Designed to Love (12 page)

***

"Well, there are now two weaknesses that
we're going to have to bring up to Bernie before our first
assignment," Alisha says with a hint of disappointment.

Previously we just assumed that there were
no limitations or conditions that might inhibit our telepathy,
telekinesis and remote travel. However, we found during the sniper
incident that Claire's and my gift for remote travel in wide open
spaces is diluted and blurry compared to confined areas, as is our
ability to find moving objects, such as cars and planes. Now, with
the water event today, we all agree that maybe we aren't quite as
invincible as we once thought. Jason and Michael are already
working on a formula to determine how speed, distance, and the
resistance of air and water, affect our gifts.

***

"Okay, there's Marti, so where's Cat?" I
mutter as I remotely scan the airport in search of my wife. Marti
is in the airport café, but both the plane and Cat are missing and
I quickly determine by the way Marti is watching the runway with a
check-off sheet in front of her, that Cat is probably in flight,
practicing solo touch-n-goes. Brandon says that she is well on her
way to receiving her pilot's license at the accelerated rate she is
progressing. I am thrilled for her, even though I always have the
urge to have the Designer team on stand-by just in case something
goes wrong.

"She is statistically more apt to die in a
car accident," Brandon says, reciting the most often quoted
response to airplane crashes. Anticipating my next question, he
holds up his hand in defense, and says, "Hey, I took chances that I
shouldn't have been taking and besides, I'm still alive, and I said
she was more apt to die in a car crash."

I didn't admit that I sometimes want to be
on stand-by in case she runs off the road too. Brandon and Burke
already give me a hard time when it comes to Cat. They say I am
bewitched by her, and every once in a while, Burke will point out
an attractive girl, just to remind me of what I might be missing
out on. He can't fathom the concept of one girl for a lifetime. In
fact, he and Brandon are meeting up with two new girls—his fourth
since moving in-tonight after our training and he already warned us
that he may stay at a hotel in town if things go well.

***

It's easy to lose track of time when you are
downstairs in the pool room, engaged in the type of intense
training that we are. We should have proceeded to the other
exercise stations after lunch, but all of us voted to continue with
the underwater circuitry, changing the connections to create
different patterns for us to try and navigate. We continue to use
the whistle as instructed by Bernie, but no one, including Claire,
is allowed in the tunnels without a safety rope attached to their
foot. And all of us, with the exception of Claire, have to be
fished out of the tunnels at some point during the exercise. Claire
was right about one thing, the more comfort we develop maneuvering
in the murky grave, the more instinctual our sense of direction and
response to the whistle become. Four hours later, everyone masters
the ability to swim through a new configuration in half the time it
was taking us this morning. By the time we call it quits, we are
all feeling somewhat elated by the progress.

***

It's not unusual for Cat and Marti to spend
all day flying when the weather's good, so when she's not home by
dinner, I don't think too much about it. When I express concern
over them flying after dark, Brandon eases my mind by telling me
Marti does nighttime flight training with all of her students.
Rarely do Cat and I get the whole house to ourselves, but tonight
everyone else has plans. Michael and Liz, take Claire into town to
do some Christmas shopping, Alisha and Jason go to see a movie, and
Burke and Brandon leave the house a short time later to meet their
dates. I'm anxious to spend a quiet evening alone with Cat, but
when my calls still go unanswered and I can't locate her and Marti
at the airport, I take the opportunity to catch up on my finances,
which then prompts a lengthy phone call to my investment broker to
discuss future transactions.

A smile spreads across my face, when I
finally hear the sound of her car coming down the long
driveway.

"It's about time, Mrs. Callahan," I mutter
as I head downstairs to heat up her dinner. She rarely eats at the
airport and typically comes home starving when she's out this late.
I wasn't sure if my chicken cordon bleu would live up to her
standards, but knowing her, she wouldn't confess if it didn't.
After lighting a candle, dimming the lights and turning on some
soft classical music, I chuckle as I do one last maneuver to ensure
an evening filled with romance. She made it clear to me on more
than one occasion that she was a fan of my bare chest and abs, so I
think I have nothing to lose by letting it be the first thing she
sees when she walks through the door. As the door handle slowly
turns, I slip my T-shirt over my head tossing it on the floor, and
stand in the kitchen anticipating the moment I'll feel the warmth
of her body next to mine.

