I just gave the police the postcard I found, because I thought it seemed suspicious.” He nodded, and looked a little disappointed. “And I was with them all day while they tried to find out who he was. And then they found him.”

  “And sent him to jail.” Toby smiled and finished the story for her. “Bad guys always go to jail.” Like Toby’s uncle, her brother, she thought to herself, but Toby didn’t know about him. She had just told him that her brother lived far away and they didn’t see each other anymore. “Could we go to see the bridge one day?” he asked her, curious about it, and she liked the idea.

  “I’d love to do that with you. It’s called the Golden Gate Bridge. I’ll show you a picture of it.” She went to her computer, typed the words in, and a photograph of it appeared, similar to the one on the postcard, but from a slightly different angle. Toby studied it for a minute and nodded.

  “It looks nice. Let’s go there sometime. Maybe this summer,” he said, planning for them. She liked the idea too, but knew she wouldn’t have the money until she got a new job. And she had to pass the bar exam. She had already written to several law firms, and was hoping for interviews.

  “Probably not this summer. But sometime.” She never wanted to disappoint him by promising things she couldn’t deliver.

  “I want to go to Washington and meet the president one day,” he said, grinning at her, and she laughed at him.

  “Yeah, well, me too. But that’s not going to happen.”

  “Why not?” He was full of bright ideas, and the future was full of possibilities for him. She had brought him up that way. She never wanted him to feel limited by their circumstances or who they were.

  “The president doesn’t just call you and say, ‘Hey, come on over for pizza,’ or something. You have to be really important to see the president. Like be a senator or a congressman. Maybe you’ll be a senator one day.”

  “What do they do?”

  “They speak up for people, and tell the president what they want.”

  “I’d rather be a policeman or a fireman, and send bad guys to jail, like you did yesterday. Or I could be president, and have you over for pizza.” He laughed at the idea, and they went to get dressed. She took him to the zoo, and it was a beautiful day.

  She got a text message from Denise while they were out. She thought it was from Della at first till she read it again. She had never expected to get a message like it from her supervisor. “We’re all proud of you. You’re a hero here. Way to go, girl! See you back at work. Denise.” She read it three times and smiled to herself. She heard from Della too, who wanted all the gory details. And so did everyone else. She thanked Denise for her text, and didn’t answer any of the others. It was Toby’s day, and hers, and she didn’t want anything to distract her from him. More than ever, after the day before, she realized how precious their time together was.

  * * *

  —

  Ben came to work with a small carry-on bag the day after the dramatic rescue from the plane. And he had a suit in a garment bag. He and Phil were flying to San Francisco for the press conference on the noon flight. They didn’t have to check in until eleven, and he was at his desk at nine o’clock sharp.

  He’d had nightmares the night before about the hostage takers. This time they had captured a plane full of hostages and killed them all. But he reminded himself when he woke up that this time what amounted to hostages had all been saved, except for the retired senior captain. They had only lost one man, not sixteen, or the hundred and eleven they could have. And no children had been lost. They had saved them all. Or Helen had with her historic landing under the bridge and the crew that got everyone off the plane in time. This time the story had a happy ending. He had to remind himself of that again and again to counter the painful memories of the past.

  Mildred Stern had reminded him that it would take time. It had been strange seeing her the day before in his office, and he’d been shocked when she walked in. It had brought the traumatic hostage situation vividly back to life in an instant, although in some ways it was comforting to see her. He had Amanda to thank for that. And as though he had conjured her up by thinking of her, when he looked up from his paperwork, he saw Amanda standing in front of him. He hadn’t heard her walk in.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, looking surprised, and was mildly embarrassed over how curt he’d been with her the day before, when they went to Terminal
2 together to see the postcard.

  “I came to see you,” she said awkwardly.

  “I owe you an apology,” Ben said. “I think I was hard on you when we went to see the postcard. I’m not used to working with girls…sorry, women, like you. And sometimes your theories are a little over my head.”

  “And full of shit, is what you mean,” she corrected him, and he laughed.

