Skyhook (34 page)

” Hear the quiet.” Beautiful image. In fact, if I wasn’t so wrought up over my dad, as well as completely unable to see how we’ll get out of here without killing ourselves, this would be one of the most beautiful nights I’ve ever spent.”

“I take that as a compliment.”

She looked at him and smiled before letting her eyes drift back to the icebergs. “Actually, I was talking about the setting.”

“Thanks anyway.”

“I do appreciate your coming back.”

He laughed. “If you’re afraid I’m going to take offense at the ‘jerk pilot’ thing, don’t. That was a jerky thing to do, leaving you this morning.”

“Well, you came back.”

“Yeah,” he said.

She turned to him, catching his eyes. “You came back to help me, right? Not just to take me to dinner?”

“You’re very direct, aren’t you, April?”

“When I’m floating around at midnight in the middle of nowhere in the effective physical control of a male I barely know, darn tootin’ I’m direct.”

“The answer is, yes, I have no bad intentions. I came back to help you, not chase you.”

“Good. Because nothing’s going to happen tonight. Understood?”

“Of course.”

“Just, you know, so there are no expectations.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I mean, this beautiful setting and all could lead some guys to .

. .”

“April,” he said suddenly, smiling at her.

“Yes?”

“It’s okay. Calm down.”

“All right.”

They sat in silence for several minutes before she heard him stretch. “Tell you what. Why don’t we sleep in shifts? That way you can pull one of the sleeping bags inside the other back there while I make sure we don’t drift between two of these bergs.”

“What if we do? You can’t physically push something that big away, can you?”

He was nodding. “Actually, I can push us out of harm’s way. This little bird only weighs four thousand pounds.”

“Will you wake me up in, what, three hours?”

He smiled as he pulled himself out of the left seat to retrieve the lantern and put it in the nose section. “Okay. Three hours.”

-/-here was light in her eyes when April returned to consciousness. She sat up suddenly, recognizing the filtered daylight through an overcast above the lake.

“Scott?”

“Good morning.”

“You didn’t wake me?”

He shrugged. “No need. I was doing fine up here.”

She unzipped the bag, feeling the sting of the cold air in the frigid cabin and seeing the extra parka he’d wrapped around himself.

“That wasn’t the deal, Mr. Macho.”

“So sue me,” he said, his smile somewhat strained. The remark puzzled her.

She stowed the sleeping bags as he moved forward to the nose section to fire up a small camp stove, and they sat for awhile when he was done, nursing steaming mugs of coffee and munching on cereal bars. She watched him survey the floating ice around them.

“So how are we going to do this?”

“Just watch,” he said evenly. He finished his makeshift breakfast and they began stowing the lantern, stove, and heater to secure the cabin. When everything was back in place, he eased himself into the left seat and handed her the checklist. April began reading the items, checking his fluid responses as he positioned the switches and reached at last for the starter.

“Cranking number one.”

The whine of the electric starter struggling with limited power against the engine’s cylinders warbled for a few seconds, then began to fade. He switched off the starter and worked the primer, squeezing raw fuel into the carburetor before trying it again, his face hardening with worry.

“Starting one,” he said, the words clipped as the propeller began rotating in jerky fashion, its motion slowing until one cylinder fired, then another, followed by silence.

“Oh,

ord, don’t tell me we’re out of battery power?” April said.

She could see him biting his lip. “Scott?”

“Goddammit!” He peered carefully at the DC voltage meter.

“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” she asked.

He got out of the seat without answering, and she turned to watch him rummage around in the back of the cabin and pull out what looked like a tool kit. He lifted out two yellow rectangular de

vices and came forward, plugging them into the empty cigarette lighter in the lower forward panel.

“May I ask what you’re doing?”

“Yes.”

More silence as he checked the meter.

“So … what are you doing?”

“Starting number one,” he said as he worked the primer before turning the starter switch.

Once more the left propeller began jerking into motion, but this time the cylinders fired with authority and the engine roared to life with a comforting rumble.

