by David Freed
“Your aircraft’s been relocated to an enclosed hangar for closer inspection,” he said, shaking my hand. “We can take my car.”
“Lead on.”
We climbed into a white government sedan, unmarked but for its FAA license plates. Horvath drove fifty feet to a chain link gate, swiping his ID card on the computerized badge reader and punching in a security code. The gate lurched open, beeping. After we drove onto the tarmac, he waited until the gate automatically slid closed behind us, then continued on toward a line of corrugated aluminum hangars that fronted the runway, not far from where the Duck and I had gone down.
“Your plane’s in there,” Horvath said, pointing to the westernmost hangar. “What’s left of it.”
I’d sat through more than a few postmortem examinations when I was with Alpha. You get used to them after awhile, even the stench, when you realize that the body on the autopsy table is there because you’d helped put it there, and because the individual it once belonged to posed a threat to national security. Dispassion comes easy when you watch a genuine bad guy being sliced and diced. But the Ruptured Duck was no bad guy. Inanimate object or otherwise, he was one of my best friends, who’d gotten me out of more scrapes than I cared to remember. Having to observe a clinical assessment of his remains by some federal paper-pusher like Horvath was hardly something I was looking forward to. Neither of us said another word as Horvath drove toward the hangar and stopped in front of it.
A padlock secured a side door. The FAA man dialed in the combination, then stepped inside to undo a couple of hinged bolts holding down the hangar’s bifold door. He pushed a button, engaging an overhead motor, and the big door slowly began to lift, like a metal curtain on a stage.
There sat the Duck, scraped and streaked with oil, his right wing crumpled, tail assembly smashed, miscellaneous pieces strewn about the hangar floor. They’d turned him right side up, back on his landing gear, but it only made my dead plane look even deader. Something caught in my throat and I could feel my eyes getting moist.
“I’ve seen far worse,” Horvath said, resting a hand on my shoulder.
“Me, too. At the glue factory.”
“This is what I thought you might want to see.” He strode toward the engine compartment. The cowling cover had been removed. “Your engine breather line was plugged,” Horvath said, holding up a short length of black rubber hose. “You applied full throttle, as you normally would at takeoff. But with the line plugged, pressure inside the engine built up, the crankcase seal blew, and there went all your oil. No oil, no engine. Simple as that.”
“You’re implying that I should’ve checked the breather line during my preflight inspection. Which means I’m at fault.”
Horvath smiled reassuringly. “No pilot would be expected to check his breather line on a preflight inspection, Mr. Logan. It’s too deep inside the engine compartment to get at readily. Besides, you’d have to open up the tube itself to check for obstructions. The only person who’s going to do that is your mechanic when the plane goes in for its annual inspection.”
“So, you’re saying it wasn’t my fault?”
“That would be my supposition at this point.”
I exhaled. “Then what caused the obstruction? That engine was overhauled a month ago. I’ve logged fifty hours since then without so much as a hiccup.”
Horvath’s eye twitched. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a plastic baggie. Inside was a small wad of duct tape.
“I found this inside the line,” he said, stuffing the oily gray wad into one end of the hose to show me how snugly it fit. “Whoever put it in there must’ve done it intentionally.”
“You’re telling me that somebody tried to sabotage my plane?”
“Not tried, Mr. Logan, did. That’s off the record, of course. We’re not allowed to discuss any findings until our investigation is completed. But I did think you’d want to know at least preliminarily.”
My eye began to twitch like Horvath’s, and I don’t have any tics. It was one thing to come after me by trying to bring down my airplane. It was quite another to do so without regard for the safety of my passengers, or for innocent people on the ground who also could’ve died. A rage burned through me like magma.
“Any idea who might’ve wanted to do something like this?” Horvath asked.
“I’ll have to get back to you on that one.”
