by Ward, Steve
Christina was irate. She wanted to go after that woman and claw her eyes out. The bitch had seriously degraded her idol with a terrible lie. Lt. Col. Eileen Collins is no joke! She made history in space. She wasn’t just some egghead going along for the ride. She wondered, How could she say something so obnoxious to a perfect stranger?
“What a witch.” Christina whispered to Hank. “Where does she keep her broom?”
“I’m afraid you’re right,” he said. “Gilmore’s the creme de la creme of witchdom. Pretty much keeps to herself here in the office. Always on the phone, trying to horn in on my business. I understand she also has a charter today. Should be right behind us.”
Gilmore came back out of her office looking like a different person. She had two open Coke cans in her hand and a big smile on her face. “I must apologize for my rudeness,” she said looking at Christina. “I’ve been under a lot of stress lately.” She walked a beeline to Hank. “Here’s the Coke I owe you, buddy,” like they were old friends. “Guess I’ll have to quit betting against the Braves.”
“But, I’m not all that thirsty right now.”
“C’mon, you have to take it. A bet’s a bet. I insist. Here, I like to pay my debts.” She shoved it in his hand and walked back to her office.
“Miss Matthews, would you like this? Ice cold.” He tried to hand it to her.
“No, no,” she pushed it back, “not unless you’ve got a porta-potty in that Saratoga.”
Hank chugged the soft drink as fast as he could and hustled outside with a loud belch. As she watched him inspect his plane, Christina was pleased. It brought to mind something Furgeson had said.
You can always tell about the quality of a pilot by watching the preflight. Don’t ever ride with someone who just gets in and takes off.
Heather protested at first sight of the charter plane, a single engine, six-passenger Piper Saratoga. “I’ve seen this before. On the news. It’s the same plane that got all the bad press when John Kennedy, Jr. went down in the Atlantic.”
“You got to be kidding me,” Jessica complained. Christina knew she didn’t like flying at all, much less in a small plane.
“I didn’t want to tell you guys this, but I had a bad dream last night,” Heather sighed. “We were cramped in a tiny airplane that was spinning out of control over the ocean. Everyone was screaming, and we just kept spinning and spinning like we were falling for eternity.”
“Thanks a lot, Heather. I feel much better now,” Jessica said.
“Relax ladies,” Christina stated with confidence. “The Saratoga is a fine piece of machinery, the perfect plane for hopping the islands.”
The only obvious concern was all the luggage and equipment. Hank weighed every piece and shyly asked the girls if they would mind revealing their body weight. Both Jessica and Heather gave Christina a look of disdain. Delta Airlines never asked their weight. Hank ran through his weight and balance calculations and instructed that the wing tanks be filled “only to the tabs.”
“A three-hour flight, with four hours of fuel in perfect weather, plenty of margin,” he said softly, talking to himself. “Now if you ladies’d be so kind to climb in and make yourselves comfortable, we’ll have you on Exuma in no time.”
“Be there in a minute,” Christina ran for the phones.
Lazer answered on the first ring. “Glad you called. Bin trying to git hold of ya. Seems Weston has quite a track record with the young gals. My buddy hit the jackpot.”
“What do you mean?”
“Heather don’t wanna marry this ole boy.”
“Give me a quick snapshot. We’re climbing aboard as we speak.”
Lazer had never said anything quickly in his entire life, and this would be a real challenge. “I’ll try. . .Married twenty years back, no kids. Divorced ten years later after his wife came home early from a family reunion and found him in bed with a seventeen-year-old freshman. Got that gal pregnant. Parents threatened to sue the school, but finally opted for a quiet abortion. After that, there were two other coeds that made the news, and get this, both had been engaged to Weston. One gal died in a drowning, and tother got run over by a car late one night in the parking lot of a bar. Hit and run. Never caught the killer.”
“Holy shit! I wonder if Heather knows any of this?” The girls were out by the plane waving at her furiously, but she had to hear the rest.
“Looks like he don’t just love ‘em an leave ‘em, he loves’em an kills ‘em. Here’s the worst. There are plenty of rumors he likes the kiddies, if you know what I mean. Lures in runaways with marijuana. Been charged but never prosecuted. He transferred to Georgia some fifteen years ago from California where he had been accused of child molestation. There were no other witnesses or physical evidence, so he convinced the police the girl was confused. Even so, there was a lot of criticism why the eleven-year-old was in his house in the first place. Had no business there.”
“Oh my God!” cried Christina. “My sweet Heather has bitten off more than she can chew. I knew that guy was bad news. Now I’ve got to figure out how to tell her.”
“Well, ya better watch yar six, girl. Think this asshole’s capable of anything.”
All of a sudden she had an eerie feeling, but she didn’t want to ruin their adventure. “I wouldn’t worry, Lazer, at least for now. For the next week, we’ll be a thousand miles away from that slimy bastard. We’ll just deal with Weston when we get back.”
“Okay then, take care a yoreself and have fun. Give me a call sometime. See ya soon.”
