Let the Music Play - 38. Death Above and Death Below

Aboard the crippled jet, a sense of desperation reigned. The reality of their situation was sinking in; the specter of Death becoming their unseen, though far from unfelt, companion.

Helen’s call had been the first to get through. The operator had patched the call over to the first number that popped onto her screen, the Southern California – SoCal – Approach Control command center. Luck, for once, was on Instinct’s side; the controllers there were fully aware of the ongoing intercept near Las Vegas – they’d drawn the task of diverting all aircraft away from the interception area. The call was passed to the supervisor, who listened for only a few seconds, his eyes flying open as he heard of the problems on board the jet, and looked at his screen which showed the F-15’s closing in, but not the missile launch that had just occurred. With a terse, “Please hold,” he switched phones.

The NORAD Western Sector Air Defense HQ was buzzing; their screens, updated by a digital downlink feed from the fighters, clearly showed the four missiles closing the gap to their target. Colonel Atkins, listening to the frantic words of the SoCal controller, realized that he might be watching a tragedy in progress. Glancing at the range indicator and judging that the four F-16 fighters over Las Vegas would have time to re-engage short of the city, he made his second snap decision of the day. “Sierra Flight, go EMCON now! EMCON now, weapons hold, target may by friendly. Close to Sidewinder range and hold.”

Major Pierce reacted to the order immediately, as did his wingman a moment later. EMCON meant emissions control: cease radio frequency emissions and per procedure they switched off their radars, knowing the effect that it would have. Major Pierce hoped that Air Defense Command knew what the hell it was doing.

The four missiles, their target vanishing from their seeker head’s view as the illuminating radars on the F-15’s switched off, lost their lock and continued on their trajectory. Instinct was far from safe; each missile had a proximity-fused warhead and a near pass could still prove fatal.

The business jet’s forward motion saved it. The closest of the missiles, unseen by those onboard, passed left-to-right half a mile behind the wounded plane. With their guidance gone, the four missiles raced on until their solid fuel motors burned out and they arced over, impacting on the desert floor in a series of thunderous explosions.

Random chance had proven fortuitous; of the air-to-air missiles in the active U.S. arsenal, only the Sparrow is a semi-active radar homer. If the missiles had been infrared-seeking Sidewinders, or the much newer active-radar AIM 120 AMRAAM’s, there would have been no means of aborting the shoot-down.

Colonel Atkins, breathing a sigh of relief, gave his orders to the air traffic controller. “ATC, tell that plane to turn. If they don’t change vector away from Las Vegas in thirty seconds, they will be shot down.”

Helen waited in angry shock, placed on hold by the air traffic controller. The elevator music didn’t help. She worried about a dropped signal; and was about to redial when the Air Traffic Controller’s voice, frantic now, returned to say, “Turn, turn now! Urgent, turn one hundred and eighty degrees immediately.”

Helen raced forward to give the news to Brandon and the desperate tone in her voice caused him to act before thinking; he rolled into a gentle right turn, just moments before he would have broken the lethal thirty-mile line. The instructions puzzled him; he could see no obstacles ahead, but he was too busy to spare that issue much thought.

“This is Sierra Flight, bogie is turning,” declared Major Price, easing his finger off the trigger.

“Have your wingman get on his six and await instructions,” the colonel replied, sinking into his well-worn, upholstered chair. “Close and identify.”

“Roger,” Major Pierce replied, before ordering his wingman to follow him in and assume a trailing position behind the target. Advancing his throttles to full military power, he closed in on the wounded jet. Now that Instinct’s plane had reversed course, the closing rate was in excess of one thousand miles per hour.

Helen returned to the rear of the plane to give Jon, Eric, and Chase what she considered to be good news. She wasn’t aware that Brandon couldn’t set down on a runway, with or without help. Brandon, with Helen’s phone in his hand, straining to hear above the wind noise, rolled out on a southerly heading, away from Las Vegas. He responded as best he could to the controller’s shouted questions.

Reporting to the colonel a few minutes later, the air traffic controller gave him a rundown and then a summary. “He’s never landed a plane and that jet sounds badly damaged, including a disabled rudder. We’re going to try and talk him down at Mojave Airport, but it doesn’t look good.”

