Chapter Fourteen Has Got It All Going On

Tuesday, June Fourteenth, Around Nine O’Clock P.M. or so, tiny island standard time

When you’re surrounded by heavily armed soldiers that you seem to have irritated, time has the funniest way of slowing down.

Bruce and Alex had been staring down several jeeps full of men pointing guns at them for maybe twenty seconds before the radio came to life.  During those twenty seconds, Alex had plenty of time to remember that they were, as Bruce had put it, strapped into a flying gas can.  Alex didn’t care too much for thinking about what would happen if a fifty caliber bullet hit the auxiliary fuel tank in the cabin behind him and Bruce.  It was hard to say if the fact that the plane’s engine was still running would have an impact on the size of the fireball they made.  Alex was not eager to find out, however.

So, when someone started talking on the radio, Alex almost jumped out of the plane.

As before, he wasn’t able to understand a word of what was said on the radio, but he did understand Bruce saying “OK tower, will comply,” somewhere among all the nonsense.

The jeeps seemed to be turning around, to Alex’s surprise. 

“What the hell?” Alex said.

“They’re not going far from us, don’t worry,” Bruce said.  “I was just told to follow them from the runway to a tiedown.”

“Oh, good,” Alex said.  “I won’t worry about the soldiers leading us away from their runway, presumably because they don’t want the burning wreckage of our plane to mar their landing strip.”

“You’ve got to relax,” Bruce said.  “This is all fine.”

Alex didn’t bother to answer.  He didn’t want to spend his last precious seconds on Earth arguing with a guy who doesn’t see the problem with being met on the runway by a high caliber welcoming committee.  It was bad enough that he was probably about to get shot while wearing a pink bunny suit.  No need to make things worse by getting shot while pissed off.

They slowly caravanned along with the soldiers off of the runway and over to a paved area that was well away from everything else.

“This can’t be good,” Alex said.

“It’s just a security precaution.  They don’t want us parked next to their own fleet,” Bruce said.

“Right, because they don’t want to accidentally shoot a bunch of holes in their own aircraft while they’re lighting us up,” Alex said.

The caravan came to a stop, and one of the soldiers made it very clear that they were to shut down their engine now.

Bruce fiddled with some controls, and the airplane slowly shut down.  Alex was surprised it wasn’t just a matter of turning the key to the off position.  After having been in the air for so long, the silence was shocking. 

Alex took off his headset while Bruce flipped various switches to their “off” positions.  He had barely unbuckled his seatbelt when one of the soldiers appeared at the window next Bruce, who had just tucked his shutdown checklist back into its pocket.

“Who are you and what the hell are you doing in that plane out here?” the soldier said.  Alex couldn’t see the soldier’s name tag, but he spoke with an American accent.  Maybe they weren’t going to get shot immediately, at any rate.

He hoped they’d let him use the bathroom before shooting him.

“Well, I’m Bruce and he’s Alex.  Just out for a hundred dollar hamburger and we thought we’d drop in.  Is Colonel Klink still stationed here?” Bruce said.

“Jesus Christ, are you trying to get us killed?” Alex said under his breath.

“What? That’s his name,” Bruce said.

The soldier said nothing during this exchange.

Bruce said, “Look, uh, Sergeant Kilgore, if Colonel Klink is still here, would you just let him know that Bruce Evans has just landed.  He knows me.”

Sergeant Kilgore said, “Stay in your seat.  I’ll be back.”

“Sergeant Kilgore?  Colonel Klink?  Did you bring us to the island of misfit army men?” Alex said.

“Don’t make fun of their names, Mr. Minor.  David Klink and I go way back,” Bruce said.

“How about you and Kilgore?  Did you paint graffiti together?” Alex said.

Bruce ignored Alex.

After twenty minutes or so of staring out the window at a whole bunch of rifle muzzles, Alex said to Bruce, “Man, I hope they hurry up and decide if they’re going to let us get out of the plane soon.  I’ve been fighting off a charley horse for the last hour.”

“You’re a military guy, Mr. Minor.  Even on tiny islands in the middle of nowhere, hurry up and wait is standard operating procedure,” Bruce said.

Alex laughed, despite himself. 

Then they saw another Jeep approaching.  There appeared to be two men in it.  As it got closer, Alex recognized Sergeant Kilgore.  He assumed that the other person in the Jeep with him was Colonel Klink.

He hoped he was going to be able to address Klink without laughing.

The jeep stopped close to the airplane, and Sergeant Kilgore and presumably-Klink approached.

Presumably-Klink started shouting before he got to the window.  He didn’t stop once he’d reached the window. 

“What kind of dumb fuck gets out to this part of the ocean in a god damned Cessna 210? There’s stupid and then there’s this.  I’ve only met one person dumb enough to even try such a thing.  Fella named Evans.  Now there was a man who was so stupid that he should have had a warning label,” he said.

“Hey Klink, what’s happening?” Bruce said.

Still shouting, Colonel Klink said, “God damn it Evans, I’m amazed you were even able to find this speck of fly shit island.  I don’t know if I should salute you or report you as a threat to national security.”

Colonel Klink looked into the plane then, and said, “Who’s your friend?”

“This is Alex Minor, retired Army,” Bruce said.

“Mr. Minor,” Colonel Klink said in acknowledgment.  Then he said to Bruce, “Well I wish you’d let me know you all were coming a little sooner.  We’d have cleaned this place up.  Come on out of there and I’ll show you around.”

“Oh thank god,” Alex said under his breath.

He and Bruce got out of the Cessna.  Alex’s legs screamed at him as he stood up for the first time again in hours.

He quickly became aware of the attention he was receiving from the soldier who still had the airplane surrounded.  Alex walked around to the other side of the plane, where Colonel Klink and Bruce were shaking hands and vigorously insulting one another.

Colonel Klink turned and looked Alex up and down.  He said, “Jesus, son, you left the house in that?  You might actually be dumber than Evans here.  What were you thinking?”

Bruce chimed in and said, “Remember Tiffany?”

Colonel Klink glanced at Bruce, and then back at Alex.

“Damn, is she still doing that?  Well, that sure looks like a more comfortable suit than the one she stuffed me into…” Colonel Klink said.

Chapter Thirteen Is Here To Rock And Roll

Tuesday, June Fourteenth, Four Forty Five P.M.

Alex had started getting a bit nervous about the flight when Bruce had compared their airplane to a flying gas can they were going to be strapped into for twenty hours.

He’d gotten even more nervous after Bruce had finished his preflight inspection of the airplane and then handed Alex a weird looking vest.

“Put this on,” Bruce had said.

“OK.  What is it?” Alex said.

“Survival vest,” Bruce said.

“What do I need this for?” Alex said.

“In case you survive a water landing, obviously,” Bruce said.

Alex put the vest on without further questions.

Currently, they were in the airplane, and Bruce was doing something he called a “Run up.”  He’d pulled to one side of the taxiway after they’d nearly gotten to the runway, and was now running the engine hard with the brakes on, watching the gauges.  Bruce had already told Alex to stay quiet until they’d gotten to altitude, so Alex wasn’t sure what Bruce was checking.

For Alex’s part, he listened to the engine running, feeling the plane vibrating, trying to notice any sounds that seemed out of place.

He gave it up after a few seconds when he realized that he wasn’t going to be able to recognize the difference in sound between a perfectly running airplane and one that was about to crap out.

