Playing Solitaire
Copyright© 2026 by Jody Daniel
Chapter 5
Dragon Peaks Hotel. Tim’s Lakeside Suite.
The knock on my door came after about 10 minutes, and I knew why as I opened the door.
There she was. Doctor Megan Eleanor Forsyth. Gone was the field jacket and climbing gear. Tonight she looked almost ... ordinary. Faded denims, a grey long-sleeved blouse beneath a lightweight cream and grey hoodie jacket, white tekkies, her laptop and notebook clutched to her chest and a hesitant smile playing on her lips.
Somehow it made her look younger.
“The kettle just boiled. Come in and make yourself at home,” I invited, stepping aside for her to enter.
“Not: Step into my parlour, said the spider to the fly...” She smirked.
“Now I’ve been promoted from Colonel to spider?”
“One never knows...”
“I see you brought your laptop and notebook?”
“We can just as well continue our discussion over tea,” she replied. “I have a theory ... And a suggestion.”
“Okay, put your gear on the table and let’s get some tea,” I replied. “Then we can evaluate your theory and suggestion.”
“Sounds like a plan...” She replied, stepped over to the table and placed her laptop and notebook on it.
I walked over to the little kitchenette and placed two mugs on saucers before fishing a pair of teaspoons from the drawer.
Megan joined me at the counter.
As she reached for the sugar bowl, a delicate floral fragrance drifted across. Jasmine, perhaps, with something warmer beneath it that I couldn’t quite identify. It wasn’t the sort of perfume that announced itself before its owner entered a room. Quite the opposite. It lingered quietly, carrying soft floral notes wrapped in a gentle warmth that seemed perfectly in keeping with the woman standing beside me. Refined. Unpretentious. It suited her.
Like its owner, it revealed itself only when you were close enough to notice.
Strange, the things you begin to notice once someone stops being just another member of the team.
I caught myself smiling and deliberately steered my thoughts back to the reason she’d come over.
Neither of us spoke while the kettle boiled.
The little kitchenette filled with the familiar hiss of steam before the switch clicked off.
I poured the water.
The Rooibos bags floated briefly before slowly sinking beneath the surface.
Megan absent-mindedly stirred her tea three times clockwise before taking her seat.
I wondered if she’d realised she’d done exactly the same thing in the restaurant with her coffee.
“What’s your theory?” I asked.
“Let us first discuss my suggestion,” Megan replied, pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. “We can explore my theory afterwards.”
“Okay, what’s your suggestion?”
“We co-opt a weather and meteorological specialist.”
“I was going to suggest that myself,” I replied, “but seeing it crossed your mind, do you have someone in mind?”
“Doctor Linda Roux, Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science and Meteorology from the Tukkies – University of Pretoria, her doctoral research was on exactly this.”
“What was her dissertation about,” I asked taking a sip of my tea.
“Micro-Scale Barometric Variations and Terrestrial Boundary Layer Distortion,” Megan replied.
“Wow ... That’s a mouthful.”
“She is highly regarded in peer-reviewed journals for her work on how localised topography — like jagged mountain ridges, valleys, and sudden thermal shifts — creates unpredictable, transient pockets of extreme pressure drops and density altitude spikes.”
I looked at Megan. She was miles ahead of me in solving this altitude discrepancy between the altimeters and the autopilot.
“Okayyy ... It sounds like someone we need on our team. But, give me your theory and let me see how it ties in with my vague idea of what happened.”
Megan took off her glasses, placed them on the table on top of her notebook, then took her mug of tea in both hands. She took two sips before answering, like she was afraid I might not understand her theory.
“Facts: The King Air was flying a slight dog leg path from Pretoria to Margate. It was flying at an altitude of 12000 feet. When nearing the nine-kilometre mark, roughly north west of Champagne Castle it encountered a violent drop in atmospheric pressure.” She placed her mug of tea on the table and drew her notebook nearer. Placing her glasses back on her nose.
With red pen she drew a circle around a rough map of the area where Champagne Castle was.
“This is the area we are interested in,” she continued and looked up at me. I sat quietly drinking my tea, not interrupting her.
“When it entered this area there was already a drop in atmospheric pressure.”
“Go on...” I replied.
She pulled her notebook closer. The red pen clicked.
“Imagine this.” She drew a horizontal line. “This is twelve thousand feet.”
Then another line. “This is where the aircraft actually was. Lower that the planned flight altitude they though they were at.”
