by Alan Janney
“Sounds fun.”
Puck said, “I’ve decided this is a bad idea.” We ignored him.
Lee continued, “If you think there’s even a remote chance those rotors are messing with your wind, then you should bank out of there, dude. Live to fight another day. You follow? I’ve got it!” He snapped his fingers. “When you’re in position, and the plane is almost underneath you, close the wings! You’ll still be moving forward at the same speed, but the wind won’t be able to manipulate your wings. You’ll be a rock, instead of a leaf. Make sense? Might be easier to land that way.”
“Good idea,” I nodded.
“Wow.” He pulled at his lip in thought, one of his constant habits. “You’re definitely going to die.”
“No I’m not!”
Puck said, “Yes you are.”
“I have no idea how you’ll get into the plane.” Lee shook his head and dropped the marker onto the board.
“We’re hoping he won’t have to,” Puck said. “Five years ago this plane was outfitted with advanced autopilot. I can access it remotely.”
“That’s so cool!!”
“Agreed. Puck rules,” the speaker rattled. “We’re hoping Chase landing on the plane will spook the pilot. He’ll parachute out, and I’ll engage the autopilot and chart a different destination.”
“This is the best night of my life. What if it doesn’t spook the pilot?”
I said, “Then I’ll improvise.”
“How?”
“No idea. But I need to go. I’m low on time. Can you figure out the numbers on helicopter altitude, when I need to jump in relationship to the plane’s approach, and all that stuff?”
“Sure, bro. I can get close. But no promises.”
“Check this out.” I handed Lee my new rod, the gift from the Chemist. He immediately dropped it, and I was forced to catch the rod before it made a crater on his hardwood floor.
“Dude!” he gaped. “How is that so heavy?? Like a baseball bat made out of lead.”
“Not sure. It’s a gift from the Chemist.”
“………” he said. “…say that again?”
“I’ll explain later.” I had to laugh. My life sounded so weird when I tried explaining it. “In the meantime, maybe I can beat open the plane’s door with it.”
“You’re capturing the Chemist’s plane with the gift he gave you. You should call it the Rod of Karma. Or the Betrayal Stick.”
Puck offered, “Stick of Treachery.”
* * *
At 12:30am, Isaac Anderson and I were in the rear passenger cabin of an FBI A-Star, whose rotors were screaming and pulling us higher over Newport Beach. The sky was black and so was the Pacific Ocean to the west.
“This is a terrible idea!” Anderson yelled. His usually handsome face was stony and lined with worry. The bay doors were open and the wind threatened to suck us out.
“Those are my favorite kind!”
“You’re definitely going to die!”
I was wearing my motorcycle helmet to provide eye-protection from the wind and so Puck and I could still communicate. The phone was in my pocket, connected via bluetooth to the helmet. If I ended up in the ocean (which I almost certainly would) then both would short-circuit.
“Remember!” Anderson called. “Once you hit the water, we won’t be able to see you. You must activate the beacon!”
“Got it!”
Puck was monitoring the cargo plane via the FAA’s radar, and he had Lee’s calculations. “The Greyhound has shifted westward,” Puck reported. “You need to be farther out to sea. It’s descended to 15,000 feet.”
I relayed the instructions to the pilot and we changed heading, soaring away from the coast. The pilot called back, “We’re at 10,000 feet. The air’s too thin to go higher! We’re barely hovering!”
Isaac barked, “Roger that! Hold position!”
I grabbed the handhold beside the door. The metal vibrated and complained with effort. Below us was nothing.
Puck spoke into my ear again, and I said, “Ten miles out! Altitude 13,000. Speed one hundred seventy-five!”
“Special Agent Anderson!” the pilot called. He was a silhouette, surrounded by incomprehensible lights. “We can get this helicopter up to one-fifty! Why don’t I fly above the Greyhound and match his speed? The Outlaw could just hop off?”
“Negative! We don’t want to alert the Greyhound pilot. He’d identify us too far in advance!”
We heard the pilot say, “I’m going to get fired for this.”
