"Captain?" the agent called through the narrow opening, her face framed by the yellow safety tape of the jetway. "Ramp control needs the pushback clearance. Are we taking 3A, or do I offload his baggage from the forward hold?"
Mercer stared at the dispatch sheet in his hand, then at the small red star stamped across my boarding pass. The silence in the galley stretched until the hum of the cooling blowers seemed to fill the entire cabin. He knew the rule as well as I did: once an operational auditor is identified aboard an active flight leg, any captain who attempts to remove that auditor without documented safety cause faces an immediate suspension of flight authority pending an administrative board review in Chicago.
"Leave the baggage," Mercer said, his voice flat and lifeless. "Clear the jetway and pull the bridge. We're taking him."
The gate agent looked surprised, her eyebrows climbing toward her bangs, but she nodded and stepped back into the tunnel. The heavy steel door swung inward with a heavy mechanical clunk, and Emily immediately grabbed the handle, rotating the locking arm downward until the orange indicator bar flipped into the armed position.
"Seat 3A, Mr. Jenkins," Mercer said without looking at me. He folded the dispatch sheet once more and shoved it deep into his pocket. "Take your seat and fasten your belt. We have a five-hour flight to Los Angeles, and every single switch on that pedestal will be logged according to the book."
"That is all I ever ask of a captain," I said.
I stepped past him through the curtain, the worn soles of my shoes silent against the dark blue aisle carpet, and sat down in 3A.
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
The Chicago line inspector was Mercer’s brother-in-law.
I didn't open the folder all the way. I knew the numbers by heart because I had spent four hours in a damp hangar basement in Des Moines two nights ago tracing the tail registration number across twelve separate line-check stations. The aircraft wasn't falling apart; modern twin-engine jets are built with multiple overlapping redundancies, and a sluggish thrust reverser valve rarely causes an accident on a dry runway with nine thousand feet of asphalt ahead. But rules in commercial transport exist precisely because redundancies are meant to protect passengers from sudden weather and equipment fatigue, not to preserve a flight crew's on-time departure bonus.
The cabin chimes sounded twice, low and resonant, signaling the pushback sequence. Through the oval window beside my shoulder, I watched the ground crew in their fluorescent yellow vests pull the steering bypass pin and disconnect the heavy steel tow bar from the nose gear strut. The tug driver raised his arm, holding up the orange streamer attached to the bypass pin, giving the cockpit the standard visual confirmation that the steering system was returned to flight control.
Below the cabin floor, the low vibration of the auxiliary turbine changed pitch, rising into a smooth, whistling whine as the pneumatic duct valves opened to spin the starboard engine core. I leaned my head slightly against the padded window frame, counting the seconds beneath my breath. One. Two. Three.
An operational cross-bleed start requires the flight crew to advance the operating engine to approximately seventy percent duct pressure before opening the isolation valve to start the opposing turbine. It causes a distinct, pulsing shudder through the cabin air ducts—a rhythmic rise and fall of the air-conditioning airflow that any passenger sitting in row three could feel against their ankles.
The air vents above seat 3A remained completely steady. A flat, uninterrupted stream of cool air blew across my forehead.
Mercer was starting both powerplants directly off the auxiliary unit simultaneously, skipping the high-pressure pneumatic test to make up for the four minutes we had lost while he held me at the cabin door. He was saving fuel, shaving three minutes off the ground clock, and betting that the secondary hydraulic pressure in the starboard reverser would hold without being tested under full engine pressure.
"Coffee before we depart, sir?" Emily Carter had moved up the aisle, holding a silver pot with a black insulated handle. Her smile was professional, practiced, and entirely devoid of warmth. "We won’t have service for the first twenty-five minutes after wheels up."
"Water is fine, Miss Carter," I said quietly. "Still, if you have a sealed bottle."
Her hand hesitated on the neck of the pot. "You think our water tanks aren't clean?"