Chapter 3 - The Last Mission
Seven years earlier, Major Laura Vance had believed that the worst thing a pilot could experience was losing control of an aircraft.
She had been wrong.
The worst thing was hearing someone you loved call for help and knowing that every decision you made might get them killed.
Her husband, Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Vance, had been an Air Force intelligence officer.
They met at a training exercise in Nevada.
Nathan had spilled coffee on her flight notes.
Laura had informed him that he was the most incompetent man she'd ever met.
He'd smiled.
"Then I have nowhere to go but up."
They married eighteen months later.
Their daughter arrived two years after that.
For a while, Laura believed she could have everything.
A career.
A marriage.
A child who fell asleep against her chest while Nathan read bedtime stories.
Then came Operation Nightglass.
The mission had been classified.
Laura's squadron was assigned to provide air cover for an intelligence extraction near the Afghan border.
Nathan was on the ground coordinating the operation.
Their objective was to recover a scientist carrying evidence of an unauthorized military technology program.
Laura never learned the scientist's real name.
She remembered only the call sign.
Orchid.
The operation began normally.
Then the communication channels filled with contradictory orders.
A friendly aircraft was reported where none should have been.
Navigation information changed unexpectedly.
The extraction team was directed toward a valley that intelligence had previously identified as hostile.
Nathan questioned the orders.
Someone told him to proceed.
He refused.
Laura remembered his voice.
"Nightglass Control, this is Vance Actual."
"Your routing is compromised."
"Repeat, your routing is compromised."
Then came the explosion.
A flash of orange on the horizon.
A broken transmission.
And Nathan's final words.
"Laura, don't trust—"
The signal disappeared.
For years, Laura had replayed those unfinished words.
Don't trust the mission commander?
Don't trust intelligence?
Don't trust the information on the screens?
The official inquiry concluded that Nathan had departed from his assigned route and exposed his team to enemy fire.
Laura challenged the findings.
She was told the evidence was classified.
She challenged them again.
Her flight status was suspended pending a psychological evaluation.
Eventually, exhausted and grieving, she resigned.
She took Sophie and moved to a quiet neighborhood outside Richmond.
She became a flight-safety consultant.
She stopped wearing her wedding ring on a chain around her neck.
And she tried to become someone who could sleep through the night.
Now, in the cockpit of Atlantic 417, the past was speaking to her again.
"Laura?"
Mercer's voice pulled her back.
"Are you listening?"
She nodded.
"What did your brother know about Nightglass?"
Mercer stared at the instruments.
"More than he admitted."
"Where is he now?"
"Dead."
Laura felt her stomach drop.
"When?"
"Three weeks ago."
"How?"
"Officially, a car accident."
"Unofficially?"
Mercer looked at her.
"He called me the night before."
"What did he say?"
"He told me he'd found something that could clear Nathan's name."
Laura couldn't speak.
Mercer continued.
"He said the evidence was being moved to Madrid."
"By whom?"
"I don't know."
"Then why are you on this flight?"
Mercer looked toward the cabin door.
"Because Thomas left me a message."
"What message?"
Mercer's voice dropped.
"He said that if anything happened to him, I should find the woman in seat 8A."
Laura stared at him.
The cockpit speaker crackled again.
This time the voice was different.
Older.
Sharper.
"Daniel Mercer."
The first officer stiffened.
"Your brother should have kept his mouth shut."
May you like
Then the display changed.
PASSENGER 14C HAS THE ANSWERS.
