Introduction

“Fatal Incident is a unique and compelling story. You’ll enjoy a hell of a good read.”—William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling author of the Cork O’Connor series Minnesotan Nick Morgan overcomes the hardships of life during the Depression with the thrill of flying. The rush he shares with his soon-to-be wife, Martha, as they barnstorm small Midwestern towns offering plane rides for a dollar, forges a love for each other and a sense of freedom to last a lifetime. But in 1943, Nick must leave Martha, now pregnant, to become a WWII pilot in Alaska for the army's newly formed Air Transport Command. In this uncharted and inaccessible landscape, Nick joins U.S. forces, who have set up a strategic defense position against Japan, and an Lend-Lease supply program that trains Soviet pilots with U.S. aircraft for their war with Germany.

The remoteness of Alaska also draws the attention of Manhattan Project scientists in New Mexico as a possible site for atomic bomb testing. When Nick Morgan and his Okie crop-duster copilot, Red, are tapped by the Manhattan Project for classified flying duty over the isolated Yukon Flats region, they have no idea that they will be caught up in a Soviet plot aimed at stealing top-secret bomb and test site development documents. After Nick's plane goes down in a botched hijacking attempt by a Russian agent, all three crewmembers and eighteen military passengers are presumed dead by the U.S. military.

A much-delayed recovery effort, however, reveals there to be at least one survivor, with many bodies missing from the crash site. This sparks a massive search to find the person who escaped with the documents, but a CIA cover-up to conceal the potentially disastrous breach in national security blocks all communication with survivor families in their need for information. Inspired by the true events of an Air Transport Command aircraft disaster in Alaska in 1944, Fatal Incident will attract any reader interested in conspiracy, espionage, and stories of love during wartime.

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Excerpt

"Nick! Do you know what you're doing?" Martha screamed from her for-ward tandem seat. The noise from the sudden hailstorm was deafening. "Hang on, Martha," was all that Nick said in reply. He needed all ofhis concentration to maneuver the 1936 E-2 Piper over the power linesand alongside the telephone poles for a shadowy forced landing on thetwo-lane dirt road just north of Mankato, Minnesota. The storm hadcome out of nowhere. Nothing on the forecast had given him evena hint of a drop in temperature that would cause hail--only a gentlerain shower and some clouds, but nothing more. One minute, he andMartha were enjoying a relaxing ride over the farmlands of southernMinnesota, and in the next minute the cloud cover thickened and anoticeable bitter chill filled the air. That's when the medium-size pel-lets began to relentlessly drum the surface of the plane. Nick knew he needed to set the plane down quickly while he couldstill see the ground. He was concerned for Martha. It was their firsttrip together, and he had wanted to impress her, but now he had tostay focused on landing safely. With the E-2 it was strictly seat-of-the-pants flying. There were no flying-related instruments, only engineinstruments for measuring things like rpm, oil pressure, and tempera- JIM PRoeBSTle



ture. Nick had to keep the ground and horizon in sight, while listeningclosely to the sound of the engine. A final downdraft dropped the plane on the dirt road like a rock.Nick knew to keep his mouth closed, but Martha bit her lip badly, caus-ing it to bleed and swell up. By the time the plane slowed to a stop, herhandkerchief was thoroughly blood stained. "Wow!" Nick exclaimedin relief. "They don't teach that in pilot training. I guess that qualifies asmy first emergency landing. Are you okay up there?" Nick asked with ablend of genuine concern and adrenaline-filled excitement. "It definitely took my breath away. Does this happen often?" Marthatwisted from her forward seat as best she could to be heard. Her ques-tion didn't undermine her excitement with flying, however. The wholeday had been fabulous. It was just that this was her first trip with Nick,and in a plane. Expectations were ambiguous. Her friends thought shewas crazy to go flying with Nick. None of them would begin to takethis kind of risk, but this was classic Martha. She couldn't wait. "No, this is a first for me, too. I'm glad we're in one piece." Nick wasimpressed with Martha's bravado considering she was new to flying.They had had a great day together and he didn't want it to end badly."Looks as if we're grounded for a while, though." Nick was VisualFlight Rules rated; he could fly only during the day. They would havehad plenty of time to get back to the Twin Cities, but the storm andthe dark clouds had obscured his range of vision so quickly that his bestjudgment called for a landing. "I hope that farm over there has a phone so you can call your momand tell her you won't be home until tomorrow," he continued. "I needfor the storm to clear before we can take off again, and we're likely torun out of daylight by the time it does." "She won't handle that news very well." "I'm only thinking of your safety, Martha. Besides, I like you too