Another line. “This is where the altimeter thinks it was. Higher than the set 12000 feet.”
She looked up. “The altimeter doesn’t measure altitude. It measures pressure. Altitude is simply the calculation based on the outside air pressure.
“The instruments were still calibrated for 1029 hectopascals. The altimeters, reading the thin air ‘thought’ the aircraft was gaining altitude. The autopilot registered the deviation from 12000 feet set as an upward gain of altitude and tried to compensate by lowering the nose and dropping the aircraft back to 12000 feet. This was not true. The autopilot incorrectly dropped the aircraft below the summit of Champagne Castle, thinking, like the altimeter, that they were above 12000 feet and needed to go down to maintain 12000 feet.”
“From high to low, look out below...” I sighed.
“Precisely!” Megan beamed. “Now the question to be solved is; why did the pressure drop in such a small area, and so violently quickly that the ground measurement instrumentation was late in detecting it and passing that information on to the pilots? Question two; Was the descent so gradual that the pilots did not detect it?”
“And the person that can help us solve that mystery is Doctor Linda Roux?” I smiled.
“Yes!” Megan replied and sat back in her chair, taking her mug of now cooling tea in both hands.
“If she’s available, I’ll request her to join the team,” I replied.
“So, you don’t think my theory is absurd?”
“No,” I replied. “You not only explained it, but you translated it as well.”
“Throwing my own words back at me?” She replied, referring to the same words she used on me during the meeting.
I laughed. “I listen when spoken to...”
“And if it’s a cock and bull story?”
“I will make my own assumption and evaluation.”
“So, we need Dr. Roux to validate our speculation with facts?”
“Not our speculation. Your theory that seems like the only logical explanation of what happened. She can come and prove it with facts. It will carry more weight.”
For a long moment Megan did not respond. She just sat there looking into her mug of tea.
Then she looked up; “Thank you, Tim...”
“Pleasure. I might be a little slow, but I was thinking along the same lines.”
“Good. Now I better get going back next-door.” She replied.
She stood. Collected her notebook. Slipped the laptop beneath her arm.
At the door she paused. Not turning around. Just standing with one hand on the handle.
“You know...” she said quietly. “I nearly didn’t come.”
That caught me off guard. “Why?”
“I almost convinced myself it wasn’t worth disturbing you.”
I smiled. “I’m glad you did.”
She nodded. “So am I.”
Then she opened the door and disappeared into the cool mountain night.
I stood there for another moment. The suite suddenly seemed a little quieter than it had fifteen minutes earlier.
Her mug still stood on the table. Half a teaspoon of tea remained in the bottom.
Without really thinking about it, I picked it up and carried it through to the kitchenette.
Strange ... It was only after she’d left that I realised we’d spent nearly an hour talking. Not once had the conversation become awkward. Not once had either of us run out of things to say.
Perhaps...
I thought as I rinsed the cups beneath the tap ... Partnerships didn’t always begin on mountainsides.
Sometimes ... They began over two mugs of Rooibos chamomile tea.
The following morning dawned much like the one before. Spring still seemed undecided whether it had truly arrived. The sky overhead was a flawless pale blue, the first rays of sunlight slowly spilling over the eastern ridges and chasing the night’s shadows out of the Champagne Valley.
The air carried only the faintest hint of a breeze from the east. Just enough to stir the leaves of the willow trees lining the little lake in front of the Lakeside Suites. It felt pleasantly warm against my face. Too warm for late winter, I thought.
I smiled to myself.
The Drakensberg had a way of lulling visitors into believing they understood her moods. Then, without warning, she’d remind everyone who was really in charge. Somewhere beyond those towering peaks another cold front was gathering strength. Give it another day or two and our little sheltered oasis would once again feel winter’s bite.
For now, though, the valley belonged to spring.
The water lay almost mirror smooth, broken only by the lazy ripples of a pair of Egyptian geese shepherding their fluffy chicks towards the reeds. Somewhere across the lake a hadeda ibis announced the beginning of another day with its unmistakable, almost prehistoric cry.
I rested my forearms on the timber railing and simply enjoyed the quiet.
Investigations rarely allowed moments like these.
“Morning, Colonel.”
I turned.
Captain André Wilson was making his way along the wooden boardwalk towards me, hands buried deep inside the pockets of his fleece jacket.
“Morning, André.” I smiled. “Top of the morning to you.”
