The Alpha Chronicles (22 page)

Diana pondered Bishop’s idea and nodded. “I see what you mean. I bet Nick will love it. Okay, Bishop, you’d better get going. Good luck.”

Bishop’s
next stop was the hotel where the contractors were housed. Deke gathered his gear, throwing his rifle, pack and other equipment in the bed of Bishop’s truck.

A short time later, Bishop and Deke stood
, watching Mr. Mills while he made ready in the cockpit. Smiling, the pilot nodded at Bishop and yelled, “Everything appears to be in good shape. If you can give me a jump, I think she’ll start right up.”

The engine sputtered and paused for a few rotations and then roared to life. Hugh studied the gauges and control
s for a bit before giving his spectators the thumbs-up sign through the window. Bishop yelled over the engine noise, “Deke, let’s roll.”

The sun was just dropping behind the Davis Mountains to the west as Bishop and Deke squeezed in the tiny cockpit. Bishop spread a small map across his lap and pointed
out his flight plan for the two men. “The way I figure it, that truck can only travel at 50 mph or so. They have a 45-minute head start, so that means they have to be within 50 miles of Alpha by the time we get airborne. We know they headed north out of town, so our search area can’t be that big.”

“I’m assuming you don’t want them to know we’re flying around?”

“That’s right. As far as we know, no one has tried anything like this. Deke’s got a thermal monocle, and I have a light amplifying device. We have no idea of their effective range, but it’s probably 5,000 feet or less.”

Hugh thought for a bit and then smiled at his passengers. “My instructor flew scout plans very similar to this one in Vietnam. He taught me a technique for fun, and I never thought I would use it.
But I think it is a strategy that could apply here. Basically, I’m going to climb to 6,000 feet above the ground and then coast down to 3,000. We won’t make any engine noise that can be heard on the ground that way.”

Deke’s eyes widened at the pilot’s stateme
nt, the contractor muttering, “Coast?”

Mr. Mills chuckled and responded with a simple, “
Trust me.”

“That’s what they all say.”

Hugh rolled the airplane across the tarmac and positioned the small craft directly in the center of the runway. The wind was dead calm, so the direction for takeoff wasn’t an issue. “Here we go,” the pilot announced as he increased the throttle. In a matter of moments, the three were looking back at the hangar from a lofty elevation.

The air was smooth
, and the plane appeared to be running well as they gained altitude toward the east. While Hugh worked the controls and monitored the GPS, Bishop and Deke turned on their spotting devices and began adjusting focus while trying to acclimate to the height. In the fading light, each man picked an identifiable object on the ground and then compared the appearance while viewing through the respective scopes.

“It’s a little hard to get accustomed
to everything being so small,” announced Deke. “But I think my thermal is working pretty well.”

“Same here,” responded Bishop. “I’ve got a 3
-x zoom on the PVS-14, so that’s helping a little.”

After climbing to 6,000
feet, Mr. Mills announced, “Okay, fellas – I’m going to drop the power and glide for a while. You guys search, and I’ll watch the instruments so we don’t hit the ground.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Bishop commented from the back seat.

“I like the part about you watching the altimeter,” added a nervous Deke.

Nick, Terri and the posse arrived back in Alpha just as the searchers had achieved flight. Nick’s frustration at the wasted time,
effort, and gasoline was quickly forgotten as Diana briefed everyone on the events of the afternoon.

Terri and Nick stood listening in silence until Diana
recounted Bishop’s effort to conceal homing signals in the truck. “He did what?” was Terri’s initial reaction.

Diana ignored the question and continued, her friends interrupting again when she relayed the ongoing airborne search
plot. “He went where?” Terri asked, not really expecting an answer.

Nick didn’t g
ive Diana time to respond, “Wow, we leave town for a couple of hours and everything goes to hell in a hand-basket. Got to hand it to Bishop, if that scheme works, we might be able to eat for a few more months. That was pretty quick thinking.”

“You better
tell the posse not to get comfortable. If Bishop and Deke locate the crooks’ stash, we will need to mobilize quickly.”

The plane was on its third glide
across the field of study when Deke’s excited voice sounded out, “Got ’em.”

Bishop quickly switched sides and brought the scope up to his eye. The green and white landscape below was harshly interrupted by a flashing bright beam reaching for the sky. It
only took a few moments to center on the source.

