Chapter IV

~IV~


Swarms of police cars with lights flashing greeted Trey as he got off the hotel van in front of the Radisson. There were several unmarked cars as well, and a giant hearse that had “Platte County Coroner” written across the side. Trey went inside.

In the lobby, he saw two visibly upset flight attendants sitting in a couple of overstuffed chairs. Someone, obviously a Liberty Air supervisor of some kind, was consoling them.

Assisting was Bob Hargrove, the Captain from last night at the bar, and the female first officer he hadn’t recognized. Trey approached the pilots.

“Bob, I came as soon as I could. I’m with the CIRT team, and I want to help in anyway that I can.”

“Trey.” Bob’s voice was shaky. “It’s bad, man.”

“Okay, Bob. Just calm down. Tell me what happened.”

“The li’l gal was supposed to be workin’ with us back to Dallas today. She missed her lobby so I phoned her room to make sure she was on her way down. There was no answer, so I went upstairs. I wasn’t worried or nuthin’, shucks, flight attendants are always late to lobby. I just figured she was in the shower. I knocked and knocked but she didn’t answer. I started to get worried, so I had security open the room just to make sure she wasn’t there—”

Bob stopped and swallowed, but his throat was dry. He was visibly upset.

“Its okay, Bob. Just take your time.”

“There was blood everywhere.”

The voice was not Bob’s east Texas drawl. It came from his female first officer. She was a petite woman in her mid twenties with blonde bobbed hair and tan skin. She was average looking; not playboy material, but fit. She obviously worked out regularly.

“Trey West, with the CIRT team.” Trey extended his hand to the female pilot.

“Anne Bateman.” Her handshake was very firm, like that of a woman trying to assert that she belonged in a male dominated career field. She managed a weak, forced smile, but her eyes dispelled any thought of warmth. Trey saw that her eyes were dark orbs, almost black. Dark and cold. They reminded Trey of something, but he couldn’t place what it was. Her eyes lacked any emotion at all; not sadness, anger, fear, or hate. There was no emotion in them at all. Trey realized she must be in shock.

Bob continued describing the scene in a hushed voice, as if in a daze. He had resumed speaking before Trey and Anne had finished their introductions.

“Trey, I’ve hunted a lot a deer in my time, and I’ve gutted ‘em out and hung ‘em up in the huntin’ camp hundreds of times. And that’s just what I saw in there. God. Poor Mandy.”

He couldn’t seem to go on.

Trey turned to the co-pilot, who finished describing the scene.

“Her arms were handcuffed to the shower head and she was sliced open and disemboweled.”

“Oh my God.” Trey’s mouth dropped open. It took a second for the horror to sink in. Then Trey’s CIRT training took over.

“Here, let me get you both some coffee. Have a seat and try to relax. Have the police taken your statements yet? We’re pulling you guys from the rest of your trip, with pay of course. When you’re ready, you can catch the next plane to Dallas. I want you to take as much time off as you need. I’ll be in touch with the Special Services committee today and they’ll be arranging for some trauma counseling for you both. Next week I’ll be meeting with you again so we can debrief a little more. Right now I want you guys to just try to relax.”

A plain clothes policeman approached the group of pilots and introduced himself to Trey.
“Detective Millard Jennings, Kansas City homicide. I’ve just got some questions for these two, and we’ll be through with them for today.”

“I understand, Detective. I’m Captain Trey West, representing the Liberty Airline Pilot’s Association. If there is anything I can do to help in your investigation, I’m at your service. My first duty, however, is to see to the needs of my pilots. They need some rest, and I’d like them to be able to go home as soon as feasible. When you have what you need, of course.”

“Of course.” The detective launched right into his routine. “I tried to speak to the pilots earlier,” he pointed to Bob, “but Captain Hargrove asked that he and the first officer be allowed to wait for a union representative before making any statements. Would that be you?”

