by Andrew Watts
Max was interested in the planes, but his mind kept turning over the problems at hand. He thought about what they’d learned about Becker’s connection to Upton. About Becker’s chief of staff being killed. About the cartel attack in Texas. About Ian Williams learning of Wilkes’s agent in Mexico. These were all pieces of a puzzle. Clues he needed to put together before…
Before what? Before Senator Becker was assassinated? Or before the ISI and Ian Williams commenced their mysterious meeting of minds? What were they meeting about? Who was attending? Where was the meeting being held? Why would they need a list of people killed before the meeting occurred? A list that involved one of the most powerful politicians in America?
And would Caleb Wilkes really let it get that far? Was he really so bold as to use a US senator as bait? Then again, it wasn’t Wilkes who had forced the senator to come here to this public stage. Becker supposedly knew that he was in danger and was choosing to flout the warnings he’d been given by attending the Oshkosh air show anyway.
Max watched Renee sucking lemonade from her straw and again felt guilty for exposing her to this dangerous world. And to men like Ian Williams.
While she had volunteered to go to Mexico, Max realized that her reason wasn’t the same as his. Max felt a calling to the trade. Partially a call to serve and protect or whatever the hell you wanted to call it. But it was also for himself. This mixture of adrenaline and noble purpose was his own addiction. Max needed his fix.
Renee was different. She was motivated by selfless compassion. The tugging at her heartstrings she’d felt when Josh Carpenter died, leaving little Josh behind. The unjust killing of Ines Sanchez on the beach in Mazatlán. And more than any of that, Max knew that Renee’s original and most important reason for being here was because she loved him.
That was what had gotten her on that flight to Mexico. She wanted to help keep Max safe. Walking next to her now, he realized that he felt the same way. Max loved and admired everything about her. Her infectious laugh. Her passion for life. Her love of learning and relentless work ethic.
Max looked at her now, at her dark shoulder-length hair with traces of white sunblock smudged in. Her fit yet curvy figure. Her Mona Lisa smile that seemed to come more and more often lately. The feelings he had for her made him vulnerable, which frightened him. And while he regretted that Renee was in danger, she was also proving extremely valuable to the operation.
Max once again promised himself that he would do a better job of protecting her. And when this was over…well, maybe he’d finally have that serious relationship talk he knew she wanted to have.
They sipped their drinks and walked along the crowded taxiway, which was being used mainly as a pedestrian sidewalk right now.
They came across a very old black man who was propped up on an elevated wooden chair on the side of the walkway. The set-up was official looking—the chair looked like a short lifeguard chair, complete with a large orange umbrella to keep the man shaded. A World War Two fighter plane rested in the grass behind him. Another black man of about sixty stood next to him. By their manner and proximity, Max guessed the second man to be the elder’s son.
Max took Renee’s arm and they stopped.
“Hello, sir. Excuse me, but did you fly that aircraft back there? The P-51 Mustang?”
The old-World War II fighter aircraft, silver and gleaming, had the word TUSKEGEE painted in blue on the engine compartment. The old man’s hat read 332nd Fighter Group, TUSKEGEE AIRMEN.
The man’s voice was slow and raspy with a bit of a Southern accent. “Why, yes, sir, I did.”
“My father was one of the Tuskegee Airmen,” said the son, a proud grin as he looked at his old man.
Max saw Renee’s eyes widen. She mouthed, “Wow.”
Max stuck out his hand, speaking slow and clear. “It is an honor to meet you, sir.” Renee smiled widely and also shook the man’s hand.
“Why, thank you both.” He looked tired but pleased to be here. His smile widened at Renee. “My, my. Your wife sure is pretty.” They all laughed, and neither Max nor Renee bothered to correct him.
The man’s son said to Max, “Hey, don’t I know you?”
Max shook the son’s hand. “My name is Max Fend.”
“Sure. Your father—”
“Yes, my father owns Fend Aerospace.”
“I thought I recognized you. I’ve seen you on the news.”
“Yeah, those weren’t my finest moments.”
