Chapter 2 — Between Two Runways

The hallway leading to the headmaster's office was exactly twenty steps long. Boi Thu had counted countless times in the ten years she worked here, but today she counted again from the beginning, as if that familiar number could keep her hands from shaking. The sleeve of her uniform had a streak of cold sweat on her wrist, a trace left over from ten minutes ago, when she was still sitting in front of the radar screen with two bright dots almost overlapping each other.

Uong Dieu Van was standing at the door of the shift break room, holding a cup of tea before he could drink it. When he saw Boi Thu passing by, he followed.

"I heard it all on the surveillance speakers," Van said, her voice low even though there was no one else in the hallway. "You handled it right. Every step right."

"I know." Boi Thu did not stop walking. "But being right isn't what they'll ask first."

Van was silent for a beat, then placed his hand on her shoulder, just for a second, enough for Boi Thu to feel the warmth through the uniform fabric before letting go. "I'm on duty after you. If you need anything, call me."

The station chief's room is at the end of the hallway, the frosted glass door has the words CHUONG BA VONG — CHIEF OF AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL. Boi Thu knocked twice, then pushed the door open without waiting for a response, a habit between two people who had worked together for eight years.

Vong sat behind the desk, still holding the phone receiver even though the call had ended, as if he needed a few more seconds to organize what he was about to say. His hair was grayer than last year, his face had deep wrinkles around his eyes, traces of more than thirty years of sitting in windowless rooms looking out at the world through a screen.

"Sit down," he said, pointing to the chair opposite.

Boi Thu sat down, his back straight, his hands placed on his thighs so no one could see they were still shaking a bit. On the wall behind Vong hung a map of the area's airspace, standard flight paths drawn with a red marker that had faded over the years, and an old photo of the station's entire staff on the occasion of its twentieth anniversary — including the faces of those who had moved on, retired, or, as she knew, were no longer there.

"I listened to the preliminary tape," Vong said. "You handled the process correctly. Go-around promptly, vector accurately, nothing to blame professionally."

"But." Boi Thu spoke for him, knowing the next sentence in advance.

"But this is a serious incident of loss of separation, below the minimum height difference for a long enough time to be reported to the Department. Rules are rules, Thu. I have no right to skip any steps, even if I believe you."

He opened a thin file on the table, inside was a pre-printed form, an empty frame waiting to be filled in with name, date, time, and flight number.

"From this moment on, you will temporarily stop being on duty until there is an official investigation conclusion and complete medical and psychological evaluation according to regulations after a serious incident. This is not disciplinary action. This is a mandatory procedure, applicable to anyone in your position, including me if I were on duty today."

Boi Thu nodded, trying to keep her face unchanged, even though inside something was tightening, silently, like the way a string is gradually stretched until it almost reaches the breaking point.

"How long?"

"Depends on the investigator in charge and the results of the psychological evaluation. Faster, two weeks. Slower..." Vong stopped, not finishing his sentence, his eyes avoided the window where he could see a corner of the street through the fading fog. "I don't promise any numbers."

"What about the shift? There are only five controllers left with access certification, the station chief. If I sit out, the rest of you have to..."

"Let me worry about that." Vong's voice stiffened, not because of anger, but because that was something he didn't want her to have to bear anymore at this time. "Your job now is to go through the correct process, not calculate the shift schedule for me."

Boi Thu looked down at her hands. They were no longer shaking but so cold that she could clearly feel her pulse beating in her wrists. "How is Bach?"

"He's fine. I sent him home early, told him to still work as usual tomorrow, just observing, not being honest." Vong looked at her for a longer moment than usual. "He said something to me before he left."

"What question?"

"He said if you weren't there, he wasn't sure he would have reacted in time." Vong closed the file and gently pushed it towards her so she could sign to acknowledge the notification. "I'm not telling you to make you feel better. I'm telling you that someone is learning your every reaction, even the reactions you don't notice you're making."

Boi Thu held the pen and signed in the blank box, her handwriting was slightly different from her familiar signature. She skimmed over the items on the form: the name of the investigator in charge would be notified within forty-eight hours, a minimum three-session psychological evaluation was required, and the suspension period did not count toward annual leave.

"One more thing," Vong said, his voice slowing as if he was weighing each word. "The review board will review your previous professional records. The whole thing, not just today's case."

Boi Thu looked up. "Including the time I was a student?"

"Even that period." Vong did not look straight into her eyes when he said this, a rare thing for him. "I didn't say it to scare you. I said it because I wanted you to be mentally prepared, instead of being surprised when the question was asked."

That sentence fell into the middle of the room like a pebble falling into a calm lake, the ripples were slight but enough to make Boi Thu feel his heartbeat slightly skip a beat. She didn't ask more. There were questions she knew she wasn't ready to hear the answers to, even if the answer came only from herself.

"Sai Dinh Khoi will be in charge of the investigation," Vong added, as if reading a question she hadn't yet asked. "He's meticulous but fair. You worked with him once, the frequency shift incident last year."

"I remember." Boi Thu put down his pen. "He asked a lot of seemingly unrelated questions."

"That's the way he works. Don't let it make you lose your temper." Vong paused, then continued, his voice lighter, almost like that of a colleague rather than a superior. "I know you don't like to sit still. But this time, let it run properly. Don't be impatient, don't arbitrarily do anything more than what is required."

Boi Thu stood up, his hands had stopped shaking, replaced by a strange feeling of emptiness, as if some of the energy that had just been put into ninety seconds on the radar screen now had nowhere to go.

"Station chief," she said before leaving the room, "about the frequency overlap between Victor Tango two zero five and the emergency helicopter, is it because Hai Au zero two didn't have time to change the private channel before entering my control area?"

Vong looked at her and immediately understood that the question was not simply curiosity. "Yes. The medical emergency team attached to the provincial hospital does not have a separate communication channel with the radio, so it must use the same frequency in emergency situations. I have proposed to change that three times in the past two years."

"And the radar lags."

"Also suggested." Vong exhaled, a long breath, more tired than his face showed. "Sir, that's not your job right now."

"I know," she said, and this time she truly believed what she said. "But I still want to know."

She walked out of the room, closed the door behind her, and stood for a moment in the empty hallway, where the fluorescent lights on the ceiling cast a steady, cold halo of light. From the other end of the hallway, the internal loudspeaker echoed the voice of the controller on duty for her, reading the instructions for another flight, calmly, as if the past ninety seconds of her life had never made the entire station vibrate in silence.

Boi Thu stood there, not moving, until she realized she was counting her own breathing, in sync with the sound of Dieu Van's fading footsteps walking towards the shift break room, and she understood that those ninety seconds would not end here.

She did not go back to the dressing room immediately. Instead, she turned into the empty briefing room, where there was only one light bulb left in the corner of the ceiling, bright enough to see the duty schedule board covered with handwritten names, empty boxes that had not yet been filled with people for the following week, and next to it, an old national civil aviation map, the airports marked with small dots.

She stood in front of the map for a long time, her fingers did not touch the paper but her eyes stopped at a dot in the northeast, more than five hundred kilometers from Tra Son. The name of the airport is printed in small print next to that dot, the font size is no larger than any other airport on the map, but with Boi Thu it is always a different size than the rest: Bach Lung.

She took her eyes off the map, turned off the light, closed the briefing room door behind her, leaving that airport name in the same room's darkness, at least for the rest of the night.