Cherry Adair - T-flac 06 (40 page)

Breathless, Lily struggled out of her heavy coat, pulled her sweater over her head and tossed both behind her seat. Right now she'd welcome a cool breeze. She was sweating as though she were in a sauna. She shoved up her sleeves, took a shuddering breath and climbed over him, careful not to kick, bump or jiggle anything on the instrument panel as she did so.

"The president should give me a freaking Medal of Honor for this," she muttered as she wedged herself between Derek's large body and the wall. It was a tight fit. She thought of all the movies she'd seen with just this scenario. Somehow or other, even dumb blondes were able to land 747s with just a little help from a cute air traffic controller on the radio.

Radio.

Okay
. She took a deep breath and tried to remember where Derek's hand had been the last time she'd glanced at him. She rested her hands on the U-shaped steering wheel. Like this?

She screamed as the nose dipped below the horizon. "Move your hands, move your hands!"
Oh, God,
oh, God
. She adjusted her hands and the nose came back up.

One-handed, she snatched the headset from Derek's head.
Thank God
. She heard a man talking in a monotone.

"Help—Shit! Mayday.
Mayday
!"

He continued talking. Oblivious.

She searched frantically on the dash for a button to press that wouldn't plunge them into oblivion. There, an unmarked button. She pressed it until her thumb went white. "Mayday? Hello?"

No answer.

Was everyone in Nome asleep?

"Wake up, people!" Lily shouted into the mic on the headset. "I'm a disaster about to happen. I need some help here!"

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She scanned all the dials and lights and
things
on the dash. The black numbers meant absolutely nothing to her. If one of them told her how high she was off the ground, she really,
really
did not want that information. Nor did she want to know how close she was to the ground. She kept depressing the button and calling in the Mayday. Eventually someone had to wake up and hear her. She hoped to hell it wasn't after she'd crash-landed into their control tower. But if she had to crash then that's where she wanted to hit. "Serve the slackers right, huh, kids?"

Dingbat huffed.

One instrument showed a little plane. Cute. Useless, but cute. She didn't know if having her hands on the yoke was doing anything or not. She was too scared to remove them.

She heard a loud mechanical noise as she stared at the horizon straight ahead with fierce concentration, as if her will could keep them up in the air. How much gas did they have? How long could the plane stay up if she didn't do anything at all?

Would the plane coast slowly down, or would they—

Wop-wop-wop-wop.

The noise got louder. And louder. And louder.

Something was broken.

Like miscalculating a last step in a staircase, the plane dropped like a rock. She bit her tongue. God almighty. They were going down. Fast.

Wop-wop-wop.

Her hands tightened on the wheel and the nose dipped when she pushed it down. She pulled up. The nose went up. Way up, slamming her back into her seat. Every muscle group in her body strained, and her heart pounded like a sledgehammer on speed.

The dogs howled, then started barking manically, scrambling over one another and banging against the back of her seat.

Wop-wop-wop-wop
—

She pushed down on the yoke—just a little—and the nose evened out again, leaving her shaking and sweaty. The noise was getting on her last nerve. "Mayday, damn it! Don't you people go to the movies? I need
help here
!"

The nose dipped and no matter what she did, no matter how hard she pushed, it refused to come back up.

"Help!"

Wop-wop-wop-wop.

Oh, God.

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"Damn you, Derek! Wake up!"

Nineteen

Wop-wop-wop-wop
.

"Dr. Munroe? Lily?" The voice saying her name in the headset startled her. "If you'd take a look over here at three o'clock? Help has arrived."

Lily swung her head. Her eyes took a little longer to get there. "Oh." She stared, uncomprehendingly for a moment, at the shadowy figure barely visible inside a large black helicopter hovering on her right wing.

The origin of the
wop-wop-wop
.

She wasn't alone. "H-hi." And
thank God
.

"Is he dead?" the pilot sounded only mildly curious.

"Is—?"

"Look on the top of the left handle of the control yoke, that's the steering wheel in front of Derek. See the small toggle? Press and release it several times so I know you can hear me."

She did.

"Good. To talk, press the toggle left, to hear me again, release it."

"Not dead. Unconscious. Sho—" The nose dipped. She screamed, and grabbed the yoke in a death grip as all the blood drained from her head. "Shit!"

"Easy does it." The pilot's voice came to her calm and quiet. Doing nothing whatsoever to stop Lily's heart from choking her. Sweat beaded her hairline, ran between her breasts and glued her to the seat. If the yoke were a neck it would be strangled to death, she was gripping it so hard. Each bone-white finger joint ached. The harder she held on, the better chance she had of holding this damn plane up here.

Why was there no damn
air
in this thing?

"
Push
for down," he said into her ear as she gasped for oxygen like a beached fish. "
Pull
for up. It's sensitive, so pull up si—"

Beep-beep-beepbeepbeepbeep.

