Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 (109 page)

"The Reserves will pay for the fuel," Mitch said, and Alma nodded again.

"I won't pretend that doesn't help. Go ahead and get her ready, I'll get the kits aboard. Linc's made coffee, too."

They worked their way methodically through the preflight checklists, both of them knowing better than to rush. Any mistakes now would be paid for in the air, and that would only make a bad situation worse. Six adults and two kids, and the best you could hope for was that they'd managed to make some kind of landing. Please God it wouldn't be like the mail plane….

The hangar's small door banged open, and Stasi rushed in with the basket they used for the passengers' meals, long wool coat buttoned tight over ungainly galoshes. She disappeared into the office, and a moment later Al came out, carrying the basket. Lewis clambered back to take it at the cabin door, certain he was blushing again, and Alma handed it in.

"Sandwiches and cake and another thermos of coffee," she said.

"Thanks."

"I'll tell her," Alma said, with a grin, and then sobered. "Be careful. If the weather closes in — you can't do anything if the ceiling drops too low."

"I know," Lewis said, "And so does Mitch. Don't worry, we'll be careful."

"I know." Alma looked over her shoulder, then reached up to snatch a kiss. "Just — be safe."

"We will," Lewis said, but she'd already turned away. He watched her go, wondering if she knew something he didn't — she didn't see things, not the way he did, but that wasn't the sort of thing he wondered about, not now, not watching the way she walked, the way her body moved when she turned away from him. If she was, she had a right to be more worried than usual, and he still had no choice but to do his duty. The work put before them, Mitch called it, and there was a solid rightness to the words.

They took off into a freshening wind, Lewis in the co-pilot's seat with the maps and Sampson's instructions written out in Alma's careful hand, the basket of supplies strapped to the bulkhead just outside the cockpit door. The emergency kit in the cabin was strapped down, too, and as they bounced through the unstable air, Lewis was glad they'd taken the precaution. The ceiling was decent here, a few thousand feet between ground and clouds, enough to give them a look at the ground, though to the west he could see the first signs of the incoming storm, a darker line on the horizon.

It was harder to see the ground from the Terrier than it was from the Frontiersman even in daylight, but the snowpack helped, reflecting the starlight and showing up any break in the ground. He spotted what looked like a break in the trees off the right wing, poked Mitch's shoulder and pointed, but when the big plane banked over it, it resolved to a rocky slope too steep to hold the snow. Mitch brought the Terrier back on course, and they droned west, the Terrier rocking in the headwind.

They'd been in the air for a bit over an hour, clawing for room between the lowering cloud base and the tops of the mountains, when they finally broke out into better air. The ceiling lifted, clouds behind them and ahead of them, but with enough space to breathe, and Lewis loosened his seatbelt to fetch the thermos of coffee. Mitch took a cup, nodding his thanks.

"I think I'm going to start the cross leg now," he called, over the engines' noise. "I know it's early, but if we go the full distance, we'll be back in the soup."

"Makes sense," Lewis shouted back, and took a drink of his own coffee. It was sweet and pale, made to Mitch's taste, not his, and that made him think again about what he'd seen. He glanced sideways, Mitch's face unreadable, lit only by the faint glow of the instrument panel. "You know, I — I'm sorry I interrupted."

Mitch's expression didn't change, but Lewis thought he saw a faint hint of color on the other man's cheeks. "It was an emergency."

"Still."

"It's ok."

And that was about as far as Lewis was prepared to go, and he was glad to turn his attention back to the windows. "There's the highway."

That was the landmark for their northern sweep, and Mitch adjusted the Terrier's course so that they were flying parallel to the thin line. The wind was picking up; on the new heading it was a crosswind, lifting and dropping the Terrier unpredictably, and Lewis jammed the thermos tightly into the holder beside his seat. The clouds were definitely moving in, the ceiling dropping, and Mitch shook his head.

"Radio Denver, will you? Let them know I'm cutting my sweep short on the north side and heading east."

