Free Fall

Sixty-One

Rockville, Maryland

That morning, the man next to Robert Cole in the communal shower ranted Scripture as he coughed and wheezed.

Cole didn’t mind.

After he toweled off and found a free sink and mirror to shave, he considered the line of prayer from Saint Francis taped to the rust-stained wall: “It is in dying that we are born into eternal life.”

There’s wisdom in those words, Cole thought as he reflected on the reasons he’d chosen to stay in a homeless shelter near Washington, DC.

Yes, he believed that if police were looking for him, he’d stand a better chance of evading them if he stayed at a shelter.

But it was more than that.

He needed to get closer to the truth of what he’d become: a wretched failure and a waste. If he was going to be resurrected and redeemed, he needed to bury himself.

The night staff had asked no questions when Cole had arrived requesting to stay at the shelter, which was an abandoned school. They’d accepted his cash donation, given him a piece of paper with the rules then escorted him, via a flashlight beam on the floor, to a lower bunk in the gym where dozens of other men had been snoring.

Cole was grateful, for he felt that he was undeserving.

Now he dressed in his best shirt, tie and suit.

One of the staff, a woman named Polly, was generous in letting him use one of the shelter’s phones to check his number for any response from Veyda to his video.

There was nothing.

His heart sank.

He collected his briefcase and made his way to the Rockville station of the Washington Metro, blending in with other commuters.

He was destined for the NTSB headquarters to see Jake Hooper.

I’ll see him and I’ll show him what we need to do, if it’s the last thing I do on this earth.