Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN IN 2A

Captain Daniel Price stepped into the galley while the first officer remained behind the locked cockpit door.

"What happened?"

Three passengers answered at once.

"He hit her."

"Over the shade."

"She didn't do anything."

Victor stood. "This is nonsense. I am Victor Langston. I sit on the board of Meridian Air Holdings."

Daniel's expression changed, but not the way Victor expected.

He looked at the woman in 2A.

"Dr. Brooks?"

For the first time, Victor's confidence slipped.

The woman nodded. "Captain."

Erin stared between them. "You know her?"

Daniel swallowed. "By reputation."

The woman stood. She was taller than Erin had realized, solid through the shoulders, her calm almost unnerving.

"Maya Brooks," she said. "Federal Aviation Safety Bureau. Former Air Force."

A murmur moved through First Class.

Victor snorted. "Government bureaucrat. Wonderful."

Maya ignored him. "Captain, I need you to confirm whether you have a hydraulic quantity message or fuel imbalance."

Daniel's face tightened.

"We had an intermittent right-system pressure fluctuation after climb. Maintenance control called it within dispatch limits."

Maya looked back out the window.

"Not anymore."

The aircraft gave a small shudder.

A glass slid half an inch across a tray.

Daniel's radio crackled from the cockpit.

"Captain, we just got the master caution. Right hydraulic quantity is dropping."

The cabin went silent.

Maya looked at Victor.

"You wanted the shade down," she said. "Good thing I didn't listen."

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Daniel had spent twenty-four years in airline cockpits and had learned never to announce uncertainty until he had facts. But Maya's question had landed too close to the warning message already blinking on his instruments. He asked Erin to keep Victor seated and told another attendant to discreetly move the passenger in 1C farther back. Victor protested the insult. Maya never looked at him. Her attention stayed on the wing, following the mist as it pulsed in the sunlight.

Then an alarm sounded behind the cockpit door.