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  He found a stool at the bar and called to the bartender, “Hey Annie, how ’bout some food? I’m starving over here.”

  “I thought you were on a liquid diet or something, Ray.”

  “Nah, just thirsty after a hard day.”

  “You know what’s on the menu. What can I get you?”

  “How ’bout a burger cooked rare with everything on it? Maybe some fries.”

  “You got it, Ray. Coming right up.”

  After putting the burger order in, she came over with napkins and utensils.

  She asked, “What are you going to do next month? You got something lined up?”

  “Not really,” he answered.

  “A lot of the guys are going to work for Aero Mech. Have you thought about that?”

  “Those guys are taking a thirty percent pay cut and working with no benefits. Doesn’t sound like a good deal to me.”

  “Didn’t you transfer here from Dallas? Have you still got folks there?”

  “Believe me, I’m not going back to Dallas. My wife divorced me and stayed there when Tri Con forced me to transfer after they merged with the airline I worked for. Wait till she and her sleazy lawyer find out the company has kicked me in the teeth again, and her half of the paycheck doesn’t show up.”

  Over the last hour or so, Ray’s speech had become slurred, and his eyes were heavy.

  “You’ve had some tough breaks, Ray, but you’re still young. You’ll bounce back.”

  “Yeah, after giving Tri Con eight years of my life and busting up a marriage to keep my job with them, this is my reward.”

  “Let me check on your burger. You’ll feel better if you eat.”

  “I’ll feel better when Tri Con finds out what it’s like to get kicked in the head. What goes around comes around. All they care about is their precious bottom line.” He thought, Don’t you worry about me, girl. Old Ray’s got a plan.

  Annie went to check on his order and came back with his food and a bottle of ketchup.

  “Get me another draft to go with this.”

  “Sure, Ray, you driving home?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay. It’s not far.”

  “Go easy on the beer then. You’ve got enough problems without an accident or a DUI.”

  “Yeah, I might lose my job with Tri Con.”

  She noticed that Ray had unfolded a piece of paper and laid it on the bar to look at.

  “You got a love letter there, Ray?”

  “Yeah, this is my love letter to Tri Con. I’m going to help them out with their bottom line before I leave.”

  Four new customers sat down at the other end of the bar, and Annie went to take care of them. She knew the bar would get busy now and stay busy until after the shift change at midnight. She served the new guys and noticed Ray get up and walk unsteadily toward the restroom. He had finished his food, and when she cleaned away the empty dishes, she saw the paper still lying on the bar. When she picked it up so she could wipe down the bar, she saw that he had made handwritten notes on it. Her curiosity got the best of her, and she read the top of the page: Tri Con Maintenance Manual—electrical wiring schematic—fuel dump valves.

  Molly Jackson made it a habit to be at her desk no later than seven a.m. on Monday mornings. As manager of in-flight service, she would have to deal with every problem involving a flight attendant that had occurred since Friday. Her normal routine was to go through the stack of incident reports and delegate as many as possible to her four assistants. She settled her lanky frame into the executive chair at her desk and leaned forward to place her purse into the bottom drawer. Red curly hair fell across her face, and she brushed it back into place before kicking her high heels off and concealing them under the desk. She leaned back in the chair and closed her green eyes for a moment before attacking the reports. Molly had been admired as a flight attendant because of her ability to deal with the most irate passengers and leave them smiling. At the age of thirty-nine, she was much younger than many of the flight attendants that she supervised, but they did not resent the high standards that she set, and she was respected for her sense of fairness.

  When her secretary arrived at seven forty-five, Molly was only halfway through the stack. It was going to be a hectic day.

  “Good morning, Janie. How was your weekend?”

  “Morning, boss. It was pretty quiet, although the tooth fairy paid a visit to my six-year-old. Looks like it was a busy weekend at Tri Con, if all those are incident reports.”

  “Indeed they are. You can take the ones I’ve reviewed and distribute them to the assistants to be handled.”

  “Any good ones in there?”

  “You’ll like the one on top. A lady passenger told one of the flight attendants that her meal was not fit for a pig, so the flight attendant replied that she would try to find one that was.”

  Janie laughed, “That’s a good one. I think I like her.”

  “Good. Would you like to tell her that she will be on probation for the next three months?”

  “No thanks, boss. I’m just here to type and get coffee.”

  “In that case, could we have the latter first?” Molly giggled. “If you ask me if it’s fit for a pig, you’ll be on probation too.”

  “Wow, even the tooth fairy has a better sense of humor than you.”

  Molly laughed. “See if you can find some donuts to go with the coffee, and we’ll pig out.”

  A few minutes later Janie returned with the coffee and a pink message slip.

  “Mr. Smallwood’s secretary called to inform us that he would like you to visit his office as soon as possible to discuss an urgent matter.”

  “Like I need another urgent matter.”

  Janie said, “Everything is urgent with him. All the secretaries call him Mr. Smallbrain.”

  “You have a warped mind. I’ve decided you must be a flight attendant trapped in a secretary’s body.”

  “Well, I have spilled coffee on you a few times, but I think my body is better than most of your flight attendants.”

