by John Etzil
He looked up at me and his eyes widened. “Holy shit, big muthafucker, ain’t you?”
I smiled down at him. “Your HVAC? You have a problem?”
“Yeah, you’re damn right we do. Bitch is blowing hot air.” Grouchy sighed and wiped the back of his neck with his bandanna.
“All right, the first thing I need to do is check your thermostat. Can you show me where it is?”
He nodded and waved me in. “Take your shoes off.”
He closed the door behind me, and I left my shoes on a tray next to an umbrella stand. There were five other pairs of shoes there, mostly Nike sneakers. Mine were the biggest, by far.
He led me to the family room. It had movie-theater style seating, two rows of four, and a huge TV on the wall. ESPN was talking about baseball, and a couple of wide guys sat on the couch drinking beer and eating chips. They never took their eyes off me. I nodded to them, and one of them grunted, “What’s up.”
There was a young lady sprawled out on a futon, glued to her smartphone. It was Catherine! Holy crap, she looked just like a tired, thinner version of Debbie. With bigger tits. Wow, much bigger tits… My mind raced back to the photo I’d seen on Jorge’s phone.
She looked up at me. I smiled and nodded.
She ignored me and went back to her smartphone.
Grouchy pointed to the thermostat. “There it is. You need a freaking college degree to figure that thing out.”
Right.
I pretended to manipulate it while I looked around to get a feel for the place. Seeing it live was much better then looking through hacked security cams, and after a few minutes, I had all the intel I needed. I turned to look down at Grouchy, who was standing behind me and watching me like a hawk. “Well, I think it’s a compressor issue.”
“What’s that?”
“That big unit with a fan that sits just outside the house, usually on the side of the house.”
“I have no idea where it is.”
“That’s okay, I’ll walk around the outside of the house and find it.” I bent down and picked up my toolbox. I went over to the front door, slid into my shoes, and opened the door. I turned to Grouchy to let him know that I’d knock on the door when I was done, and he was right in my chest.
“Yeah, I need to go with you.” He wiped his upper lip with the bandanna and yelled over his shoulder to one of his buddies on the couch. “Yo, Keith, I’m outside with the air conditioner guy.”
I stepped outside, trying to figure out a way to lose my tail. I didn’t mind being followed around outside, but I needed a few minutes alone in the basement. If I couldn’t get rid of him, I wouldn’t be able to set up the sleeping gas canister in the air supply duct, and my whole plan would be shot to hell.
Then it came to me…
24
I led him around the right side of the house, where the driveway led to a three-car garage. I knew that the compressor wasn’t on that side, but I needed to get a good look at the backyard. My little peeping Tom adventure with Amelia only captured part of it, and I needed to verify a few things before I could proceed with the rescue.
We turned the corner, and the whole yard opened up. I saw the patio that the cupid-tattooed blonde had been sunbathing on with her friends, but they were nowhere to be found now. The two Harley riders were there though. They were over by a shed near the side of the property, fueling up their roadsters. They looked our way and nodded when they saw Grouchy leading me across the yard.
The three-hole golf course was a short par three, and right away I saw a problem that hadn’t shown up on my Google Earth research. A potential deal killer.
There was a tree right in the middle of the yard.
I filed that important tidbit away and proceeded to scope out the rest of the yard. The trees surrounding the property line were mostly evergreens. For privacy, no doubt. So that worked out well, because the tallest one was only about twenty feet high. The golf course itself had a few sand traps but it wasn’t very hilly, so that was a big bonus.
I found the compressor unit by the side of the house and pretended to run some test on it. Grouchy watched me, but I could tell by the way his eyes glazed over when I explained things to him that he was bored as hell and not paying attention.
After twenty minutes, I put all the components together with a deep sigh. “Well, the good news is the everything seems to be working okay. The bad news is that it must be a bad evaporator coil, and if it is, I’m not sure if I have one in the van.”
Grouch perked up. “Evapa-what? And what happens if you don’t have one in the van?”
“Evaporator coil. It sits on top of the furnace and cools the air before it reaches the rooms. If I don’t have one, then maybe I can do a Band-Aid fix, just enough to get you guys some cool air until the part comes in. Let’s head to the furnace and take a look-see.”
He led me around to the front of the house and over to the front door, instructed me to take my shoes off, and led me into the basement. We passed by the family room on the way, and I saw Catherine again. I felt excited seeing her in person. I’d heard so much about her and learned so much from my HFS research that I felt like I knew her already. She ignored me.
We reached the bottom of the basement stairs, and Grouchy led me to the left and into a utility room, where the furnace sat. I took out some tools and started working on opening the ductwork access panel to get to the evaporator coil.
Everything about my plan—the success or failure of the entire mission—hinged on the next few minutes. I tried to remain calm and sound natural. “Where’s the circuit breaker for the furnace?”
“What?” Grouchy looked up at me with a moist, furrowed forehead.
“The circuit breaker. There’s a main electrical panel box somewhere in the house that has shutoffs to the different end points of electricity. One for the stove, one for the HVAC, the kitchen outlets, etc., etc.”
“I have no idea.”
