Chapter 5

Nancy bolted upright in bed. Her husband still asleep when she looked over and checked. Satisfied she didn't wake him, she attempted to remember what caused her abrupt awakening and grasped at wisps of her fast fading dream.

That face. Now she knew why her little voice nagged her. She recognized that face in the truck that almost hit her earlier. It belonged to the hothead she tussled with when he refused to exit the cave. The same guy with whom Virgil said he had the road rage incident in L.A.

'Why was he at GRNI?' Sliding out of bed, she shuffled out of the house onto the patio. The stars were brilliant tonight. They almost always were in Arizona, especially without the moon to mask their radiance. She studied them, as if asking for guidance. The revelation from sleep was alarming. Enough so, that she decided to call Walt. Going inside, she picked up the phone, dialed and heard a groggy, "Hello?"

"Walt. I'm sorry to wake you but I need to talk to you now."

He looked at the clock, which read 3:18 AM. "Can't it wait 'til morning?"

"I don't think so. I'm not even sure it can wait another 5 minutes. If the night crew gets a rescue call..." she paused, trying to figure out how to say it without sounding like Chicken Little crying about the sky falling.

"Walt, I think someone got to the choppers today. Someone who wasn't supposed to."

"What makes you think that?" Walt sounded more awake.

"Remember the cave rescue last week? We ran into that hothead from L.A.?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"I saw him today. Well, yesterday, driving a truck leaving the hangar area. It bothered me but I didn't figure out why until now."

"Could've been a delivery, maybe the driver looked like him."

"But, aren't all deliveries supposed to go to Building B? The van passed me leaving the tarmac area."

There was silence on the other end.

"What if he did something to the choppers sitting in the field? The ones ready for flight? If the night crew gets a call..." She left the sentence hanging, she couldn't finish it.

"I'll get back to you." The conversation was shorter than an army buzz cut.

Worried, she slipped back outside and sat by the pool, cell phone by her side. The tranquil water reflected the heavenly bodies in its mirrored surface. When the phone rang, she jumped, realizing she had been staring at the pool stars for 15 minutes. She snatched the phone before the second ring. "Hello?"

"Nancy, I called security and told them of your suspicions. They have people going over all the choppers and planes right now. It seems the delivery truck you saw came ten days early. The guard thought it was a typo since the rest of the paperwork was in order."

"Did you get the driver's name?"

"Yeah. It was Joe Patrick."

"Joe? That's not the name of the nutcase from last week. I thought it was Andy."

"Hold on, my other line's ringing."

Nancy waited. She paced the length of the pool and wondered if her boss forgot her. She was about to hang up when Walt came back on the line.

"You hit the nail on the head. One of the security guards found cut wires, so everything's grounded. All the mechanics have been called into work to inspect every inch of the aircrafts. We're even calling in a few outside contractors for more help. Looks like GRNI's out of business for a short while."

As she hung up, the blood drained from her face remembering she almost took the new chopper up right after she saw him. She grasped the phone as if it had melted to her hand.

At 7 A.M., Walt called an emergency meeting of security officers, the chief mechanic and team members responsible for the cave rescue the previous week.

Walt looked at the head of maintenance. "Mark, what's up?"

"We doubled up to check individual choppers and push them back into the service ASAP. We have only one team checking out hangar vehicles, since they were in for maintenance and already pulled from duty. We have three teams on the outside ones. Last week's new chopper was definitely sabotaged. The checkout for that one should be completed by the end of the day. Repair estimates will be determined by the amount of damage. Luckily, no explosives so far. He rubbed the back of his hand against his hours thick chin stubble. One other thing. I don't know how important it is, but one of our jumpsuit's missing. Tad went to get his overalls from the hook and it was gone. It was there yesterday morning."

Walt added, "Everything points to the hothead rescued from the cave last week. The one who hit you, Virg."

"Why would he damage our birds and steal our jumpsuit?"

"We don't know he took the suit. Maybe unrelated incidences. Besides, I'm not worried about that right now. I'm worried about our fleet."

Dave joined in the discussion. "I still don't understand why anyone would do that?"

"A fight broke out between Virg and this Andy fellow."

Mark interrupted, "I thought this guy's name was Joe Patrick?"

"That's true. The hothead's name is Andy Petrick. Between Nancy's ID and the fact that the last name is so similar, we believe they are one in the same."

Virgil raised his voice. "You mean because his girlfriend kissed me, he came here and deliberately damaged our choppers?"

"Well, don't forget the tryst I had with him inside the cave," Nancy added.

The puzzled look on most of the faces in front of him spurred Walt to give a quick run through of the rescue, then the details that he had discussed with Nancy during the midnight call.

"But how did he get the truck?" Jack asked.

"How did he get a valid invoice?" came another question.

"We don't have answers yet," Walt replied. "But we have contacted the police."

Andy took his shoes off before he walked through the doorway into his home and placed them on a corner table. The ritual so embedded, the movement was automatic. At first glance it looked just like any unkempt house, but upon closer examination a pattern of lunacy gleamed through the mess. While clothes and shoes were scattered all about the furniture and the kitchen dishes were piled high in an Oscar Madison tribute, the floor was immaculate. Not a crumb graced the hardwood, not a stain marred the carpet and one could actually eat off the kitchen floor. He practiced the art of textbook obsessive/compulsive with polished precision. While he didn't care about anything else, the floor had to be immaculate.

Gyrating as if listening to invisible music, he crossed the living room and tossed his jacket onto the clothes enshrouded easy chair. He was more than pleased with himself. The fake invoice and vehicle registration fooled everyone.