If they didn't, the clouds would overtake them, Lewis knew, block their view of the ground and force them to try to get above the storm before they turned for home. A night landing through clouds, in worsening weather — that was pretty much asking for trouble. If the weather hadn't been screwy, Sampson would surely have waited until morning to start the search, rather than risk more crashes. No, turning back was the smart thing to do — the only thing to do — but he couldn't help hesitating. Somewhere out there eight people were down — two children. It went against the grain to turn short. But if they crashed, too, that wouldn't help anyone. He picked up the microphone, tuned the radio to the Denver frequency, and relayed the message.

For a change, the air was relatively free of static, some freak effect of the on-coming snow. "Roger that, Gilchrist. Salt Lake is reporting snow, so if you need to set down, go ahead."

"Will do," Lewis answered. "We're still ahead of it, looks like. I think we can make it back to you before it sets in." He paused. "Any word?"

"Nothing yet, Gilchrist. Denver out."

Lewis replaced the microphone with a sigh. Beneath the Terrier's wings, the snow stretched unbroken, white and gleaming against the dark. A flurry of snow swirled across the windscreen, and was whipped away by the wind. Somewhere out there…. Not dead. He didn't believe they were dead, though he couldn't have said where that certainty came from. Maybe it was just that thinking they were alive made it more urgent — but no.

He glanced over at Mitch. "Is there an occult way to find the plane? Like dowsing or something?"

Mitch shook his head ruefully. "If there were, Al could have done it before we took off. We'd need a material correspondence — something linked to the plane, like when we dowsed for the demon that had been bound in Lake Nemi using the tablet that bound it. There was a link between the tablet and the demon. To dowse for the plane we'd need something like that. Which we don't have."

Lewis nodded. Ok, there was no way to find it using Al's talent. Of course they'd already thought of that. But he wasn't Al. That wasn't his gift. This was part of what Stasi had been trying to teach him — to trust himself, to accept the message even if you weren't sure it wasn't just more static, the ego or the id or whatever trying to horn in.

Lewis closed his eyes. All right, they were alive, he'd go with that, alive somewhere in the mountains. There had to be a way to play his hunch, to see what wanted to be seen. They wanted to be found. They were praying for someone to find them. Luck and the good angels had been with them, opening a break in the trees just big enough to let them slide to a stop unharmed, though the machine would never fly again. A clearing, not level but nearly so, beneath a steeper slope where in the summer wildflowers straggled from the heaps of spoil. He could picture it in his mind, feel the plane shaking, controls vibrating as the pilot fought to keep it level, seeing the clearing providentially opening out beneath them, trying to ignore the screams of fear from the passenger compartment behind as the ground came rushing up….

Lewis jerked, opening his eyes. For a moment the vision had seemed so real it was impossible to believe that the Terrier was still flying the search pattern, that nothing was wrong.

"Are you ok?" Mitch asked, sparing him a glance. "Lewis?"

"Yeah." Lewis shook his head, trying to clear it. "They found a clearing. They might have made it."

"Ok." Mitch didn't argue.

He had to figure out how to do this. Somehow. If he had something to focus on, the way Stasi showed him to use the symbols of the cards, a symbolic representation of some kind. A thought struck him. Lewis reached for the map, folding it back again, not on their search line, but someone else's, back south and a hair west. He held the picture in his mind. A snow covered slope, a few buildings at the top of the canyon, a valley free of trees… The map was just another picture, just another way of drawing the place he saw in his mind's eye. There had been no sound of engines in his vision. The engines were out, a dead stick landing on a long valley…. There. His breath caught, seeing the symbols. That spot, there, where the ground flattened, right at the base of the Silver Bullet Mine.

"Mitch. I know where they are."

"What?"

The note in Mitch's voice jerked Lewis out of his near trance and he blinked, looking around in momentary confusion. He must have been concentrating for some time. The snow had gotten heavier, the clouds lower; the altimeter said that Mitch had dropped another hundred-fifty feet since the last time Lewis had checked the instruments. It was a good thing they were going east, riding what was now a tailwind, but the storm was overtaking them.

