The two had become a couple since his injury. I’m not sure it was love as much as convenience. They respected each other and were friends, which is probably more than many modern couples have. It was working for them.
But she saw all risk without any reward. If Lucas found someone out there, then what? Would he be able to land and talk with them? And then what? Paradise wasn’t just up the road. Not everyone would fit in the plane. It would take numerous trips to get everyone out.
Or, as Lucas phrased it, it would only take four trips to rescue everyone.
As far as navigation went, Lucas had planned to fly along known roads; however, when he turned on the GPS, it was fully functional. The satellites were in orbit and effectively broadcasting.
This was interesting for me as it suggested our issues were more local. No world at war. No aliens. I know, aliens? I had no explanation for what had happened to so many people or why no one returned after they’d left. I still couldn’t figure it out, but having GPS was a huge bonus. It meant we could take direct flights where we wanted to go and greatly increase how far we could fly and still get back.
I said we because I wanted to go with Lucas. I trusted him to do the hard part of the flying, but I really wanted to see what else was out there. I didn’t believe that the risk was too great. We would do some local flying first in order to learn the aircraft and, most importantly, learn how to take off and land in a safer environment. Amber felt better that I was going, but Madison? Not so much.
The day of the first test flight came, and we were stoked. It was probably the excitement of the flight. Or it could have been the adrenaline rush of imminent death. Regardless, we tried to stay positive.
We practiced while sitting on the apron. Flaps, throttle, air speed, pull back on the stick, ease it forward, back off the throttle a little, retract the flaps, and so on. We finally taxied down to the end of the runway and made a tight turn to face into the wind. I knew we could do it. We had the basics of flight down, but if there was an emergency, we were screwed.
Standing on the brakes, we throttled forward until the engine raced. Lucas let up on the brakes. We started moving forward slowly and then more quickly. The aircraft pulled a little to one side, and Lucas turned the yoke, a little too much. We zigged, and he pulled us back.
We hit our speed, ninety miles per hour, and Lucas pulled back on the yoke. We lifted gently into the air. We stayed in a shallow climb as our air speed picked up. We retracted the flaps and picked up more speed. We then throttled back once we were at five hundred feet and flying southwest toward Fairbanks. We started a gentle turn so we could circle around and try our hand at landing.
We started losing altitude. More rudder. More throttle. We picked up speed and climbed. Our little Cessna made a tight turn, even though we weren’t trying. As we transitioned through the wind, the movements were exaggerated. Lucas needed to compensate by being more deliberate. We flew to a point a mile off the end of the runway and then turned back to line things up. We descended. Too fast. Then we steadied the airplane. We descended a little, then back up, then back down.
Flying wasn’t as easy as it should have been. Push down, you go down. But the airplane wanted to do all kinds of other things.
We lined up with the runway. Everything looked good. We lowered the flaps half-way. We stopped descending. Lucas tried to ease the yoke down, but we stayed level. We pulled back on the throttle a little, and we started to slow down, too much.
Stalling was the worst thing we could do. We gunned it and retracted the flaps. We zipped straight down the runway, about a hundred feet high. We climbed back to five hundred feet.
“Whadda you think? That could have gone better, huh?” I asked, starting to laugh. If we landed, Madison would drag me from the plane and I would never get back into it. Lucas laughed, too. There’s nothing like two idiots teaching themselves to fly a stolen airplane.
The second pass was anticlimactic. We descended on a steady path and dropped our airspeed safely at the end of the runway. We touched down, cut the throttle all the way back, and stopped with a huge safety margin. We gave a thumbs up to our better halves and turned around for another run. Had we stopped, my wife probably would have gotten the finger-across-the-throat signal indicating that if we didn’t die, they’d kill us.
The second take-off and landing were smooth, as were the third and fourth, and, by the fifth time, we no longer had any spectators. That was what we were waiting for. It was now safe to pack it in for the day.
Lucas wanted to thoroughly inspect the airplane. He remembered how everything fit together. He wanted to make sure that nothing had loosened up and that there was plenty of oil and then get an estimate of how much fuel we had used.
I just wanted to go for a swim.
After taxiing up to the avgas pump, Lucas shut it down. We shook hands, and after we got out of the airplane, I gave him a big bear hug. Hope was something that kept men alive far longer than they should have lived. Lucas had given all of us hope with his dream of flying.
THE BIG TRIP
With our touch and gos, everyone had calmed down. Once again, I had underestimated the power of worry. They honestly thought we were doomed. Our first attempt at landing confirmed that belief. Madison was still mad at me after an hour in the pool.
I had truly enjoyed flying around. The next day, we would try to fly to Delta Junction to see what was down that way. If we could land at a small airstrip and refuel, our range would be almost limitless.
We took off in the late morning under a cloudless sky. It was June, and we would have daylight for almost twenty-four hours. The weather was perfect for flying. We stayed at a thousand feet and headed south. Our GPS showed us a straight route over small hills. We could see any obstructions well before we reached them. The GPS gave us an estimated flying time of forty-two minutes. That was about perfect. No matter what happened down there, we had plenty of fuel to fly back. A trip all the way to Tok would require a refueling. We hoped we could find avgas in Delta Junction.