  “Sad but true. Give me the coffee before you spill it on me. I’ll go see what Smallbrain wants.”

  Molly was kept waiting for ten minutes before the secretary escorted her into Smallwood’s office.

  “Molly, it’s great to see you. Thanks for coming over.”

  “What’s urgent, Allen? I’ve got a busy day.”

  “I’ll get right to the point then. I’m going to Madrid on Wednesday evening, and I would like for you to accompany me. I have convinced Tri Con that we can save a lot of money if we outsource some of the functions that our full-time employees perform there. We’re negotiating with a Spanish company to provide maintenance and baggage services for us at considerably less cost.”

  “Allen, I know very little about mechanics or bag smashers.”

  “Of course not, neither do I for that matter. But I do know what they cost us. The reason I want you to be there is because we’re considering establishing a flight attendant base at Madrid and staffing it with local employees. Their pay scales are much lower than in the United States, and they do not expect benefits or retirement.”

  “Allen, do you have any concept of the can of worms that would create?”

  “In what way?”

  “The effect it would have on morale for one thing. We are still in a service business, at least to this point. Employees with low morale do not provide good service.”

  “I’ve taken that into consideration of course, but the cost savings are so great that we have to explore the possibility.”

  “Speaking of cost, have you factored the expense of training? Those flight attendants would have to meet our standards.”

  He said, “Yes, yes, there would be an initial cost, but we would recoup that easily over time.”

  “I think the turnover rate of those employees might be very high, and we would be constantly training new ones.”

  “In that case, we could always tweak things if need be. Look, I’ve already
talked to the vice president of finance, and he suggested that you accompany me. Of course when we get back you can submit a written report through me with whatever conclusions you have.”

  Molly replied, “I have to tell you, I have serious reservations about this. It might be beneficial for you and I to have an in-depth discussion about the duties of a flight attendant.”

  “Of course, I would very much like to do that. In fact, you could fill me in with that information during our trip.”

  “I’ll have to talk to my boss about this, Allen.”

  “Actually, it’s already approved. You should have a memo and an itinerary on your desk shortly. I know it’s short notice, Molly, and I hope you don’t think me presumptuous, but it will be a very productive trip for Tri Con.”

  Molly walked back to her office with a sense of dread. She could imagine a long flight and being regaled with tales of Allen’s past heroics in the sports shoe industry.

  Chapter Four

  On Wednesday morning, Charlie began preparing for his evening flight to Madrid. He was happy that Colt had taken the flight on Tuesday, and he had enjoyed an extra day off with Pattie. After the mental gymnastics of the proficiency check in the flight simulator, he had been glad to turn his attention to no-brainer stuff like cutting grass and washing Pattie’s car. He checked his itinerary and confirmed that Tri Con Flight Eleven was scheduled to depart at six p.m., which meant that his report time would be at four thirty, an hour and a half before. He removed all the training materials from his brain bag, made sure he still had the required items for his regular line flights, checked to see that his uniform had been cleaned, and then took Pattie out for a nice lunch.

  Ray Slackman had ham sandwiches and potato chips for lunch. He and the other mechanics on day shift took their lunch at eleven and ate in the break area provided for them. They sat in plastic chairs at three long wooden tables surrounded by vending machines. The mood was somber as they discussed their pending releases from Tri Con and what their futures might hold. At noon, the shift foreman came in with afternoon assignments.

  “Ray, I want you to do the service check on ship 826. It’s due into the gate in about ten minutes. Check the log book and let me know if the crew has any squawks that you might need help with. If not, just do the service check and sign it off. It’s not scheduled out until six o’clock, but if it has issues let’s take care of them early.”

  He handed Ray several sheets of paper, which made up the routine list of items to be checked. Each item had a block to be marked and initialed by a licensed mechanic before the aircraft could be released back into service. The service check was normally a gravy job, just a matter of checking to see if things were working properly and signing them off. Ray was happy to get the easy task, but it was also the opportunity he had been waiting for. He needed an airplane all to himself for a couple of hours. He thought It’s time for the payoff Tri Con.

  He went to his locker and retrieved the copy of the wiring diagram he had been studying and placed it on the clipboard along with the service checklist. He found his tool pouch and strapped it around his waist, then went out to meet the inbound flight.

  The hot August sun had driven the temperature into the nineties, but it was at least ten degrees warmer on the concrete ramp. Ray waited with the team of baggage handlers who would begin unloading luggage as soon as the aircraft arrived, and the engines were shut down. The bag smashers, or ramp rats as they were called, rested in the shade of the jet way that the passengers would use to disembark. They all looked up when they heard the huge three-engine jet turn into the ramp. Flight numbers meant very little to mechanics, and Ray looked at the permanent number painted on the nose wheel door to see that this was indeed ship 826.

  Each of the ramp personnel had specific duties to perform for aircraft arrival. Two of them trotted out to watch the wingtips and ensure clearance from the various equipment on the ramp. Another performed parking marshal duties to guide the captain to the proper stopping point while others stood ready to chock the wheels and plug in the ground electrical power and air conditioning. When the captain shut down the engines, they all swarmed the cargo compartments. It looked like a pit stop at an auto race.

