Test Pilot's Daughter: Revenge (13 page)

“
Holy shit!
I wonder if Heather knows any of this?” The girls were out by the plane waving at her furiously, but she had to hear the rest.

“
Looks like he don’t just love ‘em an leave ‘em, he loves’em an kills ‘em. Here’s the worst. There are plenty of rumors he likes the kiddies, if you know what I mean. Lures in runaways with marijuana. Been charged but never prosecuted. He transferred to Georgia some fifteen years ago from California where he had been accused of child molestation. There were no other witnesses or physical evidence, so he convinced the police the girl was confused. Even so, there was a lot of criticism why the eleven-year-old was in his house in the first place. Had no business there.”

“
Oh my God!”
cried Christina. “My sweet Heather has bitten off more than she can chew. I knew that guy was bad news. Now I’ve got to figure out how to tell her.”

“
Well, ya better watch yar six, girl. Think this asshole’s capable of anything.”

All of a sudden she had an eerie feeling, but she didn’t want to ruin their adventure. “I wouldn’t worry, Lazer, at least for now. For the next week, we’ll be a thousand miles away from that slimy bastard. We’ll just deal with Weston when we get back.”

“
Okay then, take care a yoreself and have fun. Give me a call sometime. See ya soon.”

She hustled out to the plane and climbed in flustered.

“
What’s wrong? You all right?” Jessica asked in a worried tone. “Looks like you just saw a ghost.”

“
Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“
Hey, little miss grumpy,” Heather teased. “What’s the matter, gonna miss your big, bad Lazer boy?”

She didn’t answer.

Hank taxied out to the main runway, got his IFR clearance and took off to the east into clear skies. In no time they were flying over beautiful, blue-green water.

“
Let me see your map.” Heather motioned to Jessica for the paper she was studying. “I understand the Santo Domingo was carrying a large load of emeralds.”

Jessica filled in the details, “True, and the El Capitan was loaded with several tons of silver bars and gold escudos. The combined value of the bounty is estimated in today’s dollars at $300 million, but, of course, the actual value as artifacts would be several times that.”

Christina was only half paying attention. She tried without success to get her mind off the conversation with Lazer. She felt nauseous.
How will I ever tell her?

As they flew over blue-green ocean, she looked out the window and let her mind wander. She felt sure a space vehicle would blast off this very same coastline one day with her aboard. She imagined what it must be like, sitting in the cockpit of the space shuttle when millions of pounds of liquid oxygen and hydrogen ignite. Only a very special few would get that billion-dollar ride, but somehow she knew Christina Matthews would be one of the lucky ones.

This was no space shuttle, but the Piper Saratoga did a fine job climbing to the assigned altitude of 11,000 feet. Billy, a pretty big kid at age fifteen, sat in the right frontseat. He was helping with the radios and GPS.

After a while the conversation died down in the back. As they plowed through light chop, the droning engine lulled Heather and Jessica to sleep. Christina tried in vain to stay awake, monitoring the radio traffic, but soon her eyelids became heavy, and she began to doze. The noise of the plane vanished, and she drifted into an unsettling dream.

A little girl ran across an open field of tall grass. She looked familiar. As an observer Christina was confused. Was she running away from something or toward something? The girl was crying and seemed to be seeking some kind of assistance. She ran and ran, but no one would help.

Flying high over the field, Christina took the form of a giant bird. She soared in the wind scanning the earth below and focused on the image of a varmint running on the ground. Pulling her wings back, she plunged toward the target. Approaching her victim with lightning speed, she reached out two huge talons and struck her claws deep into the back of its neck. She tried to fly away, but her catch was too heavy. Was it a rabbit, or a little girl? They tumbled down into the field in a cloud of dust. The girl clutched in her talons was waving her arms, screaming in agony. Flexing her claws with great strength, she crushed the victim’s neck, and the screams were silenced.

She stood in the field, now back in the form of a young woman trying to figure out what had happened. Dazed and confused, she yelled, “What have I done?” Lifting her hands up to the sky, buckets of blood poured down both arms and covered her entire body. She looked at the twisted form and saw a familiar face; it was her mother. She screamed, “God help me!”

Christina awoke with a gasp. Dazed and confused, she tried to collect herself when she heard more screaming.

“
Pop. . .Pop what’s the matter?”
Billy turned wide-eyed toward her. “Something’s wrong. Help me! Please, Pop, wake up! ”

The girls came to life. Shaking his granddad violently, Billy looked terrified.

“
Please, please don’t die!”

Limp as a rag, Hank slumped forward onto the yoke. His body weight overrode the autopilot, and the Saratoga nosed in a dive. Thinking quickly, Christina reached over, grabbed the collar of his leather jacket and yanked him back into his seat. The plane started climbing as the autopilot slowly returned to cruising altitude. The usual chatter on the radio was dead silent. She felt for a pulse on both sides of his neck. His skin was cool. The worst possible words escaped her mouth, “He’s dead!”

Grimacing in horror, Jessica and Heather stared at her with a look of
What the hell are we supposed to do now?