  “Yeah, sometimes. We’re a bunch of grumpy old guys here, and I’m the biggest one of all. Once in a while, your theories make sense. Forget I said that. I won’t admit it to you, if I can get away with it.” He was smiling at her, as she handed him a sheet of paper, and he looked at her before he read it. “What’s that? A love letter?”

  “No. My resignation. I owe you that after yesterday. I screwed up big-time. Or I would have, if you’d listened to me. Thank God you didn’t, and you thought it was Jason all along. And I’m not resigning hastily. I thought about it last night. My theories really are too abstract. This job isn’t about what you learn in books. It’s about knowing what you’re doing at all times. People’s lives are on the line. You can’t make mistakes. I made a huge one yesterday.”

  “We all make mistakes, Amanda,” he said seriously. “I made a bigger one a month ago. Sixteen people died because of it, including a child. I’m no smarter than you are. I’ve just been here longer. And you’ll make more mistakes. So will I. We just have to hope that we figure it out and come up with the right answers before people die. That’s a big responsibility, but it comes with the job.”

  “I don’t think I’m cut out for this kind of work,” she said quietly.

  “No, with a double master’s in criminology and psychology? What are you planning to do instead? Counsel jaywalkers?” She smiled at what he said. She liked him more than she realized after seeing him in action the day before. She just didn’t like working for him and feeling stupid all the time, or being treated as though she were. But he wasn’t doing that now. He was speaking to her like a real person. And she knew that she had a lot to learn by listening to others with more experience.

  “You came to this by a different route than the rest of us. That takes time for people to get used to, and that includes me. Most of the guys here are old customs officers, were in military intelligence or with the police. Basically, we’re all cops, in one uniform or another. We’re not psychologists like you are. We’re not catching spies stealing secret designs for nuclear missiles. We’re all trying to protect the public from a criminal element. Yesterday was a perfect example of that. This office needs what you have and what I have, and together we can figure out who the bad guys are. Sometimes that’s harder than others. I was never sure yesterday, until close to the end, that Jason Andrews was our guy. The only thing I felt sure of, from everything I knew about her, was that Helen Smith wasn’t. Sometimes that’s how you go about it. And I didn’t think that Connor Gray had the personality for something like this. We got lucky with Andrews’s iPad. After that it was a shoo-in, but before that, I was flying blind too.”

  “You didn’t look like it,” Amanda said respectfully, impressed by everything he had said.

  “I fake it pretty good.” He smiled at her. “You have to have balls for this job, Amanda. Grow a pair. Don’t run away because you made a mistake. It will happen again. We need you here. We need smart people in this job, not just a lot of old hardened cops. I think you’ll do a great job, if you stay. You’ve got to learn something about baseball, though, or the guys here will kill you. Go to a Yankees game. Consider it homework.” And as he said it, he tore her letter of resignation into a million pieces. “That’s what I think of your resignation. Any questions?” He sat with the confetti of her resignation on his desk, and she looked at him seriously.

  “Do you really want me to stay?”

  “Yes!” he barked at her. “Even if you don’t know squat about baseball. Volleyball, for chrissake. Now get your ass out of my office before I start yelling at you. I have work to do. And if you really want to quit, talk to me about it in six months, and we’ll discuss it. For now, get to work, and go catch a terrorist or something.”

  “Yes, sir.” She smiled at him and hurried out of his office, as he admired her miniskirt and long legs and shook his head. That wasn’t why he wanted her there. The bottom line was that she was smart, however she looked or how great her ass was. Even he could see beyond that. She had a brain, a heart, and a great education, and what he had said to her was true. They needed her, even though she had made a serious mistake the day before. He respected her for offering to quit, but he wasn’t going to let her. He thought she was worth saving, if she had learned something from it and it had humbled her a little.

  He looked at his watch after she left. It was nine forty-five. He had an hour before he and Phil had to leave the office to catch their flight to San Francisco. The top brass wanted them at the press conference there, with Alan Wexler, the head of the San Francisco office of Homeland Security. Tom Birney, Helen Smith, and the CEO of the airline planned to be there. They had some explaining to do to the public. Big-time.

