941 p.m. AST
a trampoline. Robin saw them returning and her whole body seemed to sag with relief. She had been a professionally put-together
forty-year-old when Allie first sat down next to her. Now she looked an exhausted, washed-out fifty, a woman in need of a
comfortable bed and about nine hours’ sleep.
Allie and Van had only just started down the aisle, hand in hand, when the little blond air hostess swatted through the curtain
behind them. She followed close on their heels, pausing at each row to make sure the shade was down over the window. When
it wasn’t, she leaned across the seats to lower it herself, murmuring an explanation Allie didn’t catch.
They were almost back to Robin when someone caught Allie’s wrist. She let go of Van’s hand and he kept going without her,
didn’t seem to know he had been released. She cast a look around and saw Frank Heck had leaned across the empty seat on his
right to snag her arm. The great jet slewed sideways. Allie staggered, Heck gave her another tug, and she had to sit down
in the seat beside him.
“Strap in, honey. Sit with your old buddy Frank Heck a minute. I could use the company, calm my nerves. It’s a monster out
there.”
“You saw it?” she asked. She was surprised. He was in the center aisle, didn’t have a window.
He surveyed her from the corners of his eyes. His hat was off to reveal a sad combover. “The storm is a monster. We’re not done boogieing yet. I hope the wings are screwed on tight.”
“I should go with my fiancé,” she said, but when she tried to stand, Heck put a hand on her shoulder to hold her in place.
Van had already climbed over Robin Fellows to his own seat but now was looking back, trying to figure out where Allie had
gone. His gaze found her and he stared at her with bewilderment, trying to work out why she had sat down with someone else.
He began to shuffle toward the aisle again, as if he meant to come back for her. But the flight attendant was two rows in
front of him, and when she saw he was trying to get back into the aisle, she straightened up and raised her voice.
“Sir, your seat, please.”
“My fiancée—”
“You need to be buckled into your seat, sir. I don’t want to have to ask you again.”
Van shot Allie a helpless look and she made a patting gesture with one hand, sit, sit. He lowered himself uncertainly, looking as confused and helpless as she had ever seen him. And all the while Frank Heck
was reaching across her waist to buckle her in, with the patience of a father securing his very small daughter. Allie should’ve
resented it but felt a brief flash of fondness for him instead. Her father had buckled her in just so a thousand times.
“Stay with me, Allison,” he said. “At least until we find clear air again. I was hopin’ to have a word.”
The flight attendant was in the aisle just behind them, alongside the father and son who were seated in front of Robin and
Van. She reached over the two men to lower their shade. The older man shot her a calm, appraising look.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“People are trying to sleep.”
“In this?” asked his son.
The older man raised the shade. “No. I want to see it again.”
“There’s nothing out there,” said the air hostess.
The older man laughed incredulously. “I waded onto Omaha Beach into machine gun fire. My best friend, Chick Withers, got it through the teeth, right beside me. I didn’t close my eyes then. If there’s something out there, and it’s coming after us, I’ll be damned if I’ll close my eyes now.”
Frank Heck was suddenly on his feet, leaning over Allie, big belly in her face. “You misunderstood her, brother. She wasn’t
asking you to put the shade down. She was telling. You were a soldier on Omaha Beach? That’s great. Then you understand the
chain of command . . . and that a flight officer on this 747 has given you a direct order.”
Allie heard him speaking, but she was looking at the butt of a small pistol in a shoulder holster, tucked inside his cheap
sports coat. It seemed to her Frank Heck had told her he had some kind of business making novelty pajamas. That didn’t seem
so likely now.
The flight attendant glanced ever so briefly at Heck and nodded, then moved on, lowering shades as she went. Robin and Van
didn’t protest when it was their turn. Heck sat back down.
Heck shifted his gaze to her: that cool, assessing stare. “Did you know you parked your car in a slot reserved for professional
drivers—chauffeurs—at the airport, Allison?” Had she ever told him her name? She didn’t think she had.
“Are you here to give me a ticket?” she asked.
“And you left the keys in the ignition. Did you know you did that?”
She stared.
“Do you know what kind of people drive to an airport and leave the keys in their car? People who aren’t planning to come back.
Allison, I want to ask you something, and I’d appreciate if you’d shoot me straight. Where did you go when you left the cabin
just now? You were gone a whiles.”
She parted her lips but couldn’t think what to say. She was saved by the PA snapping on. The pilot cleared his throat.
“Folks, this is Captain Vanhoenacker, checking in from the flight deck. We’re passing through a stretch of extremely rough air, so I’m asking again that you stay in your seats until we’re through it.
For the last couple miles we’ve been flying in tandem with a Lockheed DC-10 out of Thule in Greenland”—he gave a warm, masculine chuckle—“and I guess a few people were startled to see ’em.
There’s no reason for alarm, they’re up here testing some fancy new meteorological whiz-bangs and we’re sharing a flight corridor with them. ”
“Who the hell does he think he’s kidding?” someone said. Allie glanced at the father and son in the row ahead of Van and Robin.
It was the son, curly-haired and raffishly disheveled in the way that always caught Donna’s attention. He was shaking his
head. “My ass that’s a plane out there.”
Vanhoenacker wasn’t done yet, though. He said, “I’m also asking everyone to lower their shades so those passengers who want
to sleep can. Rest assured there’s calmer air ahead and we’re making good progress. We still expect to land at Heathrow a
few minutes ahead of schedule, about five fifty local time. Thanks much for . . .” his voice trailed off. He didn’t seem to
know what he was thanking them for. At last he said, “. . . putting up with a few bumps.”
That, at least, was met with a scattering of laughter: high-pitched, weary, a little hysterical. The pilot’s tone was so breezy,
so disconnected from the animal terror of the last hour, one almost had to laugh.
“So,” Heck said to her, hand on her arm. He wasn’t holding her anymore, just lightly touching her. “What were you doing?”
“You have a gun,” she said, “are you