Blue Skies (6 page)

His mannerisms were laid back and slow-moving, aping Chuck Yaeger's loose yet deliberate movements. Except on Bob it was all just affectation, and he had a tendency to look and sound more like that hapless Ted Knight, the anchorman on the
Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Although married, he was flirtatious and suggestive, and their cabin crew for the last day and a half was all female and seemed to enjoy him a lot more than Nikki did.

Nikki supposed that if the only time you saw him was when you brought a cup of coffee or meal to the flight deck, you might be impressed with his style, but a couple of days alone in the cockpit with him revealed a copilot who was arrogant and barely competent. He acted as though he'd just brought in the space shuttle when, in fact, he had squeaked by his last two check rides, the evaluation of flying ability judged by the company's check airmen every six months. Nikki had to watch him every second, but so far his stupid oversights had not put them in mortal peril.

This lack of skill seemed incongruous with his back
ground. He'd been flying for thirty years and had held significant management positions along the way, including chief pilot or something at a small regional airline that had been driven under by the economic crises following 9/11. But he was used to smaller and less-complicated aircraft, and this jumbo jet was a lot of airplane for the guy. He'd been flying F.O. for a good year and a half now and still he struggled.

Yet he had the temerity to seem surprised that Nikki was capable of handling a 767. When they met in the cockpit for their first flight together, he had said to her, “Well, let's see what you got, little lady.”

She had leveled him with her iciest stare. When she finally found her voice, she said, “Look, Bob, I'm not one of those touchy women who overreact to every little sexist remark, but I would like to explain one important thing to you. I have been a check airman and training captain in this aircraft for more years than you've been flying it, and I am your captain, not your little lady. If there's any show-and-tell going on here, you're the one on stage. Are we clear?”

That had put a burr under his saddle for a while, but now he limited himself to occasional grumbling comments about having held positions a lot more stressful and challenging in the business than she had. Too bad he couldn't limit his arrogance and incompetence, as well. Nikki wondered for the millionth time why the two always went together. But at least this trip was nearly over.

There was one bright spot, however. He had a hilarious habit of using words that didn't exist, and did so with typical overconfidence. Nikki found herself mentally repeating them over and over so she wouldn't forget, and it took all her willpower not to laugh out loud.
“The pilots in this company are facing a
madrid
of problems with our management,” Bob would complain, when he obviously meant
myriad.
Or, “I wouldn't have any
quelms
about participating in a slowdown if it came to that.”

But any humor she felt was quickly disappearing at this moment. While Nikki was in the cockpit, tapping her fingers impatiently on her knee, Bob slowly, oh so slowly, completed the outside walk around preflight inspection of the aircraft. If he were any slower, he'd be going backward, she thought. She finally heard him in the forward galley. “Well, I guess I better strap this baby to my butt and get you ladies back to Phoenix,” he said to the flight attendants. Then he sauntered into the cockpit and took his place…as second in command.

“Mind if I come along, Bob?” Nikki asked.

He looked at her crossly, but forced his lips into a smile. “You've got the cutest little sense of humor, Nikki. I love flying with you.”

Yeah, you love it because I keep saving your life,
she thought. But she didn't say anything. This trip was almost over and there was no need to make the last leg miserable.

The ops supervisor came aboard and stuck her head in the cockpit doorway. “Captain, I have two air marshals preboarded and waiting in first class. As soon as you're ready, we'll board the rest of the passengers.”

“I'm more than ready,” she said. “I don't want a late push back. I'll go talk to them and you can tell the gate agent to get the passenger preboards ready.” She jumped out of her seat. “Bob, prepare to run the checklist while I brief the air marshals and crew.”

Ever since the tragedy of 9/11 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 want to get into it with the flight attendant, but she couldn't just let this go. Instead, she followed Bob through dispatch and upstairs. He was headed toward the airport doors, where he would probably pick up the crew bus to the employee parking lot. “Bob?” she called.

He stopped and turned, obviously unhappy to see her. He probably thought she was going to chew him out for that landing.

“Did I hear you right?” she asked. “Were you telling Stephanie you'd support them in a strike?”

He shrugged. “They're talking about a strike vote next month…or the month after.”

“Bob, have you lost your mind? A strike now could be a death knell for this company!”

“That's what they'd like you to think. The flight attendants haven't had a raise in four years.”

“Aries lost more than a hundred million dollars last quarter! Where do you think they're going to get the money for a raise?”

“That's what they'd like you to think,” he repeated. “It's all smoke and mirrors—they're
indinuated
with money.”

That took her a second. Inundated?
Indinuated?
“You sure about that?” she finally asked. “Do you read
Business Week
and
Aviation Week?
It's a pretty bleak world for airlines, Bob. All of them. Since 9/11 and the war, the industry has lost three times what it earned since Wilbur and Orville took off.”

He looked at her as though he was very tired of her idiocy. “Look, the employees made pay concessions with 9/11, the government has given the company mil
lions of dollars, and it's time the management of this company got the message that they'll have to cut costs somewhere else—their big fat paychecks, perhaps? Or deal with the consequences.”

“Bob…”