In the air. In trouble. Running as hard as we can.” She smiles. It feels like her father’s smile. “Next time you feel like throwing a beer, give it to me instead. I could use something to drink.”
Bobby stares at her for an instant with thoughtful, fascinated eyes—then laughs.
Bobby’s wife looks up at him and says, “Why are we running north? Do you really think Fargo could be hit? Do you really think we could be hit here? Over the middle of the United States?” Her husband doesn’t reply, so she looks back at A Ra.
A Ra weighs in her heart whether the truth would be a mercy or yet another assault. Her silence, however, is answer enough.
The woman’s mouth tightens. She looks at her husband and says, “If we’re going to die, I want you to know I’m glad I’ll be next to you when it happens. You were good to me, Robert Jeremy Slate.”
He turns to his wife and kisses her and draws back and says, “Are you kidding me? I can’t believe a fat man like me wound up married to a knockout like you. It’d be easier to draw a million-dollar lottery ticket.”
Fidelman stares at them and then turns away. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Don’t start being human on me now.” He crumples up a beery paper towel and throws it at Bob Slate.
It bounces off Bobby’s temple. The big man turns his head and looks at Fidelman—and laughs. Warmly.
A Ra closes her eyes, puts her head against the back of her seat.
Her father watches her approach the bridge, through the silky spring night.
As she steps up onto the stone arch, he reaches out to take her hand and lead her on to an orchard, where people are dancing.
KATE BRONSON IN THE COCKPIT
By the time Kate finishes field-dressing Vorstenbosch’s head injury, the flight attendant is groaning, stretched out on the cockpit floor. She tucks his glasses into his shirt pocket. The left lens was cracked in the fall.
“I have never, ever lost my footing,” Vorstenbosch says, “in twenty years of doing this. I am the Fred Effing Astaire of the skies. No. The Ginger Effing Rogers. I can do the work of all other flight attendants, but backward and in heels.”
Kate says, “I’ve never seen a Fred Astaire film. I was always more of a Sly Stallone girl.”
“Serf,” Vorstenbosch says.
“Right to the bone,” Kate agrees, and squeezes his hand. “Don’t try to get up. Not yet.”
Kate springs lightly to her feet and slips into the chair beside Waters. When the missiles launched, the imaging system lit up with bogeys, a hundred red pinpricks and more, but there’s nothing now except the other planes in the immediate vicinity. Most of the other aircraft are behind them, still circling Fargo. Captain Waters turned them to a new heading while Kate tended to Vorstenbosch.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
His face alarms her. He’s so waxy he’s almost colorless.
“It’s all happening,” he says. “The president has been moved to a secure location. The cable news says Russia launched.”
“Why?” she asks, as if it matters.
He shrugs helplessly but then replies, “Russia, or China, or both put defenders in the air to turn back our bombers before they could get to Korea. A sub in the South Pacific responded by striking a Russian aircraft carrier. And then. And then.”
“So,” Kate says.
“No Fargo.”
“Where?” Kate can’t seem to load more than a single word at a time. There is an airless, tight sensation behind her breastbone.
“There must be somewhere north we can land, away from—from what’s coming down behind us. There must be somewhere that isn’t a threat to anyone. Nunavut maybe? They landed a 777 at Iqaluit last year. Short little runway at the end of the world, but it’s technically possible, and we might have enough fuel to make it.”
“Silly me,” Kate says. “I didn’t think to pack a winter coat.”
He says, “You must be new to long-haul flying. You never know where they’re going to send you, so you always make sure to have a swimsuit and mittens in your bag.”
She is new to long-haul flying—she attained her 777 rating just six months ago—but she doesn’t think Waters’s tip is worth taking to heart. Kate doesn’t think she’ll ever fly another commercial aircraft. Neither will Waters. There won’t be anywhere to fly to.
Kate isn’t going to see her mother, who lives in Pennsyltucky, ever again, but that’s no loss. Her mother will bake, along with the stepfather who tried to put a