Troop 402. Donald Ph.D. Ladew

      Chapter 1

      Late in the afternoon the sky turned dark and a cold mist covered the airport. The air was filled with moisture and bad electricity. There was a feeling of violence withheld.

      The sheets of water on the tarmac in front of the aviation terminal were rippled by occasional gusts of wind. The airport lights had been turned on against the premature darkness.

      Occasionally an aircraft maintenance man in yellow oil skins appeared in the lights and then disappeared.

      Planes landed sporadically but few took off. Boise, Idaho wasn't an international gateway.

      Placer Airways Flight 402, a twin-engine turboprop commuter plane, sat alone in front of the furthest wing of the terminal. With its tan and white stripes it looked out of place near its flashier cousins parked in front of the main terminal.

      The pilots of those giants referred to Placer as ‘Placid Airways’. The employees of Placer didn't mind. Placid was good. Management was sane and the company had been profitable since it started up six years before. If they wanted flashy, they could work for American or Delta, live in Los Angeles, eat smog and measure life against the latest fad.

      In Boise, you live near the mountains and breathe air so pure it tastes like candy.

      Flight 402 was on the milk run from Chicago. Its final destination was Seattle, Washington, weather permitting. It had already stopped at Minneapolis-St. Paul, Rapid City S. Dakota, and Missoula, Montana.

      The flight arrived in Boise two and half hours earlier with ten passengers. Now, as the plane prepared to leave on the next leg, the ten passengers were probably at home having a decent meal, watching Dan Rather going on about the blood-mean miseries of the world.

      The plane should have fueled, picked up three passengers and left on the last leg of the trip, all of which would have taken about forty minutes.

      Captain Peter Duckhorn, a middle-aged, slightly balding man with a much loathed paunch stared at the latest weather data on a computer display. He looked at his first officer impatiently.

      "Doesn't look too bad to the west, Neil. The wind ought to push this mess east."

      First Officer, ‘Neil’ Neilsen, turned away from a plotting table covered with navigation charts and walked over to the display.

      "Maybe...it's this unstable air mass sitting out here off the coast and these storms here in northern Oregon that bother me. This is the funny season. You get bad storms up here, come out of nowhere. I don't believe anything I see from meteorology any more. Since we began ruining the atmosphere the weather is all screwed up."

      Nielsen was tall, thin and slightly stooped. He had a long mournful face that made him look older than thirty five. Captain Duckhorn figured it was all the worry Nielsen carried around.

      "Jesus, Neil, you'd worry if we had a hundred thousand foot ceiling all the way to Fiji."

      "Nooo, the Hawaiian Islands maybe, not Fiji." Nielsen didn't smile. He was dryer than dust even on a rainy night.

      "We could give it another hour, see what happens."

      "I don't think so," Duckhorn said. "No, if we do that I'd rather cancel and try again in the morning. If we stay we have to put the passengers up at the Airtel. It’s a toss up, Neil. I want to keep the schedule."

      Nielsen pulled a manifest from his flight case. "We've only got three passengers, hardly seems worth the effort." He took a package of Tums from his pocket and put two in his mouth.

      "What's the matter Neil, anxiety getting the better of you?"

      "No, I had burrito's and beans for supper. Things are rumbling and grumbling down there."

      The Captain gave him a dirty look. "You better put a zipper on it or you'll be flying strapped to the toilet. Let's get the show on the road. Call Sherry, have her inform the passengers. I'll file the flight plan."

      Inside the terminal, in the wing opposite where FLT 402 was parked, a ticket agent for Placer called across the waiting area.

      "Boarding FLT 402. Passengers for Placer FLT 402 to Seattle, we're ready to board."

      Outside in the rain, Miss Sherry Willis, the Flight attendant towed a two wheeled luggage carrier with one hand and held a rain coat over her head with the other as she ran for the plane.

      Miss Willis was naturally cheerful. With her looks and intelligence, she could easily have gotten a job with United or TWA, but she'd seen the rest of the country. Quite sensibly she didn't want to live anywhere else.

      On the ramp the plane handlers had the door open and a set of portable stairs up against the side of the plane. She hurried to get out of the rain. She'd had her hair done that morning and didn’t want to loose what took an hour and sixty dollars at the beauty shop to achieve.

      The line inside the terminal had three people in it. The first man in the line was short, broad, scruffy and old. He had a day's heavy growth of salt and pepper stubble and wore an old fashioned Borsalino fedora. His accent and pallor placed him two thousand miles to the east. The lines of his face were set in an unhappy cast.

      The agent asked for his ticket. He took the passenger's seat card and handed the ticket back.

      "Thank you, Mr. Genoa. We're sorry for the delay."

      "So, who cares if you're not going where you want," he growled.

      "I beg your..." Mr. Genoa had already disappeared through the boarding door into the rain.

      The next person in line dwarfed the ticket agent. He had a rugged, good looking face, stood six foot six, weighed two hundred and forty pounds, and was built like Arnold Schwarzenegger. He smiled cheerfully and handed over his ticket.

      The ticket agent looked up at the young man with admiration.

      "Could I have your autograph, Mr. McChesney? Would you sign it, Mr. America, please?"

      "Sure. I hope we get through to Seattle this evening. I miss this competition and I won't be mister anything."

      The ticket agent smiled. "I wish you the best of luck, Mr. McChesney."

      McChesney turned and walked out onto the tarmac.

      There was a third passenger but the agent had to look down this time. He hadn't been visible behind the body builder. The boy looked after McChesney wistfully.

      Alvin Stanford Thomas III was eleven. He was short, compact, close-cropped hair behind steel-rimmed glasses. It was hard to tell what kind of man the boy would become except for the jaw and eyes. The jaw was square, determined and the eyes were very blue and very alert.

      His father had called earlier to let the airline know that he was traveling alone