Charon's landing m-2

by Jack Du Brul

  The only thing keeping him going, the only spark that gave such a miserable experience any meaning, was the hope of stopping Ivan Kerikov. Without that drive, he would have given up long ago. But as his stomach convulsed for the twentieth time, dry hacks that left him sweaty and weak, he knew that he could endure anything to stop the Russian.

  Dawn arrived slowly, silvering the sky in a pearly half light that only hinted at the coming of the new day. Through the wave-slashed windows, the northern coast of the Inlet was a gray-green strip cutting between the dark waters and the sky, the horizon undulating with pine-covered mountains. Rocky hills and nameless streams carved their way to the water’s edge to be ground down by the lunar pounding of Cook Inlet’s harsh tides. It was an uncompromising land, a rugged place inhabited by only the strongest.

  With the coming day, the sea eased some, the great waves giving way to a more gentle swell that rocked the pod but no longer threatened her. Mercer was finally able to leave the hatch open, reveling in the foggy air that cooled his skin and cleared his gummy red eyes. He needed sleep so badly he’d forgotten what it actually felt like. His back was as stiff as a steel rod, his shoulders as tight as staying hawsers.

  He began paralleling the coast, powering toward Anchorage but praying to find some sort of shelter long before that far-off city. There had been no sign of the other lifeboats from the Petromax Omega, but he kept a sharp eye out. To run into one of them now, with only a knife taken from the emergency stores to defend themselves, would mean his and Aggie’s recapture or, more likely, their death.

  To his left, the coast scrolled by in a featureless panorama of rocky beach and towering forests beyond. After twenty minutes, Mercer began to think he’d made a serious mistake. Perhaps he should have gone south to the fishing communities on the Kenai Peninsula. The precious time he’d saved heading north was rapidly being whittled away as he searched for a fishing cabin. The coast gave way to a deep bay, the shoreline curving inward, carving deeply into the land. At the center of the wide-mouthed bay, a river disgorged the last of its summer runoff, white water cascading over rocks before reaching the ocean.

  And on the bank of the river stood a cabin, the rough logs of its exterior weathered by decades of exposure. The cabin was one story with a native stone chimney rising from one side like a parapet and a low tumbling veranda leaning toward the river. It looked like an Appalachian homestead without the amenities, but to Mercer it was the most inviting building he had ever seen.

  He guided the lifeboat shoreward, bucking through the swells that built against the coast, and as he neared the shack, he saw something that made his heart lift. Hidden behind a screen of dwarf spruce trees, a red seaplane was moored where the river met the Inlet, held fast against the swirling waters that licked at its torpedo-shaped pontoons by heavy manila lines.

  If the cabin didn’t have a radio, which he suspected it didn’t, the plane surely would.

  Beaching the lifeboat twenty feet south of the river, he drove it hard against the pebbly shore until it was firmly grounded, then cut the motor. His legs wanted to sway as if he were still on the water, but as he waited, the feeling left slowly, steadying him once again.

  He jumped from the pod, his boots digging into the rocky beach. The morning air was sharp, scented with pine and the low fog that hung just above the treetops. He envied whoever owned the cabin for having such a remote and beautiful getaway.

  Mercer paused to look through the cabin’s filthy windows and saw through the gloom that the cabin hadn’t been occupied for a while. Dust sheets covered the few pieces of furniture and cobwebs hung elegantly from the framed photographs on the stone mantel. From what he could see, the cabin was very primitive. The kitchen consisted of a small sink fed by an iron pump handle and a camping stove. He guessed that its communications would be equally crude. His best hope lay with the plane.

  The airplane, an old Cessna, was in immaculate condition, its paintwork glossy, and when he opened the rear hatch, the interior cargo space was spotless. Mercer guessed that the single-engine plane was left here as a play toy while the cabin’s owner used a newer aircraft or perhaps a motor yacht to reach the camp from Anchorage. Mercer couldn’t believe that anyone would leave such a plane unprotected for the winter, but he was in no position to question the practices of others.