I finished removing the access panel to the air duct supply that housed the evaporator coil and put it on the floor. I took out my flashlight and lit up the inside of the duct, pretending to examine the coil. I hmmm’ed a few times and put my tools down. “I can’t do any more work without turning the breaker off. I’ll go look for it.” I went to leave the room.
He put his arm straight out on front of me and I stopped and looked at him.
He had an even more serious face on. “No. I’ll go find it. You stay here. Don’t leave this room.”
Yes!
I put on my best “shocked” look and raised my hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, fine. No need to get upset.” I turned away and pretended to work on the furnace, a big lotto-winning smile painted across my face.
He left the room and closed the door, giving me extra privacy. I went into my tool bag and dug out the Freon canister and some duct tape. God, I loved that stuff. I might have to join Duct Tape Users Anonymous after this mission.
I double-checked the correct timing on the digital timer and taped the canister inside and against the far corner of the air supply duct. I pressed the start button and watched the countdown proceed. Perfect.
I opened the HFS app on the iPhone and killed the software program that was wreaking havoc on the thermostat. I put my phone away and started to put back the access panel.
I heard the door push open and Grouchy came back in: “Yeah, I couldn’t find it.”
I turned and looked at him like an excited little kid. “We don’t need it. I fixed it! It was a loose wire to the evaporator coil. I’ll be out of your hair in five minutes.” I finished tightening up the fasteners, threw my tools in my bag, and smiled at him. “All done!”
He led me up the stairs, and I took one more look at Catherine as I passed the family room. She was still sitting on the futon and playing with her phone. She looked up at me, and I could swear she flashed a quick smile. But I think that about every woman I make eye contact with, so maybe not.
I put my shoes on and left the bu
ilding.
I threw my tools in the van, got in, and drove away. As soon as I was clear of the front gate, I called Debbie. She answered on the first ring. “How’d it go?”
“Done. And I saw your sister.”
“How’d she look?”
“Tired, but other than that she looked all right. I recognized her right away. Same eyes as you.”
“You bringing the van back to Axis now? Want me to meet you there?”
“No, not until tonight. I’ll see you in a few.” I pulled over on a quiet street, removed the magnetic signs and tossed them in the back. I was back at the campground in ten minutes, and Debbie was waiting outside the van with a big smile on her beautiful face.
We spent the rest of the day lounging around and taking naps inside the rental van. I was getting antsy and felt like doing something, so we returned the Axis van to its rightful spot. Everything was working out perfect, and I didn’t want to take a chance on breaking into the office building to return the keys and coveralls, so I left the keys on the front seat and threw the stinky coveralls in a dumpster.
We returned to the campground around nine and had a light meal of a vanilla protein shake and a granola bar. With nothing to do but wait, we continued our lounge fest until a little after eleven, when we fell asleep.
I woke up before the alarm and looked at my phone. Ten to three. I lay there thinking about my plan, going over it again and again, looking for the tiniest of flaws that could compromise the mission, but I couldn’t find any. I knew that this was going to work out perfectly.
Boy, was I in for a rude awakening…
25
We left the campground at 4:15 sharp, and while Debbie drove us to the airstrip, I opened my laptop and logged in to Cosmo’s security system.
The first cams I clicked on were in the family room with the two rows of theater seats and the massive TV. It was dark, the only light coming from the TV, and the security cams had a tough time adjusting to the rapidly changing lighting from the TV show, so it wasn’t the best image. I did see at least four people in the seats, all men, but there could have been more. None of them moved, which was a good sign, but I couldn’t tell for sure if they were asleep or just vegging.
I looked at the kitchen cams, and there was no one there. No one in the hallway either. Or the basement. All was quiet on every cam in the house, a great sign.
“Looking good, babe. We’re a go for launch.”
Debbie pulled into the little airstrip and dropped me off at my plane. We transferred all our tools to my airplane, and she drove the van into a corner of the field and killed the engine. She grabbed my sanitizer-soaked wipes, gave the interior a good cleaning to remove all of our DNA, and threw the wipes in a Ziploc bag before jogging back to my plane.
My Cessna 206 has six seats and weighs in fully loaded at thirty-six hundred pounds, twelve hundred of which can be the useful load, which is fancy pilot speak for people, fuel, and cargo. Since this mission required a short takeoff and landing, I removed everything that wasn’t essential to flight, including excess fuel and the four passenger seats.
When I’d first acquired my plane, I’d made modifications to help with short takeoff and landings, or STOLs. Vortex generators and wingtip extensions along with a light gross weight of just under three thousand pounds lowered the takeoff and landing speeds to what felt like a fast jog, but it could be tricky staying safe at such a low airspeed, especially if there were wind gusts involved.
The biggest hurdle with this mission was that I had to land power off. Short landings are much easier with power on because I can use the throttle to fine-tune my touchdown adjustments and the plane can fly slower with the prop forcing wind over the wings. I had no choice but to make a power-off approach to Cosmo’s backyard because otherwise the aircraft engine noise would alert the neighbors. I had to kill the engine at altitude and glide in, which meant that once I started my approach, I was committed to finishing it. Which meant that I was going to land in that backyard, on Cosmo’s little three-hole golf course, even if a herd of buffalo came thundering through right before touchdown.
