The Plan

by J. Richard Wright

  The former feeling of triumph, the satisfaction of killing, had now been replaced by a nagging failure, an uneasy sense of an incomplete victory.

  After a moment he knew! He knew with a dreadful, supernatural clarity, with a terrible conviction reserved for those with second sight; his prey continued to live.

  Fury and rage choked the Beast. He turned his flight and began to retrace his path back through the purple sky. Powerful wings of skin reinforced with boney ribs drove him forward and up, filling and lifting him higher.

  He continued upward until he sensed a powerful wind at his back. Relaxing only slightly, he sped back towards the point where he’d had left the jet plunging towards the sea.

  As the seconds turned to minutes, the creature streaked through the dark air under wisps of cirrus clouds which had now begun to join and thicken. A hundred miles on, they became cirrostratus and, in turn, some distance further, changed to balls of cotton-like cumulus. Finally, as hundreds of miles fled by, the cumulus changed to great towering mounds of cumulonimbus rain clouds. Inside them lightning flickered and snapped, and ear splitting crashes rolled into peals of thunder.

  The Beast took advantage of warm air currents and rose in a graceful circle high above the thickening cover until he found himself flying over a dull white carpet punctuated by columns of skyscraper-like mounds jarring upwards through the misty floor. These pyramids of nature continued to vent their fury. Bolts of electricity, with temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun, betrayed a savage internal wrath.

  Illuminated by a pure white light bouncing off the clouds, he glanced upward and saw a crystal ring of ice pellets forming a circle around a full moon. In the eastern sky the first signs of gold appeared as the dawn made ready.

  Suddenly, he swept to a stop and stood upright in mid-air, his ribbed wings beating a relentless tattoo that kept him stable. Now he was but a tiny silhouette in the night, his head turning left and right as he listened to the distant roar of aircraft engines. His foe drew nigh.

  He strained again for the sounds of the engines vowing that this time he would not toy with these insignificant mortals. He would pierce the skin of their vessel like a needle through a balloon and let it explode.

  The shrill whistle of the straining jet engines grew in intensity, piercing the night ahead of the Beast.

  The craft was somewhere below, somewhere underneath the rolling white clusters.

  This time there would be no error.

  Like a falcon hunting its prey, he folded his arms close, pulled in the wings that jutted from his back and dove like an arrow forward and down towards the sound.

  Barely five miles ahead, the huge A320 jet suddenly burst through the silvery clouds into the moonlight and rocketed upwards at speed as it headed towards its former cruising altitude. Adramelech stopped his descent and then surged upwards, preparing to get above and ahead of the aircraft.

  ~ 16 ~

  “Dear God!” Maria said, her racing heart slowly returning to a normal beat. She had been sure they were all about to die when the aircraft dropped and continued to drop for so long. Everyone was wide awake now except their charge; she looked over at the private detective who had blissfully slept through it all. He continued to breathe normally, strapped securely into one of two hospital beds sharing the sitting room.

  Dr. Butler had poked his head out from his stateroom looking very pale. Seated on the couch, the two priests looked relieved as both had been making Acts of Contrition as salvation for their souls during the aircraft’s dive. Bishop Aquila was making his way forward to the cockpit again which he entered without knocking. Maria could barely hear him.

  “Turn the visibility lights on!” Bishop Aquila ordered in a no-nonsense tone holding himself steady in the cockpit door as the jet climbed.

  Bowden could feel a resentment building inside him. The lights might be a further drain on their electrics. In fact, he wondered if the auxiliary light system had not been installed properly and somehow compromised their electrical system and the on-board computers. Perhaps it had been responsible for the engine failure.

  “Your Grace, something went very wrong and we almost...crashed,” Bowden said, busily adjusting trim and still scanning the instruments for any abnormalities. “Please go back and sit down.”

  “The lights!”

  Gostini stared from Bowden to the Bishop.

  The old man’s face was red with fury.