“Yes. If we could just have a few more minutes, Detective, we’ll be ready to answer your questions. First, though, we are waiting for our attorney to arrives. It should be any minute now.”

“An attorney? They’re not under arrest, Captain.”

“I understand that, sir. It’s just a position and a service that the union provides whenever something traumatic like this occurs. Our attorney will be arriving shortly. My pilots will speak to you then.”

The detective scowled. At that very instant, a sharp dressed man with a leather briefcase entered the hotel lobby, followed by a mob of press. Uniformed police sequestered the group back outside, but let the businessman through. His hair was expertly coiffed and he was immaculate and professional looking, wearing an Italian suit with well polished loafers. He extended his hand as he approached Captain West.

“Enoch Lowen, attorney on retainer for Liberty Air Pilot’s Association. Ben Nichols phoned me and I got over here as fast as I could.”

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Lowen. Trey West, Critical Incident Response Team.” Trey introduced the attorney to Bob and Anne, and then sat with them as they told the attorney what had happened. Moments later, the attorney called the detective over, who commenced asking his questions. It took the better part of half an hour.

Near the end the questioning, as the detective wrapped up some final details, Trey stole away to meet with the woman who had been helping the flight attendants. Her nametag read Angela Washington, and underneath it was written Manager, Ramp and Operations. She also wore a red ID card that proclaimed in big bold white letters MCI CIRT. MCI was the airport identifier for Kansas City International Airport, and CIRT indicated she was on the Critical Incident Response Team. Liberty Air had CIRT personnel designated in each of the cities they flew to. In MCI, it was Angela Washington. She was a tall black woman, and her closely cropped hair told Trey that she was all business, but she belied that impression with her compassion toward the distraught flight attendants.

“Hello, Captain West. Captain Nichols told be to be expecting you.” She gestured toward the flight attendants. “The two girls are pretty shaken up. I’m trying to calm them until a CIRT representative from their union can get here from Midway to attend to them.” Chicago’s Midway airport was the closest flight attendant crew base, and like all crew bases, was staffed with CIRT members for the various employee unions.

“How much of the scene did they see?” Trey was thinking about the horrors that Bob and Anne had described earlier.

“Captain Hargrove wisely kept them away when he and the security guard went in the room, so they didn’t see the details. They just know she’s dead.”

“Okay. If you like, when I’m done with the pilots, I’ll sit with the girls until their rep arrives.”

Angela agreed.

Trey went back to Bob and Anne as they finished their statements with the detective. The two expressed their desire to continue their flight schedule for the day, but relented when Trey insisted that the union’s policy was that they were done flying for the day. He explained their rationale.

“We’re just trying to protect you and the passengers from any delayed response that might occur. You might feel okay right now, but there’s the danger of a delayed response to what you have witnessed today. It would be best for everyone if you just dead-head back to Dallas.”

Trey assured them that the CIRT chairman back at headquarters was already making arrangements for their trips to be covered with full pay. Finally, the flight crew relented, and Trey rode with them to the airport and put them on a flight leaving for Dallas. On the way back to the airport Trey called Paul Jacobs, the Dallas CIRT representative, and coordinated for the two pilots to be met in Dallas.

When Trey got back to the hotel where the murder had occurred, he was swamped by media crews with cameras rolling. He addressed them all with a single statement.

“Liberty Airlines has no comments at this time.”

“What about LAPA?” It was spectacled young reporter with a handheld recorder.
“The Liberty Airlines Pilots Association has no comment.”

“ALFA?” the reporter countered. He seemed hung up on acronyms.

“The Association of Liberty Flight Attendants has no comment at this time.”

Reporters shouted dozens of other questions but Trey rebuffed them with numerous “No’s” and a continual shaking of his head. Finally he broke free and left them behind, outside the lobby doors.