When Bruce seemed satisfied, he throttled down the engine, and then radioed the control tower.  Alex had tried to catch what was being said, but he wasn’t able to understand a single word of it.

Bruce released the brakes and they rolled back on to the taxiway.  They stopped again, just short of the runway.  Bruce and the control tower had another conversation Alex couldn’t follow, and then they stayed exactly where they were.

“We’re waiting for a Piper Cub to land,” Bruce said.  “We might be waiting a while, they’re slow.  You’ll be able to see them before long if you look off to your right.”

Alex looked out the right window, but all he could see when he tried to look up was the Cessna’s wing.

“Here they come,” Bruce said. 

A few seconds later, a bright yellow airplane slowly, slowly floated down out of the sky, and seemed to simply glide on to the runway.  Alex watched it go by, and then take the first turn off of the runway.

There was a bit of chatter on the radio then.  The only words Alex could make out were, “Take off. Good luck.”

Bruce answered the tower, and then said to Alex, “Hold on to your ass, it’s going to take us some serious effort to get off the ground with all the fuel we’re carrying.”

Alex felt less than reassured by Bruce’s announcement.

They turned on to the runway, and Bruce went to maximum throttle.  The Cessna’s engine roared, and they rolled gently forward.  Alex guessed they might be going almost ten miles per hour.  They gained speed gradually.  Alex would have described their acceleration as “glacial.”

Ordinarily, Alex didn’t get particularly excited about flying.  Certainly, he enjoyed the take offs and landings, but overall, flying was much less exciting that riding his bicycle in downtown Minneapolis.  Today, however, Alex’s nerves were all singing. 

Earlier, Bruce had told Alex that they were so overloaded with fuel that taking off was going to take some finesse, and a good helping of luck.  He’d said that if he had to, he would abort the takeoff rather than try to get off the ground if it was hopeless.

It seemed to Alex they were halfway down the runway, still slowly gaining speed.  Bruce was patting the dashboard, and Alex could hear him muttering, “Come on, girl,” through the intercom.

Alex found himself wishing the plane had an “Oh shit” handle for him to grab on to.  Instead, he just pressed his hands in to the top of his knees as hard as he could, and hoped that this experience was going to end without him and Bruce running around the airport in flames, having entirely forgotten to stop, drop, and roll in their panic.

The gauge that said “airspeed” was still slowly climbing.  It seemed to Alex that Bruce was even getting a bit nervous.

Alex had asked Bruce how he knew when the plane was going fast enough to take off, ordinarily.  Bruce had replied that the plane would start to feel light, like it wanted to take off.  To the seat of Alex’s pants, it seemed like their plan was still firmly attached to the ground.

He glanced over at Bruce, and noticed that Bruce’s jaw was firmly set.  Apart from that, it was impossible to read his expression, since Bruce was wearing a baseball cap and a large pair of aviator sunglasses.

There was no missing the lack of cocky self-assurance that usually clung to Bruce like drugstore aftershave the second he got into a plane, however.

Alex caught himself trying to will the plane to go faster.

It seemed as if they were getting really close to the end of the runway.

He noticed the plane shaking, just a bit.  He glanced over at Bruce and noticed the barest hint of a smile.  A couple of seconds later, Bruce pulled the control yoke back, and the airplane hauled itself off of the ground.

“Woo hoo!” Alex shouted, despite himself, as he watched the end of the runway pass under the plan mere seconds later.

“Shut up!” Bruce said.  Alex noticed Bruce was smiling openly, though.

Looking back out the window, Alex watched as the ground fell away beneath them.  About ten minutes later, Bruce and the control tower had another conversation that Alex couldn’t follow, and then Bruce said, “Get settled in, we’re going to be up here for a while.”

“How long is it going to take us to get to Walli-Wo?” Alex asked Bruce.

“Given the current conditions, I figure we’ll get there in about twenty hours,” Bruce said.

Eight and a half hours later, things were already getting pretty bad in the Cessna.  For one thing, just because a person is in an airplane doesn’t mean that they no longer need to attend to certain bodily needs.  And for another thing, single engine Cessna aircraft do not come equipped with bathroom facilities.

Which mean if he needed to go, Alex had to piss in a bottle.  Doing so had not proven itself to be an experience Alex would recommend to others.

Another issue was that Bruce had decided that tacos from Jack In The Box were just the thing to eat before getting into an airplane for twenty hours.  All of the available ventilation options were ventilating as hard as they could, but the cockpit of that plane was not a fun place to be at the moment.

Which leads into another thing Alex had never considered: flying over the ocean, after the first thirty minutes or so, is staggeringly boring.  There’s nothing to look at in any direction except blue-grey water below grey-blue sky.  Alex wished he’d brought a magazine or something.

Alex’s legs ached, and he found himself longing for the comfort of a coach class non-stop flight to Australia.

He and Bruce had chatted a bit, but at the moment they’d run out of things to talk about.  Alex was surprised, then, when Bruce started talking.  Alex couldn’t understand a word of what he’d said, except he caught the word “emergency.”

“What?” Alex said. 

Bruce held his hand up to silence Alex.  A moment later, the radio crackled to life and another voice said something else Alex couldn’t catch.  He was pretty sure he’d heard “Niner” in there.  Maybe.  Whatever they said, they didn’t seem very happy to hear from Bruce.

Bruce replied the moment the other person stopped talking, a whirl of numbers and letters and codewords that left Alex hopelessly boggled. 

“Thank you,” Bruce said, finally, and the radio conversation ended.

“What’s the emergency?” Alex said to Bruce.  He was doing his best to stay calm, but the thought of experiencing a flight emergency in the middle of the ocean made Alex more than a little nervous.  He couldn’t stand fish, and would prefer to simply not invite himself into their home.

Especially while dressed in a pink bunny suit.  He could just see the headlines, “Human remains washed ashore in bunny suit, authorities remain baffled.”

“Huh?” Bruce said.

“The emergency you just radioed somebody about.  What is it?” Alex said.

“Oh,” Bruce said.  “I told them we’re low on fuel and the engine is running rough.”

“What?” Alex said.  His heart had just leapt up his throat, and was now hugging his brain for comfort.

“Relax, Alex,” Bruce said. “We’ve got plenty of fuel and we’re running fine.”

“O.K.” Alex said.  “So, why did you radio about an emergency?”

“I’ve diverted our flight slightly so we can land on a little island with a military installation there.  Generally speaking, they wouldn’t be cool with us landing there, but if we declare an emergency, they’re kind of honor-bound to help out, right?” Bruce said.

“Yeah, but aren’t they going to be a little pissed when they realize we didn’t have an actual emergency?” Alex said.

“Nah,” Bruce said.  “I know the base commander.  We used to hit the strip clubs together back in the day.  But they’ve got to log our landing, and you know how the military can be about rules and regulations.  So, declaring an emergency lets their clerks do all the needed paperwork, and we get to land and stretch our legs.  Everybody wins.”

“OK,” Alex said.  “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” Bruce said.  “You just wait, they’re going to be more than happy to see us.”

“OK, if you say so.  A stretch will be good, for sure,” Alex said.

About ten minutes later, Alex was able to see the island on the horizon.  Not much after that, he could see the runway, and very shortly after that they were on the ground.

