Angle of Attack

by Lee Baldwin

  I don’t usually hear such questions from the soaring crowd. Most locals know I’ve been in the joint, and that glider flight instruction is considered my ‘rehab’ by the authorities. Occasionally someone at the gliderport will ask me to get in their selfie, and thankfully that’s about it. But what Roswell says next jolts me.

  “Did you hear that McIntyre may soon be released from prison?” The man’s tone is taunting.

  I scowl at the back of Roswell’s head, for this is truly bizarre. The drug kingpin Mick McIntyre, my former ‘associate,’ is cooling his jets at Lancaster State Prison on an extended basis. I am instantly alert. Anyone who knows the gang boss can be dangerous.

  “He’s down for major drug trafficking,” I reply carefully. “Eight to twelve.”

  “True enough,” Roswell says, turning his head fractionally toward me in the tight cockpit. “He’s been given an appeal.” Now I can see the asshole is grinning.

  Wherever this is coming from, I intend to pound it out of Roswell when we get on the ground. If McIntyre gets an appeal, I need to be in the mix. He has major payback coming. From me. But enough of this random crap.

  “Alright,” I order him. “Show me your Immelmann.”

  “Looking right, clearing left,” Roswell calls out, banking the glider steeply. Both of us search below through the turn, watching for any aircraft that could pass underneath. Roswell finishes the turn, pushes the K-21 into a steep dive. As the sailplane accelerates past 160 MPH, he pulls smoothly back on the stick and the G-loading builds to 4 gravities. We’re in a fierce climb, nose straight up. At the top of the climb, we level off inverted, then Roswell performs a slow roll so we’re again flying level at 55 MPH.

  “Hammerhead,” I tell him.

  He pushes over into another fast dive, then begins a vertical climb.

  “This glider is not stressed for tail slides,” I call out above the slipstream noise, “so cheat early with the rudder when airspeed hits about sixty.”

  Roswell’s reply is to push in a bit of left rudder as we lose airspeed. We’re weightless, the sailplane sliding backward flips sharply and plummets straight down. “When I bring us out of this,” Roswell calls over his shoulder, “I’d like you to show me a full loop. Zero G on top.”

  “Alright,” I say, beginning to be impressed. The man can talk and fly at the same time. I know something else. He doesn’t need an aerobatics lesson any more than he needs that heavy jacket.

  As we dive out of Roswell’s maneuver, I say, “I have the glider,” and take the controls, putting us into a steep descent. I watch the airspeed build toward redline, then pull the stick smoothly back. The K-21 hurries upward. Watching for the earth to come around as we go inverted, I glance at Roswell, outlined above me against blue sky. Oddly, the man is hunched forward in his straps. My mind is on other things, but he’s definitely not watching the maneuver he asked for.

  Just as we come upside-down at the top of the loop, three things happen in quick succession. Something hard bangs into the top of the forward canopy. A forward canopy which blows away in a sudden howl of wind. And with no goodbye, Roswell falls out of the inverted cockpit and disappears.

  The ship hesitates as though stunned. Working to bring the stumbling glider into the downward arc of the loop, I see a brief and distant flash beneath me... sunlight glinting from the falling canopy. Upside-down, the K-21 is twitchy, no sense of direction, like it’s not an airplane anymore. Howling wind buffets me. Picked up from the floorboard, tiny grains of dirt pelt my face. Quickly I scan for my falling ex-passenger but see nothing. Against the vast pool of clouds below, a human would be a flyspeck.

  The glider starts its downward plunge. In the empty forward cockpit, Roswell’s abandoned shoulder harness lashes wildly. Out of balance with no one in the front, the glider wants to nose up sharply and G-loads build dangerously. I feel myself blacking out and shove the stick hard forward.

  The glider comes level, then climbs, which would be great if I was in control, but it’s not flying right. Airspeed’s dropping too fast, I can’t push the nose down! I loosen my shoulder straps, leaning my weight as far forward as I can in the rear cockpit. It doesn’t help. Refusing to dive, the K-21 shudders like a gut shot buck. There is a moment of silence as the slipstream quiets.

