"One bottle of beer on the wall, one bottle of beer on the wall, one bottle of beer! Take one down, and pass it around. No more beer bottles on the wall, no more beer bottles on the wall, no more bottles of beer! Go to the store, buy some more," I sang out before rudely getting interrupted.
"Shut up!" My two companions yelled out in unison.
"If I have to hear that entire song one more time, even the gods themselves won't be able to save you," Hanson yelled out.
"It was some of my best singing!" I protested. "And how else are we going to pass the time?"
"In silence!" His voice boomed throughout the aircraft.
"Hm, I didn't want to sing anyway," I pouted. Looking down at the screen showed that we were 10 minutes away from France. I'd been fidgety the entire ride. I mean, how can you not be? A coup d'état isn't exactly the type of thing that'll keep your heart rate the same.
Suddenly, I heard a voice through the radio of the plane.
"Aéronefs, identifiez-vous immédiatement ou vous serez abattus!" The voice commanded immediately. Hanson and Leo looked at each other uncomfortably before looking at me. They asked us to identify ourselves.
"Nous sommes des pilotes de l'Ejército del Aire pour obtenir des informations sur l'Angleterre," I replied. My voice was threatening to shake from the stress. I'd just told them that we were pilots from Spain's air force sent to spy on England.
"À quelle escadrille appartenez-vous ?" The person on the other end asked what squadron I was with.
I blinked a couple times as I began to think back to all the documents. It took a few seconds before I was able to recall the name. "Escuadrillas Azules."
When I finished speaking, I took a gulp. There was hesitation when I said it and I knew that they caught onto it. I shifted in my seat uncomfortably as I waited for their next move. My hands were on the controls, getting ready to start flying away.
"Un seul être vous manque," The voice said. Their voice made the phrase sound incomplete as if there were more to the sentence.
Was it a code? It roughly translated to only one person is missing.
This phrase didn't make sense in our context. Nor any other that was immediately apparent. Furthermore, they only said this after I began to hesitate. That means they were suspicious of us and that they would want some way to confirm our identity.
So this had to be a code. A motto?
No, not a motto. It didn't sound like a statement or doctrine. I heard this somewhere before. But where?
"Sir?" Leo asked. "Are you okay?"
I looked at him and noticed that my hands were shaking. I shook them to try and make it stop, but it only made it worse.
I shook my head and went back to focus. I knew we had a minute max before they sent intervention.
Where did I hear this before? A movie? A show? No, it didn't click in my head. I would've remembered if I heard it from there.
So a person? The only French people that I've talked to weren't that philosophical or that nice. They usually insulted my French and then switched back to English to not give me any chance to practice.
"What's going on?" Michael's voice came on through the walkie-talkie. It was encrypted so no asshole with another walkie-talkie could listen in.
"Shut up, I'm trying to think!" I exclaimed as I continued to search my mind.
If it wasn't from a show or a person, then it had to have come from literature. A faint bell rang in my mind as a sense of familiarity washed over me.
It was on the tip of my tongue. I felt that I should've known it yet it couldn't escape my mouth.
"Un seul être vous manque," The voice repeated again. After this, there would be no second chances. The first time could've been written off as poor communication.
I felt my breathing increase heavily and my heart began pounding as I tried desperately to remember the phrase.
"Are you okay?" Michael asked. "You need to do something fast."
"I kn-" I began before my face dropped. It finally clicked into my mind where I had heard it before. Thank god for Michael and his romance!
"Un seul être vous manque et tout est dépeuplé," I said into the plane's radio.
Only one person is missing, and the whole world seems empty.
A quote by Alphonse de Lamartine in his poem L'Isolement, translated to Isolation, part of the Méditations poétiques, translated to Poetic Reflections, collection. He was a key figure in the Romantic movement that swept across France and was considered the first French romantic artist. Not only that, but he was a politician and briefly led the Second Republic. In there, he pushed for the abolition of slavery and the death penalty as well as national workshop programs, which were admittedly short-lived.
Sadly he lost an election to Napoleon III and lived the last years of his life in poverty. That's the unfortunate truth about reality. Good things seldom come to those who are good.
He reflects on isolation and the sense of emptiness that comes from the absence of a loved one. A feeling that all of us could relate to.
The moments after I uttered the simple phrase were tense. We were all waiting to see if that was the answer. Our question was answered in their next transmission.
"Affirmatif. Merci pour votre service," The voice said solidarity. It's amazing how a few words can change your entire mood. In this case, it came from tense to elation.
I brought the walkie-talkie up to my mouth. A triumphant smile came over my face. "Ladies and gentlemen, we're now officially pilots from Spain's air force."
I heard my two passengers take a deep and sharp exhale. Oddly, it drew my attention to the dead guy between them. I kind of expected him to take a breath out of solidarity.
We crossed into France's airspace unopposed. The next eight minutes were filled with small banter and apprehension. The reality of everything got heavier and heavier as we neared the point of no return. I had begun lowering the plane so as to not die from cabin depressurization.
We joked around in an attempt to lighten the mood. While it didn't work as effectively as we wanted it to, it's the solace in moments like these that makes you feel a warm feeling.
Finally, we were closing in on Versailles. I turned to face the crew with a sad but optimistic look in my eye. They caught on to the feeling.