  “I can’t put them on right now!” Bowden said, his voice clipped. “I’m not doing anything that might endanger this aircraft; for all I know those auxiliary lights might have shorted something out.”

  “That wasn’t what happened,” Aquila said, his tone certain. “There are events unfolding that you do not understand, Captain.”

  “I’m sorry; I’m in command here, Your Grace, and you will leave the cockpit... please!”

  Again Aquila vanished from the doorway, slamming the door.

  Gostini sighed with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Though he agreed with the Captain’s reasoning, he wondered if this would mean their dismissal at the end of the flight. If they landed safely, of course.

  “Jesus...we almost pranged this SOB a few minutes ago and that man is worried about how we look...!” Bowden’s voice died as he twisted to look back at cockpit door opening again. Aquila entered.

  Gostini followed his gaze and could scarcely believe his eyes.

  Bishop Aquila, silhouetted against the cabin lights was difficult to see but there was no mistaking the black revolver he held trained on Bowden. “Captain Bowden, you will either put on the visibility lights or I will shoot you and let First Officer Gostini complete the flight.”

  The Bishop followed up his threat by cocking the revolver. Despite the dull whistle of the engines, the hiss of the cabin airflow and a custom installed soft chime warning the cockpit door was open, the metallic click was still distinctly audible in the cockpit.

  ~ 17 ~

  Adramelech adjusted his trajectory from above and headed for the jet as it arced upwards seeming to make for the moon. His speed accelerated as he adjusted his aim towards the widest part of the aircraft, just behind the wing.

  There would be no time to delicately open veins, no time to languish and suck the sweet, life-giving nourishment of his victims. It would merely be a neat, efficient fulfillment of an ancient reality: all who saw the Beast must die. Then he would continue his insidious work confounding the mortals of the planet and seducing them to choose Satan’s lair.

  Though finding the soldier had been long and difficult, he would finish what he had began so long ago in the jungle; he would ensure the man’s death.

  As he sped towards the jet, the Beast toyed with the idea of taking the soldier with him. He could puncture the jet, grab the soldier and hurtle down to an altitude where there was enough air to keep him alive.

  Once they were in comfortable flight, he could open the soldier’s throat.

  His arrow-like figure ripped towards the aircraft at blinding speed...3000 yards...2000 yards...!

  An explosion of light suddenly blinded him. He instinctively peeled over to the side missing the jet completely.

  The Beast filled his wings again, pumped powerful muscles and climbed above the jet which had leveled off at 35,000 feet. He stared down in hate, a low rattle building in his throat.

  A thousand feet below the creature, the jet sailed on, now a brilliant symbol of power and hope riding the night currents of a jet stream in the troposphere.

  With the reluctant flick of a switch by Captain Bowden, the visible outline of the aircraft had changed completely; the jet’s visibility lights had illuminated the main wing and fuselage to form the shape of a brilliant, shining Crucifix.

  Adramelech shuddered in revulsion and anger, and moved higher to avoid the repulsive shape, the hated symbol of redemption which he could not endure.

  Abruptly, his rage dissipated by a familiar weakness associated with the symbol, he tu
rned back towards the city. He was growing stronger every day and there would be another time for the soldier. For now, he would continue to prey on the malcontents and underworld figures of the earth – the gutter people, the disenfranchised, and society’s castoffs – those who were vulnerable, those without hope. Again he would assume human form and preach to them of a god that cared, that shared their pain and one who, so long ago, had been banished from the Light because of his affinity for the underdogs and his thirst for knowledge and understanding. After all, though many were already on the road to hell, with Adramelech’s help they would surely meet their black Lord and Master a little sooner.

  * * * *

  PART FOUR

  “THE MISSION”

  On a starred night Prince Lucifer

  uprose

  Tired of his dark dominion swung the

  Fiend...

