The Rescue Pilot

by Rachel Lee

  To her credit, Wendy didn’t offer any false cheer. “What’s she on?”

  “Immunosuppressants. Some other drugs. She’s been through radiation, obviously. But as I said, the disease is aggressive.”

  “So you’re pinning your hopes on a clinical trial of something new?”

  “Yes. I was.” That was sounded final. But right now everything felt final.

  “They’ve got some great stuff now, I hear, but I’m not up on the disease.” She leaned forward and laid her hand over Rory’s.

  Rory wanted to jerk back, but she couldn’t because that touch somehow didn’t offend her. Maybe because she needed not to feel entirely alone. “That’s what they tell me.”

  Wendy nodded. “The important thing is to keep her going right now. Food. Warmth. Keep her resistance up. I’ll help every way I can. But I promise you, I’m part of the Conard County emergency-response team. As soon as this weather lets up, they’re going to pull out all the stops to find us.”

  “Because you’re here?”

  “Because all of us are here. And we’re damn good at what we do.”

  “How do you know we aren’t someplace else?”

  “Because Chase was going to drop us at the Conard County Airport on the way to Minnesota. You knew that, right?”

  Rory nodded. “A brief fueling stop.”

  “Well, my husband was looking out the window as we came in. He said this is Thunder Mountain, maybe sixty miles out of town.”

  It was a slender lifeline indeed, but for once in her life, Rory was willing to grab it. What else did she have?

  Turning her head, closing the conversation, she gazed out a window that snow rapidly covered, and fought down the rage, panic and tears.

  The exit door behind the cockpit also served as steps. The fact that it opened out and down should have made it easier to move. But the plane’s shape had been torqued by the crash, and things weren’t meeting the way they used to. And the steps themselves, carpeted for that extra bit of luxury, hampered the effort to shove.

  “Maybe we should try the rear exit,” Yuma said, wiping sweat from his brow.

  “I’d rather not open the door back there if I can avoid it. Any cold air we let in—and there’ll be quite a bit of it—is going to hit our sick passenger first. I’d rather let it in as far from her as possible.”

  “Good point. Well, I doubt the snow is the problem.”

  “Not hardly,” Chase agreed. “Not yet. Not with this.”

  But the snow was a problem all right, one that promised to grow even bigger in the next few hours. “We’ve got to get out,” he said again. “Find out what our condition is, whether we’ve got anything else to worry about. And we’re going to need to build a fire to heat food.”

  “In this?” Yuma cocked a brow. “That’s always fun.”

  “I have plenty of alcohol onboard.”

  Yuma chuckled. “Imagine starting a fire with Chivas. Or Jack.”

  “I just hope it works. Alcohol burns cold.”

  “A handful of pine needles” was all Yuma said.

  “Sure. I see tons of them out there.” But Chase knew that even though the snow buried them, finding them wouldn’t be the most difficult task they’d face. But first this damn door. Preferably in a way that wouldn’t leave it permanently open to the cold.

  “You know,” he said as he and Yuma again put their shoulders to the door, “I should have painted this damn plane chartreuse or international orange.”

  “By tomorrow I don’t think it’ll matter if it were covered in blinking neon lights.”

  Chase paused, wiping his own brow. “Yeah. It probably won’t.”

  “Transponder?” Billy Joe asked as they pushed again.

  “Damned if I know right now. My instruments were acting like twinkle lights. But first things first. The transponder isn’t exactly going to get much attention at the moment.”

  “That’s a fact.”

  “At the very least we’ve got to check our situation, make sure we don’t slide farther, and then get some hot soup and coffee going. Then I’ll worry about everything else.”

  “Agreed.”

  On the count of three, both men shoved again, and this time the door opened. Not far, just a couple of inches at the top, but enough for Chase to see the problem. One of the heavy-duty locking bolts hadn’t slid fully back and it ripped at the door, tearing a small hole but not enough to cause any heartache.

