Political Slant

By A. R. Jones

Security in Washington is lax. Presidential personnel has had a drastic cut. And the White House Correspondents’ Dinner caterers are understaffed. Tonight is the perfect night for Ben English to podcast live from Washington’s most exclusive event.

But while Ben is crashing that party, flight attendant Shaun Grainer and a jet full of Washington-bound celebrities are crashing into hostile, desert territory, where vicious animals, a van full of masked gunmen, and terrifying imprisonment await them.

It’s when the U.S. government airs its heroic rescue of the victims that Ben, banned from ever broadcasting again, abandons his quest for star-studded interviews to sate his hunger for truth in this fast-paced political thriller.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A. R. Jones
• Release date: Jun 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301704699

A. R. Jones

A. R. Jones lives in Mayfield, KY with one genius husband, two genius children, and two vehicles that double as flower beds. When she's not chasing geniuses (or genii), she spends her time writing, trying to stay well, and planning the cruise that she has yet to take.

Book preview

Chapter Two

Shaun Grainer trips on something and falls, banging his knee. His neck, already one cramped gnarl, feels the jolt as if he’s just been struck over the head.

Then he’s struck over the head.

Up!

Shaun can’t see. Not that he’d want to in the first place. He’d rather not know who it is that’s shoving him, pulling his bound arms until the skin feels like it’s ready to fall off, shouting one-word commands at him.

He’d rather not see how many people he still has with him. Or how few.

Still, he listens, trying to count footsteps. He hears least three pairs of boots walking in legitimate steps.

The others are just shuffles.

He listens for anything that might tell him who’s still alive. Who’s made it to this point.

Once he thinks he hears a female voice whimpering, but he is sure he made a girly little cry himself just then when they whacked him over the head.

He’s never been this scared in his life, not even while the plane was crashing.

Actually, when the plane had gone down and the ground had rushed at them at top speed, and so many had screamed and panicked, Shaun had stayed remarkably calm. Re-instructing the passengers as to what to do, how to sit. Soothing them with what words he could conjure at the moment.

Now he could certainly curl up and wail like an infant, if given the chance.

They all stop as someone else falls--maybe on that same spot that tripped Shaun a minute before. He listens for a the sound of a head being struck with whatever that was they’d used on him.

No blow, no scream. Just another shout of Up! and the quiet sound of someone being pulled back onto his or her feet.

Then they start moving again.

Shaun’s Italian calf-leather shoes were fine for hours of flight service, but they weren’t made for miles of all-terrain hiking.

Could be all-terrain, anyway. He knows he saw mountains when they first crashed. Scrubby land. That dead tree. Had there been other trees? He can’t remember.

He knows he saw city lights sometime before they crashed.

He’s cold. His head is dripping blood into his eyes, but he can’t wipe the burning ickiness away, not with his hands tied behind his back; his head is inside a black pillowcase.

He wonders where terrorists get these head coverings. Do they just buy black pillowcases or do they make them themselves? Do they come in bulk from an outlet? Terrorist-tools.com?

He wonders how many other people have had this particular black case over their heads. Was anyone ever beheaded while wearing this? That would be convenient; instant head-in-a-bag. Then just cinch it up, take it out, and dump it, right?

Fear seizes him around the throat like a noose. He starts to cry as he shuffles, the rope starting to wear the skin off his ankles.

His socks weren’t made for this abuse.

He snorts a quiet laugh to himself about his socks. Pink and purple stripes with just the right black accents. Just a little secret silliness under his dress slacks.

No one would see, no one would care. Just a little gift to himself for logging his five hundred thousandth mile as a flight attendant.

Well, former flight attendant. Now flight crew for the jet set on their way to fancy dos.

Or he was.

He wonders what these movers and shovers will do to him when they see his socks.

Abernathy had never said anything to him about dress code. His history in flight had always spoken for itself, and the pilot had always trusted Shaun to dress in a way becoming his station.

I’m hiring you because I heard you treat all passengers like VIPs, whether they’re in first class or coach or what.

I’d like to think I do.

I may get all kinds on my jet.

Oh, variety is the spice of life.

Don’t get too spicy with them.

No, sir.

Just kidding. I trust you. You’ll be fine.

That had been two years ago, and Abernathy had been right. Shaun had been fine. In fact, waiting on celebrities and other elite fliers had been wonderful. Mostly.