***

A hundred thoughts go through my mind when I
see Brandon and Burke walk through the door, but not one of them
has to do with Cat. A forgotten item, a change in plans, possibly
stood up by their dates, (unlikely but not impossible). It isn't
until I hear the others' cars pull up and the rest of the family
joins them in the doorway, with the same look of horror on their
face that a wave of dread washes over me. Claire pushes past
everyone and runs straight for me, launching herself in my arms,
and burying her head in my neck as she sobs uncontrollably.

RONAN

"Cat...possible plane crash...solo flight to
Montana...dispatching a search team," are the only words I hear in
a stream of news delivered by Brandon and the rest of the crew. I
am paralyzed, unable to speak or move, and Claire is the one to
utter the few words that are needed to snap me into action, "Let's
go find her," she whispers through her sobs.

Right now, Claire is my lifeline, the one
person who is able to remote travel better than me, keep an
airplane airborne, and possibly raise a body from the dead. I
loosen her arms from around my neck, and gaze deep into her
tear-filled eyes and repeat the words, slowly and calmly, "Yes,
let's go find her, Claire."

Not even Alisha attempts to argue or stop me
when I order Brandon to get his plane ready. He has been on and off
the phone with his cousin Sam, the air traffic controller, and
Marti Campbell. He tells me that Cataryn was last seen at the
airport in Great Falls, Montana. After landing, she fueled, used
the restroom, and purchased a grilled cheese sandwich at the café.
She radioed the tower 30 minutes later and requested permission for
takeoff, and then filed a VFR flight plan with Salt Lake Center to
head north in a direct flight to Calgary Canada. Salt Lake's air
traffic controller became concerned when she almost immediately
veered off course and headed southwest towards Idaho, in the
complete opposite direction of her flight plan. She didn't respond
to his repeated attempts to make radio contact and her plane
disappeared from radar about an hour later somewhere over the Boise
National Forest.

"Marti says there is no reasonable
explanation as to why Cat changed course. Weather wasn't a factor,"
Brandon says quietly, as the five of us board his plane, leaving
Elizabeth, Michael and Jason home, should Cat miraculously show up
at the Freeman estate.

***

The flight time into Idaho takes almost
three hours, during which time Claire and I attempt to remote
travel over the vast forest below us, to widen the breadth of our
search. It's an exercise that would normally leave me irritable and
frustrated, but now I welcome the challenge, using every bit of
mental focus just to avoid thoughts involving anything other than a
successful reunion with my wife. Each time I drift from my physical
body, I only get so far, before the forest below me becomes fuzzy
and I am sucked back into the confines of the airplane. Claire
reports a similar response and mutters to the rest of us, "If only
the airplane would hold still for a minute, I could reach further."
Michael and Jason were right about the speed and distance factor
affecting our gifts. Unless we could slow the aircraft down to a
crawl, our gift for remote travel was of very little use to us. The
word "helicopter," is mentally called out by all of us at the same
time and Alisha looks anxiously at Brandon to get feedback on his
skill level in flying one.

"I have less than forty hours in helicopter
training, it's completely different than flying a fixed wing," he
says shaking his head.

"Well now, that would be a problem for any
other pilot, wouldn't it?" Alisha says slowly, and from the back
seat, I see Brandon's face light up.

"I know a guy who runs a helicopter
chartering service out of Boise," he says, as he banks a gentle
roll to the right, heading straight for Boise.

***

"Why don't we just ask the owner to charter
the damn thing for us?" Burke says, glancing around nervously at
the vacant airport that's already being coated in a light powder of
snow.