Passing a policeman guarding the entrance, Trey hurried inside and saw that Olivia Vasquez had arrived. She was the CIRT Flight Attendant representative from Midway. Trey had worked with her on a critical incident several years ago, where a flight attendant had committed suicide on her layover. Trey liked Olivia, mostly because she had experience in CISM, Critical Incident Stress management. Olivia had worked at American Airlines years before, and had been one of the flight attendants to survive the wind shear disaster that had occurred at DFW airport.

Olivia nodded when she saw Trey, and continued to comfort the upset attendants. Trey saw the girls were in good hands, so he called his boss back to make sure all the bases were covered.

“I’ve got the pilots headed home to Dallas Love Field, and Paul Jacobs is going to meet them and get them home. Do we have someone notifying Mandy White’s family?”

Trey and Ben discussed the details of the CIRT response until Trey was interrupted.

“Captain West?” It was detective Jennings.

Trey remarked how the detective lacked any fashion sense. He was a round man, dressed in a cream colored shirt with the sleeves rolled up, dark brown slacks and shoes, and a brown knit tie. He looked like he stepped right off the set of the old TV show Dragnet. Trey wondered if the detective also patterned his investigative skills after Joe Friday and Bill Gannon. The detective’s eyes were shiny behind thick rimmed tortoise shell glasses that made his eyes look unnaturally large. He seemed eager to share something.

“Captain West?” he said again as he approached.

“Ben, I’ll get back to you later.” Trey hung up his cell phone. “Yes detective? How can I assist you? If there’s any more information you need, I’ll be glad to give it to you—”

“Would you like to see the crime scene?”

Trey wasn’t sure he’d heard the detective right. “Excuse me?”

“Would you like to see the crime scene?”

“Are you serious? I didn’t think you would let me near it after the way I brought that attorney in here.”

Anger flashed in the detective’s eyes, but was immediately replaced with a look of smugness, as if the cop was eager to portray himself as in control of the situation in the hotel.

“I spoke with your boss earlier, Captain Nichols I think his name was, and he told me you have some FBI law enforcement background. I thought you might want to take a look.”

“Well, it’s really just a degree in criminal justice. I was a pilot for the FBI fifteen years ago. I couldn’t even pretend to be able to do your job, detective—”

“I’m not exactly asking you to join the team. But I’ll allow you up there for a moment, just as an observer.”

Trey sensed the detective strutting a little. It was as if he was dying to show somebody his crime scene.

“All right then, detective. I’d like to see the scene.”

The detective led him up the elevator and through the uniformed officers and other plainclothes men on the third floor. He stopped at the hotel room door where the murder had occurred and turned to Trey.

“Don’t touch anything. We haven’t finished dusting for prints yet. Put these gloves on, just to be sure.” The detective handed Trey some sterile surgical gloves. “And one more thing,” he said with a wry smile as he grasped the doorknob behind his back, “just so we understand each other. I won’t try to play pilot on your aircraft, and you don’t try to play detective on my murder.”

“Understood.”

Trey followed the detective down the hallway and onto the elevator. He wondered if he would be sorry he had agreed to this.

Chapter III

~III~


The return flight to Kansas City was uneventful. It went quickly for Trey, whose mind was pre-occupied with the business card and the phone number. Marjorie confirmed during the flight that Sarah had given her explicit instructions to give the card to Trey.

“Sounds like she likes you,” Marjorie had teased. She was the grandmotherly type, right down to the reading glasses that dangled from a beaded chain around her neck, and the tone suited her perfectly.

“Trey!”

“What?”

“Descend to Flight Level 240 and contact Kansas City Center on 135.5.”

“Oh yeah. Sorry Tom, didn’t hear it. I guess my mind was elsewhere.”

Trey had twice missed the radio call from Kansas City. Tom had been forced to answer the call although it was Trey’s turn to answer the radios while Tom flew.
The remainder of the flight went more routinely, until Trey taxied the aircraft up to the gate in Kansas City and the operations agent stepped into the cockpit.

“Captain West, telephone call for you in the jetway.”