As Major Pierce approached, he extended left, turning back to parallel the bizjet’s course, popping his speed brakes to match velocity, intending to pass to the right and survey the aircraft. Two minutes later, he took station off the bizjet’s starboard wing and reported his findings. “Heavy damage to the nose, a hole in the windshield, and it looks like he’s lost his starboard engine due to catastrophic turbine failure, with damage to the empennage.”

The Colonel breathed a sigh of relief; the damage confirmed the passenger’s story. Now, he had a different problem; how to get the plane on the ground in one piece. For a moment, he wondered if he’d done them any favors by calling off the missile intercept.

Major Pierce listened in on the chatter between ATC and Air Defense command, shuddering at the thought of an untrained pilot at the controls. The mention of a landing attempt at Mojave made him nauseous; that was a long but narrow runway. He had no illusions regarding the likely result of a landing attempt at that location. With an untrained pilot, the chances were slim at best. With an inoperative rudder, it was virtually certain that the pilot would be unable to stay lined up on the runway’s centerline and would drift off the runway with catastrophic results. There was also the issue that the untrained pilot would be unlikely to be able to set down close to the threshold. One idea the major had was a gear-up landing on a foamed runway, but he immediately dismissed it; unless the wings were kept perfectly level, the low-wing jet would cartwheel. There had to be a way: what was needed was a runway virtually infinite in both length and width. That, at least, he thought he could provide.

Deciding that there was no time for procedures, he flipped channels and told ATC directly, “ATC, this is Sierra Lead. I’m off the jet’s starboard wing and judge the chances of landing at Mojave as zero. Abort, repeat, abort the Mojave landing.”

Perturbed at being bypassed, Colonel Atkins radioed, “This is NORAD; he’s got to land somewhere, Sierra Lead. We can’t bring him into a major city and Mojave is the closest alternate, unless you have any better ideas, over?”

As it turned out, Major Pierce, recalling his days as an Air Force test pilot decades before, did indeed have an idea in mind. To ATC, he said, “Tell the bizjet to follow me in, I’ll get him down,” before flipping channels again to say, “Edwards Tower, Edwards Tower, This is Sierra Lead, declaring a Mayday. I’m escorting a heavily damaged bizjet. The pilot is dead and a passenger is at the controls. My intent is to lead him in on the Shuttle Strip, that way he’s got miles in every direction. Repeat, declaring a Mayday, intend to land on the Shuttle Strip. Acknowledge,” he said, knowing that a tower could not refuse a mayday call from an aircraft in distress. He hoped the colonel wouldn’t mind and waited for any countermanding orders. None came: Colonel Atkins knew a good idea when he heard it.

The Space Shuttle landing strip is unique: a hardened dirt runway that actually pre-dates the Shuttle, situated on a dry lakebed consisting of miles of hard, flat, dried mud, it was the only place that the wounded jet had any hope of making a survivable landing. If it ran off the runway it could keep going for miles on the flat lakebed. The prepared strip is far wider than a conventional runway, by a factor of three, and the dry lakebed itself could serve as a runway surface. It had done so many times in Edwards’ long history as a test-flight center. Major Pierce just hoped that there hadn’t been any rain in the area recently or the lakebed, instead of being hard, would be a fatal quagmire and Edwards Tower would wave them off.

After a hurried conversation between the base commander at Edwards and Air Defense Command, they decided to take the chance. The lakebed landing strip is seven miles from the main base. That would be far enough, they hoped, just in case there really was a nuke onboard. With that concern in mind, orders were given and the control tower replied, “Sierra Lead, this is Edwards; the bed is dry, bring ‘em in. Approach from the north, cleared for a straight-in approach on runway eighteen.” Sierra Two closed in, taking station one mile behind the wounded jet with four Sidewinders growling a sweet lock on the bizjet’s one remaining engine, while Sierra Lead pulled ahead.

Brandon listened on the cell as the ATC told him to follow the fighter that had taken station half a mile in front of his nose. That was the last he heard as the signal faded out and the connection was temporarily lost. ATC had his number and had said they would reconnect, so he held the phone tight, waiting for the return call. It felt good to have help. He didn’t think he could land the plane, but at least he could try.

Chase slipped into the seat beside, him, buckling in. Brandon looked over to protest. Chase shook his head and said, “Can it, Brand, I’m staying put. It’s my life, damn it, and my place is here.” Brandon could tell that Chase would not move and replied the only way he could, by reaching out and touching Chase’s hand for a moment. Brandon spared a glance at Chase. Their eyes met, saying all that needed to be said.