  He ducked into the cockpit, checking for the radios as he settled himself into the pilot’s seat. He scanned the simple instrument package once quickly and then again with more concentration. The space where the radios should have been was an empty hole in the molded plastic dash. She carried no communications equipment.

  In frustration, Mercer beat on the control wheel. He and Aggie were stuck until rescue workers, searching for survivors from the Omega, stumbled upon the cabin. That could take days, long after the Alaska Pipeline had been destroyed by Kerikov and his PEAL allies. Mercer had spent hundreds of hours being ferried to remote mining locations in small aircraft and he watched pilots intently, getting pointers, but he’d never had any formal flying lessons. It was one of those things he’d promised himself he’d do but never found the time for. He cursed himself now for procrastinating.

  The controls before him seemed so familiar, and starting the plane would be a snap, but he wasn’t sure of the proper combination of rudder, yoke, throttle, trim, and fuel mixture that would make the plane fly. But he’d been through too much to give in now. If escaping the oil rig hadn’t killed him, then surely stealing a plane, flying it a hundred miles, and landing it again wouldn’t either, he thought insanely. And as soon as he realized he was going to do it, his stomach was cramped by fear, a paralyzing stab that almost coaxed him out of his decision.

  He concentrated, relying on his near-photographic memory to replay exactly the motions he’d observed so many times before. Upwind, fuel mixture rich, throttle to full, ease back, and you were airborne. It was easy. But landing? The pilots just seem to do it, settle the plane, glide down, and the next thing you know, you’re on the ground.

  Sitting there, he felt as lost as a teenager on the first day of driver’s education. Everything was so familiar, yet bewilderingly complex and frightening. Oh, Jesus.

  And then a new thought struck him, and he smiled. He didn’t have to take off. He could use the floatplane like a boat, letting the Lycoming engine zip them across the waves rather than haul them through the sky. That was something he could handle.

  His newfound self-satisfaction evaporated when he heard the hum of a marine diesel engine far out in the bay. Its distance was hard to judge because of the fog rising from the water, but it sounded like it was heading toward shore. He’d hoped to leave Aggie in front of a fire in the cabin before starting out on his suicidal mission, but that was no longer an option. The engine noises could only mean that Kerikov’s men who’d escaped the Omega were approaching.

  “Mercer Airways flight 666 to Hell now boarding,” he joked as he leaped from the cockpit, running back down the beach to where he’d left Aggie in the escape pod.

  Aggie was still sleeping as he scooped her up, keeping the blankets around her. Shimmying out of the pod, one item caught his eye and he grabbed it.

  “Complimentary beverage service and everything.” He raced back to the Cessna, the bottle of whiskey clutched tightly.

  Mercer laid Aggie in the open cargo section of the plane, securing her to the deck with tie-down straps, then stripped away the vinyl coverings over the pitot tubes. Rather than taking the time to untie the aircraft, he simply cut the ropes with the pilfered knife. He jumped back onto the Cessna as the swift flow of the river grabbed it, pushing it out into the bay. The sound of the approaching motor was much closer, seemingly right on top of them, but still lost in the fog.

  Once seated and strapped in, the daunting task he’d set himself became all too apparent, especially after he turned the ignition key and got no response from the plane’s engine. “Come on, baby, don’t do this to me.”

  He tried again and got no
thing for the second time before remembering to throw the toggle marked Master Switch. Not knowing the exact purpose of the magnetos, he left them set at BOTH and tried the ignition again. The engine kicked over once, died, kicked again, then boomed loudly, a gray spout of exhaust jetting from the motor.

  “All right,” he said aloud.

  He looked at the quivering engine gauges and decided their order of importance quickly.

  “Oil temperature, who cares?

  “Manifold pressure, who cares?

  “Carburetor heat, who cares?

  “Airspeed indicator, too slow.” He opened up the throttles, wincing when one of the cylinders prefired and then settled again.

  In a moment, the plane was heading into the bay, rapidly picking up speed. The twin pontoons carved deep slices in the water. Mercer made sure the fuel was set at Full Rich to give himself the maximum amount of power from the engine. He experimented with the rudder pedals, and the floatplane responded to his commands, turning gently. He tried to estimate where he’d last heard the lifeboat and steer a course around it — for in the fog he was virtually blind.