Of course there was the odd diva who treated him like scum. Or the sports star who called him various names just for kicks. Or the former President who urinated all over the inside of the bathroom, walls and all.

But, by and large, he’d loved being Abernathy’s crew.

And now Abernathy is dead, somewhere back there in the crushed cockpit. Shaun can’t help wondering who now has the better end of the deal.

He’s never thought about himself as a survivor. He’s never had to before. Abernathy was the one who always talked about his scrapes with death, both in and out of the air. How instincts had kicked in, training had clicked, and he had lived.

But Shaun has been lucky. Not so much as a hint of a faulty engine before now, on any craft he’d ever flown in. Not even a fender bender in traffic or a prolonged high fever. To him, dying had always been something that old people did. Old people and people who played with violence.

They stop again as someone trips.

Shouting in another language.

Sounds of struggling.

Machine gun fire.

Screams from different voices, one of them Shaun’s.

Chapter Three

The Day Before--12:15 p.m.

Shaun uses every ounce of strength he has to hold back a violent rant, complete with every curse word in his mental database, as Michael Calloway’s high-protein meal tumbles off the tiny counter of the galley and down Shaun’s pants leg.

He checks the floor. Looks clean.

He’s in the galley alone. Who’s to know?

He takes a deep breath, tells himself he’s a superhero who can fly at 49,000 feet without a cape, and gets to work reassembling.

The little radish, carved to look like a rose, has even survived. No big deal, and everybody will be ok.

Shaun gathers up the other pre-ordered, pre-assembled meals--vegetarian, vegan, seafood, low salt, the whole enchilada (literally)--and makes his way out of his closet into the cornucopia of celebrities waiting for lunch.

Everybody seems to be happy with their drinks. That’s good.

He stands in the back of the jet with the tray, silently surveying the mission before him. He’s never served on a flight like this before--not with this much variety, spicy or otherwise.

Usually, when all the passengers are of one set, he can pick out the personalities in the room and behave accordingly with each one.

He found, very early on, that in any given group--whether it be a politician and his team, or a rock band without their own jet, or just a rich old ladies’ club who wants to go to Paris for the weekend, the components are almost always the same: Loudmouth, Picky-Nicky, Sleepy, Dopey, Friendly, and Frantic.

Loudmouth thinks everything’s wrong with the molecules surrounding him, as well as everything that is made up of said molecules.

Picky-Nicky is the same as Loudmouth, but quieter about it.

Sleepy, well, sleeps the whole time.

Dopey is drunk or high and has to be watched very closely throughout the flight. The thing is, as the passengers board the craft, Dopey almost always turns out to be the one he least suspects. You never know.

Friendly is always the bright spot on any flight. Asking Shaun about himself, finding out what he’d rather be doing than playing footman in a sky palace. Yes, Friendly was always fun, but then Shaun needed to move along to his other passengers.

Then there was Frantic. The world was going to explode if the plane didn’t land at 2:42 sharp. The plane was going to explode if the salmon was a hair overdone. Frantic was going to explode if Shaun didn’t get a lime for her tomato juice before thirty seconds were up.

Everybody else was a crossbreed of these six.

The thing was, this formula made each particular team, club, or band work. Each personality was a cog in the machine--yes, even Sleepy and Dopey. The formula worked on the ground, it worked in the air, and Shaun was comfortable with it.

Then came the new fad of sharing jets.

Now, instead of a homogeneous group of passengers, Shaun could expect, often, a grab-bag of writers, singers, actors, politicians, athletes, all on one flight.

Sometimes the passengers knew one another. Sometimes they’d only heard of one another. Sometimes they hated one another. But, in any case, they didn’t come on board together.

Sharing jets was something members of the elite could do when they wanted to get somewhere quickly in style but couldn’t afford their own charter, or if they simply wanted to save a buck or two while living the high life.

It was a simple concept. Say an actor wanted to fly from New York to Tokyo, but didn’t want to shell out the dough to charter the jet himself. He could simply go to one of the websites that had been popping up recently--some more reputable than others--and the fine people at that site would find him a seat on a high-class jet going to his destination. He might get a seat with a football team or a television mogul and his family, but he would pay a fraction of what he would have to pay to fly alone, or even first class on an airliner.

On this particular flight, however, everyone has a jumpseat. Abernathy had simply made his plane available for the flight from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., and nine celebrities of all shapes and sizes had taken the plunge.

The good news--lots of diversity.

The bad news--there is a chance that everybody might end up being a Loudmouth. Or a Dopey.

