The Toymaker

by Chuck Barrett

  He’d never landed a glider at night. For the record, he’d never flown a glider at night. The NVG display made it easier, though. But even with the NVG display, the landing site didn’t look the same. Depth perception was different at night and he was having some difficulty making the adjustment. Unfortunately he didn’t have the luxury of time. He had to do this right the first time.

  He was too low and his airspeed too fast, a combination that allowed him to fix both—once. There was no such thing as a missed approach in a glider, no going around for a second attempt. He had one chance and that was it. He eased back on the joystick and his airspeed slowed, the proper glide path regained.

  He sensed something was wrong. What had he forgotten? He glanced down and noticed his speed across the ground was too fast. Then he realized his mistake. He hadn’t deployed the flaps. Short final approach was no time to forget procedures that important. It hadn’t occurred to him before, even with his flat angle of descent.

  Kaplan deployed full flaps. The affect was a quick increase in lift, which ballooned him well above his desired glide path. The end of the landing site was approaching fast. He was running out of options.

  The glider slowed to the proper airspeed but he was still too high. He had to react or the glider would touch down at the end of the landing site, overrun, and crash.

  Slip.

  That’s what he’d do. He’d slip the glider down. An uncoordinated maneuver that resulted in an excessive rate of descent but might allow him to lose the extra altitude he’d gained with the flaps.

  “Let it work. Let it work.”

  It worked. He lost enough altitude, which allowed him to reestablish the proper glide angle. He did a final check on short final. Speed, check. Altitude, check. Flaps, set.

  Then it happened. An unexpected gust of wind blew up the side of the mountain—ridge lift. He was a hundred feet from the landing site and the updraft had taken him well above any semblance of making a safe landing.

  Kaplan panicked.

  He could think of only one thing, drag. He needed extra drag and a lot of it.

  Kaplan jammed the air brakes full forward. The spoilers on the top of the wings popped up. It was like the glider hit a wall in mid-air. The nose pitched down and the glider dove for the ground.

  Too much. Too much.

  Fifty feet to go. He was descending too fast.

  He glanced at his airspeed. Too slow. If the glider stalled he would crash into the side of the mountain.

  Kaplan retracted the air brakes and felt the glider surge forward. Airspeed increasing. No altitude left, he was at the edge of the landing site. The edge of the cliff. He was going to hit hard.

  Kaplan pulled back on the joystick. Further, further. The nose of the glider pitched up as it slammed into the clay surface. The impact caused him to bite his lip. Warm blood trickled down his chin. He felt something give in the back of the aircraft. The tail groaned then kicked up.

  The nose of the glider plowed deeper into the landing site. The right wing caught the ground and the aircraft pulled to the right. Loose clay sprayed across the canopy as the glider slid sideways.

  Kaplan looked out of the cockpit and saw Jake and Wiley running away from their glider. He was sliding right at them. Not good.

  As the glider skidded, the left wing dug into the clay. The friction slowed his forward momentum but he was still on a collision course for the other glider. He braced for impact.

  A second later the left wing of Kaplan’s glider skidded underneath the other glider lifting the tail five feet in the air.

  The glider stopped, damage done.

  Not only had Kaplan wrecked his glider, he might have damaged Wiley’s other glider as well. He had single-handedly ruined the mission and possibly alerted the entire village to their presence.

  CHAPTER 29

  JAKE AND WILEY ran toward the sailplane, helped Kaplan get out of the cockpit, and sought cover behind an old shed adjacent to the landing site.

  “Do you think you could’ve made a little more noise, Gregg?” Jake studied the surrounding buildings for signs of movement. “You got blood on your shirt.”

  Kaplan ran his hand across his mouth. “I bit my lip.”

  “Mr. Kaplan, what happened?” Wiley asked.

  “A gust from the mountain.” Kaplan said. “I ballooned at the last minute. I didn’t know what else to do but jam on the air brakes.”

  “Gregg, I’ve seen dozens of aircraft accidents.” Jake said. “But that’s the first one I ever witnessed.”

  “Maybe we should trade places, see how well you do.”

