“What were you trying to tell your dad?”
“That… that the compass was twirling and the ball was all the way to the right,” Jeremy said. “I could see the altitude indicator, and it was twisting around. We were in a spin, but my dad was too busy to notice it, so I tried to tell him.”
Brad smiled. “Are you a pilot?”
“I’m too young,” Jeremy said, “but I want to be a pilot. My dad lets me fly all the time, and I’ve watched a lot of his flying training videos and played his flight simulator on his computer.”
“That means you’re almost a pilot,” Brad said. “I’m almost a pilot too.”
“You
“Not yet, but soon, I hope,” Brad said. “So you know what I think? I think your warning helped your dad spot the spin and correct it in time to make a controlled crash landing.”
“But my mom and dad are dead.”
“Yes,” Brad said in a soft but firm voice, “but he saved the plane in time to save you, didn’t he?” Jeremy lowered his head and nodded, then started to weep quietly. Brad thought there had been enough talking about his dead parents, so he looked over at Ralph. “All done with the assessment, Ralph?”
“Yes, sir,” Ralph replied. “Possible concussion, possible fractured forehead, broken right arm, multiple contusions and lacerations all over his body, dehydration, sunburn, and insect bites.” He smiled at Jeremy. “But he’s one tough kid, that’s for sure. He’d make a good CAP cadet.”
Bellville was writing all of it down. “Good work, Ralph,” he said. “I’ll call it in and update the medevac helicopter’s ETA.”
“Let’s get Jeremy out of the wash and protected from the sun,” Fitzgerald said. “Then we’ll have to pick out a landing zone for the chopper.”
Bellville keyed the mike on his portable FM repeater transceiver: “Battle Mountain Base, this is Hasty, I’ve got a medical report for the EMTs inbound,” he said. “Also requesting ETA for the medevac helicopter.”
“Stand by, Hasty,” Spara replied.
“Hasty, this is CAP 2722,” Patrick radioed. “We’ve just been ordered by the FAA to land immediately!”
“
“Guys, you won’t believe this, but they’re clearing out
“It sounds like freakin’ 9/11 again!” Fitzgerald said. The cadets wore blank expressions on their faces. They were young when the Islamist terror attacks of 9/11 had occurred. Even though they saw videos of the collapsing World Trade Center towers, the hole in the Pentagon, and the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, they had little appreciation for the true sense of horror that gripped the nation that day and for several months beyond.
“The wing is talking with the FAA and the National Operations Center,” Spara radioed. “They can make an exception for CAP flights and medical emergencies.” But several minutes later, the news was not good: “No exceptions until the airspace is cleared, and then FAA will clear flights only on IFR flight plans,” Spara said. “It’s chaos out there. We’d better do what they say before the fighters start launching. RTB right away, Patrick.”
“To hell with that, sir,” Patrick said. “We’ve got a survivor and a Hasty strike team out in the middle of nowhere, and it’ll be dark in a couple hours.” He thought for a moment; then: “I’ll land at the Andorsens’ dirt strip and get help from them.”
“We tried calling Andorsen to get permission for us to drive onto his property — there was no answer.”
“Then I’ll land, find a vehicle, and do it myself.”
“You can’t do that, Patrick,” Spara said. “The Hasty team will be fine until the sheriff and an ambulance makes it out there. RTB,
“I can go back to the van, cut off the lock on the gate, and drive the van back,” Fitzgerald radioed.
“Everybody, just shut up for a minute,” Spara said. “I’m not going to split up a ground team, especially with a survivor with them. Dave, prepare to keep the survivor comfortable until help arrives. Keep your team
“I won’t make it back to Battle Mountain in time to meet the deadline, Rob,” Patrick said. “The closest landing strip is the Andorsen ranch. I’m heading that way now.”
“Negative, McLanahan,” Spara said. “Return to base. We’ll advise ATC of your destination and ETA.”
Patrick reached up and shut off the FM radio. “Damn FM,” he said on intercom. “It’s so old, it goes out all the time, just when you really need it.” He looked around at John and Leo. “Doesn’t it?”
John looked back at Leo, then turned at Patrick and shrugged. “It seemed to be working fine, and all of a sudden — poof, it went out,” he said.
“And that’s not all,” Leo said. “I distinctly heard that engine running a little rough all of a sudden.”
“I was going to mention that too,” John said with a smile.
“Well then, we’d better get this thing on the ground and check it out,” Patrick said. He looked around outside for his landmarks, then made a turn to the right. “I have the Andorsen ranch strip in sight. I think we should land there immediately. And while we’re waiting for further assistance, we can help the ground team.”
“Sounds like a good plan, sir,” Leo said.
John patted Patrick on the shoulder, smiled, and nodded. “That’s the Patrick S. McLanahan I’ve always heard about,” he said. “Looks like the Mac is back.”
After making a low pass over the strip to check for any hazards — it was by far the nicest dirt strip any of them had ever seen, as clean, flat, and straight as an asphalt runway — Patrick landed the Cessna. Being careful to keep the power up and the control yoke back without braking, all to avoid digging the nose tire into the dirt, he taxied over to the parking area next to two fuel tanks and a storage-and-pump building. Beside the fuel farm was a half-mile-long asphalt road leading to what looked like the main house; on the other side of the asphalt road was an aircraft hangar.
“Nice little airport Andorsen’s got here,” John commented.
“Andorsen owns a large percentage of the land in northern Nevada not owned by the government,” Leo said. “He’s probably got a half dozen of these private airstrips scattered all over the state. They may be dirt, but they’re built to handle a bizjet. Ever meet him? Great guy. Throws parties and fund-raisers for law enforcement all the time.”
After climbing out of the plane, Patrick searched around and found a bicycle propped up next to the pump building. “I’ll be back as quick as I can,” he said, and he pedaled toward the main house.
The main house was a large, attractive, single-story building with a comfortable-looking wraparound porch, surrounded by desert landscaping. A three-car garage was adjacent, and a pickup truck was parked beside it. The place was deserted except for a couple dogs that came up to him, sniffed, decided he was no threat, and went back to search for some shade. Patrick knocked on the door and waited for an answer — nothing. He went over and looked through a window into the garage and saw one Hummer SUV inside, along with a dressed-out Harley- Davidson Road King and Harley Softail Deluxe motorcycle, all in immaculate condition considering they were in the middle of the desert. The garage was locked. Patrick then went to the pickup and found it unlocked and the keys tucked in the driver’s-side sun visor — perfect. He pulled his Form 104 mission briefing card out of a flight-suit pocket, wrote the phone number of the Battle Mountain squadron on it, stuck it in the front door of the house, then started up the pickup and drove back to the airstrip.
“No one home?” Leo asked.
“No,” Patrick said, “but I’ll bet he’s got security cameras all over the place, so I’d expect someone will be along shortly. I left my Form 104 in his door. Grab the survival kit and your flight bags and let’s go.” They pulled the twenty-five-pound orange survival kit and their personal flight bags from the plane, along with all the bottles of water they had in the cockpit. Patrick found tie-downs and secured the plane, and they clambered into the pickup, with Patrick driving. All three crewmembers had small portable GPS receivers in their flight bags, so it was simple for them to punch in the coordinates of the ground team to get a bearing and distance, and they headed off across the desert.
The long, bumpy, dusty drive was less than fifteen miles but lasted almost an hour. It was getting dark and decidedly cooler by the time they reached the ground team. Patrick was surprised when Bradley ran over to the