“Don’t tell me. Scheduling? That’s all I need, to be rerouted—”

“No sir, it’s not scheduling.”

Trey went and picked up the phone.

“Trey, Ben Nichols. We’ve had a situation, and I’m activating you as part of the Critical Incident Response Team.”

“Aircraft accident? I’m ready to copy the details.”

“It’s not an accident, Trey. Not an aircraft accident, that is.”

“What’s up?’

There was a pause on the line.

“There’s been a murder.”

“A murder? I don’t understand.”

“Trey, a flight attendant was murdered. Her name was Mandy White. She failed to show up for her hotel lobby time and they found her in her room. It’s pretty grisly. I’m assembling a CIRT team to head to the scene.”

“Tell me where and I’ll be on the next plane.”

“That’s the funny thing. You’re already there.”

“It happened here? In Kansas City?”

“Yeah. At the Radisson Airport Hotel.”

“Oh, man, I was just there last night.”

“I know.”

Captain Nichols explained the plan. “Angela Washington is already headed from the airport to the hotel to secure the flight attendants. I need you to secure the pilot crew, Captain Bob Hargrove and First Officer Anne Bateman. We’ve retained an attorney who is headed to the hotel, too. Call me after you’ve taken care of the pilots.”

Trey hung up and went back to the cockpit and told Tom that something had come up and he had been pulled to assist as part of the CIRT, the Critical Incident Response Team.

“I can’t say anymore right now, but you’ll hear about it soon enough.”

Trey grabbed his bags and deplaned and told the ops agent as they walked together up the jetway that a captain off of another flight would be arriving soon to take over. Trey winced as he dragged his bags. He could hear the second ops agent, who had just arrived, telling Marjorie in the forward galley that a flight attendant had been murdered. News traveled fast in the airline business. Word would be out all across the system before Trey even made it back to the hotel.

Critical Incident, Chapter Two

~II~


“What the hell are you doing?”

Trey sat up in bed and saw that it was his wife Corinne who was yelling at him.

“What the hell are you doing?” she repeated, her blonde, curly hair shaking with rage. “You bastard!”

Trey couldn’t figure out what she was yelling about. He turned, and recognized that he was in his own bed at home. Danni, their cat, was curled up in one of the two wingback chairs that were lit by the rising sun coming through the windows of their bedroom. Everything seemed normal, until Trey looked beside him and saw Air Marshal Sarah asleep under the covers. Sarah Collins was asleep in his bed.

“How could you do this to me?” his wife screamed.

Trey saw the tears running down his wife’s face. He was speechless. It felt like he couldn’t talk at all. He tried to explain, but no words would come out. Corinne just stood there and cried. A loud buzzing began to drown out her sobs. She turned, and he saw the blood on the side of her head from the car accident.

“I’m sorry honey. I can explain. It’s not what you think.” Trey began speaking to her now, but she couldn’t hear him over the loud buzzing. He met her brown eyes and saw the hurt in them. He wanted so much to make that hurt go away. The damn buzzing!

Trey realized it was the alarm clock.

It was early. Trey turned off the alarm. He sat up in bed and tried to wipe the dream out of his eyes. He recognized he was in a hotel room, and quickly remembered he was in Kansas City. He wasn’t at home in bed, but the rest of the dream still seemed real. He lay back in bed and held his head in his hands. His thoughts drifted from Sarah to Corinne, his late wife. He tried to take in the dream, remember her as if she were still alive, freeze her image in his mind, but he couldn’t. The dream was already starting to fade.

The alarm went off at his bedside again. He had hit the snooze button. He turned it off, climbed out of bed, and staggered to the bathroom. His head ached, and he needed caffeine. He was too lazy to use the coffee pot in the room. He would have to try for some later in the lobby.

