Skyhook

THIRTEEN WEDNESDAY, DAY 3 ANCHORAGE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

April hated the airport security procedures that kept friends and family from going to the gates. She’d always loved being the first to catch the eye of someone she’d come to meet as the passengers rounded the corner of the jetway. Now she was forced to join the throng of hopefuls waiting for inbound passengers outside the security perimeter, and it seemed an indignity. Still, she managed to spot Dean as he came into view down the concourse, pouncing on him the second he emerged from the security portal.

“Hey, bro!”

“Hey, sis!” He hugged her, a weary look on his face. “How’re they doing?”

“They’re doing okay, considering what they went through. You know the Albatross was destroyed?”

“You told me on the phone last night, remember?”

She nodded. “I’m not sure what I’ve told anyone.”

“Any physical problems?”

“Bumps, a few contusions, and a mild concussion for Dad, but overall, they’re okay.”

“That’s a huge relief.”

“It’s just hard to picture their airplane sitting on the bottom of the ocean.”

He pointed the way toward the front of the airport and they began walking in that direction. “You said last night there were other problems and you’d tell me when I got here,” Dean prompted.

She gave him a detailed rundown of the encounter with the FAA and NTSB as they walked to her rental car in the airport garage.

Dean sat in silence for a while in the right front seat as his sister wheeled them out of the airport drive for the trip across town to the hospital. She waited for him to break the silence.

“April, you said you’ve got Gracie looking for a lawyer for Dad, right?”

She nodded.

“Which means you think he’s going to need one.”

“If you’d seen the hate in the eyes of that FAA inspector, Dean, you’d have no doubt. I don’t understand what the man’s problem was. I mean, most FAA people I’ve met, including inspectors, are just good, hardworking folks, but this guy…”

“He was giving you attitude?”

She grimaced and shook her head. “Not you, too?”

“What?”

“I hate the misuse of that word, Dean!”

“What are you talking about?”

“What you just said. ‘He’s giving me attitude,’ that’s nonsense. Gracie and I go around about this all the time. Attitude, attitude. Everyone has an attitude at any given moment, but that sort of stupid misuse makes it sound like just having one is bad. Talk about the bastardization of English!”

Dean had a hand up, laughing. “Okay, okay. I will refrain from colloquial usage in the future.”

“That’s not even colloquial. It’s just plain guttural.”

“But your point was,” Dean continued, “that this FAA inspector had an agenda, and the destruction of Arlie Rosen’s license to fly airplanes was on it?”

“Something’s up with him, that’s certain.”

“And that’s one of the phrases I hate,” Dean chuckled. “‘Up with,’ as in ‘whazzup wid yew?’”

April turned the car into the hospital entrance.

“Touché. Point well taken. And we’re talking obliquely about a certain nephew of mine, right? Little runt who pretends to like rap and answers to the name of David?”

“Ah, yes,” Dean said. “The teen monster of Bellevue. Night of the living bored. Now six feet tall, by the way, and his linguistics are atrocious.”

“Like, you do realize, like, don’t you, that he’s, like, just trying to irritate his, like, dad?”

Dean smiled as she braked smoothly to a halt in front of the main entrance. “I seem to recall, little sis, that you were the unchallenged champion in that department in our family.”

“I reformed,” she replied, looking hurt. “It was a brief rebellion.”

“Yeah, such as the time in high school you flew to Europe during a school break without telling anyone.”

“Amsterdam.”

“That’s still in Europe, last time I checked.”

“Dean,” April said, her hand up to stop him. “Something about Mom and Dad’s memory of yesterday is bothering me.”

“What do you mean? You’re not suggesting they’re coloring the truth?”

She shook her head vigorously. “No, no, no! But something about the way they both remember the beginning of the accident sequence doesn’t make sense.”

“So, what are you thinking? Something else happened? You said that he said a propeller broke.”

“I’m thinking that I want to ask you a favor.”

“Sure.”

“Let me just drop you off here to go take care of Mom and Dad while I… do a little research. Find out when they’re going to be released and call me.”

“I can, but why don’t you just come back here when you’re through? I’ll need to arrange a hotel—”

“Dean, they’ll be released this afternoon. Didn’t I mention that?”

“No. Today?”

“Yeah. Isn’t that great?”

“Well… of course, but…”

“Unless something’s changed in the last hour.”

He looked off balance.

“I’ll be on my cell phone,” she added. “When we’re sure of the release time, I’ll arrange the flight home.”