You don’t spend as many years as I did hunting rabid humans without rankling more than a few bent on payback. No names or faces, however, came readily to mind. Was there a link between that wad of duct tape jammed inside my engine and the execution of Dorian Munz? Had somebody tried to kill me because I’d somehow stuck my nose where it didn’t belong in the employ of Hub Walker? My gut told me as much. There were a couple of things I knew with certainty at that moment, staring at the pathetic wreck of my airplane. One was that I intended to find whoever was responsible. The other was that I intended to hurt them. Granted, not a very Zen-like sentiment, but had the Buddha ever flown a plane like the Ruptured Duck, I’m sure he would’ve understood.
Horvath noticed my right hand. I had unconsciously balled my fingers into a fist.
“Looks to me,” he said, “like somebody’s spoiling for a dogfight.”
There’s an expression among fighter jocks that described what I was feeling, the adrenaline-fueled determination to close with the enemy and destroy him. They call it, “Fangs out.”
“You’re aware, Mr. Logan,” Horvath cautioned, “that this may well be a matter for law enforcement.”
“Whatever you say, Mr. Horvath.”
He nodded as if he understood the vengeful thoughts bouncing around inside my head, then turned away to survey the Ruptured Duck. I could see he was anxious to get back to his postmortem. I didn’t much feel like watching, and started to go. Horvath offered me a lift back to the parking lot, but I declined. The stroll would help calm me.
“You can’t just walk around an airport you’re not based at without an escort or proper credentials,” Horvath said. “There are security considerations, Mr. Logan. You’re a certified flight instructor. You should know that.”
“What’s the worst thing the FAA could do, ground me? I’m already grounded.”
He didn’t try stopping me.
I CALLED Savannah as I walked back to the terminal building. There was no answer. I hung up without leaving a message. I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to her, anyway, not in the mood I was in. Then my mechanic, Larry, called from Rancho Bonita. He, too, had caught my inadvertent appearance on television news.
“Please tell me that wasn’t your definition of a landing.”
“Whatever happened to, ‘Hello, Logan, I thought I’d check in to see if you’re alive or dead?’ ”
“If you were dead, you wouldn’t have answered your phone.”
“What do you need, Larry?”
“What do I need? I need my daughter to stop dating losers, that’s what I need. I need my wife to stop talking for five minutes when I come home from work—just five lousy minutes—so I can enjoy one lousy beer before she starts in on everything that needs fixing around the house, and why she’s feuding with that witch down at the nail salon. What do I need? I need to drop a hundred pounds. I need to be rich. I need peace of mind.”
“You should try becoming one with everything.”
“What is that, some of your Buddhist bullshit?”
“It means try loving your life, Larry, warts and all. But I’m guessing that’s not why you called. So, before you ask me, no, I have not yet seen Crissy Walker naked, though I did see her in a bikini, and she looks as good as you think she looks. So you can go ahead and eat your heart out right now.”
Did he appreciate vicariously my sharing with him firsthand observations of the former Playmate in her swimsuit? No question. But that wasn’t why Larry was calling.
“From what I saw on TV,” Larry said, “your insurance agent is gonna want to total out the plane, cut
you some lowball check and call it a day. But that airplane, Logan, is your livelihood. And, besides, I know how much you care about the piece of junk—like it’s your little buddy or something.”
“What are you telling me, Larry?”
“I’m telling you to tell your insurance agent to stick it when he gets out his checkbook. Tell him you’ll take him to court if he doesn’t give you every penny of what that plane’s really worth. Then hire a flatbed, get the Duck back up here to Rancho Bonita, and I’ll put it back together for you. We can work out the money later.”
Hookers and nurses are supposed to have hearts of gold. But nearsighted, 320-pound airplane mechanics with bad knees and terrible outlooks on life are not typically known for their generosity.
“You’re a credit to your species, Larry, whatever species that is.”
“I’m trying to cut you a break and you call me names?”
He was right. My plane was in pieces, my ex-wife wasn’t talking to me, my cat was AWOL, and somebody wanted me dead. But there’s never any excuse for bad manners.
