Lieutenant

by Lesli Richardson

  There’s good reason for me to be here, though. I’m hobnobbing with governors and lieutenant governors from Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and other states in the region, as well as various other high-value state officials.

  Valuable connections. Some of them who know Daddy, or know his reputation.

  I’ve done more vital networking on this trip than I have in the past four years. When it comes time for me to run for the US Senate, I’ll already have a ready-made group of people to call upon for help with campaigning and fundraising. Sure, they can’t vote for me, and no one in Florida might know who the hell they are…but they can put pressure on regional and national PACs to support me.

  Throw money my way.

  Because once we’re done with the governorship of Florida, Carter said he’ll loosen his restrictions on where we get our donations, to a certain extent.

  Dark money, here I come. Daddy’s connections will win me a lot of cross-party funding I might not otherwise be able to obtain, along with valuable endorsements. I just need to get elected the first time. I don’t care if I piss all those PACs off in the process during my first term. Once I’ve had one term in office, I can get myself elected to a second.

  Or, by then, I look toward other career paths, like campaign consulting.

  We’ll see.

  First, of course, is getting Owen re-elected, and then getting myself elected to two terms in Tallahassee.

  I once again pack my suitcase and head downstairs a little after ten to join the others for our private late brunch. The staff will load everything into the busses that will drive us to the airport, and then the next leg of our journey begins as we’re off to Manila.

  Traveling used to be fun. Even campaigning isn’t this exhausting, because on most nights I’m either home, or have Carter with me, or can spend a few stolen moments with Owen. I can…be me for part of the day.

  This has been the longest stretch I’ve been without either or both men in…

  Well, in over twenty years.

  I’m sitting there surrounded by virtual strangers, halfway across the world from home, and sipping my coffee when that revelation slams into me.

  Owen and Carter have been in my life for twenty years.

  Not only have we lasted longer than a good part of the general population in terms of marriages, we’re a political union. That’s our family business. That’s even harder on a relationship.

  Plus we’re doing it as a poly triad, and haven’t killed each other yet.

  That’s got to be some sort of record.

  I pull up our group text thread.

  Eating breakfast before airport. Love and miss you both.

  I don’t even know what time it is in Florida. Carter’s orders were to text them at any time without concern for trying to figure time differences.

  Right now, I’m close to tears with homesickness. At least at home if I can’t be with Owen, I know he’s only a couple of blocks away at night, and we can FaceTime or Skype if he’s alone.

  Carter replies a moment later.

  Love and miss you, too, pet. boy’s already asleep. We were up early this morning, and have an even earlier day tomorrow. I’ll have him reply in the morning when he wakes up. Stay safe.

  I try not to feel guilty about waking Carter, even though he specifically ordered me not to worry about things like that. Hopefully it’s not the middle of the night there, and he can go back to sleep. At least he’s with Owen, so it means I don’t need to worry as much about Carter’s nightmares. I’m under orders not to worry about them, or the campaign, or anything else while I’m over here, except what I’m doing. That I’m to focus on the trip and on making connections.

  But I can’t help it. I miss my men. I might as well be on Mars.

  I could log in to my private calendar and see where Owen and Carter will be, but that would be violating a direct order from Sir, and I can’t make myself do that.

  I touch the stainless steel necklace and the matching bracelet on my right wrist, jewelry Carter gave me, my day collars. In addition to our matching tattoos, it’s a tangible reminder that my men are with me no matter where I go. That Owen and Carter wear mates to them—Carter, a bracelet on his left wrist, and Owen a necklace like mine worn under his shirt—makes me feel even more connected to them. Double the symbolism, we’re both owned by Carter, and yet I also own Owen.

  One of the things I want to do when I get home is spend a few nights just being pet again. I feel desperately out of touch with that part of myself.

  I end up sitting with Connie and Michael and chatting with them throughout our meal. Once our guide team meets with us and goes over the itinerary for the day—a goodly chunk of which will be spent in the air—we start loading in our busses for the ride to the airport. The meds I took earlier are making me sleepy, which gives me hope that I can take a long nap once we’re wheels-up. In the large, oversized purse I use for a carryon, I keep a sleep mask and neck cushion for just this kind of occasion, and it’s a four-hour flight.

  Note to self—remember to never say yes to one of these long junkets unless one of the guys can come with me.

  This is an older and slightly smaller charter jet than the previous ones, just big enough for all of us with few empty seats, so we’ll be packed in like sardines. No Wi-Fi on this flight, either. Unfortunately, Connie and Michael boarded before I did. Michael snagged a starboard-side window about eight rows behind the wing, and Connie’s in the middle. But, so far, she hasn’t been an annoying seat-mate. Once we’re off the ground, she rarely hits the lav on these shorter flights.

  Then I remember my iffy tummy during the last flight and decide perhaps the aisle is safer this time. So I suck it up, tuck my laptop bag into the overhead, stow my large carryon purse under the seat in front of me, which requires a little wedging to make it fit, and I settle in. One last check of my phone, and I don’t have a text from Owen, so I shut it off and add it to my purse.