Seconds after that, ten or fifteen jeeps full of soldiers had surrounded their plane on the runway.  All of them had guns aimed at Alex and Bruce.

“Uh, Bruce, I thought you said they were going to be happy to see us,” Alex said.

Chapter Twelve Kicks Thirty Nine Kinds of Ass

Tuesday, June Fourteenth,  5:00 A.M.

Alex’s eyes didn’t really want to open.  He slowly, slowly became aware of a foul taste in his mouth.  Equally slowly, he realized that he really, really had to pee.  Barely conscious, he tried rolling over, curling up, and many other postures before waking up enough to realize that if he didn’t get out of bed right that second, there was a good chance he was going to wet the bed.

He clambered out of bed clumsily, and walked straight into a wall he hadn’t realized was there.

Right, not at home, he thought.  Where the hell am I?

He felt around for a light switch, but didn’t have any luck.  He did find another unexpected wall, but he managed to avoid walking into it with as much force as the previous one. 

Alex realized that he was very warm, and that his clothes felt exceptionally comfy.

He finally found a doorway after feeling around for a few minutes.  It was open, and he felt around on the wall just inside the doorway until he found a light switch.  The light came on, and Alex was extremely relieved to see that it was a bathroom.  A familiar one, in fact.  He was back in his hotel room.

How the hell did I get here?  He wondered.

Alex shambled into the bathroom, and relieved himself with his eyes barely open.

He was shocked awake when he was washing his hands before heading back to bed, and glanced at himself in the mirror.

Aside from the heavy bags under his eyes and glassy stair, what had shocked him was the fact that he was dressed in a fuzzy pink bunny suit.  Complete with long fuzzy bunny ears on the hood.  He looked down at himself, and noticed he was also wearing bunny slippers.  Sticking out of his chest pocket (Bunnies have chest pockets? Alex wondered) was a stuffed felt carrot.

“What the fuck?” Alex said to himself.

He stripped out of the bunny PJs, and checked himself over to make sure that there weren’t any marks from something else rotten that had happened to him.

Apart from realizing that he was wearing a pink thong with a bunny face on the front, everything else seemed to be in order.  Then he noticed the time, and realized he’d been unconscious for the majority of the day.

The excitement had all worn him out, and Alex realized he really, really wanted to go back to bed. 

He crawled back under the covers, naked, and immediately fell back to sleep.

When Alex woke up again, it was nearly two in the afternoon. 

Shit, I missed breakfast, was his first thought.  His next thought was, And I am really hungry.

Alex got out of bed, and went to put on some clothes.  He grabbed his duffle bag, and was dismayed to find that all of his clothing was now missing.  There was, at least, a fresh pair of pink bunny boxer shorts, and some pink socks.  And the rest of his stuff was there, only his clothes were gone.

He hoped that he had perhaps managed to put some of his clothes away, or left something on the floor that he could wear. 

There was nothing.  His only option was the bunny suit.

“Real cute, Tiffany,” Alex said to the room.

He considered his options.  He could call Bruce and ask him if he could borrow some of his clothes.  Bruce was a bunch smaller than Alex, though.  He’d said something to Alex along the lines of “it’s easier to lose weight than to buy a bigger airplane.”  It seemed to be one of his guiding principles; Bruce couldn’t have weighed an ounce over one hundred and fifty pounds.  Plus he was only about five foot five.  He was a little dude.

Alex suspected he wouldn’t even be able to get in to Bruce’s clothes.

He could call the front desk and explain his situation, and see if maybe they could hook him up with a personal shopper that would be willing to go buy him some clothes.  He’d be stuck hanging out in the hotel until they returned, however.  And he was ravenously hungry.  This hotel didn’t seem to have room service, either.  And with any of those options, he’d have to wear the bunny suit in order to open the door, or else answer the door in pink boxers.  Alex was fairly sure no one would want to see that.

His final option was to swallow his pride, put on the bunny suit, and go about his business like he’d deliberately decided to wear a pink bunny suit.

He glanced at the clock again, felt a rumble in his stomach, and knew what he had to do.

The upside, Alex thought once he was dressed, is that a fleece onesie is really, really comfortable.

Alex had gotten his fuzzy bunny slippers on, found his wallet and put it into a fuzzy bunny pocket, and was just about ready to leave to find something to eat and some new clothes when his phone rang.  It took him a minute to figure out where the ringing was coming from exactly, but then he spotted his phone across the room, next to the bed.  He hurried over to it, wondering if it was Tiffany calling to gloat and, with any luck, offer to give him his clothes back.

He picked his phone up off of the nightstand, and saw that it was, in fact, Bruce calling.  He answered.

“Hey Bruce,” Alex said.

“Mr. Minor, we have a perfect weather window.  We need to get to the airport right now.  Can you be ready to leave in five minutes?” Bruce said.

“Umm…” Alex said.  He looked down at himself.  “Not exactly.”

“Why not?” Bruce said, sharply.

“Two things.  One is that I’m extremely hungry.  The other is that Tiffany kidnapped me, drugged me, apparently stole all of my clothes, and left me here in a pink bunny suit,” Alex said.

Bruce paused for a minute, and then said, “Wow, so she did that to you too?  I think we’ve all been there.  Bad timing.  Look, we’ve got to fly or we’re going to have to hang out here for another week.  We’ll figure out something to eat on the way.  You’re going to have to just wear the bunny suit.”

“Wait a second,” Alex said.  “She’s done this to other people?”

“Yeah, seems to be her thing,” Bruce said.  “Are you dressed?  We’ve gotta go, Mr. Minor.”

“Yes, I’m dressed in a bunny suit with cute fuzzy pink slippers.  So how many people has she done this to?  And everyone has just accepted it?” Alex said.

“Look,” Bruce said. “You don’t start working for Mr. Darcy because you’re conventional.  I assume you’ve figured that out by now.  Some of us are a little quirkier than the others.  I assume you’ve figured that out too.  As long as the jobs get done, there’s no problem.”

“I don’t know,” Alex said.  “I think getting drugged and dressed up like a toy doll is a bit of a problem.”

“Fine,” Bruce said.  “Look, we’ve got a job to do, and in order to do it, we need to fly.  I’m on my way over to your room now.”

Bruce disconnected the phone.

Alex considered his situation.  Had the events of the last day been extremely odd?  Yes.  Had be been knocked out before and woken up confused in a different place than he had been before?  Yes.  Really, the only thing out of the ordinary for him was the bunny suit. 

Bruce knocked on the door then.

Alex took a deep breath.  He’d been in situations stranger than this.  He could cope.

He opened the door, and Bruce looked him up and down.  Without even cracking a grin, he said, “It looks to me like she’s using more comfortable bunny suits.  Mine was scratchy as hell.  Those slippers look super comfy too.  Anyway, let’s roll.  There’s a Jack in the Box on the way to the airport.  I could go for some of their tacos, and you can get whatever you want there, Mr. Minor.”

Alex shrugged, grabbed his (mostly empty) duffle bag, and followed Bruce down the hall.  They hopped on the elevator down to the parking garage.  There was a group of people waiting for the elevator as Alex and Bruce exited.  None of them laughed, or even seemed to notice the bunny suit.

Right.  Most people ignore whatever it is that seems out of the ordinary, Alex thought.  This is going to be no problem.

