Kalin let out a long breath. I don't know. I keep I keep seeing Ray's face. Captain Doyle. I keep hearing him tell me to fly the airplane.
Her voice wavered. I've flown with him for 6 years. He taught me half of what I know. And he died right next to me. And I couldn't do anything but keep flying.
You did the only thing you could do, Ethan said. You did the thing he'd have wanted. You honored him with your hands, Kalin. There's no better way to honor a pilot than to fly the airplane he couldn't. That's what you keep saying.
That's because it's true. He looked at her. You're going to hurt for a long time. That box you put him in tonight so you could fly, it's open now, and it's going to stay open for a while, and it's going to hurt like hell. But you're going to be okay.
You know how I know. How? Because you asked about him first before you asked about yourself. First thing out of your mouth just now was his name, not your own trauma. People like that.
People who carry other people first, they come through. It costs you more. But you come through. He squeezed her shoulder. Ray Doyle's last act on this earth was to tell you to find somebody who could help you land.
He was thinking about his passengers and his first officer with his dying breath. That's the man who trained you. And it took Kalin. It took You're going to be one hell of a captain someday. Maybe the best one that airlines ever had.
And every person you ever bring home safe for the rest of your career. That's Ray Doyle, too. That's his hands through yours. He's not gone. He's just flying through you now.
Calin turned away, her shoulders shaking, and Ethan let her cry, standing beside her in the Arctic wind. One pilot holding up another the way they'd held up an airplane, the way he'd set it in the cockpit. Nobody up here carries anything alone. Walter Hensley was the last to leave, and he wouldn't go until he'd tracked down the young airman who'd been coordinating the ground response. And he wouldn't leave that airman alone until he'd extracted a promise.
That man in there, Walter said, jabbing a finger toward the hanger where Ethan was giving his final statement to the investigators. Flew the finest emergency approach I've seen in 50 years around aircraft. And 13 years ago, your Air Force tried to ruin him for refusing to kill children. You hear me, son? You get the right people to hear about this.