Angel Flight Read online

  ANGEL FLIGHT

  a novel

  by

  R. D. Kardon

  FBI Anti-Piracy Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Angel Flight

  First Edition

  Copyright © 2020 R. D. Kardon

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address Acorn Publishing, LLC,

  3943 Irvine Blvd. Ste. 218, Irvine, CA 92602.

  www.acornpublishingllc.com/

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including internet usage, without written permission from the author.

  This story is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  Cover design by Damonza

  Damonza.com

  Interior formatted by Debra Cranfield Kennedy

  ISBN—Hardcover 978-1-947392-99-1

  ISBN—Paperback 978-1-947392-98-4

  To SP

  Also by R. D. Kardon

  Flygirl

  Damaged people damage people

  —Marianne Williamson

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Christine

  PART I: The Crew

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Christine

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Christine

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Christine

  PART II: The Amended Flight Plan

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Christine

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Christine

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  PART III: The Angel Flight

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Christine

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Christine

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  PART IV: Post-Flight

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  June 3, 2000

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Praise for Flygirl

  IQALUIT, NUNAVUT

  CANADA

  April 11, 2000

  CHRISTINE

  Testing . . . testing. Okay, it’s recording.

  Erik, my love,

  I can’t find the Glock.

  It’s been in the safe since I first got diagnosed. Every now and then, I’d take it out, release the safety, and stick the cool muzzle in my mouth.

  Practice.

  After you left last night, I kissed you again in my mind and went to the safe.

  But the gun was gone.

  I waited too long.

  Do you know?

  PART I:

  THE CREW

  February 2000

  Exeter, Illinois

  One

  Strips of purple and gold stratus clouds stacked in an infinite sky led Captain Tris Miles home. Low rays of sun sketched the horizon outside the cockpit window, and behind her a swollen wall of snow buried the east coast.

  She raised her arms above her head and closed her eyes. The left seat of the twin turboprop Royal 350 had molded to the curves of her body over time and held her like a hug. In the right seat a few feet away, her co-pilot Bruce Burkey had the controls. When her eyes opened a few seconds later, he’d configured the airplane for a graceful descent into Exeter International.

  Bruce’s perfect approach ended in a soft landing. Tris took command and taxied to the ramp. After the ground crew guided the airplane safely into the Westin Charter Company hangar, Tris hopped off the airplane to finalize post-flight paperwork.

  Long after he should have left for home, she found Bruce in the Royal’s passenger cabin, crossing the safety belts and lifting errant crumbs from the seats with exacting fingertips. Stooped over in the not-quite-five-foot-tall cabin, his lanky wide-shouldered build, deep-set eyes, and scraggly blond hair gave him the haunted look that had earned him the nickname Lurch.

  “You know, the company hires people to do that,” she reminded her first officer. Westin Charter’s cleaning service brought the airplane’s interior back to showroom condition between flights.

  Bruce bent over further to pick a couple of lint balls off of the worn carpeting, then moistened his finger to rub a smudge from one of the armrests.

  “Bruce, go home. The cleaning crew will be in tomorrow.”

  He frowned. “You know I’ll do a better job.”

  Bruce surveyed the small but well-appointed six-seat compartment, shook his head, and grabbed the bag of trash he’d already collected.

  “And anyhow, if I’d left it, you know you’d just have cleaned it yourself,” he said.

  Tris had to laugh. “Probably.”

  Bruce followed her down the plane’s air stairs. “Hey, great job this morning getting into Teterboro. First rate.” His remark bore not a trace of sycophancy. Tris had flown the early morning leg into the busiest business airport in the country and landed in New Jersey during a driving winter storm that had packed Runway One with snow.

  “Our passengers had no idea how difficult that landing was. And you just slid it onto the runway.” He tapped his bottom lip with an index finger. “That’s the trick. You make it look easy.”

  “Team effort,” she replied. “Hey. You know what they say,” Tris began their favorite bad-weather joke, born one morning when they had to dig the Royal out of a snowbank. “The crew—”

  Bruce chuckled. “That shovels together . . .”

  “Stays together,” they finished simultaneously.

  Tris had hired Bruce herself, picking him from a horde of anxious, aggressive instructors for the coveted co-pilot job at Westin. And he hadn’t faltered, not once, had never been anything but a loyal, exemplary employee from his first day. He was meticulous about the airplane’s condition from nose to tail. This conscientious
attention to detail was a crucial characteristic of an airplane captain, which he very much wanted to be.

