Flight 19 Read online

  Emily’s father was one guy who had his shit together. Physically and emotionally tough, after everything he’d been through, he seemed like he had Superman’s blood coursing through his veins.

  Dave had already survived what would have broken most of us. He’d witnessed the sudden and tragic death of his childhood sweetheart who many years ago had become his wife. Worse, the boating accident that killed her in front of his very eyes also took his teenage son.

  As fate would have it, Dave had decided at the last moment to fetch the cooler with their lunch and drinks from his car—once they reached the boat, his son had realized they’d left it behind. Going back was a 20-minute round trip from the boat’s mooring at the King Harbor Marina, Redondo Beach to where the car was parked, but it was better than going hungry.

  Fire investigators would later confirm that the circumstances surrounding the sudden explosion aboard the Collins family yacht were “unusual,” though they went to pains to explain that didn’t mean there was anything sinister about the event either.

  Dave was only 80 meters from the yacht, with the cooler in tow, when a faulty valve on the backup motor ignited the gas tanks, which had only recently been topped up. There was nothing he could do but to scream in despair as the boat exploded in front of his very eyes.

  Having lost half his family, only the apple of his eye remained—his daughter, Emily. If she’d not been rostered to work that fateful morning, she’d probably have died with her mother and brother.

  But six years later, Flight 19 took her away from Dave anyway.

  If you ever wanted to see the human embodiment of hope, you’d find it in the form of Dave Collins. Since the disappearance of Flight 19, he’d looked at Emily’s photo every single day, all 1,825 of them, and each time, he said to her, “As long as we have never found your plane, there is always a chance you will come home to me.”

  One thing that helped Dave get through that first couple of years after the Pacific International flight disappeared was the formation, in LA, of a support group for parents of children on-board the flight.

  He joined the group and found it made him feel that he was not alone in the loss he’d felt.

  The group, unfortunately, was disbanded when tragedy struck the support group itself. One of the three guys who’d set up the group was murdered in cold blood out the front of a 7-Eleven one afternoon. The rest of them agreed it was maybe time to deal with the loss on their own anyway.

  Dave finished the final checks with the group counselor, glancing over at the door that would, in a few minutes, open for something more precious to him than life itself to step through. His daughter.

  “I guess I don’t have to tell you how much Emily has been waiting for this moment, Dave.” The counselor smiled behind small rimmed glasses. Dave reciprocated and muttered, “Me too.”

  As he walked over to the door, Dave glanced to his left to see a complete stranger walk to a similar doorway about ten meters further down the same wall. He, too, Dave thought, the guy was about to be reunited with someone he knew from Flight 19.

  Later, Dave would know his name was Charles Lewinson, for reasons he would rather forget and wished he’d never learned.

  Chapter Thirteen

  (PB05B) Melanie Lewinson, business class, row 5, seat B

  Age: 45 years (2019)

  Married, no children.

  Occupation: Senior partner, Johnston, Neville, and Tolls—Lawyers, Sydney, Australia

  Melanie Lewinson had carried the beauty bestowed upon her from an early age, right through her teens, twenties, thirties, and well into her forties. Mostly behind her back, her male co-workers called her a cougar—a barbed compliment nevertheless given out of admiration, even desire.

  The slightest enhancement to a particular part of her frontage and a teeny bit of Botox had also ensured this slim beauty remained the unspoken envy of women who crossed her path.

  Large eyes, colored as if cut from a chunk of jade, smooth mousy-colored hair, high cheekbones and a small, elfin nose, sitting above firm, full lips (no enhancement) which tucked away a set of perfect white teeth. She stood on flat shoes at a small five foot two inches.

  Melanie was a formidable lawyer who specialized in corporate takeovers. She earned serious money and had serious friends in political and celebrity circles. She also had the habit of indulging in the odd line of cocaine, unbeknown to her seriously jealous and seriously wealthy husband, Charles Lewinson, owner of Australia’s biggest internet service provider (ISP), Chalew IT Holdings.

  The cocaine habit was a very well-kept secret, known only to her two best friends from university. She would only snort a line when overseas. Melanie frequented LA, New York, and London, and knew these were the only times she could be far enough away from home to get away with it.

  The only other serious thing to add to Melanie’s résumé was the habit of slipping into bed with the occasional one-eyed carpet snake.

  This, too, Melanie ensured only ever happened overseas; it typically followed a line or two of cocaine or a hideously expensive bottle of red.

  Well, there was that one time with a co-worker, a younger partner with whom she swore never to repeat the mistake with—a guy by the name of Kevin Brewster.

  Kevin, speaking in the shallowest of terms, had been batting a little above his average when he scored a drug-and-alcohol-induced romp with Melanie one night in New York. But that was over six years ago, and Melanie, slightly embarrassed by the event, had worked quickly and decisively the next day to ensure it would never, ever come to light. Brewster knew the consequences of their tryst ever going public.

  Charles Lewinson was one seriously scary bastard when his fuse snapped. He was well known for having an explosive temper.

