by Tom Hansen
CHAPTER 100
Monday, March 15, 1982
9:40 p.m.
T he Learjet climbed to five thousand feet and Oliver waved his wings at the Coastal East and Bayou jets that were locked into a dreadful date with destiny. They would soon run out of fuel and Florida would be picking up the pieces of its third civilian airline disaster in a month. Oliver thought about circling a few thousand feet above them and watching the planes hit the ground and burst into flames, something he found more entertaining than a science fiction movie, but then decided to fly onward after noticing dark clouds forming to the east where his entourage was headed. He shoved down on the throttle and the Learjet was at ten thousand feet within seconds.
As the aircraft rose above the clouds and the full moon was lighting up the night sky, the Learjet’s General Electric CJ-610 turbojet engines began to misfire. The passengers in the cabin looked out the window and saw lightning flashes in the darkness ahead of them to the east. Within seconds, the brilliance of the orange moon was quickly disappearing behind the storm clouds and the small jet began to shake. Governor Daughtry grabbed the armrests tightly and Roy glanced over and smiled, saying, “Relax Hank, have you never flown in turbulence?”
But up front in the cockpit, Oliver knew something was seriously wrong with the jet. First, the engine failure warning light for the starboard turbojet came on, and within seconds, the port engine failed and that red light began blinking. The Learjet started to drop and was soon back under the cumulonimbus clouds. Roy unbuckled his seat and walked up to the cockpit.
“Everything okay up here?” asked Roy as he sat down in the unoccupied copilot seat. Oliver had several copilots on payroll, but they weren’t invited to his retirement party, so he was flying the bird by himself.
“As a matter of fact, no!” answered Oliver without looking at Roy. “We’ve got double engine failure and I can’t seem to locate the problem.”
“Holy crap!” yelped Roy. “What are you going to do?”
“We’ve got to bring this down. Take a look out there.” Oliver pointed out the narrow windshield to the storm brewing in the east. From up front, the lightning strikes appeared much more vicious than from the cabin. A few seconds later the jet’s nose rose several degrees, then suddenly dropped while the aircraft rolled to starboard before Oliver could regain control. The Learjet’s glide ratio was the best in the business, but the weather was getting rough and Oliver was losing speed and altitude. “It looks like Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale are socked in with that storm. I’m going to declare an emergency and request priority runway clearance at Miami International.” Roy buckled up in the copilot’s seat.
“Hey, what’s happening up there?!” shouted Daughtry as he leaned into the aisle and looked toward the cockpit. He tugged the seat belt tightly, nearly cutting off the blood supply to his legs.
“Miami tower, this is echo victor three niner declaring an emergency. We have dual engine failure and request runway clearance. Over.” Oliver, trying not to sound panicked, was beginning to have heart palpitations. “Miami tower, do you read?”
“EV39, we are experiencing a complete radar malfunction and visibility is less than ten percent due to the storm. All southern Florida air traffic centers are out of commission. Suggest trying for Orlando as visibility is better, however, be aware that their radar is out, as well.” Roy’s and Oliver’s eyelids suddenly opened wide and they looked at each other. It dawned on them that they had disengaged their own lifeline.
“We need to try and get back to your landing strip,” said Oliver frantically to Roy. “But if the engines shutdown completely, we’ll never make it.” Roy was shaking and speechless.
Oliver turned the Learjet around and was traveling in a northwesterly direction. Belle Glade, at the southern tip of Lake Okeechobee was directly below. He was at 3,000 feet, losing altitude and airspeed fast and needed to fly another sixty miles back to Roy’s airstrip.
Oliver yelled through the cockpit doorway, “Sam, get up here! Now!”
Sam Dulie unbuckled his seat and dashed up to the cockpit. “What is it?”
“You tell me! The fuel tanks are reading half full, but the engines are misfiring. I turned around because we screwed ourselves when we knocked out the air traffic center’s radars, damn it! And that blasted weather is blanketing the east coast with massive thunderstorms, so we can’t see to land. We’ve got to get back to the ranch!”
“What’s our gross weight?”
