Angle of Attack

by Lee Baldwin

  Angle of Attack

  An Adventure in Aviation, Love, and Crime

  Lee Baldwin

  DEDICATION

  For Sherri, with gratitude for the wisdom of your heart,

  and your dedication to good drama.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  With respect for two real Mustang pilots I was honored to know: Captain Robert J. Love, the Korean War’s 11th jet ace, and Colonel Charles W. Reed, who flew prop and jet combat in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.

  Also by Lee Baldwin

  ALIENS GOT MY SALLY ~ UFO Pulp Fiction for the Modern Mind. Click to buy from multiple retailers.

  HALCYON DREAMWORLDS ~ a world enslaved by the future of desire. Click to buy from multiple retailers.

  NEXT HISTORY ~ The Girl Who Hacked Tomorrow. Click to buy from multiple retailers.

  A Few Reviews

  A Rattling Good Ride... really good and totally believable ~ Jill McCaw, Soaring NZ Magazine

  Sizzles and very readable... can't wait for a follow-on! Grabbed my attention and kept dragging me forward into its next set of surprises. ~ Jack Reed on Amazon

  Baldwin has captured the pace of James Lee Burke and the descriptive ability of John Steinbeck. I simply could not put this book down... brings out the best of Northern California's culture. I loved hanging out with the glider and vintage aircraft pilots, pot growers and other characters so vividly portrayed. Tell your friends about it. ~ Dr. Brian McKenzie on Amazon

  A Wonderful Read. Baldwin's character development is excellent; this reader felt an almost personal connection to the characters. I would certainly recommend this eBook ~ A.C.R. on Amazon

  I am reading this book now. Get a copy... just get it! I can heartily recommend this book. Hopefully author Lee Baldwin will be writing more Cicero Clay books. ~ Martin Scholes, That's Books

  A must for aviation enthusiasts ...a well-paced aviation suspense/thriller about an ex-con trying to keep squeaky clean but still up to his neck in shady activities, such as restoring an antique P-51 Mustang warplane with his off-the-radar brother. Clay's voice is totally authentic. He is a well-written, rounded character, from the very first paragraph when he declares 'I am innocent... I didn't do it'. And the reader thinks, 'Oh, really?' Baldwin gives it to you, the savoury and the not-so-savoury... a believable, complicated, real-to-life character in a unique style. Also I enjoyed the anti-hero aspect of his character which is well done. His sometimes conflicting motives definitely added to the storytelling. ~ Marc Secchia on Amazon

  Chapter 1

  A Question of Balance

  I AM INNOCENT. The news blogs refer to me as Cicero Clay, glider flight instructor and paroled convict. But I didn’t do it. I can prove it. And no, you don’t want to call me by my first name.

  I am Clay.

  Far below me lie patchwork fields of Hollister, California. Alone in this long-winged sailplane, nothing disturbs me while the radio’s off. I know I should keep the thing on but I enjoy quiet sometimes, so shoot me.

  Wave lift over Fremont Peak has been decent this morning. I’d coaxed the glider to nearly 19,000 feet before my toes numbed with cold. You would love the view, snow-capped Sierra and Monterey Bay.

  I flip the radio on, and no surprise, hear the insistent voice of Julie, our gliderport manager, asking me when the hell am I gonna get their aircraft back. I pull the oxygen mask from my face and key the mic.

  “Eight-Seven Romeo. Hey, Julie.”

  “Clay, mind using your damned ears? I am wearing out my jaw down here.”

  I’d rate that at least eight on her fed-up-with-Clay scale. I say nothing. Julie worries too much. I always get back on time.

  “We need that glider in three minutes. Where the bleep are you?”

  “About two minutes away.”

  I can imagine her perplexed scowl. Yes, I do stretch Julie’s patience with my occasional antics. Left to me, I’d stay up here as long as lift held out, practice acro maneuvers. But there’s one stunt I can try and still keep everyone happy by getting back to the gliderport, which is directly below me. From this altitude, the crossed runways of Hollister airport glare at me like a gunsight.

  “Okay,” she says. “FYI, I’m getting chatter from the boss.”

  Since we’re on an open radio band at a public airport, she’s speaking code: Stacy, the gliderport owner, is getting impatient with my envelope-pushing behavior.

  “And your one-thirty student wants to move to three this afternoon.”