  Melanie had taken the news of her five-year hiatus with surprising calm. She was one of those rare people who thought, “Whatever happens, will happen.” Mrs. Lewinson knew she would have a job somewhere in the corporate world, and friends who would support her with whatever she needed.

  Her marriage to Charles, on the surface, was typical: cruising along, as most marriages a decade old do. They got along pretty well and lived a full and prosperous life together—when they were together.

  Charles was no angel either, and Melanie was pretty sure he had dipped his wick once or twice when he was in the opposite hemisphere to her. She overlooked these rumored liaisons with minimal reflection. You know what they say about people in glass houses.

  If she and Charles were no more due to her being on Flight 19, so be it. Life was too short to worry about it. She had a secret fund tucked away in a certain tax haven, not big enough to merit running away from Charles, but there if the proverbial shit hit the fan for some reason.

  Melanie knew Charles was waiting for her on the other side of the wall of the large room she was standing in. Three doors led into the other room where the nominated people were waiting.

  The weirdest feeling for the corporate lawyer, standing there knowing any second she would reunite with her husband, was that she did not give a shit. She was brilliant and articulate, though what she made up for in smarts, she lacked a little in self-awareness. For her, the last week had been a bit of a pain in the ass, though she still felt as if it had only been a couple of weeks since she had seen Charles, not the 260 it had been in reality.

  Charles Lewinson was very much looking forward to seeing his long-lost wife. The last five years had been hard on him. Very, very hard. His wealth had nearly doubled, and he’d banged more broads than he had done in the ten years before (for five of which he’d been married to Melanie). You could tell the disappearance of Flight 19 had affected him.

  He’d flown over on his private jet, knowing the least he could do to was to support his probably anxious and very distressed wife. He was keen to help her adjust to having been away from her life for the last five years, and to nurture, guide, and support her as she acquainted herself with life in 2024.

  There was just one other lit
tle topic he wanted to discuss.

  Kevin Brewster.

  Chapter Fourteen

  (PE22C) Todd Roberts, economy class, row 22, seat C

  Age: 27 (2019)

  Single

  Occupation: Officer, California Highway Patrol, Los Angeles, California, USA

  Todd Roberts sat anxiously in the same room as Emily Collins and Melanie Lewinson, rubbing his index finger and the thumb of his left hand together regularly, a nervous habit he’d had since his late teens. He looked over to Emily one final time; their eyes met, and they both shared a warm smile. Todd had sat one seat away from her on the A380, in the economy section. During their time at Vandenberg AFB, the two young Americans had become good friends.

  The highway-patrol officer was one of the few late twenty-somethings who by 2019 had not become a slave to Facebook, so they had swapped their parents’ home phone numbers to stay in touch, and agreed to catch up for a coffee or beer when everything settled down.

  Todd felt a slight pang in his heart for Emily; she was attractive, engaging, and warm. Their extended conversations and time spent playing board games while in “confinement” helped Todd cope with their predicament.

  Todd was a second-generation redhead, a “ginger,” as his friends in college had labeled him. His hair had progressively darkened, from about the age of 15, and now was a dark brown, with a slight reddish hue in the right Californian sunlight. He wore it very short, because that made it easier to maintain.

  As far as build and strength went, Todd shared his father’s DNA, with large hands, big arms, and even bigger shoulders. At six foot four, he was proportioned well; in college, guys who had called him “redder,” if they weren’t already friends, soon learned that they would do this only once.

  Blessed with blue eyes and a wicked grin, with his good looks marred only by a slightly stubby nose, Todd surprised many by dedicating his time to his job, which he loved, rather than the relentless pursuit of a serious relationship. He knew his time would come.

  Maybe it had come now, he thought, as Emily’s eyes glowed at him before she made his day by giving him a surreptitious wink of her right eye.

  Maybe they would be the first marriage as a result of Flight 19, he thought. That would be something good to come out of all this.

  The passengers didn’t know for sure, yet, though many guessed, that Flight 19 would ruin virtually all the marriages of those who had been passengers on the doomed flight. Even a few of the couples on the flight together would tear up their wedding certificates as they attempted to return to 2024.

  Would your relationship survive a five-year break? Especially when you believed your partner was dead?

  Kylie Roberts chatted quietly to her son’s group counselor in a private area of the large room on the other side of the wall from her son, who was due to come through his door in a few minutes. Their conversation was far more sensitive than the ones Charles Lewinson and Dave Collins had shared with their counselors.

  Her meeting with the counselor had taken place in a small office to one side of the waiting room. They discussed at length the predicament that would play out in the next few minutes.

  She’d told the counselor about how her husband, Todd’s father, Captain Andrew Roberts of the California Highway Patrol, had struggled with the loss of his son when Flight 19 disappeared on that clear night in 2019.

  After he talked with two other fathers whose children had been on the flight, the three men had decided to start a support group for the families of those aboard Flight 19.

  Now, Todd’s group counselor was deeply concerned with the impending reunion of Mrs. Roberts and her son. It would be the first one where they believed the ramifications for the passenger and the person taking them home from Vandenberg could be traumatizing for them both.

