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Monday, May 30
Dallas, Texas
Cooper had nodded off for the remainder of the flight to Dallas, refusing to answer any of Kim’s questions about Echo, Texas, and Reacher and the files he’d provided.
Johnson and Miller were sleeping, too.
She could hear her former partner’s voice in her head. Sleep when you can, Gaspar always said. Good advice. Impossible to follow.
Kim never slept on airplanes, no matter how tired she might be. She envied anyone who could sleep while riding in a steel tube traveling faster than any human was meant to move.
She spent the time evaluating the Texas files again, pouring over the words on the screen as if they might contain secrets she didn’t find before.
When the pilot announced preparation for landing and lowered the landing gear, Cooper’s eyelids opened. He straightened his body into the seat and fastened his seatbelt.
The aircraft had been riding the turbulence like a cowboy on a bronco for the past half hour. Cooper had slept soundly through the jolting ride.
“Approaching Dallas?” he asked, as if they might have been diverted due to the bad weather.
“More or less. DFW Corporate Aviation,” Johnson or Miller replied from the row behind her. Kim couldn’t see which one was talking and she couldn’t distinguish their voices yet.
“Even better,” Cooper said. “Any coffee left?”
“No. But we’ll be on the ground in fifteen. We can get coffee in the terminal,” Johnson or Miller replied.
Looking at the laptop screen while riding the turbulence was making Kim queasy. She closed the laptop and stashed it under her seat. She pulled an antacid from her pocket and slipped it into her mouth.
She didn’t need to fasten her seatbelt. She’d never unbuckled it since she stepped on board.
The entire flight had been rough. But they’d been bouncing especially hard for the past hour. She knew all too well that clear air turbulence could be dangerous. Safer to stay buckled in her seat, just as the commercial carriers recommended.
Cooper turned his head toward her. “Oh, come on. You’re not afraid of flying, are you?”
“Not afraid at all.” She squared her shoulders. “I simply have a healthy respect for the limits of human behavior, the realities of mechanical equipment tolerances, and the whims of Mother Nature.”
Cooper laughed out loud, shaking his head. “That’s absurd. Flying is the safest way to travel. Safer than any other form of transportation. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”
“Statistically, perhaps,” Kim replied. “But it doesn’t matter what the odds are if this flight is the unlucky one.”
“If you flew every single day for the rest of your life, statistical probability indicates it would take you nineteen thousand years before you’d succumb to a fatal accident,” Cooper said, warming to his subject.
“I know the facts,” she responded, tilting her head as if she had to search her memory for the math she’d stored somewhere on her internal hard drive.
She recited by rote. “One hundred and thirty people a day are killed in car accidents in this country. A 727 would need to crash every day of the year, with no survivors, to hit those numbers. You’ve got a one-in-a-million chance of dying on a trans-continental railroad accident. Flying coast to coast is ten times safer. Flying is nineteen times safer than riding in a car. And so on. And so on.”
“None of that is persuasive to you?” Cooper asked, shaking his head. “You’re more likely to die in a tornado or a lightning strike or by accidental gunfire or even a bee sting than you are to die in a commercial flight.”
“We’re not on a commercial flight, though, are we?” Kim nodded. “Small private planes suffer five accidents per day in the US alone. More than five hundred lives are lost annually.”
“But those are citizen pilots mostly, not well trained military pilots like ours,” Cooper replied reasonably.
Kim raised her hand and lifted one finger for each point. “More pilot error, fewer redundancies to protect from likely causes such as lightning strikes and electrical faults and computer failures, wake turbulence, weather, pressurization failures, wildlife strikes. Shall I go on?”
“Don’t worry. Passengers who die in plane crashes are only conscious for a moment or two.” Cooper shook his head and flashed a grin. “You won’t even know it happened.”
Kim frowned deeply and replied with heavy sarcasm. “Well that’s comforting.”
“Death will be swift and certain,” he teased. “Pain free, too. Almost.”
She gave him a solid nod and then added with finality, “And don’t even get me started on the crash statistics for helicopters.”
Cooper grinned. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
The pilot lowered the landing gear.
“And then there’s the tires hitting the runway at extreme speeds under pressure,” Kim said. “If we’re lucky, the tires won’t explode.”
“Oh, come on. You know that’s not at all likely,” Cooper replied sternly.
“We’re not discussing what’s likely. We’re talking about what’s actually happened, way more than once,” Kim said, watching the fast-approaching pavement through the window as the jet descended.
After the pilot managed to level the wings and executed a perfect landing on the tarmac, Kim relaxed her grip on the arm rests. But she didn’t let go. The plane wasn’t safely stopped yet.
She said nothing more as they taxied toward the gate. When the jet finally came to rest, the pilot powered down. The copilot entered the cabin, opened the exterior door, and lowered the jet stairs.
“Welcome to Dallas, folks. You’ll want to hustle inside. Storm’s headed this way fast. Strong winds and driving rain are already upon us,” the copilot said, standing aside to allow the passengers to leave. “We were just ahead of it all the way in. I’m sure you noticed the bouncy ride.”
Kim gave Cooper a pointed glance before she gathered her bags and lugged them down the wet, slippery jet stairs in the blowing rain.
Johnson and Miller followed, heads lowered, plowing forward, sliding across the rain slicked pavement wearing leather-soled shoes.
Kim forced her body forward as the warm wind pushed back. Hard rain pelted her face. Moments later, she was soaked to the skin.
They dashed toward the terminal’s entrance and hurried inside just as the bottom fell out of the dark clouds, pouring rain like a fire hose.
The air conditioning inside chilled her wet body as if she’d jumped into a freezer. Her teeth began chattering and her hands turned blue. But she kept going, striving to keep up with the long-legged men.
When they peeled off to the men’s room, Kim entered the women’s restroom. She turned on the hand dryer and stood in front of the warm air to chase the chill from her skin.
While she was away from the others, she fished Gaspar’s phone from her pocket and dashed off a quick text to let him know where she was. He could locate her anywhere on the planet. But it could take him a while if he had to search the whole damned globe.
A few minutes later, Kim emerged with a slightly less bedraggled appearance. Cooper and Johnson were standing in the corridor. Cooper was on the phone.
“Miller went to get the SUV,” Johnson said as she approached. He extended his hand, palm forward and began to walk toward the exit. Kim joined him. Cooper trailed behind, still holding his phone to his ear.
“Where is this funeral?” Kim asked.
“First Methodist Church. Downtown. One of the oldest churches in Dallas,” Johnson replied. “You should stay close to us. There will be plenty of security there, but still.”
Kim cast him a side-eye. “Why? Are you expecting trouble?”
“Early warning signs are suggesting problems, yes. We’re not on the security team for the funeral. But we’ll get caught up in whatever happens,” Johnson replied as they neared the exit. “Our priority is Cooper. You’ll be on your own. So stick closely with us.”
“I can take care of myself,” Kim said with conviction.
Johnson gave her a quick look and a stiff nod. “Good to know.”
The driving rain was still coming down in sheets. A small crowd of arriving passengers had gathered near the terminal exit. A few vehicles pulled up out front, close to the awnings, to collect them. In groups of ones and twos, the passengers scurried out into the storm to catch their rides.
Johnson peered through the foggy glass looking for Miller.