The man laughed. “Well, if I recall, it all worked out in the end, didn’t it?”
Max nodded. “It did.” He looked back at the elderly man sitting quietly in the chair. “Are they going to let you fly that here?” Max was smiling, trying to make small talk.
“They promised me a ride on the Ford.”
“The Ford?” said Renee.
Max smiled, knowing that she probably thought the old man was going senile.
The old Tuskegee Airman lifted up a shaky hand and pointed his finger down the taxiway to the south. “The old Ford Trimotor, ma’am. I come here almost every year, yet I still never rode one of them. I’m ninety-four years old now. This might be my last year. I’d sure like to fly one of them Fords.”
A boxy silver aircraft rested on the active taxiway one hundred yards away. Next to it, inside the fence, was a long line of people waiting to take a ride. It was one of the first ever mass-produced passenger planes, Max knew. It had three extremely loud engines—one on each wing and one on the nose—all making puttering, scraping noises as they ran, like an old jalopy in need of a tune-up.
The nose angled sharply skyward due to the fact that the rear of the aircraft was balanced on a tiny tail wheel.
Max said, “You don’t see too many passenger aircraft that are tail draggers anymore.” Rides on the Ford Trimotor were a staple of the Oshkosh air show.
Renee offered the old man a big smile. “Well, that looks like it would be a lot of fun. I hope you get to take a ride.”
Max and Renee bade farewell to the pair and kept walking. They headed through the central static display area, passing modern military fighter aircraft, giant commercial planes, and several large US Air Force tankers. They kept walking and arrived at the ultralight aircraft field. Small aircraft in a variety of shapes flew over that section of the airport. Some had hang glider wings. Others floated on parachutes, with rear-mounted props that reminded Max of Everglades airboats.
“Hey, look. There’s the King family.”
“Who?” asked Renee.
“The kids I met at the Cincinnati airport. The ones who I stole…I mean, the ones who gave me their flight plan.”
She smirked.
The two teenage boys and their father were standing at the edge of the ultralight field, which was a few hundred yards long, south of the main exhibit, and fenced off from the crowd. Mr. King was placing a tablet computer and a joystick on top of a fold-up table. The boys were unfolding the arms of a white helicopter-like contraption about half the size of a car.
Max checked his watch. They still had another half hour before they were supposed to meet Trent near the VIP tent. They had time to kill.
“Hello, boys.”
“Hey, Mr. Fend.” They waved back, their teenage eyes magnetically drawn to Renee.
“Ah, Max Fend. I knew I recognized you when we met in Cincinnati.” The father shook Max’s hand. Max introduced him to Renee. “A pleasure.”
“This your gyrocopter?”
“It sure is. Jack here was just going to take it for a spin.”
The teenager wore a white helmet and was now strapping into the driver’s seat. The gyrocopter had a tall, thin rotor overtop, like a helicopter. But the rotor was much smaller than a helicopter’s—it must have only been about ten feet in diameter. The rear of the contraption had a propeller that rested just aft of a small engine. There was no glass canopy surrounding the driver’s seat. The pilot would be sitting in the open air. It was like a cross between a bicycle and a
helicopter, with a prop in the rear.
“That motor looks about the size of a lawnmower,” Renee said, then covered her mouth, hoping she hadn’t said anything insulting.
Mr. King smiled wide, looking quite proud. “It was! Well, it was a big mower—a tractor—but that’s what we converted it from.”
Jack’s brother was helping him strap in. A moment later, his brother out of the way, Jack started up the gyrocopter and began rolling along the grass, taking off in a buzz, both the top rotor and rear prop spinning.
Renee clapped her hands. “Well done.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. King.
“Dad, show them the RC.”
Mr. King walked over to a table they had set up behind the fence. He placed on a headset and said, “Okay, Jack, now fly it back over here to where I am. We’re going to demonstrate the remote-control feature.”
A moment later, Jack had flown the gyrocopter in a racetrack pattern and landed in the grass directly in front of the fence before them.
“The rotors on top move very slow compared to a helicopter.”
