Richard smiled as he woke up the next morning in one of the spare bedrooms in the Dineen home in Callan. He saw Walter and Paige off on their honeymoon a bit more than twelve hours ago. The young couple had a lot of people pulling for them and it inspired him a lot. After getting cleaned up and dressed Richard went down to the dining room where Ralph, Veronica, Happy and Toby were already sitting having breakfast.
"Good morning." Richard smiled as he walked into the room.
"Good morning." Everyone replied.
"When are Paige and Walter going to land in Tokyo?" Ralph asked.
"Probably in about two hours if everything holds to normal." Richard smiled.
"Don't pay him any attention, Ralph's been unsettled for about an hour over it. Ready for some breakfast?" Veronica asked.
"I could probably be persuaded." Richard laughed. "I wouldn't worry about it too much Ralph."
"Ever since Aunt Jo died on her way back from Japan, Dad's had bad feelings about flights to or from there." Happy explained. "He tried his best to get Paige to change her mind about Japan for their honeymoon. But she loved the culture there for the few months they had lived there and wanted to go back."
"I can understand that. But, I gave them my best plane and the best crew. They'll be fine." Richard smiled even as he pulled his phone out as it rang. "Richard." He answered.
He didn't know why but something Ralph couldn't put his finger on changed and he looked sharply at Richard.
"What? When?" Richard demanded as he looked at Ralph. "Why wasn't I called sooner?" Richard demanded.
"Richard?" Veronica and Ralph both said.
"Guys, I'm sorry, I don't have very much yet, but they lost contact with the plane about an hour ago. Somewhere by the Louzan Strait." Richard told them. "Yes, I'm still here." Richard said even as Veronica began freaking out.
Ralph pulled Veronica into his arms and Happy ran out of the room to the family room. She turned on the TV and turned to the international news.
"Well I don't care what it costs, get every search plane you can going on this. The company's server should have the black box data backed up on it through the satellite connection, has anyone checked it?" Richard demanded. "Well get them on it. I want updates, fast and continuous." Richard was yelling.
Richard's eyes closed as he hung up and sat his phone on the table.
"I can't believe this is happening." Richard mumbled. "They lost contact with the plane somewhere south of Hong Kong on their flight path. Their transponder just stopped. Up until that time nothing adverse had been reported. I've got them going to check the data server and see if we can get a better idea of what was going on or if the black box is still sending data to the server. They've had a couple of planes out of Hong Kong tracking the flight path but so far there has been no sign of the plane. Or visible wreckage in the ocean."
"So maybe their communications are out?" Ralph asked brokenly.
"It is a possibility. They have a plane leaving Tokyo shortly to fly the reverse path. They've diverted a few other planes that were close by to do a couple of searches but so far, nothing." Richard told them. "I'm so sorry guys."
"It isn't your fault Richard." Veronica cried.
Toby stood up and walked to the family room and saw Happy standing there staring at the screen looking for any news. He stepped up behind her and wrapped his arms around the tops of her shoulders.
Happy shuddered and she turned and threw her arms around Toby as she broke and cried.
"We can't give up yet." Toby whispered. "Walter is too smart. If there was a chance, he'd have found it and used it to at least keep Paige alive."
Happy nodded even as she cried.
Louise smiled as she heard the sound of a vehicle pull up outside and she moved to the front door. As she opened the door she saw it was one of the SUVs but she thought it weird no one had gotten out yet. She stepped out of the house even as she pulled her sweater tighter about her.
The door opened and she saw Veronica's leg come out first and then she saw her face and frowned as Veronica was crying.
"Veronica?" Louise called out as she moved down the steps quickly.
Veronica moved forward at a run even as Ralph, then Happy and Toby came out of the SUV.
Louise's hair nearly stood on end as whatever happened was scaring her. She came together with Veronica as she continued to sob.
"Louise, I'm so sorry. Richard just got word that they lost contact with the plane Walter and Paige were on." Ralph said even as he engulfed both women in his large arms.
"No!" Louise cried out.
Sean was in the barn when he heard Louise cry out. He immediately thought of Megan and he dropped his gear and ran out of the barn. He ran faster than he had ever ran before. As he came around the corner he saw Louise hugging Veronica and Ralph hugging them.
"What happened?" Sean demanded.
Happy moved over quickly and threw her arms around him as she cried, telling him what they knew so far.
Megan sat stunned on the family couch. A bit more than three hours had passed since the flight was reported missing to Richard.
The news had finally gotten to reporting on the story and was now reporting that the plane had been lost at sea. Richard paced the property as he talked to his people and directed resources to find out what happened. Hoping beyond hope that Walter and Paige were okay. He'd given up hope for the plane and its crew. But he was positive that if there was a way to survive, Walter would have made it happen.
Happy sat inside of the carriage from the wedding with Toby next to her. His arm about her as she leaned in against his side.
"This can't be happening. I've been so excited the last few days. I may never get to meet Walter and Paige's baby." Happy whispered.
"What?" Toby asked quickly.