  George Meredith

  LUCIFER IN STARLIGHT (1883)

  ~ 1 ~

  Bowden stretched in the cockpit and looked forward to landing in Rome, having a hot shower and a good sleep. For both he and Gostini, the last couple of days had been particularly grueling.

  Though they had flown the remainder of the New York-Gatwick leg without incident, he had insisted on having the aircraft thoroughly checked at Heathrow. Because their mayday calls had not been received by Gatwick or any other control center, Bishop Aquila asked Bowden not to file an incident report; they didn’t want any publicity. The captain agreed but in exchange, said that neither he nor Gostini would fly one more air mile without an engine inspection. The result: they spent two days longer than originally planned for the flight.

  Their unconscious patient, and his nurse and doctor remained on the aircraft with the aft section containing the sick bay and sleeping and eating quarters locked up tight. Power for lights and air conditioning was furnished by an auxiliary generating unit they ordered hooked up to the aircraft. The rest of their passengers had retired to a nearby hotel while Bowden and Gostini saw to the check-up.

  British Airways had been gracious enough to furnish maintenance assistance and the aircraft had been meticulously examined by an army of engineers, mechanics and avionics’ technicians. They were merely told the engines had been running rough, quit and then restarted. Countless diagnostics were run, the engines were probed, prodded and the aircraft even test-flown in the Gatwick circuit. It performed flawlessly. Neither the mechanics nor any other member of the maintenance team could find any reason for the aircraft’s strange behavior.

  Since both engines cut out within moments of each other, and there was ample fuel on board at the time, the only possible explanation they could come up with was a computer malfunction which failed to show up on the diagnostic records. The fact they couldn’t trace it, nor had other Airbus 320s experienced it, was not very comforting. No-one was particularly satisfied with that explanation, but it was all they had.

  Finally the aircraft had been pronounced fit and the British Airways Chief of Maintenance, as well as the team of mechanics, signed off on the airworthiness of the A320.

  Bowden telephoned his report to Bishop Aquila staying at a hotel near the airport. The elderly clergyman had been straightforward and friendly on the telephone. This confirmed his suspicions: their troubles on the flight had not been mechanical but more of a “church” matter. He patiently explained that if Bowden had turned on the visibility lights when they left La Guardia, there would have been no trouble; God would have guarded them.

  Bowden was more inclined to place his trust in an aircraft engineer at the moment, but he stayed mute. During their preflight planning for their next leg, he and Gostini spent extra time noting alternate airports along their route and ensuring their altitude would give them a sufficient glide ratio to reach them where possible. They began referring to those legs where there weren’t any “glide” alternates as “dead legs”, the implication being that if the bug returned and they lost power, they’d likely wind up dead.

  The priests, the nun, and the bishop had arrived and been boarded.

  Once again Bowden had marveled at the ease with which the entourage had slipped through Customs & Immigration at Gatwick. The church was a power unto itself.

  They would set down in Rome after dark Bowden thought as he eased the throttles forward and the big jet thundered down the runway and lifted into the sky.

  The flight to Rome turned out to be uneventful, yet both pilots were still cautious as they entered the traffic pattern for the Italian capital.

  Bowden moved the stick to the right bringing the heavy jet around from his holding pattern to intercept a long, slow final approach to Leonardo Da Vinci International airport. In front of him was an American Airlines DC-10 and an Alitalia Airlines 737 that would touch down and clear the runway first.

  “So far...so good,” he said to Gostini.

  The copilot grinned uneasily and shook his head as though saying to hold the congratulations until they were safely on the ground.

  They were now passing through five thousand feet in their descent towards Rome. Bowden turned the plane slightly and successfully intercepted the Rome VOR radial for the beginning of their VOR approach.

  Gostini’s altimeter unwound counterclockwise, barely one revolution per minute. His altimeter was set to height above the airport. He carefully watched it and periodically called out altitude readings to Bowden. They passed the outer marker, entered a low cloud bank and outside the windscreen everything went black. Gostini craned forward to catch sight of the runway.