The fighter led Brandon through a few gentle course corrections. Fifteen minutes later, it began the descent. In the distance ahead, Brandon saw an enormous runway, its outline painted in white on the dry desert lakebed. He mumbled under his breath, “Maybe we’ve got a chance after all.”

Brandon answered the chirping cell phone and listened as Edwards Tower gave him a hurried set of directions. “You’ll be landing on the dirt runway; it’s the largest in the world. You’ve got miles of runoff room in every direction, just concentrate in setting the plane down gently, keeping it straight and level. Do not attempt to stay on centerline if you drift, just ride it out and you’ll be fine. Keep the wings level, and set the wheels down gently. You’ll go into ground effect about ten feet above the runway. When you do, try and keep it level, chop all remaining power, and you should settle to wheels-down. Follow the fighter, but stay a little to the left of his track or you could hit his wake turbulence.”

Brandon acknowledged and the controller added, “Reduce your left throttle to twenty percent when you see him drop his gear. Watch your airspeed indicator and fly to it; keep your speed above one hundred and thirty knots to avoid a stall. When you lower your flaps you’ll drop below that, but your stall horn is likely out, so if you feel the plane begin to shudder, that’s the sign of an impending stall so lower your nose immediately. Okay... now you’re approaching the outer marker. Lower your gear.”

Holding the yoke with his left hand, Brandon tried to reach forward to the control panel with his right hand, which also held the phone. Chase realized Brandon’s predicament, and without a word leaned over and took the phone. He then held it against Brandon’s ear.

Struggling to try and remember everything he’d just been told, Brandon watched as the fighter’s gear popped down and followed suit, wondering if his landing gear still worked. He felt the bump, but the indicator lights were dead. The tower, after receiving a radio call from Sierra Two, announced, “We confirm your gear is down. Now, give me one notch of flaps.”

The flaps, being electrically actuated, failed to extend due to the wiring damage. Brandon glanced out the window and seeing that the flaps had not moved he toggled the switch, to no avail. “My flaps aren’t moving. I’ve cycled the switch though all positions twice.”

“Proceed to landing without them; just keep your airspeed above one hundred and twenty and follow the fighter.” The tower controller keyed off his mike and said to the officer looming over his shoulder, “He’s coming in hot, make sure the ambulance and crash crews are in position.” Keying on his mike again, the controller said, “If we lose comms, just keep coming in, you’re doing fine. You’re almost there.”

The flaps on an aircraft’s wings serve one main purpose; they increase lift. By doing so, they decrease the aircraft’s stall speed, allowing an aircraft to both take off and land at slower speeds. There are always tradeoffs in aviation design. The small, slender wings found on business jets can be problematic. This is because wing loading — the amount of weight carried by each square foot of wing area — largely determines an aircraft’s stall speed; a smaller wing on the same overall plane design will stall at a higher speed than a larger wing. As a result of having no flaps, the business jet would have to land at close to twice its normal touchdown speed.

Sweating hard, Brandon struggled to keep on the descent, fighting to keep the wings level in the thermal turbulence rising from the sun-baked desert.

Sierra Lead, gear down and at full flaps, led the way, roaring over the edge of the lakebed at two hundred and fifty miles per hour, seven hundred feet above the ground, with Instinct’s jet a few hundred yards behind and a little to the left.

“Altitude four hundred, keep your wings level. Don’t worry about the centerline or the threshold, just bring her on in,” the tower said.

“Two hundred feet.” The tower called moments later, waiting a few seconds before adding, “One hundred feet: begin your flare.”

Brandon eased back on the yoke with sweating hands, pulling the nose up, slowing their descent as he roared over the runway threshold at one hundred and fifty miles per hour.

Sierra Lead, not wanting to raise dust in the path of the wounded jet, advanced his throttles to the stops and climbed, dumping his flaps and circling back to watch the landing attempt as his wingman joined up.

“Forty feet: pull back on the throttle, all the way back, and hold her level.” Seconds later the tower said, “Fifteen feet: entering ground effect. Pull back to hold your altitude.