  “I need a sledgehammer,” Chase muttered. And he needed it right now, because he wasn’t going to go outside and leave that door open, freezing everyone in the plane.

  He pulled up a service panel in the floor and went hunting. There it was, a heavy-duty hammer. He hadn’t ever needed it, but you never knew. He carried a lot of items just for that reason. If he’d learned one thing in the military, it was to be prepared for just about any situation. What you dismissed as unnecessary could wind up costing you a whole lot…like your life.

  Yuma leaned back while Chase started hammering on the locking bolt.

  “Do you have to make so much noise?” the Campbell woman said sharply. “My sister…”

  “Is going to freeze to death if I can’t close this door, okay?”

  He didn’t have to look at her because he could hear the snap of her jaws closing just before he banged again with the hammer.

  To his vast relief, it only took a half-dozen blows. He tossed the hammer back in the hatch, closed it and then faced the door with Yuma again. Already the plane was cooling down, but the fresher air was welcome.

  They counted to three again and shoved. This time the door flew all the way down to the packed snow beneath. Another scarcely acknowledged fear slipped away from Chase’s mind. They weren’t trapped inside. They had a functioning door.

  The two men scrambled out quickly over the horizontal steps, which were useless at this angle, then shoved the door up behind them, leaving it open the tiniest crack.

  Outside the world looked like a snow globe gone mad. Wind whipped them viciously, howling its fury, and the flakes were becoming icy needles. Chase ignored the discomfort, all his attention focused on finding out how the plane was situated. He didn’t want to learn the hard way that they were on the lip of another slide and some little thing could set it off.

  He headed straight for the plane’s nose. In this heavy snow, it was hard to see very far. He could make out only the faintest of gray shadows of trees around the clearing, but as he approached the front, he saw with relief that there were trees not very far ahead of them. Maybe a hundred, two hundred feet at most. Thick foresting that would stop them if they slid, no dark shadow indicating a deep gorge in the way. Thank God.

  The nose was completely buried and he left it that way. Every bit of insulation would do them good until this blizzard passed, cutting the wind, keeping the inside temperature up.

  But he felt something very close to sorrow as he walked back along the plane’s length. Even with deepening snowdrifts he could see buckled metal on the fuselage, and that the engines had vanished from under the wings somewhere upslope, leaving behind their twisted pylons. Any fuel that was left would be seeping into the snow from broken lines, but he couldn’t see any melting to indicate it.

  God, what had happened? He hadn’t had time to wonder before. He’d gone from half-full tanks to empty so fast it had seemed almost impossible. His fuel pumps must have been spewing precious liquid as fast as they could from somewhere. Just where he wouldn’t be able to tell now.

  He’d had the damn thing overhauled and checked out last week. That’s why he’d been in Seattle. All he could think now was that some mechanic somewhere had failed to do something right. Make some connection. Tighten some clamp, whatever. Somewhere between pumps and engines, there had been a critical failure.

  By the time he’d known things were going wrong, they’d been over the mountains with a storm catching up. At forty thousand feet, that was no big deal, but it sure cut his options. He’d h
ad no choice but to hope they’d make it to the Conard County Airport. There was nothing closer that hadn’t already been closed by the storm.

  He supposed he ought to get down on his knees and thank God they were in one piece. But right now he wasn’t feeling all that thankful. He was feeling furious, and worried. Most especially worried about that sick woman in the back of his plane.

  Chapter 2

  Rory had added more blankets to cover Cait as the cabin temperature dropped a bit because of the opening and closing of the cabin door. She was grateful the air felt fresher now, but worried, too. How were they supposed to keep warm?

  Cait barely stirred as Rory tucked blankets around her all the way up to her ears. A knit stocking cap would probably be good, she thought, since Cait didn’t have enough hair left to keep her head warm.

  She went out to ask Wendy about it. Maybe the other woman had one.

  “Actually, I do,” Wendy said. “And I’m glad to tell you it’s in the overhead bin. Let me get it out. Didn’t you bring something like that for when you got to Minnesota?”