  Full stall.

  With a sickening lurch the sailplane drops a wing and falls into a fluttery spin. I kick in hard opposite rudder and hold the stick all the way forward but the glider hangs in a flat spin, rotating ever faster and uncontrollable as a falling leaf. My mind sorts wildly through my dwindling options to not fall out of the sky.

  Altitude 7000 feet. Three thousand feet below me, a river of cloud pours into a wilderness of steep ravines and eroded slopes. Losing 300 feet with every gut-wrenching rotation, I have little time for action. But I know one thing as the glider lurches downward toward the waiting clouds. There is a single, impossible act that might possibly save me. And I totally hate it.

  I release the rear cockpit canopy, which blows away with a roar. Flopping helpless in my loose harness as the craft gyrates downward, I clutch a firm handful of the flailing shoulder straps Roswell vacated moments before. I grit my teeth and release my harness buckle. An overpowering sensation of spinning vertigo grips my brain as I haul myself out of the rear cockpit and toward the front, pulling myself along the straps, fighting to hold myself low against the cyclone of my descent.

  Everything’s spinning and twirling, wild forces try to slam my head into the cockpit margin. Flung out over the wing, I glimpse a whirling cloud mass reaching up to swallow me. Holding tight to the harness, a useless thought forces its way through: Roswell’s fall was deliberate.

  The glider thrashes in its spin, trying to fling me away with each violent lurch. I grab a hip strap and pull myself down into the front cockpit, find the right rudder pedal with a flailing foot and kick hard. Gripping the straps fiercely with one hand, I shove the stick forward.

  And the glider flies! Again in balance with my weight in the front cockpit, the glider obeys the controls and noses down, gaining airspeed. I halt the spin, fly it out of the dive, and point it up to regain altitude. From here, I can fly straight and level toward the fields of Hollister, 25 miles distant. With luck, I’ll find lift and make the airport. My cap is gone, but the aviator shades still cling, protecting my eyes from a wind so suddenly cold.

  Fumbling to secure my hip belt, I scan the cloud cover below. There, a scant thousand feet below, I spot the pale green of a high-performance parachute.

  Roswell.

  Rage mounts on instinct. Reflexively, I push the K-21’s nose downward toward the colored blossom below. Only after that automatic response does my thought surface: I knew the sudden rush of events had been no freak accident with an inexperienced pilot. The loop, the battery, the canopy. Roswell’s jump was meant to spin me into the ground!

  My certainty hardens. Roswell’s insinuating questions about Mick McIntyre were a gesture of bravado from a taunting killer before the act. And I know, surely and deeply, that I will not allow the man to get away. I can guess the reason for his heavy parka. It had concealed a parachute and possibly a flotation device. But who is he? And why the hell does he want to kill me?

  I grit my teeth against the howling slipstream, crouching low in the cockpit to aim over the K-21’s bare nose.

  “Just you and me, Roswell.”

  Cockpit agape, the sailplane screams toward the floating parachute. Airspeed tops 180. I point the glider’s nose directly at the middle of the drifting nylon, watching the puffy airfoil expand in my vision. At the last available instant, I pull back hard on the stick. The K-21 groans as the parachute passes scant feet beneath her howling wings. If I am close enough to Roswell’s parachute, my wing turbulence will blow his chute inside-out.

  Climbing, I bank steeply away and look over my shoulder, pulling around for another pass. But no second attack is necessary. For one mind-bending instant, I catch a fluttering green wisp vanish
ing into clouds. Then, I’m alone in the infinite sky.

  Trembling from shock and adrenaline, I let the glider climb from its furious dive until it runs out of energy, scratching for every foot of altitude. I level off and trim for minimum sink speed. I must stay in the air as long as possible. It’s a blessing the radio battery is gone, I need time to calm my nerves and sort out the rush of events before I speak to anyone. Seconds ago I’d been flying a routine loop with another pilot aboard. Now this!

