by RJ Crayton
A small opening with a curtain separates the cabin from the cockpit. It is more comfortable than I thought a medical plane used to transport patients would be. But, what do I know? I’ve never needed medical transport before.
In a short time, Susan’s wheelchair is stored on-board and we are ready to go. The take off is fine and we glide through the air without an ounce of turbulence on our way to flying altitude. Luke and I sit with one seat in between us, so we will appear like doctor and patient. Luke leans over once and checks my pulse to look doctorly. But he also puts his face close to my ear and whispers, “I love you, Mrs. Geary.” I can’t help grinning from ear-to-ear.
As we cruise through the air, I can see the end of the road. We just have to get to Georgia, and drive across the border. Luke looks at his watch. “It’s only an 80 minute flight, and we’ve been flying for an hour.”
I grin and take his hand. Just 20 minutes and we land. Twenty minutes and the hardest part will be over. I squeeze his hand and give him an excited look, then release him. I’m sure the pilot’s too busy flying to come out and look at us, but you can never be too careful.
Just now, the plane intercom crackles to life. It is the captain. And when I hear the voice, hear it without the background noise of the airport, hear it without trying to bury my head and hide my face, hear it while alert, I know we are sunk. I know it is over.
“This is Capt. Anakin Spencer,” his voice says smoothly, almost as if he is talking to us, his passengers. But it is clear he isn’t. “I have reviewed the files you sent, and they confirm my initial suspicions: fugitive Kelsey Reed is impersonating a Susan Harper, and an unknown man is impersonating Dr. Stephen Grant. I will land the plane at the Hartsfield Regional Airport, where authorities will meet us.”
A different static-filled voice now rumbles through the loudspeaker. “Thank you, Captain Spencer. If you hadn’t recognized Ms. Reed, we would never have known she escaped.”
“You’re welcome, sir,” Spencer responds, pride in his voice. “I want all fugitives brought to justice. Over and out.”
Luke doesn’t speak, but the look on his face is dejected and confused. I shake my head in horror and can feel warm tears forming at the corners of my eyes. Luke takes my hand, says, “Kelsey, we’ll figure something out.” But he doesn’t mean it.
We are going down, and it is all my fault. I am about to put my head in my hands and weep outright, when a gloved hand peels back the flap of fabric separating the cockpit from the passenger area. Captain Spencer emerges. He looks pretty much like the last time I’d seen him: tall, with dark eyes, short black hair, and a rim of stubble on his jaw. The main difference is now he is dressed in a pilot’s uniform. And he isn’t full of gratitude toward me. He looks serious and unhappy.
Luke appears to be considering throttling him. Sure, that would make landing tougher, but landing and facing the police is going to be pretty hard anyway. I grab Luke’s arm, and give it a gentle squeeze. I hope he knows it means it is time to give up. I have to face the music.
Captain Spencer looks at me. “I’m glad you’re alright, Ms. Reed,” he says, offering a stiff smile.
I nod, not sure what to say. “I’d be better if you hadn’t turned us in. But, I guess I should have expected you would.”
Luke looks confused. “You know him?”
I am about to explain, when Captain Spencer responds. “Yes, she saved my son’s life. And now I’m going to return the favor.”
Chapter 40: A Favor Repaid
“What?” I blurt out.
Luke appears as confounded as me but doesn’t say anything.
“Kelsey, you rescued my son that day at school. We met several times. I wrote you a profound thank you letter,” Captain Spencer says giving me an apologetic look. “I couldn’t pretend I didn’t recognize you. So, I had to call in that you were on the plane.”
“I’m not seeing how this is returning the favor,” Luke shoots back.
The captain gives Luke a cold look, then offers me a warmer countenance. “I couldn’t pretend I didn’t see you. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t recognize you,” he repeats, more forcefully this time. “I had a decision to make. I thought about pretending to be sick, calling in backup, but then there was a chance that person would recognize you and turn you in.”
“So you decided to turn her in?” Luke says, still full of venom.
