You Only Live Once

by Haris Orkin

  “Mr. Mendoza,” Goolardo shouted. “Kill that crazy chingado!” Mendoza and the two thugs squeezed the triggers on their MAC-10 machine guns and Flynn didn’t fire back. Instead he tackled Sancho, saving him from certain death. Bullets ripped into the hull of the plane. One blew out a window. Flynn grabbed onto the bottom of a leather recliner and waited for Goolardo to be sucked through the broken window. Much to his dismay and disappointment, however, no one was sucked through anything. Instead, oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling, obscuring Mendoza’s view of Flynn.

  Flynn fired his weapon and hit one of the thugs in the knee. The man jerked back the trigger of the Mac-10 as he fell, taking out his fellow thug, before hitting the floor. Mendoza charged Flynn and Sancho stuck out his foot. The big man tripped and tackled Flynn as he fell.

  Goolardo and the billionaires all grabbed oxygen masks as Mendoza wrestled Flynn into the stewardess station. Sancho jumped on the big man’s back, his hands covering Mendoza’s eyes. Mendoza tried to shrug him off, but Sancho held on like a cowboy riding a Brahma bull. Flynn hit Mendoza in the chin with an elbow and the big man growled and rolled over onto his back, squishing Sancho beneath his bulk.

  Flynn rolled onto his knees and searched for his weapon as Mendoza aimed his Mac-10 and pulled the trigger. Flynn skedaddled under the stewardess curtain and crawled quickly up the aisle between the billionaires.

  “Keep your heads!” Flynn shouted. He lay flat as the bullets flew through the cabin and peppered the cockpit door.

  “Stop shooting you stupid baboso!” Goolardo screamed.

  Mendoza rolled to his knees and then his feet. He burst through the little curtain and lumbered up the aisle for Flynn, grabbing him, taking him down. The billionaires, still breathing through their oxygen masks, watched as Mendoza sat on Flynn and brutally pummeled him. Goolardo stepped past the vicious one-sided battle and angrily made his way to the cockpit. He pushed open the door and went inside, closing it tightly behind himself.

  Flynn futilely tried to fight back, but Mendoza was twice his size and seriously pissed off. As Mendoza throttled him, Flynn glanced at Beckner and the other billionaires, all watching wide-eyed. Flynn’s voice was constricted as he called to them. “I could use a little help.”

  “You bloody idiot,” Breen’s voice echoed in the oxygen mask. “You’re going to get us all killed!”

  A magnum of champagne exploded against Mendoza’s skull. The big man slumped forward, his hair covered with glass and champagne bubbles. Flynn used whatever strength he had left to push the big man to one side. He saw Sancho standing over him, his nose bloody, and the broken neck of the champagne bottle still in his hand. Flynn glanced at the label decorating Mendoza’s head. “A 1990 Dom Perignon? Are you out of your mind?”

  Sancho couldn’t help but smile.

  The cockpit door opened and Goolardo walked out with a pistol in his hand and a parachute on his back.

  “Going somewhere?” Flynn queried.

  “I’m afraid you’ve given me no choice.” Goolardo abruptly opened an emergency door. An alarm sounded and a red light above the door blinked. Goolardo had to shout to be heard over the rushing wind. “As you can see, we’re a little short on pilots!”

  Flynn looked past Goolardo into the open cockpit. The pilot was slumped forward in his seat with a bullet hole in his back. The billionaires looked absolutely terrified. Actually, only their eyes were visible as the oxygen masks still covered their faces.

  Breen removed his mask to shout, “What about us?”

  “It’s always about you, isn’t it Mr. Breen!” Goolardo said.

  “We’re all going to die,” Sergei Belenki sobbed.

  “Yes, you are, Mr. Belenki, but not from any bio-toxin. That was simply a ploy to get you gentlemen to come with me.” The billionaires all looked flummoxed and then furious. Goolardo chuckled.

  “We’re not infected?” Beckner said.

  “No, and in that respect, Mr. Flynn was quite correct. I used mind control on you gentlemen.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Warren Davis sputtered.

  “I never intended for any of you to die. For that, you can thank Mr. Flynn.”