  Altitude 3800 feet, only a few hundred feet above the clouds. If I fly into them I’m a dead man. I search frantically ahead for signs of lift, hoping to locate the shear line, or a thermal. From this altitude the K-21 can fly nearly 15 miles, if I encounter no serious sink leaving the mountains. I take my hands off the stick and will myself to relax. In perfect balance now, the glider floats serenely at 47 MPH. Hands folded in my armpits, it comes to me that I am very cold. Glancing toward the rear seat, my parka there seems infinitely far away. Shivering, I close my eyes as the glider soars peacefully, and replay in my mind the rush of events.

  Roswell asked me to fly a loop with zero-G on top. With no G-forces holding him in the seat, he could easily jump out. Inverted, the safest way to avoid hitting the tail. And the battery! On our way toward the top of the loop, Roswell was bending forward, doing something I couldn’t see. Next instant, the radio battery is bouncing around in the forward canopy, which then blows down and away. Roswell falls out of his harness, leaving me inverted at low speed in a glider that’s instantly un-flyable.

  You dumb sick bastard, I think, shivering with cold and rage. Grimly I see that my instant reaction had been right. The split-second I’d seen Roswell’s parachute, I’d calculated my single chance to repay the haughty assassin in kind, and had sent the man falling to his death. Why the hell not? He tried to kill me.

  I know what he’d been thinking. Without the radio, I could not Mayday, the glider would have vanished into a ravine or beneath the waves of Monterey Bay, never to be found. Searchers would conclude that we had crashed together and there the trail would end, though the mystery would remain. I groan aloud. Someone wants me to disappear. Well, it’s what I want for myself, but nothing like this.

  Where is a cop when you need one, I’m thinking, with a bright flashback of that wild police chase years earlier. But thoughts of cops lead me to the most threatening realization of all. My current parole officer has been helping me stay alive, literally. Professional yet sympathetic, Parole Officer Yamamoto has helped me stay in the cockpit and out of the joint. But what will he conclude about this Roswell thing? If he writes me up for this I’m back in prison, no discussion. Back inside where Mick’s dudes can find me, and that will be the end.

  Then it hits me again, it won’t be Yamamoto. It’ll be the new guy, starting over from square one, no personal rapport, only sharp suspicion. I’ve got to leave this tarnished existence forever.

  Chimes from my shirt pocket. Working my phone with stiff fingers, I look at the name. A student. I can’t talk to anyone until my mind is in control. I ignore it.

  Cloud cover below gives way to tree-dotted slopes. Bumpy air signals the presence of lift, and by pure instinct, I find myself centering a thermal, climbing the invisible column of rising air. The practiced moves give my mind an anchor, reassurance that the world is possibly sane. I’m breathing again yet still I tremble, and not merely from the cold. I’ve experienced many tense moments in aircraft, but have never felt so threatened. As I work my careful way homeward, my mind wears a groove in the impossible sequence of events.

  Now less than 10 miles from the runway, I plan what to do next. The radio is out, and landing without it will be dangerous if I’m unable to hear traffic calls or announce my presence. Fortunately, there is an alternative. Stiff fingers fumble for my phone. It’s cold in this wind! I speed-dial Julie on the club’s line.

  “Julie! Clay.”

  “Clay? What’s up?”

  “Well, first of all my radio’s out. Can you relay my pattern calls, and let me know about other traffic?”

  “Say again? There’s all sorts of noise, I can hardly hear you.”

  I hunch forward to shield my phone from the blast of cold wind coming over the smooth nose, and yell this time.

  “No problem” Julie says. “What’s that racket?”

  “Problem with the canopy,” I tell her.

  From miles away, on the ground, Julie’s voice registers concern. “Are you guys alright?”

  “Yeah, we’re flying okay. We’ll enter the landing pattern in about ten minutes. Any traffic?”

  “The active is 2-4. The tow plane just left with the Grob. You may see them on your twelve at two thousand. Right now it’s quiet.”

  “OK, thanks. And someone better come meet us when we get down. We may need some help pushing back.”

  “Do you need to declare an emergency?”

  Declaring an airborne emergency means a mountain of paperwork, risk of my instructor’s rating, and many unwanted questions. There will be enough without that.