“No,” he shoots back. “I decided I’d fly you to Peoria. That’s gotta be where you’re going, stopping in Georgia, then to Peoria. But, if you stop in Georgia, you’ll never make it to Peoria. Kelsey’s face is everywhere. She has to go straight into Peoria.”
Luke gives him another hostile look, and in a sardonic tone, asks, “If you want to fly us to Peoria, why would you turn us in?”
Captain Spencer takes a step closer to Luke, glares slightly. I don’t know him well, but Captain Spencer is clearly not someone who is going to be pushed around. “First, it shows that I’m a cooperating citizen. Second, it buys you more time. Third, it makes my story believable when I fly you right into Peoria.”
“What story?” I ask.
“In a few minutes, I’m going to radio in that you were listening to the conversation where I turned you in. I’ll say the Dr. Grant impersonator — who I’ll estimate is 5’7” with blond hair, and a wiry frame — held me at gunpoint, demanding I fly the plane to Peoria.”
Luke, who is 6 feet, broad and strong, with not a speck of blond, smiles, then scoots closer to me. “I told you, we’d figure something out.”
Luke’s enthusiasm for the situation is too quick. It isn’t thought out. I look from Luke to Captain Spencer. “What happens when we get to Peoria? Won’t they arrest us and send us back to FoSS? Not to mention, won’t they realize Luke didn’t have a gun?”
“I’ll say I threw it out the window,” Luke says.
“From 30,000 feet, you opened a window?” I ask, expressing the insanity of that statement with tone alone. But, just in case he doesn’t get it. “Luke, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
Captain Spencer sighs, interrupting us. “Actually, that’s the part I need to tell you about.”
Something about his tone leaves me uneasy. Both Luke and I look at him warily. “What do you need to tell us?” Luke asks, his face tight with dread.
The pilot looks past us, eyeing two compartments in the back. “I actually can’t land the plane with you two on it. Ms. Reed is right. Under the FoSS/Peoria Fugitive treaty, you two would have to go back because you would be holding me hostage while transporting me to Peoria.”
“So how are we supposed to get to Peoria if you don’t land the plane?” I ask through clenched teeth.
“There are parachutes,” he says, nonchalantly.
“No,” I blurt out. This is insane beyond belief. This man is crazy. Certifiable. No way in Hell I am jumping out of a plane.
“Are they medical chutes, the ones that deploy automatically?” Luke asks as if this is the most normal thing in the world.
I can’t believe it. He can’t be seriously considering this. I grab his arm and pull him close to me, so we are eye to eye. “Luke, we can’t jump out of a plane.” Why is the person who supposedly has pregnancy psychosis the sanest person on the plane?
He nods, puts his hand on top of mine, patting it gently. “Yeah, we can. These chutes for emergency medical aircraft allow you to get a lot of patients out. Rather than landing, you can parachute them to their destination below, right?” He looks to the captain for confirmation.
“That’s right,” Spencer says, in a silken, calm voice. “They’re designed to work with a gurney or chair. You simply strap the patient in, then program in the airplane height, and drop the person. The chute deploys automatically.”
I keep shaking my head. “I cannot jump out of an airplane,” I screech. “Peanut cannot jump out of a plane, either.”
Luke tries to pull me into an embrace; I resist, though I still clench his arm tightly. �
�Kelsey, you can do it,” he says. “Peanut can do it.” Then he pauses, as if rethinking it. Addressing Captain Spencer, he says, “Why wouldn’t they send us back if we parachuted? Don’t we still have the same problem?”
Well, no, we don’t. I know the answer but, before I can speak, Captain Spencer fills in Luke. “No, Peoria has no extradition for people who flee a medical procedure. The issue with me landing the plane is I am your hostage and have been taken to Peoria ‘against my will’.” He uses air quotes for that last part. “The treaty says you can’t forcibly bring someone to Peoria soil. If you do, you and that person have to be returned to FoSS. Once you’re off the plane, and presuming I don’t land — I’m sure I’ve got enough fuel to get back to Georgia — you’ve not forcibly brought me on their soil. They have no reason to deport you from Peoria. I think you’ll have to file a request for asylum, but they shouldn’t turn you over to FoSS.”
