The glass of water should have been nothing more than a simple, mundane request. But in the hushed, rarified air of seat 3A, it became the spark that set an entire, multi-million-dollar aircraft ablaze with a tension so thick you could almost taste it.
Mrs. Eleanor Vance, a composed, elegant woman in her late sixties with a neat silver bob and a tailored tweed suit, sat quietly reviewing a thick binder of aviation safety documents. To the other passengers settling into the plush, first-class cabin, she was just another well-to-do grandmother, perhaps on her way to visit family. No one around her knew her true identity—a recently retired, but still highly respected, FAA senior safety inspector, now working as a high-level consultant, one of the very few people in the country with the authority to recommend the grounding of an entire aircraft. She had simply, and politely, asked for a glass of water before takeoff.
The senior flight attendant, Victoria Hale, approached with her platinum-blonde hair pinned in a perfect, severe chignon and…