Angel Flight Read online

  “Run!” Bruce yelled over the sudden sound of a screeching alarm.

  Both pilots squeezed onto the ramp and then hustled away from the building. They joined airport employees, rampers, mechanics, and small-aircraft pilots jostling for position on the street side of the building. Tris’s captain’s hat got knocked off her head. The hair tucked up inside fell below her shoulders as her hat bounced off of people fleeing the blaze, hit the ground, and was stomped on.

  In a grassy area well clear of the tiny building, Tris gasped for breath, the acrid smell of sulfur still in her nose. A dozen others were already sucking in fresh air as they watched the activity from a safe distance. She couldn’t spot Bruce anywhere.

  Fire engines and an ambulance arrived, sirens blaring, lights turning in a blue and red wave. Firefighters carried their heavy equipment with speed and purpose.

  Tris worked her way through the groups of people, looking for Bruce. He stood over by the opposite end of the hangar structure. At six-foot-six, he was visible even over the heads of rescue workers in full gear. His hand was clasped around his mobile phone, but he wasn’t speaking. Tris hoped he would find a quieter place to call his wife.

  Satisfied that Bruce wasn’t hurt, Tris turned back toward their airplane. For security reasons, views of the ramp were obscured from where she stood, so she grabbed someone with an airport badge.

  “I’m the captain of Four-Five-Quebec, the Royal 350 on the ramp,” she said, hooking a thumb toward where her airplane sat. “Can you help me? How close is it to the fire?”

  The man’s eyes widened. “Ma’am, I can’t let anyone back inside. It’s too dangerous.”

  They were silenced by an announcement blared through a megaphone.

  “Folks, this is Chief Timmons, Lemaster Fire Department. I need you to step further away from the building. Please back away.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” the airport employee muttered as he rushed off.

  Unable to see the airplane, Tris joined Bruce and braced herself, waiting for a huge boom, a signal that something full of fuel had blown up. Standing silent side by side, they exchanged glances and sighs.

  Bruce held his mobile phone against his chest with both hands like a talisman. “What if we’d been on the ramp, Tris? Or on the plane? And couldn’t get out? If I’d been hurt. What about Heather? What about my son?” He croaked out the last few words.

  “But that didn’t happen, Bruce. You are not in any danger. You’re okay.”

  The crowd stood in small groups, watching, drawn together by the emergency. Bruce looked straight ahead. His expression—bereft and helpless—made Tris tear up involuntarily. Not for herself, but for him, for his family.

  She heard, “I’m okay. Yes, I’m fine,” over and over, spoken in urgent tones into mobile phones amid the frightened assembly. People gave each other reassuring pats on the shoulder, some held hands, and others hugged.

  Their connection, forged by fire, at once touched and saddened her. It was one thing to be responsible for others’ lives when she flew an airplane. Life and death were always in the back of every pilot’s mind. But passengers were strangers, and her dedication to them a professional commitment.

  It was something else entirely to be responsible to people who valued your life. How long had it been, how much had transpired, since someone had loved her so much, depended on her so implicitly, that she’d be terrified they’d lose her?

  She understood Bruce’s fear perfectly.

  When the gunpowder exploded, she’d been afraid, sure. She worried about Bruce, the plane, the workers.

  If she’d been hurt, whose life would change?

  Six

  The flames had scorched part of the Lemaster ramp but never reached the Royal or destroyed any equipment. The scene had looked and sounded way worse than it was, and, slowly, people went back to their jobs, their planes, and their lives.

  A grey cloud hung in the air, giving the ramp an eerie, early-morning look. Yellow police tape stretched around the temporary building, past the hangar and along at least half of the asphalt ramp. A uniformed officer slowly removed the barrier.

  “The danger is past. Crisis averted,” Chief Timmons brayed through his megaphone. “You can all go back to what you were doing.” He paused, looked down at a piece of paper. “Will the crew of a Royal 350, Five-Four-Five-Quebec, please come see me?”

  Tris and Bruce walked toward the fire chief as everyone else moved away.

