Mayday at Two Thousand Five Hundred

by Frank Peretti

  Jay could only be sure of one thing: all this motion, real or not, was making him sick, and not just kind of sick. He was way past kind of sick and tumbling headlong into seriously sick with no hope of putting it off any longer, much less recovering. The fresh air blowing in the open window no longer helped. Sitting still and relaxing no longer helped. The sound of his father’s voice could no longer calm his stomach or bring clarity to his mind.

  I’m going to lose it, he thought. I’m going to conk out. In a last desperate move, he returned the autopilot knob to center, wings level.

  Then a deeper kind of darkness settled over him and he slumped over, his head drooping, his chest suspended against the shoulder restraint. The noise of the airplane ebbed from his consciousness along with all the pain.

  Dr. Cooper saw Jay slump over. “Jay! Jay, come in!”

  There was no response.

  Dr. Cooper grabbed his binoculars and got a closer look at his son. “Oh no. He’s out, Brock. He’s passed out.”

  Brock took back the binoculars from Dr. Cooper and focused on Jay. He pressed his talk button and called, “Jay! Jay, come on now. Snap out of it. Heads up.”

  The boy didn’t stir or respond.

  Brock looked at Dr. Cooper, who could only return his horrified expression. They both knew what this could mean.

  Skylane Eight Yankee Tango continued westward at four thousand feet, straight and level on autopilot, and with both occupants unconscious. Up ahead were the Olympic Mountains; beyond them, the Pacific Ocean.

  And now there was no way to turn The Yank around.

  FIVE

  Ben Parker listened to Dr. Cooper’s report with a stony grimness. “Roger, Niner Zulu Mike, we copy that.”

  There was a deathlike silence in the control tower. The other controllers had heard Dr. Cooper’s report and were stunned. Finally, Bob Konishi voiced the question they were all wondering, “So what now?”

  Parker asked Barbara Maxwell, “Which way is it heading?”

  Maxwell glanced at her radar screen. “Course is two six five.”

  Josie Fleming was already unfolding an aviation chart and spreading it out on her desk. “Course two six five,” she repeated, laying a plotter on the chart and drawing a line to indicate the airplane’s path. “Ninety knots . . . one and a half hours of fuel. . . .”

  Parker came up to her table to have a look. “What about those mountains?”

  Josie Fleming ran a nervous finger over her hair and whistled a quiet sigh. “At four thousand feet it’ll be close. The plane’s flight path passes close to some mountains of more than five thousand feet. If he misses those peaks, he’ll continue out until he’s over the ocean.” She took out a calculator and tapped in some numbers. “About sixty miles beyond the coastline, to be more exact. He’ll be in international waters.”

  Parker shook his head. Fleming continued, “It all depends on how straight Yankee Tango flies. I don’t think they had the boy set the autopilot to hold a heading, but just to keep the wings level. All it takes is a gust of wind or some turbulence to nudge that plane to a different course.”

  “And hit the mountains,” Parker stated.

  “Either that or crash in the ocean.” Sorrowfully, Fleming shook her head. “If somebody in that airplane doesn’t wake up, I guess it won’t matter which one happens.”

  Brock and Dr. Cooper kept following alongside Eight Yankee Tango, praying, watching for any stirring inside the cabin, and wishing there was something else they could do.

  “Wish I could walk over there, open that stupid door, and climb in and fly that thing!” Brock said in frustration and anger.

  Dr. Cooper could see the Olympic Mountains looming ahead. He switched to the tower radio. “Boeing Tower, any ideas? We are rapidly approaching the mountains.”

  Ben Parker was pacing around the control room, thinking, scowling. “Stand by, Zulu Mike, we’re working on it.”

  Bob Konishi let out a loud sigh, tapping his desktop impatiently. “Working on what?”

  Parker was angry. “Options, Bob, options! Let’s go through our options and if we have to come up with more, we will. There must be a way to keep the plane from hitting the mountains.”

  “Or landing in the ocean,” Fleming added.

  Parker shot a glance at Fleming. “Suppose it does land in the ocean. What are the chances of survival?”