The odds of everyone being a Friendly are there too, but those odds seem higher somehow.

The only way to find out is to serve them their lunch.

He starts at the back of the craft. Might as well get Michael Calloway over with.

Here you are, Mr. Calloway, your high-protein meal.

Ah, yeah, good. Thanks.

The hulking football player gives Shaun an absent smile, then digs in, knocking the radish rose off his plate and onto his tray to make room for his fast-moving fork.

Shaun exhales. Calloway hadn’t even looked at his food first, although it hadn’t looked that bad after the reconstruction. Another kitchen calamity swept under the rug.

He moves on toward the lady on the sofa. Beth Cohen, financial guru. She’s engrossed in a magazine, and looks like she couldn’t care less whether her sitting area were made of white leather or barnyard hay.

In fact, Shaun’s mother’s old question of Were you born in a barn? comes to mind; the woman has her booted foot tucked under her while she reads, with no regard for the damage she’s doing to the upholstery.

All right, Ms. Cohen, here’s your kosher meal.

She looks daggers at him.

Kosher meal. Is that supposed to be funny?

I’m sorry, ma’am?

You think because my name is Cohen, I ordered a kosher meal?

He checks his list. Oh, crud. She was the vegan. Joel Hardison, the comic actor, had the kosher.

I had the kosher, Hardison offers. His voice is helpful.

I didn’t pay for some fancy-pants kid to make wise-nelly cracks at me, you know. Forget the daggers. Cohen looks like she’s about to shoot lasers out of her eyes.

But Shaun bounces back, despite the morning he’s had.

Yes ma’am. Here’s your tray right here. Can I get you another cocktail?

That’s another thing. What makes you think I want to be called ma’am?

"Give the kid a break, sir," says Hardison.

I’m not the Queen of England or Scarlett O’Hara. I don’t want to be called ma’am.

Just eat and leave the guy alone. Until now, Hardison has been reclining in his seat, a hot towel over his eyes. Now, he’s sitting up, fully annoyed with this difficult woman.

Oh, yeah, says Cohen, an evil grin spreading across her face. Ding-dong. Pizza’s here.

Hardison stares at her incredulously, then puts his towel back on his face.

Shaun sets Hardison’s lunch on his tray and pats his arm to let him know he’s been served. Evidently the up-and-coming film star didn’t care to be hounded about his catchphrase from his old sitcom, Where’s The Fire?

Shaun looks at Hardison for a second, grateful that he can’t see him through the towel. As a kid, Shaun had pretended to be Hardison’s character--a janitor who tries to keep up with a station full of firefighters. Shaun’s game had included ringing a bell and calling out the token line about pizza, then climbing up in his treehouse, pretending to try to sneak a ride on the fire engine before being kicked off.

He hopes that the movie industry will be good to Hardison. He isn’t exactly a Friendly, but he did just rescue Shaun from the sticky moment. He’d give him the biggest slice of bread pudding later.

Shaun moves on. Next is Marissa Fields, the overnight-success author of novels for young adults. He recognizes her from her interviews on the Today Show and Oprah.

Seafood meal, Ms. Fields?

Thank you, she smiles, and digs in, although more daintily than the football player, who is probably already finished with his.

Shaun makes his way through the fuselage. A spinach enchilada for the motivational speaker. Mediterranean fare for the ex-convict evangelist. Sushi for the TV chef, who, surprisingly, is a Friendly and takes his meal with a smile and gratitude.

Excuse me, calls Ed Shears, the fast-food CEO. When do we hit D.C., again?

We’ll land in about two hours. After Shaun’s encounter with Beth Cohen, he’s afraid to attach a sir or ma’am to anyone. From now on, today, everybody will just be an old pal.

Hey, snaps Cohen, you can just look at the map screen. You don’t have to bother him about that.

Shears mutters something about calling Animal Control when they land.

So Beth Cohen is taking up for Shaun now. Whatever.

Still, he double-checks their progress on the high-definition screen attached to the wall. The jet has four HD monitors--three for DVDs and one for the progress map that is always running.

After everyone is situated with their meals, Shaun goes to his seat in the back to rest his feet and give himself a personality pep talk. The key is to always stay upbeat and chipper, and maybe enough Friendlies will join in and liven up the entire flight.

But there is still a long way to go with this bunch.

Shaun looks over at the football player, who isn’t finished eating after all. He shakes his head at himself for flipping the guy’s tray over