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Chapter 11

"Test Run or Not?"

The idea that the attack on Philippine Airlines Flight 434 being a test run wasn't all that surprising, given that bombing airliners was Team Rocket's bread and butter in order to take Pokemon from their dead trainers. What's more, was that this nearly succeeded joining their earlier conquests of bombing Air India Flight 182 nearly ten years earlier and of course, Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie nearly seven years earlier.

To further clarify our beliefs, we headed over to a nearby US Military base on the island to see if there were any submarines in the area.

"Private, do you see anything?" Lucy asked as we reviewed the undersea footage from the time leading up to the bombing.

"Hmm," muttered the private, before a pair of objects appeared on the screen. "Wait a second. These two."

Looking closely, we could see that the objects were displaying fins that stick out, a sign that Team Rocket submarines were in the area at the time of the bombing.

"One of them looks like a Magikarp and the other looks like a Gyarados," I remarked. "Yep, that's definitely them. Same thing after Air India."

"Our counterparts also detected these submarines off the coast of Ireland after the Pan Am 103 bombing. So, these guys were waiting for the plane to come down."

Just then, the commander of the military base arrived on the scene.

"Detective Goodman?" he asked, causing my dad to turn towards him. "Commander Frank McBragg of Joint Base Okinawa. I was told you'd be here."

"Commander."

Walking back towards the radar, there was a good reason why Commander McBragg was expecting us.

"Did you show them that footage, Private?"

"Yes, sir."

"So, according to this radar, Team Rocket agents were indeed stationed in the path of Flight 434," I remarked. "But if this was a test run, I would say that they were expecting the plane to come down, which it didn't."

Then Lucy began to think back to the moment of the explosion aboard the plane. It could be that the Golem chosen may have been trying to fight the temptation of being mind controlled to kill people.

"I think there may be a reason for it," she said. "If a Pokemon were to use explosion, I probably wouldn't be standing here right now."

"What are you saying?" I wondered, thinking why my girlfriend would bring up something like this.

"I'm saying, Tim," Lucy explained. "That Team Rocket trains explosive Pokemon to use Explosion which causes the aircraft to blow apart in flight. However, it appears the attack used on my flight was not explosion, but self-destruct, which only causes significant damage."

This right here was a dead giveaway because Team Rocket's thrives on a mind controlled Pokemon to use explosion to destroy the aircraft entirely, but the Golem used self-destruct, meaning that either the mind control had a flaw or the Golem was strong enough to resist the control.

"Well, there is another sign that the Golem may have been stolen from it's trainer and then forced into serving Team Rocket," I wondered. "So now what do we do?"

"We find the Golem's trainer," my dad declared. "Thank you, commander."

Bidding Commander McBragg goodbye, we left the base and returned to Naha Airport, now with the determination to find the stolen Golem's trainer.

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Meanwhile, Ramzi had returned back to Manila and was now on his way back to his hideout in the city. The news that Flight 434 made an emergency landing gave him a mixed reaction. On one hand his test was a success in terms of causing severe damage. But on the other hand, his intentions were to destroy the plane altogether and kill everyone on board.

"There must be some way to make a Pokemon use explosion," he thought. "There has to be a way."

Arriving back at his hideout, Ramzi was determined to find that loophole…

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