by Tom Hunter
“Hey! Watch it!” Thomas put out a hand. “We also don’t want to eject ourselves or blow this thing up either.”
The two guards Alexia had knocked out were stirring, groaning, and moaning in pain. One tried to rub his head, but with his hands tied, there wasn’t much he could do. He slumped against the wall, his eyes narrowed in anger. He nudged his compatriot who grumbled, moaned, and stirred, his eyes heavy with pain.
“So, what do you think?” Thomas asked the two trussed up guards. “Can either of you get this bird in the air?”
The men shrugged. “What makes you think we know how to work the controls?” one of the men asked.
Thomas shrugged. “Well, you were guarding a plane. I can’t imagine you’d be given this duty if you didn’t have some idea of how the thing operated.” He rolled his eyes dramatically. “Just a thought.” The guards stared at him impassively. The brief silence of stalemate was interrupted by banging and voices at the door and below the window.
“Let go our captain!” someone shouted. “And we’ll spare your lives!” came another shout.
Thomas smirked slightly and shook his head no, enraging them all the more.
“How you doin’ guys…” Thomas asked over his shoulder to those in the cockpit. “I think we better get out of here…what’s the word, Ramon…Vamanos?”
Ramon sneered as Thomas strode quickly to the cockpit and peeked inside. “Shouldn’t there be a button or some kind of ignition device, Alexia? Have you found something that might start this puppy?” Thomas jerked his head toward the window.
Alexia craned her neck and saw soldiers gathered, their weapons at the ready. Catching her fearful gaze at the scene below, Thomas shook his head. “They won’t shoot.” He nodded toward Ramon. “They might hit him by accident.”
“Well, I feel so much better now!” she exclaimed, then pointed to the buttons and keys on the cockpit dash. “Where do you suppose it is? I know cars and trucks. Not planes.”
“You know mechanics,” Thomas corrected her and waved his hand around him. “And this is just a…giant machine.” Alexia glowered and pinched her lips into a thin line. She was about to retort when Thomas stopped her, his hands on her shoulders. He looked around the plane again, slower, and a plan began to formulate. “I have an idea…” he began.
“Not again!” complained Robbie. The others just stared and waited.
After a few seconds, Pediah broke the silence with a sigh. “What’s your plan, Thom?”
“We might not need to get it in the air after all. Ultimately we just need to move it. Get us away from here. The truck’s toast, so this is all we got.”
A small smile tugged at the corners of Alexia’s mouth and she nodded slowly in understanding. “I get it. I think.” She paused and gathered the others in her gaze. “I said I can’t fly this thing, but I think…” she glanced at Thomas. “If I understand him correctly, we’ll simply drive the bird out of here.” Thomas grinned and nodded. Alexia waved him toward her. “So, what do you say? Wanna be my copilot?” she asked with a terse glance out the window. “Because whatever we’re going to do, we need to do it now.”
Alexia slid into the pilot’s seat and from her shorter vantage point spotted the ignition controls immediately. “Dammit!” She cursed her slow thinking.
Now that she was in front of the controls, her fingers flew over the dash. It came to life, and the engine roared.
BANG!
The plane jumped. “It probably just backfired,” Thomas assured her.
“You know I’m just winging it here, right,” Alexia retorted. PEE-YONG! A bullet ricocheted nearby. Pilot and copilot shared a glance. “Those fools are firing on us!”
Just as she spoke, they heard soldiers take the upstart to task for firing. But he’d unleashed a beast. More soldiers began firing. Finally, a voice roared for silence. It echoed against the concrete floor and walls and metal roof. “You fools!” Thomas heard the voice roar. “If you hit the fuel line, everything’ll go up in smoke including Ramon.”
Thomas twirled his fingers as a GO to get them moving. Right on cue, the bird began to creep forward.
Although the shots had stopped, the efforts to stop the plane had not.
