John Nance: Headwind

“Who speaks English?” Dayton asked, keeping his voice controlled and calm.

One of the officers stepped forward, brushing past the wide-eyed gate agent, who was somewhere between panicked and helpless. The officer motioned to quiet down the other policemen who were in animated discussion behind him, then turned back to the captain, carefully noting the four-stripe epaulets on the shoulders of his white uniform shirt. “Captain, we are ordered to… hold everyone aboard your aircraft. There are others… government officials… coming here with papers.”

“What for?” Dayton asked.

The officer shook his head. “I do not know. My orders are to keep everyone on board at the gate.”

“How long before they get here?” Craig asked.

“A half hour, perhaps.”

Dayton said nothing for a few seconds, then pointed to the 737’s forward door, which was folded back along the forward fuselage.

“All right. Here’s what I’m going to do. As captain, I’m responsible for these passengers. So I’m going to close the aircraft door to keep everyone on board for you, as you ask. Okay?”

The policeman thought it over quickly and nodded with a fleeting smile.

“Okay.”

“I’m also going to start one of the engines to keep the air-conditioning on.”

The officer looked concerned. “Start… engines?”

“I have to. It’s part of our regulations. If we keep people on board, we have to start an engine. Standard procedure. Rules.”

The officer smiled and nodded, understanding the last word. “Okay.”

“Stand back, now,” Craig said as he worked the small latch on the upper hinge arm and pulled the door back through the opening before using the single lever to lock it into position.

He leaned forward and peeped through the small, round window on the door, assuring himself the delegation of police had not been alarmed by his actions. They’d stepped back obediently and were waiting, hands in pockets, convinced they were doing precisely as their superiors had ordered.

Craig turned to Jillian and took her by the shoulders, his eyes finding hers, but his words betraying nothing of their long-term off-work relationship.

“Listen to me! Tell President Harris what’s happening, then get his Secret Service man up here to the entryway, strap him in your folding seat, and have him hold this door handle in place so no one can open it.”

“What are you planning to do, Craig?”

“What I’m sworn to do. Don’t ask. Just go.” He turned and disappeared into the cockpit, launching himself into the left seat and scrambling for his seat belt, aware of the questioning look from Alastair in the right seat.

“Before Starting Engines checklist,” Dayton barked.

“I say, my ears must be going,” Alastair replied, his eyebrows raised. “I could have sworn you called for the checklist.”

“I did. Checklist, please. Now! We’re getting out of here.”

Alastair hesitated, then took a short breath. “Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, old chap, but we’re still attached to the jetway and there’s no tug in place to shove us back.”

Craig looked at him suddenly. “That’s precisely what I’m counting on, Alastair. We’re going to start engines and get out of here.”

“This is an American thing, isn’t it?”

“You’re damn right it is. No one’s going to arrest a U.S. president on my watch.”

“May I remind you this is a German airline?”

Craig nodded without looking as his eyes scanned the forward instrument panel. “So noted.”

There was a hesitation from the right seat, and Craig looked around at Alastair. “What?”

“You’re going to get us both sacked, aren’t you?” Chadwick said quietly.

“I got you this job,” Dayton said, “and I’ll make sure you keep it. It’s my authority and my neck. I made you do it. So do it! Checklist, PLEASE!”

Alastair read the deadly serious expression on his captain’s face and quietly pulled the laminated checklist into his lap, beginning the challenge and response litany immediately.

“Brakes?”

“Set.”

“Hydraulics?”

Jillian Walz had gone immediately to brief the Secret Service agent who moved without hesitation to the front to hold the door handle immobile. She returned, then, to brief President Harris – unprepared for the message to be taken lightly.

“Wait a minute, Ms. Walz,” President Harris said, leaning toward her with a smile. “There’s obviously a mistake somewhere in translation,” he chuckled, “or someone’s pulling your leg. To the best of my knowledge, I haven’t started any wars or overthrown the Greek government in the last few days, so there’s really nothing to arrest me for. I’m sure that delegation is just some sort of welcoming committee. We get a lot of them. They probably found out belatedly I was coming through town, got a late start, phoned ahead, and inadvertently got everyone excited.”

“Sir!” Jillian interrupted. “Our agent out there was told they were coming to arrest you. Not greet you. She mentioned an arrest warrant.”

President Harris exchanged looks with the woman beside him, thirty-two-year old Sherry Lincoln, a Rhodes scholar and his assistant for the previous two years. Before she could say anything, the boarding music playing over the PA system shifted to a fast-paced instrumental more suited for the sound track of a movie chase scene. Sherry Lincoln glanced at the overhead speakers in irritation before looking back at her employer.

“What do you think, Sherry?” he asked with a wink. “A bunch of angry Democrats back home manipulating relatives in the old country? I’ve always been told to beware of Greeks bearing gifts or warrants, but…”

She wasn’t smiling, and it stopped him. “Sir,” Sherry Lincoln began, “if the word ‘warrant’ was used…”

“It was,” Jillian interjected, realizing the 737’s auxiliary power unit had just started up, a small jet engine in the tail section that provided electricity as well as compressed air to start the engines. She could hear the distant whine.

President Harris was shaking his head. “Oh, come on, Sherry! Our allies don’t make a habit of arresting former U.S. presidents. They throw formal dinners and bore us to death with welcoming speeches. Far more effective punishment. Anyway, there’s still such a thing as sovereign immunity for any parking tickets I might not have paid while in office.”

Another sound of rising frequencies reached Jillian’s experienced ear. One of the engines was at idle and the second engine was winding up. There was a momentary flicker in the lights as one of the pilots switched over electrical power from the ground unit to the engines, and the sound track went off-line for a few seconds, then resumed, the rhythm almost matching her accelerated heart beat.

“Look,” President Harris was saying in a soothing voice. “When they get here, whoever it is, I’ll talk to them and take care of it.”

Jillian raised her hand to stop him. “Sir, for right now, please, the captain wants you to stay seated and keep your seat belt on. I’ll report back shortly.”

“Are we leaving on schedule?” John Harris asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

The scream of the 737’s two CFM-56 jet engines starting up had forced the police officers to shove their fingers in their ears and retreat up the jetway, where they missed the significance of the slight movement of the fuselage against the accordion-like padding that encased the doorway of the Boeing. Thrust reversers were an unknown concept to them, so the fact that both sets of reversers had just come open was meaningless.

A sudden, unexpected lurch threw all seven against the wall of the jetway, instantly garnering their undivided attention. The lead officer scrambled to his feet and went flying back toward the airplane in time to see the cockpit of the 737 sliding backward in his field of vision. It looked as if the jetway were being moved, but when he reached the end and braved the scream of the engines to peer around to the right, he realized that the jet was moving on its own, a maneuver that had not been covered by his orders.