  Feeling a bit more confident, he dialed the flaps down one notch, increasing the wings’ lift. The plane felt lighter in his hands, the ride smoothing and his speed increasing. He glanced at the indicator and was startled to see they were doing more than seventy knots. The floats skimmed the surface like arrows, and the Cessna felt like it wanted to fly. The plane was steady, but he felt the excessive speed was too much for him to handle, and he reached forward to reduce the throttle.

  Like Leviathan rising from the sea, one of the Petromax Omega’s escape pods appeared out of the fog directly in front of the hurtling aircraft. With just an instant to react, Mercer unthinkingly pulled back on the control yoke, and the Cessna came unglued from the water, flashing only a scant foot above the rounded top of the lifeboat. His first thought was to get the plane back on the water again, but she continued to climb steadily, the safety of the water receding with every passing second. Panic gripped him, and his hands felt like lead weights on the yoke. Oh, shit.

  He purposely lightened his deathlike grip and let the plane settle into its natural environment as it rose through the silvery mist. Fighting his mounting fear, Mercer tried to remember the width of Cook Inlet and the height of the mountains on the other side. But as the plane climbed above three thousand feet, breaking out into clear sunshine, he saw that the mountains of the Kenai National Refuge were too distant to be a threat to the soaring aircraft. He took several calming breaths, wiping a new coat of sweat from his brow, but his heart continued to hammer at his chest. He’d just gotten himself and Aggie into a mess he had no idea how to fix.

  Not giving in to his panic, he started to experiment with the plane. If he was to land them safely, he had to teach himself how to fly before the fuel gauges dropped to empty. Fortunately, the air was calm, and it took him only a few minutes to get used to the quick control response of the Cessna. After ten minutes, he set a course to Valdez and had the plane flying straight and level, throttled to 70 percent power and cruising as if he’d been flying all of his life.

  Like hell.

  In a vain attempt to distract himself from their predicament, he thought about Kerikov and how the Russian would destroy the pipeline. As Andy Lindstrom had said earlier, freezing the oil in the line wouldn’t do it; the steel making up the pipe segments was too thick. But if Kerikov had gained control of the computers that ran the pumps, which Mercer suspected he had through Ted Mossey, he need only wait until the line was mostly solidified and then crank the turbine pumps to maximum. The free oil in the unfrozen sections would create tremendous back pressure when it met the frozen oil plugs, and even with a rated pressure strength of eleven hundred eighty psi, the line could not hold against the combined power of its ten active pump stations. It would split in a hundred different places depending where Kerikov had placed the nitrogen-freezing packs.

  Mercer looked at his watch. If he didn’t get to Valdez and warn Andy Lindstrom about Mossey, Kerikov would succeed. Ignoring the steadily plunging fuel gauge and the near redlines of the engine indicators, Mercer opened the throttles a notch farther, eking out a few more miles per hour. Another twenty minutes dragged by before the Cessna cleared the eastern coast of the Kenai Peninsula and broke out over the waters of Prince William Sound.

  Gently, he banked the plane northward, hugging the coastline. The town of Seward was only four minutes south of their present location, but in his concentration, Mercer had failed to see it nestled between the mountains. He could have landed there and saved himself the ordeal yet to come.

  THE Planetary Environment Action League research vessel Hope had the carnival air of a cruise ship that had just reached some tropical paradise. The crew, all young and idealistic, were toasting their success from bottles of cheap champagne. They were only an hour or two from completing the greatest attack on the industrial polluters in the history of the environmental movement. All of their previous actions — the arson attacks on gas stations, the rallies and fights, the shouted chants, and spray painting of slogans — had led to this moment. And this one had been pulled off so easily that many of them realized that large acts of eco-terrorism were much simpler than the small protests they had been part of before. A few were already talking about their next reprisal against the industrial world.