The pounding and clanging on the plane’s door were deafening, and reverberated in the small cabin. Alexia gave a sharp cry when she saw soldiers stationed in front of them. “Get out of the way!” she screamed, waving her arms wildly as if they could hear her through the thick glass and metal. As the plane picked up speed, the men dove to the side and watched helplessly as it cleared the hangar doors.
“We are on a runaway plane. We’ll need support,” Thomas barked into the radio, hoping the rangers had heard him, as the craft loped across the rocky terrain.
Eighteen
“Doing the best I can, folks!” Alexia said loudly, her eyes focused on the road ahead. She turned to Thomas, “You called the rangers, right?” she asked in a low, tense voice. He nodded. The plane skidded toward a ravine, parallel to the road, and she gripped the controls so hard her knuckles whitened. “Come on…” she urged the aircraft. “Stay steady for me.”
In answer, the plane rocked, bounced, and fishtailed as she fought to bring it under control. These things aren’t meant for driving, she wanted to shout.
“Look out!” Robbie shouted as he looked down from his seat on the right hand side, into an abyss.
“Owwch!” Mochni growled as the bumpy ride caused Abby’s hand to slip as she treated his wounds.
“Sorry,” she deadpanned. “Just…just hold on.” Abby looked toward the cockpit. “It’s not like I can tell her to slow down or something.” She dabbed absentmindedly at another of Mochni’s wounds.
“Ab-bee!” he cried, clutching the cloth. Holding the soft cloth over the wound, he reached for a bandage, and began to doctor himself. “Let me.”
A wave of relief washed over Thomas as he spotted an emergency crew of jeeps and trucks heading toward them. But it was short lived, as the vehicles drew closer. Bullets kicked up dust on the ground. The plane leapt forward and gave a shudder. “I think we’ve been hit!” He grabbed at his own controls in the copilot’s seat and worked furiously to help Alexia regain control of the plane.
His radio crackled and he pushed a button. “Can’t talk. Emergency maneuvers in play. Out.” The plane bucked again. “Shots fired!” he barked into his radio, his chin making contact with the button. “I repeat. Shots fired!”
The desert floor some 100 yards away ended abruptly.
“A ravine? Are you kidding me?”
Untitled
Alexia’s face paled. “Should we turn around? Can we turn around?”
“It’s too close. We…there’s no time.” Thomas grabbed the manuals he’d dropped and flipped frantically. Surely, there was something about steps for takeoff…
“Aha!”
“What did you find?” Alexia stammered, her eyes wide as the edge approached.
Thomas flashed Alexia a grin and turned to the controls. He found a button that looked like an old cigarette lighter. He pushed it forward, slowly withdrew it, and turned it to the right.
Pediah prayed. Mochni simply looked ahead, motionless and terrified. Abby’s face was drained of color.
The ground disappeared from beneath the plane.
“The glide slope…” Alexia mumbled, looking at the vertical opposite side of the ravine less than 100 feet away.
Thomas merely grinned.
The engines throttled up to maximum power. They were all pushed back in their seats as the plane pitched up and climbed rapidly.
“What the?” Alexia gasped.
“Self-piloting mode,” Thomas replied. “I found the button for it, just in time.”
They looked down to see both sides of the narrow ravine rotating slowly beneath them, as the plane turned and began to level off.
Alexia began to giggle, the strain and release too much to bear.
“What’s so funny?” Thom
as asked sharply. “We got away, didn’t we?”
“Yes, Thomas Knight. This is true. Don’t get me wrong, this is great. I just have one…” she held up an index finger, “question.”
Thomas shrugged. “Shoot.”
She shot him a sly smile. “How do we get back down?”
Nineteen
Finding the self-piloting mode had been nothing more than a stopgap measure as Alexia’s question became the disaster of the hour.
“Land?” Thomas choked. He narrowed his eyes and considered how they might perform that feat when Abby popped her head into the cockpit.
“Thomas, what did you do with the manuals Pediah and I were reading?” she asked. Thomas Knight’s head swiveled to meet her gaze and he grasped at the book to his left.
