Lethal Redemption (9 page)

“Is your wife going to be okay?” she yelled to McKean.

“Hell, that woman’s tougher than they are. She’ll be okay. They don’t want her,” he yelled back over his shoulder, “They want you, my lovely.”

In a low voice, Porter said, “I think he kinda likes you.”

Kiera said sarcastically, “How fortunate for me.”

15

They hotfooted it down a narrow path through the trees and across a footbridge, McKean complaining all the way, saying, “You ever heard anything like that? That damn woman won’t leave a man be.”

The stick figure that was Charlie McKean led them down a dark path away from the river village, McKean mumbling the whole time about his woman.

That’s your woman, Kiera thought. Probably what you deserve, but maybe not what she deserves.

They were now on a narrow path, Kiera’s legs getting slapped by sharp wet grasses. The path, muddy and slippery, forced intense concentration to keep from sliding into the muck.

When they cleared the trees they came onto a dilapidated shack covered by corrugated tin and buttressed by thick bamboo.

An old Jeep sat beside the building in the open, like some forlorn relic from WWII.

“Let’s get my baby in the air,” McKean said. “Get the hell out of town, cowboys and cowgirls.”

Under the open-ended tin roof shack sat what McKean insisted was an airworthy plane.

Kiera was more interested at the moment in where the hell the so-called airstrip might be. She saw nothing but flooded paddies surrounded by jungle.

She turned her attention back to the plane and concluded it looked like it’d been cobbled together from old parts dug out of a junk yard.

Oh, really, c’mon, man, she thought. This piece of crap can’t possibly fly. “What is this?” she directed her question toward McKean.

“That,” McKean said proudly, as he and Porter removed various ropes and blocks keeping the plane in place, “is basically, for the most part, a Piper PA-28 Cherokee. A real, sweet workhorse. Four-seater, single engine, single door.”

Kiera said to McKean, “For the most part?”

“It flies like a bird,” Porter assured her as he helped McKean push the plane out of its cage.

More like a wounded bird, she thought, reminding her of what one of the astronauts had remarked when asked what it was like sitting on a rocket ready to blast off into space—he’d said it was like sitting on top of a pile of low bids. The plane she was looking at seemed more like she’d be sitting on a pile of old discards being flown by some guy who was half in the bag.

“Let’s get this baby out on the runway,” McKean said. “I hope it’s not too wet.”

Kiera almost laughed. She still saw no evidence of a runway, just water and no evidence of pontoons on the plane.

She glanced at the night sky. She heard a nasty rumble somewhere in the distance and in the black mass of clouds pressing toward them she saw faint licks of lightning. The air was hot and pressing and the lantana fronds and the paddies rippled as the winds suddenly picked up.

Shit, she thought, this isn’t good.

“First stop, Siem Pong,” McKean announced. “We pick up a Buddhist monk very interested in this little trip.”

“Narith?” Porter asked.

“Yep. I called him when I knew you were coming out here, and after I talked to Xam. We’ll pick him up and fly to an airstrip northeast of Attapeu.”

Kiera wondered if there was anyone left in Southeast Asia who didn’t know what she was doing there.

Porter said, “You got a full tank?”

That prompted a check only to discover it didn’t. McKean unlocked a locker to get at his gas cans and they hurriedly filled the tank.

In the frail moonlight, hard as she searched, there still appeared no evidence of a runway or even a road or wide path that she could make out. “There a runway somewhere?” she finally asked.

McKean chuckled. “You’re looking at it.” He was also looking at the sky. “Let’s get this puppy airborne.”

Kiera said, “I’m not actually seeing a runway.” She peered again into the darkness and there was water and jungle but no evidence of anything resembling a runway.

“See the road?” McKean pointed to a wide path along the tree line.

“There’s a road?”

“It don’t look like much. But under the thin sheet of water there’s a base of crushed rock and clay. I helped build it. Used it a hundred times and it’s a lot better than it looks. You just have to know it.”

McKean got in the plane and started the engine.

Kiera hesitated, looking at Porter.

“He’s got more hours in the air than most birds,” Porter said.

“You ever see a drunk bird flying a piece of a junk yard?”