  “Wayne?” Gostini called to Bowden.

  “Yeah...?”

  “I dunno how to say this...but I saw something funny just before the flameouts.”

  “What?” Bowden asked, incredulously. “Why the hell didn’t you speak up before?” He was both surprised and annoyed that his first officer had withheld information.

  Though curious, Bowden’s eyes flicked back to their airspeed: this wasn’t exactly the time to be sidetracked. Their airspeed held at 165 knots. He checked the DME window. They were still about ten miles from the airport. He felt the aircraft settling and eased the throttles forward slightly, alternately watching the EPR gauges and the vertical speed indicator. He needed to hold the thousand foot-per-minute descent, remain exactly on the glide path and get the runway in sight. “So...what did you see?”

  Gostini hesitated, swallowed and then bravely continued on: “I thought I saw some sort of figure hanging onto the fuselage...right after that thump.”

  “A bird carcass?”

  “No....”

  Bowden looked over at the copilot, puzzled by his tone. He nodded towards the radio. “Tell them we’re inbound.”

  Gostini keyed his microphone: “Charter 104 inbound on final, over.”

  The cockpit radio crackled: “Roger, Charter 104, we have you, you’re looking good, over.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Gostini said, and released the transmit button..

  With the affirmation from the tower, both pilots returned to the business of landing their aircraft. They would not make contact with the tower again until they touched down. Then Ground Control would direct them to their bay.

  They broke out of the overcast with wisps of cloud illuminated by their powerful landing lights whipping by the nose of the aircraft. Ahead and below, the lights of Rome stretched for miles, a carpet of unbroken, sparkling, colored jewels that, as they settled lower, resolved themselves to be the lights of houses, apartments, and domed buildings interspersed with rows of intersecting street lamps. On the roads and highways thousands of headlights from ant-like traffic moved resolutely towards individual destinations.

  Gostini liked and respected Wayne Bowden. He certainly didn’t want to be seen by him as being some sort of wacko, still, he felt he owed the pilot the truth – or at least, what he perceived to be the truth.

  As the A320 sank lower and lower, he lost himself momentarily in the beauty of the city. He never tired of night landings; the city lights to
ok on the appearance of friendly beacons welcoming him back to the sanctuary of civilization after another prowl through the night skies. They entered another cloud and everything vanished.

  “Gear down,” Bowden said, interrupting Gostini’s thoughts. As they broke through the mist the runway lights of the airstrip appeared. “There we are...dead ahead.”

  The pilot had purposely refrained from deploying the gear earlier just in case they ran into more engine trouble. Bowden preferred they have as little drag as possible in case they lost power suddenly and needed to glide.

  Gostini obliged, reached forward and pulled the landing gear lever. The rumble of the nose wheel extending shook the floor panels beneath his feet and he felt the jet momentarily stagger as their drag increased. Though he had felt the same sensation thousands of times before, this time, for a split second Gostini felt concern as the aircraft slowed. If, as happened during the New York-Gatwick leg of their flight, they did lose their engines, they would undershoot the runway and wind up a smoldering melee of metal and body parts somewhere on the streets below. He stared up at the green lights indicating the wheels were down. “Gear down and locked,” he said.

  Sensing the strain in his co-pilot’s voice, Bowden gave him a look and asked: “What did you see out there, Dan?”

  Gostini hesitated: “A...some sort of man...or something.”

  “A man!? C’mon!”

  “Well...more like some kind of...manlike...creature.” He immediately regretted his candor.

  Gostini stared straight ahead hardly daring to look at the pilot though he could feel his friend’s eyes boring into him. He shouldn’t have spoken. They needed a sterile cockpit for landing anyhow.

  Bowden stared at his first officer for a full three seconds, a relative eternity during a landing, and then turned away and concentrated on the DME on his instrument panel. As he mentally tried to rationalize what his copilot had just said, he watched the tenths of miles ticking off: 5.7, 5.6, 5.5....