The Smiths and Joneses (31 page)

              Turning to Ron and the captain the chief says, “My people arrested three people you identified as people of interest. In most of the videos, only a hand or arm of one of the people can be seen. You might have led to the arrest of the trigger puller. If it turns out to be the trigger puller, you’ll be awarded the reward that currently stands at $50,000.”

              “What? I didn’t know about the reward. I did this because you asked me to.”

              The casino owners don’t like problems or violence at their front doors; it hurts their ‘take’ the reward is pennies to them.”

              “Well, it’s not to me. I’m worried about my wife, is there a way to get a message to her?”

              The chief laughs saying, “Ron she’s fine. When you agreed to cooperate with the captain, I gave her a prepaid gift card, I have two people keeping an eye on her, and she’s having a ball shopping. You’ll be with her in time for dinner that is at the Palm. Dinner is free so order anything you and Beverly want.”

              “I may decide to visit Las Vegas more often.”

              “If you do and are interested in a part or full time consulting job, call me. I can hook you up with any of the casinos who are always looking for people with law enforcement experience and know how to keep their mouths shut.”

              “I’ll let you know.”

              The captain says, “Ron, I’m sorry for the way we started off, sometimes we get a little carried away. It looks like you were the key that enabled the chief to arrest the trigger puller. If he did, I’m sure President Bloomberg will also want to reward you.”

              “I just want to be with my wife.”

              The chief says, “Come on; I’ll take you to her.”

              Reaching the hotel, Ron is met at front door by the hotel manager who informs him their stay has been ‘comped,' Ron thanks him and shakes his hand. The chief thanks, Ron, he says, “Call me and let me know what you decide. You were able to reconstruct the scene in enough detail for us to break the case. Thanks.” They shook hands, Ron sees Bev walking towards him, she’s carrying five large shopping bags. “Honey, I did a little shopping while you worked.”

              “Do I even want to know what’s in the bags?”

              “Sure, I’ll tell you upstairs.”

              The two walk towards the elevator arm in arm

              The captain watches them walk away, the hotel manager says, “Do you think they’ll return here to work for you and the chief? Is he really as good as the chief said?”

              “I hope he decides to return, he’s better than we thought. He surprised us when we learned he has almost perfect photographic memory. He can remember almost everything he’s seen and heard. His memory gave us the information we needed to break the case.

              “How much is their vacation cost us?”

              “Us? Nothing, their bill is being picked up by the casino owners who want him to return. We have been having too many issues with people sneaking out of the LSA, either to ask for asylum or to cause trouble. We need experienced people before the crime wave grows into a tidal wave or the people sneaking in cause President Bloomberg to take the wrong kind of notice of us.”

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              The broadcast crew is settled back in their seats for the six-hour flight across country. Today, the flight is very bumpy, they are fighting a 100MPH headwind which is going to cause them to be late. At 3:00 PM EST Wolf’s phone rings, “Hello, this is Wolf.”

              “Please hold for President Bloomberg.”

              “Wolf are you there?”

              “Yes sir.”

              “What’s the background noise that the mic isn’t able to cancel out?”

              “Sir, I’m on the broadcast plane headed to Oregon.”

              “In that case just listen. I’m very upset; I want to know how Anonymous got the videos of our people standing in line, how they got some of our production numbers and what products are in short supply. I know that this evening’s program is going to spend a lot of time discussing this issue. I have sent DepLIES officers to stock the local stores close to the Smith’s home, fully. When Sean asks Sharon to go shopping; I want you to agree happily. The viewers will see nothing but full shelves and happy shoppers. All of the shoppers will be agents, families and staff from the DepLIES. This will put doubt on the Anonymous video. The Smith’s will back up what we show the world. Since you can’t freely speak, if you have any questions text them the following number, 555-666-5555, can you remember it?”

              “Yes.”

              “Good, Wolf, don’t blow this, we’ve gone to get effort to discredit Anonymous. I want you to rub Sean’s face in their lies and propaganda.”

