CHAPTER ONE

Five dollars and fifteen cents per hour. That’s what I made as a stock clerk in the small-town grocery store for my first job in high school. It was the minimum wage at the time, and I thought it was a lot of money.

Sitting on the jump seat of the Boeing 787-9 twenty-five years later, I was making that per minute. And yet, somehow, my life still felt empty and unfulfilled.

“Glideslope captured, set missed approach altitude,” First Officer Jim Lance said as he pointed to the altitude window on the mode control panel that was already set at three thousand.

“Three thousand set,” Captain Laura Welts said, pointing at the same window.

It was the same song and dance that the schoolhouse drilled into every 787 pilot for the airline. Routines. Rituals. Acronyms. Mnemonics. It’s what made commercial aviation safe and boring. Because no one wants exciting after flying a red-eye home from South America.

The first officer reached up to the speed window and dialed the commanded airspeed down from 210 knots to 180 knots. It was all autopilot, as most airline flying was. A simple request from a human to a machine that could be overridden by any number of safety features on this electric widebody jet.

As the FB, or first relief officer, it was my job to add an extra pair of eyes and back up the captain and first officer. Some called it the professional bed maker, food taster, and movie-watcher job, as you’d go back to the bunk shortly after takeoff for your rest break, then come up to the cockpit and act as a relief pilot during cruise until the captain and first officer took their turns on break. Most people considered it an easy way to make three hundred grand a year.

I was bored out of my mind.

“Gear down, flaps twenty,” Lance called.

Captain Welts reached up and lowered the landing gear handle and then said, “speed verified,” before moving the flap handle to the 20 position.

The ceilings at Miami were five hundred feet overcast with light rain—a not-so-typical January morning for South Florida as the remnants of a cold front lingered.

“Flaps twenty-five,” Lance directed.

“Speed verified,” Captain Welts said as she moved the flap lever again.

Lance rolled the speed back to the final approach speed as the aircraft started down the glideslope of the Instrument Landing System approach.

“Flaps thirty, before-landing checklist.”

“Speed verified.”

I struggled to keep my eyes open as the male voice from the Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System called out, “Twenty-five hundred.”

Captain Welts verified the Before Landing Checklist was complete on the aircraft’s Electronic Checklist. The jet was smarter than all of us, indicating that each item on the list had been accomplished by changing the color to green, meaning she didn’t have to do anything.

“Before Landing Checklist complete,” Captain Welts declared.

“Verified, thank you.”

“FreeBird One-One-Six, heavy, you’re cleared to land Runway One-Two, winds zero niner zero at one two.”

“FreeBird One-One-Six, heavy, cleared to land,” Captain Welts repeated.

The slight crosswind was dampened out by the aircraft’s flight controls. Even if Lance had been physically flying, he would have barely noticed it as the jet did all the work.

“One thousand,” came the call from the Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System (EGPWS) automated voice as they descended on the glidepath.

“Stable,” Captain Welts replied immediately. Of course it was.

The aircraft continued its descent at just under nine hundred feet per minute. I kept watch for the runway out the windscreen as the captain intermittently reached up and used her windshield wiper switch. Both pilots had head-up displays (HUDs) giving them constant information on the aircraft’s parameters. It was similar to the F-16s I had flown in my previous life, except the F-16 couldn’t land itself if it needed to, like the 787 could.

“Five hundred,” the male EGPWS voice announced.

“Stable, target, sink is eight hundred,” Captain Welts said, indicating we were fully configured with on speed stabilized approach criteria and an eight hundred foot per minute descent rate.

Shortly after she made the call out, the approach lights appeared out in the distance. “Approach lights.”

“Continuing,” Lance said as he picked up visual of the runway.

He gently reached up and put his right hand on the yoke and his left hand on the throttle. “Autopilot off.”

An alarm sounded as he clicked the autopilot off with his right thumb. An alarm, because hand flying a transport category aircraft wasn’t the norm. You weren’t a pilot, but a systems manager for 93 percent of your flight time. When the jet wasn’t flying itself, everyone needed to be aware and on guard.

Lance was a senior first officer (FO) with the company and a good pilot. He left the autothrottle engaged, allowing him to focus solely on the landing. Having landed this jet a few dozen times myself, I knew it was pretty easy with the HUD—just put the thing on the thing, or the flight path vector over the circle. That would keep you lined up, on glidepath, and stable to arrive in the touchdown zone where the finesse actually mattered.

As we approached the runway, the EGPWS started its countdown. 100 . . . 50 . . . 40 . . . Lance helped the throttles to idle and started his roundout and flare . . . 30 . . . 20 . . . 10 . . . the mains kissed the runway.

The speed-brake lever moved aft on its own. “Deployed,” Captain Welts called.

Lance raised the thrust reverser levers on the throttle and the automatic braking system started doing its thing.

“Eighty,” Welts called.