“Just slightly over 15,000 pounds. We’ve got cargo in the back that is full of all sorts of pleasurable weapons to hunt with in our retirement. What the hell does the weight have to do with the engines functioning?”
“Nothing, but I was wondering about our ability to make it back to Roy’s airstrip. We’re too heavy unless we can pick up airspeed and altitude, then glide in.” Sam leaned in and looked at the instrument panel. “Oliver, we’re flying at ninety-three knots! The stall speed on this thing is ninety-one knots! Roy’s airstrip is about fifty miles away. We’re never going to make it!”
Oliver unstrapped his harness, grabbed the Glock pistol that was attached to the underside of his seat and forcibly pushed Sam into the pilot’s seat. “Take over! I’ll be right back.” He tucked the revolver into his pocket and walked to the back of the plane. Governor Daughtry and Yussef watched him precariously, but asked no questions.
“Hank and Yussef, come back here!” Oliver waited while his two remaining passengers hustled to the rear of the aircraft. “The Learjet is overweight. I need your help. These weapon cases each weigh a hundred pounds. We’re going to dump them into Lake Okeechobee. Quickly!”
The weapon cases had rollers attached and could be moved easily. Hank and Yussef each pushed one towards the cabin door, then looked back and saw that Oliver was behind them, but empty handed.
“Hit the door switch, Hank. We’re flying too low for any cabin depressurization problems, so you’ll be just fine.” Daughtry and Yussef held on tight to grips that were bolted into the fuselage on either side of the door, but Hank paused, his hand only a few inches from the red button. Something was bothering him, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint it. Then Oliver barked at him, “Right away if you don’t mind, Mr. Governor. We need to dump the weight if we’re going to make it back in one piece!”
Hank hit the emergency hatch release switch and the rollup door slowly opened and began to lift upward. The drag caused the plane to turn sharply to port, but Sam corrected the steering. As soon as the plane steadied, Oliver pointed at the cases and motioned for them to push. Hank and Yussef let go of the grips and both dropped to their knees behind the cases. They got down on all fours so that the momentum wouldn’t carry them out the hatch with the cargo while they were pushing. Each gave a heave, and 200 pounds of confiscated CIA weapons were now as the disposal of any criminal catfish that might be bottom-feeding in the big lake.
Using the grips to steady themselves, Hank and Yussef stood up and turned to get some more cargo, but were met by Oliver who was pointing a Glock in their faces.
“Sorry, boys. This should take care of our weight problem.” In less than a second, one nine-millimeter bullet ripped through Hank’s forehead and another through Yussef’s heart, and both men fell simultaneously backwards through the open hatch into their water cemetery.
Sam and Roy both heard the gunshots from the cockpit. Sam was flying the plane, but having a difficult time controlling the shaking in his hands. You didn’t have to look at him to see his fear; you could feel it in the air. Roy glanced at the cabin behind him to verify that what he thought had happened was what actually did happen. It was, and Roy looked back at Sam and laughed. When Oliver reentered the cockpit, Sam’s whole body was convulsing.
Oliver pointed the gun at Sam and said, “We just dropped about 600 pounds. Now can we make it?”
Sam’s voice quivered as he responded, “It might be too late. Airspeed is ninety-one knots, which means we will be going into a stall any sec
ond now. I don’t think we have the altitude to make it. We’ve dropped to 1,750 feet. Angler’s delight is ahead on our left.”
Oliver suddenly regained the composure and self-confidence that had advanced him up the CIA’s corporate ladder in just a few short years. He laid the gun down and calmly asked Roy to get up so he could take over in the copilot’s seat. Roy obliged and walked back to the open hatch in the cabin and grabbed onto the grip.
As the Learjet passed over Angler’s Delight at 1,100 feet, the turbojet engines both stalled at the same time. The edge of Roy’s airstrip was not visible in the night sky, but Sam was gliding the aircraft by reversing the navigation path they had used for takeoff. Glancing up through the windshield, Oliver could see the Coastal East and Bayou passenger jets circling perilously, and he smiled thinking about the horror and hysteria that must be going on inside those cabins. He knew he was only ten miles from the airstrip. They should have no problem reaching it safely.
