Test Pilot's Daughter: Revenge (24 page)

“
What if they themselves were involved in some kind of drug deal?”

“
Not a chance,” Daniels answered quickly.

“
Well, I am paid to consider every possibility. With the huge amounts of cash at stake, you’d be surprised how many honest people get involved. Travelers to those islands are sometimes offered deals they can’t refuse. Some actually disappear by choice.”

“
Not possible,” Matthews spoke. “You can scratch that one.”

Daniels turned to the astrologer and asked, “What about you, Willa? Did you come to any conclusions?”

“
I analyzed the profiles on each individual. As you would usually find in any kind of group study, some in the group were favored and some were not. The readings indicate that one or more individuals may well be dead, but I agree with Bill, some are alive. The only one I’m sure about is Billy. I feel quite certain he’s not been harmed.”

“
Can you be more specific?”

“
No, at this point I’d rather not. I don’t want anyone to suffer unnecessarily with the little information we have.”

The meeting went all morning. Daniels put up a huge map of the Bahamas with the flight path and radar data clearly marked. A more detailed map was displayed showing every small island within a hundred miles of the flight path. The group finally concluded their loved ones might well be on an uncharted island. That deduction led to a new problem, hurricane Amy. In only three or four days, the monstrous storm was predicted to sweep right through the region.

Daniels agreed to send Ray Benson and Bill Wells back to the airport nearest the point where radar contact was lost. They would hire a fast boat and a guide and spend the remaining time searching charted and uncharted islands in the region. The group was well aware the odds were slim, but everyone hoped Wells’ psychic intuition might point them to the right spot.

As they departed the hotel they ran head-on into a mob of reporters assembled outside. Apparently they had received a tip. Identifying Henry Daniels and Lt. Col. Pat Matthews, they bombarded them with questions. It was a feeding frenzy of hungry media sharks. Without any time for response, questions came rapid fire.

“
Mr. Daniels, what was the purpose of this meeting?”

“
Is it true you’ve hired palm readers to find your daughter?”

“
Col. Matthews, when and where do you plan to hold a memorial service?”

“
Do you believe they were sucked into the Bermuda Triangle?”

“
How do you feel about the tragic death of your children?”

Henry Daniels waved both arms to stop the assault. “This is a private matter. We’ve agreed no one will issue a statement to the press. We will continue our own investigations. I would appreciate it if you would all just get out of our way and leave us alone.”

Chapter Eighteen

Under a canopy of brilliant stars, the three survivors sat around the fire lazily eating the last of the food from the ice chest. No one was more depressed than Christina about the fruitless boat ride. She was beginning to lose hope. A morose cloud hung over camp, no story telling or singing, no one was talking at all.

Billy turned on his radio, cranked up the volume and scanned through channels trying to hear anything about the hurricane. One station briefly faded in with a broken report:

Hurricane Am. . .to Category 4. . .tained winds of

one hundred forty knots. . .one hundred miles north of St.

Thom. . .northwest at thirty knots. Miami. . .cause this

sto . . .unusually fast. . .Florida in only two da . . . alert

expected. . .early evacuation advised. . .traffic jams.

Christina shuddered. It was a beautiful night, clear and calm. From horizon to horizon, a pitch black canvass was painted with the bright brush of the Milky Way. A thin sliver of moon hung in the eastern sky. It was hard to believe such a peaceful firmament would soon explode with deadly force.

Finally, she broke the looming silence.

“
We got a serious problem. That storm’s a hundred miles north of St. Thomas headed for Miami. That puts us in its path.” She quickly did the math in her head. “If it hits Miami in two days, that means it’ll be here tomorrow.”

“
We’re dead,” Heather sighed. “If a hurricane hits us head-on, our little party is over. We’ll be surfing on forty-foot waves. I knew it, we shudda kept going.” She wouldn’t let the boat fiasco die.

“
We might locate some shelter in those cliffs,” Billy offered. “If I could find a cave in the right place, up off the ground, we might be able to ride it out. I’ll try to find something as soon as it gets light.”

“
The hurricane is moving fast over warm water, picking up steam,” Christina said. “If it turns into a category 5 by tomorrow, I don’t think we’d stand much of a chance. There’s another idea I’ve been thinking about, but it’s a long shot.”

“
We’re all ears, Christina. What do you have in mind?” Billy asked.

“
She probably wants to try to fly that plane,” Heather joked sarcastically.

“
That’s it,” she replied. “Heather, were you reading my mind?”

“
But you said we’d never get it off the ground,” Billy reminded her.

“
There might be a way,” she said. “Have you ever watched films of those fighter jets, fully loaded with bombs, fuel and missiles, taking off an aircraft carrier? Did you ever wonder how they get those heavy planes off the deck in just a few hundred feet?”

Billy knew the answer. “Yeah, I know. They use a steam-driven sling-shot thingy.”

“
That’s right, a catapult,” she agreed. “But the catapult can’t do it alone. The aircraft carrier speeds up to about thirty knots and turns into the wind. The combination of natural wind, the wind caused by the speed of the ship and the catapult produces enough relative airspeed to get airborne.”

“
So, what’s your point?” Heather didn’t follow. “We don’t have an aircraft carrier.”

