Chapter Fifty One
9:15 p.m. EST
United Flight 1161
His briefcase wedged under the seat in front of him, his CD player and the Joe Case audio recording secure inside, Mary’s departing boat ride comment wracking his brain, Zack again recalled Jim’s comments about Mary, “Twenty males waiting in line.”
He shook that off and touched the briefcase with his left foot just to be sure reality remained with him. It seemed so.
The center and aisle seats empty, he stretched and tasted the black coffee he had been served.
“This stuff is venial sin,” he said under his breath. The familiar phrase “venial sin” passing his lips surprised him. He hadn’t been in a confessional for umpteen years. No matter. He found himself pondering under what type of sin the events of the past few days might be classified. Forget about that, doesn’t matter who did what, why, when or how. Bottom line, it’s all about sticking it up somebody’s greed.
That thought distilling he sensed a familiar lucid scaffolding of light and Joe Case’s presence was there. He recalled Case’s sentiments about greed and hypocrisyso we can get cheap oil, some capitalist can buy a bigger housemake them Christianstirring up pots to create democratic societymierda del torothe interests of the USA’s capitalists
The Case sentiments dovetailed into thoughts of his own unending editorial: humans, God, Christ’s teachings, affairs of individuals, do unto others, Capitalism is an innocent driven by obscene greed masters, an ideal gutted by more, driven by cruel me-me masters with sharp teeth and a peculiar smell, profit has no home, men kill, women weep, children die.
Contemplating it all in view of the present reality, he looked around. Unbelievablesimply cannot be. This is not happeningbut here I am, on an airplane headed for Washington DC. What will I say to Beno? She’ll think I’m insanealready does. But I have the recording from Joe Case—former owner of The Bimini Road, now living on an Island, surrounded by young maidens with “3.14” on their baseball hats. Like Jimbo said, think about it.
In the middle of his thoughts, peripherally, in the graying red light of dusk, he saw the tip of a silver object in the sky outside his window frame. In a moment, a U.S. Air Force jet fighter, thirty feet away, came into full view. He read the black lettering on the silver fuselage—U.S. AIR FORCE.
Zack smiled. “Well, hello there.”
He watched the fighter pilot’s white-helmeted head turn back and forth. Feeling detached, he glanced to his right across a row of drowsy passengers and there, outside the opposite window, a duplicate Air Force jet fighter floated in the purplish sky.
“Amazing,” he said, gulped some coffee, nudged a shoe against his briefcase and longed for a cigarette.
Two flight attendants, with bird-dart glances and plastic smiles, began cruising the aisles amid passengers’ bobbing heads and questions.
A baby began to cry.
A male voice said, “What in blue blazes is going on?”
Anxious mumbling filled the cabin.
Then a calm voice on the intercom broke the clamor. “Good evening, this is your captain, busy up here. We have, ah, as you can probably see, some company. We’ll be talking to our air force friends and keep you posted. No need for alarm. They’re ours.”
“So you think.” Zack began mind maneuvering. “It’s true, it’s really true. They’ve traced my call to Beno orthe airline ticketor that creep, Doug Hoffman.” He pushed his passenger call button, and in a moment a flight attendant appeared at his side. She leaned over him, wide-eyed but cool, said, “Yes?”
Zack savored her wintergreen breath and smiled. “I must see the captain.”
“Sir, please stay quiet, that is impossible.”
“You do not seem to understand. Here is my card, I’m Zackary Stearn, editor of The Boca, a Miami weekly. This is imperative, national security. Please, I must talk to the captain. I must talk to him.”
The attendant took the card, sniffed Zack’s breath, looked down her slender nose into his eyes, “Sir, the captain is a her.”
“Oh, I”
“Right.” She studied the frayed The Boca business card, “This the only one you have?”
“Yes.”
“Stay seated, I’ll be right back.” She walked toward the cockpit.
He whispered to himself, “Captain’s a her, I have to move into this century,” and began to think. What if the Air Force blows us out of the sky? Naw, they wouldn’t do that. What do they want? Ha, they want me and the CD. How did they knowHoffman, that smelly creepWhat else do they know? They know everything.
The attendant appeared again. “Follow me, sir, please, quietly.”
Zack unbuckled his seatbelt, grunted out into the aisle with his briefcase and followed.
A female passenger shook her fist at him,“You dirty terrorist, killer of women and children.”
They think this is my doing, he thought and stopped. “Look, I”
The attendant touched his elbow. “Follow me, please, keep moving.”
She led him forward. They entered the darkened cockpit. The captain, blue-eyes, red pixie hair, talked into a tiny mouthpiece to the Air Force pilot to her left.
“Look, pal, I don’t give a hooter’s hock who you say you are. This is more horse manure than down on the farm.” She listened then, “Look, pal-o-mine, I’ve been given initial clearance to I.A.D. and that’s where I’m putting this sucker down.”
She listened to the Air Force for several seconds then responded, “Why didn’t the tower tell me Dulles had been closed?”
