by Paul Byers
The engine coughed one more time then quit, filling his canopy with an eerie silence. He quickly leveled out and frantically started looking for a place to land, but where? He was still in the middle of a harbor. He was hesitant before about making a water land because of all the normal harbor traffic but now it would be impossible because the harbor was choked even more with rescue vessels and chunks of debris were scattered on the surface,, bobbing everywhere like land mines, making it impossible to land.
Panic had not set in yet but he could feel it banging on his canopy as he scanned for a place to land, but finding none. It was looking more and more like he would be going swimming. At least the Coast Guard would be close to fish him out. If he survived the landing.
“Mr. Pike, what’s the problem?” Madison asked, seeing the vintage fighter falling away.
“You’re not going to believe this, but I ran out of fuel.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Wish I were sir.”
“From the frying pan into the fire.” Madison said.
“That saying does seem rather appropriate, considering things below.”
“Have you ever done an emergency water landing before?” He asked.
“No, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything.” Pike replied, trying to sound more optimistic that he really was.
He was looking up the Hudson thinking he might have enough altitude to get away from some of the river traffic when something caught his eye. Suddenly a thought crossed his mind and at first it sounded so ridiculous he couldn’t help but chuckle. But the more he tried to toss the idea out the canopy, the more it stuck, and the more it started to make sense. It was crazy to be sure, but then again, this week hadn’t exactly been a normal one either.
“But I may not have to.” Pike slowly banked the plane to the left, maintaining as much speed and altitude as he could to get a better look. He had fallen to 4000 feet and was gliding at 180 knots.
He was flying dead stick and would have only one shot at this. He had the altitude but did he have the skill and the luck needed for this? This was literally one of those do or die moments. Pike sat up a little straighter in his seat and steeled himself.
“Time to put up or shut up, Hot Shot.” Pike said, smiling to himself. “Time to join the Navy and see the world.” He nudged the stick forward and picked up a little more speed.
“You’re not seriously considering doing what I think you are, are you?” Madison asked, seeing but not believing what his civilian friend was about to do.
“Well sir, since you don’t have a KC-130s flying around to top off my tank, I’m afraid I’m going to have to join the Navy.” Pike was not a very good actor because even to himself his false bravado sounded pretty lame.
“Good luck Mr. Pike, Godspeed,” was Madison’s simple reply.
Suddenly Pike felt rejuvenated, alive and ready. Not from the danger of his idea, though there was plenty of that, but from the sheer challenge that it offered. He didn’t approach this with wild abandon like a daredevil just to see if he could do it. No, he calculated the risks involved and looked at the different options and pushed himself because he had to do this.
He thought back to an interview he’d heard from a WWII fighter pilot talking about combat and all the training he did. The pilot said that training was important to be sure but that he’d rather be lucky than good. Those were Pike’s sentiments exactly because he was going to need all the luck he could get he told himself as he swung the Yankee Clipper around and lined up to land on the deck… of the aircraft carrier.
The USS Intrepid was an Essex class aircraft carrier launched in 1943 during WWII. During the war, she survived numerous bomb hits and kamikaze strikes and she was credited with sinking two Japanese battleships and downing over 600 enemy aircraft.
The Intrepid went on to serve three combat tours off Vietnam and twice as a NASA Prime Recovery Ship, recovering spacecraft from the Mercury and Gemini space programs. She was decommissioned in 1974, but was moved to New York where she has served as a maritime/aviation museum since 1982.
Standing on the dock looking up, the 900 foot, 33,000 ton ship looked huge. From his cockpit looking down, it looked like he was going to try to land on a band-aid.
Landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier has often been referred to as a controlled crash, a theory he was about to put to the ultimate test. To launch a plane, a catapult was attached to the front wheel and it was shot into the air. To land, there were four guide wires spaced across the aft end of the flight deck. When a navy plane lowered its landing gear, there was a hook that extended down from the tail of the plane. The idea was to catch the tail hook on the wires, which would slow, then stop the plane. Being an Air Force plane, his Sabre didn’t have a tail hook. What it did have, however, was the remains of the rocket booster still attached to its belly; he hoped would act like a giant tail hook.
An ideal landing was to catch the number three wire but he would be more than happy just to snag any of them. He knew it would probably rip his tail off but he prayed it would be enough to stop him before he slid off the end of the flight deck and plunged fifty feet into the waters below.
Normally, the flight deck of the great ship was crowded with up to 30 different aircraft on display, but fortunately for him, they had been removed for maintenance and restoration work. Pike was circling counter-clockwise above the big ship, flying down the portside at less than 700 feet, passing over the submarine USS Growler that was moored on the other side of the dock and a British Concord supersonic airliner on a barge right behind it.
Swinging out wide, his glide path toward the stern of the ship was perfect, coming in over the water on his final approach. His speed was a little faster than he wanted but he also knew that if he didn’t maintain his forward airspeed, he’d drop out of the sky like a rock. Normal landing speed was around 125 mph and he’d hope he could bring her in at around 110 mph, just a little over stall speed, but right now he was doing close to 140.