“You and me both,” Anderson mumbled.
I asked, “Did you get clearance for this operation?”
“Hell no. You think they’d authorize this?”
A thought occurred to me. Whoops!!! I forgot to tell Katie I wasn’t coming over! I texted her.
Sorry. Something came up. I can’t come over.
>> =( =( =(
>> Maybe for the best. I was feeling…deviant.
“Darn it,” I said. That could have been fun.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Puck said, “Three miles. 10,000 feet.”
“Bingo! I got a visual!”
Anderson ordered, “Lights out! We’re flying dark. Converge with the Greyhound’s course, but keep your distance!”
“Roger, wilco!” The pilot dipped the helicopter’s nose and we surged forward. My heart’s RPMs sped up too. Isaac’s phone lit up in his shirt pocket.
“That’s PuckDaddy calling you,” I said. “He wants to be on a three-way call.”
“Understood.” He answered it.
“Outlaw,” Puck said. I could tell through the headset he was anxious. “Prepare to jump. Going by the numbers, you’ve got thirty seconds.
Through our wide door we saw the big cargo plane lumbering down through the sky to the south. Jeez it was big. And loud. And fast. A winking behemoth swaying out of the heavens.
Puck said, “In roughly twenty seconds, the Greyhound will drop below 10,000 feet. Tell the pilot we need to match his speed, as closely as possible, and remain roughly five hundred yards above him.”
I did. The helicopter banked and roared.
Anderson shook my hand grimly and said, “Good luck, Outlaw.”
Soon we were half a mile ahead of the cargo plane, but we turned and it disappeared behind our tail. I’d be jumping blind.
“In position!” the pilot called. Our helicopter was really moving now, overtaxing the engines to keep up with the decelerating Grumman Greyhound.
“If you’re in position, then you’re free to jump,” Puck said. He was breathing heavily. “Wow this is nuts.”
I hooked the gloves onto my wings and connected the leg-webbing. Anderson watched without comment. I hadn’t really thought much about the actual jump, because I would chicken out.
Don’t think.
Don’t think.
I began counting to three, but I jumped on two. Out into the empty cosmos. The air was a painful wall which hurled me away from the invisible helicopter. The swirling gales snatched and pulled on the wings and I was instantly lost, tumbling in circles. The helmet rattled around my ears, the visor buzzing, my exhalations hot and loud. The distant city lights spun into my vision over and over again. I felt like a marble in a dryer.
I forced my arms forward and my legs wide. The effects of the wind increased and I was tossed like scrap paper in a storm. But I didn’t release the position. I ground my teeth and held. I found the glowing electric horizon and made small corrections until the twisting leveled. Finally! A quasi-stable surface of air to ride.
I was panting. Where?? Where was the plane?
There! I was hurtling straight at it!
I rotated my shoulders, arms shifting like wheel-spokes, and executed a rapid 180-degree course correction, a dramatic turn that displaced my blood and made me light-headed, until the lights of the city settled to my right. Now the plane was behind me and I fled before it. I hunched over, head bent down, hunting for th
e Greyhound between my legs. The visor was foggy, but I located the flashing collision lights approaching fast.
Instantly I could tell this wouldn’t work. Despite our best efforts, there were just too many variables that could and did go wrong. I was too far away and I would shoot under the plane’s flight path before it passed by.
“Status report,” Puck wheezed. He might have been holding his breath the whole time.
“Shut up! I’m thinking!” I was a rocket, and I didn’t have time to talk.
I was definitely too far away and too low. I needed to slow down. I unfettered the wings and launched the parachute. The jarring change in speed nearly pulled my arms out of socket. I swung wildly below the chute, like one of those toy army guys whose parachute never worked exactly right. I hauled on the ropes, trying to correct the ferocious undulations.
The roar of the wind tunnel died. I could have been floating in outer space. The world was wintery and silent and lonely. I hung from blackness in the middle of nothing, slowly drifting into a void. Just me and, to the north, the white moon.
“This is kind of creepy,” I panted. The air was thin.
“What?”