  “None,” she responded. “Right now the plane’s trimmed for ninety knots. That’s the speed at which it’ll hit the water, steeply nose down. Upon impact it will either nose over, cartwheel, or both. In any case it’ll disintegrate and the passengers won’t survive.” Her face sank into a genuinely remorseful expression. “And even if we could somehow make a controlled landing, these planes don’t float. There’s a real question whether the occupants would be strong enough to escape the cockpit before the airplane sinks. We know the pilot won’t be able to get out unless he wakes up. As for the kid, who knows what condition he’s in?”

  Konishi concluded, “The Coast Guard is ready with a chopper, but all they can do at this point is follow the plane, wait for it to crash—wherever it crashes—and then do what they can.”

  Parker’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the room. “Okay, let’s reach a bit. Think of something outlandish. It could still work, you never know.”

  “Okay,” said Konishi, “how about lowering a pilot from another airplane?”

  “It’s a high-wing light aircraft,” Fleming objected. “ The doors are under the wing. The guy being lowered couldn’t get to them. Besides that, if you open a door on a plane that size, the door becomes a rudder and throws the plane sideways. Then there’s the problem of the two front seats being full of bodies. How’s the guy going to pack himself in there?” Exasperated, she added, “And finally, he’d be only a few feet from a spinning prop that could cut him to pieces if a gust of wind wiggled him or the airplane the wrong direction. . . . Oh, and after that, the prop will be ruined and the plane will crash.”

  “So, forget the pilot. Just lower a hook or something and grab the airplane out of the sky.”

  Fleming thought Konishi was kidding. “Oh yeah,

  right!”

  “No, now wait a minute.” Parker said, raising his hand. They all stopped to listen. “That could be it. A chopper with a skyhook, a sling, something to grab the airplane, maybe lasso it around the tail section.”

  Fleming was about to object, but stopped short.

  “How about it, Fleming?”

  She gave half a shrug. “Might work. Tons of risk, though. A light plane is pretty small up there in the sky. You couldn’t just lasso it. Somebody would have to be lowered on a harness to attach the sling, encountering the risks we’ve already mentioned. Meanwhile, the rotor wash from the chopper could throw the plane out of control. And then, as far as attaching anything to the tail section, it would have to be done without touching the tail fin or stabilizer. Any force or weight from a full-grown body back there would be enough to throw the airplane completely out of control. And if you want the sling around the tail section, that will probably damage the airplane so it would not be able to fly.”

  “So we’ll only get one shot at it,” Parker said grimly.

  She leaned back and thoughtfully tapped her desk with her pencil. “Once that sling goes around the tail section, there’s no turning back. Keep in mind the plane’s engine is still running. If the chopper can snag the Skylane, it’ll have a live fish on the line, buzzing around in circles and pulling. But if the chopper can handle that—”

  Parker slapped his desktop.“I say it’s worth a try. Bob, get the Coast Guard on the phone. Tell them we need their biggest chopper and somebody’s who’s crazy enough to try it.”

  Dr. Cooper consulted his aeronautical chart. “That peak up ahead is five thousand fifty-four feet. The one beyond it is four thousand nine hundred sixty feet.”

  “We’re at four thousand two hundred fifty, right now,” said Brock.

  “Jay,
wake up,” Cooper radioed. But Jay remained slumped against the window.

  “Well, you never know,” said Brock. “Yankee Tango might pass to one side of those peaks.”

  “Oh Lord, make it happen,” Dr. Cooper prayed.

  It was a different sensation having the ground come up to meet them instead of descending to the ground themselves. Below them, the mountain slopes began to rise and the treetops began to pass under them closer and faster. Straight ahead, the view of a forested ridge filled the windshield.

  Brock finally pushed in the throttle. “We’ve got to climb or we won’t make it over that thing.”

  Dr. Cooper craned his neck to keep The Yank in sight. He could see it below them now, purring along at a steady altitude, heading for the ridge.

  Aboard Eight Yankee Tango, Rex Kramer sat motionless, chin on his chest, the victim of a severe concussion, while Jay Cooper remained slumped over in a faint. The altimeter indicated four thousand three hundred feet. The very tops of tall firs and hemlocks began to appear now and again outside the windows as the mountain rose up beneath them. The airplane began to wobble in air rippling like stream water over the ridge. The ground below reached to four thousand feet, then climbed to four thousand two hundred. Now the tallest treetops nearly brushed The Yank’s wheels.