  Ray watched as everything happened at once and thought that it was like watching a well-orchestrated ballet that was efficiently performed hundreds of times a day. He walked over to the nose wheel and plugged a headset into the interphone receptacle.

  He pushed the microphone button and said, “Cockpit, maintenance.”

  One of the cockpit crew answered, “Hello, maintenance.”

  “You guys break anything?”

  “No, sir, she’s the queen of the fleet. No problems at all.”

  “Okay, thank you, sir, and have a good one.”

  Ray thought once again how aviation got in your blood and how much he was going to miss being a part of the ballet. It hurt to know that all his training and expertise would be wasted, and he would no longer be a member of the fraternity. It angered him even more that the Tri Con management didn’t understand aviation or people and that money was the only thing that influenced them.

  He walked around the airplane and began checking off items on his list. He saw that the red and green position lights were working on the wingtips. The white position lights on the tail were working, the brake wear indicators on the landing gear were in good shape, and the tires looked good. He had already signed off the rotating red anti-collision lights on the top and bottom of the fuselage when the airplane was taxiing in. He climbed the stairs on the jet way and waited at the door until the passengers had all left. He found the lead flight attendant and asked if there were any problems in the cabin. She asked him to check out a coffeemaker, but everything else was good. He checked all the cabin lights and inspected the evacuation slide packs on all the doors. He found the inflation pressure on each one to be sufficient.

  At last everyone was gone, and he went into the cockpit and began once again checking off items on his list. He extended the landing lights and turned them on. He could see the bright lights reflected in the windows of the terminal. He completed another page and a half of items in the cockpit and then opened the aircraft logbook and turned to a fresh page. He filled in the date and aircraft number, then wrote in the first item box, “Aircraft service check completed, all items satisfactory.” In the signature block, he signed Raymond Slackman.

  Ray pulled the inbound flight’s log sheet, leaving the carbon copy in the book, then went back outside. He looked around under the gate area until he found a tall stepladder and dragged it out to the airplane. He placed the ladder under the center of the fuselage just below the front of the wing and climbed up to open the access door to the accessory compartment. Once inside, he sat on the floor, surrounded by aluminum racks of electronic equipment and black boxes with little colored lights blinking on them. He took out his copy of the wiring schematic and quickly found the panel he wanted. There was a multitude of wiring bundles from the forward fuselage that connected at this point with the wiring that ran out into the wing area. The connections were made with screw-on plugs that were secured with twisted steel safety wire to prevent them from vibrating loose. He read the placards on the panel until he found one that was labeled, “aft inboard main tank fuel transfer pump,” and another that read, “left and right wing fuel dump valves.” He took the tools he needed from his tool pouch and found the two wires that would accomplish what he wanted. Each of the thousands of wires on the airplane had unique numbers stamped on them every few inches to identify them. He consulted the wiring schematic one more time to be sure, and then cut the wire that powered the fuel pump. Using a red, insulated connector, he spliced it to the one that powered the dump valves open. He sat back and admired his work, A nice million dollar splice. This pump will power up about four hours after takeoff, and if Tri Con hasn’t paid old Ray to tell them which circuit breakers to open, fuel will dump in the ocean and bye bye airplane. We’ll see who the sha
rpest mechanic at Tri Con is, and just try to take alimony out of this payday.

  He gathered his tools and the schematic and climbed out of the accessory compartment. As he stepped onto the ladder, someone called out, “Hey, Ray, you taking a nap in there?”

  Ray looked down and saw one of the other mechanics passing underneath the airplane.

  “Hey, Billy, that’s a great idea, but I was just checking the equipment cooling fans.”

  “Man it’s hot enough, they better be cooling good.”

  “You got that right, dude.”

  “I’m looking forward to cooling at the Cavu in a couple hours.”

  “Me too, Billy. I’ll see you there.”

  Chapter Five

  At three o’clock the Atlanta terminal manager was notified by his secretary that the check-in kiosk software had developed another glitch. The two dozen automated machines allowed passengers to stand in line to check themselves in rather than standing in line for a ticket agent to check them in. The kiosks were advertised as a wonderful convenience to save customers time, and some of them believed it because the TV said so. Of course, the malfunction occurred just in time for the afternoon international push. The lines at the international ticket counter began backing up immediately, and passengers were already fuming and worried that they would miss their flights. The manager authorized overtime for the day shift agents and had the shift supervisors start asking for volunteers to stay over at time and a half pay rates. He longed for the good old days when he could staff the ticket counter with enough people to provide the service the passengers deserved. He walked out to the ticket counter to see how bad the situation was. There were at least ten unmanned check-in positions because he didn’t have the personnel to staff them. He signed on to a computer at one of the unused positions and checked the afternoon bookings. Fortunately it was an average Wednesday, and the loads were not extremely heavy. Hopefully, he could get enough overtime volunteers to man the empty positions and expedite matters somewhat. Even so, he might have to delay a few flights in order to get everyone checked in, through security, and then out to the gates.