Brandon bit his lip hard enough to draw blood as he sailed down the runway, drifting off centerline. Pulling back on the yoke as instructed by the voice over the phone, Brandon felt the plane entering ground effect. In spite of his best efforts, the wings wobbled, and he used the yoke to both level them and to hold the plane off the runway. He was just a little too high. The jet began to shudder as it approached stall speed, and as the wings lost lift, the plane beginning to drop the remaining ten feet to the runway. Brandon pulled back, a little too late, concentrating on keeping the wings level, as the main gear neared the runway surface. The plane hit hard, slightly off axis, with its right main gear, the impact causing the wings to flex, altering their angle of attack enough to increase lift. Brandon, along with everyone on board, held on for dear life as the aircraft bounced back into the air. As the wings unloaded the plane came down again, beginning a cycle of main gear bounces as it roared down the runway, drifting off it to the right at a hundred miles an hour.

The third bounce was their last. As Brandon struggled to keep the wings level, the main gear settled onto the dry lakebed, staying down, raising an enormous cloud of dust. Brandon felt the plane tremble as he gently touched the brakes, slowing the plane slightly as it raced off the prepared runway and onto the slightly uneven lakebed.

With his heart in his throat, he felt the plane slow further as the featureless surface of the dry lakebed raced by in a brown blur. The plane shuddered, rocking slightly as it slowed, and then at last it was over; the plane rolling to a halt at the tip of a three mile long plume of dust. As soon as the planes’ wheels stopped, Brandon stomped pointlessly on the brakes, not wanting to move ever again. Soaked in his own sweat, as well as the pilot’s drying blood, he caught his breath as he shut off the plane’s remaining engine. The silence was deafening, and he remembered to start breathing again. Chase looked over with a relieved smile. Placing his hand on Brandon’s shoulder, he said, with more than a touch of manic joy, “You did it.”

Brandon smiled weakly and nodded, as the voice from the phone against his ear buzzed indecently for attention, “Shut down now, and well done.”

“I’ve shut off the engine and turned off the master electrical switch, now what,” Brandon asked as his hands began to shake.

“Get the door open, there’s an ambulance and a Humvee along with some emergency response vehicles arriving now.”

With trepidation, Brandon released the brakes, stood up, and walked aft. With a sad glance at the pilot, he opened the door and lowered the stairs, standing back as the paramedics raced in. Seconds later, a sad shake of their heads confirmed what he’d suspected, the man was dead.

Shaken and somber, yet stunned to be alive, the members of the Instinct party descended the steps to the dry and dusty lakebed.

Not caring a damn what anyone thought, Chase put his arm around his boyfriend’s trembling shoulders, just as Brandon’s knees turned to jelly and he collapsed into the dust.

Brandon looked up in surprise at the clear sky, as his concerned friends rushed to his side. Above him, the F-15 that had lead them in roared past in a low-level flyby, followed by his wingman, before pulling up and turning for Nellis.

Chase knelt beside his boyfriend, a look of panic and concern on his face, as one of the paramedics rushed up, spying the blood on Brandon’s jeans and yelling to his partner, “We’ve got a bleeder here.”

“I don’t think it’s mine, I think it’s the pilot’s,” Brandon said, as he tried to raise himself off the lakebed and the paramedic held him in place. The two paramedics performed a cursory check. Finding no obvious wounds, coupled with the blood they’d seen on board the plane, they helped the badly shaken Brandon to his feet. They’d seen more than one pilot go weak in the knees after a harrowing experience, so Brandon’s reaction was not unexpected.

Leaning on Chase for support, still not trusting his legs, Brandon hobbled towards the rest of the group, to find Helen in a heated conversation with an Air Force lieutenant. Helen was insisting that someone, anyone, take a very close look at a man by the name of Jerry Clump, and further insisting that he must have had something to do with both the nuclear explosion in Australia and the near-destruction of their jet.

The lieutenant listened passively to Helen’s tirade, making notes as she rattled off her list of suspicious circumstances, while his sergeant completed a walk-around of the aircraft. At the plane’s nose, he surveyed the damage and reached up to touch a reddish smear. Smelling the greasy substance and leaping to the obvious, if wrong, conclusion, he jogged over to his lieutenant. Pulling the officer away from Helen, and with a show of the blooded fat on his finger he said, “Looks like a bird strike, sir.”

With that bit of news, the lieutenant dismissed for the moment the wild tale about Australia. He chalked it up as understandable hysteria brought about by the experience the passengers had just been through. He pretended to nod agreeably to Helen’s repeated insistences, as he loaded her and her four companions into his Humvee for a short ride to the base headquarters.