  Everyone turned and glared at Flynn as Goolardo positioned himself to jump. A hand grabbed Goolardo by the ankle. Mendoza.

  The big man growled something obscene in Spanish and Goolardo shot him in the shoulder. All that did was irritate his large lackey. Mendoza slapped the gun out of Goolardo’s hand and the drug lord slammed his knee into Mendoza’s nose. Goolardo pulled his leg free and Flynn launched himself across the cabin. He grabbed for Goolardo as the drug lord ran for the open door and managed to get a hand on his rip cord.

  The chute shot out and hit Flynn in the face before it landed on Mendoza like a net. The big man struggled to get out from under it and tangled himself up in the suspension lines, bumping his boss right out the door. Goolardo’s body weight wrenched Mendoza forward and he stumbled towards the opening, grabbing at anything and everything to slow down his unplanned exit.

  Two feet from oblivion, Mendoza grabbed the door frame and gripped tight, one hand on either side, his massive muscles straining to keep himself in the plane. Goolardo dangled in the air from the emergency door, screaming, yelling, and spinning in the wind like a fishing lure.

  From the safety of the cargo hold Dulcie heard the gunfire, the shouting, the falling bodies, the terrified screams. The longer she waited down below, the angrier she became. Flynn was like every man she had ever met. Condescending, pushy, a total control freak. He figured he knew what was better for her than she did. Well, fuck him, thought Dulcie. If she was going to die in a fiery plane crash, goddammit, she wanted to know it. She called the little elevator down to the cargo hold and rode it up to where all the action was. As soon as she saw the situation, however, cold fear quickly replaced her righteous indignation.

  “Are there any more parachutes?” It was Bill Mumson. He hadn’t spoken since his embarrassing crying jag.

  “I don’t know,” Belenki mumbled.

  “You don’t know!” Breen shouted.

  “I don’t know! Belenki shouted back, his voice ragged and frightened.

  “We’re all going to bloody die!” Breen concluded.

  Li Chu Young exhibited an eerie sense of calm. His voice was measured and firm and, other than Flynn, he was the only one present who wasn’t pissing his pants. He had accepted his fate and was fine with it. “We all have to die sometime,” he said.

  “Eventually,” Flynn replied. “Inevitably. But not today.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The center instrument panel on a Boeing 767 has thirty-six dials measuring everything from airspeed to altitude. There are also fifty-two buttons, switches, levers, and other assorted doohickeys. There are even more buttons, switches, and thingamabobs located on the instrument panel overhead and on the massive control console on the pedestal between the pilot and co-pilot. None of them meant anything to Sancho and he was pretty sure that they all were equally inscrutable to Flynn. Yet, there he was, strapped in the pilot’s seat, wearing a headset, and smiling confidently.

  Sancho sat in the co-pilot seat and the view out the cockpit window made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. Dulcie was strapped into a third seat that flipped down from the wall. Her jaw was clenched tight and her hands were balled into fists. They had dragged the pilot into the main cabin. He was still breathing, but out cold and Flynn had instructed one of the billionaires to keep pressure on the wound to staunch the bleeding. Sancho wished that he was just as unconscious.

  “You know how to fly this thing?” Sancho didn’t sound hopeful.

  “Certainly.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Dulcie said.

  “Aircraft today are so advanced they virtually fly themselves.” Flynn grabbed the wheel and the aircraft lurched off kilter.

  “Oh, my God,” Dulcie cried.

  “Chingado!” Sancho shouted. His hands dug into the sides of hi
s chair as the billionaires in the main cabin all began to yell obscenities in various languages.

  “Cao!”

  “Kukjävel!”

  “Chodu!”

  “El Khara Dah!”

  “Fuck!”

  Mendoza strained to hang on to the emergency door as Goolardo dangled dangerously in the wind, his body occasionally bumping up against the fuselage.

  Flynn released the wheel and the 767’s autopilot took control. Soon the aircraft was once again level. “Touchy, isn’t she.” Flynn smiled.

  “Dude, what the fuck?”

  “Don’t worry, my friend. I may not have flown this particular aircraft, but I’m instrument rated and have over two hundred hours on jumbo jets.”

  “Are you talking about that video game?”

  “Flight Simulator, version 10. It’s extremely realistic and very advanced.”

