Tailspin

by Sandra Brown

  “You’re all heart, Dash.”

  “But if you could return her by noon tomorrow—”

  “Sure.”

  “I know that’s a quick turnaround, but you don’t require a lot of sleep.”

  Rye had conditioned himself to function well on as little sleep as possible, not only because that particular skill made him more flexible when it came to FAA regulations—and cargo carriers appreciated flexibility in their freelance pilots—but also because the less he slept, the less he dreamed.

  Dash was saying something about the pilot’s hoarded boxed lunch. “I could weasel a sandwich out of his stingy self if you want to take one with you.”

  “Can’t stand tuna.”

  “No, me neither. There may be a couple of stale doughnuts left over from this morning.”

  Rye shook his head.

  Dash worried the cigar between his teeth. “Look, Rye, you sure you’re—”

  “What’s with the hand-holding, Dash? Are you working up to kissing me goodbye?”

  Dash’s comeback was swift and obscene. He turned and lumbered back into the building. Rye climbed into the cockpit, called flight service and got his clearance, then, after a short taxi, took off.

  1:39 a.m.

  When he was only a few miles from his destination, Atlanta Center cleared him for the VOR approach. Rye told the controller he would cancel his flight plan once he was safely on the ground.

  “Good luck with that,” the guy said, sounding very much like he meant it.

  Rye signed off and tuned to the FBO’s frequency. “This is November nine seven five three seven. Anybody home?”

  There were crackles in Rye’s ears, then, “I’m here. Brady White. You Mallett?”

  “Who else have you got coming in?”

  “Nobody else is crazy enough to try. I hope you make it just so I can shake your hand. Maybe even scare up a beer for you.”

  “I’ll hold you to it. I’m on VOR/DME approach, ten miles out at four thousand feet, and about to do my first step-down. Go ahead and pop the lights.”

  “Lights are on.”

  “Descending to thirty-two hundred feet. Still can’t see crap. What’s your ceiling?”

  “It’s whiteout almost all the way to the ground,” Brady White told him.

  “Got any more good news?”

  The man laughed. “Don’t cheat on the last step-down, because there are power lines about a quarter mile from the runway threshold.”

  “Yeah, they’re on the chart. How bad are the crosswinds?”

  Brady gave him the degree and wind velocity. “Light for us, but it’s a mixed blessing. A little stronger, it’d blow away this fog.”

  “Can’t have everything.” Rye kept close watch on his altimeter. Remembering the name on the shipment paperwork, he asked, “Dr. Lambert there?”

  “Not yet, but due. What are you hauling?”

  Rye glanced over at the black box. “Didn’t ask, don’t know.”

  “All the hurry-up, I figure it must be a heart or something.”

  “Didn’t ask, don’t know. Don’t care.”

  “Then how come you’re doing this?”

  “Because this is what I do.”

  After a beat, Brady said, “I hear your engine. You see the runway yet?”

  “Looking.”

  “You nervous?”

  “About what?”

  Brady chuckled. “Make that two beers.”

  On his windshield, beads of moisture turned into wiggly streams. Beyond them, he could see nothing except fog. If conditions were as Brady described, Rye probably wouldn’t see the landing strip lights until he was right on top of them and ready to set down. Which made him glad he’d elected to fly the smaller plane and didn’t have to worry about overshooting the end of the runway and trying to stop that Beechcraft before plowing up ground at the far end. Also, he had near-empty fuel tanks, so he was landing light.

  No, he wasn’t nervous. He trusted the instruments and was confident he could make a safe landing. As bad as conditions were, he’d flown in worse.

  All the same, he was ready to get there and hoped that Dr. Lambert would show up soon. He looked forward to having the doctor sign off on the delivery so he could raid the vending machine—assuming Brady’s outfit had one—then crawl into the back of the plane to sleep.

  Dash had removed the two extra seats to allow more cargo space. To save him the expense of a motel room for overnighters, he’d provided a sleeping bag. It stank of sweat and men. No telling how many pilots had farted in it, but tonight Rye wouldn’t mind it.