But just then, Sam made a fatal error in judgment. Instead of waiting until the last moment, he panicked and lowered the landing gear and the drag caused the Learjet to drop from its glide path. Roy peered out the open doorway and could see the plane was now over his own property, but just a few hundred feet in the air. Believing the plane didn’t have the velocity to reach his airstrip, Roy jumped to the swamp below and hit the water feet first.
The Learjet continued to fall and Oliver screamed into Sam’s ear, “You dropped the landing gear too early, you idiot! Pull up, pull up!”
The nose of the jet dipped down and struck the swamp twenty feet short of the runway. The aircraft flipped end over end eight times, veered right, and then slid upside down fifty feet before crashing into Roy’s office. The makeshift observation tower collapsed onto the belly of the plane and the jet burst into flames. When emergency teams arrived, they saw that the plane’s fuselage had melted to ash, but the cockpit was basically intact. The EMT’s found the charred remains of Sam and Oliver harnessed in their seats upside down. The blackened bones of Oliver’s hands were firmly clenched around Sam’s neck.
Roy broke both legs when the appendages jammed into the swamp’s sandy floor, but he was able to move his arms and propel himself to the surface. An airboat could be seen in the distance making its way rapidly towards him. Roy began waving his arms frantically, trying to get the attention of the driver. Then he started yelling.
Unfortunately, the yelling woke up the family of alligators who were snoozing on the shore under the mangroves. Papa Gator was none too happy about this loss of much needed sleep and either was Mama. Papa was a sixteen-foot bull and Mama was a fourteen-foot cow and they spent most of their free time guarding their fifty-five hatchlings that were nesting on dry land. When the gators heard the man screaming and struggling only thirty feet away, it was Papa’s idea to round up a human liver to make a nourishing breakfast for the kids. But Mama was hungry now and she decided there was nothing better than a midnight snack. Papa agreed, and the two gigantic reptiles slid into the dark water and swam slowly towards Roy.
When the airboat was only a hundred yards away, Roy saw the two snouts and four florescent eyes moving insidiously in his direction. Roy stopped yelling and waving, then a tremor of terror bolted through his entire body. Even if he had good legs, he knew he couldn’t outswim the rulers of the swamp!
The noisy airboat’s engines momentarily stopped the gators in their tracks ten feet away from where Roy was treading water. The boat’s driver shut off the engines and coasted toward him, now only nine feet away, but on the opposite side of the gators.
“Thank God!” shouted Roy to the silhouette figures on the airboat. “Come quick! My legs are broken and there are two alligators on the other side of me!”
A figure on the boat reached over with an oar and paddled up to Roy, but as Roy began to reach up and grab the side panel so he could climb aboard, the figure slammed the oar onto Roy’s wrist. Bones could be heard cracking and Roy dropped back into the water. The gators once again began moving toward him.
“What the hell are you doing?” yelped Roy, his right wrist dangling on top of the water.
The silhouette who had been piloting the airboat stooped down and leaned forward. Roy’s eyes widened in fear when he recognized him.
“Well, well, are you out for a midnight swim?” asked Lew Berry.
“Please, let me onboard!” pleaded Roy. “I assure you I can make you a very wealthy man if you do!”
“That sounds like the same nonsense you used to lure my wife away many years ago. Sorry, Roy, but tonight you are nothing but gator meat.”
Lance paddled the boat a few feet backwards, then laid the oar on the floorboard. He, Pancho and Lew plopped foam air cushions under themselves and sat comfortably poised to enjoy the show. Seconds later, Papa Gator’s jaw clamped around Roy’s broken legs while Mama’s clutched his neck. Papa rolled in one direction and Mama rolled the opposite way, screwing Roy’s torso around so that he looked like a donut twist. With a fierce jerk, Papa ripped Roy’s thigh away at the hip and began chomping on it. Mama let loose her grip to see what Papa was dining on. Roy was in immense pain and barely alive, but he watched in agony as the alligator blissfully chewed the muscles and bones of his lower extremity. Mama decided she was in the mood for that delicious gray matter after all. She opened her jaws as wide as they would go and slid her mouth directly over Roy’s skull, resting his head on her tongue. Mama Gator’s salt glands began to excrete just the right amount of flavor while her sensory pits bolted into action. She snapped down with full force, her molars easily shattering Roy’s neck and spine. Roy’s torso and innards would be dragged back to shore for the starving hatchlings to enjoy tomorrow.