"I know where they are," Lewis said again. "They're back by the Silver Bullet."

"You're sure?"

Pretty sure. Lewis swallowed the words. Pretty sure wasn't enough to risk their lives on. "Yeah. I'm sure."

"Damn it." The Terrier bucked beneath them, punctuating Mitch's words. "We can't make it. Not tonight. I'm putting us down at Denver."

But — Lewis made himself nod. This was Mitch's plane, Mitch's call, and anyway he was right. It was going to be hard enough to make Denver safely.

The ceiling had dropped to three hundred feet by the time they got to Denver, and the snow was getting heavier, though at least the wind had steadied to a brisk tailwind. The beacon cut through the whirling white, and the field was lit by old-fashioned kerosene pots as well as the modern lights. They'd been plowing, low heaps to either side of the main strip, and Lewis could see the taillights of a plow moving along the tarmac as he reached for the radio again.

"Denver Tower, this is Gilchrist Aviation requesting permission to land."

"Roger, Gilchrist, we see you." The tower's answer was reassuringly prompt. "We're just plowing the runway, come around again."

"Roger that," Lewis answered, and glanced at Mitch.

"I heard."

He brought the Terrier around in a wide circle, but in spite of his efforts they bounced wildly as the crosswind hit. Lewis clung to the side of his seat, glad they'd finished the coffee before it was flung all over them, and the radio crackled again.

"Gilchrist, this is Denver Tower. You're cleared to land."

"Thank God," Mitch said, under his breath, and Lewis spoke into the microphone.

"Roger, Denver Tower. We're coming in."

It was easier to hold the plane level with the wind behind it, but Lewis had no illusion that this would be an easy landing. Threads of snow were already sweeping down the tarmac ahead of them, accumulating against any irregularity of ground. They'd get one pass before the plows needed to come out again. Mitch brought them down carefully, airspeed a little high to keep solid control, teeth bared as he fought the wheel. Too fast, Lewis thought, bracing himself, but Mitch kept coming, touched down on two wheels at the very end of the runway, shedding speed until he could lower the tail and coast to a normal speed. The snow was even thicker as they slowed, and the flagman was bundled in a surplus flight suit, looking like an eskimo with his fur-lined hood. He led them down the taxi-way — not so well-plowed as the runway, the Terrier lurching and bumping over the little drifts — to the smaller hangar where the Reserve planes were usually kept, and as he closed the door behind them, Mitch switched off the engines.

"Nice flying," Lewis said.

Mitch gave him a wry smile. "That's cutting a little closer than I'd like."

"Any landing you walk away from," Lewis said. He looked at his watch. "Damn. It's too late to call Al, not without waking up the exchange."

"She won't be expecting to hear from us till morning," Mitch said. "Come on, let's debrief, and then I hope Colonel Sampson's got a bed for us somewhere."

"Me, too," Lewis said, and clambered out of the plane behind him.

Chapter Seven

December 8, 1932

Colorado Springs

A
few stray flurries of snow drifted past the windows, pale against the early morning clouds, and Alma tried to ignore them. There was no point in noticing them at all. She had the books spread out on the desk in the office, determinedly adding columns of figures and ignoring the clock and the weather alike. This was a perfectly good day to do the books. Even if it had started unusually early. And there was no particular reason she was wakeful, none at all.

Unfortunately it was hard to ignore Stasi, who kept getting up and pacing around and opening the door and rattling pencils against the desk and looking out the window. The hundredth time or so Alma looked up, irritated.

"What do you think they're doing?" Stasi asked.

Alma took a deep breath. "I expect they're flying the grid," she said. "They will have put down somewhere overnight, but assuming they had decent weather this morning, they'll be flying the grid. And I expect they will be until they find something or the weather gets too rough." She glanced at the barometer on the wall. "The pressure's dropping. That's the next storm coming in, and the wire from Salt Lake City says it's going to be bigger than what we had last night. But those people are out in it, and they've got to be found before it's too late." Alma bent her head determinedly over the books again. The numbers for November. She would get the books for November closed.