  “It’s a fucking video game!”

  “The Navy trains their pilots using an almost identical program.”

  “But they also fly the real thing, ese!”

  Richard Cook poked his head into the cockpit. “How’s it going?”

  “It’s all under control,” Flynn said.

  “If you need any help—”

  “We do,” Sancho replied. He shot from his co-pilot seat as if on a spring and pointed for Cook to sit.

  “I’ve piloted smaller aircraft and hot air balloons,” Cook said. “But nothing like this monster.”

  “A jumbo jet is a bit more involved,” Flynn agreed.

  “Where were you planning on laying it down?”

  Sancho grabbed Cook by the shoulders and pushed him towards the co-pilot seat.

  “I don’t want to be in the way,” Cook said.

  “Sit!” Sancho pleaded. “Please!” As Cook settled into the seat, Sancho whispered frantically into his ear. “He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.”

  Cook looked back at Dulcie and she nodded in agreement, eyes wide with terror. Cook glanced at Flynn who was staring quizzically at the control panel.

  “Are you a licensed pilot?” Cook asked.

  “I have a license to kill,” Flynn said cheerfully. Cook was no longer smiling. “I’m thinking we should put down in Loreto. I believe they have a runway long enough to accommodate an aircraft of this size.”

  It was then that Sancho noticed the mountain range directly in front of them. Below them, the Sea of Cortez crashed upon white sand beaches that stretched all the way to San Filipe.

  “We probably should begin the automatic landing control sequence,” Flynn said.

  “Automatic landing what?” Cook said.

  Flynn started turning knobs and pushing buttons and the 767 violently pitched forward towards the ground.

  “Bloody hell!” Cook yelled.

  “Sorry,” Flynn said. “I may have overcompensated for the altitude and wind speed.” He was calm and unflappable as he pulled back a lever. The aircraft pitched further forward as the engines screamed and everything vibrated.

  “Jesus Christ!” Cook shouted. “Do you even know what the bloody fuck you’re doing?!”

  “We’ll soon know,” Flynn mumbled. He turned the wheel and the plane banked sharply towards the 5000-foot-tall wall of mountains. Sancho’s hand trembled as he pointed at the craggy peaks. He tried to say something, but nothing audible emerged from his mouth. Dulcie’s face was as white as an albino’s ass. She looked like she was about to spew. Flynn just looked perplexed. He pulled back on the wheel and adjusted the flaps and the plane barely cleared a rocky outcropping. Sir Richard Cook, the famous billionaire daredevil, shrieked like a ten-year-old-girl.

  The airport at Loreto was just ahead, and now Sancho could hear someone yelling in Spanish over the radio. It was the air traffic controller for the tiny airport. He was telling Flynn to immediately pull up and abort his landing. If Flynn understood him, he gave no indication. Sancho, unfortunately, understood every word. He tried to tell Flynn, but nothing came out of his mouth.

  Dulcie vomited on the back of Richard Cook’s head. The billionaire didn’t notice as he was too busy screaming in terror at the plane lifting off the very runway they were attempting to land on.

  “Come now, Sir Richard,” Flynn said. “Things are never so bad they can’t get worse.”

  As Flynn reached for the white throttle lever, Cook leaped out of his co-pilot seat. On his way out the door, he bumped into someone pushing to get in. It was the pilot. Bleeding, woozy and off-balance, the injured pilot staggered past Sancho and sat his ass in the co-pilot’s seat. Seeing the aircraft looming towards them, he immediately grabbed the stick and pulled up as hard as he could. The Cessna lifting off the runway was now so close that Sancho could see the frightened face of the pilot in the other plane.

  He heard Richard Cook running down the aisle, yelling, “We’re all going to die!” This did nothing to alleviate the concerns of the other billionaires, who all began to yell and scream in their own native language.

  Sancho looked over at Mendoza. The big man’s grip was slipping. His knuckles were white and every muscle in his neck was taut as he desperately tried to hold on to the edges of the open door. He assumed Goolardo continued to spin in the wind as the 767 barely cleared the top of the Cessna. Even though they avoided a mid-air collision, Sancho wasn’t exactly relieved. The jet was approaching the runway far too steeply and much too quickly.