              “Will do.”

              “Good, have a good flight.” Click

              Wolf looked at the phone in his hand wondering how the DepLIES is going to clear all of the stores of the local people and replace everyone from the clerks, cashiers, shoppers even the stock people, to DepLIES employees. He didn’t worry what would happen if a local person slipped in. He also wondered if the Smith children would say something. He wondered if he should try to arrange to leave Scott and Sissy home. He knew they wanted as much airtime as possible. He’d try to speak with Jason and Sharon in private. Before he can think of anything else, the airplane hits a pocket of dense air shaking the entire airplane, he’s knocked off his feet. The pilot announces everyone has to take their seats and buckle their seat belts. He tells everyone not to get up until he signals its all clear. Anyone injured should touch their call button over their seats. Three call lights signal, Wolf worries about those injured, he hopes none is seriously hurt. If they are, the airplane may have to land which would delay the program. If the program is delayed, all of the preparations President Bloomberg set in place will be wasted. Before Wolf can do anything the airplane pitches to the left, goes up, and the nose pitches down dropping any foolish enough to be out of their seats to be knocked down. Two additional call lights chime signaling additional people are injured Wolf makes it back to his seat, where he finds Sean with a serious look on his face.

              “Wolf, we have problems, we’ve got a number of our crew injured, I think we’re going to have to land at Denver to get our people medical treatment, if we do, tonight’s program is going to have to be delayed or postponed. I’ve tried to contact headquarters to alert them. However, my phone isn’t working is yours?”

              “It was just a few minutes ago; I’ll try to reach our offices.”

Chapter 18

              Sean asks the flight attendant, “Are there any of our crew seriously injured?”

              “I’m sorry to say, there are two seriously injured; one hit their head on the overhead luggage compartment, the airplane dove, he wasn’t buckled in. The other appears to have a broken arm; a computer case fell out of the overhead landing on her arm. It snapped her forearm. The pilot says he’s going to make an emergency landing at Denver so your crew can receive the needed medical treatment.”

              Wolf says, “Can’t we continue and get them medical treatment in Oregon?”

              The flight attendant says, “You’d want your people to suffer just so you can keep your schedule? The pilot has been in touch with your corporate offices who have agreed with the pilot’s plan to divert. The pilot will see both of you as soon as he has spoken with flight control in Denver.”

              Wolf thinks to himself, “There goes President Bloomberg’s plan, I wonder how they're going to fill tonight’s time slot? I need to get a message to the President. How do I do that without alerting Sean?”

              The pilot leaves the cockpit to meet with Sean and Wolf, “Gentlemen, I’m sorry to have to inform you that due to the rough air we are going to have to divert to Denver. Two of your people have serious injuries; we should be landing at Denver in one hour. I need to have the ground crew inspect the airplane to ensure we didn’t damage the plane. I’m sorry. However, we won’t meet your broadcast schedule for this evening’s program. If the airplane didn’t sustain any damage, we should be able to leave in two or three hours after landing.” Before the pilot can continue he’s paged to return to the cockpit. Upon entering the cockpit, he notices the red warning light on engine one. “Scotty, what’s going on?”

              “Dan, fire in engine one, I’ve declared an emergency to Denver tower, they’ve given us a direct in path and have cleared the runways for us.”

              “Have you noticed any other damage?”

              “Not yet, we’ve lost airspeed due to the loss of engine one.”

              Sitting down and strapping into to his seat the pilot says, “Scotty, I’ve got the plane, instruct the flight attendants to prepare the passengers for a potential crash landing. Denver has informed us they have 25knot cross winds which will make the landing a little interesting.”

              “Dan, how bad are the two injured passengers?”

              “Not life threatening, however, they need medical attention as soon as possible.”

              “Are the network bigwigs OK with us diverting?”

              “They don’t have a choice do they?”

              “Is this going to have an impact to our contract?”

