Prologue
The rain was literally pouring down from the sky that night, as one of the biggest storms was passing over England; constant wind, horrible visual conditions, lightning... This was not seen for at least six months.
Many believed that having flights scheduled for this day was way too dangerous, but - surprisingly enough - the airport was functional, and was sending and taking planes in and out. As always, it was full with passengers, travelling all around the globe to their own, personal destinations.
But these days, people needed a feeling of safety, something to protect them; someone to protect them. This was why Markson was here:
He worked for the FAMS for at least 4 years now, and, luckily, never encountered any major complications in his career; apart from random idiots, looking for trouble or attention on flights, his interception was never required, not to mention that his pistol was never fired. At the FAMS, no air marshal served alone: Jason Higgins, ex-LAPD, was his permanent partner on all flights. The man knew his job as well as Markson did, but there was one problem with him; drinking, on all levels. He never would have left the LAPD; he was suspended for over-the-line actions, later fired, then redirected to the TSA.
He might have sounded bad, but he was not. „Never judge a book by its cover!", they said.
The years have been peaceful, his job was well-paid; Markson could not ask for anything better, and did not want to. A very rare thing in life is that we are satisfied with it.
Him? He was not fully.
If there was anything, the only he could have wished for was to spend more time with his daughter and wife - now ex-wife, to be pedantically exact; as much as he loved them, Markson could never stay in one place - always moving around did not benefited him in this way...
He had his fair share of family problems for this though: Elisa divorced him 3 years ago, she just could not live with this anymore. „But neither could she find anyone else!", he always thought with a slight hope that one day she will forgive him, „But then again, we would just start off with the same, old problems".
Despite his horrible relationship with Elisa, Christopher loved his daughter; Anna was the loveliest girl in the entire world in his opinion. Always reading or studying something, she was to grow up to be a smart person, just like her father. Whenever Markson had the chance to be back in the States for a longer period of time, he always went to see Anna, take her out for a weekend in the mountains; be it hiking or just a night or two in the woods, she always enjoyed it.
Now, that he was flying back to Boston, Christopher was looking forward to meeting his daughter and going camping with her; „This weekend - if everything goes as it should with Elisa - we are finally going to the Sam Houston National Park!", he thought happily for the previous weeks. They would stay there for 10 days, then Anna would go back to Boston, and Markson on his next flight; the two would not see each other for 6 months: this was how this worked for the previous 3 years. But this was about to change.