“No, but this guy can fly drunk, stoned or in his sleep. It’s on the ground where he’s a bit wobbly. And, what’s the alternative?”

Being there really wasn’t one, she followed him up on the wing and climbed in. Kiera took the seat behind Porter, who sat in the co-pilot’s seat.

McKean worked the engine, bringing the propeller up to speed. It sputtered and then came to life.

No normal runway, a rusted-up bucket of bolts. Her love of flying was being challenged.

Then they were bouncing along on a slippery, so-called road.

McKean pulled the plane up and got enough air under the wings that, much to her astonishment, they went airborne.

McKean yanked a hard left and they banked across the front of a jungle that appeared to be reaching up to grab and bring them down.

Kiera found herself involuntarily leaning back in her seat as if that would help them pull the damn thing up and over. As she felt the wheels brush the tops of the trees, she wondered if this was how she would die.

She didn’t breathe until they had made it into open air.

“Not as much lift as usual,” McKean said with a gruff, madman chuckle.

Kiera breathed a sigh of temporary relief.

The countryside unrolled before them, a dim patchwork of jungle and rice fields. Everything was flooded as if a great tsunami wave had rolled over the entire country.

She felt a little like a sober person being driven at high speeds down a country road by a drunk.

She heard Porter tell McKean, “We might be a bit low, don’t you think?” The first he’d shown real concern.

“Gotta see the damn treetops,” McKean said, followed by a raspy, whiskey-laced chuckle. “Only way I can tell where I am. My electronics ain’t all that good. Got parts coming in, but you know how that goes.”

His chuckles weren’t contagious.

Kiera, normally something of an adrenaline junky, wasn’t feeling all that thrilled.

The plane bumped along like an out of control kite.

Porter looked back at her, shaking his head in a gesture that was part apology and part surrender. It didn’t mollify her one bit.

For the next half-hour or so, all was calm.

Kiera was just starting to relax a little, recover her balance, when the engine quit.

“Aah
shit
,” Charles McKean muttered suddenly sounding real sober. He glanced at Porter and said, “Ain’t no silence, outside a coffin, that’s like a dead engine, especially when you only got one.”

What a pathetic fucking irony, Kiera thought. I’m going to die in a plane crash on my way to finding a plane crash. That’s just not right.

McKean tried again and again to get the plane’s engine started to no avail. The propeller finally came to a complete stop, leaving them drifting down fast.

“Well…shit on a shingle,” McKean said. “Looks like we’re gonna ruin someone’s rice paddy.”

McKean started humming some strange tune and that didn’t make Kiera any happier. She didn’t see any sign of rice paddies beyond the trees. She saw only jungle below and didn’t see how they could get clear.

She reached forward and grabbed Porter’s shoulder. “You see any rice paddies?”

“You will when we clear the tree line.”

“We’re going clear the tree line?”

Porter turned to McKean. “You can make it?”

“Be nice if we do. Be bad if we don’t.”

McKean’s full-out nuts, she thought, and he’s going to get us killed.

Porter turned around to look at Kiera. “If this doesn’t work out I just wanted you to know that—”

“—that I ruined your plans and then got you killed?”

“Something like that. Have some faith,” Porter said. “This guy can land anywhere. He can put it down in a bird’s nest if he needs to. Isn’t that right, Charlie?”

“You got it,” McKean said. “First you got to find me a bird’s nest on account of we’re going to land somewhere for sure, my friends. Good luck to us and all that crap. If you’re a believer, send it up now, ‘cause we’re gonna need a little assistance from somewhere.”

16

Kiera braced for the crash, for the sound of metal impacting mangrove, but when they broke through the cloud cover she saw the quilt of rice paddies. At least that would give them something of a chance, she thought.

“You understand,” Kiera said, “I’ve already been in one rice paddy today. I don’t want to make it a habit.”

“Sorry ‘bout that,” McKean said. “This is a world of rice paddies and in monsoon season it’s a world of water.”

“Then you better be Sully on the Hudson.”

“I’ll give it my best shot.”