While they were en route, Brigadier General Walter Bradson, the base commander, had a conversation with the colonel at Air Defense Command. Hanging up, he shook his head, glancing out the window at the distant bizjet. “They’re damn lucky to be alive,” he said to no one in particular.

His deputy, standing by his side, was aware of the events near Vegas and stated the obvious. “I’m guessing we don’t want to tell them about the missiles, sir.”

“A big roger on that,” the General Bradson replied, “The alert is classified, so we’d have one hell of a time explaining why we tried to blow them out of the sky. According to the ATC guy, they’re celebs. They might not be too happy about the shoot-down attempt and they could call a press conference. My orders are to keep them in the dark, humor them, make them happy, and get them the hell off my base, in that order. We’ve got a VC-37A here,” He said, using the military designation for the Gulfstream V executive jet, “that we use for ferrying congresscritters and other VIP’s. Get it spun up and get those people where they were going, Colorado I think, before we get any press out here. And get that bizjet off my damn lakebed.”

“Yes, sir.”

Arriving at the base HQ, Helen repeated her story to General Bradson, who listened patiently. Once she had finished, he said, “Ma’am, we will look into this, but it appears that your aircraft suffered a bird strike. That’s rare, but it happens. We found some bird residue on the plane’s nose.”

Seething at the feeling that she was being ‘handled’, Helen spat back, “General, you need to do more than look into this. That nuclear explosion occurred right where my boys tracked Jerry’s Land Rover. You aren’t taking us seriously; I already told you about the GPS and you haven’t even asked for it.”

Nodding, trying to find a way to mollify the volatile woman, the general said, “We’ll have a look, and you’re right, we do need the GPS and any other evidence you have. I assure you, we’ll look into this.”

A few quick questions from Helen resulted in Brandon finding the GPS in his pocket; he’d forgotten it was there. He handed it over and the executive officer smiled in thanks, beating a hasty retreat, leaving them alone in the stark, windowless room.

“I don’t think they believe us,” Eric said with a sad shake of his head before asking Brandon, “Could it have been a bird strike?”

Brandon shrugged and spread his hands. “I don’t know. Whatever it was, was sudden, and happened near the cockpit windshield. If they found bird remains on the plane then maybe so, but I sure as hell doubt it.”

General Bradson strolled down the hall, intending to leave the GPS with his crash investigation team – as a flight-test center, they had a good one. The general, who had been given his star, and shortly thereafter his current command, two years before, had been a fighter pilot until his advancing age – he was nearing fifty – had forced him to trade an F-22 for a desk a decade before. It was a trade he regretted daily, but it wasn’t as if he’d had much choice. His fighter-pilot’s mind was drawn to the drama of the landing. The amateur at the controls – and a teenager at that – had done a fine job, he thought. Rushing to the cockpit, pulling the plane out of a sideslip dive... that had required some quick thinking. Idly, the general wondered just how long the boy would have had to get up front. Probably not long at low altitude, he figured. He reminded himself to congratulate the kid before he left.

An overly bubbly staff-sergeant bounded into the room. “We have some good news. We’ve got a plane ready to take you to Colorado. If you’re hungry, I can get you anything you want to eat from the base cafeteria. We’ve retrieved your baggage from your plane; it’s just down the hall. Follow me and I’ll take you to it. There’s an adjoining washroom if you need to get cleaned up.” The smiling sergeant pointedly avoided casting her eyes at the dried blood still worn by several of the people before her.

As shock began to set in, Helen and her four charges were ushered around. After a quick clean up and a few cold sandwiches, they found themselves waiting in a slightly larger room. Helen shook her head in dismay, “I can’t believe all this is happening. It’s like a nightmare,” slapping the side of her head, she added, “I better call Günter and let him know what’s going on. I’ll get him to join us as fast as he can,” she added, as she opened her phone to make the call.

Back in Los Angeles, sitting in his hotel room watching the news, Mario was startled to hear the cell phone he’d taken from Günter’s body begin to ring. Picking it up, he glanced at the caller ID and was shocked to see Helen’s name. He knew she’d been on the jet. Needing to be certain it was her in spite of the risk, he answered the phone with a guarded, “Hello?”

Puzzled by the strange voice, Helen asked reflexively, “I need to speak to Günter. This is an emergency.”

“I’m sorry, but you have a wrong number,” Mario replied, recognizing the voice as that of Instinct’s manager. Turning the phone completely off, he bit his lip, knowing that if she was alive, he’d failed.