CHAPTER 101
Tuesday, March 16, 1982
12:10 a.m.
S hortly after midnight, Harley had removed the alien wiring and reconnected the airplane’s control system. The dashboard had been loosely reassembled, but it should hold up until the plane landed. Harley couldn’t locate a fuse to replace the burned out one in the radio, which meant there would be no communications with air traffic towers. But that really didn’t matter seeing the navigation equipment on the ground was still inoperable, as was the equipment in the cockpit. The tropical storm was now pelting the fuselage with hail and rain, while the clouds had covered the aircraft and visibility was near zero. Sobs and screams filled the cabin as all passengers remained in a crash position.
Harley motioned to Captain Auferdahl to take his seat, but the pilot shook his head. “Captain Hutter, please sir, do me the honor and fly this baby home.” Harley nodded and smiled, then strapped himself into the pilot’s chair. Co-Captain Alvin moved to the jump seat in the back of the cockpit so Auferdahl could take his spot in the second chair.
Harley pushed down on the throttle and pulled back on the wheel. Immediately the aircraft lifted. All three pilots let out a sigh of relief. Harley knew the Coastal East jet was still in a holding pattern somewhere below, but he couldn’t see the jet. Harley was praying that the Coastal East pilot had figured out that his control panel had been tampered with and would soon have it fixed too. Bayou’s fuel gage was nearing empty and Harley assumed Coastal East’s HJ-15 would be in the same predicament.
As soon as Harley reached 5,000 feet, wind shear from the tropical storm lifted the jet another 1,000 feet. Then the bottom gave out, suddenly dropping Bayou 444 back down to 4,000 feet and shifting the nose to starboard before Harley could regain control. He pushed the rudder pedal to compensate for the adverse yaw, but the turbulent conditions were wreaking havoc. The warm air from the ground was rapidly rising, while the cool air from above was sinking, catching the HJ-15 in a microburst that banked the left wing to almost vertical. Items in the overhead compartments were dislodged and flying around the cabin. Harley decided to execute an aileron roll in order to regain control. He throttled back to 200 knots and stabilized the elevators in a neutral position. The nose angle lowered and the jet began flyin
g upside down. Co-Captain George Alvin was strapped in the jump seat puking on the ceiling.
Harley completed the roll and the jet was back on course heading due east when the fuel gage warning light began to flash. The roll had forced the plane down to 3,000 feet and there was no visibility. Complete silence eerily replaced the piercing screams that had dominated the cabin. Harley wondered if he was losing passengers to heart attacks.
* * * * *
As the massive cumulonimbus cloud encompassed Coastal East 561’s remote-controlled nonstop circle of death, an immense lightning bolt lit up the night sky and illuminated the aluminum fuselage. Everyone on the flight shrieked in terror as the lights flickered in the cabin, and then went out. The antenna that Jack Tassett had installed into the nose of the plane to receive satellite signals had acted as a lightning rod and soon smoke was circumventing the cockpit. Captain Aaron Douglas grabbed the fire extinguisher and sprayed wildly in the direction of the flight controls. Little did he know that in that moment of hysteria, an act of God had occurred.
Within seconds, the fuse from the alien switchbox burned out and the actuator was now back to functioning through the jet’s own electrical system. As the plane lurched off its circuitous course, Douglas dropped the extinguisher and grabbed the wheel. He quickly shoved down hard on the throttle and applied the up elevator to try and get over the thunderstorm, but the turbulent air pockets caused the plane to porpoise. The barf bags in the cabin were now being reused.
Then came the fuel warning light. Captain Douglas couldn’t see anything outside through the rain and clouds and the radar wasn’t functioning. And because his communications were out, he had no way to issue a “Mayday”. He lowered the elevators and throttled back to save fuel. Good thing. The Bayou jet dropped down in front of his eyes, its tail just missing the Coastal East jet’s nose by less than fifty feet.