  “An ambulance was going to meet us. I wasn’t expecting Cait to be exposed at all.”

  Wendy nodded as she rose to open one of the overhead bins. She wore a baggy sweater and jeans, and a very sensible pair of work boots. Just like Rory herself. Accustomed as she was to being on work sites, Rory dolled up only for business meetings, and this trip hadn’t qualified for that.

  “What about you?” Wendy spoke as she fought with the bin door, at last managing to yank it open.

  “I have a parka I dug out before we left.”

  “Good. I don’t usually carry spares of those.”

  Wendy pulled a thick-knit cap out of a leather duffel and passed it to her. “There you go.”

  “Thank you so much!”

  Wendy smiled, and the expression reached her eyes. “Hey, we’re all in this together.”

  Cait murmured quietly as Rory put the stocking cap on her, but then settled back into sleep. Rory stood looking down at her sister, wishing that for just a few moments she could see that spark again in Cait’s expression, but it had vanished long before Rory got home.

  Tears pricked at her eyes, but she couldn’t afford to let them fall. Not now, not ever. She had to remain strong for Cait’s sake, no matter how tough it got. And right now it was tough. All her worst imaginings for Cait’s future had just been compounded by a plane crash in the wilderness. In a storm.

  Sometimes she thought the gods enjoyed a laugh at human expense. If so, they must be finding this all hilarious.

  Time. There was so little time for Cait now. And this accident was eating away at it like a miserable rat. Just enough meds for four days. Then what? Not that the meds were doing much but holding the beast at bay, and not doing a very good job at that. In the days since she’d gotten back to Seattle and had gathered the information and recommendations that had led her to the decision to fly her sister halfway across the country for experimental treatment, she’d watched Cait drift away further and further. Losing even the energy to smile, or whisper more than a few words.

  Days, hours, minutes were precious right now. And they were slipping uncaringly between her fingers like the finest of sands.

  Her spine stiffened suddenly, and she turned around to march back into the main cabin. There was a pilot who had a lot of explaining to do, and she was going to get her answers the instant he came back inside.

  She might not be able to change the situation, but she was sure as hell going to understand it and all that they were up against. She didn’t function well in the dark and she refused to be kept there.

  Chase and Yuma returned to the plane after a mere thirty minutes. Long enough to assess their situation outside, long enough to dig through the snow at the forest’s edge to find some wood and pine needles. They’d even dug a place near the plane to build a fire safely, although that was going to be difficult in this wind.

  But Chase had candles onboard, and chafing dishes for those fancy flights where people expected exquisite meals. Plenty of candles. He could heat some soup, maybe even brew some coffee, but open flames in the plane made him uneasy, and they’d suck up the oxygen.

  He was holding an internal debate as he and Yuma closed the door behind them. And the first words he heard were:

  “Why the hell did this plane crash?”

  He turned slowly, his cheeks stinging from the cold outside. He stared at the Campbell woman, reminding himself that she was undoubtedly edgy because of her sister. And, yes, because of the crash. Plenty of reason to be truculent.

  He pulled off his leather gloves while staring at her, and threw his hood back. “Well,” he said slowly, “that’s the question, isn’t it? We ran out of fuel. Unexpectedly, inexplicably. All of a sudden. And since I had the plane in Seattle for an overhaul, I’m going to guess that somebody screwed up. But once that fuel started draining like Niagara Falls, there wasn’t much I could do except try to get us down in one piece.”

  He waited, expecting to get his butt chewed about something, but amazingly, it didn’t happen. Then she nodded. “Okay. What now? What are our chances?”

  He unzipped his jacket and shrugged it off, tossing it over a seat back. “The charts I looked at before takeoff suggest the storm might last two days. That was then. It wasn’t supposed to catch up to us as fast as it did. That’s now. It’s a helluva blow, and we aren’t going to stir from the safety of this plane until it lets up.”

