Chapter Eleven – Healing
Paul Metrand was taking shallow, strained breaths as he ran down the street but quickened his pace nevertheless. He had been running several miles, his t-shirt was plastered against his lean chest and his hair lay slick against his forehead but he didn't care. His lungs burned with exhaustion as he finally gave in and stopped to lean forward and rest his elbows on his thigs.
Three days had gone by since the crash-landing, three days in agony, joy and gloom. While Isabelle had been crying he'd clammed up, bottling it all up inside him until he was alone. For a while back there in Switzerland he'd thought he'd go crazy caught up between nosy reporters, annoying doctors and suspecting flight investigators. Everything felt surreal, from being designated a real hero to being cheered at by joyful and thankful people, to being accused of wrongdoings while handling the aircraft and being forced to stay at the medical center while poked and prodded. When they'd been ferried to Innsbruck International Airport by helicopter he'd found himself dreading to board the plane that would take them home. For the first time in his life he'd been afraid of flying. Isabelle had eyed him wearily and gently taken his hand into hers, she'd looked up at him with a hesitant smile, drawing comfort and strength from him while he in truth had none. He'd pulled himself together and stepped into the plane hand in hand with her and cautiously smiled back. The cabin crew of the aircraft had slapped them on their backs, the first class passengers had clapped their hands on their arrival and the joy in the air seemed to smitten Isabelle as she broke into a ghostly grin. Joe too looked happy albeit a little weary as he sat down at the other side of the aisle but when their eyes meet a mutual understanding was shared between them. The attention of them was unwanted and all they wished for was a quiet place to find peace again. The flight had went well and they'd all sneaked off the plane and into a taxi in order to avoid the people waiting at the De Gaulle. Paul and Joe had bid each other goodbye as Joe was to continue to fly as a passenger to Dulles in Washington.
Paul was brought back from his musings of the previous days as he gingerly straightened his aching body. He overlooked the tranquil street in his neighborhood and glanced up at the ominous clouds that had formed, covering the clear blue sky. He welcomed the cold splashes of water as the rain began to pour down on him. Within seconds his feet once again pounded the pavement as he headed for his large house a bit further down the street. The fast pace running and the pain caused by it made him feel alive again. For he still felt surreal and out of place after the accident, he still didn't understand why they had all survived, why he sported only cuts and bruises while he should have died. While the world seemed unchanged he himself had changed so much that it felt like he didn't belong anymore. Paul Metrand sprinted the last few steps up to the front door and reached into his pocket to retrieve the key. He walked inside and gently slid down to sit on the floor just inside the entrance door, his back propped up against the wall as he sighed and closed his eyes. He was suddenly grateful that Isabelle had left a few hours earlier to return to her flat so that he could break apart alone.
OOOOOO
Joseph Patroni paid the taxi cab driver and then watched as the taxi slowly made its way back into the rather hectic traffic. He sighed as he turned toward the gate of the churchyard ahead of him and hesitated, a hand on the cold iron gate. It was a beautiful day, the warm wind tousled his hair lightly and the leaves danced in the breeze. The sky was clear and strikingly blue as he glanced upwards, grazed with a single stripe of vapor from an aircraft as it flew high above. With a determined look he stared at the bright colors of the roses in his hands and then slowly pushed the gate open. He walked solemnly down the aisle, his feet marking the path in the newly fixed gravel. He kept walking down the rows automatically until he came to stand next to his wife's grave. The seasoned pilot slowly knelt down and gently removed the old flowers to replace them with the new bouquet.
"Hello, Helen," he whispered hollowly. "I should have come sooner but life has been hectic lately. I've missed your rationality, your logic and wisdom – " he trailed off as he felt tears sting in his eyes.
"I've missed your touch and encouragement," he finally said and buried his face in his hands.
A comfortable silence settled over the place as he gathered himself and leveled his eyes on the text marking the stone.
"Why did you have to die, Helen?" he whispered and then laughed ironically. "A freaking traffic accident. You died in a freaking traffic accident while I survived an airplane crash."
Joe felt his anger rising and then suddenly chuckled and shook his head. "You know, if you were here you would tell me to stop endorsing in self-pity and straighten up. Not to mull over things you can't control."
The leaves frazzled as the wind played with the large oak tree next to him and he once again glanced up in the sky. "Was it faith?" he whispered.
He got no answer and it wasn't like he had expected any.
"I can't give up flying, Helen," he finally said morosely. "I've been flying for over thirty years. As long as I'm certified fit I'm going to fly – it's my life. I know nothing else and I can do nothing else." Joe suddenly laughed, his eyes twinkling. "I remember you telling me that when I tried to help you in the garden that sunny day in the early spring two years ago."