Trey always set three alarms when he flew a.m. trips. He used the room’s alarm clock, his cell phone alarm, and a wake-up call, because he found he slept easier knowing there was less chance he would oversleep and miss his lobby time in the morning. He turned on the shower as the phone rang with his second wake-up call. “I’m up,” he said out loud to the recording at the other end of the line. He hated early mornings. He turned off his cell phone alarm before it had a chance to go off, noting with a twinge of sadness that no one had called or left a message. After almost a year, he still found himself looking to see if his wife had called. Old habit, he thought, but he still felt the ache inside. He missed her calls.

After a quick shower and shave, Trey ironed his shirt and threw on his uniform. His thoughts drifted again from Corinne to Sarah. He packed up his suitcase and was out the door. He stepped off the elevator and walked to the lobby, noting he had ten minutes before the van was scheduled to leave for the airport. Enough time for coffee. He glanced around the lobby, but he was the only one present. He half hoped he would see Sarah. As he poured a cup from the pot near the front desk, he saw three flight attendants enter the lobby. Right behind them was Tom Snyder, his first officer

“Coffee’s here if anyone wants any.”

“Thanks. Where you guys headed today?” It was one of the flight attendants, a matronly woman with silver hair, dressed in a well-starched oxford button down uniform shirt.

“Chicago and back, Nashville, and then finally Indianapolis. How about you?”

“We’re with you all the way. I’m Marjorie Hibberd, flying the A position. This is Sylvia Larson, your B, and this is Wendy Arnold, flying C.” Trey shook hands as he introduced himself to the other two flight attendants, who were much younger and more attractive than Marjorie. Sylvia was the stereotypical flight attendant, blonde, big hair, tight shorts and nothing upstairs. She was breaking a donut in half to share with Wendy, a petite brunette with olive skin and little makeup, nor a need for it.

“Trey West. Nice to meet you all. This is Tom Snyder,” Trey indicated to his FO, a tall, thin, balding man with an adam’s apple that looked like a golf ball had got lodged in his throat. Tom was busy collecting his guitar case that had fallen off the back of his roller bag suitcase.

Everyone laughed at Tom, who looked like Charlie Chaplin as he fumbled with each of his three bags in attempt to get them to all balance on the back of his roller bag.
“Hi,” he managed to stammer as he struggled with his things.

“Is he new?” Marjorie whispered to Trey, while Wendy and Sylvia giggled.

“No, though you wouldn’t know it by watching him!”

The hotel van pulled up outside the lobby and the five flight crew members walked outside with their bags. It was five a.m. and still dark out. The van driver loaded their bags and headed out for the short trip to the airport.

The flight crew breezed through security, except for Trey, who set off the metal detector with his name tag and had to be wanded. Trey was one of the few pilots that still wore the metal nametag, but it was a thing of pride with him and he refused to take it off even if it meant additional security screening. To him, it was the principle of the thing. It was part of his uniform. If the TSA agents wanted the hassle of extra work having to wand a pilot, then have at it.

Trey found it ludicrous that the TSA agents were wanding him for weapons or for something he might use to take over the aircraft with. “I’m the pilot, for Pete’s sake,” he had commented one time during a wand down. “I can take over the aircraft with just my two hands! I am already in charge of the aircraft! What more could I want?” That had gotten him in even more trouble. He wouldn’t say that today. He quietly stood with his arms outstretched as they passed the wand over him, front and back. They engaged in mundane conversation, but he wouldn’t talk to them; they were trying to smell his breath for alcohol. He wasn’t worried about alcohol on his breath; his last drink had been with Sarah Collins almost fourteen hours ago, but he didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of screening him in that way.

Finally, he passed through security, found the departure gate and the rest of his crew, and the operations agent let them down the jetway to the aircraft. Trey remained in the jetway while Tom entered to fire up the aircraft systems and the three flight attendants boarded and stowed their bags.

“Would you like any coffee?” Marjorie asked as she set up the front galley.

“I’d love some. It’s my one vice; the only thing that gets me through these a.m. trips.”