“Yes, a gyrocopter flies using a different aerodynamic principle than a helicopter. A helicopter forces its rotor blades through the air, but a gyrocopter uses a free-spinning rotor to generate lift like a glider.”
“Fascinating.”
“It sure is.”
“So, your son will stay in the aircraft while you operate it remotely?”
“Yes. We aren’t certified as a drone, so this is sort of a gray area, what we’re doing. But Jack can easily take the controls and overpower the inputs I’ll be making if anything doesn’t look right to him.”
Max turned to Renee. “Where have I heard that before?”
Not hearing the comment, Mr. King said into the headset, “Hands off, Jack, I’ve got it.” Then he took the joystick on the table and pressed a few buttons on the tablet. The gyrocopter took off into forward flight.
James King said, “My brother and I wrote the program. We used the same code that most of the off-the-shelf helicopter drones use. You can see the readout right there.”
Max watched as Mr. King maneuvered the gyrocopter forward in a slow hover. It was like playing a video game. He just tapped forward on an arrow on the tablet, and he could also use the joystick to turn.
Renee said, “This is incredible. You boys did such a great job.”
The kid went beet red. “Thank you, ma’am. It’s also got a really cool feature that we added that will bring it right back to you if you’ve got it far away.”
“Let’s see it,” said Max.
“Sure.”
Mr. King used the tablet to maneuver the gyrocopter to a spot about one hundred yards away. “See this button?”
A yellow button on the tablet read “GO TO SET COORDINATES.”
“Yup.”
“Press it.”
Max pressed the button, and the tiny aircraft immediately turned and nosed over, skimming the ground as it headed towards them at a surprisingly high speed. Just before Max was about to move them out of the way, the gyrocopter decelerated. It settled down on the grass fifty feet in front of them, with Jack once again holding the controls, a big smile on his freckled face.
Max said, “Pretty neat.”
“Thanks.”
“So you can program it to fly anywhere?”
“Pretty much. As long as we have a latitude and longitude, and enough fuel. But you still need a pilot at the controls to make sure we don’t fly it into a tree or anything. The program is very rudimentary.”
“It’s impressive.”
They shut down the gyrocopter and Jack ran over to the table, removing his helmet. Just then a loud buzzing filled the air as a sleek black-and-red aerobatic plane zoomed by them on one of the airport’s main runways. It pulled straight up into a climb and began rolling on its longitudinal axis like a spinning Olympic figure skater.
“Is that her? Is that her?” one of the King boys asked.
“Yeah, it is,” said the other.
The two boys took off towards the runway. Renee looked at Mr. King, who was shaking his head.
“What are they so excited about?”
“Oh, they’re really interested in this aerobatic performer for some reason.”
“Who is it?”
The speakers mounted throughout the airfield answered Renee’s question. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ll turn your attention to runway two-three, flying the Blonde Bombshell, may we present…Karen Becker!”
Chapter 20
A spotless glass canopy covered Karen Becker’s head. It was a beautiful day to fly. Bright sunshine and blue sky above. An immense crowd of several hundred thousand onlookers standing on the grass to her right, just beyond the taxiway. She wore wraparound shades to dim the intense glare of the sun. A headset fit snugly over her bleach-blond hair.
Already motoring forward on the taxiway, Karen pressed down with one of her feet, turning her black Extra 300L aerobatics plane onto the runway and aiming it down the centerline.
Her plane was adorned with the inscription “The Blonde Bombshell.” Karen’s likeness, wearing her signature pink flight suit, the front zipper pulled down enough to show a bit of cleavage, was painted underneath. The bleach-blond hair from her cartoon image flowed back along the length of the aircraft and was artistically transformed into bright reddish flames.
She quickly checked her engine instruments, and then the healthy whine of the engine grew into a strong buzz as she pushed the throttle forward. The grass, runway, static display aircraft, and sea of onlookers transformed into a blur as her aircraft increased speed.