  Tris glanced at the clock on the hangar wall. She needed to change her clothes and hit the road in a hurry to make it to the cemetery before it closed.

  “Want me to get a jump on the next trip, Cap? Get the aircraft ready for Lemaster?” He asked, although he leaned toward the exit door, the extended handle of his overnight bag tilted forward, backpack over his shoulder, right hand in his pocket clinking his keys and loose change together. She’d noticed he habitually kept his fingers moving, like Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny.

  “Nah. I want you to head home. How long until the baby’s here?”

  Bruce grinned. “Two months. Heather’s gotten really big.”

  “I’ll see for myself in a couple weeks at your party.”

  “Yup. We’re really glad you can make it. So, I’ll head out, okay?” Bruce gave a little wave when she nodded, and was gone.

  Outside, the day continued its slow march toward night. The cemetery officially locked its gates at sunset. She’d snuck through a hole in the fence once before and learned the hard way that the footing around the graves was treacherous in the dark.

  Adjacent to the hangar was a room that doubled as a flight-planning area and passenger waiting lounge. Walking in, Tris noted the ripped carpet, the old map of the City of Exeter that hung crooked on a wall, and the papers peeking out of drawers in the rusty file cabinet. It was a far cry from the clean, modern Tetrix flight department offices. But the dingy atmosphere was a fair trade to Tris—she was valued here, not undermined—respected, not bullied.

  Westin Charter shared office space with Westin Flight School. The hum of flight instructors and their students discussing last-minute details, and the squeal of tires from a nearby fuel truck rushing to its next airplane, almost drowned out the sound of someone calling her name.

  “Hello?” she called over her shoulder.

  “Tris?” The husky voice with its strong British accent belonged to Phyllida, the company’s part-time dispatcher. It was a mystery how Tris could have walked right by without noticing her teased beehive hairstyle, purple “jumper,” as she’d say, and bright pink leggings. In contrast, Tris—her baggy uniform draped over her slim five-foot-seven frame, light brown hair lying flat against her head—looked frumpy indeed.

  “Hey Phyll. What’s up?”

  “Tris, I’m so sorry. I know you were looking forward to some peace and quiet, but I’m afraid Woody needs you to come in for a chat.” More than anyone, Phyll knew how exhausting Tris’s schedule was. But Tris was the company’s only captain, and more important, Woody’s confidante. If he needed her, she’d be there.

  “Hey, mind if I change while we talk?” Tris headed to the ladies’ room and Phyll followed, folder in hand. “Do you know what about?”

  “Of course, my dear. It seems we’ve been asked to do an angel flight, bring someone down here from Northeast Canada. Let me see . . .” her voice trailed off. “Oh right. Here it is. My goodness, I can’t pronounce the name of the place. I-Q-A . . .”

  “Iqaluit. I’ve heard of it.”

  “Brilliant! Well, yes, so, tomorrow at 10:00 a.m.?”

  “Of course. I’ll be here.”

  “Cheers, then.” Phyll walked away, her high-heeled boots quiet as they crossed the carpeted floor.

  “Wait,” Tris called after her. “Do you know how we got this trip?” Companies that flew prestigious “angel flights,” transporting critically ill passengers from remote areas to big cities to get specialized medical attention, donated the plane and crew, so the trips were huge money losers. Compensation, such as it was, came through earned respect and attention from industry peers. Flying one could hoist Westin’s reputation above all other small charter operations at the airport.

  “Not quite sure. The Chief Pilot of another company on the field called Woody today. I don’t recall the gentleman’s name.”

  On her way out, Tris mentally ticked off the names of the other flight departments at Exeter who could have offered Westin Charter this trip, those that might have an office in Iqaluit.

  Please let it be anyone but him, any company but them.

  Her uniform shirt and pants carefully folded over her arm, Tris checked her watch again and walked briskly toward the car. There wasn’t time to worry about it now.

  Today was Bron’s birthday, and he was waiting.

  Two

  Tris made herself comfortable in one of two cracked leather armchairs that sat side by side in the Westin Charter passenger waiting area. She pulled her sweater down to the waistband of her faded jeans and stretched the sleeves over her hands to warm them.

  Her eyelids shut to the familiar chug-chug-chug of training aircraft engines starting up in the background. When a door slammed closed, Tris shot upright.

  “Hey, Woody. Man, you scared the crap out of me.”