“I’m sorry, Larry. I’ll repay you. Just as soon as business picks up. A few more students and I’ll be back in the black. Every dime. I swear.”
He snorted like he’d heard the same promise from me many times before which, in truth, he had.
“Listen,” Larry said, “I’m just glad you’re OK—but that doesn’t mean we’re goddamn engaged or anything. You’ll still owe me. Let’s not forget that.”
“I won’t forget, Larry.”
I passed on my regards to Mrs. Larry and their teenaged daughter, neither of whom I’d ever met face-to-face, and walked into Champion Jet Center.
Kimberly the counter clerk was not scheduled to work until the next day, according to the young woman on duty who was garbed, like Kimberly, in a navy blue skirt and matching blazer. Her name tag identified her as “Rita.” She claimed to know nothing of what had happened to the Ruptured Duck the day before. Any questions as to who may have had access to my airplane while it was parked in front of Champion would have to be directed to her manager, she said, and he had the day off. I asked her if Champion maintained any surveillance cameras that could’ve showed someone tinkering with the Ruptured Duck’s engine. She shrugged apologetically.
“I’m really sorry. I just started working here. Maybe you could talk to the airport director. I’m pretty sure his office is, like, in the terminal. He’s, like, in charge of everything.”
“That’s, like, an excellent idea.”
I left my card along with a request to have her manager call me as soon as he got in.
THE AIRPORT’S director was away for the day—does anyone in this country still work anymore?—but his assistant was in. He was a ginger-haired thirty-year-old with a pencil neck and baggy, tired eyes who said he’d heard about the crash and wanted to offer his condolences. His name, he said, shaking my hand flaccidly, was Andrew Gresham.
“Somebody tampered with my engine. That’s why my plane went down.”
“Geez. You’re kidding. Hadn’t heard that one.”
I asked about the airport’s surveillance cameras. Andrew said he wasn’t authorized to discuss airport security measures. I asked whether the airport maintained a master list of people who had access to transient airplanes parked along the flight line. He said there was undoubtedly such a list but that I would not be allowed access to it.
“You’re not helping much, Andy. In fact, you’re the opposite of help. My airplane’s in pieces because somebody at your airport decided to test the theory that what goes up must come down, and you can’t—or won’t—provide me any information that could help me locate the people responsible? What if this guy is some kind of deranged wacko who has it in for general aviation? Do you have any idea how many pilots could be at risk?”
Granted, I was laying it on thick, but I figured I had nothing to lose.
“Sir, I get where you’re coming from,” Andrew said, “and our office will cooperate fully with any investigation the FAA has going, or any other agency, for that matter, but I really can’t—”
“What if it was your airplane, Andy?” I said, cutting him off. “What would you do, wait for some government investigation to play out? That could take years. Have you worked with the FAA? Look up the word ‘bureaucracy’ in the dictionary. Do you know what you’ll find? A picture of FAA headquarters.”
Andy reiterated that he empathized with my situation, but said his hands were tied. He simply was not authorized to release any information.
The words, “I understand,” slipped from my mouth before I realized I’d even formed them. I found myself more pleased than upset. Understanding is the first step toward acceptance, and acceptance is the first step to achieving inner peace—even if there still remained a large part of me that wanted to wring Andy’s bureaucratic pencil neck on principle alone.
IT WAS nearly noon by the time I left the airport manager’s office. Inside the terminal lobby, I caught a whiff of Mexican food. Nothing quite whets the appetite like the fragrance of boiling lard, especially when you’ve missed breakfast. A sign pointed to a restaurant on the terminal building’s second floor. I bounded up the stairs.
“Welcome to Casa Machado. Would you like a table by the window? You can see the airplanes that way.”
“Bueno.”
I followed the young hostess in her colorful Mexican skirt. The restaurant was Spanish baroque in décor. Models of airplanes hung from the ceiling. A busboy delivered water, salsa, and a basket of warm tortilla chips almost before I’d sat down.
