by J. T. Cross
“Don’t mind if I do,” Chuck said and sleepily made his way into the kitchen.
Luc went to his bedroom door and knocked. The door opened and he saw Kate was fully dressed in a pair of blue jeans, a blue plaid flannel shirt, and brown hiking boots. She looked adorable, he thought. It was too bad the day had to start under such dire circumstances.
“Good morning. There’s cereal and milk on the table,” he told her and gave her a quick kiss.
“I think I’ll have some. We probably won’t get a chance to eat for quite some time,” she said and headed for the kitchen.
As soon as she and Chuck had finished breakfast, they all climbed into Luc’s truck and headed for the airport. Within forty-five minutes, they were pulling into the Auburn city airport and then up to the small hangar where Kate kept her plane.
They quickly loaded the supplies into the back of the plane and climbed in. Kate started the engine, ran through her preflight checklist and taxied out of the hangar, out to the runway. Shortly after getting approval, they took off.
Kate climbed away from the airport under full throttle. Once they were safely clear of the airport, she backed off on the throttle for a more comfortable rate of climb. Within ten minutes, they were cruising at a little over 7,000 feet and were on their way to Manatuk.
Luc stared out the window of the Cessna as a roiling ocean of thoughts stormed through his mind. The medicine lady, the crash, the strange animal, Kelly and Stuart’s condition, they all weighed heavily on him.
The medicine lady had warned him to return the rocks and tooth to where he had found them, but he had ignored her. The calamities she had warned him about seemed to be coming true; it was obvious. Why hadn’t he listened?
Minute by minute, his thoughts became more unsettling. What if he couldn’t find them? What if they were already dead? He stopped, realizing he couldn’t let himself think that way. It was self-defeating, not like him at all.
The three-hour flight seemed to be taking forever, Luc thought. Finally, the village of Manatuk appeared in the far distance.
Kate turned to them. “We’ll be landing in a few minutes. We need to re-fuel, and then we’ll get back in the air and fly straight to the outer boundary of the location Christie gave you.”
Shortly thereafter, they landed and taxied to the fuel pumps. They got out and stretched their legs while an attendant filled the plane’s tanks.
Luc paid for the fuel, and they got back in the plane. Kate started the engine and taxied to the end of the runway. Soon, they were once again in the air.
“We should reach the Manatuk campground in about forty minutes,” she said.
Luc opened his backpack and pulled out two pairs of binoculars. He handed one of them to Chuck, who was sitting in the rear seat. He also pulled out the emergency beacon receiver and turned it on. He had hoped, against all hope, that it would immediately start picking up a signal, but it didn’t.
He looked down at the tundra below them and then up at the clouds that stretched out as far as he could see. It seemed like the small plane was making no progress at all, although he knew it was cruising at about 140 miles an hour. The time passed slowly and he began to lose track of time.
Kate checked the GPS then took off her headphones. She turned to Luc. “We’re there.”
Chuck leaned forward. “Should we start searching the ground now?”
She continued, “Yes. If Luc’s theory is correct, the helicopter could’ve gone down anywhere after this point.”
Kate pushed forward on the wheel and Luc felt the plane drop as it began losing altitude. He looked at the altimeter and watched as the reading decreased to 5,000 feet where she leveled off.
They had put his plan into action, but somehow it didn’t make him feel any better. At least now though, he and Chuck could begin using the binoculars and do something useful.
“I’ll let you know when we reach the approximate location where you found the boy,” she said and put her headphones back on.
As they flew to the northeast, Luc meticulously scanned the ground beneath the plane for any signs of wreckage or smoke. Chuck did the same but also looked for traces of smoke in the air or flares.
* * *
Christie woke cold, sore, and half asleep. She looked around the helicopter cabin with slightly out-of-focus eyes. She reached up and tried to rub the blurriness out of them.
She took things in without thinking about them or drawing any judgments or conclusions. She felt an unexpected rush of fear and anxiety fill her chest moments before she knew the reason for it. A few seconds later, the heavy realization of their predicament returned.
She pulled the covers off herself and sat up. Marcus was on the floor at the side of the cabin curled up in both blankets. Kelly and Stuart were still sleeping. She was thirsty.
She slipped on her shoes and quietly moved to the lockers. She pulled out a bottle of water, unscrewed the top, and drank half of it. She walked to the hatch window and looked out. Standing at the edge of the clearing, munching on clumps of grass was a caribou and its calf. It was so beautiful, she thought.
She opened the hatch and gazed out at the animals. Startled, the mother caribou bolted and the calf followed. In a second, they had disappeared into the trees.
She climbed out of the helicopter and walked over to where Marcus had built the signal fire. She put her hands down to see if any embers were still burning. It was cold and wet. Evidently, the rain had put out the fire. She touched some of the wood in the pile. It was soaking wet. She guessed there wouldn’t be a fire today.
“Good morning.”
She jumped. Turning, she saw Marcus standing in the hatchway. “Good morning,” she said. “The rain put out the fire.”
“I noticed.”
“How did you sleep?” she asked.