  “Quiet. Both of you.” Wiley demanded. “Mr. Kaplan, you made enough noise to wake the dead. I’m afraid someone might have heard and will come investigate. Don’t worry about the aircraft. I’ll take a look at them when it’s safe to move around. For now, keep alert for anyone approaching.”

  “Yes, sir.” Kaplan said. “Sorry about the glider.”

  Wiley motioned for them to stay put then he moved away in a crouching trot.

  “I thought you said you knew how to fly.” Jake turned to Kaplan. “If you can manage to be quiet, maybe we can look around and make sure the coast is clear.”

  “Wiley said stay here.” Kaplan said.

  “Stay here then.” Jake whispered. “I’m looking around.”

  Jake spent the next ten minutes slipping from building to building, shack to shack, looking for any signs of movement. Just as he was convinced they were in the clear, he saw the figure of a woman in a burqa walking down the hill directly toward Kaplan.

  He backtracked in an attempt to approach the woman from behind as she drew closer to Kaplan. The closer she moved toward Kaplan, the closer Jake moved toward her, quarter angling her from behind. He needed to make sure she didn’t cry out for help. They had been lucky so far. No one else showed interest in Kaplan’s mishap with the glider.

  The woman was almost on top of where he’d left Kaplan when he noticed Wiley approaching from the opposite quarter angle. Jake knew Wiley was cutting off any angle she had for escape. She needed to be silenced. Gauging from Wiley’s speed and angle, Jake would reach her only a second or two before Wiley.

  Jake moved swiftly and silently. The woman seemed intent on reaching her destination, not looking from side to side. She was close. Close enough to recognize the gliders in the darkness. He had to make his move now.

  With less than ten steps before he caught her, he broke into a run. The dirt crushed between his shoes and the rock hardened earth—clearly audible with each step. Jake was close enough to grab her when she spun around.

  She pointed a gun at Jake’s chest. It was too late for Jake. There was no avoiding a point blank range shot. He didn’t know whether to dive straight into her or hit the ground. A decision he never got to make.

  As the woman spun around and raised the pistol, a black figure appeared behind her simultaneously clamping a hand over her mouth and removing the pistol from her grip. Kaplan.

  Jake’s heart raced.

  The pistol fell to the ground. Kaplan jerked the headwear from the woman and turned her to face him. Then they spoke.

  Jake was confused.

  Wiley walked over and picked up the pistol. “Is this the woman from Sana’a?”

  “Yes.” Kaplan whispered. “This is Baraka.”

  Wiley handed her the gun.

  “I was near Palace, heard noise. I come make sure nothing wrong.” She pointed at the tangled gliders. “Can still fly, yes?”

  “That remains to be seen.” Wiley said. “Come with me Jake, let’s clean up Mr. Kaplan’s mess.”

  † † †

  Jake and Wiley separated the gliders. Jake pulled Kaplan’s glider free while Wiley lifted the tail of his glider. They worked in quiet synchrony, moving the gliders then inspecting them.

  Wiley’s glider was unscathed. Scratches of no consequence on the tail. Kaplan’s glider was not so lucky. The right wing had been damaged by the wing low im
pact. The left wing tip dented from the slide into the other glider. Neither of which seemed to concern Wiley. He reached into the rear of his glider and pulled out a small leather tool wrap.

  With several adjustments to the right wing, made from inside the cockpit, Wiley had cinched the wing back to its normal position. Then he pulled out a roll of black duct tape.

  Wiley held up the roll. “This, young man, should be in every first aid kit.”

  Jake controlled his laughter. Wiley seemed prepared for everything.

  “I built these aircraft tough.” Wiley explained. “Designed them for rough terrain. Built to take abuse. They’re strong but not indestructible. Fortunately Mr. Kaplan was probably only going about forty miles per hour when he had his first impact with the ground. And since he didn’t hit anything stationary, the damage was minimal.”

  Wiley pointed toward the cliff. “Now let’s line them up and ready them for takeoff.” Wiley said. “Then we’ll grab our gear and go retrieve Ms Hunt.”

