Page 75 of Radar

Hiro -This is how it’s going down. We have White with her CIA badge. She pulled Steve Finley in with his FBI badge. We have conference rooms set aside. We’ll introduce ourselves and invite Elyssa for a chat.

Xander –Radar and I need to be there for the entirety.

Hiro –Not entirety.I need to catch you up on the case, then you can go in.

Xander –She has POTS, and this is a highly stressful situation. Let me show her my badge, walk her to the room, and leave Radar with her for comfort. I’ll get my update, and she’ll know that’s what’s happening. Her health and well-being are paramount. PARAMOUNT. You all will let her chill. I want salty food in there, electrolyte drinks, and a medic on hand but out of view.

Hiro –That we can do. I’m watching your approach on my screen, just a few more minutes until they prepare the cabin for descent. I’d go ahead and arrange your things for a quick exit when an airline staffer comes to get you.

Xander –Wilco

He slid his phone into his thigh pocket, thinking there was more to text to prep the team, more that he could do to shield Elyssa.

With a sudden jolt, Xander dumped to the side.

Radar, suddenly awake, was scrambling and confused.

Xander reached across to grab the tactical handle on Radar’s vest as he scooped and lifted his dog up. Thrusting his boot out, he caught the leg of the seat in the middle and pushed into it, bracing, as the pilot banked harder right.

While Radar tried to get his legs onto the seat, the elderly woman on the end was tipping into the aisle. As she grasped at the seat in front of her with one hand, she reached for Xander with her other hand, trying to keep herself upright.

Xander’s right hand shot out as he grabbed the elder around the top of her arm and braced his abs to keep Radar and her in place.

An attendant stumbled for the empty seat on the aisle, one row forward of Xander. There, she buckled herself in. The person who had been in that seat was probably in the bathroom. A hell of a place to be.

This went on and on. It wasn’t a jolt from rogue turbulence.

Xander was a trained pilot, flying himself into deserted mission areas. The only way this maneuver made any sense was that their pilot was attempting to avoid a sudden collision.

They were, after all, in D.C., where the military took taxi-like helicopter rides declaring mission secrecy and national security. While those regulations were stretched until they had the flexibility of a circus act, it meant that more and more frequently helicopters were in the air without proper authorization or adherence to procedures.

There had been crashes. And deaths.

Hadn’t Hiro taken advantage of that system to get NASA information about Paca? Maybe this was a comeuppance for exploiting a self-serving system.

And with a bounce, the plane sharpened the tilt to an even more drastic incline.

Debris flew, overheads popped open, people screamed, and covered their heads as bags tumbled.

The plane continued its steep bank to the right as the nose lifted. Anything that wasn’t secured was getting tossed around the cabin. A baby bottle rolled past.

What was happening to Elyssa? Was she buckled in tight?

The mother sitting at the far window, one row up, now lay against the wall, clutching her child as the dad did a kind of crazy plank over top of them, trying to both keep his weight off his family and serve as the shield, taking the assault of items as they came loose.

When Radar started pedaling his feet, Xander said in a calm voice. “I’ve got you, buddy. Come on now, you’ve been through stranger things in your training evolutions, jumping out of planes and fast-roping from helicopter platforms dangling from the clasps on my pack. This is a nothing burger for you.”

His grasp on both Radar and the woman was suboptimal. Xander didn’t have proper body mechanics; his levers weren’t in proper alignment. As he twisted, his grip wasn’t as solid as he wanted it to be. But his boot was in a pretty good position as long as that tilt didn’t keep going and tip them upside down.

Then, all bets were off.

From the way the passengers’ clothing dangled, Xander guessed they were approaching a fifty-degree angle far surpassing the thirty degrees allowed. Xander knew a thing or two about that, and the most frightening piece was that when the plane angles that sharply, the wings stop generating the lift to keep the plane from crashing to the ground. Maybe that was whythe pilots were also angling upward to rev the engines in order to maintain loft and possibly give themselves a little recovery room.

Xander was at the emergency door. He’d taken the verbal oath that he was ready, willing, and able to pop that door open and help people get out. When the flight attendant looked at Radar with purse-lipped distaste, Xander said that he’d open the door and send Radar down the slide, then stay and help the others, as Radar was trained for that. His tactical vest with working dog patches helped flesh out the story. Though Xander knew that someone with authority had said to let it pass, she had not been down with that decision.

Never in a million years did Xander think he’d really have to help in an emergency landing.

As Xander fought both gravity and centrifugal force, he turned his head to look things over and make a mental map that he could perform without sight if they crashed and the cabin filled with smoke.

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