              “No, I discussed the situation with both of them, they understand, they want their staff taken care of. They told me not to worry about the program, they have enough pre-recorded video to carry them for tonight. I think they plan on Sean and Wolf opening the program from one of their Denver stations.”

              “As long as they don’t cancel our contract. We’re making great money flying the production crew back and forth across the country.”

              “Scotty, make sure everyone is ready, I’m going to start our descent.”

              The descent is very bumpy. Overhead compartments open, baggage falls out, a drink cart breaks loose and rolls down the aisle towards the cockpit door. The cart picks up speed as it travels towards front of the airplane. A couple of the production crew try to grab the cart, however, the cart is moving too quickly and is too heavy for the passengers to stop while seated and buckled in. The cart slams into the cockpit door. The shock surprises the pilot and copilot who jerks the controls, pushing the airplane’s nose down speeding up their descent. The speed alarm screams in the cockpit, the airplane is hard to control on a single engine, the pilot finally gains some control, however not enough to make a controlled landing. The airplane slams into the runway breaking the nose landing gear. The airplane makes a sharp right hand turn into the grass bordering the runway. When the airplane finally comes to a complete stop, the flight attendants open the doors, deploying the emergency slides. They start sending the passengers down the slides. Ambulances, fire trucks and other emergency vehicles are racing to reach the plane which has smoke coming out of the second engine. The flight attendants push the passengers to get away from the plane as quickly as possible. Sean slides down to the ground where he is helping the crew get away from the plane, he helps the injured; he uses his sports jacket to make a sling for the crewperson with the broken arm, he helps her walk to safety. Wolf ran from the airplane. He looks around for Sean and sees him helping the crew; he starts toward the broken airplane when a DHS vehicle pulls up telling him to get inside.

              Emergency vehicles circle the broken airplane; some are spraying foam into both engines, and others are trying to get the passengers to safety and into ambulances. Armed Denver airport police circle the airplane to keep the media away from it. The airlines send a car to pick up the pilot and copilot for questioning.

              In Washington, DC, the presidents of both Wolf and CNN watch the scene from their local reporters, they jointly agree to run prerecorded footage tonight while also showing the airplane crash landing so their millions of viewers understand why the regular programing is delayed. Randolph tells John, “We have two injured crew people, the rest seem to be OK, Sean and Wolf are fine. Some of our equipment is ruined from the crash.”

              “Do we know what caused the crash?”

              “Yes and no. By that I mean they lost an engine in very rough air. Three of our crew were injured; the pilot decided to divert to Denver, which was having powerful crosswinds that struck the airplane. Since the plane had only a single engine they had issues controlling their descent, they came down hard, hard enough to break the landing gear. The pilot and copilot are giving statements to the FAA and the NTSB, we’ll be forwarded a copy. The NTSB told me, it’s a miracle they didn’t crash and kill everyone. I think we ought to throw our support behind the crew, so the company doesn’t fire or bench them. This is the flight crew I want flying our people.”

              “I agree. Let’s place a joint call to their chairman. We can tell him we’ll toss in some discount advertising.”

              “I agree.”

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              At 8:00 PM 256 million families tune into the fourth episode of the Smiths and the Joneses to see Sean and Wolf standing in a different sound stage. Wolf kicks off the program by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen as you can see we’re not at the Smiths this evening. You may have seen the news reports of our airplane crash in Denver today. Frankly, none of us, except for maybe the pilot and copilot, thought we were going to make it. We had a couple injured crew members. The pilot decided they required immediate medical treatment, so he diverted to the closest airport which was Denver International. We’d already lost one engine; on landing the airplane was hit by powerful crosswinds which tossed the airplane around. We came down very hard injuring a few more of our broadcast crew. We broke part of landing gear; the airplane jerked right and went off the runway. All of our people will be fine. Here’s video of our crash and us using the emergency slides to leave the broken airplane. You can see the smoke pouring from the number one engine; you can see the airplane nose down. Here are pictures of the airport fire department spraying foam on the airplane to stop the fire from spreading.”