Scott sat back in the seat and exhaled, his eyes on the oil-pressure gauges as they came up smartly to operating pressure. He turned to her finally and shook his head.

“I’m sorry, April. We almost…”

“Those things are portable battery boosters?”

“Yeah. Automotive. I’ve never needed them before. I wasn’t sure they’d work.”

“We used too much battery last night?”

He looked chagrined. “I left the master switch on too long while you were sleeping. I was checking weather on the radio.”

He turned back to the task of starting the right engine.

Bolstered by the current from the left generator, the right engine started immediately, and they ran through the checklist before Scott brought the props out of the feathered position.

The Widgeon began moving through the water immediately, and he guided it toward one of the largest icebergs, turning at the last second to let the nose bump into the ice at the angle he wanted.

When the prow of the Widgeon had nudged itself firmly onto the iceberg, Scott brought the engine power up, watching the shoreline carefully until he was satisfied the huge iceberg was in motion.

“So that’s it! You’re going to shove them out of the way.”

He nodded.

“And create a runway, right?”

“It’s worked before,” Scott said. “But it’ll take an hour or so to push enough of them to each side to form a runway, and I’m going to need you up in the nose hatch with that oar to push us away from each one when I’m finished with it.”

“How much open water do we need?”

“About twenty-eight hundred feet.”

“How long is this lake?”

Scott chuckled. “About twenty-five hundred feet.”

“What?”

“But it’s all downhill.”

chroedinger had been trying fruitlessly to awaken Ben for at least fifteen minutes when the telephone rang.

“Dr. Cole?”

“Yes?”

“Sorry if I called too early, sir. This is Jim ucavitch in

security at Uniwave.”

Ben pulled himself upright on the bed, forcing his mind to accelerate to full consciousness.

“Yes, Jim.”

“You were by here last night trying to locate Mr. Jerrod, I understand, and I’ve been following up on that.”

“Good. Is he in this morning?”

“No, sir. Mr. Jerrod is out of the country. That’s all I’m at liberty to tell you.”

“Do you … have any idea when he’ll be back?”

“No, Dr. Cole, I don’t.”

“Well, it’s really urgent that I at least speak with him. Can we arrange that this morning? I can come in for security purposes.”

“No, sir, that won’t be possible.”

Ben felt himself pass the fully awake point, a slight warning buzzer going off in his head announcing the need for immediate caution. Something was very wrong with this response.

“Okay, Jim.

Let me put this to you as clearly as I can without breaching any security rules or regulations. It is imperative that I speak personally on a secure line with Mr. Jerrod today, and it involves a matter of national security of the highest interest to Uniwave. Understood?”

“Dr. Cole, I understand, but I’m not a magician. I quite frankly have no idea how to reach Mr. Jerrod at the moment, and all I can say is that we’ll keep trying. If you need some emergency protection, we can come get you in fifteen minutes.”

“That’s not necessary. It’s not a protection matter. At least, not about protecting me.”

It was going to be futile to pressure the man further, Ben realized. He terminated the call and sat rubbing his eyes for a minute, working to bat down the hopefully fictional scenarios that could explain Dan Jerrod’s sudden disappearance.

Schroedinger was making it very clear that a formal charge of feline abuse was in the offing if his breakfast was not served within the next few minutes. Ben gave him a conciliatory head scratching before following the aggravated cat to the kitchen. He made coffee and reached out the front door to retrieve the Anchorage Times, opening it on the center island in the kitchen as he settled onto a stool to catch up with the world. He was into the third section before a small article about a recent plane crash caught his attention.

FAA accused of overreaction in monday’s seaplane accident Midair Collision Possible

The Monday night loss of a private twin-engine seaplane some sixty miles south of Valdez has led to cancelation of a senior pilot’s license to fly and resulted in countercharges that local Federal Aviation Administration officials are persecuting the pilot.