He came over the stern of the flight deck too high and too fast. He would need to tap the stick forward to get down to the deck then pull back on the stick to flare the landing, easing his contact with the deck and bleeding off airspeed.
Both maneuvers worked, only not as well as he had hoped.
He brought the nose of the Clipper down a little too hard and he had to yank back on the stick and over corrected. The nose popped up, but the tail hit hard. The rocket assembly actually caught the number three wire, but because of the plane’s speed and force of the impact, it dug into the deck. The assembly stayed put while the Yankee Clipper popped off and skidded down the flight deck.
Pike could see sparks flying out from under the fuselage, just behind the wings, as bare metal scrapped against bare metal. The sound was like a thousand fingernails scraping on a chalkboard. But it was more than just the sound that was hurting him; his beautiful plane was being torn apart. He knew he should be worried more about himself than his plane but he just couldn’t help it.
Looking ahead, he suddenly became more worried about himself. He was rapidly approaching the end of the flight deck and was still going too fast. With twenty feet to go, part of the aluminum skin scraped off and part of the metal airframe caught on the decking. The runaway plane stopped so suddenly, it snapped Pike forward, slamming his head into the instrument panel. Then the whiplash snapped him back in his seat.
Pike was dazed from hitting his head on the instrument panel but he was still conscious, everything was blurry, blending into one giant kaleidoscope of sight and sound. He was vaguely aware that the plane was still moving but he had no sense of how fast or even in what direction. He suddenly sensed that he had stopped, and yet the plane was still moving, not forward, but up and down.
In a brief moment of clarity, he realized that he was on the very tip of the flight deck and that he was actually teetering back and forth like a seesaw.
A wave of nausea swept over him and his world be
gan to blur again. The last thing he remembered was watching the sky flip upside down and then being swallowed by darkness.
Chapter Fifty
He raised his nose up in the air and took several whiffs. “You still stink,” Nathan Grant said as he waved his hand in front of his nose.
“Very funny, Nate, very funny.” Gabriel Pike replied, taking a sip of his root beer.
“I can’t believe your luck,” Grant continued, “only you could land a 60-year-old plane on the deck of a 70-year-old aircraft carrier, then slide off the end and flip over onto a garbage scow that was supposed to have shoved off earlier that morning but was still there because the captain’s wife delivered her baby a day early because a fortune cookie she ate the night before said that good things would happen in the morning,” he finished, taking a deep breath. “Unbelievable!”
“My new motto, I’d rather be lucky than good,” Pike took another sip then tipped his head to one side in thought. “Have you ever heard of the butterfly effect?”
“The what?”
“Never mind,” Pike said, smiling.
Grant just shrugged his shoulders as he took another sip of his beer and finished off the last French fry. “So how’s K.D. doing?”
“The same,” Pike sighed. “The doctors say that she could come out of the coma tomorrow or she could be under for years. They just don’t know.”
“Speaking of luck, looking back, it was sure lucky that all those reporters burst in when they did and one of them checked her and found she was still alive. If there hadn’t been all those witnesses, they would have quickly finished the job.”
“How’s George taking all this?” Pike asked.
“Hard, really hard.” Grant replied, shaking his head. “I mean what do you say to the man? I think he knew she was fooling around on him but he still loved her. But how can you handle the fact that she killed someone? It’s tough.”
There were a few moments of silence as each man was alone with his thoughts.
“So, are you home for good now?” Grant finally asked.
Pike shook his head. “No, there are still a few more hearings and review boards I have to attend. I’ll be leaving tomorrow and staying about a week.”
“Nobody’s charging you with anything are they?”
Again, Pike shook his head. “No. All the investigations have proven me innocent. They just need to wrap up a few more details.”
“Are you taking the Clipper?” Grant saw his friend’s eyes light up at the mention of his beloved air plane.
“She’s still up at Paine Field being restored so I’ll be flying commercial. But by the time I get back she should be good as new, even better they tell me. I can’t wait to take her up.”
Grant scoured under a piece of lettuce on the plate, searching for anymore fries. “Do the cops or FBI have any leads on the whereabouts of Cain or that Mallory woman?”
“Mallory left the iceberg earlier in the day and no one has seen her since and Cain’s body hasn’t been recovered yet.”
“You don’t think either one of them will try to come after you do you?”
“Cain was on the iceberg and I don’t see how he could have survived and with all the all money Mallory has, why would she waste her time on me?”
“True. I don’t know why I waste my time on you.” Grant smiled.
“Thanks old buddy, I love you too.” Pike said as they raised their glasses in a toast. After their glasses clinked, the waitress came up to clear the table.
“Excuse me sir,” she said looking at Pike, “I see you don’t have any ice in your glass, would you like some more?”
