The Mind Man

Chapter fourteen

Ted Farrell ran from the precinct building onto the busy Freeport Boulevard and searched for a taxi. His original intention was to use a squad car but there weren't any available at that precise moment. The easiest and quickest Conway Airlines ticket office to reach, he figured, would be out at the international airport, if he could manage a good run up the West Side Freeway. Finally a taxi emerged from out of 35th Avenue and made its way up the far side of the street. He danced across the road between the cars to reach it and leapt into the back seat.

"The international airport - and fast; the faster you go the bigger the tip." Ted promised.

"Yes sir."

The taxi driver kept to his word and skillfully negotiated the traffic with a confidence that came with many years at the job. He dropped Ted outside the Terminal B departures hall as instructed by his passenger. His efforts were rewarded as promised and Ted fled inside the terminal building in search of the ticketing desks. Finding Conway Airlines, he approached the desk excusing himself politely to the line of waiting customers with a flash of his ID. He turned to the startled woman in attendance.

"Sergeant Farrell - Sacramento PD. I want to know if a Mr. Ronald Downing was on your doomed flight to Pittsburgh yesterday evening."

Ted put the ID away even though the woman was too startled to look at it.

"You mean Flight four-eighty, the one that was cancelled?" She tried to disperse the alarm sensed by potential passengers in the line.

Ted overlooked the woman's idiocy of referring to a crashed airplane as a cancelled flight and persisted.

"Yes that's right. Was a Ronald Downing on board?"

"Are you a relative of Mr. Downing?"

"Of course I'm not but..."

"Well I'm sorry Sergeant...er...our airline does not..."

"To hell with your airline, just tell me if he was on board or I'll arrest you."

"What for?" the woman panicked.

"I'll think of something."

The woman tapped furiously on the computer keyboard. She stopped and studied the screen for a short while and then slowly looked up.

"Well, what is it?" Ted prompted impatiently.

"Yes, Sergeant, he was."

Ted turned away from the desk dazed and light-headed. He felt like being sick and looked around for a restroom. He found a seat instead and sat for a moment to wait for the nausea to subside and to try and get his head around what he had just heard. But there was too much going on in his mind. He couldn't focus. Guilt welled up in him like a surging tide, wave upon wave, until he was ultimately forced to head to the nearest restroom to vomit.

After flushing he turned and sat on the lid. Leaning forward he locked the cubicle door and sunk his head in his hands. He finally had to confront the thought he had been dreading to acknowledge. He had known some small facet regarding the fate of the flight but he had done nothing to act upon it. He began to feel responsible for the lives that were lost. He knew someone was targeting GKN so he should have prevented Downing from boarding the flight somehow. How could he have stopped a commercial flight on just a hunch - again another ludicrous prospect? Then what really could he have done? But then why did the guilt rage within him? What on earth were these people doing and who were they? His only salvation from the nagging guilt would be if the cause of the tragedy was discovered and it turned out to be an unfortunate coincidence.

This thought gave him some mild assurance and he was able to stand and leave the cubicle. The terminal was abuzz with people but he barely noticed anyone. His feet took him back outside the building and he grabbed the first available taxi. He instructed the driver to take him to Elk Grove but to stop at a news-stand to pick up a copy of The Sacramento Bee. In his haste he had forgotten to take Laura's copy. Working was not going to be an option for the rest of the day and he decided to ring in sick once he returned home. He needed the rest of the day to think things through and to watch the news reports for any developments. Inside the taxi he became conscious of his foul breath and the rancid taste of stale vomit so once they were across on the south side of the river he picked up some mints together with the paper. As the taxi proceeded across town he read further into the article. The report stated that there appeared no sign of terrorist activity. Witnesses had said there had been no explosion and the airplane just fell from the sky. Air traffic controllers who made periodic contact with the airplane on route claimed they heard nothing to suggest there was any trouble onboard the aircraft. The report concluded that the black box, when found, would provide investigators with answers. Ted folded the paper and placed it beside him on the seat and looked out at the traffic despondently. He sensed something familiar between this tragedy and the car wreck he had investigated over on the Interstate. He didn't share the article's optimism that the black box would reveal answers. By the time they pulled up outside his home it was clear to Ted what he must do next, and the thought sickened him to his core.