The bouncing and rumbling of the aircraft changed into a steady floating sensation as she went airborne. She felt loose, light, and in complete control of her machine. Karen kept forward pressure on the stick, purposely staying low to the ground, her wheels mere feet above the runway, building speed, going faster and faster until just the right moment, when she tugged back hard on the yoke.
She flexed her stomach as the world pitched back and the Blonde Bombshell went vertical, climbing straight up, engine humming. Karen could practically hear the crowd cheering for her as she rolled hard left on the stick, and the world blurred again as the aircraft began spinning, a tornado of color.
Karen’s lip microphone slipped out of place from the strong g-forces, and she stopped her turn halfway through a roll. She used her left hand to place the mike back tight against her lips, then yanked again and began her show.
Red smoke trailed from her aircraft—a red dye combined with a white smoke base. The smoke was created by pumping a paraffin-based biodegradable oil directly onto the hot exhaust nozzles of her piston engine. The oil vaporized to provide the stunning visual effect of a crimson column of cloud following along after her aircraft.
Karen kept her rapid scan flicking between the outside world and her instruments, seeking out visual cues on the ground to note her position, then forcing her eyes back inside at the instrument panel to check her airspeed, altitude, and engine instruments.
One moment she was one thousand feet in the air, upside down at the top of a loop. The next she was diving down to the earth. Then back up at eight thousand feet, throttle all the way back, using her foot pedals and yoke to send the aircraft into a spin—transforming the aircraft into a giant metal leaf, twirling as it fell from the sky.
Karen had practiced every maneuver countless times, both in the air and on the ground, “chair-flying” for hours in a windowless room, with only her coach, using hand gestures, body position, and her imagination like she was practicing a ballet routine.
That’s just what it was like, in a way. Aerobatic performances were carefully scripted, and very dangerous. The g-forces alone could force a pilot into unconsciousness in the blink of an eye. Some of the maneuvers Karen performed placed ten g’s on her body, so her one hundred and twenty pounds became over half a ton.
During those intense turns, gravity tried to for
ce her blood towards her extremities. Through practice, she had become proficient at special breathing techniques performed while flexing her legs, butt, thighs, calves, and stomach during high-g maneuvers. These techniques, and her g-suit, allowed her to keep her circulation under control. The g-suit contained water-filled tubes that ran from her shoulder down to her ankles. They would compress as the g’s came on, keeping her blood pumping into the upper body and head, which allowed her to retain consciousness.
Karen had to keep in great physical shape to be able to withstand this repetitive physical toll on her body. She had to be mentally tough as well. For the past five years, she had trained like an Olympian, and now she understood the physics of aviation as well as some aerospace PhDs.
She had worked hard over the years to become one of the top aerobatics performers in the world, and now she was here, at the pinnacle of her career.
Karen pulled out of her final maneuver and touched down smoothly on the runway. Then she taxied up to the flight line next to the central static displays. Karen shut off her engine, and her propeller spooled down. She opened her canopy and removed her headset, shaking down long waves of blond hair.
All eyes were on her. And that was just the way she liked it.
Karen Becker was a marketer’s dream. She climbed down from the cockpit and walked out onto the stage that had been set up for her. Karen wore ruby-red lipstick, custom steel-toed flight boots made to look like leather cowgirl boots, a bright pink flight suit, always zipped low enough that it showed off a bit of her ample bosom. Her blond hair was topped with her customary Stetson hat, handed to her by her agent. Change up a few items, and she could have easily been a Nashville country singer about to take the stage.
The aerobatics world had never seen someone quite like her. If Amelia Earhart were still around, she would probably either be blushing or shaking her head in disapproval. But as much as Karen was an entertainer on the ground, in the air, she was a professional. After leaving her father’s political staff, she had enrolled at Embry-Riddle University and earned a second degree. At first she’d thought she might go into airport management. Something far away from politics. But while she was there, she’d learned how to fly and fallen in love with aviation. She’d earned a series of progressively more advanced pilot ratings and had eventually been hired as a flight instructor in Daytona. After meeting a few pilots at air shows and taking a few aerobatic lessons, she had found her passion.