“This one stays here. I need it to…” Thomas looked down to the ground below them. Abby nodded and squeezed into the cockpit.
The radio crackled and a voice said sharply, “This is a protected dig site per the Natural Museum of Science, California. I am a Park Ranger for this portion of Death Valley and have been tasked with…Identify yourself.”
I’m glad we’re the good guys, Thomas thought as he thrust his manual toward Abby and flicked the switch on his radio. “This is Thomas Knight, dig site leader. Who is this?”
“Now how on earth did you manage to find yourself up in the air?”
Thomas shook his head and chortled. “It’s a long story, brother.” He glanced over at Abby, who shook her head.
Great. We still don’t know how to land, Thomas thought. He pushed the button on his radio. “Okay, two things,” he began.
“Yes, sir?” came the reply.
“First, you still haven’t told me your name.”
“George. Sir.”
“Thank you, George.” He lifted his finger from the communications button and breathed a silent sigh of relief. Then he pushed down again on the button again. “We have the leader of the mercenary band and two of his…” Thomas glanced at the two men Alexia had knocked out earlier. “Helpers,” he finished with a grimace. “They’ll need to be transported to a secure area once we land.
These are the men who’ve been shooting up our dig site, so we…commandeered their plane.”
Abby whispered with a sidelong glance, “Don’t you mean steal?”
“Now’s not the time to debate semantics,” he whispered tersely. He turned back to the radio. “We do have one problem currently of vital importance.”
“Yes, sir?”
“How do we land this thing?” Thomas asked matter-of-factly as if asking directions to the nearest gas station.
George swallowed. “I’ve no idea, Mr. Knight. Couldn’t you just use a long strip of land as a runway or something?”
Thomas shook his head. “Negative. And before you suggest it, we don’t have enough fuel to reach an airport.”
George scratched his head and turned to a few other rangers who’d witnessed the plane. “Any ideas, guys?”
“Well…one,” a young recruit offered.
“Just because you can’t get to an airport doesn’t mean you can’t get access to an air traffic controller…”
George slapped his forehead. “Of course! Let me get off the radio, Mr. Knight, and connect you with an air traffic controller. They’ll be able to monitor your position by radar.”
The radio went to static. Thomas turned to the others. “I suppose it’s as good a plan as any.”
“This is Jim Carroll with Air Traffic Control at Las Vegas McCarron Airport,” the device squawked. “I understand TBM 850 tail number N47930 is lost in the Death Valley area.”
“Yes, sir,” Alexia replied. “Also, it’s pretty dark and we don’t know how to land.”
There was a short, incredulous silence. “Then what in the world are you doing flying a plane?”
“It’s a long story, sir. Now, if you could please guide us…”
Jim sighed. “The reading I’m getting from your onboard GPS is 36.7 latitude, -117.05 longitude. You’re headed north at 275 knots. Now, there’s an abandoned airfield at Furnace Creek with a runway that should be long enough…”
“Uh, sir, a) I don’t know what most of that means, and b) we’re going to Mustard Creek. That’s where our archaeological dig site is.”
“Archaeologists, huh? You didn’t by any chance hijack that airplane, did you?”
Alexia turned to Thomas. “Crap! What do I say?”
“The pilot’s unconscious,” Thomas said, without missing a beat.
Alexia nodded. “No Jim, our pilot passed out.”
“Got it. You should know there’s no runway anywhere near Mustard Creek. Turn around 180 degrees and head back to Furnace…”
Thomas grabbed the mic and cut in. “We don’t have enough fuel, and we’re landing whether there’s a runway or not,” he said, firmly.
There was another short silence from the other end. “Jesus Christ, what is it with you Indiana Jones types? Okay, fine. Change your heading to northeast. Proceed for fifteen miles, and that’ll put you in the right area.”
“Got it,” Alexia said, turning the yoke slightly left and overriding the self flying system. She watched the compass heading, until it was correct, then reengaged self flying.
“I’ll keep watching you and keep you on course and altitude,” Jim said.