  Jan Voerhoven stood surrounded by his followers in the Hope’s wardroom, a glass of champagne in his hand, a smile lighting his handsome face. He basked in the mood around him like Caligula before his hand-picked Senate, drawing strength from their adoration. The only shadow in his deep blue eyes was the fact that Aggie wasn’t there to share it with him. He knew the significance of her leaving the ring he’d bought for her. She had meant a lot to him; however, the buoyant celebration helped dispel the loss he was already feeling less strongly. Several unattached women eyed him predatorily, for the rumor of Aggie’s departure had spread quickly.

  One woman — a girl really, no more than nineteen — caught his eye, and when he smiled, she matched his gaze with a frank desiring expression. No, he thought as another champagne was placed in his hand, he would probably have a new bedmate this very night.

  “How much longer, Jan?” someone shouted from the back of the crowded room.

  “Not much more,” he called back, grinning. He had the detonator in his shirt pocket, the slim cellular phone tucked against his chest.

  One deck below the raucous party, Abu Alam was making his report to Kerikov. He’d spent the past three hours in the engine room of the Hope, securing charges of plastique to fuel lines, oil bunkers, and other strategic locations. When they were detonated, there would be nothing left of the research ship but the twisted backbone of her keel. His clothing was filthy, his dark complexion sooty and streaked with oil and grime, and his hands were so black with dirt that they looked gloved. They were alone in Jan Voerhoven’s spacious cabin, Alam’s footprints staining the carpet’s rich pile.

  He gave his report without emotion, dictating the locations of the charges and the fact that he had had to kill three engineers who had come too close to his work. His eyes were flat and hard. Alam contained his excitement with difficulty, trying to remain impassive under Kerikov’s critical stare.

  Is he aware? Alam wondered.

  It would be natural for Kerikov to suspect treachery from Alam — their entire world was created from deception — but he couldn’t tell if the Russian knew it was coming so quickly. Hours now, not days.

  Alam had not thought through his timing yet, for the delicacies of it were somewhat beyond him. He was a soldier, not an officer, and certainly not a strategist. Hasaan Rufti had made it clear that the pipeline must be destroyed and that there could be no possible link between the act and the Minister himself. Eliminating PEAL was a desire of both Rufti and Kerikov; neither of them wanted a group of young idealists bragging of their achievements afterward. But killing the Russian was going to prove far m
ore difficult. Alam had to make certain Kerikov detonated the nitrogen packs and activated the hidden computer program that would rouse the multiple pump stations before killing him with a quick knife thrust or blast from his SPAS-12 shotgun. Ideally, Kerikov would die when Alam set off the explosives secreted throughout the ship, but he didn’t know how to properly time such an occurrence.

  Trust in Allah, Alam reminded himself, and his Prophet will guide you.

  “Very well,” Kerikov cut into Alam’s transparent musings, for the Arab’s duplicity was obvious. “It’s nearly time. The crew should be drunk by now, and once we detonate the nitrogen packs, they won’t notice when we leave the ship. That will give us the window to destroy the Hope. Bring Voerhoven to the bridge. I want to see his face when he realizes what he’s done to his precious environment.”

  The Cessna was a bright speck high over the gray water of Prince William Sound, the plane so high its droning engine couldn’t be heard by a ferry heading eastward from Seward to Valdez. At least that is where Mercer hoped the vessel was heading as he used it as a reference to make his turn slightly north and head up into Valdez Bay.

  Everything was going perfectly — so far. He almost felt comfortable in the pilot’s seat, his hands and feet light but firm on the controls. The terrifying prospect of landing was still a few minutes away. What bothered him most now was the relentless movement of his watch’s second hand as it ground down toward the end. There was nothing he could do to stop it or even slow it. The plane was already at maximum power. The margin to reach the Hope was so thin it was practically nonexistent.

  The great expanse of the Alaska mainland lay before the aircraft, the early morning light giving the vaguest hints of the beauty of the state, its towering mountains and icy streams and huge forests. If he failed, it would become a cesspool of unmanageable devastation. He knew the resilience of nature, what her forces could do to clean the scars left by man’s existence, and while the process was slow by human standards, nature always seemed to recover. But something like what Kerikov was attempting would take generations to heal. Alaska would be ruined well into the twenty-second century.