The Brad West Files

by Fritz Galt

  “And what do the data tell you?” Mr. Johnson asked.

  “It’s just a long list of company names and financial figures,” he admitted. The guy could knock him for poor math skills, but who could compete with the head of computers at one of America’s leading research institutions? “I can’t put it all together and I was hoping you could.”

  Mr. Johnson looked deeply puzzled by Brad’s request. “If you can’t see your answer based on evidence that is readily available, then what’s the point of creating a hypothesis in order to study the evidence?”

  Brad was nearly lost. “A hypothesis gives you a basis upon which to look for evidence.”

  “Then you’re not looking for evidence. You’re seeking out data that will meet your prediction.”

  The conversation was grinding him down. Given more time, Mr. Johnson would go so far as to say that the data didn’t even exist.

  He tried again. “All I’m looking for are the anomalies, the individuals, companies or nations who have actively sought to profit from this particular crisis before the crisis occurred. This isn’t a prediction, it’s an anomaly.”

  The man stared at him opaquely. It reminded him of the way May sometimes looked at him just after he asked her a question. Maybe a definition would be helpful. “I see anomalies as just a piece of evidence. Have you no room for anomalies in your science?” He looked toward the computer room.

  “Mr. West, in my science there are no anomalies. There are just data.”

  Brad had hit another brick wall just like at Berkeley. There it had been his need for a model. Here it was an even more obscure Aristotelian reason. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Johnson.”

  “My pleasure.”

  From the inscrutable smile on his lips, Mr. Johnson seemed to have derived actual pleasure from the conversation.

  “Come on, Claudia.” He pulled her out of the lab and stormed from the building more confused than when he had entered.

  Chapter 28

  Claudia leaned through the window of Brad’s borrowed Mercedes and gave him a quick peck on the lips. “Thanks for the lift.” She rested both arms on his shoulders. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you.”

  Brad looked into her bright eyes. How could she make progress in an institution that paid so little attention to the unexplained? Wasn’t it Shakespeare who had written, “There’s lots of strange stuff in the world?”

  But he kept his thoughts to himself. Some were born to methodically classify the known universe, and others were born to dream. And, as he gazed up into her dazzling eyes, he knew that as soon as he drove out of sight, he would cease to exist for her.

  “So long,” he told her. “Good luck with the philosophy.”

  She patted her bag that contained her closest friends, namely dead German philosophers. And for an instant, he wondered if the glorious hours that they had spent in bed the night before or the problems of the day had no significance in the overall scheme of things.

  May lay in bed with her eyes closed and listened to a driving disco beat. Had the radio alarm gone off?

  There’s got to be a way that I can dream

  Simply close my eyes and see

  Worlds I’ve never known

  But places that my soul has been.

  She slowly opened one eye at a time and let reality encroach and replace the beautiful tune. A half-full bag of popcorn teetered on the edge of the table. The curtains were partially drawn over the picture window that looked out onto the drive-in theater.

  Jade must have tucked her in, for she had no memory of getting under the sheets. The last thing she recalled was watching two movie stars kissing on screen just as a three-headed monster crashed into their Manhattan apartment. If only real life were half as dramatic.

  She shook Jade. “We have to get up and find my father.”

  “We’ll never find him. Go back to sleep.”

  It took three cups of coffee at the motel café and a full plate of Lebanese kibbies and eggs to revive Jade. The exoticness of the food in the least expected places was one of the things that drew May to America. If only she could share such moments with Brad. She surveyed the mountain vista beyond the restaurant. Her father was nearby. She could sense it in her bones.

  Half an hour later, their wheels were humming over the road again. They drove out of town and reconnected with the main road, which was turning west. May felt the mountains close in as the San Luis Valley came to an end. Then the highway angled sharply upward.

  Jade took her hand off the wheel and thumped a finger against the fuel indicator. “We might have an hour’s worth of fuel left. No more.”

  May had to smile. Jade was a pilot like her and pilots thought of fuel in terms of time, not distance.

  Jade honked at a truck that was laboring up the pass. “Where will we be in an hour?”

  May consulted the map. After Wolf Creek Pass, they would descend into Pagosa Springs. Then it was relatively flat all the way to a place called Durango, population 17,231. “I think we’ll get as far as the village of Durango.”

  Jade gunned up the hill past the truck and they reached a saddle between two mountains. Needle-sharp rocks jabbed upward from the slopes of the next valley. Beyond that lay a verdant patch of paradise.

  “Huangshan,” May breathed. She was reminded of a mountain range that she had hitherto thought of as quintessentially Chinese. Except that there was no easy access to the top of Huangshan.

  Jade nodded. “Huangshan.” Then she took her foot off the gas and began to coast down to Pagosa Springs.

  Soon they reached a wide stream, some hot springs and a main street of shops and restaurants. Jade searched for a filling station. Curiously, there was no traffic, stores were locked shut, and the numerous gas stations were closed and deserted. They stopped at one such station and tried the pump. But the power was out, so the machine didn’t work.

  Half an hour later, the state highway angled northward. Its tank nearly dry, their Escape limped into Durango. A strip mall followed the road on the west and street signs pointed to the old town on the east. The only other through road was a turnoff toward a pass to the west. Afraid of burning up more fuel, Jade crept through a red light.