  Todd Roberts knew none of this; he was completely unaware of the discussion taking place on the other side of the wall, in the closed office, between his mother, his group counselor, and now a couple of members of the AFOA senior support staff.

  The issue was quite straightforward when you looked at it without emotion.

  Todd was expecting to meet someone he had not only admired for most of his life, but had also followed into the same profession, who would be waiting for him when he walked through the door in a few moments. A man who he counted as a friend, who had brought him up to be the outstanding person that he was. Unfortunately, his expectations would be dashed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  (PFC05A) Michael E. Darcy, first class, row 5, seat A

  Age: 57 (2019)

  Married

  Occupation: CEO, Darcon Industries, Los Angeles, California, USA

  Michael E. Darcy waited impatiently in the marquee for the next phase of his release, where he and two more passengers would be taxied over to the final debriefing room where Emily Collins, Melanie Lewinson, and Todd Roberts were currently about to walk through the doors to meet their loved ones and 2024.

  An Australian expat, Darcy had made a squillion dollars in tech, and now bided his time between his hometown of Melbourne, Australia, and his second home, Silicon Valley.

  He had an accent as Australian as Vegemite, kangaroos, and Foster’s beer.

  Mick’s family, his wife and three adult children, spent most of their time in Melbourne.

  Mick was six foot two, and aside from the receding line of salt-and-pepper brown hair, dashed with further gray at the sides, and his slightly encroaching stomach, which nipped at his belt line, he was still in relatively good shape for a man in his late fifties.

  He had firm shoulders, a bolt-straight stance, and biggish bones. Crystal blue eyes embedded in a robust face with a boyish grin, had given him no trouble in attracting his wife of many years—many years ago.

  Mick was one of the pioneers of the modern world; in the maelstrom that was Silicon Valley in the early 1980s, he had fused mechanical engineering, cutting-edge technology, and a keen business instinct, and made a fortune.

  When the A380 leveled out of Honolulu in 2019, Darcy’s fortune had been a healthy four point eight billion dollars.

  Darcy’s private jet, an Embraer Legacy 650, had made an unscheduled detour to Honolulu, where the pilot informed him they could not continue to Los Angeles. As fate would have it, Darcy needed to be in LA for an important meeting, and boarded the next available commercial flight to get him there.

  Most of the business world, and even Darcy’s friends and some family members, often said that his middle initial, E, should have been the first vowel instead of the second.

  Why? Mick was an A-grade A-hole.

  Many billionaires around the world, like Mick, had risen from nothing. Most of those self-made people knew how to be humble and remembered their roots. But not Michael E. Darcy. From his late teens, he had slowly developed his expertise in being a bastard. But like a chameleon, he was able to suppress it when necessary.

  So, when his gorgeous partner, Joanne, married him just shy of her twenty-fourth birthday, many people believed he would become a better man. Being married to a terrific wife who had their first son on the way would make him humbler, they thought.

  Wrong.

  In fact, as his fortune began to multiply, it appeared to fuel his ever-expanding ego. As he spent more time in America, away from his family, the bonds he had with his family, who for most husbands and fathers are the most influential people in the world, loosened.

  As the years rolled on, the asshole in Mick grew and grew. His wife’s close-knit family—including Joanne’s four brothers, who became mentors to his children—couldn’t understand why Joanne had stayed with him. She could have left at any time and still have been wealthy enough from the divorce settlement to see her life out on her own.

  But Joanne stuck it out with Darcy and was content with her sprawling inner-city mansion, her beautiful children, and her family and friends, who lived nearby. She worked out how to make it work for her.

  Michael only ventured “home�
�� a few times a year. Sometimes, they would go weeks without speaking to each other. As in many marriages, the two rings and the certificate didn’t guarantee any kind of conformity with what was generally considered “normal” where marriages are concerned.

  Mick had no problem squashing business associates, competitors, and whoever else stood in his way. He never batted an eyelid or lost a moment’s sleep.

  Darcy had what he thought were friends in high places, though he had far more enemies in middle and lower places. And as the end of the first decade of the 2000s approached, Darcy began to see even his most loyal staff questioning his business ethics and brash behavior.

  Mick was like many other super-rich businesspeople in thinking that he could buy secrecy and do whatever he wanted. But knowledge of his extramarital affairs, for many years successfully encompassed by a thin veil of secrecy, eventually leaked out to someone who despised him, and became public knowledge.

  Having a massive ego, and being a world-renowned asshole, Mick just denied it all and went on to the next shag at one of his holiday homes, on his private jet, or wherever the hell his little wiener needed someplace to hide for a little while.

  Joanne eventually found out through some trusted sources, before obtaining the services of some highly qualified and very professional private investigators who worked across many countries. The rumors swimming around the business cesspool about her husband were very much real, and the investigators provided photographic proof in two instances.

  With her closest friends rallying around her and begging her to divorce her cheating husband, she sat back and decided that one day, she would, but not before she ensured she got her revenge on Mick for publicly humiliating her.