“Think nothing of it, Candace.” Ian’s bad breath wafted over to her when he leaned toward her.
“With all due respect, sir, it’s a violation of FAA regs to have non-airline personnel traveling on the flight deck during operations,” the first officer said.
“Is that so? The tradition’s always been captain’s discretion with another pilot. She’s a Pan Am alum. Now flies interisland in Hawaii.”
Please, Ian, don’t do this to me again. “Somebody has to man the hardship outposts of the world,” Faith said.
“Art just rated on the 727. He’s been flying the little buggers for years for Pan Am Express.”
“So, you fly in Paradise? You weren’t the lady pilot who brought in that convertible Boeing, were you?” Kivisto said.
“As a matter of fact, she’s the very one.” Ian smiled, revealing his yellowed front teeth.
“You know I don’t like to talk about it.” Faith forced a smile when she really wanted to snarl at Ian.
“That’s not what Ian’s told me,” Frosty said with a conspiratorial grin.
The flight attendant stuck her head into the cockpit, much to Faith’s relief. “The final count is seventy-two and eighteen.” She glared at Faith. “And one non-revenue.”
“Almost a full house,” Ian said. “Let’s finish the checklist so we can get this bird in the air.”
“Bugs?” Frosty drew out the word, emphasizing his southern drawl.
“One-four-one and one-fifty-three,” the first officer said. He moved markers on one of the many indicators.
Ian repeated the settings.
“Pitot heat?” Frosty said.
“Pitot heat on.” First Officer Kivisto flipped two switches on the far right of the overhead panel.
They finished the checklist routine and within minutes the plane pushed back and taxied toward the runway. Ahead of them, an Air France Airbus lifted effortlessly into the sky. Faith noted that the first officer was flying the plane today. She would’ve preferred Ian and his years of experience. She was fascinated by aviation, but an uneasy passenger. She’d studied the numbers and she knew the odds were that she could fly every day for nineteen thousand years before being in a crash. Statistics aside, ever since she was a child, she’d known in her gut that it wasn’t going to take her that long to meet fate.
“Roger that. Clipper six-three-niner cleared for rolling takeoff eight-Romeo.” Ian repeated into his headset and then called out the increasing speed.
The first officer pulled back on the control column. Immediately after becoming airborne, the craft banked right and crossed the Wall into the East. Faith smiled at the West’s Cold War doggedness as the Pan Am Clipper asserted American rights to the skies over all of Berlin. An Allied flagship once again gave the Russians the bird as the jet banked high above the silver television tower at Alex. The plane climbed into the air corridor to cross the GDR to West Germany. Faith struggled to make out the last signs of the division, but the two Berlins blended into one.
“Berlin Centre, Clipper six-three-niner is out of nine thousand for ten,” Ian said into his headset.
The plane soon leveled out to cruising altitude for the corridor, and the first officer turned back toward Faith. “So tell me about that famous flight, Candace. It’s always fascinated me how someone could land that plane, the shape it was in.”
“That’s a beautiful dog.” Faith pointed to the picture of a chocolate Labrador stuck to the right of Frosty’s control panel.
“That’s old Clipper. He’s my best bud. I’d even take him over old Ian here-and that says a lot.”
“That was a 737-300 that lost its top, wasn’t it?” The first officer persisted.
You’ll pay for this, Ian. Faith racked her brains for everything she ever knew about the ill-fated flight. The photo of the open air cabin had etched itself into her mind and flashed into her consciousness every time she flew on an older plane, but the picture was about all she could remember. It happened last year, when she was in Burkina Faso, and the local media hadn’t given it much coverage. She looked at the flight engineer, her eyes pleading for help. He scribbled on his notepad and tipped it toward her. She strained to read the number. “No, it was a… 737-200.” She mouthed a thank-you to Frosty.
“What was your altitude when the decompression occurred?”
“Higher than I would’ve liked. Whoa!” The plane dropped several feet. Her stomach flipped, but she was grateful for the interruption. She stared at three vertical rows of five instruments each. The needles in each row moved in tandem with one another, but she had no idea what they meant. Everyone seemed calm, so she guessed they weren’t going down-yet.
“Sorry. Didn’t see the bump,” Ian said. “I’m afraid it’s going to be a bit choppy today through the corridor. You might want to keep yourself strapped in until we get to Western airspace and can climb out of it. Ten thousand feet doesn’t make sense now with pressurized cabins. The war’s been over for more than forty years. One would think they would have renegotiated a higher ceiling by now.”
“Come on, room to maneuver when we go over the Hartz mountains would take the sport out of it,” Frosty said.
Ian turned back toward Faith. “So, what’s your mother up to nowadays?” Ian exchanged his services as a Bible courier to Moscow for priceless icons Faith’s mother salvaged from rotting Soviet churches. Because Ian’s motivation was less than spiritual, Mama Whitney only used him as a last resort; she even suspected he might be Anglican.
“I have no idea what continent she’s weighing down at the moment. I haven’t had contact with her in years. You know better than to ask.”
“But I always do. She is your mother. She’s in Moscow arranging adoptions of orphans by Americans. I took in some CARE packages for the little ones a few days ago. Adorable little things-you want to take them all home with you.”
“I wonder what she’s really up to. She hates kids-believe me.”
“I don’t understand whatever happened between you.”
“Let’s just say it was one too many exorcisms for me-for her, one too few.”
“If we could only find a happy medium. If you do decide to look her up, it was Nadezhda orphanage somewhere near the Arbat. She’s been running that place for years. You know, there was one curious thing, now that you mention it. I’d always heard about how few caretakers the children have in Russian orphanages, but in your mother’s place there were almost more adults than children. And as I think about it, they all seemed Levantine to me-definitely not Russian.”
“As in one of the Turkic tribes in Central Asia, or do you mean they were Semite?”
“One of those.”
“She’s definitely up to something. So what did she really have you bring in?”
Ian turned to the first officer. “Art, Candace and I are old flames. Would you mind giving us a few minutes alone? Frosty here has heard everything. Don’t mind if he stays.”
“Oh, oh, so sorry. I didn’t realize it. Of course, of course. I’ll go back and talk to the stewardesses. I was hoping to get a chance to go over emergency evacuation procedures with the redhead.” He unfolded himself from the chair and left the cockpit.
“Old flames? Ian, you old dog. Dream on.”
“It brought us some privacy, didn’t it, Candace? And I was friendly with a Candace once, for that matter.”
Frosty swiveled his seat around and extended his hand. “And you must be Faith-the resourceful lady I’ve heard so much about.” He shook her hand again, this time with more vigor.
Ian reported their position and altitude to air traffic control, then returned to the conversation. “I knew you were incognito when I reviewed the manifest and couldn’t find you. Don’t worry about Frosty here. We go all the way back to my Royal Navy days, when I was on a training exchange at White Sands. Now, what is it we’re moving today that warrants an anonymous trip?”