"Anyway, I'll be temporarily flying Boeing again at FWA until the second Concorde has been delivered. It'll only be for six months, hopefully, then I'm back to flying supersonic. I know you have your doubts about that type of airliner but I feel nothing but awe as I walk into the cockpit. It's a little like flying F-15 fighter jets again and at the same time nothing like it, he said dreamingly then sobered up. "I don't know honey, the world seems so strange. At times I feel like I can do anything, even walk out in front of a bus. It feels like nothing's going to kill me. Nothing can kill me anymore." Joe chuckled again and shook his head. "This is where you would tell me to get a grip," he added mischievously.
"Anyway, I wish you could have gotten to know Paul and Isabelle. I think you would have liked them. Well, maybe not directly after you'd found out he set me up with a hooker in Paris but you'd warmed up eventually. My goodness, Helen, I had qualms about that for weeks."
The wind blew stronger suddenly and then the flowers danced in the vase.
"Is that your way of telling me I am forgiven?" he asked curiously as the corners of his eyes crinkled.
He inhaled the fresh breeze and got up from his crouched position, grimacing as his knees protested the action. "I'm getting too old for this," he mumbled as he straightened and adjusted his light windbreaker. "Goodbye, Helen, I will always love you."
OOOOOO
Maggie Whelan's head was pounding, the explosion had intensified the dull headache that had refused to leave her alone since the flight accident. It felt like she'd been telling her story over and over again to the agents and police officers present in the interrogation room back at the precinct. At first they'd grilled her for information about the bomb in her hotel room and why someone would try to kill her. She'd looked at them seriously and simply told them what she knew. At first they'd stared at her, like she'd been crazy, and probably thought she'd hit her head a little too hard in the rough landing back in the Alps. Then they'd slowly started to see things from her point of view and decided, probably against better judgement, to look into her story effective immediately. The documents was taken away from her and given to the fraud department to determine their origin and whether or not they were real. Maggie had bit her lower lip to prevent a snort because of the documents authenticity she had no doubt. Now she could only wait and see and most importantly hope for the best.
OOOOOO
"Eli?" Amy asked in confusion as she stared at the empty side of the bed beside her. She frowned and pulled a gown over her negligee before heading out in the larger living room of their hotel suite.
She found him sitting in a plush armchair next to the window overlooking the bustling morning traffic of Moscow several floors below them. Next to him, on the table, lay a discarded Russian newspaper.
She frowned at the thumbed newspaper and the sullen look on his face. Intrigued and a bit concerned she walked over and eyed the front-page curiously. Amy didn't understand Russian but the picture of several Russian athletes huddled together, looking both stricken and overly relieved at the same time, and the word Concorde written in large letters just below the picture made her able to guess what it was all about.
Eli tore his eyes away from the traffic to look steely at his young wife. "Well, the Federation World Airlines is certainly famous worldwide now. It's just not pictured the way I intended," he said sourly.
"What do you mean?" she asked softly. "It was an accident."
"Was it?" he countered angrily, causing her to take a step back. "No one here seem to think so. And frankly I'm not so sure myself. What are the odds of an aircraft being nearly shot down by a malfunctioning attack drone and then attacked again by a fighter aircraft?"
"Harrison Industries has issued a nationwide apology for flying their Buzzard into the civil aviation routes east of Dulles International," Amy said calmly, sensing that her husband was on the edge.
Eli harrumphed. "That's the attack drone. That doesn't explain the mystery Airforce pilot in the fighter jet. Nor does it explain why the freaking cargo door blew off mid-air or why our chief mechanic at de Gaulle was found dead with his pockets full of money," he finished with his voice raised.
Amy looked at him sadly. "No, I guess it doesn't," she said.
A faint smile broke out on his lips as he looked at his wife. "I'm sorry, Amy. It's not you I'm angry at, it's just all so frustrating," he said apologetically as she sat down next him.
She looked at him and hesitated before she finally spoke. "I want to go home, Eli."
He nodded in understanding. "I'm sorry I talked you into coming, Amy. Believe me, this was not how I pictured our trip to Moscow. We've missed the banquette, we've failed to bring the Russian competitors home safely. It took a lot of persuasion just to get them onboard a US registered civil airline company. And the Concorde –" he threw his hands in the air in exasperation. "The first supersonic airliner delivered to the states. She was going to be the pride of our fleet, the damn plane cost a fortune. All the arrangements made with the French-British factory, the new flight crew; all the new routes we were supposed to traffic."
She didn't know why but she couldn't help but to smile at him and his tirade.
He chuckled despite everything and shook his head. "Amy," he said. "We don't even have a flight home."