Christina took control and said, “Let’s not panic. It’s just an airplane, not a bomb. Not gonna blow up or anything. I can fly it, and I know how to contact the ground for help. We have to figure out how to get Hank out of that seat, so I can get up there.” She looked at Hank wondering how to move his large body in such tight quarters. Billy’s face was buried in his hands, sobbing.

“
Billy, I need your help. Gotta get up there.”

With a great deal of effort they were able to maneuver Hank over the top of his seat. The limber torso fell in between the girls like a bag of cement. The plane wobbled around under the moving weight. With the center of gravity shifted aft, the nose went up, and the airspeed dropped. Christina sensed the problem and quickly scrambled into the left front seat. With her weight forward, the autopilot smoothed the flight path back on course. She looked all over the cockpit for anything that might help but found none of the usual notes, maps and clipboards a pilot carries.

“
Billy, do you know how to fly this thing?”

He obviously couldn’t hear beyond his own wailing, “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

“
Listen, Billy,” she said. “I’m very sorry about your grandfather, but we have a serious problem. I’ve got to have your help if we’re going to get down alive. Do you know how to fly this thing?”

He struggled through his emotions. “Sometimes. . .Pop lets me fly. . .but no way. . .no, I couldn’t land it. I just help with the radios.”

“
Good, then do you know the frequencies for air traffic control along this route?” Christina asked.

“
No,” he replied. “Pop gives me the numbers, and I put ‘em in.”

Apparently, Hank had flown the route so many times, he had no need for clipboards and charts. Christina took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. She scanned the instrument panel, familiar with most of the gauges, but not all. She noted the little plane symbol on the GPS was tracking on course, time to destination one hour and ten minutes. This airplane seemed a lot more complicated than her Cessna 150. The Saratoga had variable pitch prop, retractable landing gear and a three hundred horsepower engine. She located the most critical instruments.

First things first, gotta get control of the airplane.
She turned and said, “Billy, do you know where the autopilot switch is located?” she asked calmly.

“
Yeah, the two big, white switches over on your left.”

“
Very good. Do you know where the landing gear control is?”

“
It’s that big round knob by your right hand. You just pull it out and push it down.”

“
How about the flaps?”

“
The stick on the floor. Pull it up till it clicks.”

“
Thanks, Billy, that’s a tremendous help. Remind me to give you a big smooch when we get down.”

Head in hands, he started to cry.

Noting the GPS track, her plan was to leave the autopilot on as long as possible, making an emergency, straight-in approach at Exuma airfield. So what if she didn’t have the radio frequency and couldn’t make contact with the tower. The airport there couldn’t be that busy. She would worry about procedural violations after they were safely on the ground. Even though the Saratoga was a lot bigger and heavier than the Cessna, she felt sure she could put it down, given the ideal weather. The only problem was the haze.

Confident the autopilot would keep the plane on track, Christina got back to the problem of reaching someone to help. Since she didn’t know the frequencies for this region, she just entered random numbers without success. If she could connect with anyone, she’d get the proper frequencies and ask air traffic controllers for assistance. They could vector her to a nearby airfield or send help. Without any response at all, she began to wonder if the equipment was working. She knew that Hank was on an IFR flight plan, and controllers would be frantic to re-establish contact. So she re-entered the last frequency Hank had set in and looked over the vast ocean ahead, praying nothing else would go wrong.

About the time she calmed down enough to remember the universal frequency for emergencies, 121.5, she heard a little roughness in the engine, then a definite sputter. She scanned the panel looking for the “carburetor heat,” but there was none. Unfamiliar with the arrangement of the three levers on the console, she feared adjusting the wrong one and opted to leave them alone. Panic seized her throat as the powerful engine coughed
chop, chop-chop,
fired a couple more times and then seized, dead silent. She could feel the nose coming up as the autopilot tried to hold altitude. The airspeed was dropping like a bad day on the stock market.

Christina wasn’t the only one who panicked. The girls were screaming bloody murder, and she struggled to stay focused.

“
Shut up, goddammit! I’ve got to think.”

The stall warning screeched and made her jump. Christina looked at the airspeed indicator, which was dropping through 70 knots. Forcing her brain into gear, she flipped off the autopilot and shoved the nose down to avoid a stall. The altimeter started to roll counter-clockwise, and the airspeed increased.

“
Billy,” she pleaded, “I’m gonna be real busy now. I want you to watch that altimeter and call out every thousand feet.” She tried her best to concentrate and remember her “engine out” training. Furgeson had gone over this many times.
Maybe if I say it out loud,
she thought.

“
Above all, don’t panic.” she said, gulping. “Too late, already busted that one.”
She continued down the emergency checklist.

“
Rule number one, fly the airplane.” She was doing her best but the visibility was poor.

“
Rule two, trim the elevator to a hands-off, descending airspeed that gives the best angle of glide. She didn’t know the proper airspeed for a Saratoga, so she trimmed the nose down to hold ninety knots.

“
Rule three, try to start the engine.” She turned on the fuel pump and switched the key to various positions to test the magnetos. Then she grabbed the three levers on the console and moved them back and forth, but nothing helped. The engine remained lifeless.

“
10,000!” Billy yelled, making her jump.