  “Sir, I’m Tris Miles, the captain of the Royal.”

  Timmons removed his thick yellow and black uniform glove and shook hands with Tris.

  He consulted his notes as he spoke. “A box which held a canister of gunpowder was accidentally crushed, breaching its protective metal casing. Someone must have thrown a match near it, and it ignited the black powder,” he said, eyes fixed on the crew.

  “Thanks for the information. But what does that have to do with us?” Tris asked.

  Timmons looked back down at his notes. “That box was part of a load of freight that was supposed to go on your airplane. But it had no label on it. It was HAZMAT, but whoever packed it didn’t put the required label designating it as EXPLOSIVE. Did you know that ma’am? That you were carrying hazardous materials?”

  Tris took a step back and raised her hands. Bruce’s face lost all color. “No way. I had no idea. Our company ops specs prohibit us from carrying any type of combustible material,” Tris said, rattling off this regulatory fact a bit too quickly to emphasize that she and Bruce had no way of knowing what was in the box. As pilots, all they did was review the bill of lading, and check weight estimates to make sure they were reasonable and within the limitations of the aircraft.

  Timmons pulled off his helmet with his non-gloved hand, placed it under his arm and scratched his head. “All right ma’am. I understand. But you’re gonna have to tell that to the local police.”

  “Police,” she heard Bruce whisper. He’d stepped behind her and was crouched down on the grass. “HAZMAT,” he spoke again, incredulity framing his voice.

  Tris put her hand on his shoulder. “Bruce, we’re both going to have to talk to the cops. They’re still in the hangar. Come on.”

  Slowly, he got up, and followed his captain back inside.

  After Tris reiterated to the Lemaster police that the crew had no inkling what was in the unlabeled box, it was Bruce’s turn. She went back outside for some air and stayed until she spotted the officers leaving.

  She found Bruce, doubled over in an old metal chair in the middle of the hangar. He stared at the ground, tears staining his face. His chest extended fully with each deep breath.

  She gasped at the sight of this man, bent over, crying—still shaking like a frightened child. This wasn’t Bruce, her stalwart co-pilot.

  “So.” She sat down next to him and knocked his knee with hers. “Just another fun-filled day at the airport, eh?” Her attempt at levity fell flat.

  “Tris, there was no HAZMAT sticker on it. Nothing. And it was our freight. I touched it. I actually picked it up, put it down, and kicked it aside. I kicked it.”

  Bruce didn’t say what she was sure both pilots were thinking—that he could have been the one who damaged the box, or the container inside. Tris tightened her left fist, nails biting into skin.

  It could have ignited in flight.

  Bruce stared straight ahead. She put her hand on his back. It was 30 degrees outside, maybe 45 in the hangar, yet he’d sweated through his shirt.

  “It’s all right, Bruce. It’s all right,” she repeated softly.

  Just then, the ambulance parked on the ramp spun its lights and pulled away. “How many got hurt?” Bruce whispered as he watched it leave.

  “I don’t think anyone. It’s empty.”

  Bruce grabbed his head with both hands, tightened his fists and rocked back and forth. “I feel sick, Tris. Really sick,” he said.

  “It’s okay. You’re fine,” Tris said, and patted his arm.

 
Bruce leapt from his chair and rushed toward a garbage can. He bent over it and vomited.

  Tris moved out of earshot and pressed #2 on her phone’s speed dial. Woody answered on the first ring. “Tris? What’s up? How are you? I was just about to call you for a status report. I’m listening to updates on the radio. Sounds like the fire is out. When can you take off? I need the Royal back here for an oil change. The mechanic’s been sitting here for hours.”

  “We’re fine, by the way, as in not hurt. But Bruce—I don’t think he can fly.” She looked over at her co-pilot, still bent over, retching.

  “Why not? You guys have to get the plane home. Can’t you handle it, Tris? I mean you want to be the Chief Pilot here right? Fix it.”