The trip to Jack In The Box played out the same way.  The disinterested folks at the restaurant didn’t even look at Alex.

Alex tore into his cheeseburger and fries as Bruce drove them to the airport.  He was pretty sure that he was currently eating the best meal he’d ever had.  Seconds later, he’d finished and found himself wishing he’d ordered more than he had.

When they reached the airport, Bruce led Alex to one of the hangars, where they unloaded the statue from the trunk of the car.  Bruce opened the hangar doors, looked inside, and sighed in a disappointed way.

“What’s wrong?” Alex asked.

“We’re going to have to fly a Cessna 210, since the Mooney was wrecked,” Bruce said.  He sounded bitter.

Alex looked into the hangar, and saw a pristine white and red airplane with a three-bladed propeller.  It looked a whole bunch bigger than the Mooney.  He wasn’t sure what the problem was.

“Looks pretty nice to me,” Alex said.

“Sure,” Bruce said.  “It’s plenty nice if spending twenty hours or so in a minivan from the early nineteen nineties sounds like fun to you.”

Alex considered this for a moment.

“Oh, and just to make it extra special, the minivan has an extended range fuel tank that is just plopped where the back seats would normally go,” Bruce said.  “We’re basically going to be in a flying gas can, with no amenities.”

“Hmm, thanks for making sure I’m looking forward to this experience,” Alex said.

“There’s no sense in bullshitting you, Mr. Minor,” Bruce said.  “Anyway, let’s get the plane loaded up.  By the way, right now would be an excellent time to use the bathroom.”

Chapter Eleven is Pretty Pretty Cool

Monday, June Thirteenth,  11:00 A.M.

When he’d said, “I’ll have what you’re having,” Alex had not been expecting his… host… to return with two glasses of milk.

The mysterious woman in shadows had turned out to be Tiffany, the woman Bruce had met with the other night.  She was dressed more conventionally at the moment than she had been at the hotel.  Alex was mildly relieved when he realized he recognized her. 

Alex was sitting at a table on a comfortable chair on the back patio of spectacular, ocean front home in San Diego.  He wasn’t certain if he was in danger at the moment or not, but at least he was comfy.

To break the ice, Alex said, “So, do you kidnap all of your colleagues, or am I just getting special treatment?”

“Kidnap?  I just sent a car for you,” Tiffany said.

“And your driver manhandled me into the back seat, and didn’t even speak until we got here,” Alex said.

“Ah, I see.  I’m sorry about Howard, he takes his job very seriously, and he can be kind of literal.  I’ll remember not to ask him to go get someone in the future,” Tiffany said.

She held up her glass of milk, and said, “And, by the way, cheers.”

Alex was a bit baffled, but he clinked glasses with her and drank a bit of the milk she’d brought out.  He was surprised that it was whole milk – he didn’t think anyone actually drank that stuff after the age of 18. 

He’d forgotten just how good it can be.

“So… Howard has a habit of shoving passengers into the back of his car?” Alex said.

“Yeah, he needs to be reminded about hospitality now and then.  He can be a little bit too literal, like I said, but he’s very dependable and a good driver,” Tiffany said.  “Drink your milk.”

Alex had another sip of the milk she’d brought him.  These two were definitely an odd pair, in his opinion, but he’d become somewhat accustomed to eccentricity since he’d started working for Mr. Darcy.  His colleague Megan, for example, had a predilection for having people who’d particularly pissed her off her bound and driven to the border of the next state, where they’d be let out of the car and given a coupon for the Sizzler and then left.  It was kind of her trademark.

When Alex asked Megan why she did such a thing, she’d said it was, “Because fuck them, that’s why.”

Given that these were the kinds of people he worked with, he still hadn’t fully relaxed here at Tiffany’s house.  People who were mildly paranoid, Alex had learned, tend to live longer.

“Well,” Alex said.  “I’d sure appreciate it if you’d tell me why you’ve brought me here.”

“I heard about the weather off the coast, and assumed that Bruce would delay your flight.  I thought you might like to know a bit more about where you’re going and who you’re dealing with,” Tiffany said.

Alex said, “How do you know where I’m going and what I’m doing?  It seems like I’m the only person in this whole organization that is willing to talk about what I’m doing, and I haven’t told you a darn thing.”

Tiffany laughed, and said, “You told me plenty when you’d asked Bruce about, “the thing,” as you put it, in the airplane.  Bruce had mentioned he was going to taking you on a long flight over the Pacific Ocean.  There are only a few islands out there where a pilot can land in a Mooney and get away with it.  What’s more, there are even fewer islands that would be able to afford Mr. Darcy’s recovery services.  I’m guessing you’ve already figured that Mr. Darcy works for, shall we say, an exclusive clientele.”

Alex thought about the thick envelopes full of cash he was accustomed to receiving as payment.

Tiffany continued, “From there, it was easy to narrow down which islands have the kind of budget to hire Mr. Darcy’s firm, and furthermore, have the need.  The Cook Islands would have the budget, but not the need.  That leaves Walli-Wo.  Drink your milk, Mr. Minor.”

Alex realized his jaw had dropped.  Clearly Tiffany was an intellectual force to be reckoned with.  He took another sip of his milk.

“That’s astounding, Tiffany,” Alex said.  He then realized that calling her by her first name might be a little too casual, considering that she insisted on calling him by his last name. 

“I’m sorry,” he continued, “I don’t think you’ve told me your last name.  I hope you don’t mind me calling you by your first name.”

“It is, as a certain fictional British detective is endlessly quoted to have said, elementary,” Tiffany said.  “And no, I don’t mind you calling me Tiffany.  My last name is Dake.”

“Ms. Dake,” Alex said, and immediately realized why she was OK with having her first name used. “Tiffany, got it.”

How is it that the women working for Mr. Darcy all have such weird names? Alex thought to himself.

“Thank you,” Tiffany said.  “Drink your milk, Mr. Minor.”

Alex shrugged and took another sip of milk.  He noticed that it really was surprisingly good.  Mental note, add whole milk to my shopping list, he thought.

“So, what do you know about Walli-Wo and your client, Mr. Minor?” Tiffany said.

“Just what was in the file Mr. Darcy gave me,” Alex said.  “The U.S. military established a presence there during World War Two, which is what introduced the people living there to the modern world.  I understand my client is their chief, or king, or something like that.  There’s a landing strip, and a supply of fuel there.  Other than that, I really only skimmed the rest of the file.  Bruce and I are just dropping off the, uh, thing, and taking off right away again.  I don’t see why I need to know much else, since we’re just making a delivery.”

“Drink your milk, Mr. Minor,” Tiffany said.

She continued, “Your client is King Lemmy, then?”

Alex giggled a bit, and said, “I guess that’s him.”

He looked out over the ocean, and marveled at just how spectacular the rolling waves were.  He’d always enjoyed visiting the Pacific coast because of the rugged coast and the spectacular breaking waves.  The sunlight was glinting and twinkling off of the waves in a particularly appealing way, and he really noticed the color of the water.  Just amazing.

“Don’t laugh at King Lemmy in the presence of his people,” Tiffany said, sternly.  “They utterly adore him, and he loves them in return.”

“OK, I’ll be respectful of King Lemmy,” Alex said, and fought back another snicker.  Wasn’t Lemmy a rock star?