Luke throws a friendly nod in the direction of the captain. “Thanks for your help,” he says. “Could we have just a minute to discuss it?”
The captain returns the nod. “Sure, but, in 5 minutes, we’ll be approaching the area where I need to start our descent for Hartsfield. I’ll need you to have a decision at that point.”
Spencer returns to the cockpit. As soon as the little curtain closes, I give Luke my most desperate look. “He can’t be serious, Luke? There has to be some other way.”
Luke shakes his head. “His plan is pretty good for something on the fly, Kelse,” he says, pausing, looking aside for a moment, as if he’ll find inspiration in the fuselage. He pries my fingers from his arm, then takes both my hands in his, looks into my eyes, his blue pupils glinting with hope. “I think it might actually work, Kelsey.”
I shake my head. Jumping out of a plane! Ummmmm, no! I don’t particularly like flying as is. I put that aside for the purposes of this escape. But, now he wants me to jump out of a moving airplane. “We’ll die — you, me and Peanut,” I say, ripping my hands from his and putting them over my belly.
He takes a deep breath, and I can tell right now he thinks I am having a meltdown. He is bracing himself to calm me. But, this is no pregnancy tantrum. This is me being the only person to exert reason in a room — no, an airplane — full of lunatics.
He reaches out for my hand. I reluctantly give it to him. With sincerity, he says, “You know I would never, ever suggest you do anything that would hurt you or Ingo.”
I have to laugh when he says Ingo. “Really? You really like Ingo?” I ask, purposely sidetracking.
“Yeah. And it’s a real name — one for people — which is more than can I say for Peanut.”
I frown. He looks serious again.
“Kelsey, we don’t have much time to figure this out,” he says, bringing us back to the topic at hand. “I know planes scare you. And I know the idea of jumping out of one has to be even scarier. But, think of the alternative.”
Splatting to my death after dropping from a plane or back to a holding cell, having Peanut Ingo forcefully removed, and then me being killed? What wonderful choices to have. I sit there for a bit trying to come up with reasons jumping is bad, but the cons of jumping are nothing compared to what will happen if we don’t jump.
“I know what you’re saying,” I finally whisper to him. “And you’re right. Jumping is the best option. But, I don’t think I can do it.”
That sounds insane, even as I say it, but it is true. I am afraid I’ll freeze, that I won’t be able to jump when he says to.
Luke leans in closer, then wraps his arms around me. “Kelsey,” he whispers just loud enough for me to hear over the plane’s engines. “I’ll be with you the whole time, and there’s nothing to do. These chutes are made for injured passengers. The chute will deploy on its own. You will land safely.”
I so want to believe him. With everything in me, I want to believe him. Still, my heart is pounding in my chest like it is on fire, and I keep envisioning me dropping through the air, accelerating toward the ground but no chute deploying. Just me and Peanut going crash, bam, splat. Closing my eyes, I take a few deep breaths.
“Kelsey, you can do this,” Luke says.
I can’t do this.
But it doesn’t appear there are other options. “OK,” I say. “Tell him we’ll do it.”
Luke marches over to the cockpit, sticks his head behind the curtain, and confirms that we’re in. I don’t hear the exact words he is saying, as the engines are roaring so loudly. I stand and walk over to the two of them, wobbling a bit as the plane shudders across the sky. It is easy to remember why I hate flying: so high up in the air, balanced precariously by thrust, lift and drag — as we were taught in school. Miscalculate any of those factors, or enter another variable like wind shear, and you drop of out of the sky, plummeting to your death.
Statistically, I know flight is very safe. It’s been at least five years since a passenger plane has crashed. But I never feel safe when I am up in the air. I take a deep breath as I near the cockpit.
Luke is standing in the tiny doorway. He stops speaking. Initially, I think it’s because of my approach, but then I realize it’s because Captain Spencer is speaking. The radio handset is to his mouth, and he is speaking in a voice that breaks with fear.
“He has a gun,” Captain Spencer says. “I’m pretty sure he’s going to use it. He wants me to land in Peoria.”