Palms slick with sweat, heart hammering, Lily felt the blood drain from her head. "Oh, God! What's happening? What's happening!"

"You're pulling up too fast," he said calmly in counterpoint to her agitation. "Easy does it. There you go.

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All right. I'm going to talk you down nice and easy. Just do everything I tell you to, and in fifteen minutes you'll be safe and sound on the ground."

Good. Very good
. "I'd like that. A
lot
!"

"You'll be there in no time. You're doing great."

Not breathing, but haven't crashed. Yet.

Yeah, great.

"I'll contact the tower and let them know what's up," he told her. "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Nome Tower, this is Bell, November four-one-two-hotel, Long Range, request emergency landing, have fire and rescue on alert, over."

Lily's muscles went lax with terror. Fire and rescue? Oh, God—
Pleasepleasepleaseplease. Get me out
of here. Now
.

"Roger that, Bell, November four-one-two-hotel, state your emergency, over."

Listening to the two calm male voices, Lily blurted out, "Where the hell were you a few minutes ago, Ace? Reading a freaking book in the john?"

"That's enough, honey," Mr. Helicopter inserted smoothly. "Let's get you down on terra firma, and Derek in the hospital. Then you can ream us a new one, okay?"

"Okay, yes, sure. Fine," Lily said through dry lips.
Please, oh, please. I want to be on the ground now

.

He was right. All that mattered was getting down safely, and getting Derek to the hospital.

"This is Bell, November four-one-two-hotel, we are on an intercept and escort with de Havilland, oscar one-niner-three, Beaver. Pilot incapacitated, civilian at controls. Nome VORTAC, heading one-one-zero, VFR, altitude two-four-seven-five, two-five minutes out, over."

"Bell, how do you wish to proceed? Over."

Yes
, Lily thought, too terrified to look at anything but her white-knuckled hands on the yoke.
Tell me.

How the hell do we proceed
? There wasn't a drop of spit in her mouth, her eyeballs were desert dry and sweat ran down her temples.

"We are in visual contact, aircraft is on your frequency, passenger on headphones, will talk her down, over."

"Bell, emergency vehicles en route, runway twenty-seven, monitoring transmission, over."

"Hi, Lily." She looked at the darkened windows of the helicopter. The man inside was nothing more than a darker shape at the controls. "Huntington St. John—friend of Derek. I'll be your guide this afternoon."

Her half laugh sounded more like a sob. Equal parts humor and horror. Thank God, he seemed to know what he was doing, which made her believe that she, Derek and the dogs might just get out of this after
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all. Swallowing her fear, she asked, "What's first?"

"Let me clarify what's what, and we can get this show on the road." He calmly walked her through the operation and function of the instrument panel, the foot pedals and the yoke. "Ready?"

"As I'll e-ever be," Lily told him with a noticeable tremor in her voice. "Let's d-do it."

"All right. Now we begin your descent. Pull back—gently now—on the throttle. Reduce power by about one-quarter cruising speed. See the nose drop? Don't panic. It's supposed to be about four inches below the horizon. You're doing fine."

If
fine
was sweaty palms, and severe heart palpitations, and wanting desperately to puke, she was better than fine. She spared a quick glance at Derek. Still unconscious.
Don't you dare die
.

"See the airport down to your left?"

It was far, far
faaar
down. Her mouth was so dry her "yes" didn't make it past her lips.

"I want you to make a pass over the airstrip. Just a pass. You've got plenty of fuel. Just go around once so I can tell them we're coming in and get you lined up."

The plane dropped with a teeth-jarring jolt. Lily screamed. Her vision blurred. Sick to her stomach, saliva flooded her mouth.
OhGodohGodohGod
—

"It's okay. You're okay. Hold her steady."

I am
not
okay
. She tried to swallow, but found her throat constricted with sheer, unadulterated terror.

"A-around?"

"One pass, you can do it."

"You don't know me. How the hell do you know if I can do it or not?" Lily demanded furiously. She didn't
want
to be the one in charge, damn it.

"Because," he said coolly, "nothing else is acceptable. Now concentrate."

Coming in, Lily thought grimly. One way or the other, the plane would get down on the ground. She only prayed that they wouldn't need the fire trucks lining the runway so far below her.

White-knuckled, Lily did as instructed. Every curse she had ever learned streamed through her brain as she guided the plane in a circle above the airport, following St. John's instructions to the letter.

Beep-beep-beepbeeeeep. "No
!" Lily adjusted her grip. The annoying and horrifying beep stopped. But the sound of it echoed in her brain, making her sweat even more. Once again bile rose in the back of her throat as wind buffeted the plane and it rose and fell like a dinghy on the sea. "I c-can't do th-this."