Murder on Safari

by Peter Riva

  It was crude, but it worked, almost. They popped out from under the Cessna’s tail under her right wing, the shooter got off a burst of automatic fire, one bullet passing through the windscreen, the others hitting behind them somewhere. As they came dangerously close to the Caravan’s right wing, Pero was sure they had over-shot and were going to make contact, their left prop with the Cessna’s right wing. Pero watched in slow motion as Amogh pushed the yoke forward, trying to get the plane’s nose down and away. The pilot, Smythe in that Gazelle uniform, must have seen the danger and he wheeled off to the left, lifting the wing from danger. From inside the Baron, they saw the Cessna shooter thrown off balance, his mouth open in what appeared to be a scream as the Cessna veered away from the Hill.

  Quickly, Amogh followed back in chase by barrel rolling the Baron up and left, recovering chase below and a little right of centerline to the Caravan and called, “Flaps fifteen.” As Pero complied, the shooter, recovering, squeezed off another short burst back at them, which missed. The Baron shifted left and reassumed position behind and directly below the Cessna.

  “Mr. Baltazar, there’s no way I want to do that again.” Pero looked over. Amogh was sweating and had a slightly glazed look. Pero looked down at his hands. Like Amogh’s his were also shaking. “A roll Amogh? Jesus . . .”

  “He’s banking right . . .”

  The phone rang. “Mr. Baltazar?” Mr. Ranjeets voice sounded sketchy. “The live telecast has begun and all the news media have cut into the regular broadcast . . .” The phone went silent.

  “They’re making a move Mr. Baltazar; we don’t have time for the Navy . . .”

  “Okay, we have to calm down here Amogh. I mean me. Look, you were successful last time, that was amazing, well done. Think you can do it one more time?”

  “I really don’t know . . .”

  “Look, we have to try it again, only this time let’s make contact. He needs to think we’re nuts—that we will risk contact and are too stupid to realize what that means. He’ll be frightened of air-to-air contact, and it’ll keep him from thinking of the danger in the cloud. Only then will he take the gap when offered.”

  “Think we’re nuts? Think? Hell, I know we’re nuts. . . .” Pero took his hand from the throttles and tossled Amogh’s hair, like a father would do with a little boy. “Okay, okay, but I’ll need a hand with the rudder now too, that last yaw was way too much, something back there must be damaged, it’s sloppy and stiff.” Pero turned and looked down the empty fuselage. There were wire bits hanging, frayed ends, and little pencil beams of light where bullet holes let the sunlight in.

  “Something’s been partially cut, some of the rudder control cables I expect. I’ll give you a hand—just call instructions. This time, let’s just go up above them and come down, wing to wing. And make just a little wing contact.”

  “How much wing contact?” Amogh’s voice sounded incredulous.

  “One teeny tiny little bump should do it.”

  “Do you know what you are asking? His wing is stronger than ours, I will take damage.”

  “Yes, I know. Then, next time . . .”

  “If there is a next time . . .”

  “Amogh, if you’ve got a better plan . . .”

  “No, we’ll go ahead, I’m just scared shitless really.” He was following the caravan’s right bank, staying below.

  “Me too, but we’ve got to do this. They and we have no time, that TV going live is the signal they were waiting for, I’m sure of it. If we come down, one gentle touch of wings this time . . . Then next time, when he thinks we’re going to touch wings from below, he’ll turn into us trying to make solid contact—he knows he’s bigger. And then you can dodge out of the way and he’ll roll into the cloud. Agreed?”

  “It’s a plan. If the rudder stays on, if the first contact doesn’t kill us . . . oh, hell, here goes.”

  They spent the next two nail-biting minutes in closer proximity to another fixed wing aircraft than Pero would ever want to be again. Amogh was pretty sure their port navigation light touched the Caravan’s starboard light, because Baron’s glass cover seemed to have vanished when the wings came clear. There was a jostling on impact, and the shooter again fell backwards and the headdress of a desert Arab flapped in the open doorway, caught on the door latch.

  The Baron kept up the pressure—coming back, flying over, under, side to side, always keeping between the Caravan and the Hill. They were buying time, but each time the Caravan seemed to take a tighter angle for the Hill. The Caravan had a schedule to keep.

  Amogh, although sweating and nervous, was flying the Beech Baron like his Porsche, way too close for comfort. Flying in this close proximity, both planes’ occupants felt they each had at least one and a half feet in the grave already. The problem was, two of them wanted to die, only not a wasted death. The Caravan was avoiding them because they had a target, a suicide mission, and the Baron was a real threat to them and that mission.

  It is what Pero wanted them to think, to concentrate on. As he hoped, the Caravan’s pilot’s fear was giving way to anger and offensive tactics. The last pass the Caravan had initiated contact and feigned towards the Baron.

