Page 82 of Radar

“That’s not his name. I have no idea what his name is.”

Xander grinned. “Gaston. That’s marvelous.” He caught her gaze. “That is such a Belle put-down. You remind me of that character.”

“Do I? How?”

“I’ll tell you later. Right now, you need to trust that I guessed that you had POTS because of Radar’s behavior, and you were shaking and drinking electrolytes. I had a small inkling of how to help because of the way I saw that woman deal with her situation and how those around her supported her.”

“But then you got on my flight and followed me here.”

“Actually, you got on my flight. And I live here.”

She looked around. “And now, I’m in a confessional in D.C., Xander. And I still don’t know why.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Xander

Sunday

Washington, D.C.

Thinking back to the complex series of events that Radar had processed through at Cerberus as they did the training evolution, Xander decided to let Radar manage Elyssa’s room. And so, he simply said, “Radar, take good care of her,” before closing the door.

He walked three paces to the only other door on the corridor, tapped, and was let in by White.

“Okay, Xander,” she said, reaching out to touch his sleeve, “I didn’t say anything about it in front of Elyssa, but what have you got smeared on you?”

Xander pulled the fabric around. “The lady sitting on the aisle seat was eating a tuna sandwich when we got the initial jolt, and she grabbed at me.” He reached into the front of his pack and pulled out wet wipes to clean himself up.

“Tuna on a plane?” White asked. “Rude.”

“Well, it seemed fishy.” Xander’s joke fell flat. “Planes first, what the hell was that?”

“Not the Zorics,” Hiro said.

“Well, that’s good, I guess.” Xander tossed the spent cloths into the trash.

“I was tracking you in, for no good reason, and when you got over the Potomac,” Finley pulled out a chair and sat, “your flight path became erratic.”

“You don’t say.”

“Xander, it was stressful as hell,” Hiro said. “I can’t imagine how frightening that was, given the recent crashes in this area. And while our team uses sarcasm to deal, this time you have to let Finley flow through this information because we have a bunch to get through, and I don’t want Elyssa to change her mind about talking to us and just get up and walk out the door. She owes us nothing. But we need her badly.”

“Go,” Xander said.

“White, why don’t you take point on this?” Hiro asked.

“The traffic alert collision avoidance system, TCAS, is set up to enhance the pilots’ situational awareness and is supposed to prevent mid-air collisions. When, for example, helicopters in D.C. are flying around without reporting to the tower, the tower can’t watch how they interact with the airplanes. This backup system should help. When a situation is picked up by the system, it provides a warning and can also instruct the pilots on what to do to stay safe.”

“And the TCAS told our pilot to bank hard right?” Xander asked.

“It told four airplanes to descend. One did descend because that plane had the space to do so safely. The other three, including yours, did not. Not seeing the threat but hearing from TCAS that a mid-air collision was imminent, each pilot did what they could to save their passengers’ lives.”

“Heroic,” Xander said. “What he did was off the books, and from what I could hear and see, he executed it masterfully. The guy was a fighter pilot for damned sure. What did we avoid?”

“Yeah, about that. You missed nothing. The TCAS gave false alerts because the Secret Service and the Navy were over at the Naval Observatory testing anti-drone technology.”

“Despite the FAA warning them not to,” Hiro grumped.