McKean started talking to the plane now, trying to seduce the bundle of bolts and sheet metal into being nice. “We’re gonna just ease on down, baby. Jump the dike and slip on into a soft landing, a bird to its nest, a man coming to his woman, like…” He shut up now as they were about to hit.

Kiera watched the paddies rise up to meet them. This is not going to be fun, she thought, more like an egg falling from its nest onto concrete.

She sat back and got ready as best she could.

The plane struck the paddy hard, bounced, hit again then tried to make the jump over the next dike, but didn’t quite make it over.

The wheels caught with a jolt and the plane nose dropped into the water and mud, slamming Kiera into the back of Porter’s seat.

With the tail of the plane in the air they were left hanging like bats in a cave until the weight of the plane made the decision to fall.

It tipped in slow motion, as if stuck in taffy, but finally settled on its back.

The roof of the plane sank into a couple feet of muddy water that began seeping in, inches below her head.

Porter broke the silence. “Kiera?”

“Yeah, I’m here. You okay?”

“Far as I can tell. Let’s get out of here. Charlie?”

“Yeah, yeah,” McKean said, “Can’t get out of this damn harness. I might have broken something. Can’t…breathe too good.”

Knowing they were sinking into deeper muck, the water rising, Kiera fought to remain calm as she struggled with her harness in the pitch black.

She reached behind to get some leverage and pushed with her left hand against the roof to take the pressure off the harness so she could release the clip.

She dropped to the roof and into a few inches of water.

“Porter?”

“Yeah, I’m free. Let’s get McKean loose.”

Porter was out of his harness, struggling to free McKean. “Be still, dammit, your harness is caught up.”

“I think…ribs.”

“You need to help me here,” Porter said. “You don’t want to drown, give me some help here.”

“Man, I can’t hardly breathe,” McKean uttered.

“Kiera, see if you can get to my pocket knife,” Porter said. “Right hand pocket.”

“Cargo pocket?”

“No. Regular.”

In the pitch black doing anything was doing it by feel. She found Porter’s pocket and then his knife.

“Good, Kiera get out. I’ll get Charlie free.”

By what she could make out, McKean had the wheel somehow caught up in his harness.

She felt like she would choke on the air. The interior of the cabin stunk of mud, oil and gas.

The single door was stuck in the mud with the weight of the plane crushing down on the frame.

“It’s really stuck. I can’t budge it,” Kiera said.

“We need to pull it back,” Porter said. “Charles, hold on, this may hurt a little.”

“Do what you gotta do. The water’s climbing.”

“Kiera,” Porter said, “I need help here.”

“I got it.”

On her knees on the roof of the plane, the water up to her chest and rising, Kiera knew this had to happened quick. Debris from the interior of the plane floated around her face.

She reached around Porter, took the knife from him and tried to get her hands to the harness where she could cut McKean free before the water drowned him.

“Move forward a little,” she told him. “I can’t quite get to it… There, I got it.”

“Good,” Porter said. “Okay, he’s free.”

Kiera used her legs on the door. She couldn’t budge it. “The door’s too deep in mud.”

Porter moved in beside her. “Let me get at it.”

She moved out of his way as he drove his shoulder into the door, slamming into it again and again.

As powerful and big as he was, the door didn’t budge.

The rise of water continued. Any hope there would be an air pocket left when it reached its maximum paddy level wasn’t likely. The flooded paddy was deep enough to nearly cover the plane.

“Alright,” Porter said. “We need to break out the windshield.”

“There’s a fire canister and ax somewhere,” McKean said.

“No time. We’re taking the side window out,” Porter said. “Let’s get feet on it and we’ll do it together. Get a grip on something.”

They had to lie nearly on top of one another in the water—now up over their bodies and nearly to their lifted faces—as they braced against the fuselage and positioned their legs.

“On two. One…
two
…”

They got it open a few inches and now the water was flooding in.

“Let’s go again.”

“One…
two
…”

This time they wedged it open far enough she thought she could get out.

She insinuated herself into the opening headfirst. Porter placed one hand on her buttocks, the other around a leg and pushed from that end.

Kiera, her head and arms out, pushed against the side of the plane and wriggled her hips free.

She stood up, took a quick gulp of air before dropping back in to help get McKean out.