  “Gotcha!” Woody Westin laughed as Tris caught her breath. Woody wore his “uniform”: a pair of baggy Dockers, an old t-shirt, and tennis shoes, with a sweat-stained Westin Charter Company baseball cap that covered his blond buzz cut.

  He motioned Tris toward his office. On her way, she accidentally banged into the coat rack where she’d hung her captain’s jacket last night; along with some old pilot shirts from her collection, and the custom-tailored pants from her former job at Tetrix, it completed her pilot uniform.

  Tris loved wearing that jacket—a visual representation of all she’d worked so hard to achieve. The pants, however, embodied everything that was wrong at her last job. She couldn’t see how Tetrix, a company whose management required her uniform slacks to be fitted perfectly down to the last stitch, and tough enough to survive a nuclear war, could be oblivious to the toxic work culture of their flight department.

  Tris followed Woody into an office the size of a kitchen pantry and unfolded an armless metal chair he kept in a corner for visitors.

  Woody read a phone message on his desk, then leaned back in his chair and cracked his knuckles. “So, thanks for coming in. I guess that trip was crazy yesterday—bad weather out east?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You see the new flight on our schedule? That trip from Exeter to some place out in who-the-hell-knows-where Canada and back? Can you make that happen?”

  Tris nodded. “Phyll told me about it yesterday. We fly empty to Iqaluit on April 11th, and then back to Exeter the next day with our passenger. That’s about two months away, so there’s plenty of time to plan it. An angel flight. That’s quite a coup.”

  Woody flashed a wide, gap-toothed smile. “It sure is. We need to pick up the wife of an executive and bring her back here for treatment at Exeter Medical Center. The company’s own jets are all down for scheduled maintenance that week, which is the only time the specialists can see her. Anyway, I can’t stress enough how important this trip could be to our business. I mean, if we can get spillover trips from Tetrix, who knows? Maybe some of the other local companies will follow suit.”

  Tris mentally swatted away the mention of Tetrix and ignored the familiar tightening in her throat. “What’s the passenger’s story?”

  “I don’t have all the info yet.” Woody thumbed through some notes on his desk. “I guess the guy’s wife has Lou Gehrig’s disease. They’re Americans, but the company relocated them out there for some reason. You know the area, right?” He squinted at Tris, his expression inviting her to fill in the blanks.

  “I could locate it on a map, but I never got to Iqaluit while I was flying for, uh, them. I heard some of the guys mention it, and it just sounded like a fuel stop in between Northern Europe and the US. The company has a small office there. The executives we flew—the high-level folks—never visited it.”

  Why did it have to be them?

  Woody nodded. “You realize that as the pilot-in-command on this mission, you’ll have to liaise with the Tetrix flight department on passenger details, timing, etc. You okay dealing directly with those folks?�
��

  A cold bolt of anxiety sliced through her. Aviation was a small community, and companies based at the same airport tighter still. She’d known that taking another job at Exeter would put her right in the sights of her former coworkers. Logically, it was only a matter of time before she ran into them again. She heard Dr. C’s voice in her head: Every thought, every contact, has a tail. Her disastrous experience at Tetrix had left her reeling, but time had passed, and the wounds had at least scabbed over.

  “Of course. I’ll get started on the flight planning. Anything else I should know?”

  “Maybe.” Woody paused and tapped his desk a few times with his pen. “Jimbo and I are looking at buying another 350—you know, expanding the business. There’s one for sale out in Phoenix that could be right for us. We need to run the numbers. If we can make a deal for it, it’ll happen fast.” He looked around and finally grabbed a half-eaten roll of Tums that had migrated behind one of his desktop airplane models. He popped two of the chalky discs into his mouth.

  “So, busy times coming. I’m gonna need a new Chief Pilot a lot faster than I thought. A second airplane means I won’t have time for those duties anymore. I know we talked about it, you know, ‘in time.’ Well, time’s now.” Woody smiled and winked.

  Tris tilted her head back, eyes fixed on a water stain in the corner of the ceiling. She wasn’t expecting this promotion now. Woody’d always said eventually. It was a dream come true—to have complete authority over pilot hiring and training. The promotion also carried the astonishing consequence that she would fly a Tetrix executive’s ailing wife to obtain medical treatment as the head of Westin Charter’s entire flight operation.

  A quicker timeline meant longer hours, and that equated to less time for her personal life. She’d promised Dr. C—promised herself—that she’d concentrate more on life outside of work.

  But Chief Pilot! It was the right next move.