That was when Billie said it. She said it in the voice she used for evacuation commands, which was not loud so much as it was flat, every word set down on its own like a brick.
"Captain. I am concerned. I need you in the galley. Now."
It was CRM language. Every flight attendant and every pilot at Bridgeline had sat in a classroom in the training center by the old Stapleton runways and learned the words. Concerned. Uncomfortable. Unsafe. Stop. They were built like a ladder. You climbed them in order. When a crew member said concerned, you listened. When a crew member said uncomfortable, you stopped and talked. The words had been invented because in 1978, over Portland, a first officer and a flight engineer at a different airline had watched their captain circle an airliner until it ran out of fuel while they hinted, and hinted, and hinted, and ten people had died of their politeness. The words were designed to sound strange in a normal sentence. They did. Garrison Yancey turned in his seat and looked at her as though a lamp had spoken.
Gunnar straightened. For one second she thought he would refuse. Captains could. The captain's authority on an airplane was not a metaphor; it was in the federal regulations, in the part of the rules everybody learned first, and the flight attendants learned it right alongside the pilots: the pilot in command is directly responsible for, and is the final authority as to, the operation of the aircraft. And there was another statute, in Title 49, that said an air carrier could refuse to carry a passenger the carrier decided was, or might be, inimical to safety, and in practice the carrier was the captain, standing in an aisle. He did not have to go into the galley with her. He did not have to do anything she said.
He went into the galley.
She pulled the curtain across behind them. It did not close all the way, and it was the only privacy there was on a 737. Tomasz had come up from the back at some point; he was standing in the forward entry with his hands behind him, near the open door, and he looked at Billie and then very deliberately looked at the jet bridge, and became interested in it.
"Billie," Gunnar said. "I don't have time for this. Ramp says we've got fifteen minutes before the next hold."
"Then I'll be fast." She took the folded letter out of her apron and held it out to him, and he did not take it, so she kept holding it. "First thing. Her seat is correct. Esperanza did the swap at the podium forty-five minutes ago. Mr. Vandermolen came up to the counter and gave it to her. I talked to him at the door. Your printout's from 2148 Zulu, that's before Esperanza reopened the flight to do the reissue. It's old. If you call up the cabin list again right now, it'll show Grier in 2A."
He looked at the curling strip of thermal paper in his hand as if it had lied to him personally.
"Second thing. That container was hand-inspected by TSA. There's a sticker on the side, you can see it from the aisle, and Esperanza saw the paperwork. It is what she says it is. It's stem cells. Bone marrow, or blood, whatever they collect now. It's for a transplant. Here's the letter. Read it."