DIVISIBLE MAN--THE SECOND GHOST by Howard Seaborne

Author:Howard Seaborne [Seaborne, Howard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Trans World Data LLC

40

“Do you want the bad news or the worse news?”

LeMore spoke through Andy’s phone speaker, which sat on a conference table in the pilot lounge at Wisconsin Aviation. Andy and I leaned over the table. Pidge curled up in a fat lounge chair. She flipped through an AOPA Pilot magazine.

“Is there a third choice?” Andy asked. Her elegant fingers slid up into the rich layers of her auburn hair and disappeared.

By the time Andy and I cabbed back to the airport, noon had come and gone. Stephenson cancelled his entire schedule for the morning. He poked and prodded me a bit further, marveled over the images we shot, and made a show of deleting all but the original images related to John R. Smith. Those, he said, we keep for comparison. He took us back to his office and we reviewed my new medical record at Neurology Associates, the one under my own name, the one with the healthy brain scans. We checked the dates of my two previous visits, dated the false records, and doctored his notes. With each energetic contribution Stephenson made to the false records, I felt a surge of renewed hope. Stephenson took to the task like someone reliving the electric days of rebellious youth. While he worked, I popped in and out of the other thing several times, just to make sure the scans didn’t disrupt anything. Each time I did it, Stephenson marveled.

The doctor eventually finished the process by printing the phony scans and writing a brief report to the FAA. He signed the report with a flourish and sealed the works in an envelope addressed to the FAA Aeromedical Branch in Oklahoma City, giving my name and pilot certificate number as a reference.

“Just like stealing scotch from a Navy supply depot.” He winked, hinting at another untold story from his misspent military past.

We left him wearing a look of wonder after I did the trick one last time in his office.

While we waited for the cab outside Stephenson’s office building, I pulled Andy close. We held on silently for a moment, each working hard to make the moment real. The energy I felt centered around putting my pilot’s license back in my wallet. For Andy, however, the moment was a step back from the unthinkable. I tried to let her know that I understood, but could only express the message with my arms, wrapped around her, holding on.

Back at the Madison airport, Andy dialed LeMore and we listened to his choices. I recognized a strange incongruence. Bad news comes with a next step, something to do, even if only to fight in vain. Good news produces a void. An empty-feeling sense of disbelief, as if the road you’ve been traveling suddenly disappeared and you’re left wondering which direction to go.

“I’ll give you the bad,” LeMore said. “Remember me telling you about a guy who knows a guy? And a little worm? Well, we came up with our worm last night, and your chief

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