Blackout

by Nance, John J. ;

  “We don’t have a choice,” she said.

  Robert and Jordan jumped from the Sno-Cat and hauled at the hangar doors, pushing them open slowly as Kat ran the snowmobile inside and parked it to one side. She grabbed her handbag and motioned to Dr. Maverick to follow, then ran to the right rear side of the huge amphibian. The ladder was down and she scrambled up, racing to the cockpit to turn on the master switch and check the fuel. Thank God! Almost full tanks.

  The cockpit side window was open. She yelled to Robert and Jordan. “Hurry with the doors and get in. Pull up the ladder behind you.”

  Checklist. There has to be a checklist. Kat searched rapidly through the papers in a side pocket, and retrieved a laminated checklist. She ran down the Before Starting Engines portion, locating the applicable switches and finding the primer for the two big radial propeller-driven power plants before turning on the switch and checking to make sure all three of the men were aboard.

  She engaged the starter, holding her breath as she jockeyed the throttle slightly and waited. Two, three, four times the huge prop on the right rotated. She was considering priming it again when the cylinders began to fire, slowly, then in a smooth sequence. Kat adjusted the fuel mixture and started the left engine.

  “Fasten in, everyone. Robert? Come up here with me.”

  “You’re sure about this, Kat?” he said as he launched himself up into the bucket seat and fumbled for the seat belt.

  She nodded. “Of course I’m sure. And if you believe that, I’ve got some swampland in the Mojave I’d like to talk to you about!”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “Find their damned tracks!” Arlin Schoen jabbed a finger in the direction of the north taxiway as the Suburban changed directions and raced over the snow-covered concrete.

  “There are the tracks!” one of the men said, pointing ahead.

  “They’re hiding. Probably inside one of these hangars,” Schoen said. “Good. That’ll make it easier to—”

  He trailed off as they rocketed around the northeast corner of the hangar and saw an Albatross come shooting through the open doors, its ample wings rocking as the pilot steered the craft toward the runway. From their angle, they could see nothing of the pilots or occupants.

  The driver braked to a halt in confusion. “What now, Arlin?”

  Arlin turned around, looked at the open hangar, and shook his head. “No. They didn’t have enough time. Drive into the hangar!”

  The Suburban’s driver accelerated through the open doors and screeched to a halt by the empty but still-idling Sno-Cat. “Godammit!” Schoen snarled. “Turn around! They’re in that aircraft.”

  The driver fought the wheel as he backed and then shot forward, floorboarding the vehicle to give Schoen a closer firing platform.

  “Get on the runway! Get in front of them!”

  To reach the end as a pilot would for a normal takeoff, the Albatross would have had to taxi north several hundred yards. But whoever was steering the amphibian wasn’t following the rules. It bounced across the snow-covered ground between taxiway and runway and turned on the runway, its engines coming up to takeoff power. “We’re not going to make it, Arlin,” the driver said.

  “Try! Floor it!”

  “I am.”

  Schoen toggled the right side window down and leaned up and out as he cocked the Uzi and aimed at the plane’s tires, firing a burst that went wild when the Suburban lurched off the taxiway in angled pursuit of the accelerating craft. Again he fired, trying to walk the bullets toward the wing to get the fuel tanks, but nothing happened.

  The Albatross was accelerating away from them, moving at more than fifty knots as the Suburban’s driver tried to match speeds. The roughness of the plowed snowpack on the runway forced Schoen back inside.

  “Forget it. Get to the Caravan. We’ll get them in the air.”

  The bone-jarring trip across the snow-covered grass to the runway and then down its washboard surface had been brutal, but the big World War II–vintage amphibian lifted clear of the surface at a sedate ninety knots with the engines screaming at full power. Kat pushed the nose over slightly to gain airspeed before fishing for the landing gear lever and pulling it up. She turned almost due south, checking the round gauge on the front panel called the artificial horizon, as well as the airspeed indicator, making sure she kept it right side up.

  Engines. Throttle back, set the prop pitch. I’ll have to estimate. I have no idea what settings to use.

  “Where do we go, Kat?” Robert asked.