We didn’t know what to expect. I brought along all my “shopping” tools, including the Geiger counter. I also had my trusty .45 and the 45-70 rifle. We had sleeping bags and a tent in case something happened to the plane and we had to hike back. That would be miserable. I patted the dash on the plane, wishing it great health.
We flew over a herd of caribou. The wide-open space was like a nature park, unspoiled by man. No cars were driving. It was warm, so it was doubtful we’d see smoke from a chimney, especially since it was forest fire season. We could see areas of smoke at the extreme range of our vision.
If there was a forest fire close to the resort, our only recourse would be hope. We couldn’t put it out. We could only run from it.
We followed our GPS directly to Delta Junction. The flight was uneventful, which was probably the best thing that could have happened. We didn’t need excitement. The plane was simply a very convenient form of transportation, although it carried a certain amount of risk. As long as everything worked like it was supposed to, we were safe.
We flew toward the Tanana River, north of Delta Junction and then headed south. The airport was on the north side of the small town. As we approached, there weren’t any immediate signs of life, but south of the town, the destruction was obvious. Fort Greely had also been the recipient of a catastrophic explosion.
“I’m not sure we want to land.” I unbuckled and contorted myself to lean into the back and get the Geiger counter. We circled once while I got things ready. “Let’s try a low pass over the civilian airport.”
We lined up on the runway and dropped to a hundred feet as we cruised past. I held the Geiger counter’s probe out the window and didn’t get anything.
“Let’s do a lazy ‘s’ as we head south. If things get hot toward the base, we can come back. I think it’s okay to land.”
Lucas gave me the thumbs up, and he climbed a little before executing the first turn. I checked the Geiger counter.
>
Nothing. We approached closer, and then it started to register. It picked up rapidly as we approached a point that could have been ground zero, right at the front gate. “Get us out of here!”
Lucas firewalled the throttle and climbed, turning back toward the north. “Land?” he asked.
I nodded and pointed to the north side of town. He made one turn and then brought us in for a flawless landing.
Before we got out, I checked the Geiger counter again.
The battery was dead.
ATTACKED
“We were attacked. Attacked by someone who could make nukes,” I said as I thought out loud.
“Wouldn’t we have seen the missiles?” Lucas asked.
I thought about it. They didn’t use missiles. “Low tech, man. They used trucks with a bomb that they detonated at the gate. In Fairbanks, it looked like ground zero was at the main gate off Airport. Here, same thing. What other way would you attack a missile defense base? It’s kind of ironic.”
“But who would do something like this?” Lucas wore an expression of disbelief. Maybe he hadn’t contemplated it. Once past the initial shock of their situation, he had accepted things as they were. Although the world was a turbulent place, I had never thought a direct attack like this was possible. 9/11 was terrible, and it showed what a small, dedicated group was capable of doing. However, this was the use of nuclear bombs in multiple locations. I expected we’d find something similar southwest of Fairbanks, too. That’s why no one returned once they’d left.
I didn’t like our President’s foreign policy. He showed too much weakness, too much vulnerability. America’s job was not to be liked by everyone throughout the world. Other governments would always envy us, and that was dangerous. The danger magnified if they weren’t afraid of us.
“Somebody who hates us enough to destroy what we have. We haven’t seen any signs of soldiers. Maybe there is a front, but it’s a long ways away. Maybe there is no fighting. Who knows how many bombs were delivered right to our front door?” Rhetorical questions never invited a conversation.
“No one’s coming to help us, are they?”
That was the real question wasn’t it? Isn’t that why we took the risk of flying? I thought.
“I don’t know, Lucas. If we were at war, I would have thought there’d be more signs of, well, war! No missile trails heading over the poles to bomb the Russians. Nothing heading west to go after the Chinese. No combat air patrols over Alaska. No military convoys on the roads. Well, not as far as we saw.”
“What do we do now?” Lucas asked.
I was reminded of Bob Dylan. “We keep on keeping on.”
DELTA JUNCTION
We sat and looked at each other. We had already taken a reading, and things looked perfectly safe here. If there was residual radiation, it would be most harmful if we ingested anything. So we tied scarves over our faces and wore gloves, which we would leave behind.
“Don’t kick up any dust. Wouldn’t that be precious if we flew back in just our underwear? What would the ladies think?”
Lucas nodded. We looked around to see where we needed to taxi. It looked like people used the roads to taxi to different parking areas. We went to a small hangar on the north side of the airport.
“Let’s see about the avgas,” he suggested. We parked next to a tanker truck. I tried knocking on the side of tank, but I couldn’t tell if it had gas or not. I climbed on top and opened the cap. It smelled like gas. I waved Lucas over with his hand pump.
We pumped the first bit out on the ground to make sure. It looked fine. And the truck had a good load. We would be able to restock some of our avgas at the resort. We filled our gas jugs, and used them to fill the tanks on the airplane. Lucas had a thought.
“Why don’t we start the truck and use its pump?”
I looked at him, finished pouring my can into the airplane, and then went to the truck.
No keys.