  * * *

  —

  When Ahmad and Sadaf woke up at the hotel the next morning, they decided to order room service. Sadaf was tired after the emotions of the day before, and they had a long day ahead of them registering for student housing and getting their assigned student apartment. They had been told the process could take all day. And they had to sign up for classes the next day.

  They were both starting in the fall, and wanted to get unpaid internships for the summer, which they could do with their visas. They had a lot to do and organize when they got to Berkeley. Ahmad was studying the syllabus for business school, when Sadaf came to breakfast without her head scarf. She did that when they were alone, but whenever other males were present, other than her father or brothers, she had to wear it, and had since she was a young girl. Her family was more liberal than most, since the women didn’t cover their faces, and wore ordinary street clothes when they were abroad. The women in her family all wore the abaya in Saudi Arabia, the gray coat she had folded and left on the plane the day before. But in the end, even though he had been angry about it, it had proved to be a blessing not to be wearing it when they left the plane and had to get into life rafts. The wet garment would have encumbered her and weighed her down, and might even have been dangerous.

  But when the waiter served their breakfast, she didn’t cover her head, and Ahmad, shocked, looked at her the moment he left.

  “What are you doing?” he asked her angrily. “What was that about? Are you trying to prove how liberated and American you are? Don’t forget you’re a Muslim. And you’re my wife.”

  “I never forget I’m your wife,” she said quietly. “I love you. And I believe in our religion. Many of your female relatives don’t cover their heads in London or Paris when they travel, or wear the abaya. Even my grandmother didn’t. She wore clothes she bought in Paris.”

  “What difference does that make?” he asked, still angry at her. He was more traditional than some of their relatives and peers. By law in their country, and their religion, she was not supposed to show her hair to any man except her husband, and she knew it.

  “It’s only now with the new, more extreme positions in our country that we’re supposed to follow the old ways. But we believe in modern ways too. That’s why we’re here to study. We can combine the old and the new ways, at least while we’re here. I want to be a modern woman, while still respecting you and our families. We want to build a new life here. But that new life isn’t just for you, because you’re a man. It’s my new life too. We are equals. I love you and respect you as my husband, whether I cover my head or not. I’ll cover my head at home in Riyadh when we’re there, but I don’t want to cover my head here, or wear an abaya, or be different from everyone else. This has to be our new life, for both of us. Not just for you.” She was twent
y-three years old and he was twenty-four, and she wanted just a little taste of freedom, while they were in Berkeley.

  She had spoken eloquently and with deep emotion, and he knew that what she said was true. He couldn’t embrace modern beliefs for himself but deny them to her. But he hated to give up their traditions, whether old or new. His mother hadn’t covered her head when she was abroad either, and his father had been fine with it. Sadaf was right. They had both come to America for a new life, and Sadaf had a right to claim it as much as he did, while she was here.

  “I’ll think about it,” he grumbled and ate his breakfast in silence. Sadaf was far more ready to embrace new ideas and let go of the old ones, without giving up her religious beliefs. She loved her religion and her country, and in her mind, their God didn’t love her any less because she didn’t cover her head or wear an abaya in California. Ahmad knew she would respect their laws and do what was expected of her when they went home. She wasn’t a revolutionary, just a modern young woman in a new place, in a new world, while he was clinging to the old ways. Some of what he expected of her was simply out of habit, on subjects that even his own parents didn’t follow.

  The airline had left simple clothes and basic supplies for them at the hotel, since their luggage had gotten lost. She was planning to go shopping, but for now she wore her own jeans, with a sweater they had given her, and they were both wearing flip-flops and had to buy shoes in Berkeley after they dealt with their housing. Now they needed all new clothes, since what they had brought with them had gone down on the plane, with her abaya.

  She was ready to leave the room with him, and for the first time since she was a child, she wasn’t wearing a hijab to cover her hair. It was second nature to her to put it on, and she felt naked without it. But it was a good kind of nakedness. She felt as though she had shed something she no longer believed in. Ahmad stared at her in displeasure as he picked up the small bag they’d been given for their belongings. “All right,” he said under his breath, not looking at her, and she barely heard him.