“Pike just smiled and shook his head slowly. “No thank you. I’ve had just about all the ice I can handle for a while.”
Both men laughed while the waitress walked away in confusion.
“Excuse me.” Pike said as he heard his cell phone ring. He reached down and didn’t recognize the number and a frown shot across his brow. Since everything had happened, he had been constantly hounded by everybody and his brother for an interview, all wanting a piece of the Blast from the Past. He sighed and against his better judgment, took the call.
“Hello?”
He heard a soft, frail voice on the other end, “Hey, Hot Shot.”
Please enjoy a sample from GREED
CHAPTER SIX
Kekao reached the edge of the village then marched on through into the jungle on the other side, making it clear he was taking no prisoners when it came to setting the pace. Crawford was crushed when they reached the village and didn’t stop. The smell of the morning fires and of freshly cooked food was enough to make him think of mutiny. The grumbling in his stomach was nearly as loud as the grumbling under his breath as he marched through the village.
Not being able to stop and eat was bad enough, but it was made even worse when he saw the girl who had been flirting with him the night before come out of one of the huts and eagerly smile and wave at him. The disappointed look on her face when he didn’t stop to talk hurt almost as much as his hunger. He wasn’t sure if Yates could really throw him into the brig like he had threatened to do to Murphy, but what he was sure of was that the captain could get him fired if he didn’t go on this little Boy Scout trip.
He straightened up a bit as he walked by and put on his brave explorer face, hoping to impress her with his fearless trek into the deep, dark jungle. He gave her a friendly smile and a wink as he picked up his feet and put them into a soldier’s pace instead of a complainer’s shuffle. With one last look over his shoulder, he smiled and disappeared into the jungle.
Murphy wanted to stop in the village as well, but not for the same reasons as his love-struck shipmate. Although breakfast would have been nice, what he really was hoping for was to get a better look at the village in the daylight and to see if they had any more artifacts he could identify. He wanted to enjoy the sights and sound of the jungle—he wanted this to be an adventure, not army maneuvers in jungle warfare—but there was no time to waste; Kekao make it clear that they would not be taking time to stop and smell the roses.
Murphy, Sarah, and Crawford dutifully followed Kekao through the village, followed by their two native porters. For several minutes they traveled along a well-worn path that made keeping up with their guide fairly easy. The path spilled out into a large meadow carpeted with wide-bladed grass. The three-foot-high tufts of grass swayed gently in the breeze, reminding Murphy of the great wheat fields of the Midwest.
They all stopped for a quick break that allowed them to admire the postcard beauty of the tree-lined field with the towering twin mountains in the background.
“Look,” Crawford said to Sarah, as he took out a bottle of water from his pack, “you can make a grass skirt and go native. I bet we can even find you a pair of coconuts to wear too.” He smiled.
“You know,” Murphy added with a snicker, “in the early days of grass skirts and such, the men wore loin cloths and the women were topless.”
Sarah just rolled her eyes and shook her head as she pushed her way past them. “Boys. I’m surrounded by nothing but boys.”
The small expedition continued across the meadow and forded a small, ankle-deep stream on the other side, then re-entered the jungle. The pace Kekao set was fast but easy as they followed a game trail through the low lying flatlands that led up to the base of one of the mountains.
In the foothills, they came to a small clearing that would have made a perfect place for them to stop and catch their breath, but Kekao never broke stride as he kept going and started to penetrate the jungle curtain on the other side of the clearing.
Suddenly Crawford shot out from behind Sarah and passed her and Murphy like a sports car passing two semis on the freeway.
“This is ridiculous,” he said as he stormed passed. “I’m not quite as ignorant as you two think I am. Both of you know as well as I do that we crossed the same stream twice and that Kekao is leading us on a wild goose chase just to make his point, but you
two are too stubborn to say anything, wanting to prove to him that you’re both just as tough as he is, but I’m the one who’s paying the price for your little pissing match!”
“Kekao!” Crawford shouted just as their guide disappeared behind a wall of green. Crawford shouted again when the big man didn’t stop. He was about to shout a third time when Kekao came storming back through the jungle.
Murphy looked at the charging native then back at his friend. Crawford lost a little of his resolve but he seemed determined to hold his ground. Kekao was fifteen feet away and still in full stride when Crawford spoke: “Kekao!”
The name came out with such authority and conviction that Murphy had to do a double-take just to see if it really was Crawford talking. “I know that you really don’t like us and that you think the jungle is no place for a woman but I am not an animal, able to run with leaps and bounds through the jungle while you three show each other how tough you are. Your chief sent you to help us, the servants of God, and I don’t think Hoku would be too happy with the way you’re ‘helping’ us.”
Crawford promptly sat on a fallen tree. “I’m tired. But I am smarter than all you three because I’m at least willing to admit I’m tired. Now let’s all sit down and take five before we push onward and upward.” He reached down, grabbed one of his canteens and unscrewed the cap. “I think we...”