  “Pull!” shouted the pilot, and he and Flynn pulled back on their sticks. The plane was shaking from the strain, the sheet metal close to buckling, the ground rising up much too fast. Sancho closed his eyes and prepared for a very sad end.

  They hit the runway hard. The plane bounced and bounced again. The landing gear skidded and burned rubber. Smoke rose from the tires, but the pilot held on and kept the plane level all the way down the tarmac. He didn’t lose control, even when they bounced beyond the runway, through a wire mesh fence into the desert.

  The 767 eventually came to a stop. The pilot killed the engines and what astonished Sancho the most was the silence—the only noise the sound of his heart pounding. Flynn grinned and patted the exhausted pilot on the knee. Blood and sweat covered the wounded man’s face. Tears filled his eyes. Dulcie let out a sob and Sancho couldn’t believe he was still alive.

  Some of the billionaires were cheering and screaming with joy. Others were smiling and laughing. Richard Cook and Sergei Belenki were crying. Randall Beckner gave Bill Mumson a high five. Mumson grinned. Not only was he still alive, he was no longer the only billionaire with a doody in his drawers.

  Mendoza fell to his knees and collapsed on the floor of the plane, his muscles burning with lactic acid. Goolardo continued to dangle, his feet just above the ground, slowly turning like a marionette tangled in its own strings.

  Flynn unbuckled his seat belt and stood, his pale face shiny with perspiration. He took a step and staggered and clutched his stomach. Sancho caught him and lowered him to the floor of the cockpit.

  Dulcie saw the blood first. It oozed through Flynn’s fingers and saturated his shirt. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

  Now Sancho saw it. “What the hell…”

  “Did you get shot?” Dulcie asked.

  “Apparently so,” Flynn said. His complexion was chalky white. A yellow film covered his eyes.

  Tears blurred Sancho’s vision as he cradled his compadre’s head. Flynn cocked an eye brow and smirked. A tiny bit of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. “You know, Sancho, my hiding in your car was no accident. I knew I could depend on you. I knew you could do whatever you set your mind to…”

  Sancho’s voice was a sob as he picked up Flynn’s hand. “Don’t you die on me, ese.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it,” Flynn said. And then his eyes rolled back in their sockets.

  Dulcie laid her head on his chest and cried as Sancho held his friend’s cold, motionless hand.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The boy was in that awkward stage between child
hood and early adolescence. He was ungainly and overweight and his face was blotchy with acne. His clothes never fit him correctly as they were all hand-me-downs. His foster father would cut his hair at home, in the bathroom, with an electric clipper made by Ronco. The boy always ended up with a crew cut and the short hair only served to accentuate his chubby face.

  He had crushes on four different girls at school and not one of them even knew he existed. There was red-haired Jessica Babcock in his math class. She sat in front of him and smelled like lemonade. She had narrow shoulders, a tiny butt, and the largest chest in the seventh grade. When the bell would ring, signaling the end of the period, he’d have to hold his books in front of his groin as he walked to his next class.

  There was blonde Mindy Taylor in social studies. She was a cheerleader and on Fridays wore that short orange and black cheerleader’s outfit. She had a high-pitched laugh and would stick her tongue out between her teeth when she giggled.

  April Zelinski sat next to him in science. A tall, skinny girl with short dark hair, she was a forward on the girls’ basketball team. She always wore jeans and t-shirts and she never wore a bra. She was also his lab partner and together they dissected a frog. He couldn’t help but notice that her nipples poked out from her t-shirt like pencil erasers and he tried not to stare, but it was like trying not to look at the sun during a solar eclipse.

  His English teacher was his biggest crush. Mrs. Jensen wore very short skirts and would often read to the class from a stool in the front of the room. She read Hiawatha and Beowulf and he never heard a word as he was too distracted by her flashing panties. She would smile at him and compliment him and actually acknowledge his existence. The longing he felt for her was physically painful.

  She’d reminded him of his mother.

  His mom had always made him a snack after school. They talked and she loved hearing what he had to say. He, in turn, loved making her laugh. Her abrupt absence left a cold, dark hole in the middle of his soul.

  He missed her laughter more than anything.