Total Control by David Baldacci Read Free Book Online

the elevator.
    Sidney checked in at the USAir shuttle desk at National Airport and a few minutes later was settling into her seat on the Boeing 737.
    She was confident the plane would take off right on time for the barely fifty-minute trip to New York's La Guardia Airport. Unfortunately, it took almost as long to drive into the city from the airport as it did to traverse the two hundred and thirty or so miles from the nation's capital to the capital of the financial world.
    The flight, as usual, was full. As she assumed her seat, she noted that sitting next to her was an elderly man dressed in an old-fashioned three-piece pinstripe suit. A wide-knotted bright red tie shone out from the background of a crisp button-down shirt. In his lap sat a battered leather briefcase. Slender hands nervously clasped and unclasped as he looked out the window. Small tufts of white hair clung around his earlobes. The shirt collar hung loosely around the skinny neck like walls pulling loose from their foundation. Sidney noticed beads of perspiration adhering to his left temple and over his thin lips.
    The plane lumbered clumsily to the main runway. The whir of wing flaps settling into the down takeoff position seemed to calm the old man. He turned to Sidney.
    "That's all I listen for anymore," he said, his voice deep and rocky and laced with the front-porch drawl of a lifetime spent in the South.
    Sidney looked at him curiously. "What's that?"
    He pointed out the small window. "Make sure they set the damn flaps on the wings so this thing'll get off the ground. Remember that plane up in Deetroit?" He said the word as if it were actually two. "Damn pilots forgot to set the flaps right and killed everybody on board except for that little girl."
    Sidney looked out the window for a moment. "I'm sure the pilots are well aware of that," she replied. She sighed inwardly. The last thing she needed was to be sitting next to a nervous flier. Sidney turned back to her notes, doing a quick scan for her presentation before the flight attendants made everyone stow their belongings under the seats. As the flight attendants came by for another check, she slipped the papers back in her briefcase and slid it under the seat in front of her. She looked out the window at the dark, choppy waters of the Potomac. Flocks of seagulls scattered across the water; from a distance they resembled swirling pieces of paper. The captain crisply announced over the intercom that the USAir shuttle was next in line to take off.
    A few seconds later' the plane rose smoothly off the ground. After banking left to avoid flying over the restricted airspace above the Capitol and the White House, the plane raced to its cruising altitude.
    Several minutes after the plane leveled off at twenty-nine thousand feet, the beverage cart rolled by and Sidney got a cup of tea and the obligatory bag of salty peanuts. The elderly man next to her shook his head when asked for his beverage request and continued to stare anxiously out the window.
    Sidney reached down and pulled her briefcase from underneath the seat in anticipation of doing some work for the next half hour.
    She settled back in her seat and took some papers out of her briefcase.
    As she began to go over their contents she noticed the old man still glancing out the window; his small frame was tense as he rode every bump, obviously listening for any out-of-the-way sound that would herald a catastrophe. The veins were tight in his neck; his hands were wrapped around the armrests of his seat. The common plight of the not-so-rare white-knuckler. Her face softened. Being frightened was difficult enough. Believing you are alone in that fear merely compounded matters. She reached out and patted his arm gently and smiled. He glanced quickly over at her and returned the smile in an embarrassed fashion, his face slightly reddening.
    "They do this flight so many times, I'm sure they've worked out all the kinks," she said, her voice quiet and