She gently reached out to squeeze his hand. "One thing seem to be true to our motto; we do have the best crew in the world. Both flight- and cabin crew."
Eli nodded. "Yeah, and instead of sitting here and sulk I should make certain they'll stay with us," he said with certainty. "I'll do that, call the head office back home, punch some nosy reporters, sort this mess out, claim insurance on the aircraft and demand to get all reports from the investigators-" he trailed off and glanced at his wife. "-but first I'll have us booked on a flight back home."
OOOOOO
Gemma Harrison felt something wasn't right, she couldn't put a finger on it but something was off. She knew Kevin had always been thrill-seeking and adventurous but he wasn't one to rush head into something he didn't know he could pull off. Therefore to hear of his accident, while attending a charity funding in Europe, made alarm bells ring in her ears. Due to his travels abroad with the company and the long hours at the testing facility they didn't see each other as much as she'd liked any longer and there had been times when she suspected he had a mistress but she'd never been able to confirm her theory.
However, that didn't automatically mean that she'd stopped loving him and she knew that their daughters really enjoyed spending time with their dad. She felt empty inside as she sat alone at the large kitchen table in their common residence. She didn't know what to do or how to act, how to keep up appearances in front of their friends and neighbors. Money would never be a problem for her or the girls, it was all the rest. The large company, the spacious flat downtown, the beach house in California. Her immediate problem was the reporters that had been pestering her for the length of the entire day. One was particularly persistent about seeing her and claimed that Kevin's company was playing dirty. What he had meant by that she had no idea.
With a sigh she reached for an older newspaper and stared at the front page. It held a picture of the supersonic aircraft that had been targeted by the Buzzard, the attack drone that Kevin and Willie had been working on for so long. Gemma stared at the picture of the shiny white, sleek aircraft that looked nothing like a regular airliner and let out a relieved sigh that she'd managed to escape the deadly attack drone. Kevin couldn't even hurt a fly at home and Gemma was worried about his reaction had the drone he'd helped to manufacture killed over a hundred of innocent people. Her eyes watered at the thought of her husband and a tear trickled down her cheek as she found herself wondering why he had to leave her at a moment like this. She needed him more now than ever when the last of their common daughters had left home. Gemma glanced around the spacious kitchen in the empty house and felt tears sting in her eyes. She felt so lonely and abandoned.
OOOOOO
John Field glanced up from the newspaper in front of him as several people walked into the large conference room at the top floor of the Harrison Industries HQ. He was sitting at the end of a large glass table with a freshly brewed cup of coffee next to him.
"I'm glad to see that you could join me at such short notice," he said as he eyed the men in the process of sitting down.
"The situation is as follows, gentlemen," he explained curtly, yet there was nothing polite over him. "Maggie Whelan is still alive and by now she's probably even more determined to nail our sorry asses."
"And the documents are still not back into our possession," Special Operations Director Anderson said, straightforward as usual. "I'll see to it that our hitman is taken care of."
"Where did you find him anyway?" Jones asked brusquely.
Anderson met his steely eyes squarely but refrained from answering.
"Our time is running out," Field said flatly.
"Forgive my bluntness, but it's ridiculous to even think anyone would connect Harrison Industries with any wrongdoings. Especially after Willies report about our drone incident. Everything is explained; the deviation from the flightpath, the failure of the system, communication breakdown," Sales Director Riggs reasoned and turned to Halpern. "Willie has thought of everything. Furthermore the military has decided not to launch their own investigation as they consider our actions to be enough. The whole thing is to be filed away as an unfortunate incident that didn't lead to anything dangerous."
"What are you saying exactly, Riggs?" Anderson asked, sounding doubtful. "That the military still want to get their hands on our drone?"
"After we've offered to give them more insight in our programming and explain to them what makes the Buzzard so prominent and sophisticated I'd say there's still a chance," he stated.
"It went after the Concorde – a civil aircraft that carried over a hundred people," the engineer at the far end of the table said. "As far as the military is concerned that was an accident. They would not buy something that could become a liability. Imagine they'd bought the drone and ended up with the same scenario – the world would have gone wild. No matter how skilled our diplomats might be it would take time to reestablish trust for America again."
"But it wasn't a failure, it was done purposely," Jones argued.
"Exactly but the military can't know about that, nor can anyone else," the engineer said sternly as he focused on Jones. "You release that kind of information and we'll be charged for attempted murder."
"I think we're all aware of that dilemma," Field said pointedly.
"So, where does that lead us?" Anderson quipped curiously.
"We let it rest," the chairman said nonchalantly. "When Miss Whelan presents the material we'll claim it to be falsified. Doctor Harrison's choice of lawyers are excellent. When the time comes I'd say that any suspicions cast upon us would be dropped."
OOOOOO