There are a few moments of silence on the other end. Then the radio gives a static burp and a voice emerges. “Do as he says,” man on the other end cautions. “Land in Peoria.” Then the voice dashes off some coordinates, presumably for a Peoria airport where authorities will be waiting.
So it is set. He’ll fly in and we’ll jump somewhere before the Peoria airport. Luke turns to me. I must look as queasy as I feel, for my husband’s eyes brim with sympathy, as if I am a lost child. In an instant, the look dissipates, and he puts on a solemn expression, one that exudes everything is serious, but fine. “You heard?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
Captain Spencer sees me next to Luke, smiles, then presses a few levers on the control panel. “It’s on autopilot,” he says, standing up. I glance at the controls uncomfortably. I prefer a real pilot. Luke steps aside and I follow suit, heading back into the main cabin, as well. Luke and I are wedged against the fuselage wall as Captain Spencer enters the cabin. He points to the wall at the right rear of the plane. “We better take a look at your chutes.”
Luke and I follow as Spencer trudges to the area he just pointed toward. Mounted on the interior fuselage are two rows of seven squares that look like backpacks with electronic keypads and small screens. Captain Spencer pulls one from the wall, and shows it to us.
On the backside is a metal ring with brackets coming out from it. “It locks into place with a chair or gurney from the plane if necessary,” Captain Spencer explains, pointing to the brackets. Then he lifts straps dangling from it. “You can use these straps to harness around the patient, if necessary. But you’re both able-bodied, so you won’t need them.” He detaches the straps, which were held in place by a sturdy-looking metal clip.
“I will program in the drop height here, and the computer will determine when to deploy the chute.” As he speaks, so calm, so deliberately, I wonder if he normally watches the chutes while speaking; or if he does it this way tonight to avoid staring at the dread and fear clearly emanating from me. “These are emergency devices and therefore intended to be used in emergencies. Drop heights can be pretty low. But, because of the topography of the area we’ll be flying into, I’ll be dropping you a little higher – from 12,000 feet. This means your free fall time will be longer.”
“How long?” I ask, but it comes out more like a demand.
He takes his eyes off the chute, looks briefly at me. “Two minutes.”
Two minutes of plummeting through the air to my potential death. “Isn’t that kind of long?”
He seems torn between ignoring me and answering. After a moment, he sa
ys with forced calm, “A little. But, you’ll be fine. It’s not too high. Your chute should deploy around 2,700 feet. If it doesn’t, there’s a backup…”
Cutting him off, I squawk, “What do you mean, if it doesn’t? I thought these were perfect.”
He looks to Luke, perhaps for some clue as to how to respond, but then looks at me. “Ms. Reed, your chute will deploy. I’m just telling you what we tell everyone. Just precautionary. If your main chute doesn’t open, the backup will open at 1,000 feet. If that doesn’t open for some reason….”
I am about to interrupt him yet again, but he cuts me off with a stern look. “If that doesn’t open,” he continues, “pull this yellow lever with all your might and it will manually deploy the backup chute. This is a fast-launch chute which will keep you from dying if deployed as little as 200 feet above the ground. You won’t die, but you’ll have a hard landing.”
A hard landing. He grimaces when he says it. If he grimaces, a hard landing has to be bad.
“But that’s a worst case scenario,” Luke chime in, patting my back gently. “These things deploy properly like 98 percent of the time, right?”
“Of course,” Captain Spencer agrees, looking at me with rehearsed confidence. “I just needed to let you know the possible pitfalls. You won’t need this yellow lever.”
I nod, hoping they are right.
Captain Spencer offers some more advice on what to do, but I can’t help tuning him out. And it isn’t ‘cause I don’t want to know. I am just trying to perpetuate my denial a little longer. If I just don’t listen, maybe it won’t really happen in a few minutes. Or maybe I can just put off dealing with it until I have to, until I have to get out of a moving airplane.
“You alright, Kelsey?” Luke asks.
I must look terrified, but I offer a weak smile, and say, “Mmmhmm.” I’m sure Luke knows I don’t mean it, but he’s kind enough to pretend I’m going to be OK and not ask me again.