  She glanced at him and smiled briefly. “Boise, if I can find it.”

  “Why?”

  “Safety in numbers, I suppose. There’s an Air National Guard base at the airport, and Salt Lake is too far south.”

  She kept the aircraft climbing, looking for a passage through the mountains to the west in the growing light. She spotted the pass she was looking for and banked toward it, leveling the aircraft just high enough to clear the ridge, then nosing it over and staying close to the mountainous terrain.

  Kat pointed to the rear. “I threw my purse down in the back, Robert. See if you can get the satellite phone out and call the police in Boise, and the Air Guard. Get them ready to protect us when we land.”

  “How long? An hour?”

  “At least,” she said.

  The Hailey Airport manager, alerted to an inbound Air Force Gulfstream, had arrived in time to see the visiting Albatross roar into the air, followed by a Caravan on floats. The occupants of the Caravan had thrown something on the ramp as they left, and the manager drove to it, unprepared to find the crumpled body of a man in a pilot’s shirt, lying in a growing pool of red.

  chapter 47

  IN FLIGHT, WEST OF HAILEY, IDAHO

  NOVEMBER 17—DAY SIX

  10:05 A.M. LOCAL/1705 ZULU

  “I can see them to the south,” Arlin Schoen said to the member of his team who could fly, as the Caravan climbed in pursuit. “Get as high as you can but stay with them.”

  “We’re faster, Arlin, but not that much.”

  The Albatross’s turn to the west was a lucky break. They altered course to intercept the lumbering amphibian and followed it for nearly ten minutes before Schoen tapped the pilot on the shoulder again. “Bring me to his left and stay high so they can’t see us.”

  Kat was breathing easier as she sat back to survey the engine instruments. She gave a small prayer of thanks that the weather was clear. Her eyes had just focused on the airspeed indicator when it suddenly exploded in a hail of bullets.

  The slugs were stitching their way through the side window from somewhere above and behind. She rolled the control yoke to the right and kicked the rudder hard in the same direction, wheeling the big aircraft out of the way.

  More staccato impacts, this time somewhere on the wing. She rolled out of the turn, looked to her left, and was startled to see the Caravan hanging in the left window. Its right side door was open and two figures with guns crouched there.

  She rolled left and pulled up sharply, glancing at the only remaining airspeed indicator on the copilot’s side. The Caravan pilot yanked his craft up as well, pulling away just in time, but the shooters still had the Albatross in their sights.

  More bullets found their mark on the left engine.

  Kat felt the big aircraft yaw dangerously to the left as number-one engine lost power. There was a large red feather button on the overhead for each engine, and she punched at it, hitting it on the second try. She jammed the right rudder pedal forward as the prop streamlined with the wind and the Albatross righted itself. She was searching for the other controls to shut off the fuel when Robert’s voice reached her. “Kat! We’re on fire on the left!” She could already see the orange light of flames cascading from the left engine and smell the stench of burning fuel and oil.

  “See if you can find the engine fire extinguisher button!” she called.

  Robert searched the overhead panel as she looked left again, spotti
ng the floats of the attacking aircraft above and to the left. To the right, a narrow mountain valley opened up less than 2,000 feet below, and she wheeled the Albatross in that direction, throttling back the right engine. She spotted a substantial river running through it that she could follow. They were less than 1,000 feet above the ground, and she kept descending, leveling a few hundred feet above the trees. She pushed up the right engine again, fed in corrective right rudder to compensate for the absence of power on the left wing, and checked to her left.

  The sky seemed empty.

  “Robert. Check the right.”

  He stopped looking for the fire extinguisher and looked to the right and up. “Nothing there, Kat!”

  Bullets stuttered through the fuselage, this time behind them. The plink-plink-plink of the powerful slugs as they punctured the metal skin was unmistakable. She banked sharply left and pulled up, once again exposing the Caravan on the left. But this time the pilot anticipated the maneuver and hung back, close enough to shoot but far enough away to simply follow as she tried unsuccessfully to outmaneuver the more maneuverable aircraft.