  “Two days,” she said, and sounded almost frightened.

  “Two days,” he repeated. “If the emergency beacon is working, rescue should come soon after.”

  “If?”

  “We didn’t exactly make a soft landing. The body of the plane is twisted pretty badly. I don’t know how many electrical connections are out, or what hidden damage we have. Just after we crashed, it looked like my sat-nav went out. GPS to you. And the emergency beacon needs that to tell rescuers where we are, after the storm passes. The standard transponder, which I also have, broadcasts from the underside of the plane, so we can pretty much count that out. Regardless, the storm itself will probably interfere with all radio communications, so I can’t say for sure whether the problem is the weather or something is broken. I’m going to check on that right now, if you don’t mind.”

  No objection emanated from the beauty, although her expression suggested that she’d have loved nothing better than a fight. Of course. To work off the adrenaline, probably. Or maybe she just hated the sight of him. He didn’t care either way. He started to turn but her voice caught him.

  “Won’t they know where we are from the flight plan? From our last recorded position?”

  He faced her again. “We were traveling at over six hundred miles per hour. From the time things started to go wrong, we traveled a long way. And we didn’t exactly stay on the flight path while I tried to get us down on some open ground rather than in the forest. So they’re going to have to search quite a wide area.”

  “Then you’d better make sure that beacon is working.”

  Chase ground his teeth. Now he was absolutely certain he didn’t like her. “That thought has occurred to me as well, ma’am.”

  Stiff now, he turned toward the cockpit. When he got there, he closed the accordion door behind him. This, he thought, was not going to make anything any easier.

  Rory watched the pilot close the door behind him. What was his name again? She’d paid scant attention… Oh, yeah, something like Hunter. No, Chase. Chase Dakota. He was a large enough man, well-built, with ruggedly chiseled features that hinted just a bit at a possible Native American heritage somewhere in his family tree. Gray eyes that reminded her of steel.

  And not especially friendly. Although she supposed she wasn’t exactly inviting friendliness at the moment. But why should she? Her sister’s life was hanging in the balance, and whether this crash was his fault hardly seemed to matter. Bottom line: They had crashed and they were stuck for two days. At l
east two days. She would have given her right hand for some assurance that was all it would be.

  She realized that Wendy had risen and was moving around toward the rear of the plane, in an alcove just behind the passenger seating but forward of the bedroom in the tail. Rory took a few steps to look and saw the redhead opening lockers above a microwave. The plane’s small galley.

  Needing to do something, Rory joined her.

  “I’m looking at our supply situation,” Wendy said, smiling. “Chase always stocks well, but it would sure be nice if I could manage to make us all something hot to drink. Soup, tea, maybe coffee.”

  “We can’t cook. Not without a fire.”

  “Ah, but we might be able to manage something with candles and these chafing dishes.”

  “True.” Rory allowed herself to be distracted by one of her favorite things: problem solving. She took a quick look at her sister and found Cait still sleeping, and gently breathing. Did parents hover over new babies like this, she wondered, waiting for the gentle rise of a chest to indicate that life continued?

  She gave herself a little shake and turned back to help Wendy in the galley. “Coffee might be beyond reach,” she said. “How many candles does it take to boil a pot?”

  “Darned if I know. But I want my coffee, and there’s a whole lot of candles. Besides, we only need to make one pot. I think the guys will build a fire outside soon. We’re going to need it.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “And I’m sure if we’re patient, we can heat a pot of this dried soup.” She turned on the faucet and, wonder of wonders, water came out.

  “Must be a gravity tank,” Rory said.

  “Whatever it is, it’s a plus. Better to have water right now than have to melt snow on top of everything else.”

  While Rory worked with chafing-dish holders to elevate them enough to put fat, squat candles beneath them, bending legs and stacking a few of them, Wendy found the pieces of the drip coffeemaker and assembled them, then put coffee in the filter. “First pot of boiling water goes for coffee,” she said firmly. “I need a hot drink and some caffeine.”