  I knew I wouldn’t have a reply after Michael reminds me that there’s a twelve-hour difference from Florida time, and then I finally have a d’oh moment when I think to glance at my watch, which I never changed. I use my phone for local time, and I so rarely wear a watch anymore I honestly forget I have the damn thing on.

  Still, doesn’t mean I didn’t hope, just a little, to see a reply.

  I hate these flights, though. The ones over nothing but water. Well, for all intents and purposes nothing but water. There’s the occasional scattered island chain below.

  Maybe it’s better I’m not on the window this time.

  After drink and snack orders are handed out, I get as comfy as I can with my mask and my neck cushion in place, and I hope for sleep.

  I do manage to doze off for a while when a jolt awakens me. More correctly, it’s the nervous trills and sounds the herd packed in this sardine can have made over the jolt. I pull my mask off to find Connie and Michael holding hands, and Connie looks a little white in the face.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  Connie’s jaw drops. “You mean you’ve slept through all this?”

  Apparently so. “All what?”

  Another jolt hits us, a good hundred-foot drop, probably, and this time it’s full-on shrieks sounding through the cabin as stuff goes flying.

  “That!” Connie says. “That was the worse one yet!”

  The captain’s voice, in thickly accented English, comes to us over the PA system. “Sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen. We are apparently hitting worse turbulence than was predicted. Flight attendants, please make sure the cabin is secure and return to your seats. Everyone, please remain seated with your seatbelts fastened. Thank you.”

  Another hard jolt bounces us. I glance out the starboard window to see tall, dark, angry banks of clouds off to our right. I’m sure the ocean is beneath us somewhere, but I can’t see it with the cloud cover.

  “How long ago did we take off?” I ask, tightly gripping my
arm rest as another bounce rocks us.

  “Almost two hours,” Michael says. He checks the time on his huge-ass, ugly wristwatch, which he resets every damn time we land. “One hour, fifty minutes,” he says.

  I snug my seatbelt a little tighter around my mid-section and pray I don’t get sick. Although what’s messing with my stomach and tensing it now isn’t nausea.

  It’s fear.

  I’ve experienced some pretty bumpy flights in my life in all sizes of aircraft, from tiny turbo-prop commuter flights, all the way up to jumbo wide-bodies, and they’re never fun. But there’s a tense atmosphere now filling the cabin that doesn’t feel…normal.

  Not at all.

  I pull my purse out enough I can shove the pillow and mask into it before I quickly kick it back under the seat. I don’t want my face to get smashed into the seat-back in front of me if we take another bad bounce.

  The pilot banks hard to port, which I’m assuming is north, or at least a northerly direction, because that’s what makes sense, based on our destination and flight path.

  That’s when the plane shudders. A loud bang on the starboard side of the cabin makes even me scream. I’m now holding hands with Connie on my right, my other hand white-knuckling the armrest on my left.

  “What the hell was that?” she shrieks.

  “It’s okay, honey,” Michael says. “I’m sure that—”

  His next words are ripped away—along with his right arm and part of his head—as a large chunk of something hits the side of the cabin two rows ahead of us and tears an even larger chunk about twenty feet long out of the side of the fuselage, along where the windows are. I barely notice the painful way my ears squeeze from the sudden change in pressure because I’m too busy screaming.

  Which, ironically, helps my ears pop.

  All around us, oxygen masks drop from the overheads like deadly puppets dancing in the air current.

  This is where rational Susa and emotional pet take vastly divergent paths, my mind slowing and splitting, every millisecond a seeming forever as it happens, each heartbeat an eternity.

  Susa has dropped into cold, calm, crisis-management mode, and is thinking that the engine in the wing on our side lost a part, or had some sort of catastrophic failure, and the debris hit the skin of the plane, with explosive decompression taking care of the rest when a window gave way.

  Pet is screaming along with the rest of the passengers, our cries now lost over the roar of the wind and whine of the remaining, struggling engine.

  Susa is remembering hundreds of pre-flight safety talks, peels my fingers off the left armrest, and somehow manages to grab the oxygen mask on the first try and push it against my face. Susa also notes how the people around her now breathe mist into the suddenly frigid air, and something about fifteen seconds or less to get the mask on before losing consciousness because of hypoxia comes to mind.

  Pet is crying and terrified and thinking of my two men, and that I’ll never see them again.

  Susa manages to jerk my right hand free from Connie’s gasp and yank the elastic band for the oxygen mask over my head and tighten it, then reaches for the one in front of Connie and has to slap her left cheek hard to make her turn enough I can force it over her nose and mouth and pull the band over her head, yanking it tight to hold it in place.

  Pet is convinced we’re all going to die.

  Actually, Susa’s pretty convinced of that, too, and wonders if it was a mistake to put on the masks. At least losing consciousness due to a lack of oxygen would mean a merciful death.

  Except for that last-second awakening before impact.

  Fuuuuck.

  Is the automatic pilot engaged? Will we plunge nose-first in a fatal dive? Will he attempt an ocean belly-landing? Will he be able to cruise at ten thousand feet long enough to reach land? We’re over open water, so it should be safe terrain to drop to where oxygen levels won’t be as critical. How long will the emergency oxygen reserves last?

