Chapter 34

Sunday, February 17 - Monday, February 18, 2002

On the trip back home at the beginning of the month, Dave was able to reflect on his premonition that the weekend was going to change his life had come true. Things were not going to be the same, and he was happy about it.

Shae didn't get in to see a doctor until Tuesday, but she called him afterward and told him his surmises had been correct, and they could expect a kid along around the last week of September or the first week of October. While Shae had long had an interest in having children, like a lot of women, she'd never really gotten into the details until the prospect became a reality. She reported she'd stocked up on several books about pregnancy and child care and was spending her evenings wrapped up in them. Back on the weekend Dave had told her there were no baby items left from Tyler and Cameron -- he and Julie had been apartment dwellers and there wasn't storage space available for them. Since Julie had had no intention of using the stuff again it had been gotten rid of. Dave had suggested Shae try to keep her nesting instincts about that kind of stuff under control, too, since it would be that much more to move when the time came.

They had also agreed they were going to sit down and tell the boys the next time she was in Bradford, and if it went well, then they could tell JoAnne, Emily, and their other friends in town. It had become increasingly difficult to keep their relationship covered up in Bradford -- if they'd actually done a good job of it -- and Dave was looking forward to having the deception over with. He'd thought about ways to tell the boys, and of course they'd agreed they'd have to do it together. Once that detail got settled, they could work on wedding plans, to include a date, although both felt a big wedding was out of the question. In fact, both of them leaned toward putting Emily's mayor position to work, like Jason and Vicky had done a year and a half before.

This was the weekend Shae had expected to come to Bradford to deal with these issues -- but then, on Thursday, she'd been notified that her mother's much-beloved great-aunt had passed on unexpectedly, and she had to go to Denver for the funeral. Although he was disappointed, there wasn't anything Dave could say and he knew it. Shae had managed to come up with first class tickets both ways at a decent price, for the sake of some leg room, and she agreed she'd rather have been in Bradford, but what had to be done had to be done.

So, Dave was stuck for the weekend with nothing special to do but work on the book, which was coming along nicely. Things went really well on Saturday, partly because he'd had Kayla and her friend Rachel over to play with the boys while he worked, and Sunday morning things went well, too. However, after Sunday lunch, Dave was at a flat spot and didn't really feel like pounding away at the keyboard. For lack of anything better to do, while the boys took a nap, he turned on the TV.

To many, the first real harbinger of spring is not Groundhog Day on the second of February, but the Daytona 500 on the third Sunday. For real fans, there are just two seasons: winter and NASCAR. Dave was hardly a NASCAR fan, although he usually caught a race or two each year on the afternoons he'd normally watch a ball game if there were one worth watching on TV. It was something to do, often something to nap through, and this hit him perfectly.

They were deep in the pre-race and the announcer was babbling something about tire pressures and how critical they were when all of a sudden there was a break-in for a special announcement. "A Southern Airways airliner from Mexico City en route to Chicago was hijacked by terrorists a few minutes ago. Passengers were able to fight off the terrorists and regain control of the airplane, but the flight crew was apparently severely injured in the battle. The plane is now headed for Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi, being flown by a woman charter jet pilot who happened to be on board. We take you now live to Barbara Bishop of WOXI, our Biloxi, Mississippi affiliate."

"Shit," Dave muttered to himself, "I hope this doesn't screw up the race coverage."

The scene switched to a young-looking blonde with short hair, standing in front of an empty airfield, microphone in hand, who said with usual young newscaster intensity, "Details are very sketchy here at Keesler Air Force Base about the hijacking of Southern one-eleven a few minutes ago. What little we know, we were told by Master Sergeant Will Hoffman, the Keesler Public Information NCO. Here's a portion of his statement."

The scene switched to a tall, handsome young man, wearing an olive drab jacket with a lot of stripes on his sleeve. "Apparently a few minutes ago Southern Airlines Flight one-eleven was briefly taken over by hijackers," the sergeant said. "The passengers apparently fought back and regained control of the aircraft. The flight crew was seriously injured in the process, knife wounds from what I understand, and one hijacker was also seriously injured. The crew is incapable of flying the airplane, and it's being flown by a woman business jet pilot who happened to be on board." With a dull heart at the thought of another terrorist incident, Dave continued to watch the interview with the sergeant intently.

"Sergeant Hoffman tells us we can't get into the tower," the young reporter was saying on the television, apparently now live. "But he's arranged for us to monitor the traffic between the tower and Southern one-eleven on a portable radio." They watched as Bishop put her microphone in front of a small black radio sitting on a car hood.