  The nap he’d taken at Dash-It-All was wearing off. Sleeping wasn’t his favorite pastime, but he needed a few hours before heading back tomorrow morning.

  He reminded himself to make sure Brady didn’t lock him out of the building when he left for home. Otherwise Rye wouldn’t have access to the toilet. Assuming there was a toilet. He’d flown into places where—

  He saw the runway lights flicker through the fog. “Okay, Brady. I’ve got a visual on your lights. Is that beer good and cold?”

  No reply.

  “Brady, did you nod off?”

  In the next instant, a laser beam was shone into the windshield and speared Rye right between the eyes.

  “Bloody hell!”

  Instinctually he raised his left hand to shield his eyes. Several seconds later, the piercing light went out. But the damage had been done. He’d been blinded at the most critical point of his landing.

  He processed all this within a single heartbeat.

  The ground would be coming up fast. Crashing was almost a given, and so was dying.

  His last thought: About fucking time.

  Chapter 2

  1:46 a.m.

  Pilot training, reflex, and survival instinct kicked in. Despite his blasé acceptance of almost certain death, Rye automatically and unemotionally began to think through options and react in a way that would better his chances to live and tell about this.

  And he had milliseconds in which to do it.

  Instinctively he eased back on the yoke to tilt the craft’s nose up and pulled back the throttle to reduce his airspeed, but not so much that he would stall.

  If he could achieve a touch-and-go on the airstrip and stay airborne long enough for his vision to clear, he could possibly do a go-around and make another approach.

  He would like to manage it just so he could kill Brady White.

  But below him wasn’t wide-open spaces. If he overshot the runway without enough altitude, he would clip treetops. If he gained enough altitude to clear the trees, he would still have to get above the foothills, and he no longer trusted his ability to gauge their distance. With the fog, and purple and yellow spots exploding in his eyeballs, he was flying by feel.

  Likely case: He didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell. He couldn’t see his instruments for the frenzied dancing dots in front of his eyes. Without the instruments, his spatial orientation was shot. He could be flying the plane straight into the bosom of Mother Earth.

  And then ahead and slightly to his left, he spotted a lighter patch of fog that intensified into a brighter glow that soon separated into two beams of light spaced closely together. Looked like headlights. A parking lot? No, the road. The road he’d noted in the aerial picture of the airfield. In any case, the lights gave him some indication of how close he was to the ground.

  No time to ponder it. He went into an ever so slight left bank and aimed the craft toward the lights.

  Nose up enough to clear the headlights.

  Easy easy easy, don’t stall.

  The plane sailed over the lights, stayed airborne for maybe another forty or fifty yards, and then hit the ground hard. The plane bounced back into the air a few feet. When it came down again, it did so on the left and front wheels only. Then the right gear collapsed. The plane slewed to the right, the right wing dipped, and, catching the ground, whipped the craft into an even sharper right turn, which Rye was
powerless to correct.

  His instantaneous reaction was to stand on the brakes, but if the wheels had been torn off or even badly damaged, the hydraulic line would’ve been cut, so brakes were useless.

  The plane skidded off the road and into the woods. A tree branch caught the windshield. The Plexiglas remained intact, but the cracks created a web that obscured his vision all the more.

  Then impact.

  The Cessna hit an obstacle with such momentum behind it that the nose crumpled, and the tail left the ground before dropping back down with a jolt that made Rye bite his tongue when his teeth clamped.

  He was rattled, but cognizant enough to realize that, impossibly, he was on terra firma. The plane wasn’t engulfed in flames. He was alive. Even as that registered, he fumbled for and found the master switch to kill the electrical power and reached down to the floor between the seats to shut off the fuel selector valve.

  Then he allowed himself time to catch his breath, slow his heart rate, and run through a mental checklist for likely injuries. The purple and yellow dots were dissipating. He could see well enough. He wasn’t hurting anywhere, only feeling pressure against his torso from the yoke, which the cockpit panel had jammed against his chest.