“Good,” Tiffany said.  “I assume you aren’t aware of this, but King Lemmy is spectacularly wealthy, as are his people.  Lemmy has, to put it mildly, shared the wealth.  His people have the best medical care he can provide, abundant food, and access to as much education as they care to pursue.”

Alex tried to wrap his mind around the idea of an island utopia where no one wanted for anything, that he’d never heard of in any of his schooling, or in his professional life prior to this assignment.

“Are you pulling my leg?  How has no one ever even heard of this place?  You’d think it’d be all over in popular culture, or at least some corners of the internet,” Alex said.

Tiffany smiled and said, “The same way no one knows about Mr. Darcy, unless they do.  They put a lot of effort into making sure no one knows about them that they wouldn’t want to know about them.”

“OK,” Alex said, “So what the heck do they do there that they have such an incredible standard of living, out in the middle of the ocean?”

“Offshore banking,” Tiffany said.  “Drink your milk, Mr. Minor.”

Alex took another sip of his milk.  Of course, taking care of rich people’s money was a good way of getting rich yourself, he thought.  Hee hee, Lemmy.  Lemmylemmylemmy…

“So,” Alex said, “What does any of this really have to do with me?”

Tiffany smiled.  She said, “Why do you think King Lemmy, with all of his resources, would want that statue back badly enough to pay whatever Mr. Darcy quoted to recover it?  He could just have another statue made, after all.”

Lem Lem Lemmy… Lemmmmmony Freshly Lemmy…  I feel kind of weird, Alex thought.

“Sentimental value?” Alex said.  Speaking seemed to surprise him.

“You might not be as stupid as you look,” Tiffany said.

“Hey…” Alex said.

Tiffany interrupted him.  “Drink your milk, Mr. Minor,” she said.

He took another sip, and gave her a grumpy look.  I do not look stupid, he thought. Then, she wants me.

“Sentimental value is a very good guess,” Tiffany said.  Alex beamed.

She continued, “That statue, King Lemmy believes, contains the soul of one of his distant ancestors.  He’d do anything to get it back.  During World War Two, a soldier grabbed it as a souvenir, not thinking much of it apart from that it was kind of cool.  The islanders didn’t realize it was missing until it was long gone.  Why would they?  Even touching those statues, outside of certain special occasions, was strictly taboo.”

Lllllllemmmon Bissscuits, Alex thought. He giggled again.  Whoa, that was weird.

“Why are you telling me any of this?” Alex said.  “I’m just the repo and delivery man, here.”

“Drink your milk, Mr. Minor,” Tiffany said.

Alex took another sip of milk.  He was starting to feel very mellow.  The ocean really was spectacular.  He could just sit and watch it all day.

“I’m telling you this, because you need to know that there are other people out there that also know, and would really like to get their hands on that statue,” Tiffany said.

“Whoa, I’m not just the deliveryman, I’m the security detail as well,” Alex said, and snickered a bit, before lapsing into a serious case of the giggles.  “Keep back! Lemmmmy’s Soul Statue coming through!  Hey, what did you put in my milk?”

Tiffany gave Alex a coy smile.  “My own secret recipe, do you like it?”

The chair Alex was sitting in was becoming more and more comfy by the second, and he felt more relaxed than he’d felt in years.  Maybe ever.  He wanted nothing more than to lean back and spend the rest of the week watching the waves.  He struggled against it a bit, sitting forward in his chair.

“Thhannnk you for the infffformation,” Alex said.  He could hear himself slurring his words, but couldn’t do anything to stop it.  “But, why….”

He took a second to catch his breath.  This was exhausting.  A nap would be excellent.

“…Did yoou drug me?” Alex finished, enunciating as carefully as he could manage.

Tiffany leaned forward, and said, “Do you remember the other night, when we met?  I was dressed a bit differently.”

Alex recalled her skin-tight dress and pink boots.  He nodded, slowly.

“You looked at me like I was a hooker until you learned that I work for Mr. Darcy as well, and I didn’t appreciate it.  You saw me at a very vulnerable moment.  I thought I might return the favor.  Sleep well, Mr. Minor,” Tiffany said.

Alex realized that he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, and the chair seemed to be enveloping him in waves of comfort.

“Sorrry abouut thaaat,” Alex said, before falling back into the chair, deeply asleep.

“Howard!” Tiffany called.  “Would you get Alex back to his hotel room please?”  

Chapter Ten Can't Get Enough of Your Love

Monday, June Thirteenth, 8:00 a.m., San Diego, California

Alex had gone back to bed after getting up and showering at four in the morning, because Bruce had called his hotel room at five in the morning and said, “The weather is crap, we’re not flying today.  Go see the sights instead.”

He wandered down to the breakfast room to see what they might have for him.  Alex was mildly disappointed, though not surprised, that all they had were miniature boxes of cereal, an assortment of danishes in unappealing flavors, and cheap, plain bagels.  There was, at least, plenty of coffee, and it was even passably good.

Alex grabbed a table by a window that had a nice view of the church across the way, and sat down with a box of Corn Pops, an unappealing danish, and a bagel with cream cheese.

He thought about what he might do with the day, since he had it to himself, as he ate his Corn Pops.  He’d heard good things about the beach.  He would have to take a cab to get there, though.  Somehow, taking a cab to the beach just seemed… wrong.  Alex wondered if the people at the front desk would be able to suggest anything to do that was within walking distance.

The danish Alex had grabbed was, indeed, completely unappealing.  He managed to choke down the one bite he took, wondered who on earth would want a Marmite danish, and rinsed his mouth out with coffee.  Luckily, the bagel was better than the danish had been.

There had been a steady flow of other hotel guests in and out of the breakfast room, but now it was starting to fill up.  Alex refilled his coffee and decided to head up to the reception desk to see if they might have some suggestions for things to see in the area.

The front desk was less busy than Alex had expected it to be at 8:30 in the morning.  He supposed that most people probably no longer go to the front desk to check out, though.  He approached the desk next to the sole employee who was working, and set his coffee cup down on the counter top.

The woman behind the counter had black hair and brown eyes, and Alex guessed that she’d been working the overnight shift and couldn’t wait to get home.  She gave him a perfunctory customer service smile and said, “Good morning, how can I help you?”

“Good morning,” Alex said.  “My plans for the day changed, and now it seems that I’ve got the whole day to myself.  I was wondering if there’s anything cool within walking distance that I should check out while I’m here in town.”

The woman behind the counter said, “You’re in the wrong part of town to be walking, my friend.  Not much is in walking distance of anywhere around here.  If you feel like a good long hike, you can get down to the bay by heading west.  I think there are sidewalks the whole way there.   You don’t have a car?”

Alex was about to tell her that no, he did not have a car, but the phone on the desk rang, and she excused herself in order to answer it.  He took a sip of coffee and turned to look around the lobby while she was on the phone.

“I’m sorry?” she said.  “Um, OK.  I’ll ask.”

She held the phone against her chest and said to Alex, “Is your name Alex Minor, by any chance?”

Alex’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.  “Yes, it is.  Who’s asking?”

“I don’t know, but I think this call is for you,” the clerk said, and held the phone out to Alex.

Alex took it, and in a confused tone of voice said, “Hello?”

“Mr. Minor?” the voice on the phone said.  It was a woman.

“Yes, that’s me.  Who is this?” Alex said.