“Nothing. Shut up again. I’m trying to think.”
By pure chance, I was floating in my target’s path. The Greyhound was plunging, shedding altitude quickly, and would dive directly below me in just a few seconds. It was closing the distance in a mad rush!
This wasn’t going to work either! I had lost all forward momentum, now only moving downward, and the plane was traveling at 150mph! It would be like getting hit by a truck speeding on a Nascar track. I needed velocity.
I eyeballed the flashing lights barreling in my direction, judging the distance. The plane was enormous, with gargantuan blades slicing the air on either wing. I took a deep breath, heaved the parachute back into it’s backpack, began free-fall, and snapped the wings open again. Instantly I started picking up speed, both forwards and downwards. Faster. Faster.
I was being overtaken as we raced in close proximity. Craning my neck downwards, I could see the lighted cockpit and movement inside.
The Greyhound’s raucous engines decreased an octave and the plane visually slowed, casting off speed and altitude. I inched nearer, joining the cacophony.
I was in position and as close as I dared. Even from this distance, parallel ten meters above the fuselage, the wind was acting wonky.
“Here we go,” I whispered.
“What??”
Zip! My wings retracted and I fell like a stone.
I was too far forward. I had planned on skipping along the plane’s surface and using one of the many protrusions as a hand-hold. No such luck. I flew straight at the cockpit windshield.
Painfully I smacked like a bug onto the nose of the Grumman Greyhound. The wind forcibly compressed me into the metal sheeting, and prevented me from slipping off.
It worked! I was on the aircraft!
The cockpit had four separate windshield panes, giving the pilot a wide field of vision. Through the two foremost windows, I peered into the brilliantly lit cockpit and witnessed the pilot pass out. The man was probably already stressed, tired, maybe high, and the sight of me falling from the heavens, landing on his nose and staring back at him was simply too much. His eyes rolled up and he slumped forward, head temporarily resting on the control yoke.
Well. That works.
Time to improvise. I pulled out the rod, the Stick of Treachery, and struck the closest pane with as much force as I could bring to bear. The heavy tip punched a hole through the multiple layers of glass. The change in cabin pressure blew the pieces straight out and up into the night. The airflow also caused the pilot to lean farther towards me, pressing the control yoke forward.
Uh oh.
The Grumman’s nose dipped as the plane changed pitch and began a more aggressive descent towards the earth.
That’s not good.
I smashed the glass again and again to create a sharp hole big enough for me to slither through. I grasped the metal windshield housing and hauled myself into the relative quiet and warmth of the cockpit. It was tiny and militant, not built for comfort, and I couldn’t even sit down.
“Believe it or not, Puck,” I grinned, “we did-”
The cockpit door opened and a gunman ducked in. He took one look at me, his eyes widened and he screamed, “Aiieeeee! El diablo!!”
I dove at him as best I could, awkwardly launching over the co-pilot seat. My foot brushed the unconscious pilot, and the plane shuddered. I landed on the surprised terrorist, and we both hit the ground. His head connected solidly with the deck and he moved no further.
The airplane began rolling to its left, westward. Freight in the cargo area shifted and strained against restraints. Two gun-wielding terrorists came staggering forward to investigate the disturbance. Both cried in alarm and fumbled with their weapons.
I flung the cockpit door closed, the heavy metal barrier blistering from bullet impacts.
We were diving towards the Pacific Ocean at an alarming rate now. I hauled the pilot’s limp body off the stick, but I had no idea how to fly a plane!
“Puck, take over! We got a problem! Get this thing’s autopilot working!”
“I’m trying! It’s unresponsive!”
“Do it anyway!”
I waited until the gunfire stopped, then kicked open the door and threw my heavy metal bat at the nearest assailant, shoving it like a chest pass in the close confines. He caught it full in his stomach and fell.
With a thunderous SNAP, the restraints broke and tons of freight collapsed sideways, swallowing and crushing both men.
That works too.
The Grumman’s forward pitch was so steep I fell backwards into the cockpit. The cargo jumble began inching closer, threatening to fall down the sloping deck and plow through the cockpit bulkhead, killing us all.