  If May had spat out the window, she would have missed the town. Within a minute, the road took them out of town. She felt cheated. She hadn’t seen the white Escort. She hadn’t seen a vehicle of any sort. In fact, the only vehicles they saw were a few abandoned automobiles and pickup trucks at the otherwise deserted gas stations. The highway began a gradual ascent, and the engine had had enough. It began to miss a few firings.

  Just then, a car swerved out of a parking lot in front of them. Loaded down with purchases, the driver must not have seen them coming.

  Jade jammed on the brakes.

  May saw a beefy man spin the wheel. The top of a small white head disappeared in the passenger’s seat. “That’s Liang and my father!”

  The white Escort swerved and narrowly avoided being broadsided by them. Then it veered south back into town.

  “I can’t follow them,” Jade shouted. “We’re out of gas.” As if to prove her point, their trusty yellow Escape came puttering to a stop. “My ancestors’ bad luck.”

  “Wait,” May cried. “I saw a small airport back there.” She had spotted an airstrip half a kilometer back down the road. A couple of airplanes had been parked in the finely clipped grass.

  Jade jumped out of the car and kicked the tires.

  May climbed out and slammed the door shut. She had no problem with leaving the car in the middle of the road. “Follow me.” She crammed her cowboy hat onto her head and began to race back to the airfield.

  Sure enough, she was right. There was an informal airfield with two remaining aircraft. One was a single-seater prop plane and the other was a glider. A towline tethered the two together.

  “You take the plane,” May ordered. “I’ll sit in the glider.”

  She made for the sleek solo glider. It had t
hin wings and a narrow fiberglass fuselage. She lifted the glass canopy and climbed into the cockpit. A handheld radio lay on the seat cushion. She picked it up and locked the canopy on top of her. She fastened the seatbelt and sat staring at the controls. How rudimentary. There were no instruments, but at least there was a stick and rudder pedals. This might be complicated, but she could handle it.

  She turned the radio on and lifted it to her ear and lips. “Jade?”

  “This is Jade. Are you prepared for takeoff?”

  “Roger,” May radioed back in English.

  A moment later, she was skimming over the grass. As she was sitting over the glider’s front wheel, she felt all the bumps. Her wings wanted to lift off before Jade’s plane even cleared the ground, so she kept them down.

  Ahead, Jade’s landing gear lifted off the ground. May waited until the airspeed felt right for her little streamlined aircraft. At last she set the wings free. She lowered the flaps for instant lift. She was airborne. She couldn’t help it, but she felt a song coming on.

  Sometimes I need to run away and hide

  And soar above the clouds and ride.

  Ahead of May, Jade was checking out the empty streets for Liang and her father. It wasn’t hard for May to spot the white Escort turning toward the western pass. She reached for her radio to call Jade. But Jade was already banking in that direction.

  Jade crawled slowly through the air and maintained a westward bearing. May kept the glider just below Jade’s slipstream. Still, their speed was far greater than that of the car. They would have to kill time.

  Jade turned back and circled over the small city. May spotted a passenger train chugging up the tracks into the mountains. How could it be running when fuel was in such short supply and power was out? When they passed the locomotive, she saw why. A black cloud of smoke and burning cinders belched out of the steam engine. It was running on coal, just like the oldest locomotives in China.

  America appeared to be running out of fuel and sliding back into the past. If the country were going to survive, her citizens would have to resort to burning wood and coal. But could they adapt quickly enough?

  The tandem pilots circled over a broad river and returned to the gabled roofs of town. They soared higher and caught direct rays of the sun that dodged in and out of purple clouds. Soon their two planes leveled off, even with the sun-dappled Missionary Ridge. May was overcome with a mixture of wildness and dread. Without the burning of oil, everything would become beautiful again.

  She took another look at the sky. Thunderheads were forming before them, and the southern horizon was already streaked with rain. Before long, the air they were flying through would be rinsed clean.

  Jade charted a course between the overhanging clouds and climbed yet higher. Maybe she could fly above the storm and avoid potential cloudbursts.

  I sail along so high,

  Til nothing’s in my sky

  Except the stars that fill my eyes.

  May had been so close to becoming a true astronaut, a Traveler of the Universe. And her father’s disappearance had yanked all that away from her. Maybe when the nightmare in America was over, China would pull herself together and send astronauts into space.

  Fifty kilometers west of Durango, Jade’s voice came over the radio. “The car is slowing down. Should I take it out?”

  With what? A kamikaze-style nosedive? May had a horrifying vision of her friend crashing into the car that bore her father. “Keep trailing after them. We’ll see where they go.”

  Then she could see the white sedan. It turned off the flatlands that were sprinkled with ranches and occasional houses. The car proceeded south into some sort of nature reserve. Jade banked sharply with the car, but could not slow down to match its speed. They drifted over the shoulder of a mountain, affording them a magnificent view of the west-facing cliff.

  “Circle back,” May said over the radio.

  “I’m running low on fuel,” Jade reported. “I’ll have to take you home.”