  She closed her eyes. “Woody, we were a few feet away from a fire that could have burned down the hangar and caused our airplane to explode. That’s unnerving, to say the least. But it was due to a mislabeled box of gunpowder that was supposed to go on our aircraft. Someone tried to transport gunpowder on our aircraft. Good God, what if . . .” She let her voice trail off, then spoke with authority. “Anyway, I can fly. Bruce can’t.”

  Bruce might come around and be his old reliable self. Or he might not. Tris avoided her own internal inventory. She had to get that plane home.

  “Lemme see what I can do. I’ll try to find someone.” He hung up.

  Tris draped a passenger blanket over Bruce’s shoulders when he finally sat down next to her. “Hey Bruce. You want me to call someone? Maybe Heather?”

  “No. She was freaked out enough when I told her what happened.”

  They sat for another hour or so, and finally Bruce was well enough to walk over and bring back some fresh coffee from the Starbucks a couple of blocks away. He handed Tris her venti French roast and walked back outside.

  Tris sipped in silence when the metal door they had escaped through swung open. Backlit by the now-setting sun and lingering smoke from the fire was a man in a bomber jacket. As her vision adjusted, Tris noticed broad shoulders, a full head of bright red hair, and matching russet beard with strips of gray.

  When he saw Tris, his eyes moved to her epaulets.

  “Are you Captain Miles?”

  “I am.”

  “Mike Marshall.” She grasped his outstretched hand firmly. “Woody called me. I’m current and qualified on the airplane. I can help you get it home.” He nodded toward the turboprop that sat motionless on the ramp.

  His words emerged through a filter, as though they'd been underwater. The eyes that met hers were blue, but not like the sky. Deep blue like tinted glass, a window to the soul.

  Tris took a step back and folded her arms across her chest, anything to increase the personal space between them.

  He kept smiling and moved closer to her. His arm reached out. Tris backed up further.

  “Uh, I thought you’d want to see my license and medical,” he said, offering them to her.

  “Of course,” she mumbled and looked down at the two small documents that made pilots legal to fly.

  The sound of a mobile phone shattered her mounting attraction. It was Woody, calling to tell her what she already knew—he’d found a pilot to help her ferry the airplane home.

  She ended the call and turned to Mike. “Can you do a thorough pre-flight and get fresh weather while I let my co-pilot know what’s going on? He’s not feeling well. I’ll brief him.”

  “Will do.” Mike strode off, seeming to know his way around the hangar.

  He was already in the right seat when she boarded the airplane with Bruce and their updated flight plan. A quick scan of the cockpit revealed that he’d performed all required checks.

  “Ready to go home, Captain?” Mike’s eyes crinkled at the corners, above a wide smile.

  “I sure am. Engine-start checklist please.”

  IQALUIT, NUNAVUT

  CANADA

  April 11, 2000

  CHRISTINE

  I’m already walking like a drunken sailor. Soon, I’ll be stuck in a wheelchair. And as more time passes, I’ll lose the ability to perform the most basic daily functions. I’ll waste away until I’m just bones in that chair. Or a bed. Or in a bed in a hospital. Or hospice. Just today, I couldn’t reach the top shelf in the kitchen without using a stool, which seemed so heavy but, in fact, weighs only two pounds. I checked.

  And it’s happening so fast. Too fast. So fast even the doctors are stumped. “Christine, you’re a special case.” They made it sound like I should be proud that less than a year after my diagnosis, I struggle to walk to the mailbox.

  We had just put the past behind us, now this. It makes me want to punch something. But there’s no one to blame. And there is no cure.

  Yesterday, after we made love, all you could talk about was the treatment, the trip to Exeter, the future. I just wanted to scream, to beg you, “Please, for the love of God, shoot me in the head. If you love me don’t make me do this.”

  You see, I want to end my life now, before I can no longer kiss you, my love, or hold you, or use the bathroom by myself—among the many things I’ll be asked to let go as this disease claims my body, little by little, day after day.

  If my work, my experience, has taught me anything, it’s that I can say goodbye—to you, to all of it. I can give it all up, but only on my own terms.

  Seven

  When Tris called Bruce at home the next day to check on him, he sounded like his old self.