She hustled out to the plane and climbed in flustered.
“What’s wrong? You all right?” Jessica asked in a worried tone. “Looks like you just saw a ghost.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Hey, little miss grumpy,” Heather teased. “What’s the matter, gonna miss your big, bad Lazer boy?”
She didn’t answer.
Hank taxied out to the main runway, got his IFR clearance and took off to the east into clear skies. In no time they were flying over beautiful, blue-green water.
“Let me see your map.” Heather motioned to Jessica for the paper she was studying. “I understand the Santo Domingo was carrying a large load of emeralds.”
Jessica filled in the details, “True, and the El Capitan was loaded with several tons of silver bars and gold escudos. The combined value of the bounty is estimated in today’s dollars at $300 million, but, of course, the actual value as artifacts would be several times that.”
Christina was only half paying attention. She tried without success to get her mind off the conversation with Lazer. She felt nauseous. How will I ever tell her?
As they flew over blue-green ocean, she looked out the window and let her mind wander. She felt sure a space vehicle would blast off this very same coastline one day with her aboard. She imagined what it must be like, sitting in the cockpit of the space shuttle when millions of pounds of liquid oxygen and hydrogen ignite. Only a very special few would get that billion-dollar ride, but somehow she knew Christina Matthews would be one of the lucky ones.
This was no space shuttle, but the Piper Saratoga did a fine job climbing to the assigned altitude of 11,000 feet. Billy, a pretty big kid at age fifteen, sat in the right frontseat. He was helping with the radios and GPS.
After a while the conversation died down in the back. As they plowed through light chop, the droning engine lulled Heather and Jessica to sleep. Christina tried in vain to stay awake, monitoring the radio traffic, but soon her eyelids became heavy, and she began to doze. The noise of the plane vanished, and she drifted into an unsettling dream.
A little girl ran across an open field of tall grass. She looked familiar. As an observer Christina was confused. Was she running away from something or toward something? The girl was crying and seemed to be seeking some kind of assistance. She ran and ran, but no one would help.
Flying high over the field, Christina took the form of a giant bird. She
soared in the wind scanning the earth below and focused on the image of a varmint running on the ground. Pulling her wings back, she plunged toward the target. Approaching her victim with lightning speed, she reached out two huge talons and struck her claws deep into the back of its neck. She tried to fly away, but her catch was too heavy. Was it a rabbit, or a little girl? They tumbled down into the field in a cloud of dust. The girl clutched in her talons was waving her arms, screaming in agony. Flexing her claws with great strength, she crushed the victim’s neck, and the screams were silenced.
She stood in the field, now back in the form of a young woman trying to figure out what had happened. Dazed and confused, she yelled, “What have I done?” Lifting her hands up to the sky, buckets of blood poured down both arms and covered her entire body. She looked at the twisted form and saw a familiar face; it was her mother. She screamed, “God help me!”
Christina awoke with a gasp. Dazed and confused, she tried to collect herself when she heard more screaming.
“Pop. . .Pop what’s the matter?” Billy turned wide-eyed toward her. “Something’s wrong. Help me! Please, Pop, wake up! ”
The girls came to life. Shaking his granddad violently, Billy looked terrified.
“Please, please don’t die!”
Limp as a rag, Hank slumped forward onto the yoke. His body weight overrode the autopilot, and the Saratoga nosed in a dive. Thinking quickly, Christina reached over, grabbed the collar of his leather jacket and yanked him back into his seat. The plane started climbing as the autopilot slowly returned to cruising altitude. The usual chatter on the radio was dead silent. She felt for a pulse on both sides of his neck. His skin was cool. The worst possible words escaped her mouth, “He’s dead!”
Grimacing in horror, Jessica and Heather stared at her with a look of What the hell are we supposed to do now?
Christina took control and said, “Let’s not panic. It’s just an airplane, not a bomb. Not gonna blow up or anything. I can fly it, and I know how to contact the ground for help. We have to figure out how to get Hank out of that seat, so I can get up there.” She looked at Hank wondering how to move his large body in such tight quarters. Billy’s face was buried in his hands, sobbing.
“Billy, I need your help. Gotta get up there.”
With a great deal of effort they were able to maneuver Hank over the top of his seat. The limber torso fell in between the girls like a bag of cement. The plane wobbled around under the moving weight. With the center of gravity shifted aft, the nose went up, and the airspeed dropped. Christina sensed the problem and quickly scrambled into the left front seat. With her weight forward, the autopilot smoothed the flight path back on course. She looked all over the cockpit for anything that might help but found none of the usual notes, maps and clipboards a pilot carries.
“Billy, do you know how to fly this thing?”
He obviously couldn’t hear beyond his own wailing, “I can’t believe he’s dead.”
“Listen, Billy,” she said. “I’m very sorry about your grandfather, but we have a serious problem. I’ve got to have your help if we’re going to get down alive. Do you know how to fly this thing?”