  She couldn’t let the car go. “No. Leave me here.”

  “I won’t allow it.”

  It was too late. May had pulled up on the tow hook handle. The line before her dropped swiftly away, and her wings grabbed the air for support. With a newfound sense of independence, she was lifted higher and soared free of Jade’s airplane.

  And I will live for love

  Wherever it may be.

  It’s written from the start

  I know it breaks my heart

  I will live for love.

  Now in full control of her aircraft, May became acutely aware of the weather. Wind meant everything to a glider, and she needed to know where to find updrafts. She examined the clouds. Several cumulonimbi were forming into tall thunderheads. That was encouraging. They indicated the presence of helpful thermals. Furthermore, if she kept to the western slope, she could catch steady updrafts that could keep her aloft all day.

  Then she saw a stone city that had been built into the side of the cliff. Long forgotten ancestors must have created the dwellings under the massive overhanging rock. America certainly had a more ancient past than Chinese textbooks allowed.

  She glided out over the valley and saw another settlement in a cave, and another in the side of a different cliff. The cities were so hidden, they could only be seen from the air. From a distance, the structures looked like stacks of Chinese wedding boxes. Some buildings were round, others square and tall. An entire civilization must have tried to hide out in the steep terrain.

  She banked back on an updraft and crested the ridge. There she briefly caught sight of the car on the road that snaked up the hill. But with the bulk of the mountain ahead of her, she had to head back over the cliff for another updraft.

  Once over the valley, she gained altitude and rose to the level of the ridge. To her surprise, she came face-to-face with a modern ranger station. It was designed with slanted walls to keep sun and rain off the glass. Inside, forest rangers could keep vigil over the park in all directions.

  She waved at a lone woman standing inside. But the ranger’s attention was drawn to lightning bolts that streaked down toward the south.

  May studied the thunderheads gathering before her. Her path was taking her directly under one such cloud. She scanned from the flat bottom of the cloud to the white car winding its way along the ridge. The car dodged in and out of trees and into the cloud’s shadow. She wanted to keep the glider over the road, but had to drift past and circle back. By the time she realigned with the road a second time, she had lost considerable altitude. And that was when rain began to beat down on the canopy.

  And the car was gone.

  I’m searching for the one who holds the key

  To all this crazy life I lead.

  A sudden gust from the right buffeted the glider and she nearly hit her head on the glass. She scrambled to regain control of the stick.

  Nature was telling her to land. She could no longer chase her dream. She had to look out for herself.

  The poet must have known

  A lover of his own.

  She looked ahead for a place to land. Her wings swept over the broken tops of burnt-out trees. The forest was unwelcoming, even lethal, to a pilot attempting to crash land.

  And I will live for love

  She felt her seat drop out from underneath her. The barren forest loomed large. Every tree posed a distinct hazard. She pointed the nose west into an ever-so-slight updraft. The landing gear scraped across the top of a tree.

  With the wind in her face, she was losing speed. Without speed, the wind no longer provided lift. She was stalling.

  She had to minimize her impact with the ground. She would lose the glider, but had to avoid injuring herself. She could see the edge of the cliff. A thousand-meter drop-off was just beyond that. Then she was over thin air.

  She yanked on the stick and banked hard to the right. The breeze caught her just as gravity took control. She lifted her flaps and tried to catch the gust
from behind. It was just enough to propel her back over the edge of the cliff.

  Her nose touched down first and slid forward between two trees. The wings hit next and crumpled between the tree trunks. The tail never made it over land.

  She let out a scream. The aircraft’s nose started tilting upward. Barely teetering on the edge of the cliff, the glider began to slide backward.

  Chapter 29

  Brad could hardly bear driving down the Kennedy Expressway toward O’Hare Airport. The sights along the highway were painful to him. A fully packed van with a Winnie the Pooh bear sat abandoned in the middle lane. A grandmother lugged her sewing machine on her back and followed others making for the countryside. Black smoke rose from fires that burned out of control.

  He parked behind the cars massed around the entrance. There was no way to return the Mercedes to its original location. In the terminal, he scrutinized the departure board for flights to other university towns.

  All flights to Denver were cancelled. In fact, no planes seemed to be flying west of the Mississippi. But he wasn’t ready to pursue May just yet. Let her call him first and apologize. Besides, he had a world crisis to resolve.

  Perhaps by then she would figure out that Liang wasn’t the man for her and maybe she needed a real hero.

  The flight to Boston looked promising. If Berkeley could brush him off and Chicago could kick him out, why not be rebuffed by Harvard, too?

  He had gotten a late start on the day, and the flight to Boston was due to depart in a couple of hours. He looked at the mob scene at the ticket counter. He would need the full two hours just to buy a ticket.

  An hour and fifty-five minutes later, sweating profusely and harboring a killer headache, he had a boarding pass in hand. He ran toward security, only to find that the agents had abandoned their posts. He was free to breeze past the X-ray machines without delay. It almost felt like he was breaking the law.

  A frazzled gate attendant was putting up a robust defense reminiscent of Refrigerator Perry at the one-yard line. She had to physically hold back all the people who wanted to get on the flight but hadn’t managed to purchase tickets.