  “You sure you’re ok?” she asked.

  “Positive. But you can bet I’ll be quadruple checking our freight from now on. So, what about Pinedale?” he asked. The trip was scheduled to leave later that day.

  “Actually, the passengers called to delay it a few days. Which works out great for us. Seriously, Bruce, are you all right?” As Bruce’s friend, she hoped he was truly over what happened. As his captain, Tris had to be sure he was fit to fly.

  Bruce didn’t hesitate to respond in a tone that convinced her. “I’m fine. I’m ready for Pinedale. Heather’s been following me around like a mother hen. I love that she’s concerned for me with that huge beach ball she’s carrying.”

  Tris chuckled. “You still calling him that? He’s got a name, right?”

  “Oh yeah. But Heather has sworn me to secrecy. Given her hormones, no way I’m pissing her off,” Bruce said, his light tone more reassuring than his words.

  “Okay, Bruce. See you on Thursday for Pinedale.”

  Yet when the day arrived, the trip was beset with problems. Right at takeoff time, there was a line of thunderstorms passing through Exeter. The two pilots stood at Westin’s old HP desktop looking at the live Doppler radar.

  “Are you sure we can do this?” Bruce asked for the third time as the latest forecast spit out of the company’s dot matrix printer.

  Tris fought the urge to snap at him. She’d already explained how they could dart between cells without too many heading changes, and easily clear the storms to the west which, conveniently, was their direction of flight.

  “I am, Bruce. But my question is, are you?”

  Bruce straightened his back, raised his eyebrows and peered down at Tris. Finally, he shrugged and said, “Let’s go.”

  Tris deftly flew the airplane around the storms, and the rest of the flight was uneventful, until they pulled onto the ramp at the remote airport in Wyoming with a flat tire. Tris spent thirty minutes lying on her back next to the strut relaying damage info to Woody. Four hours passed before a mechanic Woody dug up met them at the airport and changed the tire.

  The exhausted crew ended up on an unscheduled overnight, which catapulted Bruce into a bad mood, since Heather was expecting him home that night.

  Dinner brightened his frame of mind considerably. Tris and Bruce chose a saloon-themed restaurant with actual batwing doors. The floors were covered in sawdust. Exhausted and slap-happy, they called each other “Podner” and split a pitcher of beer.

  The next day, on the way home, Tris found herself impatient and restless
. She could usually ignore Bruce’s constant pen clicking, doodling on the flight release and incessant knuckle cracking, but his tics all screeched like nails on a blackboard.

  After a mercifully uneventful flight back to Exeter, she was anxious to be by herself. When Bruce shoved his hand in his pocket and began clicking coins together, Tris almost lost her composure.

  “You can head home, Bruce. I’ll finish up the post-flight items. Go ahead. Go.”

  But instead of thanking her and leaving, Bruce stood by the airplane with his hands on his hips.

  “You want to take the garbage out? Cross the belts for the cleaning crew? Isn’t that my job?”

  Tris had to let a few seconds pass rather than risk saying something she’d later regret. “Bruce, if I tell you I’ll do it, I’ll do it. Go home.”

  He clucked his tongue and made a show of hoisting his backpack over his shoulder. It was rare for the two of them to even disagree much less squabble. Always so eager to please, Bruce’s behavior often bordered on worship.

  And, just like that, as if snapped out of a trance, Bruce returned to his old self. “Okay, Podner,” he said with an exaggerated drawl, “guess I’ll see you this weekend at the party, right?”

  Tris grinned. “Wouldn’t miss it, Podner.” She was looking forward to seeing Heather. And Danny.

  Tris was searching for one of the mechanics to see whether there was any residual damage to the airplane’s rim when Woody called her name.

  “My office, now,” he said, and sped away.

  “Hey Woody. What?” she said, opening his office door moments later, her hand and head curled around the doorframe.

  “Come in. Sit down a second, would you?”

  There was no room in his office for her flight bag, so she dropped it in the entranceway, a not-so-subtle signal that she was done for the day.

  If Woody got the message, he promptly ignored it.