Looking like a child’s toy, Bishop could clearly make out the shape on the getaway truck as it bounced along. The strobe of the flashlight made the vehicle stand out like a hotel
sign on the Las Vegas Strip, its beam illuminating a bright lime-green against the stark black background of the surrounding desert. It was impossible to judge what speed the driver was maintaining, but it didn’t look as if they were in any hurry.

The truck was bounc
ing along what appeared to be a farm lane. Bishop checked the plane’s GPS and then used a red light to verify the location against his map. He confirmed there wasn’t any public road close to the route being traveled by the target below.

“How are we doing on fuel?
” Bishop asked Mr. Mills.

“We can stay
up for another two hours or so, maybe a bit more.”

“Let’s give them plenty of room just in case somebody down there has good ears.”

Deke and Bishop exchanged devices, each curious what the other man was seeing. The truck below looked like a hefty, multi-colored blob with a disco light when viewed through the thermal scope. Not only could Bishop see the engine’s bright red glow, the individual riders in the back were clearly discernible as they bumped along the rough terrain. The chemical heating pads showed an intense color of pink, obviously much warmer than the surrounding human bodies.

“If we had an armed predator drone on-call, I could save everyone a lot of time and trouble,” offered Deke.

Bishop and Hugh grunted. “Probably not a good idea if you want any of the food back though,” Deke added.

As Bishop reached to hand Deke his
scope back, he noticed some familiar equipment mounted on the console. “Hugh, does the radio work?”

“Should,” replied the pilot, reaching for the knob. The three men watched as the digital dial glowed to life. “It seems to work, but there’
s nobody to talk to.”

Bishop dug around in his vest, his one good arm making the effort
frustrating. He eventually located a piece of paper with several numbers written on it. Passing it forward to the pilot, he asked, “Will that radio broadcast on any of these frequencies?”

Hugh reached up and turned on a red light, the color necessary to avoid losing his night vision. Scanning the li
st, he eventually responded. “Sure, one of these is an aircraft emergency channel. Who are we going to call?”

“The HAM radio op
erator in Alpha. He can update Diana on our status so she can start planning where to send the cavalry.”

Hugh turned the dial
until the large red numerals indicated the correct frequency. As he lifted the microphone, Bishop said, “Hold that for a minute – I’ve got another idea. They’re heading east, northeast. Let’s fly ahead of them on the same course and see if we can figure out where they’re going. That would be more important to Alpha than where they are right now.”

Deke agreed, “If they’ve got some sort of camp or bas
e, it would also be good to scout another route in. They’re probably watching their backs.”

Mr. Mills adjusted the controls
, and the small plane gently dipped one wing and banked toward the east. Forty minutes later, Deke detected several glowing globs of heat through his device and pointed out the location to Bishop.

“I can’t make out much detail at this height,” he reported. “Any chance we can glide in a little closer?”

“I can take you right over the top of them if you want. I don’t want to get too low though. There might be power lines or something else sticking up that would ruin our day.”

Hugh banked the craft again, pulling a large, slow circle over the open desert and building altitude. A few minutes
later, he shut off the engine completely, the act causing Deke’s head to pivot sharply.

“What are you doing?” the contractor protested.

“It’s okay, Deke. We just became a glider. It’s cool.”

Bishop had to admit he liked the reassuring vibration of the plane’s engine a lot better than the sound of the air rushing past at over 100 mph. Mr. Mills seemed confident and calm, so he decided to focus on the scouting and not the ground.

“Their camp should be coming up on the starboard side here shortly. We’re going to be low, so you should be able to get a good look.”

Sure enough, Bishop and Deke spotted what appeared to be a cluster of
machinery and piles of metal randomly stacked around a central group of house trailers, campers, and a single ranch-style home. Deke detected at least 19 heat signatures of people within the compound.

Bishop’s view provided a little more context. “It’s a
junkyard. Alpha was robbed by a bunch of scrap dealers? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“
Scrap dealers need food, too,” responded Deke.

“I don’t think so.
Counting the people on the truck, their little gathering down there has 30 people, tops. Why demand so much food? That number of people couldn’t eat that much food in three months. Why take the risk of stealing more than you need?”

“Maybe that’s not where the dump truck is headed,” offered Hugh.

Bishop said, “You might be right, but there’s nothing out here for miles. Let’s go back and follow them in to make sure.”