Debbie stood by while I preflighted the aircraft, and I could tell she was nervous because she never stopped pacing the entire time. Funny how someone who’d been through what she had in the military could be nervous about anything. I guess it’s hard giving up control and surrendering your destiny to another.
I finished and held out my hand to help her in the plane. “Your chariot awaits you, my dear.”
“Never mind chariot. Just get your game face on and do your job.”
I closed the door after she got in and checked one more time that the three tie-down lines were no longer connected. I climbed into the left seat, yelled, “Clear,” and turned the key. The three-hundred-horsepower Lycoming engine started right away, with a deep throaty rumble that made the plane tremble and my testosterone level surge.
I gave Debbie her headset and put mine on, adjusted the squelch and volume, and did a headset check. “How do you hear me?”
“Fine.”
“You’re loud and clear too,” I said.
“Roger.”
I taxied over to the end of the grass runway, lined up for takeoff, and pushed the throttle all the way in. I estimated that we weighed in at a scrawny 2,870 pounds, and with all the STOL modifications and some excellent pilot technique, we were off the ground in a couple of hundred feet. I stayed close to the ground, in what’s called ground effect, until I reached seventy knots. I eased the yoke back, we started climbing, and I leveled off at one thousand feet.
I punched in the waypoint of Cosmo’s house into my GPS even though it was only eleven miles from the airstrip. The night was calm and mostly clear except for a few clouds that played hide-and-seek with the half moon. I dimmed the interior lights to a minimum to help keep my night vision sharp.
My flight plan was to approach the house from the west, fly about a half mile south of the GPS waypoint so that I could see the house out the left side, like a normal landing is flown, and do a lights-out engine-out approach on the backyard golf course. That way none of the early-morning risers would see or hear me arrive, the only sound being the whisk of wind over the wings followed by a soft touchdown on the well-manicured golf course.
I thought about the small tree that had sprung up since the Google Earth imagery had been captured, but I should have enough wingspan clearance to land between it and the sand trap that was next to the eight-foot-high wrought-iron fence.
If not, we were dead.
I throttled back to a quiet fifteen hundred rpm, and we slowed down to ninety knots. I flew to the waypoint on my GPS and passed about a half mile south of it, but I couldn’t find the house.
Debbie broke the silence: “You see it anywhere?”
“No, but I know it’s right there.” I frowned and nodded toward the house. This was not good. I’d only allotted enough fuel for fifteen minutes for this leg of the flight. Any longer and we’d be dipping into the reserves as we got closer to my private airstrip in Eminence, which might force me to land somewhere to refuel. That was the last thing I wanted to do.
I initiated a slow left turn, keeping the GPS waypoint just off my left wingtip, and after a few more frantic seconds passed, I recognized the moonlit house. “Found it!”
Now all I had to do was land, clear the tree and sand trap, and not run long and into the wrought-iron fence at the end of the third green.
I got us positioned for the approach, never taking my eyes off my touchdown spot in the backyard. When the time was right, I cut the engine and all went silent except for the wind hitting the windshield. I put in ten degrees of flaps and waited for the aircraft to settle into her descent.
“Oh God,” Debbie murmured through her headset.
“We don’t need these anymore.” I took mine off and tossed it in the back. Debbie did the same.
“This is freakin’ me out, Jack.”
“I need to focus. Tighten your sea
t belt. Sterile cockpit procedure from here to touchdown.”
“What’s that?”
“No more talking!”
My landing point in the dark backyard appeared in my windshield in the perfect spot, held steady for a few seconds, and started to drift lower. I was too high. I put in more flaps to add drag to the airframe and steepen our descent without gaining airspeed. The landing spot started to rise in the windshield. I was getting low, so I took out some flaps. We danced like this all the way to touchdown, a hard teeth-rattling jolt of an affair that made me smile. I retracted the flaps all the way and jammed on the brakes.
We skidded across the well-manicured lawn and hurtled toward the end of the golf course, where the wrought-iron fence was waiting to stop us if I couldn’t.
“Fence!” Debbie yelled, just in case I didn’t see it for myself. She leaned back in her seat, as if she could create distance between herself and the dashboard to minimize impact.
I pumped the brakes, trying to break the skid, but the turf wouldn’t cooperate and we just kept sliding and tearing up the grass.
It didn’t take much of a bow to knock an airplane prop out of balance, and if we hit that fence, even just a light bump, we’d be in big trouble. An unbalanced prop would vibrate so violently that it would shake the engine right off the plane. There was no way I could take off with a damaged prop and risk all our lives.
I jammed my feet on the brakes, and just when I was sure that we were going to hit the fence, I felt the plane bog down and stop. We hit a sand trap.
Debbie didn’t appreciate my piloting expertise as much as I did, and let me know about it as she undid her seat belt. “Never mind Patrick, I’m calling you Launchpad McQuack from now on.” A reference to the goofy DuckTales pilot who always crashed at least five times per episode. I ignored her, but I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was relieved to be safe on the ground.
Even if we had just entered the lion’s den…