Puzzled, though not yet concerned, Helen checked her address book, confirming that Günter’s number was correct and hit redial to try again, watching as the numbers came up on her screen. This time, she got Günter’s voicemail and left him a message to call her immediately. She had no way of knowing that she’d never hear from him again, or that his encounter with Mario, though costing him his own life, had saved theirs. It was only his interruption that had prevented Mario from fully securing the primer cord. Had Mario done so, the damage to the cockpit would have been greater, rendering the plane’s controls useless as Dimitri had intended.

Dropping the phone into a plastic grocery bag, along with Günter’s wallet and the other contents of his victim’s pockets, Mario decided to change hotels and along the way dispose of the bag. First, though, there was a far less pleasant task; he phoned the number he’d been given for Dimitri and in guarded phrases reported that the attempt had somehow failed.

In Auckland International Airport, New Zealand, Dimitri and The Scar had just entered the international departure lounge when Dimitri received the call. Motioning with a subtle nod of his head for The Scar to follow him a few feet to the relative privacy offered by the building’s wall, where their conversation would be rendered private by the chaotic noise of the terminal, Dimitri replayed the bad news.

Attempting to keep his temper in check – he was disappointed, because until that point everything had been going so well – The Scar replied, “We need them dead; they are the only connection to the weapon’s placement. I need you to handle this, Dimitri. It has to be done right and we can’t stake everything on Mario alone. Tell him to ascertain their whereabouts and let him know that you will be joining him shortly.” With a nod at the expected order, Dimitri gave Mario the news.

After a rushed visit to an airline desk, where he purchased the last remaining seat on a flight to Los Angeles, Dimitri returned to The Scar, who said, “You have one trigger, I have the other. I will follow through with our plans in South America. Join me there as soon as you can.” With a smile, knowing there was no risk of it occurring, The Scar continued, “Use the trigger only in case of dire need. Los Angeles only, do not destroy New York.” The Scar thought for a moment before adding, “At this point, I fear there is little chance in making their death look like an accident. An accident would be good, but take them out fast, any way that you can.”

“It shall be as you say, Vohzd,” Dimitri replied, finding himself looking forward to taking to the field again. The joy of the hunt had always been one of his greatest pleasures.

In the remaining hour before The Scar’s flight – his own would leave just over an hour after that – Dimitri, per their plan, activated another fax machine. It sent a fax containing the location of the mocked-up bomb in Salt Lake City, which was intended as proof that the real bombs had been placed. Their reasoning was simple; if one device could be smuggled and planted, so could others. They believed, with good reason, that the mocked-up bombs should suffice as proof, when combined with the cameras they’d delivered and the detonation in Toowoomba, that the threat was very real.

Voicing one concern to his employer, Dimitri said, “What if they do not believe us? That fax gives them eighteen hours to transfer the twenty billion.”

With a shrug, The Scar replied, “Worst case, we can detonate one of the bombs. Toss a coin to decide which, I suppose. However, I doubt it will come to that. We have not harmed American territory, yet. Once we are in power, they will find themselves in a position not much different from what they face with other nuclear powers. There is, after all, no strategic difference between a bomb in a city and a bomb on a missile aimed at that city, sitting in a silo half a world away, assuming no anti-missile defense. We would be in a position of mutual deterrence. That is why I have kept our demands reasonable; twenty billion dollars and three thousand tons of gold bullion, barely half of their supply in Fort Knox. This, along with their support in overthrowing the government of Paraguay, is all that we ask. The Americans would be fools not to comply; a mere press conference by us would cost them more, in economic damage as people fled the cities, than what we ask.”

Back at Edwards Air Force Base, General Bradson returned to where his guests waited. Ushering them out and into a waiting mini-bus, he waited until everyone was seated and as the driver pulled away, the general told Brandon, “You did a damn fine job, son. Not just in landing the plane, but in pulling it out of that dive. You would have had to act fast, or you wouldn’t be here.”

Feeling a little uncomfortable with the praise – he felt that anyone would have tried to do the same, given that the alternative was sitting in his seat until the plane slammed into the ground – Brandon replied, “Thanks sir, but the landing was the hard part. We were pretty high up when the window blew out and the cabin filled with some kind of fog for a few seconds. As soon as it cleared, I could see there was trouble up front so I went to see if I could help. I think the pilot pulled us out of the initial dive before he died. If your fighters hadn’t led us here, we’d be dead; there’s no way we could have landed on a normal runway. I was about a hundred feet to the left of centerline as it was. I overshot by a mile, then I ran off the runway when we touched down.”