"Paige told me the other day she was pregnant." Happy whispered. "She had a due date for this December."
"Well damn. Her and 197 really played that close to the vest. I didn't even suspect." Toby told her with a bit of sorrow in his own voice.
Wherever they were, they all looked up towards the front of the house as they heard voices raised up outside. An old melody, to the words of "Sub tuum praesidium".
Sean moved to the door and looked out and saw somewhere north of two hundred souls walking the old road towards the farm singing for the protection of Walter and Paige. Sean opened the door and the family moved out of the house and off the porch as their neighbors came up and surrounded them. All of them placed their hands upon each other and ultimately each member of the small family. They came together as a family in faith and community.
As the gathering broke apart, Richard came forward with what might be a bit of good news. The Garda authorities in the course of investigating the incident, had gone to the rooms the crew had been using before the flight. While the stewardesses had checked out, they found both pilots and the navigator had been killed. Their uniforms were missing as well. So it meant they might be getting a ransom demand. Richard assured them he'd pay it to get them back.
Monday June 20th, 2005, 8 a.m. Dublin:
Happy sat on the couch in the family room staring at the TV waiting for some word that they found her sister and brother. She'd refused to go to bed the night before, Ralph and Veronica finally gave in and went to bed. She was growing angry, as the Garda authorities, citing that with no ransom demands and a decompression event recorded aboard the plane, that aviation officials had no choice but to begin to shut down searches for any survivors. The News reporters interviewed several respected experts in the field and they all had decreasing expectations for any survivors.
As Happy sat thinking about it, she thought that if Richard had told them the truth, that the data passed from the black box to the server said the plane experienced a sudden decompression event. There had been nothing warning of any catastrophic event from the cockpit.
Happy's eyes suddenly opened wider as she had an idea. She ran into the dining room.
"Mom! Dad! Where's Walter's laptop?" Happy demanded from them.
"Uh, I'm not sure pumpkin." Ralph said as he thought.
"I think it is in Paige's room." Veronica said. "Why?"
Happy turned and flew out of the room and up the backstairs. Toby was just about to open his bedroom door when he heard the running footfalls. As the door opened he heard the running stop and he looked out. He barely got a glimpse of Happy moving into Paige's room. He walked down the hallway curiously and then he heard Happy.
"Come on you piece of crap, boot up already!" Happy screamed at the laptop.
Toby stopped and looked into the room and saw Happy sitting at Paige's desk with the laptop in front of her.
"What's going on?" Toby asked.
Happy didn't hear him at first as she entered Walter's password into the laptop.
"Happy." Toby said a bit louder. "What is going on?"
"I've got to try and hack into Richard's server." Happy told him.
"Uh, hacking isn't exactly your forte." Toby said as he walked in.
"Good enough. Especially with Walter's tools." Happy told him even as she launched Walter's hacking portal.
"What do you think you are going to find?" Toby asked.
"Richard said the black box only reported a sudden decompression event and there was nothing reported by the crew beforehand. Doesn't that sound odd to you?" Happy asked.
"You think Richard is lying to us?" Toby asked. "I assure you he was telling us the truth."
"What if he wasn't told the whole truth? Or what if the people investigating the data files didn't know what to look for?" Happy asked even as she used the tools of Walter's portal to break through Elia Corporation's server.
"Huh, so you think there might be a conspiracy afoot?" Toby asked as he sat on the bed close to Happy.
"Think about it, murdered pilots? Missing uniforms? Either that or someone isn't smart enough to properly analyze the data." Happy told him.
He watched as Happy blew through every security protocol of the server with Walter's hacking portal doing the heavy lifting. She located the files containing cockpit conversations. She pulled the file up and set it to about ten minutes before the event and pressed play.
"They sound pretty calm." Toby said as they listened. "I'm not hearing anything in their voices that would mean they were scared or worried. Nothing threatening from or to them."
"You're not listening Toby." Happy hissed at him as she grabbed a pencil and then stopped the file. She backed it up to about twenty minutes from the event and pressed play again.
"What do you think you are hearing?" Toby asked as they listened for several minutes. He hadn't heard anything different.
"Shhhh." Happy swore and backed the track up and started again.
Toby frowned but then noticed she was making marks on a piece of paper as she was listening. He looked and just saw 1s and 0s. Toby's head tilted a bit as he listened harder and then he heard it. A faint clicking noise.
"What is that?" Toby asked.
"Damn it Toby. Either shut up or leave the room." Happy demanded as she paused and reset the file. She turned the volume up louder and pressed play again. She went back over the 1s and 0s as it played again.
Toby heard a noise and looked to the door and saw Ralph and Veronica. He stood and stepped out into the hallway.
"What's going on?" Ralph asked quietly after hearing Happy tell Toby to shut up.
"She's found some kind of signal inside the voice recording of the plane's cockpit crew." Toby told them quietly.
Ralph and Veronica both gasped as they looked into the room.
They watched for several minutes as Happy dutifully recorded whatever she heard and then she reset it and played it again to make sure she got everything she thought was from a repeating message.