Christina continued, “With ground effect the Saratoga will fly at about seventy knots. In other words if you had a way to move the air at seventy knots right over the wing, you wouldn’t need any runway at all. Based on my calculations, if we had a fifty knot wind blowing right down the beach, at full power, we could get airborne in less than 1,000 feet.”

“
So what are you saying?” Heather laughed with sarcasm. “We wait for a hurricane to go flying in a little airplane? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. And I thought
I
was cracking up.”

“
Well, that’s pretty much it, but hear me out. We don’t wait for the full force of the hurricane. You’re absolutely right. A 140 knot wind with debris would tear that little plane to shreds. But think about it. It’s not going to go from zero to 140 knots in an instant, like a tornado. It’ll take hours to build up. We can expect some pretty strong winds before the main storm hits.”

“
But isn’t the direction important?” asked Billy. “What makes you think it’ll blow down the beach? Every hurricane I ever seen blows out of the east, right off the water. The sun rises over there,” pointing out to sea, “so that must be east.”

Remembering bits of Furgeson’s infamous weather lecture, Christina started drawing maps in the sand showing the position of hurricane Amy with respect to their island. “Wind is nothing more than air masses flowing from high pressure to low pressure. A hurricane is an enormous low pressure vortex that swirls counterclockwise. If it approaches from the east, the initial wind will come from the west. Because of the counterclockwise rotation, the westerly wind should shift around from the north as the eye approaches.” She took a deep breath as she tried to show the spinning air mass moving across the sand. “When the eye passes over, it’ll get calm, then shift 180 degrees from the south and, finally, from the east. If you look right up there by the Big Dipper, the brighter star to the right is Polaris, the North Star. This beach runs north and south. If we’re lucky enough to get a strong, consistent wind out of the north before the main storm hits, we could be on our way.”

“
How will we know when the wind is strong enough?” asked Billy.

“
Simple,” she said. “We just watch the airspeed indicator on the airplane. When the wind down the beach hits fifty knots, the airspeed indicator will show it, and we can apply power and take off.”

“
But what if the weather’s bad, clouds and rain and stuff?” Billy questioned. “We might end up in the drink.”

Christina knew he was right. There was a good chance poor visibility and severe turbulence would make it impossible to take off. But she didn’t want to admit defeat.

“
Before we go, I can load KMIA in the GPS. That’s the code for Miami International. If we can get it off the ground. . .uh, I mean, when we get off the ground, all I have to do is turn to the northwest and flip on the autopilot. Assuming we have enough fuel, it’ll fly us all the way back to Miami. Since we had enough fuel to get here, we should be okay. I expect it’ll be a pretty bumpy ride, but this is a strong airplane, and we’ll be out ahead of the really bad weather. We might even find clear skies and sunshine in Miami.”

“
Sounds good to me,” said Billy.

“
Let’s do it,” Heather agreed. “I’d risk anything to get out of this hellhole. What do we need to do?”

“
I suggest we try to get some sleep. We’ll have plenty of time in the morning to get everything ready.”

“
I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since Jessica died,” Heather lamented.

Christina wasn’t looking forward to her nightmares either. She hadn’t slept well in years. She volunteered to stay up for a while and stand guard. Grabbing a rifle and Billy’s weather radio, she climbed up on their watch tower.

* * *

As the sun rose, a bright red sky showed cumulus build-up, and a strong breeze of about fifteen knots blew out of the west. Christina woke up Heather and Billy. Much had to be done, and she couldn’t be sure about the timing. Gazing out over the ocean at the angry sky, an old adage familiar to sailors and pilots came to mind.

Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.

Must be true
, she thought. Speaking to her friends she reported, “The hurricane is now a 5, moving fast, coming right at us. The main storm should pass through here tonight. We’ve got a lot to do, so let’s get busy. First we need to drain half the fuel out of the left tank and put it in the right, so we’ll be balanced.”

“
I know how to do that,” Billy volunteered. He went over to the plane and pulled out the fuel sampler used for preflight inspections. He triggered the drain under the wing, letting the fuel overflow the sampler and collect in one of the empty water containers. When it was full, he poured it into the right tank, careful not to spill a drop. After a while he had roughly the same amount in each.

“
Great job, Billy,” Christina was impressed. Next, we need to get the plane down to the south end of the beach. I don’t think we can pull it that far, so I’m going to have to fire up the engine. While I’m reading the starting procedure, you guys get that loose junk off the beach.”

Soon the beach was clear, and Heather and Billy stood back to watch. Following the “cold start” procedure, Christina pushed the prop lever forward, pulled the throttle back and opened it one-half inch. She flipped the Master on, advanced the mixture to full rich and turned on the pump until the fuel flow needle indicated the engine was primed. Fuel pump back, mixture back to lean, she yelled, “
CLEAR!”
by force of habit and turned the key. The battery wasn’t very strong, but the prop moved slowly, gradually accelerating. The engine fired once, then again, and came to life with a roar as she quickly moved the mixture to rich and pulled the throttle back to idle. Christina glanced over at Heather and Billy. They were all smiles.

Not wanting to waste fuel, she advanced the throttle until the tires began to turn in the sand and quickly taxied the plane down the beach. At the south end, she stood on the right rudder to spin it around, pulling up on the highest part of the beach. With the plane pointing north, she pulled back the mixture to kill the engine, turned off the Master and pulled out the key. She set the parking brake and put in ten degrees of flaps, the proper setting for a short field takeoff.