“Puck, fix this thing!”
“I can’t! Outlaw, you’re below three thousand feet! Pull up!”
“How?!”
Isaac’s voice blurted into my ear piece, “The control you need sticks straight up between the pilot’s knees. Usually has two handholds, like prongs. Pull back on it, towards your body.”
Nothing was visible through the windshield except rippling moon reflections. We were diving straight towards the water, pitched so far forward I couldn’t sit down. As best I could, I stood in the co-pilot seat and hauled backwards on the yoke. The mechanism actively fought me. One of the terrorists crashed into our seats, still unconscious.
“I’m pulling! Now what?!”
“Two thousand feet!”
Isaac said calmly, “Keep pulling. That’s the only thing you can do.”
I pulled until the metal began to bend. Sweat leaked from my red bandana in rivers, soaking into the black mask.
I could jump out. My body wouldn’t survive a plane crash, but could withstand the water impact if I abandoned ship. Pull!! I couldn’t leave. Everyone aboard was dead if I did. C’mon you stupid old bucket, pull up!!
City lights reappeared from the top of the cockpit, indicating we were dragging out of the dive. At least I hoped so; I had no idea how to read airplane dials.
“How we doing, Puck??”
“Leveling out at four hundred feet. I can’t feel my fingertips.”
“Keep pulling, Outlaw. You’re too low. You need altitude, especially before you hit the coast.”
“Hah! Never in doubt!” I laughed in delirium. I wanted to wipe the sweat out of my eyes but I didn’t dare release the controls. “I’m flying a plane! Woohoooooo!”
* * *
Puck never got the autopilot to engage remotely, but he taught me how to activate it within the cockpit. The engines surged and the controls commenced independent operation and I was finally able to take a deep breath. The FAA was howling about airspace, squawking through the pilot’s headphones. I let Isaac Anderson handle all communication as we cruised over the incandescent city, level with f
amiliar skyscrapers
The plane even landed on autopilot, as if by magic, at Bob Hope Airport, a small airstrip in Northern Los Angeles. Word of the airplane mid-air hijacking had reached the media, and news vans ringed the airstrip, pressed to the security fence.
As soon as the Greyhound braked to a full stop, Anderson’s FBI helicopter landed alongside. Emergency vehicles came screaming in, shading the night red, blue, and loud. Airport personnel poured from hiding spots, cheering with raised hands, racing to the Grumman.
I waved to them from the nose of the cargo plane, squinting against blinding lights. They whooped even louder. I jumped down. Anderson waved me into the rear passenger bay of the FBI A-Star, and we took off as police cars, ambulances, SWAT vehicles, and firetrucks made a solid ring around the Greyhound.
The helicopter dipped forward and we left the madness in our wake. Anderson and I shook hands and congratulated each other on being lionhearted morons. The pilot yelled, “I’m being ordered to take both of you back to base!”
“Negative!” Anderson laughed. “Tell them I’ve got a gun to your head!”
“No need, sir! I’m with you. You and the Outlaw! We can all burn together! What’s our heading?”
“Second star to the right!”
“What??”
“Just get us out of here!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Wednesday, October 20. 2018.
The Grumman Greyhound had been hauling several tons of illegal weapons, ammunition, and narcotics. The three terrorists were all on South American Most Wanted lists, but the pilot was just a local flyboy living near an airport in Panama, unlucky enough to get kidnapped and forced to fly the plane north.
The sensational story dominated the news, and the Outlawyers were stirred into such a frenzy that Natalie North temporarily moved into a hotel. The Outlaw worshippers set up camp surrounding her apartment building, which was senseless but the building had become a shrine, the only known frequented haunt of the Outlaw. Dozens of Outlawyers were being arrested daily for loitering and disturbing the peace. A new Outlaw Support Compound was established near Glenoaks Canyon, providing refuge for Outlaw pilgrims and even an Outlaw prayer chapel, all within an abandoned Boy Scout campground and shelter, bought by a wealthy patron calling himself The Priest.