Excerpt
CHAPTER 1.
For the last four days all of the cities within a surrounding area of one hundred square miles or so, were experiencing a blizzard that maintained a tight control over them with no signs of letting up. Circling strong winds throughout the area also made the heavy falling snow appear to have taken shapes of ghostly monsters that floated aimlessly in all directions.
But as bad as the weather is outside, two huge concrete and metal airport hangars each containing two seven forty seven commercial airplanes, were protecting them. Each of the hangars also had managed to protect three or so dozen employees from this same weather, all accomplished with its nice and comfortable warm heat they contained.
These many skilled employees are just a small team of many teams that are stationed around the world. Their only job is to work on large commercial airplanes like the four here that must go through an extensive overhaul after a certain number of flying hours, as mandated by law for safety reasons.
This two-week process now on its last day of service still had all sorts of special scaffoldings surrounding the jets. The scaffoldings are use by some employees to strip down, test and examined the airplanes. Besides the outside work being done, other employees had to make sure that all flight deck instruments had been replaced, even it no signs of wear appeared, and to make sure that all of the seats, bathrooms, and galleys were taken care of also.
After today and if the weather permits, each airplane will then be towed outside and tested to their full capacity, before being put back into operation. Then they will be flying the skies of the world once again.
With that said and done, I must tell you that for the last month and a half, two terrorists had managed to blend in with all of the many different kinds of people working in one of the two hangars. Their mission given to them was simple. Do their job right the first time so that no one would ever ask any questions, while at the same time wait for the delivery of a special crate to come. Today was that date they were waiting for. Today they will secure a large amount of dangerous weapons within one of the two airplanes. So far everything was going down as planned for them.
It was early in the morning of the last day of repairs that a tall, slim man with short strands of gray braided hair, showed everyone who worked here for a long time that he is an old African American man, as he walked about in the same hangar the terrorist worked in. But unless someone was new at this job sight they would not know he was an old man, because their eyes would see that his outer body was amazingly trimmed and fit. This the old man already knew, but to him it was his inner body that told him a different story, and that is, he really is an old tired man.
Dressed in a blue mechanic’s work suit designed for this type of work, quickly showed everyone that this old man also is their supervisor, because a name-tag typed with the kind of job he does was clipped to his left pocket. All of the other workers wore red suits and had name-tags with the kind of work they did on them.
Within this brightly lit hangar and between the short distance of the tail and nose section of the two airplanes, the supervisor noticed a shorter man walking towards him, that he knew. The old man stopped under the large front left horizontal wing of the rear airplane and when the younger man came within a foot or so away, the old man put his right arm out towards the still walking man’s chest in order to stop him.
When this was completed they faced each other as they stood on the gray painted cement floor. This floor had all kinds of solid or dash yellow and white lines of different shapes and angles that took the shapes of the airplanes.
Then the supervisor, a little worried about his job today, because of what this younger man was doing, said. “Russ, you’re late again man. Come on and get with the program. The boss is on my ass about you again. I can’t hide your lateness forever, you know.”
“I know my friend, and I am truly sorry about all of the troubles that I am giving you lately.” The young Lebanese looking man said as he held onto an empty white thick coffee mug tightly gripped by the fingers of his right hand, as he carried it down by his side leg.
“Please don’t let this happen again man. I like you, but I can’t take up for you anymore.”
“I promise you Dan, I won’t be late again.”
“So where are you going at now? To work I hope.”
“I am going to get some more coffee. Do you want me to pick you up some too?”
“No. But lets hurry up and get to work. Huh!”
“Just as soon as I get my coffee, okay!”
They said nothing more as they moved on about their own business. But with in seconds Dan suddenly stopped just under the same wing, but further on out from the fuselage. He stood at the bottom of this huge yellow metal stairway leading to an engine where two other employees were busy working on above. Then Dan said in a louder voice while pointing to the tail section of the airplane, with his right arm. “Russ.” As he turned to face Dan, Russ was able to see him pointing his hand towards the rear of the airplane with a fast movement of his index finger in a back and forth direction. Then Russ heard him speak out in a loud voice. “By the way Russ, a large crate came in for you.”
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