  Arrgh. The bane of an independent flight instructor. “Negatory there, Julie. I have to be in San Jose at 4:30.”

  “Ah. Of course.” Julie knows, as do most of the gliderport folks, that I have a regular appointment with my Deputy Parole Officer on Wednesday afternoons. What she doesn’t know is I’m being moved to a new DPO. Doesn’t fill me with joy. The new dude will likely take me back to square one, ask every single question about a crime I did definitely not commit. And for which I served three years in State lockup. Worse, rumor is he likes everyone wearing the GPS anklet, which will put an end to my flying. And a chunk of my income. Not going to be a fun afternoon at County.

  “Well in that case he’ll book for next week,” Julie says.

  “Eight-Seven Romeo.” Tail number of this glider. I’m telling her bye for now. The radio band is silent.

  Scanning the wide horizon, my well-worn thought replays: What if I leave right now? The idea has echoed in my head since my disaster of a trial four years ago. But where can you go in a glider, with no power of its own, how can you get away? Patience, I tell myself. I’ll fly away soon enough. And not in a glider.

  Get back in three minutes? Sure. My first rule of flying survival is simple: Know every detail about every ship I fly. And I want to know something about this ancient Schweitzer 2-32 sailplane. Specifically, will the airbrakes stay attached when I point the nose straight down?

  I bank into a steep turn. Watching below for other aircraft, I’m cranking the elevator trim full down. Deep breath. Why would I do this, besides the endorphin high? A hurricane pilot once told me that the 2-32’s airbrakes could hold the glider below redline in a vertical dive. Redline, you know, speed beyond which pieces of airplane start to fall off. Always curious, today I’ll find out. I pull the airbrake handle all the way toward me. Outside the transparent wraparound canopy, in the middle of each wing, the brake flaps extend.

  I push the control stick hard forward and I’m weightless, nosing into a steep dive. The shoulder straps yank me forward and the craft howls down the sky. Unbidden, a newspaper headline appears in my mind:

  Misguided Felon Becomes Decorative Lawn Dart

  Standing on its nose, the sailplane screams toward patterned earth three miles below. The airspeed needle jerks frantically in its glass face. My nutsack contracts. Don’t try this at home, says the little announcer voice. I don’t care how many stunts you’ve flown, going vertical will get your attention.

  But the airspeed holds steady at an indicated 147 MPH. The legend is true. Every four seconds, I’m 900 feet closer to the ground. The vario is pegged negative, altimeter’s unwinding like a berserk clock. Things in the cockpit are shaking around me and the airbrakes deliver a moaning thunder that’s the last sound some pilots ever hear.

  Alone in the sky and pointed straight down, I make a face at the canopy release. Didn’t wear a chute this flight, and though sanity has already bailed out, jumping for me is no option. If something breaks coming out of the dive, my legacy will be a fleeting viral snuffer on YouTube. I’m below 7000 feet now and the runway’s visibly larger. I can see dark tire smears near the runway 2-4 numbers. Again the little voice comes: Don’t say smear.

  Radio’s still quiet. No aircraft in the pattern. The altimeter whips past 4000 fe
et. I ease the stick back and G-load pulls at me. The glider’s nose lifts to a more normal flight attitude, she groans but nothing snaps. Not going to die today.

  I release the airbrakes, bring her level in a whistling glide over the airport at about 140 MPH, plenty of altitude. For the hell of it I do a lazy roll, take a couple deep breaths to relax.

  Below on the end of runway 1-3, black-and-white California Highway Patrol cars slalom through orange cones. The usual Wednesday drill. And today there is a fire truck on hand to wet the surface. One car, tiny as a toy, zigzags through the cones in a cloud of spray.

  I key the radio. “Hollister traffic, glider eight-seven Romeo, midfield crosswind 2-4 left traffic, Hollister glider.”

  Automatically my mind steps through the landing checklist: radio, gear, flaps, speed, trim, airbrakes. Already tested those. Lined up on final, I ease left on the stick, push the right rudder pedal all the way in. The glider slews right until she’s crabbing sideways, and begins to sink. Passing beneath is the typical weekday scene for Hollister. Gliders tied down along the taxiway, my faded-blue El Camino among other vehicles on the dusty access road, a glider lifting on tow behind a Piper Pawnee.