  The plane was so old it didn’t have a shoulder restraint, only a lap belt. He labored to get it unbuckled, but was finally free of it. The door on his left appeared undamaged. He unlatched it and shoved it open. Cold, damp air rushed in. He sucked in a lungful and expelled it through his mouth.

  It took several tries and teeth-gnashing effort, but he squeezed himself from beneath the yoke, out of the seat, and through the opening. His flight bag was on the floor in front of the copilot seat, crammed underneath the panel. It was a strain to reach it, but he snagged the leather strap and wrangled the bag free. He pulled it out of the cockpit and tossed it to the ground.

  That left only the black box.

  In a crash situation, the pilot was allowed by the FAA to take only his flight bag from the plane. Everything else was to be left as it was until an accident report was filed with the FAA and it was determined whether or not an on-site investigation was necessary.

  But, remembering the urgency behind this cargo, he released the seat belt, picked up the box, and cradled it in his right elbow. As he backed out, he shut the door of the plane, then hopped to the ground like he’d done roughly ten thousand times over the course of his career.

  Only this time his knees gave way. He went to the dirt and was very glad that nobody was there to see his impersonation of a rag doll. Apparently he was more shaken than he’d realized.

  He sat up, bowed his head low between his raised knees, and concentrated on taking deep, even breaths. He stayed like that long enough for the dampness of the ground to seep into the seat of his jeans.

  Eventually he raised his head and opened his eyes. He was wrapped in fog and total darkness, but his vision was clear. No more dancing spots. He could distinguish the two fingers he held up.

  He didn’t realize until then that he’d been thrust forward on impact and had banged his head. Tentatively exploring, he discovered a goose egg at his hairline, but it couldn’t be too bad. His vision wasn’t blurred, he didn’t need to puke, and he hadn’t blacked out, so he ruled out a concussion. He was just coming down from an adrenaline surge, that’s all.

  He rested the back of his head against the fuselage and swiped his forehead with the back of his hand. It came away wet with sweat, while inside his bomber jacket he was shivering.

  He wasn’t too bothered by it, though. His shakes weren’t anything a good belt of bourbon wouldn’t cure.

  Having reached that conclusion, he dragged his flight bag toward him and unzipped it. Fishing inside it, he found his flashlight and switched it on. With the black box still in the crook of his arm, and the strap of his bag on his opposite shoulder, he braced himself against the fuselage and stood up to test his equilibrium.

  He wasn’t in top form, but he was okay. He ducked beneath the wing and moved toward the plane’s nose. The freakin’ tree he’d crashed into had to be the biggest one in Georgia. It was massive. With only the flashlight for illumination, he surveyed the damage to the aircraft.

  He could see well enough to know that Dash was going to be pissed.

  He sat down again, this time with his back propped against the trunk of the tree, and pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his jacket. When he saw that the screen was busted, and the phone wouldn’t come on, he searched his flight bag for his spare. He didn’t recall the last time he’d used it, or charged it, and, sure enough, it was as dead as a hammer. Atlanta Center needed to be told that he was on the ground, but he couldn’t notify them until he got to a working telephone.

  Muttering a litany of obscenities, he looked around himself but couldn’t see a damn thing except fog and more fog. The flashlight’s beam was strong, but instead of penetrating the fog, it reflected off it and made it appear even more opaque. He switched off the flashlight to conserve the battery. Left in the dark, he considered his situation.

  If he were smart, he would sit here, maybe nap, and wait for the fog to lift.

  But he was madder than he was smart. He wanted to go after Brady White and beat the living shit out of him. He’d been so busy trying to avert a catastrophe, he hadn’t had time until now to contemplate why the guy would sweet-talk him to the end of the landing strip and then hit him with a goddamn laser. It had to have been a fancy one in order to penetrate the fog and impact his vision as it had.

  Brady White had seemed a likable character, and a bit in awe of Rye. Not like somebody who had it in for him. And what grudge could he be carrying when they’d never even met?