“Not bad, considering the circumstances.”
“I know what you mean. I feel like somebody ran me through a meat grinder last night.”
“You don’t look like it,” he said smiling.
My hair must be a mess, she thought. She wondered just how bad she really looked. Then she wondered if it even mattered.
“The kids are waking up. We should eat some breakfast and then decide what we’re going to do,” he said, and walked back into the cabin.
She climbed back in and helped Kelly and Stuart get dressed. She had them finish the other half of her bottle of water. “We’re going to have to be careful how much water we drink until we find another source,” she told them.
Marcus passed out a protein bar to each person, and they began to eat breakfast. “We need to come up with a plan of action,” he said after he swallowed the last of his bar.
“What do you think we should do?” Christie asked.
“For now, I think we should stay with the helicopter and try to get the fire going again. They should be sending search planes out. Our best chance to be found is if they see some smoke and follow it down to us.”
“It’s not going to be easy to get a fire going. The rain last night completely soaked the wood.”
“I’ll just have to go out and see if I can find some dry wood,” Marcus said.
He pulled his boots on and laced them up. Opening the emergency locker, he pulled out the machete and pistol. “I’ll be back when I find some dry wood,” he said, nodding as if to assure himself, then jumped out of the hatch.
She looked through a window and watched him disappear into the trees.
For two hours she sat with Kelly and Stuart, reassuring them that help was on the way, and they just had to be patient. The children drew pictures, played word games, and then fell back asleep. While they slept, she passed the time listening for any search planes.
She heard the sound of whistling through the open hatch door and glanced out the window. Marcus was back and heading toward the helicopter. Aside from the machete, his hands were empty.
He entered with a dejected look. “It’s soaked out there. The rain must’ve r
eally come down last night. I couldn’t find any dry wood anywhere.”
He sat down and rested while he drank a little water out of his bottle. “I’m going to see if there’s any way I can get some fuel out of the tanks. We could use it to start the wood on fire and dry it out.”
She watched him leave then looked at her watch. It was already eleven in the morning. If there were any rescue planes searching for them, they certainly hadn’t flown over their location. If they had, she was sure she would have heard them. She hoped he could get some fuel out of the tanks and get the fire restarted.
Chapter 7
Kate took off her headphones and turned to Luc and Chuck. “We just reached the location where you thought you found the boys.”
“Could you bring us down a little?” Luc asked. “The lower we are, the better the chances they might hear our plane and shoot off a flare.”
The weather was good and visibility was excellent as they flew into the region encompassed by the red circle Luc had drawn on the map. He was confident they would get lucky and find the helicopter, but within twenty minutes, his hopes began to be dashed.
The farther they flew into the search area, the heavier the cloud cover became, until at last, it was impossible to see any ground at all. Kate soon found it necessary to climb higher in order to be sure she wasn’t going to hit the side of a mountain.
Three quarters of the way along the search path they came to an area where the clouds began to thin out again, exposing a lower layer of dense clouds 1,000 feet below them. Luc saw three flat mountaintops breaking through the tops of the lower clouds. He tapped Kate on the shoulder and pointed them out before they were out of sight.
“Those mountains must rise up at least 5,500 feet,” she said. “If I hadn’t climbed higher a little while ago, we could’ve flown right into the side of one of them.”
Luc didn’t like the looks of those mountaintops. They were higher than he had expected and only served to reinforce the fact that there was no way Kate could take them below the cloud cover. She had been absolutely right. It was just too risky.
Things weren’t working out the way he had planned. In fact, it was becoming clear that things weren’t working out at all. The cloud cover was making the search from the air impossible. It was just so damn frustrating, he thought. For all they knew, the helicopter could be right below them at that instant, and they would never know.
He brought the binoculars back up and started scanning the tops of the lower layer of clouds for any hint of dark smoke. Shortly thereafter the cloud cover increased again making it impossible to see anything below them except clouds. They continued on for another 50 miles.
Luc put down his binoculars for a moment and saw Kate turning the GPS power switch off and then on again. What was it about the eastern mountains and navigation systems anyway, he wondered.
“It can’t find the satellites anymore,” she said with a worried look on her face. “I have to turn the plane around now and fly back to where we first started the search. Fortunately, the compass is still working.”
“Are you sure you got to the outer edge of our search area?” Luc asked.
“I’m sorry, Luc, there’s just no way to know for sure without the GPS. I’m going to take a route farther to the east on the way back. We might get lucky and see a break in the clouds again.”
Forty minutes later, they were back over the spot where they had begun the search and the GPS was once again working.
“I’m going to fly an alternate path this time, a little farther to the west,” Kate said as she banked the plane, gently made a 180, and once again headed northward.
Luc and Chuck continuously scanned the tops of the clouds for any hints of smoke and the rare stretches of open areas where they could see the ground. Kate kept her eye on the GPS and when it stopped working, she headed back again to the starting point.
* * *
“Nothing. Not a trace of them,” Luc said, shaking his head. He put face into his hands and rubbed his eyes.