“Appreciate it.”
“You’re two miles out from your target LZ, whatever terrain that may be,” Jim said. “Google Maps says it’s not a mountainside, at least, so you’ve got that going for you. Get to 800 feet and throttle back for your final approach.”
BEEP! “What was that?” Alexia asked, her heart skipping a beat. “Was that a warning beep?” She repeated the question into the radio.
“Yes,” Jim replied tersely. “Stay calm and tell me what the plane is doing.”
“Well, it’s kind of rocking a little,” she explained. “And there’s this weird knocking…if it was a car, I’d say something like a wheel came off.”
“And you wouldn’t be far off. There’s a malfunction with your landing gear. Looks like your landing may be as bumpy as your flight likely was.”
“Great,” Alexia said sarcastically. “Anything we can do to…fix it?”
“Not up there.” The air traffic controller exhaled. “My recommendation is…pray.”
“Maybe you should head to a seat in the back, Alexia,” Thomas said softly. “The nose’ll take the brunt of the forceful landing. You’ll be safer back there.”
“I will not!” she replied hotly. “I can drive an out of control car and truck. I can also drive, steer, whatever this plane…” she paused. “With the controller’s help, of course.” She frowned and added, “The plane is practically flying itself which leaves me free to do what I can to not get us killed. It’s why we stole the damn thing in the first place, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Thomas knew she was right. On all counts. But he didn’t have to like it. “Fine,” he surrendered. “Guess we better get to it then.” He turned and placed both hands firmly on the throttle and chortled at her arched eyebrows. “What? I’m the copilot, aren’t I?”
She was about to comment, when the ground came up to meet them. The craft skidded violently, bucking, jumping and tumbling across a mix of rock and sand as screams echoed throughout the plane.
Twenty
For all its opulence, all its marble floors, champagne-colored walls, and touches of gold, there was one room in Noah’s villa unlike all the others. Built for safety and function, it acted as part bunker and part communications room. The long ride down on the freight elevator offered little more than a fleeting notion one was on their way meet to meet Chiron in the River Styx.
Miss Welker had wondered, as she descended, if it had been Ashbridge’s intent.
Perhaps not his, but someone in the family had a macabre sense of humor.
Exiting the elevator into the room, she had a curious sense of déjà vu. However, her focus on wheed
ling and sweet-talking Ramon to come back to work for Noah distracted her.
Strands of thoughts touched her as she bent over the table and keyed in code to hide the paintings on the wall. “Alexia Fraga isn’t the only woman in this desert with tech skills,” she muttered.
The room itself looked like the inner workings of a computer. Cables and wires attached to boxes and walls were the heartbeat of the communications room, and in the center was a table. On the table was the drum, a telephone, and one laptop. There were no chairs here. In Noah’s command center, people stood to conduct their business.
Once the signal had been spoofed and she was satisfied their location couldn’t be traced, Miss Welker dialed the number she had been given for Ramon and his people.
“Myriad,” came the answer. Well at least Pedro gave me the right contact information.
“ I need to speak with Ramon.” She gripped the table’s edges. She could have throttled Noah for putting her in this position.
“He is not here,” the voice explained.
Miss Welker cleared her throat. “You do remember me, do you not?” she asked politely.
“Yes.”
“And you remember what I can do when I am angry?” She smirked at the black plastic machine, as the line went silent. “Good.” She picked at a pockmark in the table and waited for the voice to speak first. She’d discovered over time that the longer one was simply quiet, the longer the other person squirmed. It had proven an unexpected and useful tactic over the years.
“Ms…?” the voice wavered, wondering, she assumed, if she had given up.
“When there is a dial tone, you will know I have given up,” she explained matter-of-factly. “And since I have the patience of Job, one of us is going to have quite a long wait. So, to pass the time…” Miss Welker paused dramatically. “PUT RAMON ON THE PHONE!”
“I can’t. He’s…busy.” The pause cost him the lie. Miss Welker’s ears perked up. Something was wrong.