  The Albatross was heading for the rising terrain on the west side of the valley. She banked sharply to the right to follow the valley again, knowing the Caravan would stay on her tail. More bullets hit them, and a muted cry came from the back. There was no time to look back. As the fire grew, Kat’s confidence sank; she knew the Albatross was simply too big, too heavy, and too damaged to outrun the smaller, turbine-powered craft.

  Suddenly the right engine began running rough just as Robert, who had been watching out the right side, yelled, “Kat, something’s wrong. Look at the engine!”

  Kat stole a quick glance, and her stomach froze at the sight of a dark stream of oil covering part of the cowling. A check of the oil pressure gauge told the tale.

  She looked ahead in the valley, spotting a small dam and a lake beyond. The dam was moving under the nose, and the far end of the lake looked too close to accommodate a large amphibian.

  I’ve got no choice!

  “Hold on! I’m putting it in that lake!” she yelled, turning her head as far as she could to yell the same warning to Jordan and Dr. Maverick.

  The right engine had begun to sputter as she jammed the yoke forward in a stomach-turning near-zero-G excursion. She yanked the right throttle to idle and found the flap handle, pulling it full down as she aimed for the water, gauging her altitude above the surface by the shoreline.

  Too fast! she thought as she pulled hard just over the surface, stopping the descent and slowing, letting the nose come up as it settled toward the water.

  The end of the lake was coming up rapidly. There was no power to climb, a raging fire on the left side, and no way to slow anymore. She thought of the landing gear too late, just as the fuselage touched the surface.

  The Albatross kissed the water at first without slowing, and she tried to pull the yoke back to raise the nose and spoil the lift, as she’d seen seaplane pilots do. But the hull wasn’t far enough into the water, and the Albatross obediently climbed back into the air twenty feet above the surface.

  The end of the lake and the bank were less than 500 yards away and coming up fast. Kat relaxed the back pressure and let the Albatross settle heavily into the water. The hydrodynamic pressure sucked the hull down as she yanked back again, this time achieving a cascade of spray and deceleration as the plane slowed.

  But they were still moving far too fast at the end of the lake. Traveling at more than sixty knots, the Albatross slammed into the shoreline with the nose up. The fuselage screeched in protest as it slithered up the shallow embankment and spent its remaining energy on a grove of sturdy fir trees, which, one by one, progressively separated the burning left wing from the fuselage, causing the right wing to dig into the ground and spin the fuselage to the right.

  “Come around and land. Quickly!” Schoen ordered his pilot as the Caravan flew over the wreckage of the Albatross.

  The pilot wheeled around, extended the flaps, and pushed up the prop RPM, setting the aircraft into the water toward the middle of the lake. He dropped to a sedate speed and aimed for the spot where the Albatross’s tail jutted into the forest.

  Fed by leaking aviation gasoline, the burning remains of the Albatross’s left wing and engine suddenly exploded, but the force of the explosion merely chewed into the ruined tail section of the aircraft.

  Schoen motioned to the man in back to check his weapons before turning to the pilot. “Bring me to shore just to the left and beach her until we finish this. Shut it down, secure it, and follow us.”

  The impact of the collision with the trees had slammed Kat’s head into the instrument panel, but not enough to knock her out. She shook her head and looked at Robert as the detached left wing exploded somewhere behind them. He was wiping blood off his face, but seemed okay otherwise.

  “We’ve … got to get out of here,” she began. “They’ll be landing.”

  Robert unstrapped and stumbled through the cockpit door before turning back to help Kat out. They saw Dr. Maverick kneeling beside a prone Jordan James. “He’s been hit!” Dr. Maverick said, his voice an octave higher than normal.

  Kat moved to Jordan, finding his eyes open and his chest soaked in blood. “Oh God, Uncle. What happened?”

  He took a breath and shook his head. “Not … that bad, Kat, I think …”

  She opened his shirt and saw a major entry wound on the right side of his chest just below the rib cage, the bleeding steady and serious. “Can we move you? We’ve got to get out of here.”

  The whine of the Caravan’s turbine engine could be heard outside as Kat and Robert and Tom Maverick struggled to lift Jordan James through the main door to the ground. “My pistol’s in my handbag,” Kat said to Robert.