  But who else besides Brady White had even known Rye was flying in? Dr. Lambert. But he hadn’t arrived yet, and even if he had, why would he book this charter to get the payload here tonight and then sabotage the plane? Made no sense.

  Made no sense why Brady White had sabotaged him, either, but Rye was going to find out, and then teach him a hard lesson in aviation safety, which, for the rest of his natural life, he would remember. Rye wanted to inflict pain and regret in equal portions.

  In anticipation of that, he looked around, trying to orient himself. Once he reached the road, he’d be able to find his way to the FBO office. He only hoped that while thrashing through the woods in search of the road, he wouldn’t stumble over a fallen tree and fracture a leg bone, or step off into a ravine and break his neck. Best to get on with it, though.

  He shouldered his bag and was about to stand when out of the corner of his eye, he caught a diffused light making a sweeping motion through the woods.

  So he didn’t have to go in search of Brady Boy, after all. Brady had come looking for him. Like an arsonist watching the building burn, this sick bastard wanted to gloat over the destruction he’d wrought.

  Well, Brady White had no idea what he’d let himself in for.

  Moving quickly but creating as little sound as possible, Rye duck-walked around the trunk of the tree and out of sight. Without taking his eyes off the fuzzy orb of light bouncing in the fog, he reached into his flight bag and unzipped the inside pocket where he kept his Glock pocket pistol. He covered the slide with his palm to help mute the sound as he chambered a bullet.

  He watched from his hunkered position behind the tree as a dark form materialized in the fog. White’s flashlight wasn’t substantial. In fact its beam was rather yellow and sickly, but on one of its sweeps around the clearing, it moved past the aircraft’s tail, then swiftly reversed and spotlighted the tail number. He froze in place, one foot still raised.

  Rye didn’t move, barely breathed. He could hear the hand on his wristwatch ticking off the seconds. After ten, the guy lowered his foot and continued walking toward the plane but in a much more hesitant tread. He moved the light along the fuselage until it shone on the smashed propeller and nose.

  Cautious still, he continued forward. The fog made him indistinct, but Rye cou
ld tell that he was dressed head-to-toe in dark clothing, the hood of his coat covering his head.

  Rye’s first impulse was to rush him, but he savored the guy’s obvious hesitancy. Who would deliberately disable a pilot in flight from a safe distance on the ground? Only a damn coward. It made Rye’s blood boil. His hand tightened around the grip of the small Glock, but he decided not to do anything until he saw what this stealthy son of a bitch did next.

  When the guy reached the wing, he bent down to clear his head as he walked under it, then aimed the flashlight up at the window on the pilot’s door. The angle was wrong and the beam too weak for him to see into the cockpit. He seemed to debate it for several moments, then climbed up until he could reach the door latch and open it.

  It was obvious to Rye that he had expected a body to be strapped into the pilot’s seat because he reacted with a start and shone the flashlight around the cockpit. Rye could see the beam crazily darting behind the cracked windshield.

  The guy pulled back, gave a furtive look around, then hastily scrambled down and started walking back in the direction from which he’d come, no longer hesitant. In fact, he was moving in a big damn hurry.

  “I don’t think so.” Rye lurched to his feet and charged.

  The tackle almost knocked the breath out of Rye, so he knew his saboteur had borne the brunt of it, and that gave him a tremendous amount of satisfaction.

  The flashlight was dropped and landed on the ground a few feet away from where they tussled. White reached for it, but Rye wrapped his arms tight around the torso beneath his, pinning the guy’s arms to his sides and rendering his legs useless by straddling them and practically sitting on his butt.

  “What’s the matter, jerk-off? Did you expect to find my bloody corpse in the pilot’s seat? Well, surprise.”

  He flipped him over, grabbed a flailing wrist in each of his hands, even as his right maintained a grip on the nine-millimeter. He forced the guy’s arms out to his sides and flattened the backs of them against the rocky ground.

  As angry as he’d ever been in his life, he growled, “I want to know just what the fuck—”