He came to stand beside me, following my gaze across the lake.
“On your way to breakfast?”
“Sort of.” I nodded towards the view. “I got distracted.”
“I can see why.”
For a few moments we simply stood there in companionable silence, neither of us feeling any urgency to move.
Eventually André cleared his throat.
“I think I solved our little timeline mystery.”
That got my attention. “Oh?”
“The discrepancy in the crash time.”
I turned towards him. “Go on.”
“The King Air didn’t leave Wonderboom when it was supposed to.”
“They were delayed?” I asked.
He nodded. “By nearly two hours.”
“What happened?”
“A passenger.” He shook his head with a tired smile. “Some VIP apparently decided everyone else could wait. They held the aircraft for him.”
I let out a slow breath.
“Well...” I looked back towards the mountains.
“That certainly explains why none of our times lined up.”
“It sure does.”
“It also opens an entirely different can of worms.” I said.
André frowned. “How so?”
“If they’d departed on schedule...” I pointed towards Champagne Castle. “ ... they would’ve crossed those mountains nearly two hours earlier.”
Realisation slowly spread across his face. “The pressure anomaly...”
“Exactly.”
“The weather would’ve been different.”
“The cold front hadn’t yet reached the Berg.”
I nodded.
“We wouldn’t be standing here trying to assemble a million-piece jigsaw puzzle out of one smashed King Air.”
He sighed.
“When you put it like that...”
“I know.”
A wry smile crossed his face. “On the bright side...” He gestured towards the resort. “ ... I’ve stayed in far worse places while investigating a case.”
I smiled, although it never quite reached my eyes. “Someone’s tragedy is often somebody else’s livelihood.”
The words hung between us for a moment. Neither of us really knew how to answer that. Eventually André slapped his hands together.
“Come.” He grinned. “Let’s go see whether breakfast is as good as yesterday’s.”
“I’ll just grab my jacket.”
I pushed myself away from the railing. “I’ll meet you there.”
He had barely taken three steps when my cell phone erupted into life.
The ringtone echoed across the quiet lake.
I glanced at the display. Colonel Chris von Wielligh.
I answered without missing a beat.
“When you hear the signal...” I said cheerfully into the phone, “ ... do what you have to do.”
Without hesitation Chris fired back. “Go play on the railway tracks, asshole.”
I laughed. “Morning to you too, Colonel.”
“Morning, Tim.” There wasn’t even the slightest hint of apology in his voice. “I’ve got good news and bad news.”
“Smoke on...” I grinned. “ ... Go.”
“We’re deploying another crew.”
“Where to?”
“Durban.”
I pretended to sound disappointed. “So they won’t be stopping here for coffee?”
“Yes. They have to,” He snorted. “And don’t even start.”
“What have I done now?”
“I need your bakkie.”
“My bakkie? Or the bakkie property of SAPS and Sons?”
“The one you’ve got down there for the mountain ground crews.”
I shrugged, although he couldn’t see me. “Take it.” I replied. “I can hire another one or survive on Uber for a few days.”
“Good.”
I heard papers rustling on his end.
“I’ll get Annie to amend your SAPS-501 so Finance covers the rental.”
“Who’s coming?”
“Pieter Enslin. Hannes Botha. A couple of technicians...”
“Flying?”
“No. They’re coming down with the IVECO.”
“They’re driving that double-cab truck...,” I frowned, “no helicopter?”
“Durban already has two AS350s and a Pilatus PC-6.” He paused. “They’re short of crews, not aircraft. And the brass are expecting chaos with the March and March protest against illegal immigrants.”
“So, the SAPS and the Army are mobilising. Thank God I am otherwise engaged.”
An idea suddenly popped into my head.
“Chris?”
“What?”
“Can I ask you a favour, seeing they are coming here to fetch the bakkie?”
There was a suspicious silence.
“What now?”
“Tell Pieter to bring Misty to me.”
“The Bell?”
“My Bell.”
“Your private four-oh-seven?”
“That’s the one.”
He chuckled. “I thought you’d forgotten about her.”
“Impossible to forget about her.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely. Pieter’s current on type. And he knows her. Besides, Pieter used her last weekend. He took his latest smoochy for a flip. The hangar keys are in the bottom right-hand drawer of my desk. Misty’s keys are with them.””
Chris thought about it for a moment.