  The fact that Eight Yankee Tango was coming nose to nose with a mountain ridge was not wasted on the news reporters in the choppers. The reporter riding in Channel 11’s helicopter spoke rapidly in a strained, high-pitched voice, “This does not look good . . . it does not look good. The aircraft is flying too low to clear that ridge. We might have a crash any moment. It does not look good!”

  Joyce and Lila kept watching, praying, their eyes glued to the TV screen.

  Aboard Niner Zulu Mike, both Dr. Cooper and Brock Axley held their breath as they watched Eight Yankee Tango skimming over the ridge, approaching the crest.

  “Come on, come on,” said Dr. Cooper, “you can make it.”

  There were tall trees ahead and just to the right of The Yank’s path. To the left, the ground dropped away and there was a treeless field of crumbled rock.

  “That rock field,” said Brock. “Fly over the rock field!”

  Eight Yankee Tango skimmed over the top of one grove of trees, its prop wash making the branches quiver. A rocky outcropping passed close under the right wing, a stubby tree under the left.

  Straight ahead, a stand of tall hemlocks formed a deadly wall along the crest of the ridge. The Yank kept flying headlong toward them. Jay remained unconscious, with no idea that trees and sharp stones were passing by at ninety knots only a few feet below him.

  The reporter in the chopper spoke into his microphone while speaking to the plane, “Come on, come on, don’t crash now!”

  Aboard Niner Zulu Mike, Dr. Cooper grasped the edge of the instrument panel with such a fierce grip that his fingernails made permanent marks.

  Yankee Tango shuddered as a flow of air moved up over the sun-warmed rocks and boiled under its right wing. The wing raised for a moment. The nose moved to the left. The autopilot leveled the wings again. The top of a low pine gently slapped the left wheel. The plane fishtailed to the left.

  The wall of hemlocks came up on the right as the airplane’s shadow raced over the rocks. The hemlocks were only inches from touching the wheels. The propeller was kicking up dust. Chipmunks ran for cover. The right wing clipped the tip of a branch, slipped between two more, and passed over a low scrub.

  “Don’t crash, please don’t crash!” Dr. Cooper hissed through clenched teeth.

  The reporter in Channel 11’s helicopter held his microphone in a white-knuckled grip, so tense he had no words.

  The Yank’s right tire touched the tip of a rock, raising a tiny puff of dust. The right wingtip passed by one last tree, so close that the tree shuddered.

  And then the airplane cleared the ridge. The ground, the rocks, the trees all dropped away far below. Eight Yankee Tango was flying in open sky once more.

  And Dr. Cooper fell back into his seat, limp with relief, shaking.

  “Yes!” the reporter on chopper seven shouted.

  “He made it!” said Channel 4’s reporter.

  “More time now for Skylane Eight Yankee Tango as the world watches,” mused the man on Channel 11.

  Joyce and Lila suddenly found themselves embraced and touched by a tangled web of arms and hands. The people in the lounge were all breathing again.

  “That was the quickest touch-and-go I ever saw,” Brock quipped.

  Dr. Cooper laughed, and it felt good.

  Then, suddenly, Brock exclaimed, “What in the world?”

  “On no,” yelled Dr. Cooper. “Now what?”

  Brock pointed to the south. Dr. Cooper’s eyes grew wide.

  Closing in from the south was something more than just a helicopter. This had to be the biggest, ugliest machine available, with two black rotors whirling and wop-wop-wopping overhead and a massive, bigbellied fuselage painted orange and white. It looked like some oversized mutant insect from a monster movie, big enough to pick up a house.

  “The Coast Guard!” Dr. Cooper exclaimed.

  Right on cue, the Boeing tower called. “Niner Zulu Mike, you have additional traffic at eight o’clock, same altitude, a Coast Guard helicopter. Help’s on the way.”

  Brock responded, “Roger, we have traffic,” then just kept staring. “What in the world are they going to do?”

  Dr. Cooper pressed his talk button and asked, “Uh, Boeing Tower, just what are the chopper’s intentions?”

  Ben Parker was waiting as Johnny Adair set up still another television in the control room so the controllers could see what was going on. “Niner Zulu Mike, the Coast Guard is going to try to snag Yankee Tango with a cable and winch. Give them plenty of room and hope that all goes well.”

