Chapter 4 - Flight of the Damned
The motorcade tore through northern Virginia with police cruisers blocking every intersection along our route.
Sirens wailed in a synchronized chorus, parting civilian traffic like water before the prow of a speeding cutter.
I watched the trees blur past the tinted window, my hands resting calmly over the white fabric of my trousers.
In less than twenty minutes, the black sedans swept through the secure gates of Joint Base Andrews.
Armed military police in combat gear stood at the gate, saluting as our diplomatic convoy passed without stopping.
We drove directly onto the sun-baked tarmac where a sleek, twin-engine Gulfstream bearing the royal insignia sat idling.
Its jet turbines were already whining, heat waves shimmering behind the exhaust cones and distorting the blue Maryland sky.
A United States Air Force colonel stood at the base of the boarding stairs alongside an officer in British dress uniform.
When my car stopped, the guard opened my door, and I stepped out onto the burning asphalt.
The heat hit me instantly, but I kept my posture rigid as I approached the stairs.
The Air Force colonel saluted me crisply.
“Commander Carter, your flight plan has been approved directly through the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
“You have unrestricted diplomatic clearance from here to RAF Northolt.”
“Thank you, Colonel,” I replied, returning the salute with textbook precision.
I climbed the stairs into the cabin, followed closely by Captain Thorne and two of his guards.
The interior of the plane was outfitted in deep mahogany, cream leather, and polished brass fixtures.
A steward in formal livery bowed slightly as I entered.
“Welcome aboard, Commander. We have already secured your diplomatic manifest.”
“We will be airborne in three minutes.”
I took a seat near the window, fastening the wide leather belt around my waist.
Captain Thorne sat across from me, placing a thick leather-bound dossier on the table between us.
The plane began taxiing before the main cabin door had even finished sealing.
The engines roared to full thrust, pinning me back against the leather seat as we raced down the runway and launched into the clouds.
As soon as the landing gear retracted, Captain Thorne opened the dossier.
“While we cross the Atlantic, Commander, you need to understand the full scope of what awaits you at St. Jude’s Cathedral.”
I turned my gaze away from the white sea of clouds below us.
“Tell me everything.”
Thorne tapped the first document in the folder.
“Three days ago, a formal request was sent from Buckingham Palace to the foreign office to verify Rachel Carter’s background one final time before the royal registry was signed.”
“Rachel’s personal public relations team intercepted the inquiry through a corrupt contact in the Lord Chamberlain’s office.”
“They substituted forged death certificates from the state of Ohio, claiming you died of malaria during a humanitarian naval mission in 2021.”
I leaned forward, my jaw tightening until my teeth clicked.
“She didn't just claim I was dead. She invented an entire tragedy.”
“Yes,” Thorne said coldly.
“She used your invented death to explain why her side of the church would be completely empty of family.”
“She told Prince Alexander that her parents had passed away years ago—which is true—and that your tragic demise left her entirely alone in the world.”
“She played the role of the beautiful, grieving orphan who found salvation in the arms of the royal family.”
The depth of Rachel’s theatricality made my stomach churn with disgust.
Our parents had died of cancer when we were in our early twenties, leaving us with only each other.
I had worked extra watches and sent half my naval paychecks to New York so Rachel could pay her rent while building her career.
She had taken my financial support, my protection, and my very existence, and spun them into a tragic melodrama to make herself look more enchanting to a prince.
“And Alexander believed her?” I asked.
“Prince Alexander is a good man, but he is hopelessly romantic and sheltered by royal tradition,” Thorne replied.
“He worshipped the ground she walked on.”
“He thought he was saving a fragile, broken soul who had endured unspeakable grief.”
“When His Majesty paused the wedding this morning, the Prince refused to believe his father.”
“He nearly caused a constitutional crisis defending Rachel’s honor in the private vestry.”
“He told the King that questioning Rachel’s honesty was an insult to her dead sister’s memory.”
A grim, humorless laugh escaped my throat.
“He defended my memory against my own survival.”
“Precisely,” Thorne said, turning another page in the dossier.
“And that is why His Majesty refused to simply cancel the wedding from behind closed doors.”
“The King wants Rachel’s house of cards dismantled publicly, under the eyes of the entire royal court.”
“He wants no room for rumors, no excuses, and no revisionist history.”
“He wants the Commander who saved his men to stand in that cathedral and look her sister in the eye.”
I looked down at the photograph attached to the forged death certificate.
It was an official Navy portrait of me in my service dress blues, taken during my promotion to Lieutenant Commander.
Rachel had taken my proudest professional portrait and used it as evidence of my demise.
I closed the folder with a sharp snap that echoed through the quiet cabin.
“How long until we land, Captain?”
Thorne checked the digital display mounted on the bulkhead.
“Four hours and twelve minutes, Commander.”
May you like
“Good,” I said, looking straight ahead into the blue horizon.
“That gives me four hours to prepare for a resurrection.”