“Actually...” His voice became more thoughtful. “That’ll get them to Durban considerably quicker than driving.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Done.” He didn’t hesitate another second. “I’ll task Pieter to ferry her down.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Right.” His familiar hurry returned immediately. “I’ve got another six phone calls waiting.”
“I gathered.”
“Catch you later.”
The line went dead before I had a chance to say goodbye.
I slipped the phone back into my pocket and smiled.
Some things never changed.
Chris von Wielligh had probably been born in a hurry, and if there was a way of fitting twenty-six hours into a twenty-four-hour day, he’d already have found it.
As for me...
The thought that ZS-MST — Misty — would soon be joining us in the Champagne Valley somehow made the morning feel even brighter. There was something reassuring about knowing my own helicopter would be nearby. Not because I expected to need her, but because old habits die hard. After enough years of flying, there’s a certain comfort in having an old friend within reach.
Mid-morning saw the little airfield come alive.
The quiet tranquillity that had settled over the valley at dawn disappeared beneath the steady rhythm of aviation. Ground crews hurried across the apron, fuel bowsers trundled between aircraft, and radios crackled from open hangar doors. Before long another SAAF Oryx swept in over the eastern ridge, its familiar rotor beat echoing off the surrounding mountains before settling onto the apron. Barely fifteen minutes later an Agusta 109 arrived from the south, flaring neatly before touching down beside it.
The sudden influx of aircraft immediately reminded me of the civil unrest of July 2021.
That ugly chapter was still fresh in everyone’s memory. What had begun with the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma for contempt of court had rapidly snowballed into something far bigger than politics. Within hours, parts of KwaZulu-Natal were burning. The violence spread into Gauteng as shopping centres, warehouses and businesses were looted, highways blocked, and entire communities found themselves virtually under siege. While some claimed they were protesting in support of Zuma, it soon became painfully obvious that many of those pushing overloaded shopping trolleys through smashed store fronts had little interest in politics at all. Years of unemployment, poverty and simmering frustration had simply found an outlet, while criminals seized the opportunity with both hands. For several days it felt as though parts of South Africa had stepped backwards into lawlessness.
Watching the additional helicopters arriving one after another stirred memories I’d rather have left behind.
Major Aubrey Henning found me standing outside the hangar, watching another fuel truck make its way across the apron.
“So you’ve noticed the traffic?” he smiled.
“I was beginning to wonder if someone had declared war without telling me.”
He chuckled.
“Nothing quite that dramatic. Headquarters has activated us as a contingency.”
“For?”
“The March and March protests.”
I looked at him.
“Intelligence believes things could turn ugly?”
He nodded.
“We’re hoping it doesn’t, but nobody wants a repeat of July 2021. I’ve been tasked to command the three SAAF helicopters as a reserve transport unit should the protests escalate.”
That explained everything.
Suddenly Chris’s phone call earlier that morning made perfect sense. The SAPS Air Wing wasn’t reinforcing Durban because of our investigation. They were repositioning crews in case the country once again found itself on the brink of chaos.
Inside, I was rather pleased I’d asked Chris to send Misty.
With the military helicopters now earmarked for operational standby, I would still have my own aircraft available whenever the investigation required it.
Inside the hangar the atmosphere was entirely different.
Where the apron buzzed with urgency, the reconstruction team worked with almost surgical precision.
Sheets of brown paper had been taped across a large section of the concrete floor, overlaid with Bobby Jacobson’s survey grid. One by one, pieces of the shattered King Air were being carried into position exactly where Bobby’s mapping team had recorded them on the mountainside. Every twisted panel, fractured frame member, wiring loom and broken bracket was carefully placed according to the survey coordinates.
It looked less like wreckage and more like somebody trying to complete the world’s most complicated three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle.
I stood quietly studying both the reconstruction and the original site plans.
Very little input was required from me.
These six structural specialists—and the three young women working alongside them—knew exactly what they were doing. Every measurement was checked twice before another piece was added. There were no shortcuts. No assumptions. Aviation accident investigation has little tolerance for guesswork.
Bobby Jacobson and Ruan Fourie moved slowly around the growing reconstruction, stopping every few minutes to compare measurements against Bobby’s survey drawings.
Ruan eventually wandered over to where I was standing.
“This is going to take a while.”
I nodded.
“Two ... maybe three days before it starts looking like an aeroplane again.”
He looked back towards the layout.
“I’d really wanted one last trip up to the crash site before I signed off on the reconstruction.”
“What for?”
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