"He's not going to take us up in this thing
with a storm brewing. Do you really think he'd believe me if I told
him the five of us could keep this apparatus airborne with frozen
rotor blades?" Brandon replies sarcastically.

His face is serious as he scans the cockpit
controls, trying to recall how to get the thing in flight, and
finally he gives up, throwing his hands in the air, surrendering
power to Claire. Within seconds, the engine fires up and the rotors
start to spin, slowly at first then faster and faster. The four of
us aim all energy of our thoughts to the little girl sitting beside
me and the helicopter rises above the ground and launches forward,
heading towards Boise National Forest, the last place a signal was
detected from Cat's airplane. After just a few short months of
practice, we have established the most efficient use of our
psychokinetic energy, and now work silently in unity to keep the
helicopter in flight amidst the growing blizzard-like
conditions.

***

Brandon was able to get the exact
coordinates of where Cat's plane suddenly dropped from radar, and
we aim straight for the area. The ache in my heart intensifies with
each passing second that I think about Cat being alone in the icy
dark forest, knowing that nobody could survive these conditions
over night. One thing I was almost certain of now, is that wherever
she was, she wasn't dead. I would know the second she took her
final breath, because I was sure it would automatically be my final
breath as well.

"Go to the
right,"
Claire instructs, multitasking as she remote
travels at the same time she keeps mentally connected with the rest
of us to keep the chopper in flight, as I do the same. There is
just enough of a lull in the storm that with our superior nighttime
vision, we can make out a break in the trees and Burke tells us he
detects a faint smell of smoke. We are on the north side of the
mountain and are somewhat shielded from the south bound winds, but
are unable to find a clear, flat surface to land on.

"We might have to land on the other side and
hike down," Brandon says, swinging the helicopter around. Flying
against the headwind takes a considerate amount of mental energy to
keep the helicopter stable and moving forward, so when Alisha
points to a potential flat area on a rocky ridge to land on, we all
breathe a sigh of relief. It seems that Brandon has to shout even
mental orders over the howling wind and we obediently scramble to
get the helicopter strapped down to some nearby trees. All of us
came prepared for the inclement weather, but even the best rated
snow attire, couldn't keep the chill of the wind from penetrating
every inch of our body.

"We have to find her. She can't survive in
this weather!" I scream, running in the direction of the clearing
we just flew over, the others trailing behind me. Claire may not
have our speed, but her feline jumping capabilities gives her an
advantage in scaling some of the large boulders and she keeps up
just fine. Burke's superior sense of smell leads us right to an
area of recent burning timber and Alisha is the first to stumble on
a piece of the aircraft, which Brandon immediately identifies as a
part of the fuselage.

"CATARYN!" I scream, frantically looking
around for any sign of her.

Several minutes later, Claire says, "I found
something," and holds up a bright orange box, that doesn't require
Brandon's aviation expertise, to identify as the flight data
recorder. She sets it next to the other objects found in the area
and we spread out to continue our search. Claire and I remotely
search the area and find aircraft items over a half a mile away,
which are called in and retrieved by the others.

We search for over an hour before Alisha
mentally connects a call with me and quietly says, "Ronan, we have
to go now."

"NO!" I cry in desperation. "Ali, please. I
can't leave until I find her. You guys go. I have to stay. She
can't be dead. I need to keep looking. Please just go and leave me
here," I ramble, dropping to my knees in the snow, the tears
already starting to freeze on my cheeks. Rocking back and forth, I
repeat the same thing over and over again, "Please God no. Please
not her."

"Ronan, I found a body part. Whoever was in
this plane did not survive," Alisha says quietly, and I can tell
from the sound of her voice that she is crying too.

Brandon and Burke each grab one of my arms
to lift me to my feet, ignoring my feeble attempts to resist as
they drag me to the waiting helicopter that, in spite of being tied
down, looks like it's ready to topple over in the wind. They have
already loaded the recovered items in the back and Alisha is inside
holding Claire as she cries convulsively in her arms.