and the impending threat to future commercial flights, the undercover armed air marshals were part of the new routine. They were only on random flights, and the crew didn’t know if they were coming until they showed up and flashed their credentials. Dressed as ordinary passengers, they would preboard via the air stairs from the ground outside, not through the jetway at the gate where all the passengers waited. They would be seated close to the cockpit, either in the first class section or the first rows if there was no first class.
The captain’s job was to check their IDs and badges, make sure the numbers matched, and then they would go through a little briefing with the cabin crew. The air marshals would advise the crew that they weren’t on board to handle passenger disruptions, since that could obviously be a tactic to breach the cockpit, and that their positions should not be disclosed to passengers, even if they asked about undercover marshals on the flight.
These two looked like a couple of ordinary guys stashing their carry-ons in the overhead bin. “Welcome aboard, gentlemen,” she said. “IDs, please?”
The first man produced his picture ID and his badge. She turned over the badge and confirmed the numbers were the same as those on the ID. “Sir?” she said to the second.
He opened his wallet and flashed her the ID, then tapped his chest and said, “I’m wearing my badge on a chain around my neck.”
“I’ll have to see it, sir.”
“I can vouch for him,” the other said.
“Sorry. Rules are rules.”
The air marshal got a disgruntled look on his face and then began to slowly thread the chain out of the neck of his polo shirt. Finally the plastic-encased badge popped through the neckline and smacked him in the jaw. “Ow! Jesus!” he exclaimed.
Nikki gave him a second. Another. She did not roll her eyes, though the temptation was powerful. Finally he removed the chain from around his neck and handed it to her. She compared the numbers and handed it back. “You seem to have…uh…nicked yourself. You might want to step into the lav and dab it or something.” It was all she could do not to add, I sure hope you don’t have to draw your weapon!
This whole security initiative since 9/11 did not fill Nikki with comfort. It would probably be more cost-effective and safer to give the World Wrestling Federation free first-class travel.
Nikki decided to take a pit stop herself before settling in for the flight. When she got to the cockpit, she found Bob was turned around in his seat, talking to one of the flight attendants. Her hands rested on the back of his chair and he was caressing her forearm. “You know we’re behind you all the way, right?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “And we appreciate it, too.”
“Then you just do what you have to do.”
“Thanks, Bob. We could use more like you.” The woman didn’t stare Nikki down or anything when she spoke, but the implication was pretty clear. The flight attendants were in contract negotiations and there had been a lot of disruptive stuff going on, like sick-outs and slowdowns and a little exercise called CHAOS—Create Havoc Around Our System. All this was meant to hold the company’s feet to the fire so they would realize it made better sense to pay happy employees more money than to put up with these expensive job actions. Nikki did not endorse this behavior, especially now, when the entire industry was a wreck.
But she and Bob had already had a couple of these conversations, and she would prefer a more peaceful ride home and pleasant end to this miserable trip.
That’s what she would have preferred, but not what she got. Bob was flying this leg and landing in Phoenix. Nikki kept a closer eye on him than she would the average F.O., and he seemed to be doing okay. Until they were on final approach and he was cleared to land. He was too high and his airspeed too fast, but he wasn’t correcting.
“Bob, you’re high and hot,” she said.
“I’m okay,” he shot back, not correcting.
“Go around, Bob. You’re high and hot.”
“Naw, we can make this work out,” he said, bringing the aircraft down sharply, still too fast.
From somewhere on the ground—probably a pilot at a gate who noticed the inbound Aries 767 come barreling out of the sky like a rocket ship—a mike was keyed and a deep male voice said, “That’s gonna leave a hole.”
Nikki took the controls. “I have the airplane,” she said. “Aries Flight 492 is going around.”
“Thank God—” came an anonymous endorsement.
“Aries Flight 492, maintain runway heading, climb and maintain 4,000, contact departure control—”
She could feel the heat coming off her first officer as she took the jet up, but she wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment or anger. “Make a PA,” she instructed.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to go around the pattern one more time and let them clear the runway for us,” Bob informed the cabin in his calm, lazy drawl. “Sit tight, we’re almost home.”
Man, even Nikki had to admit he talked a good game. He was convincing as hell.
“You want to line this up and try it again, Bob? Or would you like me to do it.”
“Give me a break, Nikki. We would’ve been just fine.”
“By consensus, it was horseshit.”
“We could’ve made that landing.”
“Was that a yes?”
“Yes. I’ve got it.”
Bob brought the jet around the pattern, lined it up again, and with a little needling from Nikki to “bring it down, bring it down, slow it down,” he managed to get the plane on the ground, but not gently. He slammed it on pretty good; a half-dozen masks dropped. She would have to write up a maintenance report to inspect the aircraft for a hard landing.
They taxied into the gate and Nikki said, “You can say goodbye to the passengers while I write up the maintenance request.”
“If you’d just let me do it the way I—”
“It was your landing that got us that rubber jungle back there, so don’t push me,” she snapped. “I mean it.”
Exercising rare intelligence, he held his tongue. While Nikki worked on her log, she heard a couple of the comments, and they gave her perverse pleasure.
“Did we land or were we shot down?”
“Fifteen midgets in the back would like to compliment your landing, sir.”
By the time she left the cockpit, all the passengers had deplaned, the cleaners were aboard and the food-service truck was already at the galley bay. Then she heard something she really didn’t want to hear—Bob’s low, seductive voice. “If you go out, you know we’ll go out with you.”
“We’re counting on that.” It was their senior flight attendant.
Nikki waited. She didn’t
