In all, the telling of the story took the better part of an hour, with Jake describing everything that had happened that day from the time he woke up (Rollins actually spent a considerable amount of time questioning Jake about how much sleep he’d had the night before and if he’d been drinking alcohol or doing drugs) until he pulled his plane into the parking slot at the maintenance hangar and shut it down. He then went over and interviewed Celia for a bit as well, asking her many of the same questions. From there, he took out a notebook and a camera and spent about thirty minutes taking photos of Jake’s plane and jotting down notes.
“Jeez,” Jake said as he stood next to Celia and watched. “They say that most bird strikes go unreported. Now I know why.”
“Why is he taking pictures of the other wing?” Celia asked, puffing on yet another cigarette. “Nothing hit us there, did it?”
“We’re dealing with the federal government here, C,” he said. “Can I get a hit of that?”
She handed the cigarette over and he took a few drags. They made him cough so he gave it back.
Rollins finished up with them twenty minutes later, after crawling around inside the aircraft and snapping more pictures in there. He then stowed all of his things back in a large briefcase he carried with him.
“All right,” he told Jake. “I’m just going to go interview the air traffic controller you were dealing with and then get a copy of the radar data for the incident and then I’ll probably be able to close out the investigation.”
“Okay,” Jake said slowly. “What does that mean?”
“It means that this looks like a bird strike on climb-out with flaps still set in takeoff configuration, which, in turn, caused the flaps to be damaged and unable to retract or deploy further.”
“Yes,” Jake said. “That is what happened.”
“Well, now it will be what officially happened, if that makes sense,” Rollins explained.
“That does make sense,” Jake said. “And my insurance company will be able to get a copy of this accident report?”
“Incident report,” Rollins corrected.
“Incident?” Jake asked. “It’s not an accident?”
“I’m classifying it as an incident,” the investigator said. “No one was injured—except the avian, of course, and he or she doesn’t count—no property was damaged except for your aircraft, and there is no question about the ongoing safety of the aircraft itself, the aircraft type, the airport, or you as a pilot. We get bird strikes here a few times a year, most commonly in late spring or late autumn. If they’re reported at all, they’re usually classified as incidents.”
“Groovy,” Jake said. “So, my insurance company will be able to score a copy of the incident report?”
“It should be available for public review by the end of next week.”
“Excellent,” Jake said. “Are we free to go then?”
“You are free to go,” Rollins said. “I thank you for your cooperation.”
They shook hands and then Jake and Celia made their way back toward the rental car area. It was now well after two o’clock in the afternoon and the skies were starting to get cloudy.
“What now?” Celia asked. “Do we drive home?”
Jake shook his head. “That storm is still coming in, remember? It’s probably almost here. We’re going to have to wait it out here in Portland. Once we have good weather again, I’ll charter a private flight back to Coos Bay.”
“Great,” Celia said. “Another airplane ride.”
“You gotta get right back on the horse,” Jake said.
“I suppose,” she said. “Do you want me to work on hotel rooms while you get the rental car?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Jake told her.
Jake’s part of the plan came off pretty easily. He rented the same Lexus they had just turned in. He then called the house to let everyone know what had happened. It was Charlie who answered the phone.
“What up, Jake?” Charlie asked him. “Where are you at?”
“In Portland,” Jake told him. “Celia and I are kind of stranded here for the night.”
“What are you doing in Portland?” Charlie asked. “I didn’t even notice you were gone.”
“Uh ... we flew down here to pick up a new guitar for Celia, remember? We talked about it last night while we were having dinner.”
“Oh ... yeah, I do seem to remember you guys talking about something like that, now that you mention it. How’s Portland?”
“It’s fine,” Jake said. “Anyway, can you let everyone know that we...”
“I always thought about learning to fly like you, Jake,” Charlie interrupted. “It seems like such a cool thing to do.”
“Uh ... yeah,” Jake said, shuddering a little at the thought of Charlie in control of an aircraft. “It is a lot of fun. Anyway, could you let everyone know that...”
“I imagine there’s some weird germs and shit up there in the atmosphere though,” Charlie cut in.
“Weird germs?” Jake asked.
“That’s right,” Charlie said. “Little microbes that live in the air currents and just float around up there all the time. You fly your plane through a colony of them and they’ll get sucked in through your ventilation system and then you’ll breathe them into your lungs. The next thing you know, you’re coughing up blood and laying in some hospital bed breathing through a tube while they try to figure out what this weird-ass infection you have is and your muscles slowly waste away.”
“Uh ... wow,” Jake said. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?”
“Haven’t you?” Charlie countered.
“No, not really,” Jake told him. “You see, I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as weird-ass infectious microbes that float around in atmospheric air currents.”
“Just because none have been found yet doesn’t mean there’s no such thing, Jake,” Charlie admonished.
“Right,” Jake said slowly. “Hey, is Pauline there?”
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “She’s in the kitchen, making something out of rice and the leftover bread from last night.”
“Can you get her for me?”
“Right away,” Charlie said.
Jake told Pauline what the deal was. She expressed concern for the situation and gratitude that both of them were okay. She did not discuss weird-ass microbes in the atmosphere, at least not with Jake. And she promised to let everyone else know what had happened.
Once his conversation with his sister was done, he went back over to Celia, who was still on the phone herself and was jotting something down on a piece of paper. She had her wallet open before her and was holding one of her credit cards in her hand, reading off the number. He sat next to her until she finished.
“Did you get us some rooms?” Jake asked.
She shook her head. “I got us a room,” she said. “It’s the Presidential suite over at the Sheraton and it was apparently the last hotel room available in the Portland region tonight.”
“Really?” Jake asked. “Everything was booked? On a Sunday?”
“It’s the Sunday before Christmas, remember?” she asked him. “And it seems this Portland Festival of Lights thing we’ve been seeing flyers for is a big deal—the kind of thing that people from all over the country come to see. Not only that, but the Sacramento Kings are in town to play the Trailblazers. All the hotel rooms have been booked for months in advance. I had to name drop to get the suite at the Sheraton, and they’re charging me eleven hundred dollars for it! Highway robbery.”
“We’re going to share a suite?” Jake asked.
“It’s not a big deal, Jake,” she said. “It’s a big suite with two complete rooms. It’s not like we have to share a bed in a Motel 6.”
“I suppose,” he said. “I only hope the media doesn’t get wind of this. Can you imagine the stories they’d run if they found out we shared a hotel room? Greg would fly down here just to kick my ass.”
This caused a sour look to appear on Celia’s face. “I seriously doubt that,” she said, more than a hint of anger in her tone.