  Crossing the threshold now, the 2-4 numbers pass below me. I’m still in the sideslip, waiting for the glider to settle in. Five feet up I center the controls and ease the stick back. A bump and subdued chirp from the single tire beneath me, and I’m down. In prison they always insisted we follow the yellow line, and on this runway I can do that without resenting it. I steer the centerline with rudder pedals, turn onto the empty taxiway, slow, full brakes, drop a wing.

  Stop.

  Soon as I’m out of the cockpit, another instructor and his student rush up to help. Together we push the glider toward its tie-downs. Grateful for the warm breeze on my face, I shrug out of my parka. It was cold up there this morning.

  Julie, in cutoff shorts, tee shirt, and oversized dark glasses, walks toward me from the shade of the parachute-covered patio with her handheld radio and clipboard. She fills me in about the afternoon schedule.

  “Your acro student is here. And the K-21’s back.” She waves the radio toward a graceful white sailplane at the far end of the taxiway. The Schleicher ASK-21 twitches eagerly in the wind.

  “Did you hear that noise a few minutes ago?” she asks. “Sounded like landing gear falling off a jet.”

  I chuckle, reaching into the cockpit to disconnect the radio battery. “Trying out the dive brakes on the wreck here.”

  She gives me an appraising look over the rim of her dark glasses. “We assume your hull insurance is paid up.” Finished, she turns away. I catch a view of her tail section as she strolls among the quiet sailplanes.

  Under the parachute canopy, amid the instructors briefing students on their upcoming flights, I shake hands with short, bulbous Martin Roswell, who hands over his logbook. Roswell speaks with a clipped European accent. Wearing a heavy jacket zipped to his pudgy chin, his cheeks have a sheen of sweat. I can’t read the man’s eyes behind the dark aviator shades.

  “Have not flown acro for over a year,” Roswell explains. “There’s a contest at Minden this weekend. Therefore I rush.” He chuckles nervously and wipes the back of a hand over his cheek.

  I send him out to preflight the K-21, and walk to my ancient El Camino. The interior, already too warm, smells of greasy car parts and too many miles. I feel beneath the dash, my hand on a burner phone I keep there. Touching it I get a stab of impatience. I need to call a certain brother about a certain missing airplane. A valuable missing airplane. But no, this is not the time for that conversation, with all the complications my older brother brings. Wade and I are beyond ready for his pilot friend to show up and fly the hidden airplane out of our lives. It will change everything. My hand comes back empty.

  On the flight line, Roswell is doing his preflight. As he walks around the K-21, checking control surfaces, inspecting hinges and attachment points, I page through his logbook. Leather-bound and fancy with gleaming brass corners, the logbook shows years of flying in many gliders, at many locations around the world. Not only gliders, but he’s checked out and flown multi-engine aircraft, plus some WWII warbirds including the Texan AT6 and the Mustang P-51, which many pilots argue won the air war over Germany. My eyebrows arch appreciatively. Roswell is very well prepared. I wonder if the man actually needs an aerobatics lesson.

  Why do I think that? For one, there’s my unwelcome notoriety. Visiting pilots occasionally schedule flight time with me just to say they’d flown loops with a local felon and getaway driver. Several have brought a DVD for me to autograph - Police Chases Greatest Hits.

  Roswell calls out he’s ready. The sheen on his cheeks makes me ask, “Hey Martin, you really need the jacket?”

  “In case we go high.”

  I drop it. Maybe it’s what he plans on. Roswell will decide where we fly today, unless I have to pull him back from some mistake.

  I inspect the canopy release handles in both cockpits. Red-tipped for visibility and safety-wired to guard against accidental release, they’ve never been used on this glider. Clamshell canopies are enormously expensive.

  I read aloud from the engraved metal placard on the instrument panel: “This glider requires a minimum front seat weight of one hundred fifty-four pounds. Do you weigh that much?”

  Roswell nods, grinning. “Ja, with some to spare.”

  Just for drill, I ask, “And why is that important?”

  Roswell considers briefly. “The placard front seat weight is the minimum to keep the center of gravity ahead of the wing’s center of lift. Otherwise, the glider would be uncontrollable.”

  I nod. “Uncontrollable how?”