  Aboard chopper Two Zero Bravo, pilot Abe Weinstein radioed back, “Roger, Two Zero Bravo in position and ready to proceed.” Then he switched to the chopper intercom. “Okay, Carson, whenever you’re ready.”

  In the deep belly of the chopper, Lieutenant David Carson, Coast Guard career man, zipped up his heavy flight suit, fastened his helmet strap, and double-checked the harness and cable by which he would be lowered to the Skylane. The big side door was open. A ninety-knot blast of air was roaring around through the chopper’s insides. Two hundred feet below them and trailing behind was the 182, close, but frighteningly small, like a model airplane, rocking just a little from the downblast of the chopper’s blades but otherwise holding a steady course. Below the Skylane, the distant treetops of the Olympic rainforest moved slowly backward.

  “How’s it looking, Billings?” he asked through a helmet radio.

  Seaman Tommy Billings was the winch man. He was standing at his post by the open door, his heavy flight suit and helmet protecting him from the wind. He was preparing a second cable with a large loop in the end resembling a cowboy’s lasso. “Just like the rodeo, only this steer’s flying.”

  Carson was putting on a parachute, just in case.

  “So we’ll see if I make a very good cowboy.”

  “That Skylane’s bucking a bit. You won’t be able to get real close.” Carson stood at Billings’s side and looked down at the small white-winged airplane. He could see it swaying a little, dipping, wagging. Billings clipped the cable lasso to Carson’s belt.

  “I’ll lower you down as close as I can. When you’re ready, loop this around the tail section and then we’ll pull you out of the way. The instant the cable tightens around that bird it’s going to fight us like a trout on a hook. You don’t want to be anywhere near it,” Billings said.

  Carson stepped to the threshold. “Okay, let’s go.” He stepped out into the wind, swinging free on the end of the cable. With a little wave of good-bye and good luck, Billings started lowering him to the plane.

  “There he is!” someone in the lounge shouted, and everyone leaned toward the television screens as Carson’s small body appe
ared out of the belly of the huge chopper then began dangling at the end of a cable. His body was quickly swept back behind the chopper by the wind.

  Brock and Dr. Cooper watched without a word. Dr. Cooper could feel the uneasiness, the pure terror of this moment. Yet, at the same time he felt a sense of awe to see such courage.

  Carson felt like a kite in the wind, his flight suit fluttering in the blast, the wind a dull roar outside his helmet. He found he could direct his body slightly to the left or right by extending his arms and legs like a sky diver, and the longer the cable got, the bigger a swing he could accomplish. He could not see the Skylane. He was facing forward, and it was down there somewhere behind him.

  “How far to go?” he radioed Billings.

  “You’ll see it right below you any second,” Billings replied. “We’re trying to keep you above that prop.”

  “I appreciate that.” Just then, the nose of the airplane appeared below his feet. “Okay! I’ve got the nose right under me, about twenty feet down. Keep bringing me back.”

  As the cable played out and Carson watched, the airplane seemed to advance under him, the prop a blurring, spinning disk on edge. He could hear the hiss of the knife-edged propeller blades. Next he could see the windshield, and the legs of the two injured occupants inside. “Yeah, I can see some blood on the boy’s legs, and there’s some blood on the windshield in front of the pilot.” Now he was above the white wings, so close he could read the little placards next to the fuel caps: 100 LL Only. The wings were rocking and wagging a little, upset by the chopper’s rotors.

  “Okay,” he radioed, “almost to the tail section.”

  He continued to move steadily backward and downward until the tail section was directly below him. “Okay, I’m there. It’s about ten feet below me. And it’s moving, all right. It’ll be like trying to rope a wild horse.”

  Carson was used to dropping down to rescue people off sinking boats, but usually the boats weren’t moving, there was no ninety-knot wind, and the cable was straight up and down. In this case everything was moving, and in the rotor wash of the chopper and the blast of the oncoming wind, both the Skylane and Carson were being tossed around like two wild kites. First the tail section was directly below him, then it moved off to his left, and then to his right. All the while it was bucking up and down in a frightening, unpredictable manner. It was like stalking a two thousand pound butterfly, wondering if it would ever hold still so he could catch it. He grabbed the cable lasso and unclipped it from his belt, holding it in his right hand.