Final Winter

The woman’s voice from Memphis Center said, ‘Roger, one-oh-seven, we just got advised same over the landline as well. Hold present position, leg length your discretion, maintain flight level three three zero.’

‘Roger, present position, three three zero and we’ll use twenty-minute legs,’ Carrie said, indicating the length of time they would fly while maintaining their current position at 33,000 feet.

‘One-oh-seven, approved and we need souls on board and fuel remaining when you get a chance.’

Carrie said, ‘Two souls and let’s call it four hours of fuel.’

‘Roger, one-oh-seven. Do you need any further assistance?’

‘Not at this time, but we’ll get back to you if necessary. One-oh-seven out.’

She looked to her co-pilot, who was not happy. ‘They knew,’ he said. ‘They were advised before you called in. They know what’s happening to us and why we were declaring an emergency.’

‘That they do,’ she said. ‘And I intend to find out, too.’

Sean nodded. ‘Glad to hear that.’

‘All right,’ Carrie said. ‘I’ve got the aircraft back, Sean. Let’s see if you can get a phone patch set up. I want to talk to Dispatch, and soonest. Something screwy is happening here and I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to let the Ops Center and ATC know what’s happening before we do.’

~ * ~

Eddie Mitchell liked to get in early for work, which meant emptying the trash bins, cleaning the bathrooms, and vacuuming the carpeted offices before most of the workers got there. Sometimes people were working in the building and its offices when he got there, even at such an ungodly hour, but usually they treated him nice, and he knew not to bother them if they seemed to be working hard and having meetings. Then he wouldn’t vacuum but would work around them.

Eddie was retired US Navy, with a clear security-clearance record, and he did this work because he liked to get out of the house, and also liked to think that he was doing his part — tiny as it was — with the war on terror.

So when, last month, his duties had been expanded to do an inventory check he didn’t mind. He liked to think that what he did here made a clean and cheerful work environment, and might give these people a bit of an edge to do important work.

He was now in the kitchen and thinking about getting his second cup of coffee of the morning, but only after checking the inventory list. There was a clipboard hanging on the wall, near the light switches, and he pulled it off. He walked to the walk-in freezer, and started checking off the number of boxes of frozen French Fries, fish sticks, juice drinks, and—

Something smelled odd. Odd indeed.

Eddie pushed a box out of the way, to get a better look, and—

Shit.

His very first thought was that he hoped he hadn’t screwed up a crime scene, for he had no doubt that this was a crime scene. The dead man — Darren, that had been in his name — had been murdered and stuffed in here. Now Eddie felt angry that someone here with a security clearance and working for the Feds had committed murder, for no one else could have gotten access here.

He stepped back out of the freezer, gently closed the door, and made a phone call.

More than eight hours would pass before he got that second cup of coffee.

~ * ~

Monty Zane stepped out into the Operations Center of AirBox as a uniformed security officer came up to him, looking serious and holding a clipboard, though the poor fellow couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen.

‘Sir, you don’t belong here. You need to have a—’

Monty held out his ID card. He said, ‘Pal, some heavy kind of shit is going down around here, and it’s all coming this way. I certainly need to belong here, and I need to see your boss. Your boss of bosses, that is. General Bocks.’

The young man handed back the card, seemed to swallow hard. ‘Yeah, there is some heavy shit going on around here. Come on, I’ll see what I can do.’

~ * ~

Bocks was in a small conference room off the main floor of the Operations Center as Randy Tuthill came in. Randy said, ‘We’re seriously fucked, aren’t we?’

‘That we are.’

Randy said, ‘There’s a hazmat crew up top, at maintenance hangar two. They’re working on one of our MD-11s. They took out the canisters that we installed and—’

Bocks said, ‘I know. They don’t contain anthrax vaccine. They contain anthrax itself. A vicious airborne strain. Supplied by that CIA woman, Adrianna Scott. Like you said, we’ve been seriously fucked over.’

Randy stumbled a bit as he spoke. ‘What… what… how are we going to…’

‘That’s why I need you here, Randy. We’ve got to figure out a way of disarming those canisters, or immobilizing them, or doing something so our aircraft can land. We’ve got to… Randy, why in hell are you shaking your head?’

Randy’s face was the color of snow. ‘General, I’ve been thinking about this ever since I left the maintenance hangar. We can’t get to those canisters. We simply can’t. And the moment those jets go below three thousand feet… sir, what are we going to do?’

Bocks couldn’t think of a thing to say.

~ * ~