All hands were engaged in crisis control. The chief was spinning for the press. A frantic search was under way. And Ryan and I were cooling our heels.

“I suppose the family is going ballistic,” Ryan said.

“Oooh, yeah. And the media is loving it. Lost bodies. Shocked loved ones. Embarrassed politico. It’s the stuff of Pulitzers.”

I’m a news junkie. At home I read, or at least skim, each day’s paper from front to back. On the road, I tune in to CNN or a local station. Earlier, in my hotel room, I’d flipped between WFLD and WGN. Though aware of the story, I’d not anticipated the resulting chaos. Or the impact on us.

Sure enough, Ryan got up and began pacing the room. I checked my pal Enterprise. Inspector Irritable was right on schedule.

After logging roughly thirty yards, Ryan dropped back into his chair.

“Who was Cook?”

I was lost.

“Cook County?”

“No idea,” I said.

“How big is it?”

“The county?”

“My aunt Dora’s fanny.”

“You have an aunt Dora?”

“Three.”

I stored that bit of familial trivia for future query.

“Cook is the second most populous county in the U.S., the nineteenth largest government in the nation.” I’d read those facts someplace.

“What’s the largest?”

“Do I look like an almanac?”

“Atlas.”

“Some almanacs contain census data.” Defensive. After the trip from Montreal, I was no longer in the mood for teasing.

Though generally cheerful, Ryan is not a good traveler, even when the aviation gods are smiling. Yesterday they’d been grumpy as hell.

Instead of two hours, our flight from Pierre-Elliot Trudeau International to O’Hare had taken six. First a weather delay. Then a mechanical complication. Then the crew went illegal for dancing naked on the tarmac. Or some such. Annoyed and frustrated, Ryan had passed the time nitpicking everything I said. His idea of jolly good banter.