The aircraft, a World War II-vintage Grumman Albatross, crashed south of Prince William Sound late Monday on a flight from Anchorage to Sitka. The owner-pilot—a senior airline captain for a major U.S. airline—reported a sudden fog bank at low altitude at the same moment his right engine mysteriously lost a propeller blade and broke loose, causing a loss of control. Captain Arlie Rosen of Sequim, Washington, and his wife, Rachel, were the only occupants of the aircraft, which was featured last year in the iving Section of the Anchorage Times for its motor home—like interior. The couple survived the crash without serious injury and were rescued late Tuesday morning by the Coast Guard. They were taken to Providence Hospital with mild hypothermia and released the following day.

The wreckage, which sank in some three hundred feet of water, has not yet been examined and may be very difficult to raise. The Coast Guard confirms that they have no current plans to raise the wreckage. Meanwhile, the FAA has already taken the highly unusual step of revoking Captain Rosen’s pilot license and charging him with flying while intoxicated, operating an aircraft recklessly, and violating several FAA regulations regarding flight into marginal weather conditions, charges Rosen vehemently denies through his attorney. Sources close to the case say the FAA does not believe the aircraft lost a propeller blade, but that instead, the pilot simply flew too low and drove the aircraft into the water.

The revocation, which came from FAA headquarters in Washington, D.C., effectively grounds Captain Rosen from his airline job as well as from private flying. Rosen’s attorney, Seattle lawyer Gracie O’Brien, told the Times, “There is no justification for the FAA’s actions. They’ve gone off halfcocked, without even the most cursory evidence, and have egregiously damaged the reputation of one of the finest senior pilots in the nation.”

Ms. O’Brien added that “thirty-thousand-hour airline captains do not just negligently fly airplanes into the water.” Ms. O’Brien accused the FAA of staging an unexplained vendetta from the very first interview, citing a hostile hospital room exchange on Tuesday between Rosen and an FAA investigator. “The FAA is refusing to investigate any of several other very possible scenarios, such as the possibility that the propeller clipped another aircraft that perhaps didn’t have the authority to be where it was.”

ocal FAA officials have refused to comment on the case, referring all inquiries to officials in Washington, who are also refusing to comment.

That’s a shame., Ben thought, feeling an uncharacteristic bridge of camaraderie to anyone alleging government overreaction. He reread the next-to-the-last paragraph, his mind latching onto the mention of a possible midair collision, as the subtitle had bannered.

Monday night. Where was this?

He searched out the part that mentioned the location, some sixty miles south of Valdez, and moved to his laptop to call up a detailed Alaska map program. He pinpointed the area and sat back, his thoughts accelerating.

Where were we? And when did this occur?

The article hadn’t mentioned the exact time of the crash, he discovered, but a quick check of his own test notes pinpointed the time of the Gulfstream’s harrowing dive to fifty feet, and its deadeye aim at the oil tanker miles ahead.

The tanker was coming out of Valdez. That would put him about here, which means we were about here.

Ben shook his head to expunge the unwanted conclusions. He had been there, after all. If they’d hit anything, including some lumbering warbird’s propeller, he would have heard it and probably felt it. Besides, the fact they were in the same area on the same evening was hardly evidence they’d come close to each other. There were probably dozens of airplanes out that night, and who knew how many might have been nearby?

Just a tantalizing coincidence, he told himself.

But, just in case, he decided to clip and save the article.

MENDORF RFB, H

HSKfl

Mac MacAdams was in a grumpy mood from waking up over and over during the night, and his wife,

Linda, knew the warning signs.

The fact that her sleep had been all but sabotaged by his insomnia was best suppressed for the moment, she figured. Mac was a compassionate and caring husband, but she knew the energy it took for him to be reasonable when the storm warnings went up from lack of sleep. Something was troubling the general, and the general’s wife was smart enough to know how to quietly fix his breakfast, serve it with the morning paper, and judiciously withdraw.

He would, she knew, be contrite later, and that was always useful.

Mac knew very well what was bugging him, and it made him even more irritated that such a small, potentially useless suspicion was leaching away so much of his attention. So what if they might have covered up a small ding on the right winglet of the Gulfstream? No way could that be evidence of some midair collision.