“A car for you has just arrived in front of your hotel.  Please get in it,” the voice on the phone said.

“Hang on, who is this?  Why should I?” Alex said.

Getting into strange cars with unknown women seemed risky even to him.

“Don’t delay,” the voice said, and disconnected.

“Hello?  Hey!” Alex said into the phone before giving up and handing the receiver back to the woman behind the desk.

“Well,” he said, “I guess I’m not going to need any suggestions on what to do after all.  Thanks for your help, though.”

“Mmm-hmm,” the woman behind the counter said.  She’d already turned back to her computer and was tapping away at the keyboard.

Alex took his cup of coffee and went out the front doors.  There was a silver car with darkly tinted windows parked in the driveway just in front of him.  The driver of the car, complete in suit and cap, jumped out, ran around and opened one of the back doors for Alex. 

Alex approached the car, leaned down and took a look in the back.  The car’s interior was finished in grey leather and plush grey carpet, with dark wood accents.  There was no one in the car at the moment.

“Where are you going to take me?” is what Alex was going to ask the driver, except he didn’t get a chance to.  The driver shoved him, rather rudely in Alex’s opinion, into the back of the car, and shut the door.

“Hey!” Alex shouted into a face-full of exquisitely soft grey leather.  He pushed himself up and smacked his head against the luxuriously cushioned headliner of the car before tumbling back into the ergonomically perfect seat.  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the name “Bentley” embroidered in one of the seatbacks, under a winged logo.

Alex grabbed the door’s handle and pulled it, but the door wouldn’t open.

The driver got back into the car, and Alex barely noticed the sound of the engine starting. 

“Hey!” Alex said.  “What the hell is going on?”

In reply, the driver raised a window between the front and back of the car, isolating Alex.

“Hey!” Ales said.

He slouched back into a seat that, by itself, was more refined than anything Alex had ever owned.

Well, this is certainly the most prestigious abduction I’ve ever been on the wrong end of, Alex thought.  He hoped that whoever was kidnapping him had even more luxury in mind, and less rough blanket on a thin pad on the floor in a concrete cell, when it came to his imprisonment.

Alex noticed that the neighborhoods they were passing through kept getting nicer.  Eventually, as they wound their way through a neighborhood that was definitely all residential, Alex realized that they were right by the ocean.  Seconds later, they were driving down a slope into an underground garage, filled with other exotic and luxurious cars.  There was also an incongruous, battered Buick Century that looked as though it was still driving only because it was too stubborn to die. 

The Bentley came to a stop, and Alex became aware, just barely, that the engine had been turned off.

The driver came around to the back of the car again, and opened the door for Alex.  He stood, waiting impassively for Alex.

Alex got out of the car, straightened his clothes a bit, and then shoved the driver as hard as he could.

“What the fuck is your deal?  Where did you bring me? And why,” Alex shouted, “aren’t you even moving when I’m shoving you as hard as I can?  It’s very rude to just stand there and not even look a little ruffled when I am doing violence upon you!”

The driver cleared his throat and said, “Oh dear, it seems you may have mussed my hair.  Please stop savaging me, won’t you, sir?”

A woman’s voice behind Alex said, “If you’ve gotten it all out of your system, would you please stop whatever it is you’re doing to my driver and come inside like a civilized adult?”

“Huh?” Alex said.  He turned his head and looked back at where the voice was coming from.  There was a doorway back there, and someone was standing in it.

Whomever it was, she was in silhouette and the only thing Alex was reasonably certain of was that it was a she.

He looked back and up at the driver, who was looking down at Alex with an expression of polite disdain.

“Uh,” Alex said to the driver.  “Sorry.  The adrenaline kicked in and I didn’t really realize…”

“Not at all,” the driver said.  “Forgiven, forgotten.”

“Thanks,” Alex said.

Something about the driver seemed familiar.

“Say,” Alex said.  “Have you got a brother?”

The driver raised an eyebrow, ever so slightly, and said, “Indeed I do, sir.”

“Is he named Harold?” Alex said.

“Yes, it is.  Are you acquainted with him?” he said. 

“I work with him,” Alex said.

The driver chuckled politely.

“Forgive me, sir.  Harold is a butler.  I don’t see how you could have worked with him,” He said.

“Ask him sometime,” Alex said.

“Indeed I will, sir,” the driver said.

The woman, whose voice Alex now recognized from the phone call, said, “If you two are done, we have some things to discuss, Mr. Minor.  Please come in.”

Alex realized that he still had his hands on the driver’s shoulders and he was, in fact, still shoving against the driver.  He let go and stood up squarely again.

“Um, sorry again,” Alex said.

“Think nothing of it, sir,” the driver said.

“Say, if you don’t mind telling me, what’s your name?” Alex said to the driver.

“Howard, sir,” he said.

Alex smiled and said, “Nice to meet you.”

“Indeed, Mr. Minor,” Howard said.

Alex turned and walked towards the doorway where the mystery woman was waiting, impatiently.

“Finally, Mr. Minor,” she said.  “Come with me, we’ll go talk on the patio.  Would you like a drink?”

This is by far the classiest set of kidnappers I’ve had to deal with, Alex thought.

Alex shrugged and said, “Sure, I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

Chapter Nine Has Arrived

Sunday, June Twelfth, Six o’clock A.M.

The night before, Alex and Bruch had driven back to the airport to see what had happened to the plane, and if things were at all salvageable.  Also, Alex had been concerned about the status of statue that had still been in the plane.

Bruce and Alex were both silent when they’d gotten on to the tarmac and saw (what was left of) the plane. 

Bruce was the first one to speak.

“Ho – lee shit,” he said.

The Mooney was indeed rolled over on to its roof.  Both wings had been bent into shapes that weren’t especially conducive to flying.  It looked as though the windows had all shattered, although none of them had broken out and left the cockpit exposed to the elements.  The propeller was bent into an L shape.  It looked to Alex like the door was still closed, at least.

Bruce had continued swearing and starting sentences which just trailed off into more swearing.

“Wow, this is just beyond… god damn,” Bruce said.

Eventually, some of the crew from the airport made their way over, and arrangements were made to get the plane flipped back over and moved into one of the hangars for (extensive) repairs.

“I’m going to have to get it disassembled and shipped to the Mooney specialists,” Bruce said.  “Damn it.”

“Sorry, that sounds like a mess,” Alex said.

“You have no idea,” Bruce said.

They’d spent the rest of the night hanging out at the airport, waiting for the recovery crew to bring a crane and flip the plane back over.  There was a lot of other damage, and Bruce’s plane wasn’t particularly high priority for the airport.

Just a few minutes before six o’clock a.m., one of the FBO employees showed up with a box of donuts and a tray with cups of coffee.

Alex and Bruce had each taken a donut and a cup of coffee.

Alex was going about nuts.  He’d been dying to talk to someone all night, but no one at the airport had time to talk, and Bruce was just sitting in a sullen silence.  Alex had tried to get a conversation going with Bruce, but Bruce answered all of his questions with single syllables before going back to being silent.

So, the two of them sat inside the FBO, looking out a window with their coffee, waiting.

The crane arrived at about six fifteen in the morning.  Bruce, and then Alex, leapt up from the sofa they’d been sitting on and ran out to where Bruce’s plane, what was left of it, was sitting.

