British Airways flight 239 bound
for London from Boston lifted off of Logan Airport’s tarmac at exactly 7:15 PM.
The flight was rarely off schedule, and BA prided itself on that fact.
Passengers nestled into their seats for the seven-hour transatlantic voyage. An
hour out, flight attendant Marge Coughlin was fetching an extra pillow for a
man in Business Class when she noticed a small box in the same overhead storage
compartment. She hesitated before touching it, and when she finally did, she
quickly removed her hand from the object, believing she heard a sound emanating
from it. Oh, my God, a bomb! she
thought, her heart beat quickening.
Coughlin immediately called the
flight deck and reported the suspicious device. “A funny whirring sound is
coming from it, Captain. What should I do?”
The pilot turned the controls over to
his first officer and headed through the cabin to where the strange object had
been discovered.
“Okay, Marge, we’re turning around.
Don’t move the box, and close the overhead door. Make sure no one gets near it.
It may or may not be an explosive, but it certainly looks suspicious. Did you
check with the other flight attendants to make sure it isn’t theirs?”
“Yes sir, no one has ever seen it
before.”
The Boeing 777 captain informed
Logan Airport that he was returning because of an unidentified object on the
plane. He then announced to his passengers that a minor technical issue was
forcing him to take them back to their point of origin.
“Goddamn thing’s probably on a
timer and could blow at any moment,” he said to his co-pilot.
“So you think it’s a bomb,
Captain?”
“Not sure, but when in doubt, it’s
passenger safety first.”
In slightly more than an hour, they
were back on the ground in Boston and the plane had been safely evacuated.
* * *
Immediately after the deplaning of
the last passenger, the State Police Bomb Squad removed the suspicious object
and took it a safe distance from the terminal and other planes in order to
detonate it.
The head of the bomb squad, Lance
Burbeck, arrived on the scene to give the okay for the disarming of the object.
But when he took a close look at it, he ordered his team to stand down.
“Holy crap! It’s a Victorian Komet
Music Box,” he shouted, delighted.
“What sir?” asked Lieutenant
Miller, Burbeck’s second-in-command.
“This is a very rare and valuable
music box. I’ve been looking for one of these for years. I’m sure it isn’t
rigged to explode. Nobody rigs up something worth thousands to blow up. We’ll
take it back to the evidence locker, and when nobody claims it, I will.”
“Sir, we can’t do that until we
know it isn’t dangerous.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Miller, I’m
telling you it isn’t a bomb. Hold on.”
Chief Burbeck bent over the box and
lifted it.
“Sir, be careful! It may go off.
Everybody back up!” shouted Miller, who quickly backed away himself.
“Chill, guys. I’m telling you this
is an antique, and you’ve heard the phrase finders-keepers?
Well . . .”
Burbeck opened the top of the box
and held it high in the air. “Yeah, a bomb . . . sure,” he laughed.
Wonder
why it isn’t making music, he was thinking, just as a blinding light
flashed and his body was reduced to charred fragments.
* * *
Three months later, Burbeck’s widow
received a package in the mail from British Airways. It read:
Dear Mrs. Burbeck, We have learned that your
beloved late husband collected
music boxes, and in his cherished
memory we have acquired the one he had
long been hoping to add to his collection.
Please accept it as a gift of
remembrance for you and your daughter.
Sincerely, Myer Johnson, CEO.
Mrs. Burbeck looked at the gift for
several minutes and then deposited it in the trash. The following Thursday the
barrel was picked up by the garbage removers.
“Hey, Charlie, I dug this out of
the trash. Looks expensive, man.”
“Open it up,” said his cohort.
A clicking sound came from the box,
followed by a rendition of the 1812
Overture.
“Damn, that’s sweet music. Ain’t
that what they play with the fireworks on the Fourth of July? Why the heck
would someone throw it out?”
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Michael C. Keith writes fiction and teaches college. www.michaelckeith.com
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Michael C. Keith writes fiction and teaches college. www.michaelckeith.com