He struggled through his emotions. “Sometimes. . .Pop lets me fly. . .but no way. . .no, I couldn’t land it. I just help with the radios.”
“Good, then do you know the frequencies for air traffic control along this route?” Christina asked.
“No,” he replied. “Pop gives me the numbers, and I put ‘em in.”
Apparently, Hank had flown the route so many times, he had no need for clipboards and charts. Christina took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. She scanned the instrument panel, familiar with most of the gauges, but not all. She noted the little plane symbol on the GPS was tracking on course, time to destination one hour and ten minutes. This airplane seemed a lot more complicated than her Cessna 150. The Saratoga had variable pitch prop, retractable landing gear and a three hundred horsepower engine. She located the most critical instruments.
First things first, gotta get control of the airplane. She turned and said, “Billy, do you know where the autopilot switch is located?” she asked calmly.
“Yeah, the two big, white switches over on your left.”
“Very good. Do you know where the landing gear control is?”
“It’s that big round knob by your right hand. You just pull it out and push it down.”
“How about the flaps?”
“The stick on the floor. Pull it up till it clicks.”
“Thanks, Billy, that’s a tremendous help. Remind me to give you a big smooch when we get down.”
Head in hands, he started to cry.
Noting the GPS track, her plan was to leave the autopilot on as long as possible, making an emergency, straight-in approach at Exuma airfield. So what if she didn’t have the radio frequency and couldn’t make contact with the tower. The airport there couldn’t be that busy. She would worry about procedural violations after they were safely on the ground. Even though the Saratoga was a lot bigger and heavier than the Cessna, she felt sure she could put it down, given the ideal weather. The only problem was the haze.
Confident the autopilot would keep the plane on track, Christina got back to the problem of reaching someone to help. Since she didn’t know the frequencies for this region, she just entered random numbers without success. If she could connect with anyone, she’d get the proper frequencies and ask air traffic controllers for assistance. They could vector her to a nearby airfield or send help. Without any response at all, she began to wonder if the equipment was working. She knew that Hank was on an IFR flight plan, and controllers would be frantic to re-establish contact. So she re-entered the last frequency Hank had set in and looked over the vast ocean ahead, praying nothing else would go wrong.
About the time she calmed down enough to remember the universal frequency for emergencies, 121.5, she heard a little roughness in the engine, then a definite sputter. She scanned the panel looking for the “carburetor heat,” but there was none. Unfamiliar with the arrangement of the three levers on the console, she feared adjusting the wrong one and opted to leave them alone. Panic seized her throat as the powerful engine coughed chop, chop-chop, fired a couple more times and then seized, dead silent. She could feel the nose coming up as the autopilot tried to hold altitude. The airspeed was dropping like a bad day on the stock market.
Christina wasn’t the only one who panicked. The girls were screaming bloody murder, and she struggled to stay focused.
“Shut up, goddammit! I’ve got to think.”
The stall warning screeched and made her jump. Christina looked at the airspeed indicator, which was dropping through 70 knots. Forcing her brain into gear, she flipped off the autopilot and shoved the nose down to avoid a stall. The altimeter started to roll counter-clockwise, and the airspeed increased.
“Billy,” she pleaded, “I’m gonna be real busy now. I want you to watch that altimeter and call out every thousand feet.” She tried her best to concentrate and remember her “engine out” training. Furgeson had gone over this many times. Maybe if I say it out loud, she thought.
“Above all, don’t panic.” she said, gulping. “Too late, already busted that one.” She continued down the emergency checklist.
“Rule number one, fly the airplane.” She was doing her best but the visibility was poor.
“Rule two, trim the elevator to a hands-off, descending airspeed that gives the best angle of glide. She didn’t know the proper airspeed for a Saratoga, so she trimmed the nose down to hold ninety knots.
“Rule three, try to start the engine.” She turned on the fuel pump and switched the key to various positions to test the magnetos. Then she grabbed the three levers on the console and moved them back and forth, but nothing helped. The engine remained lifeless.
“10,000!” Billy yelled, making her jump.
“Rule number four, pick a field clear of obstacles.” The haze was pretty thick. Looking bel
ow, she only saw gray.
“9,000 feet!”
“Rule five, get the wind direction and make sure to land into the wind.” Christina didn’t have a clue. They were too high to see white caps.
“8,000.”
She looked at the GPS moving map. There were no airports displayed within the fifty mile coverage of the screen. With a ten-to-one glide ratio at 10,000 feet, her Cessna would glide about twenty miles. But this plane was heavier. She estimated they had a maximum of fifteen miles glide range, about ten minutes before they would be swimming in the Atlantic. Her heart pounded as an image flashed through her mind of four bloody passengers trapped in a broken airplane, descending slowly into the ocean depths.
“7,000 feet.”
“Rule number six, brief your passengers. Everybody listen up. When we get near the water, I want everyone buckled down tight. Place any loose items on the floor. Before we hit, put your head down low, between your knees.” She didn’t want to say the last few words of the rule, usually given in jest: Put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye!