Kate reached over and rubbed his leg. “I’m sorry, Luc, but it’s time for us to head back to Manatuk.”
“Is there enough fuel for us to make just one more pass over part of the area?” he asked.
“No, there really isn’t. There’s nothing else we can do. We need to go back. We’re running low on fuel.”
The last 45 minutes of the flight seemed to last forever. Luc was silent. His simple plan had failed. He should have never agreed to let the kids go on the flight. Why the hell had he been so anxious to please Christie and the kids? So much for being the cool dad, he thought.
“I was such a fool to let the kids go,” he blurted out as they were approaching the airport. “I should’ve known better.”
“You couldn’t have known this was going to happen. We’ll figure something out,” Kate said then picked up the microphone and requested permission to land. Permission was immediately granted after which, she focused on lining up the airplane with the runway.
“We’re not about to give up yet,” Chuck said from the back. “We just need a new plan.”
Luc appreciated their attempts to cheer him up, but he knew now, more clearly than ever, what they were up against.
They landed back at Manatuk and Kate taxied the plane back to the hangar where they began unloading the plane. Luc handed Chuck his backpack then took his and Kate’s and put them in the back of her delivery truck. He was on his way back to the plane to grab another load of supplies when he heard the sound of a distant helicopter.
He dropped the supplies. He felt his excitement rise and his heart begin to race. Could it be the missing helicopter? He wondered.
He climbed out of the plane and searched the skies. Maybe it didn’t crash after all. Maybe somehow they limped back to the airport. Then he saw it flying in from the south and again his hopes were dashed. Why would they be flying in from the south? It must be another helicopter, he realized.
The three of them stood watching as an unusually large chopper approached. As it began to slow, they recognized the logo on the side. It belonged to Northern Energies.
“That’s a Sikorsky S-92, I think,” said Kate. “That’s the model my friend flies when he takes large crews out to the oil rigs. I wonder if they’ve brought it out to search for the other helicopter?”
“Let’s hope so,” Luc said, his hopes beginning to rise again.
They stood behind a short chain-link fence and watched it touch down at the far edge of the airport. The sound of the chopper’s main rotor whipping through the air resounded across the runway.
Luc noticed three men leave an unmarked hangar and run toward the chopper. They each carried a backpack and rifle. One also carried a silver case that resembled one made in Russia, a case he knew was designed to hold a disassembled sniper rifle. The three men reached the helicopter just as the door slid open and a man got out to take their things.
He put his mouth close to Kate’s ear. “What the hell is a Northern Energies helicopter doing here picking up three men carrying weapons and a sniper rifle case?”
“Is that what you think is in that case?” she asked with an expression of disbelief.
“I don’t think—I know. Wait here. I’m going to see what I can find out.” He hopped the fence and began jogging toward the helicopter.
Almost immediately, he saw another man exit from the same hangar and run straight for him. Luc recognized security guard emblems on the man’s jacket. The guard met him halfway to the helicopter.
“Stop, this is a restricted area.” The guard stood directly in front of Luc with his hands outstretched, blocking his path.
Luc stopped a few feet from him. “What’s up with helicopter?” he asked.
The guard eyed him with a suspicious look. “Northern Energies is doing some work in the area. They just landed to pick up some employees. What did you need?”
“Is there any chance I can talk to someone in charge?”
“No. I’m so
rry, but you have to leave this area.”
Luc thought about taking the man down and running to the helicopter, but then he saw one of the three men, the tall broad-shouldered one with blond hair, staring at him. He would have sworn he’d seen that face before, but he couldn’t place it. Then Luc got the distinct impression the man recognized him as well.
Who the hell was that? Luc wondered. The man quickly turned and climbed back into the helicopter. He watched him grab the door and slide it closed.
He heard the sound of the main rotors winding back up to speed and watched the helicopter lift off. He looked back at the guard who was also watching it lift off and looking somewhat relieved.
Luc waited a moment until the noise of the helicopter had faded. “Sorry, I heard that a Northern Energies helicopter went down in the mountains north of here. I wanted to find out if they needed any rescue volunteers.”
The man smiled and shook his head. ”I just talked to the Northern Energies chief of security not 30 minutes ago. He was the tall blond-haired man you saw climb into the chopper. Believe me, he would’ve mentioned it if anything like that had happened.”
“Why would the chief of security for Northern Energies be here in Manatuk?” Luc asked. He watched the guard consider the question and thought he looked genuinely perplexed.
“I have no idea. He just showed up.”
“You guys usually guard the area?” Luc asked, probing for any additional information he might pick up.
“No, not usually. We just got a call to run security for a special flight this afternoon. It’s a little unusual, but when Mr. Valenkamp says jump...”
“Yeah, I know how that goes. Have a good afternoon,” Luc said, not wanting to draw any more attention to himself.
He hurried back to where Kate and Chuck stood. They watched the helicopter slowly disappear to the north.
“What was that all about?” Kate asked.
“The security guard denied it, but I think they’re going out to try and find the helicopter.”
“What makes you think that?” Kate asked.