  Before taking a course correction towards the Meeting, Amogh said flatly, his emotions exhausted, “It is time.” They were edging the Caravan nearer to a white death, a white death Pero hoped they wouldn’t have previous knowledge of. Pilots not familiar with the energy in warm tropical clouds might make the frigid mistake Pero and Amogh hoped for.

  “Okay, they’re ready Amogh, this is it . . . can you do another barrel roll?” They were behind and below the Cessna again. The white monster loomed on the right front, about two hundred yards off to the right and a mile ahead. Pero and Amogh reviewed the plan again, to come up from below right, and, as soon as they saw the Cessna wing dip towards them, to roll up and over the Cessna and block their escape away from the cloud.

  “Yeah, I can try. When I call flaps, take them off to zero, then when we emerge from under, put them to twenty and when I call flaps again, put them at zero again, and when we complete the roll put them immediately back to fifteen, no make that twenty, got it?”

  “Okay, will do. Flaps zero, then twenty, then zero, then twenty.”

  “Roger that. And you have to tell me when he’s pointing that gun so I can know when to start. This roll must make it look like the shooter scared us off, right?” Pero nodded, “Okay, so, when I get out from under them watch the shooter, your hand on the flap wheel.”

  “Will do, but watch the Cessna’s wing on the left prop, he’s getting aggressive.”

  “Bullets frighten me too.” He said it with a smile. “Okay, ready? Now flaps.” Pero set them to zero and they accelerated. He came out from under the Cessna’s belly, both of them steadying the sloppy rudder, and Pero put the flaps back to twenty by touch and memory, never looking down. Pero was watching for the shooter. The two men spotted him at the same time, a little evil machine pistol nosing out of the Caravan’s open hatch.

  They were headed for contact with the front wing. Amogh was repeating, almost to himself, “Hold it, hold it . . .”

  Pero looked at the cloud now at their position off the right, “Now he’s aiming again . . .”

  The Cessna wing started to dip—he was feigning at them . . . Amogh simply commanded himself, “Okay, roll her up. Flaps!”

  Pero spun the flaps wheel to zero and the Beech, released again of her brakes, zoomed alarmingly up towards the Cessna’s wing. Amogh executed a barrel roll over the Caravan and came neatly down on her other side slightly ahead of the Caravan’s wing. Pero put the flaps back to twenty degrees, to slow them to match the Cessna’s speed. Now they were blocking her escape away from the cloud. Pero looked to his left at the Caravan pilot. The older Purim, Smythe, looked grim.

  Like an upside-down mushroom, the cloud filled the sky off to the right and below them completely.

  The Baron edged nearer to the right, Amogh nudged and pushed th
e Caravan, threatening to bump twice on her left wing—very unnerving for the Baron as well as the Caravan. There was no open doorway on the left side for the shooter to use to aim from or fire. Pero could see Smythe’s face, now stricken with horror at the Caravan’s controls as they edged in closer.

  He mouthed something and suddenly started to bank right, tightly, away from them to escape, turning into the only available airspace, the awaiting cloud.

  “Mr. Baltazar, we’re losing control of the rudder, I’m yawing all over the place.” Pero had thought it was tactics. “If the rudder goes, I can’t fly this plane safely.”

  “Wait, Amogh, hang in there,” Pero helped with the pedals, which felt almost useless, “we’re almost done, just keep ahead of him, cut off his escape.” For the moment, Pero had other worries, watching Purim’s Caravan, making sure it got into the cloud.

  Smythe had decided, finally, to take the only chance of escape the Baron didn’t cover, especially as the route for escape would put him back on target for the Hill. One moment the Caravan was tight off and just behind their right wing, the next she had executed a sixty-degree full sharp right turn into the heart of the cloud which quickly surrounded them. Pero raised flaps fully, Amogh checked full power, and they turned to gently follow the Caravan keeping the pressure on them to head into the cloud, making sure there was no escape. As a smattering of peripheral small hail hit their screen, they banked left, away from danger. It was all the rudder controls could take; they parted, and they were rudderless.

  A Beech Baron is a very stable plane. The dihedral, up-angle of the wings, is sufficient that, if you let go of the controls, it will stabilize with a little trim setting. Amogh had the good sense to do exactly that, he set the trim flaps and let her fly straight and true, reducing throttle at the same time.

  Pero got on the radio, “Mayday, mayday, Beech Baron six-one-two-three-Foxtrot . . .” Pero gave their call sign and status. Pero wasn’t asking for help. It simply had occurred to him that perhaps it would be easier to find their wreck if he called it in.

  Amogh had other ideas. “If we can do a gentle turn to the right, and she’s got the fuel, we can head for the coast and ease her down into the ocean. What do you think?”

  “Is it only the rudder that’s gone?”

  Amogh did a quick check, little yoke movements. “Yes. I think so.”

  Suddenly the radio blared out, “Six, one, three, two, Foxtrot, Navy Tomcat here, your six, do you copy?” Amogh and Pero instinctively looked backwards. There was nothing to see except the dangling wires and bullet holes.

