Chapter 4
Jed reached out to stroke Abbey's soft back. His body was reacting to her moans of pleasure. He laughed. "You know what you sound like, don't you?"
Abbey responded by playfully slapping her husband and then leaned in for a kiss that knew no boundary.
'I'm in heaven,' Jed thought. 'But why is that damn alarm clock going off? Is it time to get up already?'
"WAHHH" "WAHHH"
The Claxton horns disturbed even the soundest sleeper as oxygen masks dropped down from the overhead compartments and those wide enough awake to understand, grabbed one, and placed it over their face without question. Then they looked around and made sure their seat mate had one as well.
But in the Presidential bedroom, the exhausted First Couple slept through the noise. The sound was muffled so they were unaware of the danger facing the occupants of the plane.
Pushing through the door, Ron and two other agents quickly reached the two sleeping occupants and rolled them over on their backs. Jed and Abbey were abruptly awakened as the agents forced oxygen masks on their faces.
Startled at the rude awakening, Jed tried to yell, "Hey!" But whatever he was trying to say was muffled by the mask over his face. He looked over at Abbey, whose eyes were full of fright and questions. She mirrored his emotions.
Jed tried to remove the mask, but Ron quickly and urgently replaced it. Jed heard him say something, but it too was muffled under his mask.
Eventually his heart slowed down and regained its normal beat. He gave up trying to know what was happening. He would be told something as soon as it was possible. It obviously had something to do with decompression of some kind as he felt the big 747 finally level off in what had been a fairly rapid descent.
Ron placed his hand on his earpiece and then removed his own mask. He then nodded to the President and First Lady that it was safe to remove theirs.
"I'm sorry for the disturbance, Mr. President. Something occurred which caused some decompression alarms to go off. I knew you both were asleep and wouldn't hear the alarm. We didn't really have a choice."
"I understand, Ron. That's okay. What's the problem?" Jed sat up and leaned against the headboard.
"Haven't found that out, sir. But now that the crisis has passed, I'll go to the Flight Deck and report back as soon as I know."
As Ron and the agents left, Abbey turned to her husband. "Jed, what's wrong? Is this something major?"
"You know as much I do. Maybe we should put some jeans on. It doesn't look like we're going to get much sleep. And that's too bad. I was having a hell of a nice dream."
"What?"
"Never mind."
Any chance of a full night's sleep had just dissipated.