“I hate to say this, April, but if they’re okay and they’re getting out of here in a few hours and flying home, why am I here?”

“In other words, why did the extremely busy Boeing executive have to cancel some really important appointments when little April could drop everything and take care of it?”

He nodded. “Okay, that did sound pretty selfish.”

“They’re really shaken up, Dean, and they need our support. They need to see you here. They can understand why between you and Sam, only one of you might be able to race up here—”

Dean held his hand up to stop her. “I’m sorry. I make this mistake more often than you know, thinking of you as still being in school, not the vice-president of a corporation.”

“Times change, bro.”

“Imagine that! My little sister a corporate officer.”

“Yeah. Strange, isn’t it? Look, call me when you know the projected release time, okay?”

He opened the door and hesitated, turning back to search her eyes. “What are you concerned about, April? Is this something to do with the broken propeller?”

“Maybe. I don’t want to go into it yet. I just need to know more.”

“All right.”

“And please, Dean. Don’t say anything to Dad. He’s upset enough.”

“So… where are you if they ask?”

“Tell them I’m using the opportunity of being in Anchorage to check up on one of my company’s cruise ships. That way, Empress pays for my airline ticket.”

Dean smiled. “You’ve always known how to speak Dad’s language.”

“Don’t start with the ‘airline pilots are cheap’ thing again.”

“No, no. Not cheap. Just… cost-conscious.”

“And generous to a fault. Dad’s living proof of that.” She waved goodbye as he closed the door.

April turned the car north toward the downtown area, her mind on the city’s relatively small port facilities and the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Office. She’d had difficulty locating anyone to talk to when she’d called them an hour before. A Lieutenant Hobbs had finally agreed to meet with her, and she found him in his office now, receptive but slightly suspicious.

“What, exactly, do you want to know, Ms. Rosen?” Hobbs asked.

April explained the loss of her parents’ plane and her need to find a radar site that might have seen what happened. She passed him the crash-site coordinates.

“Why do you need to see radar tapes?” he asked.

“Because I think my father’s airplane may have hit something on the water two nights ago, like the superstructure of a passing ship. If the fog was thick enough, the crew might not even be aware of it. Propeller blades are relatively fragile compared to nautical structures. Just a tiny touch could break a blade off and leave almost no marks on the structure below.”

“If he clipped a ship because of flying too low, isn’t that negligence?”

She shook her head and explained the difference. “It’s not a violation to accidentally fly into fog. It’s what you do in response that counts.”

She could see Lieutenant Hobbs glance around carefully before coming forward in his chair to pull out a small pad of paper. He opened an ornate Mont Blanc fountain pen, noting April’s curious expression. He glanced at the pen, then back at her.

“A gift from my dad,” he explained. “I told him I needed a basic word processor and he gave me this. He’s a professional comedian.”

“Aren’t all parents?”

“No… I mean, he really is a professional comedian. He lives in Vegas, was on the old Carson show a bunch of times, and still shows up on Leno every now and then. He’s had a good career.”

“I don’t recall a comedian named Hobbs,” April said.

“There’s a divorce and a name change in my background,” he replied. “I’m going to check with our radar guys for the time period involved and see what they have in the way of vessels in that general area, and whether I can get you a copy. I’ll also check on what ships might have been in the vicinity.”

“How long will it take?”

He was already on his feet, the interview obviously over, his discomfort at discussing the subject showing. “I’ll call you.”

She paused at his office door and turned back. “One more question. Can the Coast Guard bring the wreckage of our airplane up from the bottom?”

Jim Hobbs shook his head. “No. But why would you want to salvage it? The aircraft is undoubtedly totaled.”

April nibbled her lip for a few seconds in thought. “My dad’s propeller threw a blade. I need the remains of that propeller hub to prove it happened in flight.” She felt a chill as he shook his head.

“Won’t help you. Hitting the water could snap off a propeller blade. Water’s like concrete above a hundred miles per hour.”

She returned to the rental car too deep in thought to think about where she was heading, and realized she needed a few moments to figure out the next step. What could she accomplish in Anchorage in person that she couldn’t do from Vancouver?

April braked and pulled to the curb suddenly, deciding to park and get some coffee while she called Gracie. The sudden change of course prompted an angry honk from the minivan driver behind her, but she waved at the man with a smile as if he’d done something friendly. April put the car in park and got out, oblivious to the dark blue sedan that had pulled out of the parking lot several car lengths behind her and was now moving to the curb as well, the occupants’ eyes carefully following the raven-haired young woman ahead.