"One-eleven, this is Keesler," they heard Colonel Hadley say. "Are you getting the feel of it?"

"Affirmative, Colonel," the pilot replied. "You're right; it maneuvers slowly but seems well behaved."

The woman's voice somehow sounded familiar to Dave, even though it was distorted by the cheap speaker on the portable radio. He listened as the camera focused in on the radio, the microphone held in front of it along with a couple other microphones, apparently from other stations. The radio was silent for a few seconds before the woman came on again. "Course three two five," she reported professionally. "And we're out of flight level two four zero and descending."

"You're coming along just fine," he said. "We'll stick with that course for a couple minutes, then come left to three one zero to intercept the radial. By the way, ma'am, I don't believe any of us caught your name."

"Roger, Colonel," she replied professionally. I have a single-engine pilot by the name of Jeff Waldemer in the cockpit with me. My name is Jennlynn Swift."

"HOOO-LEEEE SHIT!" Dave said out loud to the TV.

There was a brief pause before Colonel Hadley's voice sounded again: "Ma'am, by any chance are you the woman they call 'Learjet Jenn?'"

"Affirmative," came out of the speaker of the little aviation scanner sitting on the hood of one of the news trucks.

Dave figured the phone lines in Bradford were in severe danger of melting for the next few minutes, and there were few eyes not watching a TV screen as Barbara Bishop continued her report.

"They're a little over three minutes out," the young newscaster said into the microphone a few seconds later. "It's very hazy here today, we haven't been able to pick the plane out ... oh, there it is!" On TV sets around the world, the scene changed to a tiny silver dot that rapidly grew closer. "If you didn't know better you'd think it was a normal landing," Bishop continued. "Neither Jennlynn Swift nor Colonel Hadley sound excited in the slightest. Just very smooth, very professional, but they are both professionals, even though Swift has never flown an airplane of this size before..."

There were a few more exchanges, sounding very professional if a bit cryptic. "Inner marker," Jennlynn said as the aircraft was very close to the runway. The gear was now down, and they saw the nose rise a little as it felt for the runway.

"Looking good," Colonel Hadley said. "Looking good ... almost there..."

With the Airbus's nose high, the main gear hit the runway, and the nose started to drop. They could see the airplane slow in what looked like a normal landing. In a few seconds, it was just taxiing down the runway. They could hear the microphone from the plane come on, and over a background of cheers from the passengers; they heard Jennlynn say, "Keesler tower, Southern one-eleven. I'm a stranger here; you're going to have to tell me where to park this thing."

By now, Dave was unashamedly leaking tears. Not just for the lives Jennlynn had saved, but for the fact that someone had struck back -- someone he knew! -- at the kind of terrorists that had taken Julie from him. It was then that the phone rang -- Emily, calling to spread the word if he hadn't seen it. "Thank God," he said in a relief he hadn't felt since September 11. "I feel like the Class of '88 just struck back for Julie."

"Seems like it to me, Dave," Emily replied slowly. "I just hope the aftermath isn't as bad as I'm afraid it's going to be."

Once the Air Force Security Police had entered the plane, determined everything was safe, and emergency technicians removed the wounded, the network cut back to the race. "Welcome back to the Daytona 500," the announcer said. "And we'd like to thank Jennlynn Swift and the passengers of Southern one-eleven for preventing a major tragedy here today." They continued with the race coverage, but kept cutting back to Keesler for developments there.

A couple hours later there was a news conference in which Sergeant Hoffman introduced the principals. It turned out the battle against the hijackers had been led by a big black woman by the name of Mallory Fox; she'd been briefly taken hostage, but she was a black belt and she wasn't a hostage long. Almost immediately she had two of the hijackers down, and then she headed for the cockpit for the two other hijackers, followed by an elderly veterinarian who proved to be a combat veteran. Jennlynn was third in line, swinging a spike heeled Manholo Blahnik like a cargo hook, almost killing one of the hijackers. Dr. Milligan, the veterinarian, was the closest they had to a doctor on board, and he'd managed to keep the flight crew and the hijacker alive for the rest of the trip. Jennlynn only talked briefly about taking over the airplane and flying it to the landing, giving a lot of the credit to Mallory for allowing it and Colonel Hadley for getting her there.

It all sounded very sweet and mellow, until the question period. The first few questions were tepid, made by reporters who really didn't understand what was going on. Then, Barbara Bishop launched the curve ball: "Miss Swift," she said. "We've had word from some of our affiliates about a place called the Redlite Ranch. Would you have any comment?"