  Jake and Wiley pulled the aircraft in line for their eventual takeoff, Kaplan’s glider first followed by Wiley’s. Wiley reached into the cockpit of his glider and flipped a switch, a retractable motor and propeller popped up from the tail of the aircraft.

  “If we had motors,” Jake said. “Why the hell did we have to use those crazy jet bottles and then have to worry about making it to this town?”

  “These retractable engines are electric and totally silent.” Wiley explained. “Battery power for these aircraft is the one area I had to scrimp on. Batteries are heavy and I couldn’t afford to put on any more weight by using longer lasting batteries.”

  “But if we weren’t going to make this landing spot, we would have used them, right?” Jake asked.

  Wiley said nothing.

  “Right?”

  “No, Jake.” Wiley said. “The use of these before takeoff from here was never an option. We either made it on the JATO bottles or we didn’t. Their use is mission critical and only to be used strictly for takeoff and enroute to our rendezvous point.”

  “So you would have let us crash land…at night, in this God forsaken part of the world?”

  “If we couldn’t make this spot, then yes Jake, I would have force landed away from our destination.”

  Jake followed Wiley to Kaplan’s glider. Again, Wiley reached into the cockpit and flipped a switch. The retractable motor and propeller popped loose but failed to extend.

  “Not good.” Wiley said.

  “What is it?” Jake asked. “Why didn’t the motor come up?”

  “Apparently Mr. Kaplan’s landing has jammed the mechanism.” Wiley grabbed his tool bag. “We’ll have to pry it loose. If we can’t get this to retract, it will critically reduce the aircraft’s gliding distance.”

  “Then what?” Jake asked.

  “Then we won’t make our rendezvous point.” Wiley said. “We’ll have to land before our destination and hoof it out. But that isn’t our biggest obstacle.”

  “How could it get any worse?”

  “We might lose our cover of darkness.”

  CHAPTER 30

  JAKE CHECKED HIS watch for the fourth time in ten minutes, 3:59 a.m. local time. Wiley had been working on the retractable electric motor mechanism for twenty minutes. They were getting further and further behind schedule. According to Wiley’s initial timeframe, they should be entering Hajjah Palace at this very moment, but the old man refused to split the team up and send him ahead to start setting up the RTI.

  Kaplan had been helping Wiley with the glider, offering an apology every few minutes. Jake could see Wiley’s frustration. The man was used to success. His missions ran smooth because of his keen insight and attention to detail. Wiley worked at a feverish pace wiping the sweat from his forehead. Jake noticed even the plunging temperatures of the cold night air wasn’t enough to calm Wiley’s exterior. For the first time, he noticed Wiley’s cool demeanor starting to deteriorate.

  “There.” Wiley said. “It’s the best I can do.”

  “The best you can do?” Kaplan asked. “Does that mean it’s fixed?”

  “It’ll have to do. The motor is up and locked into position and functioning. You’ll have power for takeoff and climb out. The arm won’t fully retract so there will be a drag issue to contend with later. The mechanism will travel about halfway provided you don’t drain the battery. So try not to run it dry before we get to altitude.” Wiley patted the tail of the glider. “You wrecked it. You fly it out.”

  “I’ll make it work, sir.” Kaplan tried to sound confident.

  “You two gear up. Grab the equipment bags. Baraka and I will get a head start,” Wiley said. “We’re running out of time so we need to hustle.”

  Jake stared at the fading lights of the Palace as a blanket of fog settled onto the mountaintop, they could use the reduced visibility to their advantage, he thought. Three men wearing backpacks followed Baraka through the unlit streets of the mountaintop village of Hajjah. Stealth was important, as was silence. They were lucky that Kaplan’s glider mishap didn’t disturb any of the village’s residents. Looking up, the Palace entrance was only six hundred feet from the landing site. Almost three hundred feet of that was vertical which meant climbing several tiers of switchback roads. A much longer hike.

  Jake glanced at his watch as they approached the Palace. Another twenty minutes gone. He was winded and breathing heavy. He could hear Kaplan doing the same. Wiley and the woman didn’t seem fazed by the uphill trek or the thin atmosphere.

  By the time they reached the stone wall surrounding the Palace, the fog had reduced the visibility to less than fifty feet. Glancing down from the hilltop, the landing site and the gliders were no longer visible.