Trey stowed his gear and set up his cockpit as the ops agent began boarding the passengers. It was a light load; only 57 people. They’d be buttoned up and in the air right on time at 6:00.

“Got a couple of FAM’s to bring down before we start boarding, Captain.”

“Okay,” Trey replied, “Bring them on down.”

When Trey turned around after checking some last switches in the cockpit, his eyes lit up.

“Hi Trey.”

Standing in the cockpit doorway was Sarah Collins. She had a grin from ear to ear.

“Sarah, how are you?” Trey broke out in a matching smile. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m working, silly! I’m working this flight to Midway.”

“You’ve got to be kidding! Did you know last night you were working my flight?”

“No! Not until I walked on the airplane this morning. I never thought to ask you where you were headed today. This is quite a treat. I get to see you in action!”
Sarah showed Trey her Federal Air Marshall badge as a formality, and then introduced her partner, Brian Welch, who looked every inch the part of the ex-marine that he was, with a buzz cut and a cheap blue sport coat over a gray golf shirt. Brian ended all of his sentences with sir, or ma’am, but Trey wasn’t fooled. He wouldn’t want to be some guy on the wrong side of the law meeting this guy in a dark alley.
“I’m sure you know the drill, Trey. There’s no specific threat for this flight; nothing out of the ordinary. Brian and I will be sitting up front, and we’ll let the flight attendants handle any passenger problems in their own way. As you know, we’re here to prevent access to the cockpit. But if the flight attendants need our assistance, we will be glad to provide it.”

“Sounds like the standard spiel. Sarah, this is Marjorie, the A flight attendant.”

The two women shook hands, and then Marjorie went back to tell the other two flight attendants about the FAM’s. Air Marshal Welch began stowing his gear in the second row of seats. Trey and Sarah continued talking in the forward galley. She had just a medium sized leather shoulder bag and the black purse she had had last night at the bar. She looked very professional in her navy blue pant suit, with her hair in a tight pony tail. Trey thought she looked great.

“I really enjoyed last night,” Sarah volunteered, reaching out and placing her hand on Trey’s forearm.

“I did too.” Trey remembered the touch from last night.

There was a moment of awkward silence.

“Maybe we can do it again sometime,” Trey said shyly.

“I’d really like that.”

“Me too.”

The ops agent came back down the jetway with the first of the pre-board passengers, an elderly woman in a wheelchair.

“I guess I better grab my seat,” Sarah remarked to Trey.

“Okay. I’ll try to visit some more with you when we get to Chicago Midway.” Trey turned to climb back into his seat in the cockpit.

“Trey?”

Trey turned back. “Yes, Sarah.”

“Your nametag. ‘E. A. West III’. What’s the E. A. stand for?”

“That’s my embarrassing little secret. No one but my mother knows, and she’s not telling!”

“Okay, I’ll take the challenge. I’m gonna get you to tell me one of these days!”
Sarah headed for her seat, but turned back again.

“One more thing, Trey. Don’t forget your landing gear.”

“Okay,” Trey said with a laugh. “Now go sit down or I’ll have to call security because you’re trying to delay the flight.”

Sarah smiled and took her aisle seat on the second row back, across from her partner.

Trey wanted to chat more with Sarah, but he had a plane to get ready for takeoff. He returned to his seat and finished his checks.

Twenty minutes later, the Boeing 737-700 lifted off the runway, climbing easily in the cool morning air of early May. It would be different next month, when the June heat would start to reduce the aircraft’s performance. But for now, the cool weather made the flight smooth. The sun rose outside first officer Tom’s window as the two pilots climbed to a cruise altitude of 37,000 feet. Trey turned on the autopilot and leaned his seat back.

“How was the bar last night?” Tom inquired.

“Not bad. Good food anyway. Not many crews though. Saw Bob Hargrove down there.”

“I don’t know him. Is he San Antonio based?”

“Dallas. Lives in east Texas. Pretty nice guy; you’d like flying with him.”