  “I’ll get it and a first-aid kit,” Robert answered.

  They laid Jordan in front of the wreckage, by the nose, and Robert scrambled back into the aircraft. He jumped out again with Kat’s handbag and the first-aid kit. Kat grabbed her purse and pulled out her gun as Robert knelt beside James with the kit.

  The click of a powerful gun being cocked reached their ears at close quarters, and Kat looked up to see Arlin Schoen step from around the nose.

  “Drop it, Bronsky,” the slightly accented voice commanded. She looked into the expressionless face of the man who had tried to pick her up in Portland.

  “This is an Uzi,” he said. “You won’t even get one shot off before it rips you to pieces. Put it down.” His men, guns at the ready, moved up to stand beside him.

  She sighed and laid the gun on the ground.

  “Kick it over here,” he ordered.

  She complied, pointing to Jordan. “Do you realize who this is?”

  Arlin Schoen smiled thinly. Two others were at his side, weapons at the ready. “Our esteemed acting Secretary of State? Of course. How are you, Jordan?”

  “What?” Jordan replied as he winced in pain.

  “Oh, come on, Mr. Secretary. As one of the directors of Signet Electrosystems, I’d think you would remember me. After all, we’ve talked many times.”

  Kat looked from him to Jordan in confusion. “Jordan, you know this man?”

  Jordan James took a ragged breath and looked at Schoen, ignoring the question. “So what are you planning to do, Schoen, kill us all?”

  “Of course” was the reply. “What else can I do now?”

  Kat knelt at his side. “Uncle Jordan, what’s going on here?”

  “MacCabe? Doctor?” Schoen said, gesturing with the gun. “Sit behind Miss Bronsky, please. You people have been an extraordinary pain in the ass. You thought we were trying to kill you, when all we wanted, Mr. MacCabe and Miss Bronsky, was to retrieve a vital piece of classified research stolen from us by a man named Carnegie, whom I believe you knew.” He smiled a serpent’s smile at Kat and Robert.

  No one answered.

  “You two gained access to the disk we need. If MacCabe hadn’t been so effici
ent in getting away in Hong Kong, perhaps we wouldn’t have had to shoot down his flight.”

  “So you’re admitting to mass murder?” Kat said.

  He ignored her and continued. “Oh, by the way, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Arlin Schoen, director of security for Signet Electrosystems Defense Research. I have the responsibility for keeping the vital American secrets away from irresponsible people such as Carnegie and you, Mr. MacCabe. Agent Bronsky’s involvement I can more or less understand. She thinks she’s catching crooks, and ends up stealing classified material. And Dr. Maverick, over there, has a big mouth.”

  “What is Signet Electrosystems?” Kat asked, breathing hard.

  “You’re insane, Schoen,” Jordan said suddenly.

  “Possibly,” he replied. “But my job was to protect this project.”

  “Uncle, what is he talking about?”

  Her heart sank when she saw tears in Jordan’s eyes. He was in agony. “I tried to stop him, Kat.”

  Arlin Schoen turned to the armed men standing beside him. “Go ahead and kill them. I’m not in the mood for confessions.” He turned and walked under the huge right wing, now broken and drooping.

  “Schoen?” Jordan called out, summoning all his strength. “I’ve got the whole story on paper … and in the hands of … third parties, ready to blow up in your face. You hurt or kill any of these people, or me, and the whole thing will be exposed.”

  Arlin Schoen turned around. “Clever ploy, Jordan, but I know you better than that. You’ve served ten presidents. You’d rather die with your reputation intact.”

  “Can you take that chance, Schoen?” James asked with difficulty. “If I’m telling the truth, you’ll end up … in a gas chamber, and the project … as well as the company, are history. All of it’s there. The botched test firing, the cover-up of the MD-eleven shootdown, all of it. And there are four others out there … who know the details.”

  “Bullshit. There is no document because you never expected this to happen, James. And we’ve already taken care of those other four witnesses, despite Miss Bronsky’s attempts to hide them.”