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much to get on the wrong side of your mom. Sorry that I wasn't ableto put a blue ribbon on the day, though, but I still had fun. I hopeyou did, too. If you're up to it, we can go again next weekend," he saidas she turned to an odd-looking man with a camera dressed in a graytopcoat and felt hat running toward them on the wet, gravel road. Nickcouldn't quite make sense of the man's actions until he began speakingvery excitedly to both of them. "That was the most fantastic landing I've ever witnessed. I work forthe Star Tribune and I can tell you right off that my editor will lovethe picture I got. I was here for some weather photos, but this is muchbetter. What are your names? I want the exact spelling. Have you flownlong? Was this your first emergency landing?" The spontaneous inter-view went on for ten more minutes, making Nick feel self-consciousand Martha a little like a celebrity. From that point on, Martha couldn't get enough of Nick. Attwenty-three, he was very handsome and carried his trim six-foot-two,athletic physique well, just as he had when he was captain of the 1932Staples, Minnesota high school football and basketball teams. It washis curly light-brown hair, however, that was his defining feature; allhis childhood friends called him "Curly." What really attracted herthough, was how smart he was about things. Take flying for instance--he got his pilot's license, Day VFR, single engine rating, in just a fewmonths of after-hour training following his day job at MontgomeryWard's in merchandising sales. Didn't even tell her what he was up to.Just surprised her one day with an offer to go on a picnic. Maybe it wasthe picnic, or the warm summer day, or the freedom and excitement ofbeing in the sky that got her keyed up, but from that day forward theywere a pair. As months passed, Nick and Martha spent a lot of time together.Nick even began teaching Martha how to fly. She picked it up quickly.



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Good enough to put Nick's buddies in the flying club to shame. Withboth Nick and Martha's competency at the stick, their exuberancebecame addictive as they flew the cloud-filled, Minnesota summer skies. "You and Bud are just alike," she teased, as she watched Nick work."You're both so meticulous about your plane." Nick and his olderbrother were the first in their age group to own an E-2 Piper, and hispride showed. Because they were enterprising enough to do all theirown maintenance work, it put the purchase of the used training planefrom the flying club within their means. The brothers represented thebest of the Depression: hardship that stimulated self-reliance and acraving for adventure. As teenagers in the late '20s and early '30s, theyhad known only the prosperity of their family's own hard work on atenant farm outside Cass Lake, Minnesota--hardly a thriving centerof commerce. Most of the land in the county was owned by the LeechLake Band--an Ojibwe Indian Reservation. Stunning red and whitepines were mixed with deciduous hardwoods, making for a spectacularwilderness surrounding the lake. For the family, however, the three-month growing season hardly allowed for much crop surplus thatcould be sold at the local market in Bemidji fifteen miles away. Payingfor a hired hand was not an option. They worked six days a week farm-ing and generally fixed broken equipment after church on Sundays. "You're such a perfectionist." Martha jibed playfully as she watchedhim go through his pre-flight routine and adjusted her flight cap. "It'sa perfect spring day. What could go wrong?" She knew that their tripthat day would be anything but ordinary and, in reality, she respectedNick's attention to detail. His established procedure in the pre-flightengine run-up, taxi, and takeoff checks provided her a sense of safety,considering the risks they were about to take. Nonetheless, she loved topoke at his seriousness. "I'm your lucky charm." "It's simple logic, Hot Shot. This baby's got to purr for me to be



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comfortable with the stunts we're doing. No guesswork. No accidents."Nick had begun calling Martha Hot Shot right after her first flightwith him where she took the stick and flew by herself. She liked thenickname, but more importantly, she liked where their relationshipwas headed. They dated in high school when she was a sophomore andhe was a senior. It was an on-again off-again relationship as Nick wasrather fun loving and carefree; it was hard for him to focus on one loveinterest. After graduating they saw each other more steadily. It seemedlike the two were made for each other. She loved being a risk taker.As the high school Minnesota State Champion in golf and tennis, sheknew she didn't fit the mold that polite society expected of fashionableyoung women of the day. Flying offered the independence both Mar-tha and Nick needed while being a catalyst for a partnership they bothagreed had promise. "Are you going to trust me at the controls again?" Martha razzed.While she was a "good stick," according to Nick, and one of the steadi-est hands he'd seen--a natural--she was not a licensed pilot. Aftermany hours training together, Nick was convinced that her skills weremuch better than those of most of his flying buddies at the club. "Only if all the conditions are right," Nick agreed with a wink. Martha was pretty and sassy with green eyes, short blond hair, anda petite frame. To him, she was at her best when dressed in men's tanflight slacks and at the controls of the E-2 while barnstorming smalltowns around the Midwest. They would pick a sunny day and one ofthe countless farming towns that interested them, like Owatonna, Sav-age, or Granite Falls, and fly twenty feet over the buildings with Nickwalking the wing. It was a sight to behold. When they landed in a pas-ture or on a dirt road at the outskirts of town, people would line up forone-dollar rides. Ten minutes each. Today was going to be a repeat performance in Eau Claire, across



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