  “No effing way,” I tell her. “Leave it.”

  I wish again for my parka, to be warm. Flying straight now on final glide to the airport, the placid agricultural scene floats beneath me. Gliders quiet in their tie-downs, parachute billowing over the club patio. And CHP cars in slalom practice at the end of runway 1-3.

  On my phone, with Julie relaying my pattern calls from her handheld radio, I set up for a crosswind landing, heading toward the police slalom area. On downwind I’m surprised to see a restored P-51 Mustang fighter taking off on the intersecting runway, but have no time to process that. On final approach, I put the phone away and adjust my aim point, not to the 3-1 numbers closest to me, but much farther, beyond the runway intersection.

  As I float five feet above hard concrete, inquisitive faces in the club patio swivel to watch me go by. Usually, gliders are on the ground well before the intersection. Usually, gliders return with their canopies. Usually, gliders come back with the same number of pilots as at takeoff.

  A tow pilot, watching beside the gas truck, jumps in and follows me down the runway. I glimpse his grim expression.

  I let the K-21 sink to the runway, a chirp from the belly wheel. Keep the wings level with the stick, with rudder pedals guide the craft along the center line, toward the cluster of black and white police cars lined up for slalom practice. Several officers turn as I roll up. I haul back on the brake handle and bring the glider to a stop ten yards from the nearest cruiser. I feel the warmth of the sun.

  At least it will be easy to find a cop.

  Chapter 2

  Old Girlfriends

  I DON’T GET THE TREATMENT I wanted, but perhaps what I deserved. The California Highway Patrol guys are first quizzical, then official. They listen to my story, cuff me, listen some more, then un-cuff me. They want to know how I can return from a flight minus my passenger without somehow committing murder.

  This Q-and-A soon collects a clump of pilots and gliderport people around the K-21, which sits on the concrete runway looking forlorn without its canopies. All are trying to convince the cops that my tale is believable. Somewhere in the middle of the proceedings a CHP captain decides that an airborne crime, be it murder or suicide, isn’t exactly their jurisdiction, and calls Hollister Homicide. When Short Detective and Tall Detective arrive, the whole thing rewinds for a remix.

  Fortunately, everyone shuts up and listens to Stacy lecture the cops on flight characteristics. She’s the owner of the gliderport and a Class A lady on the side. She and I go back.

  “It’s one of the basic things we teach all our pilots,” she tells them. “If an aircraft is not in balance, it will not fly. If the weight is too far forward, it won’t pull out of a dive. If the weight is too far back, the glider stalls and spins to the ground. Either way, you crash.”

  Short Detective wants to sit in the front seat of the glider. The other one sees what he’s thinking and lowers himself into the re
ar cockpit I had occupied. It’s a tight fit for even the smaller of the two men. Stacy comes over.

  “Of course you realize that you have to be strapped in,” she says, and helps the cop in the rear seat fasten his 5-point harness. Reaching forward as far as he can in the tight straps, Tall Detective finds he can’t extend his hands beyond the instrument panel, much less reach through to the front seat.

  “I know what you are thinking,” Stacy says quietly to the two men. “Someone back here can’t reach anyone in the front. The pilot in back would have to release his harness to even try. It would be very tough to reach through that narrow space, with the canopies closed. Nobody can release the front canopy from the rear seat, period.”

  “What about some kind of weapon?” Short Detective wants to know.

  Stacy thinks about it. “That’s more your specialty, but it would be hard to use a club, not enough room to swing it or even thrust it. A gun or a knife would leave bloodstains. And the front pilot would still be strapped in.” Both detectives look glum. They had already checked the cockpit for blood or signs of a struggle. Canopy missing, radio battery gone, pilot missing. It’s no crime scene they’ve seen before.

  “Also,” Stacy continues, “Suppose someone did purposely get the front pilot out of the aircraft. They still would be in the rear seat of a glider that was about to crash. There is no guarantee they could do what Clay did and fly the glider back. Clay wasn’t wearing a chute. He could have hit his head, lost his grip, any number of things. Really not worth it as a way to murder somebody.”