Free Scott Free by John Gilstrap

finish, the door was already closed. She had no idea whether he heard her.

6
    T HERE’D NEVER BE A WAY for Brandon to thank Jim Lundgren adequately for his help.
    After working the phones for an hour, trying to find an airline that was still launching planes this late at night, he’d finally realized the hopelessness of his efforts. Noise restrictions forbade any commercial liftoffs after 9:00 P.M. As a last resort, he’d called Lundgren, president of Federal Research—Brandon’s employer for the past eighteen years—with the express purpose of stepping way out of line. “My son’s been in a plane crash out in Utah,” Brandon explained to the groggy executive. “I can’t find a flight to get me out there, and I—”
    â€œTake my jet,” Lundgren offered, without missing a beat, and without hearing the rest. The Gulfstream was a perk reserved only for the top dog, and no one— no one —else was permitted to use it. “I’ll call the pilots right now and have them meet you. You know how to get to Manassas Airport?”
    He didn’t but he said he did. That’s what maps were for. “I can’t thank you enough for this,” he’d said.
    Lundgren replied with a huff. “Now we’re both wasting time. Keep me informed, take as long as it takes. Don’t even think about the plant. Mary and I will keep you in our prayers.”
    Now, as the posh Gulfstream cut through the night on the way to Salt Lake City, Brandon tried to determine his next move. An obsessive planner, he visualized problems as giant knots, even the most hopeless of which could be untied if you just turned it over enough times. A tug here and there, action and reaction. To Brandon, that was what problem-solving was all about.
    Sitting in the luscious leather chair with his seat belt loosely fastened across his lap, he closed his eyes and tried to find the thread that would lead to Scott’s rescue. He had no idea where to begin. He didn’t know the players, he didn’t really know the situation, and now that he thought about it, he didn’t even know where Arapaho County was, precisely.
    Even more basic than that, he didn’t even know what he hoped to accomplish out there. What could he possibly contribute to the search effort? Surely prayers offered from Virginia carried just as much weight with God as prayers launched from Utah, and beyond that, what did he have to offer? Would he even be welcome?
    Probably not. He didn’t care. His goal here was simple: He wanted his son back. He left for Utah alone to return to Virginia with Scott at his side.
    Maybe he could help with the search. At the very least, he could be another set of eyes combing the terrain. Would that satisfy him? Suppose another team found his boy, and Brandon was off traipsing through a different search grid? Was he ready for that?
    And what if they found the wreckage, only to discover that…well, that it was bad news? The worst news? Suppose Brandon himself was the one to find it? Was he ready for that? Is that how he wanted the final memories of Scott to be burned into his brain? A grotesque image of a dismembered corpse tried to form itself in his mind, but Brandon opened his eyes before it took shape.
    â€œHe’s alive,” he said to the empty cabin. “I know he is.” And don’t bother asking how he knew. He just did.
    But what if he wasn’t alive? Worse yet, what if Scott were dead and that reckless asshole of a pilot who killed him were still alive? Of all the possibilities, that was the scenario that Brandon had the hardest time wrapping his mind around.
    He knew how people were going to react to this accident. All they were going to see were the impossible odds, and no matter what Brandon said, they were likely going to dismiss his words as the blind optimism of a frightened father. It was human nature to think that way, just as he always