One of the crane crew came over to talk with Bruce.  He looked to be about thirty five, and had clearly been awake all night as well.  The name Zack was embroidered on the chest of his work shirt.

“Wow, that storm made a heck of a mess out of your plane,” he said.

“No shit,” Bruce said.

“Sorry bud, I’m not trying to upset you, no need to get testy,” Zack said.  “Anyway, what are we doing here?  Doesn’t look like this plane is going to be flying any time soon.”

“Let’s just get it upright, and bring it over to the A&P.  I’m going to have to have them take the wings off and truck the whole thing to Florida,” Bruce said.

“Ouch,” Zack said.  “Well, we can do that, no problem.  We’ll get to work on it.  It’d be great if you guys would stick close, in case we have any questions.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Bruce said.

Alex was surprised at how quickly they were able to get the plane flipped back over.  He’d kind of expected it to be a multi-hour project.  It seemed to Alex that it didn’t take them too much longer that it would have taken to get a car hooked up to a tow truck.

He briefly wondered how many times they’d been called out to flip planes back over in order to become so proficient at it.

Alex had been briefly aware that Bruce had been on the phone while the crane crew were working on the plane, but he’d been so fascinated watching what was happening with the airplane that he hadn’t caught any of Bruce’s conversation. 

And it’s not like Bruce’s conversation was any of Alex’s business anyway.  Secrets.

After Bruce had gotten off the phone, he said to Alex, “I’ve got another plane arranged for us, it’ll be waiting in San Diego and ready to go.  We’re going to have to fly commercial in order to get there, though, which means we’re going to have to hop on the next outbound flight from here to Dallas.  From there, we’ll be able to get on another flight with Sun Country to San Diego.”

“Wow.  OK, sounds good to me,” Alex said.  “What time do we leave here?”

“The flight to Dallas leaves at about 10:45. We should just have time to get our stuff out of the Mooney and get ourselves over to the commercial terminal for our ride to Dallas,” Bruce said.

“How are we going to get the statue there?” Alex said.

“Carry on,”  Bruce said.

“Seriously?  I wouldn’t think they’d allow it,” Alex said.

“Well, it’ll have its own seat.  You’re going to have to sit next to it,” Bruce said.

“We can do that?” Alex said.

“Of course.  Just try not to imply in any way that the statue is dangerous when we get to security.  I don’t think I need to tell you that those guys have no sense of humor,” Bruce said.

“Nope, I was already aware of that,” Alex said.

“It’s pretty much the reason I started flying my own plane,” Bruce said.

“Really?” Alex said.

“Well, that, and flying is just cool,” Bruce said.  “Anyway, let’s follow them over to the A & P, and get the statue out of the plane.”

“What’s the A & P, by the way?” Alex said.

“Airframe & Powerplant.  Airplane mechanics, in other words,” Bruce said.

“Ah.  Got it,” Alex said.

Alex had never really noticed just how big airports are when you have to walk from one place to another.  The trip over to the A&P hangar ended up being quite a hike from where they were.

It occurred to Alex that he was going to have to carry the statue from the A & P’s hangar to where ever the commercial terminal was.  That is, assuming that the statue was, in fact, still in the airplane at all.

Once they’d reached the A & P, Bruce told Alex they were getting a little low on time, and suggested that Alex go and get the statue out of the plane while he dealt with the technical stuff for the airplane.

Alex got to the plane, clambered up onto the now extra oddly angled wing, and fumbled with the latch for the door for a few minutes.  He knew opening the door shouldn’t be too tough, however, it was quite stubborn and refused to open with gentle persuasion.  It didn’t help that every move Alex made caused the airplane to groan and move in an unsettling way. 

He tried peeking in through the windows to see if the statue was still there, but he wasn’t able to see anything inside the cockpit clearly. 

On the one hand, Alex didn’t want to risk doing even more damage to Bruce’s plane.  On the other hand, he was worried about the statue and what kind of a state it was currently in. 

Alex got a firm grip on the door and yanked with as much force as he could muster.  The door opened with a horrendous screeching noise.  Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw Bruce glance over to see what he was doing.

Alex stepped into the plane, and crouched down to see if the statue was still there, and unbroken.  He’d just knelt down on the right hand seat and was leaning back when he heard another groan coming from the plane, followed by an awful, drawn out screeching metal noise.  Then the cockpit rocked a bit and at almost the same instant there was a terrific crashing THUD.  Alex sat back up again, and saw, to his disbelief, that the wing he’d just been standing on had just fallen off of the plane.

“Oh shit,” Alex said.

He couldn’t see Bruce, because of the spider-webbed glass.  If that hadn’t been the case, Alex would have seen Bruce covering his eyes with one hand, and turning away.

After Alex had come to the conclusion that he was, for the time being, still OK, he got back to the task at hand, and climbed over the seat back to find out how the statue was doing.

To Alex’s immense relief, the statue was still wrapped up in a blanket and in the back of the plane.  It was wedged into the space behind the back of the seats.  It took a fair amount of wrestling to get it free (the seat adjustment levers no longer worked), but eventually it came loose.  Alex unwrapped the blanket on the left-side front seat, and saw that the statue was, apparently, completely unharmed.

“Woo hoo!” Alex shouted, before he caught himself and piped down again.

He wrapped the statue back up in the blanket, and tried to figure out how he was going to get out of the plane now.  He picked up the statue, and started trying to figure out if he’d be able to stand up on the seat and then jump out of the plane and on to the floor of the garage without breaking the statue or himself.

He’d just stood up on the seat when he heard a sickening groan come from underneath the plane.

“What was that?” is what Alex was going to say, except that the front landing gear had picked that moment to collapse.  The plane rocked forward and down very quickly, slamming to the floor of the hangar with another loud bang.

Alex was completely baffled as to how he’d managed to remain standing, and keep his grip on the statue.  However, the ground was now close enough that he just had to make a giant step out of the plane, and then he had both feet firmly on the floor, no jumping required.

“Well,” Alex said to Bruce.  “I guess that went about as well as possible.  Should we go catch our plane to Dallas?” 

Chapter Eight is Super Great

Saturday, June Eleventh, Six Fifteen P.M.

Alex and Bruce had landed at Kickapoo Airport in Wichita Falls, Texas, at about five thirty.  Alex had helped Bruce tie down the plane, and asked when they were going to move it into a hangar for the night.

“A hangar?  Why on Earth would we do that?   We get a free tie down for the night since we bought fuel, and the weather looks like it’s going to be completely clear for the next several days,” Bruce said.

“Yeah, but what about the statue?” Alex said.

“We’ll throw a blanket over it, no one will even know it’s there.  Besides, it’s not like we’re leaving it parked in front of a Wal-Mart.  This is a secured area,” Bruce said.  “Also, if they don’t have a courtesy car available for us to borrow, we’re going to have to call a cab to get to the hotel.  Do you really want to load that heavy thing in and out of a cab, twice, and back into the plane?”

“OK, good point.  I’m still not sure I’m comfortable leaving it though,” Alex said.

“Mr. Minor, please believe me when I tell you that it will still be here tomorrow morning,” Bruce said.

It turned out that there was a courtesy car available.  Alex had not been aware that airports had such things for pilots.  The employee in the office Bruce had called “the FBO” told them where they could find the courtesy car.  It was waiting just outside for them.