“Would you like something to drink? Iced tea?”
“How ’bout an Arnold Palmer?”
The busboy nodded regally, almost bowing, and went to fetch my drink.
I scanned the menu, then punched in Savannah’s number on my phone again. Still no answer. Her conspicuous silence weighed heavily. It’s hard to reconcile with a former spouse when she’s about as communicative as a terrorist on the lam.
“Have you had a chance to decide?” The waitress was big and brown, with a moist radiant smile.
“What is your expert opinion of the chile verde burrito?”
“Muy delicioso.”
“Sold.”
She jotted down my order, scooped up my menu, smiled that smile, and left for the kitchen. I gazed out the window as a yellow airplane came in for landing.
Two old men, each pushing ninety, were sitting at the next table over, both finished with lunch, eyeing the same plane.
“What is that, a T-6?” one of them asked me, squinting hard out the window.
“It is.”
“Thought so. Did my advanced training in one of those babies.” His accent was straight out of Chicago. His wire-frame aviator bifocals seemed too large for his wizened face, as did his “56th Fighter Group” baseball cap. “Good airplane, that Texan.”
“Great airplane, that Texan,” I said. It took me a second to remember him. “Didn’t I see you on TV last night?”
He grinned yellow teeth. “Sure hope it wasn’t on America’s Most Wanted.”
“On the news. You heard the engine on that Cessna before it went down.”
“Been near seventy years since I heard an engine like that. It was attached to the airplane I was flying at the time. Cost me two years, cooling my heels in a German stalag, courtesy of Herr Hitler.”
He’d gone to work for Pan Am flying DC-3’s after the war, he volunteered without me asking, and retired three decades later as a 747 captain, with more than 40,000 hours logged. I was impressed.
“The 56th flew Thunderbolts,” I said, pointing to his cap.
He seemed pleased that I would know such trivia. “You a pilot?”
“I flew Thunderbolt II’s in Desert Storm. Mind if I join you gentlemen?”
“That all depends,” he said, teasingly. “Are you a good pilot?”
“You wouldn’t have known by what happened yesterday. That was my Cessna.”
“The one that went down? That was you?”
I nodded.
The old man leaned across the table and yelled at his friend. “That was his Cessna that went down yesterday!”
His friend, a frail-looking fellow with hearing aids in both ears, took a long moment to digest the information, looking over at me not unpleasantly, then finally nodded like he understood. “Glad you’re still kicking!” he said to me loudly.
“He can’t hear too good and I don’t see too good,” the old man in the baseball cap said. “Together we make one helluva pilot. I’m Ernie Holland, by the way. Everybody calls me Dutch.”
“Cordell Logan.”
I shook his knobby hand, grabbed my water glass and sat down at their table.
“That tin-eared crumb bum you’re sittin’ next to is Al Demaerschalk,” Holland said. “Al’s an ace. Flew Sabres in Korea. Bagged three MiG-15’s in one day over the Yalu.”
“Say again?” Al said cupping his ear.
“I said you’re a crumb bum!”
Al nodded and gave me a modest shrug, his eyes twinkling.
“Al could tell ya how many rivets were on the underside of the wing, every detail,” Dutch said. “Got one of those Kodak memories. Remembers everything, even if he don’t hear too good anymore.”
I shook Demaerschalk’s hand. “It’s an honor to meet you both.”
“So what’s the story on your engine?” Dutch Holland said. “What happened? Why’d it fail?”
“It was tampered with.”
The old man leaned forward on his elbows and gave me a quizzical look. The irises of his hazel-brown eyes were clouded with cataracts.
“Tampered with?”
“Somebody plugged the breather line with a wad of duct tape. They say duct tape has a thousand uses? Make it a thousand and one.”
Holland leaned across the table to Demaerschalk and shouted, “They tampered with his engine!”