The general had seen the landing and nodded, but he found himself distracted, focusing instead on Brandon’s earlier words. The fog sounded like the result of explosive decompression at high altitude, and if the original pilot had pulled them out of one dive, and then Brandon ended up facing another, they must have been pretty high up to start with. He decided to have a look at the radar tracks when he returned to his control room. Dismissing those thoughts for the moment, he said, “That was one hell of a piece of flying. You’re all lucky to be alive.”

They arrived at the base’s main runway, a conventional concrete strip. There, Instinct and Helen found themselves face-to-face with their second passenger jet of the day. One and all felt a shudder at the thought of flying and Jon asked sardonically, “Can’t we just walk to Colorado?”

General Bradson gave them an understanding smile, “The best way to get over what happened is to get right back in the saddle. This plane is safe; I’ve taken my own kids on it and it’s got one of our best crews. It’s a lot larger than what you were on, so it’s got two pilots, plus two stewards to make y’all comfortable. We’re having a drill here so I have to get you off the base. I figured I’d best get you where you were going. Have a nice flight.”

Forcing his legs to work, Brandon took a few hesitant steps towards the looming air-stairs as Eric muttered, “Yeah, the last flight we were on was so much fun, let’s do it again.”

Helen passed up her chance to object, knowing in her mind that the plane was almost certainly safe, though her heart felt far differently. Instead, shielding her eyes from the setting sun, she told the general, “Please don’t dismiss what we said and do investigate.” The general nodded and wished them a safe trip as they reluctantly climbed the stairs into the waiting jet.

Minutes later, with the VC-37A en-route to Telluride, the general ambled into his control room and instructed, “Cross-deck the radar tapes of that bizjet’s flight to my console. I want a look at what happened to ‘em up there.”

Fifteen minutes later, after watching the tape of the first erratic maneuvers three times, and eyeing the altitude readings, the general got up and without a word headed for the hanger where they’d parked the damaged business jet. On the way, he phoned his lead crash investigator, interrupting the man’s dinner and ordering him to head for the hanger on the double.

Less than two hours later, the Air Force VC-37A turned base-to-final for Telluride Airport, for the approach to its single runway. The approach, like the runway itself, is bounded by high mountains on either side, their snow-capped peaks clearly visible on the moonlit night. The mountains, though, were not the reason for its five white-knuckled, shell-shocked passengers. They’d found the flight, so soon after their ordeal, to be nerve-wracking in every respect. They’d also witnessed the death of their pilot which left them numb. Not a dozen words had passed between them on the entire flight.

They quickly deplaned and for the second time that day, the members of Instinct, along with Helen, were relieved to be back on the ground.

Telluride is a popular getaway for many celebrities and as such, it was no surprise to either Instinct or Helen to find themselves faced with a paparazzi on the other side of the airport fence as they walked away from the Air Force jet. Shouted questions went unanswered and the paparazzi made sure to get plenty of shots of Instinct and the distinctive markings of the Air Force executive transport. He was sure that pictures of Instinct arriving by such an unusual means would sell well, and he was not mistaken.

In the airport’s small lounge, Helen phoned for a taxi van and while they waited, she phoned Günter, again getting his voicemail. Growing concerned, Helen decided to call Barbra and after urgently inquiring about Günter and receiving Barbra’s promise to look for him, Helen said, “Better sit down hon, because have I got a story to tell you...”

Half an hour later, after a bumpy ride up Last Dollar Road’s unpaved surface and serpentine turns, the taxi van pulled up to Instinct’s small house. Its peaceful setting and the scent of pine welcomed them, easing their nerves, and the exhausted party entered, relieved to feel safe at last.

© 2008 C James

Please let me know what you think; good, bad, or indifferent.

Please give me feedback, and please don’t be shy if you want to criticize! The feedback thread for this story is in my Forum. Please stop by and say "Hi!"

Many thanks to my editor EMoe for editing and for his support, encouragement, beta reading, and suggestions.

Thanks also to Shadowgod, for beta reading, support and advice, and for putting up with me.

A big "thank you" to to Bondwriter for final Zeta-reading and advice, and to Captain Rick for Beta-reading and advice.

Special thanks to Graeme, for beta-reading and advice.

Any remaining errors are mine alone.