"So this is it huh?" Hanson asked as he chuckled. I nodded my head.
They both began to put on their parachute and backpacks slowly. Each strap was carefully checked out for anxiety. When they had finished, they looked at me for confirmation. I slowly gazed at everything and found no faults.
"You're good," I told them. The two of them moved over to the back seat while I seat-belted the dead guy.
"You know what to do right?" I asked just to make sure.
"Stay hidden and be on the lookout for communication," Hanson said. "We know."
"Godspeed," I said with a slight nod. "Or as the French would say, bon voyage."
"Good luck to you too," Leo said while returning my gesture.
I looked away from them and back to the window. I heard the window open as the air began to roar throughout the plane. I heard a thump as the plane started to tilt. When I looked back to confirm that they had jumped out, I closed the door.
"Zephyr, my passengers have begun their descent," Michael said.
"Same here Payne," I responded. "We still have an hour before we reach Spain."
"It's going to be a long ride."
-----
"Two places that will lead us into the two steps of the plan. Spain and France," My fingers tapped on the map that highlighted the two regions.
"Before I get to that, there's still one issue. How will me and Michael leave without getting caught?" I said as I turned to face them in a grandiose gesture.
"The answer is related to the first rule. Chaos," I turned to face Michael with a small smile. "When we get into Spain, we'll exit like you guys. However, our aircraft will be bound for a trajectory over Toledo, Spain."
"This simple action will cause panic in the eyes of the people. Imagine two planes crashing near the center of the kingdom. Fear over an attack, uncertainty about the future, and doubt over the government will begin to spread across to the people."
"And we can capitalize on it," Andres said. I snapped my finger and pointed to him.
"This will be the first step to create widespread chaos."
"Won't the impact kill a bunch of people?" Hanson asked somewhat lazily.
"We'll be landing in an abandoned field. Furthermore, the plane look like it was from Spain so no one will think that it came from us if it did kill people," I began. "And even if they did find out, it wouldn't matter. They'll only know it was from Britain, yet we'll still play the roles of revolutionists."
After finishing my explanation, I clicked my tongue and looked at the time. We'd been going at this for thirty minutes.
"Alright, I think that's enough for now. Let's rest and come back tomorrow to go more in-depth," I said to them. I saw that they had already been getting tired. "Michael, if you would show them the way."
He grumbled something before walking towards the door. He used his ID card to open it and left with the group. And me?
I was left in the room, looking at all the diagrams and getting everything ready for the next meeting. I walked over to the whiteboard and erased it. I took all the images off and put them to the side.
I opened the marker and wrote two words at the top of the whiteboard.
OPERATION LUPIN
-----
"Ready?" Michael asked.
"It doesn't matter if I'm ready or not," I responded. "I'm jumping out of a fucking plane."
Michael and I were now in Spain's airspace. The military was expecting us to arrive near Córdoba. It was in southern Spain. Yet we weren't going to go anywhere near it.
Our true goal was Ávila, a province northwest of Madrid, our final destination. It was Spain's central capital and housed the king. Our mark.
As we approached Ávila, I switched seats with the cadaver and stood next to the door. I had put on the backpack and parachute. When I had opened it, the wind began to howl.
I took a deep breath, trying to calm the butterflies in their stomach. I turned around and took in the plane's interior for the final time. It felt bittersweet.
I began to approach the edge as my heart began racing. I gulped as I looked out the door.
I slapped myself on my face to hype myself up. "Don't be a pussy. Just jump."
My feet were trembling as I forced myself to push off of the ground. The world blurs into a rush of wind and sounds as my adrenaline spiked. The ground seemed impossibly distant, and the feeling of weightlessness was exhilarating.
I yanked on the ripcord after a few seconds. The parachute deployed with a sudden jolt, and the world began to slow down.
I couldn't help but grin at the beauty of the world from my vantage point. I could see the curve of the earth as well as the rolling hills and patchwork of fields below stretch out like a vibrant tapestry.
My hands were sweating as I held onto the sides of the strap. I didn't dare let go. I wasn't that brave.
However, I did take the time to take in everything. Despite having the same name, it was completely different from the Spain in our world. It seemed more medieval, especially in terms of architecture.
We were in the air for about five minutes, and the ground of a field got closer and closer. Looking to my side, I saw Michael's parachute on the ground. He had jumped out before me.
My body tensed and my toes curled as the ground approached closer and closer. My eyes were staring at it. When I was just mere feet away, my toes uncurled as I extended my legs. As soon as my foot made contact with the ground, I began to run from momentum and gradually began to slow down.
When I stopped, I immediately took off the harness and let it drop to the floor. Looking up, I saw the plane pass by us and carry on with its trajectory.
Michael slowly began walking up to me. "Took you long enough."
"Safety first," I grumbled. The heavy backpack made my shoulder slumped.
"That just sounds like an excuse."
"Oh yeah? How about next time I make your parachute not deploy," I said dead seriously.
His eyes gained a look of horror as he stared at me.
"Joking," I said before winking at him. "Or am I?"
He shook his head. "Come on, we have a train to catch and several preparations to make."
"And then we get to the main event," I said with a knowing smile as we began to walk away.