There were a few airplanes in various state of repair and only one building. The hangar side door was unlocked. I went in and looked around. There was an airplane with its engine disassembled. It looked to be the same model as ours, but I couldn’t be sure. I yelled out, “Hey Lucas! Are there any parts you need for the airplane? Any spares you think you might need?”
He came in and looked the plane over. I went to the desk and looked for keys. Nothing. This truck was probably stopping by to top off the tank outside the hangar. Whoever had driven it probably still had the keys on him, wherever he might be.
Lucas settled on a spare battery, which he loaded into the back of our plane.
I didn’t want to stay here any longer than we had to since it could be contaminated. Without the Geiger counter, we couldn’t be sure. We went back to fueling the plane and then got back in, tossing our scarves and gloves on the ground before we closed the doors.
The plane fired right up, and we taxied back to the runway. We looked at each other. I held up my hands in a gesture of “I don’t know.”
“Continue south along the road?” he asked.
“I think we need to be careful. Let’s follow the road, not so high that we won’t see people and not too low in case there’s radiation.”
WE FOUND THE MILITARY
Lucas was getting good at flying the plane. I didn’t need to do anything. Even with his bad hand, he could manipulate the controls. He was a natural.
We stayed low and flew relatively slowly. We looked for signs of life. We didn’t know what else we were looking for. Maybe signs of combat? It was Alaska’s interior, how would foreign troops get here? That wasn’t reasonable. But where had all of our people gone?
We followed the Alaska Highway for twenty miles, then fifty miles. There was a great number of abandoned vehicles along the road, which in my mind was typical of a hurried evacuation. We were all eyes as we looked for any sign. About twenty-five miles out from Tok, we spotted an airport. The GPS said it was Tanacross. I thought if we were to find anything, it would be in the larger city of Tok.
As we approached, we finally saw what I thought had to be there. It looked like a military checkpoint – a number of HMMWV military vehicles, a five-ton truck, a GP (general purpose) tent, and a couple armored vehicles. They looked like U.S. military. Getting closer, we could see people in uniform running to and fro. All of a sudden, a red flare shot skyward in front of us.
Lucas panicked and turned the yoke hard, banking north, away from the checkpoint. As we leveled off, I looked back out my window and could see a machine gun on one of the vehicles firing. “Dive! Go north! Faster!” I yelled.
Lucas took us down as close to the ground as he dared. Once out of the immediate view of the checkpoint, Lucas throttled back. Our engine was running close to the red line.
I came up with a quick plan based on my impression that these were the enemy. We couldn’t have them following us.
“Let’s climb to where they can see us, make the fuel mixture as rich as possible so we start making some smoke and noise, and then we bank hard and dive toward the northwest. We stop the smoke and get on the other side of those hills. Then we follow the valley back up toward Delta Junction. We can refuel there and then get the hell home.”
Lucas embraced the plan and firewalled the throttle to gain some altitude quickly. He richened the fuel mixture, and the engine immediately started sputtering, but it didn’t smoke anywhere as much as we’d hoped. He heeled over using the rudder and then backed off the throttle. We glided downward. We hoped that it looked like we had lost control and had gone in for a rough landing. Lucas adjusted the fuel mixture and gave it enough throttle to keep us airborne. We were running as silently as we could.
It still sounded loud to me.
Into the valley and between the hills we flew. We couldn’t see behind us. We couldn’t see to the sides of us. We could see ahead and a little above us, but that was it. Our priorities had changed from finding people and information to simply surviving the day.
“Do we
have enough gas to make it all the way to the Hot Springs?” I thought it better if we didn’t stop. If they had military vehicles, then they probably had airplanes and helicopters. Military helicopters were faster than we were. If we had to stop, then we’d have to hide and wait for things to blow over.
“We have plenty and a good reserve to boot,” Lucas nodded, determined to get us home.
He was energized by the low-level flying. I hung on for the ride, much of the time spent looking out the windows for any signs that we were being followed. We were really low. I figured we’d find tree sap on the undercarriage, if we made it home alive.
Lucas wasn’t worried. He followed the GPS straight back to the Community. He picked up altitude as we approached so we could improve our descent angle. He brought us in for another smooth landing. He wasn’t even sweating. I was a wreck.
Lucas was energized like he’d just won the Super Bowl. I suspected he had some Honey Badger in him.
HERE FOR THE DURATION
As we all discussed what we’d seen, things didn’t make sense to me. Why was our military firing at us? If they weren’t ours, how did a foreign military get our equipment? Why didn’t they chase us?
It was troubling having more questions than answers. At least we knew that we were cut off. There would be no help until the military issues were resolved.
“What if we’re in a demilitarized zone of some sort?” I thought out loud. “Maybe they weren’t trying to shoot us down, just scare us back inside. We were really close to them. They shouldn’t have missed us. Plus, what about the flare? Why fire that if you’re just going to shoot us down?”
“Why in the hell would they make us stay here? We can’t leave?” Amber was upset. Both she and Madison were happy to see us return, but when they found out we’d been shot at, their demeanor immediately changed. No, we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. I agreed. I had no desire to get shot at again.
Run (End Times Alaska Book 2) Page 3