  “Tail-heavy, impossible to bring out of a stall. You could never get the nose down to increase airspeed,” Roswell answers. “By the way, the radio doesn’t check out.”

  I look in the forward cockpit. The small black radio battery, strapped to its floor receptacle with bungee cord, is not connected. I point this out. Roswell somewhat sheepishly inserts the connector and keys the mic to call for a radio check. From somewhere out in the sky, a pilot’s voice in the speaker: Five by five, K-21.

  I hit him with other random questions about glider airworthiness and flight dynamics. He gives me quick and substantial answers. Satisfied, I use the cockpit radio to call our tow pilot. Across the runway, a Piper Pawnee turns its prop. The engine sound reaches us faint on the wind.

  Together, Roswell and I push the K-21 along the taxiway to runway center. As he clambers into the front cockpit to strap in, I walk to the flight line patio and hand his logbook to Julie.

  “Possible shear line toward the coast,” I tell her. “Back in a couple of hours.”

  Julie grins. “Do bring her back in one piece, Clay.”

  Like I say, Julie worries too much.

  On the wide concrete runway, I’m connecting the Pawnee’s towline to the K-21’s belly hook while Roswell, clumsy in the bulky jacket, reads out the takeoff checklist. I stuff my parka behind the seat cushion. Not planning to be that cold this trip. The afternoon is warming, cumulus clouds are popping all over the valley at 8000 feet. Perfect day for soaring.

  I step into the rear cockpit, close my half of the transparent canopy, strap in and adjust the rudder pedals. Roswell completes the takeoff checklist aloud.

  “Controls free, pedals adjusted, wind down 2-4 at ten, canopy locked, belts secure, altimeter set for...”

  “Two three zero,” I supply.

  “Ja, that’s two three zero feet, radio set, canopy closed, brakes on, we’re ready.”

  Our wing runner holds the glider level as the Pawnee taxis slowly forward, taking up towline slack. Roswell eases the brake handle back as the line pulls tight.

  “We’re ready and we’re leaving,” Roswell says, giving a thumbs-up and waggling the rudder. Ahead, the tow plane’s rudder moves in response. The engine roars and both planes start to roll. The glider lifts off quickly into the headwi
nd. Hands and feet light on my own controls, I follow Roswell’s movements. He’s keeping the K-21 in perfect match to the tow plane, using only minor movements of stick and rudder. Although the climb is bumpy, he holds us steady in the high tow position, watching the Pawnee out front for sudden lift or sink.

  “Thirty-three hundred feet,” Roswell says over his shoulder. “We should be able to find lift from here.”

  “You’re flying,” I reply, not wishing to provide any information. From long habit, I want to assess the other man’s skills, not show off my own. In a cockpit, the smallest detail can become vital in a heartbeat. I notice that Roswell has both fresh air vents pointed at his face.

  Roswell eases the glider slightly above the tow plane’s altitude, then enters a shallow dive. As the towline goes slack, he pulls the release handle and the line drops away without a sound. Gotta admit, he’s smooth.

  “I see the line falling, I’m clearing left and turning right,” Roswell calls out. As we separate, the tow plane turns back toward the airport, trailing its long line. Solid bumps from below signal more lift. “This could be your shear line,” Roswell adds.

  I stay quiet. Roswell has already trimmed the glider for 60 MPH, and in minutes he places us firmly in the wall of rising air and we’re climbing above 4500 feet. Headed west toward the ocean, we see scattered cloud over Monterey Bay, flooding into the coastal mountain ridge. Roswell controls the glider skillfully, finding lift by instinct. The man is a respectable pilot.

  “Get us another couple thousand feet,” I call out from the rear seat. “I’d like you to start with an Immelmann, then get back your altitude and do some loops.”

  “Fine,” Roswell says, banking to center in a thermal. “May I ask you a question?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  “Just between me and you, are you planning any more TV appearances?”

  I hear the humor in Roswell’s voice, and grin wryly. My sole TV appearance, if you would call it that, was the only successful escape ever televised on Police Chases. On the road to California’s Mt. Baldy Village, there are two tunnels. My car had flashed out of the first one in full view of two police helicopters, veered sharply off the road, and crashed down a ravine in fiery and spectacular fashion. The fact that I was no longer aboard was not revealed by any cameras. It was only thanks to my so-called employer that police showed up at my house two days later to take me in.