Chapter One The dozen or so commuters squinted against the setting sun as they crossed the Monterey Airport tarmac. American Eagle Flight 6, a twin-prop twenty-seater, sat waiting for them, its baggage bay open.
Graham Maxwell paused to let a young couple hand their suitcases off to the baggage handler and hurry up the steps. He had noticed in the terminal that the woman was newly pregnant, just beginning to show, and he remembered back years ago to when he too was an expectant father.
Life was full of promise then, the wonder of the unknown casting an intoxicating spell on him and his wife, Dorothy. A decade had passed since Dorothy died, and now that she was gone, Graham Maxwell was no longer a man in a hurry. He turned his wedding ring unconsciously with his thumb, worrying it like a rosary.
Passing his overnighter to the baggage worker, Graham started up the steps of the little plane. Glancing back, he saw the airline employee roughly toss his expensive leather suitcase into the belly of the aircraft and look at him defiantly.
Breaking off the silent confrontation, Graham's eyes moved to the man's feet, where he saw that the sole of the baggage handler's right work boot was five inches thick, his balance dependent upon a wide black band of wood and rubber.
Maybe, Graham thought, that is why he's so angry.
Ducking his head to enter the plane, Graham Maxwell paused to study his fellow passengers. The pregnant couple was seated in the rear left, the woman's head resting against her husband's shoulder, both already dozing. A young Hispanic woman traveling with an old man listened intently as he spoke softly into her ear.
"Sí, abuelo. Sí," she said, and Graham knew that this man was her grandfather. His thoughts went to his granddaughter, Lily, teetering on the balance beam between serious little girl and uncertain teenager.
Moving forward, crouching a bit under the low ceiling, he passed a family of four. The children, miniature versions of their parents from coloring to clothing, sat across the aisle from each other, the younger boy stubbornly refusing to fasten his seat belt.
Near the front right, Graham found a vacant aisle seat and, with a nod to the young grad student at the window, sat down. Through the open cockpit door, he watched the pilots work through their preflight checklist, pushing buttons and toggling switches with practiced precision. After a short while, one of them clicked the door closed and the plane began to taxi forward.
The pilot's voice scratched over the intercom. "Good news, folks. We're number one for takeoff and we should be in the city a couple of minutes early this evening. So sit back and enjoy the flight. We'll have you home in no time."
With a potent surge, the plane leaped forward, took the wind, and banked gracefully past the ebbing sun. Its right side dipping into the northward turn toward home, American Eagle Flight 6, a lone bird with sixteen souls under her wings, carried her precious cargo past the last sunset of their lives.
All along the left side of the aircraft, passengers slid the plastic shades down for relief from the still-penetrating sun. Graham Maxwell pushed back in his seat and crossed his legs, inadvertently brushing the calf of his seatmate.
"Sorry," he apologized. "Not much legroom on these things."
The young man looked over and smiled.
Graham extended his hand. "I'm Graham Maxwell."
"The lawyer?"
Graham nodded.
"The Graham Maxwell who brought the Subway Commission to its knees for negligence on the environmental impact survey?"
A flicker of pleasure crinkled Graham's eyes. That had been a huge and satisfying victory for him. "Well, we had a powerful ally on that one."
"Which was?"
"The law. We happened to be right."
The young man chewed on this for a reflective beat, then reached over and shook Graham's hand. "Zach. Zach Saltzman. Third year at Boalt."
Graham smiled to himself. A law student. Of course.
"Who knows?" Zach shrugged, "I may be calling you someday for a job."
"Who knows?" Graham agreed. He made up his mind that if this fellow could muster the confidence to ask for an interview, he would grant him one.
The plane droned on, the passengers settling in.
After a while, Zach turned to Graham. "Excuse me, Mr. Maxwell. I don't mean to intrude. And I don't want you to feel ambushed here, but I would really appreciate it if..."
The plane suddenly and violently stuttered, as if its engines, for the briefest of moments, had lost their breath. The passengers looked around nervously, fear setting in. The pregnant woman startled awake; the young Latina took her grandfather's hand.
But the plane regained its momentum, slipping along once again on its soft cushion of air.
"I hate these things," Zach said, a frown creasing his lips.
Graham nodded his assurance. "We'll be all right."
The plane lurched again, impossibly stopping in midair. Then, as screams of terror filled the cabin like a flame, the tiny craft rolled to the right and began to drop like an injured bird. Magazines and briefcases and the little boy who wouldn't fasten his seat belt were all sent pummeling forward.
The sharply sloping perspective out the cockpit windshield revealed the severity of the pitch as the pilots struggled to control their wounded aircraft.
"This is American Eagle Six. We're having a problem here," the pilot called into his headset.
"Engine one is flamed! Two's failing!" the copilot yelled.
And then, with one last sickening jolt, the plane surrendered its tentative hold on any hope of survival and yawed forward into an irreversible nosedive. "This is American Eagle Six. We're going in," the pilot said.
The copilot crossed himself. "Shit."
Graham Maxwell, his face tight with fear and resignation, looked over to Zach Saltzman just as the young man was vaulted from his seat and thrown into the bulkhead. Graham brought his left hand to his mouth and kissed his wedding ring, thinking not of himself or his daughter or his granddaughter; willing himself to have the last image in his mind be only of his wife.
"Soon now, Dorothy," he whispered. "Soon."
Copyright © 1998 by Clyde Phillips