  “Jake, grab the RTI bag and let’s set it up.” Wiley whispered.

  “On it.” Jake replied.

  “RTI?” Kaplan said to Jake. “What the hell’s he talking about?”

  “Radio tomographic imaging. After I set up the nodes…” Jake held up four small knobby balls. “…Radio transceivers, we’ll be able to see, identify and track everything in the Palace.”

  “That’s impossible.” Kaplan said.

  “You Army boys don’t know much.” Jake said. “I used the system at Wiley’s lab in Belgium. It works. And it’s cool.”

  “Is there anything the old man can’t do?” Kaplan asked.

  Jake smiled. “I don’t think so.”

  “I can’t bring someone back to life after they’ve been shot for talking too loud.” Wiley interrupted. “Your voices carry. Now shut up and get to work. Jake, go place the nodes around the palace. Quietly.”

  Wiley turned to Kaplan. “Stay here. I’ll show you how this works as the nodes come online.”

  † † †

  Kaplan watched as Wiley fired up the mini-computer monitor and activated a program icon he’d never seen before. The dark screen showed a small bar graph and the words “SEARCHING FOR NODES.”

  “Now pay attention.” Wiley said. “As Jake positions each node, the bar graph will give us signal strength.”

  Kaplan watched as four bars relayed signal strength to Wiley’s computer terminal. Then the words “BUILDING CARTOGRAPHY” appeared.

  “What’s it doing now?” Kaplan asked.

  “It sends radio waves throughout the Palace and gathers data. This takes about two minutes then it will build a 3D image of the interior of the Palace.” Wiley pointed to another small icon in the upper right hand corner of the monitor. “After it builds the architectural database, I’ll tell it to image life forms. Then we’ll locate and tag everyone in the Palace. If anything moves that isn’t a life form then the computer will adjust and annotate.”

  “How does something that’s not alive move?” Kaplan said.

  “Think about it, Gregg.” Wiley said. “Anything inanimate that isn’t moving when the database is built will show up as fixed…a permanent part of the structure, like a desk or a box. But say some one moves the box. The compu
ter will compensate and tag it by changing the box’s color denoting it as movable.”

  “And you invented all this?” Kaplan asked.

  “No.” Wiley said. “Just substantially improved it.”

  Baraka stepped over and pointed to the monitor. “Is Hajjah Palace. I have been there before.”

  “That’s good.” Wiley said. “Because when we locate Ms Hunt, you’ll have to lead them to her.”

  Wiley clicked the “LIFE FORM” icon. The words “THERMAL SCAN IN PROGRESS” popped up in the center of the screen.

  Kaplan studied the monitor.

  “THERMAL SCAN COMPLETE.”

  “IMAGING LIFE FORMS.”

  Kaplan watched as the computer populated the 3D image with depictions of every living body in the Palace. “Now what?”

  “Now comes the hard part.” Wiley said. “We have to figure out which one of these is Ms Hunt, tag her as friendly and then tag the rest as unfriendly.”

  Jake returned with the empty RTI bag. “I see you’ve already imaged.”

  “Looking at this,” Wiley said. “We have six life forms. The two outside we know are sentries. Which leaves three unfriendly and one friendly inside. So who is who?”

  “I help.” Baraka pointed to the ground floor on the monitor. “No place here for hostage. All open space. Like museum. Two on bottom are guards. They have guns.”

  “Then I’ll tag these as unfriendly as well as the sentries out front.” Wiley clicked and each life form turned red and was designated with a number. “Which means one of these two is Ms Hunt.”

  “Well that’s easy then.” Jake said. “One image is in a hallway here.” Jake pointed to an image on the second floor. “The other is inside a room. That has to be Isabella. They wouldn’t leave her in the hallway.”

  Wiley tagged the other life forms, one red, and the other green. “Now when you enter the compound.” He pointed at Kaplan and then to Jake. “You go first and Jake, you go second. I have to tag you as well so I don’t turn you the wrong way. Baraka will already be in the compound distracting the sentries and I’ll have tagged her by the time you two enter.”