The conversation ended, and the cockpit grew silent except for the noise of the wind on the windscreen. Trey and Tom had flown all month together and had exhausted most of the common topics between crewmembers: Family, background, union stuff, and the latest gossip. It was not unusual for the rest of the hour-long flight to go quietly except for the reading of the checklist. The two pilots just stared out the window and fell into their own thoughts. The quiet was okay with Trey. It gave him a chance to think about the dream he’d had earlier that morning.

Trey thought about his wife. He missed her. His dreams of her were few and far between, and he usually treasured them as the only jewels of her he had left. But this time it was different. It had only been a dream, but it had hurt. She had been crying. The hurt wasn’t as bad as it had been upon awakening. But it hung around like a dull ache, a homesick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
As he monitored the gauges of the 737, Trey shifted his thoughts of the dream to the image of Sarah in bed next to him. Where had that come from? Trey thought he knew the answer, but was surprised with himself. For the first time since his wife’s death, he found he was attracted to another woman. He had a stack of flight attendant phone numbers next to his bed at home, but just hadn’t felt remotely interested in them. Now, he felt differently. He realized he wanted to spend more time with Sarah. But how? She lived in Fort Worth. It wa¬s several hours north of San Antonio, but he could manage it. He was getting way ahead of himself. How did he know she felt the same way? Trey had a weird feeling, and then recognized it. He felt just like he did in the sixth grade when he had a crush on Becky Thomas. It felt silly, Trey thought, but it also felt good.

The weather was nice all the way to Chicago, and in an hour they landed. Trey got on the wheel brakes right after touchdown because Midway’s runway 31 Center was only 6500 feet long, one of the shortest in the system. They cleared the runway and pulled into gate B3. After finishing the post flight checklist, Trey jumped out of the cockpit hoping to say goodbye to Sarah, but the first several rows of passengers had already deplaned. Trey stepped into the jetway and found Sarah waiting for him. He tried to hide his rush to find her.

“So … where does the rest of the day take you?” Trey asked in a tone that sounded a little too nonchalant.

“We’re working an ATA flight to Newark and laying over there.”

“I go back to Kansas City and then do two more to Indianapolis—”

“C’mon Sarah, we don’t have much time to make the next flight!” Sarah’s partner sounded agitated as he waited, farther up the jetway.

“Well rats. Trey, I have to run. I hope to see you around the system!”

“Me too.” There was a pause. “Sarah?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, nothing. I hope the rest of your day goes well.”

“You too.” Sarah seemed just the slightest bit disappointed. She hesitated to leave, but Trey said nothing more, so she turned away. She looked back with a smile and waved as she walked up the jetway in the midst of the rest of the deplaning passengers. Seconds later she was gone.

Trey went back to the cockpit, slumped into the seat, and pouted until right up to push time for the next flight. He was mad at himself for not having the guts to ask the question he had been dying to ask all morning: For her phone number. Now she was gone. The first opportunity he had felt ready to respond to, and he had let it slip away. He just sat dejectedly for a while. Finally, he ran through his pre-flight checks, saying a silent prayer.

“If it’s meant to be, I’ll see her again.”

The plane boarded up and the ops agent threw in the load sheet with the weight and balance numbers. While Tom took the load sheet and began calculating the takeoff speeds, Marjorie threw in a beverage napkin with the passenger count on it.
“137; a full boat,” she said.

“Thanks, Marjorie,” Trey answered. Talk to you in the air.”

Marjorie backed up to close the cockpit door. “Oh, one more thing.” She threw something else down on the center instrument console. “That’s for you, Captain West.” She slammed the cockpit door and was gone.

Trey looked down. On the center console was a business card. He picked it up.



Department of Homeland Security
Transportation Security Administration
Sarah A. Collins
Federal Air Marshall
South Central Region, Fort Worth Texas


He turned the card over. On the back there was a hand written number.
(214) 555-0806

Trey smiled.