  Did he get his own mask on in time?

  Being a nerd sucks, sometimes. This is one of those times, all the information I absorbed about pilots and flight and airplanes when I went through that phase around age ten, when I wanted to be a commercial jet pilot. Until I discovered my best bet was to enlist in the military first and get flight training there, and decided no, thanks.

  Amazing what runs through your mind when you’re facing death.

  All of this happens in less than fifteen seconds, because Susa is a motherfucker in a crisis, all those years of Girl Scouts and camping with Daddy—and campaigning with Daddy—and learning how not to panic now paying off.

  But as Susa is struggling not to think about things like proximity to land, how rough the ocean is, and how long it’s going to take to die like this, pet is desperately wishing for one last chance to speak to Owen and Carter and tell them how much I love them.

  Susa is grateful they are not here right now, or Dray and Gregory. They are all safe at home, in Florida.

  Because there’s a damn good chance one of them would have been in Mike’s seat, or I would have.

  Susa also forces herself not to look over at what’s left of Michael Drucker, still strapped in his seat, or think about the fact that the woman in the seat ahead of him must be dead, too, based on what little is left of her head.

  Pet remembers Carter’s last order via text—Stay safe.

  Susa prays this cheap-ass charter flight has fucking life vests under the seats—and that someone has actually checked to make sure they’re there and not expired.

  Pet dives into Susa’s brain for a moment and remembers the crash brace position and takes it, because even if there is an announcement on the PA, with the wind right there and roaring through the side of the fuselage, I can’t hear it. I give thanks I’m wearing my sneakers and jeans, and had kept my sweater on against the cabin’s chill.

  Then I think about life rafts. We’re far closer to the rear of the craft than we are the front, and this is where I do wish Carter was here. I risk sitting up and craning my head around into the aisle to look back. Over half of the passengers are unconscious and aren’t wearing oxygen masks. I spot a terrified-looking flight attendant strapped into a rear jump seat and wearing a mask.

  But there are two rear exit doors, and I know there should be life rafts there, if not the slides themselves set up to be flotation devices, depending on the model.

  I face forward again. Next to me, Connie is sobbing, still holding Michael’s hand.

  As horrible as it sounds, maybe I shouldn’t have put her mask on her. At least she’d be unconscious.

  I resume my brace position and notice the woman across the aisle from me, who also wears her mask, is doing the same.

  We’re not banking any longer. I feel the rapid descent from the way the plane is pitching forward and how my ears are popping again. Except the entire airframe is shuddering in a way that piles an extra layer of terror on top of what I’d assumed was the maximum quota my brain and body could already process.

  I thought I knew fear, terror. Not from my play with the bastard extraordinaire, either, but from that day of the school shooting. And from when Daddy collapsed with his heart attack.

  Wrong.

  So, so wrong.

  I love you, I love you, I love you.

  As my teeth chatter from cold and fear, I close my eyes and picture Carter and Owen’s faces in my mind while I chant those three words over and over again, as if they could fly through the jagged, fatal wound killing this metal bird and into my husbands’ ears.

  Will they identify me by my necklace? Or my bracelet?

  Will my head still be attached to my body?

  Will it be my wedding rings, or the ring Owen gave me that I wear on my right hand, that identifies me?

  Will it be the tattoo on my right wrist?

  Will they even find my body?

  Do I wish for a quick, immediate death too fast to process? Or do I want a chance to fight for my life?

&
nbsp; I don’t know. I don’t know.

  I don’t fucking know.

  Except those two words Carter left me with blare in my brain.

  Stay safe.

  My men would no doubt tell me, if they could speak to me at this moment, to fight as hard as I can.

  To survive.

  To come home to them.

  That, however, is no longer up to me. It’s up to the guy with his hands likely tightly fisted around the controls, and hopefully with a voice muffled by an oxygen mask he had time to put on as he frantically calls out a mayday and reports our coordinates to an air traffic control tower somewhere.

  Hopefully, this aircraft is equipped with some sort of functional emergency GPS beacon.

  Hopefully, the life rafts have EPIRBs, or equivalent devices.

  Hopefully, the plane has fucking life rafts.

  If not, we’re all fucked anyway.

  I breathe and close my eyes and hold on.

  Hold on.

  Hold.

  On.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Susa

  The world ends.

  That’s what it feels like.

  The plane tentatively levels out for a little bit, and I lift my head from the brace position and glance around to see some passengers around us who had passed out now awakening, meaning we’re likely at or under ten thousand feet.

  Some of them put on their masks, some don’t. All of them look as terrified as I feel.

  The plane is rolling back, side to side, in a disconcerting way I don’t remember feeling before on other flights, not even rough ones where the pilot has to land in heavy cross-winds. This feels like a last-ditch struggle for the life of the aircraft.

  For all of our lives.

  The shuddering starts again, bone-jarring and driving me to renewed tears.

  Stay safe.

  We descend again, my ears popping, the wind screaming, my teeth chattering. We’re going down, and it’s not going to be pretty.

  In fact, it only takes a couple of minutes before someone’s yelling something over the PA system, words that I think are, “Brace! Brace! Brace!”