Final Winter

In Memphis, Alexander Bocks spent just a few seconds looking over at his three visitors, gauging their reaction to the news he had just given them. The doctor looked like he was relieved, as though something bad he had signed up for was not now going to happen. The detective just looked uncomfortable, like he knew he didn’t belong here but should be back home in Manhattan, investigating an assault at a bodega or something. And the CIA woman… when he had told her that AirBox was going to be grounded in less than two hours, something more than disbelief or anger had flashed across that pretty face. It had been as if something she had cherished and hoped for had been snatched away at the very last moment.

Adrianna Scott said, ‘Less than ninety minutes? Are… are you sure?’

‘Sure I’m sure,’ Bocks shot back. ‘What the hell kind of question is that?’

Yep, the CIA woman was rattled. He wondered how in hell she had gotten to the position she was in. She seemed to pull herself together and said, ‘Yes, you’re right. Of course. The question I should have asked is, why? Why are your mechanics going on strike?’

Bocks managed a small smile. ‘Over teeth.’

‘Teeth?’ the detective asked. ‘What’s the matter, they don’t like their dental plan?’

The general turned to look at Doyle. ‘Sure they do. That’s the problem. They love their dental plan, but they don’t want to pay more than their fair share. In order to be more competitive, we’ve got to cut costs even more. Neither side is going to budge, so by the time you nice folks get back to your hotel rooms the strike will be on.’

‘But don’t you have contingency plans?’

Plans, Bocks thought, sure, plans thought up by my slug CFO. Aloud he said, ‘Sure we do. We have mechanics lined up. Scabs, the poor bastards. But the FAA isn’t going to allow us to shut out our old mechanics and bring in a new crew without certifications and training being checked. So we’ll be down. A week, maybe two. Maybe even three.’

‘Over teeth,’ the CIA woman said, a tinge of wonder in her voice.

‘No, not just teeth. It’s more than that. It’s a struggle, like other companies struggle. How to make it to the future. How to survive. Hell, how to thrive so you have jobs, and stockholders have dividends, and nice little people get their nice little packages on time.’

Adrianna said, ‘That’s very nice, general, but unless we do what we have to do there isn’t going to be a future, most of your stockholders will be dead, and those nice little people won’t be looking for nice little packages. They’re going to be looking at digging graves in their front lawn to bury their children, and they’re going to worry about getting food this winter. That’s the reality. And teeth isn’t going to cut it.’

Bocks was going to say something but the woman plowed right over him. ‘By my side is Doctor Victor Palmer. One of the best and smartest physicians working at the Centers for Disease Control. He could quit this afternoon and by tomorrow have his own hospital wing in New York or Los Angeles or Phoenix, to do whatever kind of research he wants. But he gets paid shit by the government and puts in tremendous hours, and suffers for it, all to protect his countrymen. And for what? Knowing he might fail, that millions might die, and that even if he succeeds people alive this instant will be dead by this time next month because of what he’s devised.’

Adrianna shifted in her seat, her voice sharper. ‘Then you have Detective Doyle. He’d rather be home in New York, rather be involved in his son’s Little League team and schoolwork, and put bad people behind bars, than be working for us. He’s sacrificed time with his son, he’s sacrificed his career with the New York Police Department, and for what? For being involved in something that could see him disgraced, see him sent off to jail. A New York detective whose own father was killed on September eleventh.’

Bocks looked at the detective. ‘That true?’

Doyle looked irritated. ‘Yeah.’

‘Tell me about it.’

He shrugged. ‘Thousands of people lost family or friends that day. My story’s no different.’

Bocks said, ‘Maybe so, but still I want to hear it.’

Doyle cleared his throat, shot a glance at the woman seated next to him — Bocks wondered what kind of dynamic was at work there — and said, ‘The story is simple. My dad’s name was Sean Doyle. Spent nearly thirty years on the Job. Raised me and a brother and a sister. Retired as a sergeant, decided he was going to be a handyman and single-handedly renovate the family home on Ridgeway. But the poor guy didn’t know one end of a hammer from the other and thought heat magically came out of the basement by itself. And my mom — well, she was used to having him out of the house during the day, and truth be told, he was used to being out too. So he got a job as a security officer, for a finance firm in Tower Two. He and nearly everybody else in that firm was killed that day.’

‘Did anybody see him that last day?’