Fly by Wire

Chapter TWENTY-FIVE

It was nearly eleven o'clock when Davis and Sorensen left the hangar.

Winter was taking its grip on the night. The temperature had fallen precipitously and a frigid wind was misery itself. The streetlights overhead blazed bright and a cold drizzle danced in the halos, cyclonic swirls that seemed to spin without ever reaching the ground.

They kept a brisk pace to generate heat, kept their jackets fully zipped to hold it. Davis liked being out in the elements, and so he was glad they hadn't driven. The street they used as a guide ran through a quiet residential district, and Davis was struck by the flow of the place — or lack thereof. It was a spaghetti layout, a thousand-year stitch-work of trails, shops, and homes. Some of it had probably endured Napoleon and the Revolution. Much of it had seen two World Wars. But on this day in history's timeline it was just another neighborhood, patient and still, waiting to witness whatever chaos people thought of next.

Sorensen said, "So tell me, are you going to make a career out of the NTSB?"

He thought about it, but confessed, "I don't really plan that far ahead. I tried to quit a few days ago, but it didn't work out."

She smiled.

"But it s just a matter of time. I'll get fired long before I qualify for any kind of pension."

"Yeah. I bet you will."

"Thanks, Honeywell. I appreciate your confidence."

"And then what?" she asked.

'I'll move on to something else."

"Another temporary job?"

"Like I said, I try not to plan too far ahead. Today, I'm in the field making things a little better. I'm a happy guy. But in my experience, if you stick around any place too long, somebody will try to put you behind a desk. That's the day I move on."

"You'll never get promoted that way."

"That's my advantage. I don't want to get promoted. I've got plenty of friends who are still in the Air Force — lieutenant colonels, full birds, even some one-stars. Most of them are parked on their butts in the Pentagon, writing mission statements and sitting in conferences."

"It can't be all that bad."

"Are you kidding? It's a military officer's gulag. On your performance report they call it 'career broadening.' For me it'd be more like career waterboarding. Nope. I'm right where I want to be — out here in the cold getting things done. But Jen is my wild card. She comes before any of it. With Diane gone, I'm all she's got."

Sorensen nodded. "Your daughter is a lucky girl."

"I don't know. Our home life isn't exactly something Norman Rockwell would have painted."

"Not many are these days."

"Look at me right now. I should be home reading her the riot act about — something." Davis looked skyward. "Or maybe shooting a few hoops in the driveway."

"A good parent has to do both."

He pulled up the collar on his jacket. "Yeah."

They walked in silence for a time. An ancient building of indeterminate use butted up against the road. It looked abandoned, dark, and empty, and its chipped walls rose high, topped at the crest by carvings of leering gargoyles. Farther on, the lane doglegged right and came to be bordered by an amalgam offences and gates and a stone wall that had to be four feet thick, great slabs of Alpine granite. In any big city in the States it would all have been plastered with graffiti and topped by razor wire. Here, unadorned by blight, the borders engaged an Old World feel, a reminder that virtually everything predated those walking past.

Davis finally said, "That file you have on me, Honeywell — it probably didn't explain how I met Diane, did it?"

"No."

"It was during my first assignment after pilot training. One day I was out flying with a new guy in the squadron, Rick Foster. I was a brand new flight lead, Ricky was a lieutenant. Just two kids out having the time of their lives in a couple of F-16s. We were doing a few practice bomb passes — just dry, not releasing anything. I said something on the radio and got no reply. When I looked over my shoulder I saw a smoking hole. No warning. One second he was there. The next he was gone. Just like that."

"What happened?"

"I hadn't gotten into the investigation business yet. The team that looked into it determined that Ricky had his head down, probably distracted by something in the cockpit. Maybe he dropped a pencil or was fiddling with a screwy gauge. He just flew into the ground. Chances are, he never knew until the last moment."

"That's awful."

"Yeah, it was. Unfortunately, it happens all too often." Davis stopped. A few steps on, so did Sorensen. "But the story doesn't quite end there. You see, Diane was Rick's wife."

Sorensen stared at him, clearly searching for something to say. "You married your buddy's widow?"

"Yes."

"That sounds incredibly… chivalrous or something."

"There were people who saw it that way. Others were sure the two of us already had something going on. But none of that was right. I guess I felt some degree of responsibility. Diane and I drank a lot of coffee, had some long talks. It took over a year, but we eventually fell pretty hard for each other. What she and I had was the real thing."

"Was this the reason you got interested in accident investigation?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

He started walking again. Sorensen fell in step. Both were quiet until Davis asked, "What about you, Honeywell? Career CIA?"

She hesitated. "I guess I don't have any other plans. Maybe a cabin in Colorado someday, deep in the woods. I've always had a vision of that."

Davis almost asked if she was alone in her vision. Instead he asked, "How long have you been posted here in France?"

"Almost a year. The assignment kind of surprised me at first, because my French isn't all that good."

"I think it sounds okay."

"I took it for three years in college — and four years at Mardi Gras."

"Laisse le bon temps rouler!"

She laughed. "Exactly."

"I wouldn't have figured you for a party girl."

"I wouldn't have figured you for a guy who quotes Shakespeare."

"Touche."

They were halfway back to the hotel when the neighborhood gave way to a sector dominated by small businesses — garages, machine shops, a computer repair place. All were locked down tight for the night.

He noticed that Sorensen was walking awkwardly, the heels of her shoes digging into cracks in the rutted sidewalk. They weren't exactly stilettos, but the sleek two-inch lifts were clearly giving her trouble. Davis pointed at them accusingly. "You know, those aren't as sensible as the ones you had on in the field this morning."

"I'm a woman," she countered. "All shoes are sensible."

Davis grinned. Then he looked up and saw trouble.