Charlie took a deep breath of the cabin air. It was rich with the waxy aroma of aircraft hydraulic fluid people often associate with going on vacation. He admired the plush carpet of treetops below. The old yellow general store appeared quaint. The rhythmic thumping of the rotors became a song of respite.
It was interrupted by a sickly gasp from the engine.
Abruptly the ship yawed to Charlie’s side. The first aid box on the wall behind him popped open, raining supplies. Everything else that wasn’t tied down, including Cadaret, drummed the right wall. Charlie grabbed a strut to keep from hanging by his straps.
Drummond maneuvered the cyclic control stick and worked the foot pedals, but he couldn’t right the ship. His eyes mirrored Charlie’s bewilderment.
“What was the thing I was worrying about?” he asked.
The timing was so preposterous that Charlie wondered whether Drummond’s newly debuted lighter side included practical jokes.
That notion died as the engine fell quiet, and in its place came a loud, high-pitched horn. The row of warning lights over the instrument panel blazed red, as did the temperature gauge. The flapping of the blades began to slow, to sickening effect. And that was nothing compared to the ground racing nightmarishly upward. The air rushed past like fighter jets.
Any panic Charlie had ever felt before was an itch compared to this.
Fighting it, he took hold of the collective from Drummond, who slumped in his seat, stupefied. The lever felt like it had been fixed in concrete.
So much, Charlie thought, for his familiarity with helicopter controls. He had a better chance of landing a car from a thousand feet.
He expected scenes from his life to flash before his eyes.
Cadaret surged from the cabin. Although woozy, the killer squeezed through the gap between the pilot and copilot seats, then dove, slamming the collective to the floor.
“Right pedal!” he screamed to Drummond.
“Yes, yes, thank you,” Drummond said, stomping his right foot pedal.
With a groan, Cadaret grabbed Drummond’s knee. He manipulated Drummond’s foot as if it were a marionette, reducing pressure on the pedal.
Although the gauges still indicated the engine was dead, the rotor blades sped up. Their rich buzz returned. The ship entered a steady glide.
Charlie’s jubilation was tinged by disbelief. “How is this possible?”
“Autorotation,” Drummond said, as if recalling an old friend.
“Yeah,” Cadaret said, pulling back on the cyclic. “Still we’re going to dig a giant hole in the ground unless we can slow the hell down.”
The helicopter’s nose bumped up and the flight path flattened out. The vertical speed indicator dropped to 1,100 feet per minute, which sounded like a lot but didn’t feel it. Charlie suspected he’d been in faster elevators.
“Not bad,” said Cadaret. “Now if she’ll just level off a wee bit more, cocktails are on me once we-”
Out of nowhere a tall pine tree bit into the helicopter’s Plexiglas windshield. Green needles that felt like nails filled and darkened the cabin. Charlie shielded his eyes. There wasn’t time to think past that. The ship bouldered through branches. The main rotor was snagged by the tree trunk and snapped off. A stout bough peeled away the roof. The ground hit like a giant mallet.
21
A surreptitious peek into the Waynesboro Airport air traffic control database suggested the helicopter had dropped precipitiously within a thirty-mile radius of the Monroeville club. Front Royal, Virginia, the nearest town, was a likely place for Drummond to surface if he survived, and Fielding had a feeling that he had; the old man had a knack for it.
Fielding drove down Royal Avenue, the two-lane main drag, passing non-brand-name fast food restaurants and two-story federal buildings that had been nice, once. The glory days of this little burg had come to an end fifty years ago, he estimated, based upon the chipped and fading Coca-Cola advertisement on the side of a vacant bank.
He pulled his rented Chrysler into a parking space in front of the Rose amp; Crown. The century-old tavern exuded cheery light, warmth, and tinny Sinatra but little of the usual barroom chatter. Parked in the vicinity were just three cars, all of which looked like they belonged to old men.
Fielding would have enjoyed going in for a rum or two and a cigar nevertheless, but he’d stopped only to see if anyone else would do the same. The pickup truck that had been behind him zoomed past.
He backed out of the spot and circled back to the top of the block. He parked among the relative crowd of vehicles outside his actual destination, Eddie’s, a tin-sided boxcar diner. He sprung out of his car and, although he had a pocketful of change, bypassed the meter, where two hours cost a dime.
Inside the diner, many of the old checkerboard floor tiles were missing. From behind a chrome cash register dulled by years of grease, a fossil in a chili-speckled white apron nodded a welcome. Fielding tipped an invisible hat in response. A mailman and two mechanics or plumbers sat at the lunch counter, which was equal parts Formica and cracks; the men were pontificating about the coming Bowl games. The tables were a third filled by the range of the local social spectrum. Fielding, who was only recognized in towns with glossy society magazines, drew looks from most of the patrons, but none conveying familiarity, fortunately.
He approached a window booth, where a prematurely gray itinerant business type with a dour expression was eating alone. Eyeing his bowl, Fielding asked, “How’s the chili?” He waited for the correct response.
“Best I’ve had in years,” the man said. “The guys at the counter told me Eddie’s arm hair is the secret ingredient.”
“How could anyone resist after hearing that?” Fielding sank into the cushioned bench across from the onetime Green Beret who went by Bull.
“Honored to meet you, sir,” Bull said, reaching across the table.
Fielding shook his hand, cold and clammy from nervousness. Fielding engendered this reaction often-and after all these years, he still got a kick out of it. “So let me guess,” he said. “The rent-a-drones are still only giving us nature footage?”
The drones were five-inch-long robot reconnaissance planes the Army had in development at Virginia Tech, where the director of the Center for Objective Microelectronics and Biomimetic Advanced Technology was hamstrung by three alimonies and two child support payments. He had been happy to “lend” the drones to a “visiting researcher” in exchange for a “donation.”
“Just the dense canopy of treetops so far,” Bull said. “No helicopter or any sign of it, if that’s what you mean.”
“I was hoping for a picture of a five-foot-eleven man with white hair.”
The former soldier looked away. “I’m afraid all we’ve come up with is a signal from the beacon in Cadaret’s wristwatch.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Fielding asked.
“If the rabbit had been thinking clearly, the first thing he would have done is toss that watch out of the helicopter. Or toss Cadaret.”
“But the rabbit isn’t thinking clearly.”
Bull lowered his voice. “Sir, he took out five professionals, escaped from the Monroeville club, and stole a helicopter.”
“That stuff is second nature to him,” Fielding said. “If he’d been thinking clearly, he would have taken out the five professionals then simply picked up the phone and dialed Burt Hattemer.”
Bull input a hasty message on his BlackBerry. If any of the diners saw, they would take the display for an online simulcast of a hockey game with digital stick figures representing the players. A few keystrokes and clicks later, he told Fielding, “Okay, two of the hounds are on their way to the wristwatch.”