Alex hadn’t been sure it was a better option than taking a cab.  The courtesy car turned out to be an ancient Ford Crown Victoria that had clearly been a police car in its previous career, and it had seen better days. It did, at least, start without too much coaxing, and it got Alex and Bruce to the Best Western they were staying at a few miles away from the airport. 

Once there, they had checked into the hotel, and each of them had a room to themselves.  Alex invited Bruce out for dinner, but Bruce declined, saying he had a bit of flight planning to take care of, and was planning on ordering a pizza and going straight to bed once he’d finished.

Which is how Alex ended up in a steakhouse across the street from the hotel, sitting at the bar with a huge, frosty cold glass of Lone Star beer, and a massive porterhouse steak and baked potato.  He’d been hoping there might be someone there to keep him company, but the other folks sitting at the bar were couples, and didn’t seem to even realize he was there. 

So, Alex drowned his sorrows in cheap beer, and beef.

By the time Alex had finished his dinner, he figured he’d probably gained twenty pounds or so.  Alex guessed it made up for the cruddy hot dog, potato chips and lemon flavored Kool Aid he’d had to make do with for lunch.  One of the airports they’d stopped at en route was having some kind of event, and since they’d landed and bought fuel there, “lunch” was complimentary.

He’d paid his bill, and was walking back to the hotel when he heard a siren.  There was no mistaking the sound of an air raid siren.  In Minnesota, that generally meant “tornado” in this day and age.  Or else “lunch time.”  Alex wasn’t sure what it meant in Texas, though.  Bruce had mentioned that there was an Air Force base nearby, and it was a bad thing to land there by accident.  An Air Force base seemed like a likely target to him, if there really was a threat of an air raid. He decided it might be best to hustle on his way back to the hotel.  The folks at the front desk would probably be able to let him know what was going on.

Inside the hotel, Alex found the staff guiding guests into one of the inner hallways, and telling them to stay away from windows.

“Hey, what’s going on?  What’s the deal with the sirens?” Alex asked one of the hotel employees.

The employee, for the briefest of moments, looked at Alex as though he wasn’t certain if anyone could actually be that stupid.  It would have been easy to miss.  He recovered almost instantly, however, and answered Alex.

“A tornado touched down at the airport.  The hallway everyone else is going into is the safest part of the building.  Please join the rest of the guests there and keep away from windows until we know the storm has passed,” The employee said.  He then hurried away, leaving Alex on his own.

“At the airport?  Shit,” Alex said to himself.  He hoped there was another, different, airport nearby that had been hit.  He followed the other guests in to the hallway, since he couldn’t think of anything more useful he could do in the mean time.

He was kind of excited, actually.  He’d never been anywhere near a tornado before.

The tornado shelter / hallway was not as packed as Alex had expected it to be.  He wasn’t sure if that meant that the hotel wasn’t full, or if other people were just going to ride out the storm in their rooms.

He saw several families, with worried looking parents and gleeful children, some single businessmen and women, and Bruce. 

With Bruce was a woman Alex hadn’t met.  She had very big, platinum blonde hair, a very short, very tight red and black dress, and pink cowboy (cowgirl?  Alex wasn’t sure how to classify them) boots on.  Bruce happened to make eye contact with Alex then, and it was clear he really would rather not have been seen.  The woman with Bruce hadn’t noticed Alex yet.

Alex suspected that this woman might be the pizza Bruce had said he was going to order.  He debated between going over and introducing himself, just to mess with Bruce a bit, and just minding his own business for now so he could mess with Bruce tomorrow.

The decision was made for him when heard what sounded like a train going past, very close by.  Alex felt his ears pop, and somebody yelled, “get on the floor!”

The building shook, and the roaring noise increased in volume. 

Wow, my first tornado!  Cool!  Alex thought.  I wish I could see it. 

Alex heard glass breaking somewhere, which snapped him out of his thoughts.  He got down on the floor and covered his head like everyone else seemed to be doing.  The noise increased, and Alex was pretty sure the building was shaking. 

Then, as quickly as it had started, it was done.  After thirty seconds or so, someone in the hallway said, “Is that it?”

“Stay put!” Someone else said.

“Jeez, I hope my room didn’t get damaged.  I had all of my sample cases in there,” yet another person said.

“Nuts to your sample cases.  Is everyone OK?”

There was a small chorus of affirmative answers.

After a few more minutes, someone came into the hallway and said, “We just got notice that the storm has passed, and the tornado has dissipated.  Please stay here a little longer while we check the building and make sure there hasn’t been any structural damage before you go back to your rooms.”

Alex got up from the floor, as did most of the other people in the hallway with him.  He saw Bruce and the woman he was with get up.  She tugged at the hem of her dress, making sure it hadn’t ridden up before checking her hair to make sure it was still suitably big.

Alex decided he might as well go over and say hi to Bruce.  He wasn’t sure, but he thought it might be rude to go through a tornado and not check on each other afterwards.

He walked over, and saw Bruce stiffen for a second before relaxing again.

“Hey, are you two OK?” Alex said.

“Yes, Mr. Minor, thanks for asking,” Bruce said.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Alex said.

He turned to the woman with Bruce and held his hand out, “Hi, I’m Alex.  I don’t think we’ve met.”

She shook his hand, briefly, and said, “I’m Tiffany.  It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Minor.”

“Jeez, another formal person.  I’d expect someone wearing pink boots to be OK with using first names,” Alex said.

“Mr. Minor, Tiffany is an associate of Mr. Darcy’s.  In addition to flying you here, I also brought along an item she needs for her current assignment,” Bruce said.

“Oh, cool.  What are you working on, Tiffany,” Alex said.

“I’d prefer not to say, Mr. Minor,” Tiffany said.

Alex sighed and rolled his eyes.  “Right, right.  Secrets.  Everyone who works for Mr. Darcy loves their privacy.”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” Tiffany said.

She wants me, Alex thought.

A cell phone started to ring then.  Alex, Tiffany and Bruce all took out their phones, but only Bruce answered his.

Alex watched as Bruce’s face fell.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Bruce said.

A pause.

“Well, of course it’s insured.  Shit.  This complicates things for me.  How bad is the damage?”

Another pause.  Alex saw Bruce start to chew his lip a bit.

“On it’s roof?  Are you going to be able to right it? Shit. Shit.  Damn it.  Shit,” Bruce said.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Alex said to Tiffany.  She said nothing in reply.

Totally wants me, Alex thought.

“Yeah, OK.  Yeah.  OK.  Right.  Yeah, I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Bruce said.  He ended his call, and put his phone back in his pocket.

Bruce looked at Alex and said, “The storm flipped my Mooney.  This is going to make things a little more challenging.”

Alex felt a little sick.

“Holy crap!  Is the…” Alex said, then paused and looked at Tiffany. Secrets.  “You know, the thing in the plane.  Is it OK?”

“I don’t know yet,” Bruce said.  “We’re going to have to head over there and find out.  Let’s roll.”

“Are you coming?” Alex said to Tiffany.

“No, I’ve got everything I need.  Good luck with whatever it is you’re doing.  Sorry about the plane,” Tiffany said.  She turned and walked away.

“I hope the courtesy car hasn’t been damaged,” Bruce said to Alex.

“Do you think they’d even notice if it had been?  Seems like all should be well so long as it still runs and drives OK,” Alex said.

“Well,” Bruce said, “Yeah.”