“Manual braking,” Lance replied as he pressed the tops of the rudder pedals.

“Autobrakes off . . . sixty.”

Lance pushed the thrust reverse levers back down, but held them at the idle position to allow the engines to spool down.

“My aircraft,” the captain said.

“Your aircraft.”

Despite having a tiller to steer on both sides, first officers weren’t allowed to taxi at my airline, so Lance had to switch from pilot flying to pilot monitoring as we cleared the runway and prepared to taxi to the gate.

As FB, I didn’t really have any official duties, but the unwritten rule was that I would use my radio to call ops and confirm our gate.

“FreeBird Ops, One-Sixteen is on the ground for Delta 28,” I said.

“Flaps up, after landing checklist,” Welts called as she made the high-speed taxiway to the left.

“One-Sixteen, your gate is occupied. We’ll need you to hold.”

“What’s the expected delay?” I asked, not hiding the frustration in my voice. It never failed. This airline always made it seem like it was a surprise that we actually showed up, despite carrying 269 paying passengers.

“Unknown, recommend you head to the penalty box and monitor. We’ll call you when the gate is open.”

The captain looked over her shoulder as she stopped the aircraft per air traffic control’s (ATC’s) instructions. “Ask them if they have any other gates.”

“Any chance of another gate?” I asked.

“Negative. All gates are occupied right now. We are trying to get crews out to move jets to free up space.”

“Copy.”

Welts let out a frustrated sigh and directed Lance to shut down the number two engine for single-engine taxi.

“Let them know we’ll need to hold for our gate,” she told him.

He nodded and called Miami Ground. They directed us to an area known as the “penalty box” where commercial aircraft could hold while waiting for their gates.

I looked at my watch. It was just after 6:00 a.m. My commute back to New Orleans was leaving in two hours. Plenty of time if the gate situation resolved soon, but every minute would make it tighter. I could be the first one off the plane once we got to the gate, but I still needed to clear customs, security, and high tail it to the gate while hoping there were seats or at least the jump seat available.

I hated commuting. Well, and everything else about this job. You’d think after ten years of it, flying the 737 domestically before moving on to widebody international, I’d have figured it out and grown fond of it. But, no. Everything from the Bible salesman uniforms to the systems management to the hours of boredom trading dollars for miles annoyed me. But what else was I going to do? Three hundred grand a year to sit and stare out the window was a lot of money, even though I was single and could already retire at forty-three. I didn’t have any other options. Plus, I was already too senior to quit.

“Ops, we’re in the penalty box, any updates for One-One-Six?” I asked as Welts set the parking brake.

“Forty-five minutes, maybe,” the operations manager with a slight Brooklyn accent said. “I’ll call you.”

“APU is running, shut down number 1,” Welts directed Lance. A clear sign of defeat. We were going to be there a while. That’s why the penalty box existed in the first place.

Forty-five minutes came and went. And then an hour. And then two hours. I watched my flight taxi out and take off right in front of us. The next flight wasn’t until 3:00 p.m. on our regional partner. There was suddenly no more urgency. Maybe I could at least get a nap in the sleep room in ops before going home.

It was against policy, but both engines were shut down and I wasn’t technically at the controls, so I pulled out my phone and took it out of airplane mode. I went straight to our company’s travel planner website to see what my odds were for the next flight. Oversold, as usual, but the jump seat was showing unoccupied. I listed myself as my phone buzzed with new messages and alerts.

The first was from my dogsitter. My dog, a husky-shepherd mix, was really all I had to come home to and the most important part of my life. The sitter was asking if I could pick Lana up early, or else I’d have to get her tomorrow. Despite earning me another thousand bucks with the delay, Lana was going to be stuck at the sitter’s another night, even if I made the next flight home. Awesome.

The next message was a voicemail from my old mentor Harley Watts. Harley was a cop with my dad and had taken me under his wing, as a teenager, when my dad died in the line of duty. He was nearing retirement, running the Magnolia County Sheriff’s Office aviation unit out of the Gulfport Airport.

I read the voice to text translation of the voicemail. He wasn’t just checking in but had something he wanted to talk to me about. Specifically, he needed to meet with me to discuss. Interesting. Harley usually didn’t leave cryptic voicemails like that. I hoped everything was okay and he wasn’t about to drop a cancer diagnosis on me. That seemed to be the thing lately. My mom had died two years earlier from that. I didn’t want to go through that again.

There were a few news alerts about some narcoterrorist threat on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, but I ignored them and instead texted the dogsitter that I wouldn’t make it and put my phone back in airplane mode.

“One-Sixteen, you guys still out there?” the ops manager asked.

“Affirm,” I said.

“And you’re at Miami?”

“Fuck’s sake,” Lance said, overhearing us. “Seriously?”

“As far as I know,” I said. “Are you?”

“I am. We just don’t show you for any gate.”

“What does that even mean?” Welts said to no one in particular.

“The changeover had us going to Delta 28,” I replied.