Ralph stepped into the room as Happy pulled up something on the computer. He saw the paper with all the 1s and 0s.
"Is that Morse code?" Ralph asked, looking at it.
Happy shook her head.
"It is ascii code. Well binary code, but I believe it is in relation to the ascii code." Happy told him.
"Ascii code? What is that?" Veronica asked.
"It's how the computer represents the different characters of a keyboard. Morse code is too recognizable. Walter would have used ascii to help disguise what he was doing." Happy told her as she pulled up a chart of codes and began writing the corresponding characters out.
"Plane hi-jacked. Working on escape plan. We love you." Happy read out from the paper.
"All those 1s and 0s to say just that?" Toby asked.
"No, it takes two sets of four 1s and/or 0s to represent the ascii code so it takes a lot more to get the message across. But I'm guessing Walter made the message on his phone and somehow looped it after splicing it into the communications systems." Happy told him as she turned and began using Walter's tools to hack into a satellite registry.
"What are you doing now pumpkin?" Ralph asked as he read the message she translated.
"The system recorded a decompression event. You can't fake that. Something did happen on that plane after Walter got that message playing. I'm going to hack one of the spy satellites and I am going to find my sister." Happy told him.
"Sweetheart." Veronica said softly.
"No! My sister is not dead. She's alive. And since everyone else is giving up, she and her baby need me to find them." Happy told them.
Veronica gasped even as Ralph stood up straight.
"Say that again?" Ralph demanded.
Happy sighed as she continued hacking.
"Paige told me the other day she was three months pregnant. They got a delivery date of December 7th." Happy told them.
"Where would you even begin to look?" Toby asked.
"Giving Walter ten minutes to record the message and get it looping into the system, he'd then begin to implement his plan to escape." Happy told him as she did some quick weather searches. "I'd estimate fifteen minutes to make their escape. So I am locating where the plane's GPS put it at that moment. I'm also pulling up the weather conditions for that location. Now taking into account their body weight, air pressure, wind velocity and direction. Their parachutes should have them land somewhere East of Taipei. Yonaguni is an island that would be closest to them."
"But that's a populated island…shouldn't someone have, I don't know, noticed two or more people parachuting into their vicinity?" Toby asked.
"Right now I don't know. All I have are facts. Facts that tell me that Walter, the smartest man we know was aware they were in trouble. He would have found a way out of it…for Paige and their baby at least, if he couldn't save himself as well." Happy told them. "Everything else is math and timing."
Toby pulled out his phone and pulled up his contacts and pressed the dial icon.
"Toby?" Sylvester answered his phone, it was very early in the morning for Sylvester.
"Sly, I need your brain. You remember my friends, Walter and Paige? They got married the other day. Their plane was lost at sea yesterday morning if you hadn't heard. We know Walter and Paige knew something was wrong on their flight. Happy is convinced that Walter would have gotten them out of the plane with parachutes. We could use your math skills to figure out where they might have landed." Toby told him quickly.
Sylvester got out of bed and turned on his desk lamp as he grabbed his pencil and sat down. He began asking for different variables.
Greetings! I hope this finds you all well! Well, that happened...And just wanted to remind you in case you hadn't seen it, the 1st link in my profile will take you to the picture of Walter and Paige from the wedding!
Champagne42 - Yes, yes I did. lol Thank you! So glad you enjoyed it! I'm going to guess you didn't enjoy this chapter as much...Yup, that's exactly why it was a little snug! lol As revealed in 2 previous chapters. hehe Paige definitely knows her Nerd!
Susan - Thank you! So glad you enjoyed it! Wouldn't it be nice to have been able to see the wedding?
Chipbass - Thank you brother! And now the wait is over...kind of...lol
Pearliegirl - Thank you! So glad you enjoyed it! Oh the story is long from over and little Ralph is some chapters to come. The story is only written to about the middle of July and that's about 10 more chapters. Looks like I'll be posting all of them as I'm not done with the new story and then I've got to wait on the Muse to finish telling 2005 of Callan.
Guest197 - Thank you! So glad you enjoyed it! Hrmm...Good question. Of all the backstory I have made for them, I haven't given Callan in either Knight story any thoughts. Without any direct family there, not sure they'd ever visit.
LouBe - hehe Glad you enjoyed it! Yup, Paige knows her Nerd! The Muse just grinned really big at you. lol Oh for sure some people do like the smell of asphalt. Back in the day, I used to actually like the fumes while pumping gas...for a few moments anyway. Weird how those smells can hit you differently. Sadly that was one service that died out before others. I don't think we have a full service gas station anywhere around here anymore. We had one until about 2010-2012. A man who was probably 10-15 years older than me ran a full service station until then. Not sure if he died or just retired but sold it and it quickly became another convenience stop.
Railman - Yup, the workers were a bit of a blessing amongst all of it! Yes, thank you to you and LouBe for help with some of my research! Well they were going so well until this chapter. lol
To the Adventure! -Tim