She listened again while making steely eye contact with Zack.
Zack pointed to his briefcase.
The captain spoke to the Air Force: “Roger, okay, let me get back to you in a minute. I got a glitch here with a sick passenger.”
She flipped her microphone off and looked at Zack. “You the guy with the problem?”
The flight attendant said, “Yes, Captain, this is Mr. Stearn, you have his card.”
“And what may I do for you, Mr. Stearn, while I talk to the U.S. Air Force, fly a very old 767 and suck my molars.”
“Captain, I’m Zackary Stearn, you have my card.”
“I don’t have a card but I’m Glenda Bodine.”
“You’re not going to believe this.”
She shook her head. “Look, buddy, I’m kinda busy here. The boys in blue want me to land at Andrews.”
“You cannot land this plane at Andrews.”
“I can do anything I wantwell, kinda.” She flipped her middle finger toward the jet to her left then spoke to Zack. “Okay, o-pal-o-mine, what’s going on?”
“You don’t understand”
“No, you don’t understand. I got one hundred-fifty passengers back there, two U.S. Air Force jet fighters want me to land at a military base and my hemorrhoids are killing me.”
Taking the CD player from his briefcase, Zack said, “Listen to this tape. There is a national conspiracy going onPresident Armstrongit’s all a plot, a coup d'état.”
Glenda looked at the flight attendant then closed her eyes. “Has this guy been drinking tequila or what?
“I don’t think so.”
Glenda squeezed the steering yoke. “Get him the fuck outa here.”
Zack pleaded. “Listen to me, please. The rioting, the national emergencyit’s all a plot, orchestrated by the President, his E.I.C., to declare a national emergency, so he can listen to this recording, please.”
Glenda looked to the left, listened, then flipped her microphone on. “Roger, have a very ill passenger, heart attack, will get back to you.” She flipped the microphone off and looked at Zack. “You still here. I thought I”
“Why do you think they want you to land at Andrews?”
“What is this, a quiz show?”
“It’s a military base. They know I’m on board and I have this CD.”
Glenda shook her head. “Get him out of here.”
“Listen to me, please, I’m telling you the truth. Those fighter jets, all that’s going onwhat’s happeningif it looks like a duck”
“It’s a duck.” Glenda paused. “You know” She paused, thinking about what Zack had just said, wiped her lips. “How long is this recording?”
“Not long.”
She looked up, “Why me?” looked to the fighter jet to her left, paused, then flipped her mike on and spoke. “Roger, heart attack passenger critical, beginning initial descent.” She turned the microphone off and looked at Zack. “Play it.”
He snapped his CD player on.
After a dozen evasive answers for the Air Force’s benefit, several feigned sloppy maneuvers, the recording ended, and Glenda’s eyes met, pupil-to-pupil, Zack’s..
Zack spoke first, “That was the President’s media guru, Dr. Barbara Lande, describing that infamous video that you’ve surely seen on television the past few daysthe one that started all this cockamamie crud.”
“Cockamamie crud,” Glenda shook her head. “You meanthat’s the famous Cerebellum, Dr. Barbara Lande?”
“None other, and Cerebrum and Medulla Oblongata.”
“Sounds like Lande.”
“Trust me, it is.”
“I’ll be a daughter of the Lone Star State.”
“You can’t land at Andrews.”
“Tell that to those fly boys with the guns on my wing tips.”
“There must be a way to outsmart them.”
“You know, I’d say you were a crackpot if it wasn’t for those jet jockeys out there. That they’re there, I mean, like you said, kind of confirms something is up.” She looked at her co-pilot. “Don’t it, Herb?”
He nodded.
“It’s true,” Zack said.
“Okay, folks, so what do we do now?”
“Don’t land at Andrews,” Zack said.
“Like I said, what do I tell the cowboys out there with the pea shooters? ”
Co-pilot Herb said, “Baltimore is thirty miles north of Andrews. You could tell them you’re going to follow their request, contact the tower there, then”
“You’re into this, aren’t you, Herbs.” Glenda paused, glanced at Zack, said, “I don’t even know you’re not some screwball spy escapee they want.”
“Well, think about it for about ten seconds. With all you know, what is going on as we speak, those fighter planes out there, what you said earlier, this recording.”
Their eyes met for a long moment then Zack said, “anyway, make a wise decision, Captain.”
He turned to the flight attendant. “Please take me back to my seat.”
Glenda said, “Wait a minute,” and indicated the cockpit jump seat, “stick around Zack, have a seat.”
Zack sat.
Glenda: “Okay, I don’t like orders, especially from Air Force jock straps, and I got no guns to play with.” She gave the Air Force pilot out her left window a salute with her middle finger, then opened her microphone, “Roger that, lading at Andrews, contacting tower, have a nice day.”
The Air force jets acknowledge then advised theat they would escort her to final approach.
Glenda to co-pilot, “Listen up, Herbs.”