“Standby.”

Five minutes later, he was back. “Okay, yeah, One-Sixteen, looks like there’s been a mix-up, Delta 30 was your gate, but the flight pushing from it had some maintenance issues. Your new gate is Delta 29.”

Right next door to it. Perfect.

“Confirm Delta 29 is available?”

“That flight is pushing in ten minutes. I’ll call you when they’re off.”

“Copy.”

Thirty minutes later, the ops manager called with our release to taxi back. Nearly three hours had passed from the time we landed until we were able to get to a gate. It was amazing the airline managed to stay afloat, given such pristine operational efficiency. I had grown used to it after almost ten years of flying with them, yet each time, part of me was still surprised.

Once at the gate, I said goodbye to the crew, grabbed my coat and rollaboard, and deplaned behind the first-class passengers. I made my way to flight operations hidden behind a secret door near a bagel shop.

As I walked down the winding hallway, I passed a gaggle of chief pilots. The younger of the three, Jeff Burk, turned as he saw me.

“Hey . . . uhh . . . Lee, right? Clint Lee?”

I stopped, not really wanting to engage with a management pilot in the mood I was in.

“Hey,” he said as he turned and caught up with me. “I was looking for you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, let’s talk. You just finished a trip right? Are you on your way home?”

“Later this afternoon,” I said warily.

“Perfect, this will only take a second.”

“Should I be worried?”

“Nah, it’ll be quick.”

I followed him down the hallway, passing the flight attendant operations and rest areas before reaching the pilot lounge. I deposited my rollaboard and kit bag and placed my coat over the bag before rejoining Burk on the way to his office.

When we reached his office, he closed the door behind me and gestured for me to sit.

“What’s this about?” I asked.

Burk opened something on his computer and turned his monitor to face me. “You made a post on social media about not accepting a reassignment.”

“I followed the contract.”

“And then you posted about it.”

“It’s a union message board.”

“Well, as you know, we’re in contract negotiations right now, and the company does not agree with that interpretation.”

“My union speaks for me,” I said as a mix of anger and disbelief washed over me.

“Be that as it may, what you did was not how we interpret the contract. And posting about it wasn’t a good idea.”

“How do you even have access to this? It’s a union site.”

“Billy Ray talked to me about it.”

“The Miami base rep Billy Ray?”

“We have a boat together. We were just talking and he mentioned it. I want to keep you out of trouble is all.”

“Trouble?”

“You’re on the seven-eight, right?”

“I am.”

“And, you’re, what, forty-two, forty-three?”

“Just turned forty-three.”

“Forty-three . . . wow . . . and already on the 787 making $320 per hour. Do you know when I was forty-three, I was flying Super 80s at $80 per hour? Do you know how fortunate you are?”

“Okay.”

“I’m just saying, you have twenty-two more years with this company. Do you really want to risk it over some silly contract dispute in the middle of negotiations?”

“Are you threatening me?” I asked, losing the battle in hiding my growing contempt for everything about this conversation.

“No, I just wanted to make you aware. That’s all.”

“Noted,” I said. “Anything else?”

“That’s it.”

“Thank you.”

I got up and left. My heart was racing. My face felt flushed. I hated everything about that conversation. From the subtle threats to the fact that I was even having it in the first place. It was a waste of my time.

I was too amped up to sleep after that. I went back out into the wild of the terminal, got some food, and sat at the gate waiting for the commuter flight home.

Of course, it arrived late too. It was fully booked, and after ingratiating myself to the twenty-three-year-old captain, I was graciously allowed to sit in the jump seat of the cramped Embraer EMB-175.

Maintenance delays caused another hour on the ground in Miami, causing us to leave at the exact same time as the mainline flight at 5:00 p.m. It was only an hour and a half en route to New Orleans, but arriving at the same time as the other flight confused the operation enough that we, once again, had to wait for someone to operate the jetbridge.

I made it off the plane and to the employee bus stop just in time to watch it depart. Ten minutes later, I piled in with the ground workers, gate agents, flight attendants, and other commuting pilots to the employee lot on the other side of the airport.

I took off my tie and threw it in the back seat of my Yukon AT4 as I sped out of the gate toward I-10. My phone rang at just after 8:00 p.m. It was Harley again.

“Hey, Harley,” I said. My voice was tired from being up all night flying the red-eye and trying to get home.

“Clint! Where the hell have you been? I left a voicemail.”

“I’m just now getting onto I-10, Harley. It’s been a long day.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“So, talk.”

“In person.”

“Can it wait until tomorrow?”

“No, this can’t wait.”

“Are you dying?”

“No, this is for you.”

“And it can’t wait until tomorrow?”

“No. When will you be home?”

“My GPS says forty-five minutes with traffic.”

“Perfect. I’ll be waiting,” he said before he hung up the phone.

Harley was never this cryptic. Whatever he wanted, it was serious.