  “Navy Tomcat, Baltazar here. Could you pull up alongside and give us a visual?”

  The giant gray shape of the F-14—airbrakes deployed, landing gear down, slid into view, Amogh’s side. The radio intoned a friendly American, “Howdy.”

  Pero grinned, “And howdy to you. We shoved the Caravan, suicide bombers, into that strato-cumulous back there, two miles back. Can you see him on your radar?”

  “Negative, I had something there as I approached you, two planes in formation. One lost altitude suddenly. Glad it wasn’t you. Can you confirm threat eliminated?”

  “We hope so, we don’t know. Could you fly a look-see, over-fly the Stage where all the people are. If there’s no damage, the threat is eliminated. I think. Also, could you relay all this to your carrier?”

  As the air brakes and heels folded into the body, he literally zoomed off ahead of them, “Roger that, relaying message to the carrier as per instructions. Message coming in. Well done, Lewis. You copy?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Six, one, three, two, Foxtrot, this is Navy Tomcat Two, now flying formation your six to escort you home. State destination.”

  Amogh responded, “Well, as we have no rudder, that’s really the main damage, so I am currently aiming to get as far as the coast and set the plane down in the water, gently.”

  “Roger that six, one, three, two, Foxtrot, but you still have two working engines, aileron and elevator control, right? Your rudder is oscillating as if disconnected.”

  Amogh sighed and gave a timid, “Yes . . .” Pero couldn’t see what the Tomcat was getting at. Pero looked at Amogh. Amogh was nodding. He wasn’t looking happy, but he was nodding.

  “Navy Tomcat Two, could you please spell it out, we’re,” Pero looked at Amogh, “well, maybe it’s only me, but I’m not sure what you’re hinting at here.”

  “If an ex-Navy pilot can land a DC-10 without rudder control, using his engines, why can’t you?”

  Pero suddenly understood. “Oh! Okay, it’s worth a try.”

  Pero looked over at Amogh who said, “Yeah, why not? Today’s been full of firsts, now I’m going to pretend I’m a DC-10.” In Iowa in ’89, a DC-10 lost a cargo door and it took all the hydraulic rudder controls along with it. The pilot used differential throttle control to land the plane. Amogh explained his new worry to Pero, “I was worried that’s what he was hinting at. I have never done that before, but okay, you have the flap control again and I’ll take throttles, feet off the rudder pedals, okay?” Pero nodded. Amogh keyed the microphone, “Navy Tomcat Two, let’s give it a try here at altitude. If it doesn’t work, I will head straight on for the coast. Can you stand clear in case I get it all wrong?”

  “Oh, roger that, I’m well clear. Good luck.”

  “Six, one, three, two, Foxtrot, Navy Tomcat One here, I hit the deck and proceeded to the Hill.” With afterburners, it could have taken twenty seconds. “I can confirm other radar target not visible, not flying, repeat not flying, and not at Hill, nor any evidence of disruption or blast. The event seems to be proceeding normally. Will circle and maintain watch. Over.”

  Pero responded, “Thank you, Navy Tomcat One.”

  And so, in the clear air, going nowhere, Amogh and Pero practiced. It wasn’t as hard as they thought it would be. With fifteen degrees of flaps and using the right and left throttles, the plane was perfectly easy to handle. Sure, it was slow to respond and Amogh had to use fine hand control on the yoke, but they could turn and control the aircraft.

  “Neat, Mr. Baltazar, we can do this, let’s go back to Wilson . . .”

  The Navy clearly agreed, “Six, one, three, two, Foxtrot, Navy Tomcat Two here. You seem to have ‘nuff control. I am leaving to rejoin Tomcat One. Confirm. Over.”

  Pero responded, “We confirm. Please tell your carrier. And thanks, fellows, for everything.”

  “Nothing to it—seems you did the work before we got here. Couldn’t take a shot sixty miles out for fear of hitting you. Over and out.”

  Pero looked at Amogh, both with mouths agape. Each must have been thinking the same thing: How long would they have held back that shot with over-the-horizon missiles? On radar, they were one target until the Caravan broke away into the cloud.

  “Enough already,” Amogh said as he rolled his shoulders once more, “Wilson Airport Mr. Baltazar?” Amogh’s deadpan face told Pero he’d had enough even if he were trying to be satirical.

  “Okay Amogh, as long as you can fly this Baron okay.” Pero radioed the Navy what they were doing and got permission. The Navy now controlled the airspace.

  At two hundred miles per hour, it took them under two minutes to over fly to Wilson, passing over the Meeting on the way. As the Navy man had said, the Caravan was nowhere to be seen. What they saw were people, a sea of people, and there, as they buzzed over his head, stood JT, proud and tall, preaching to his converted. He looked up and his radiant face captured the afternoon sun. Amogh waggled their wings—a little bit—and Pero thought he saw Mary wave.

  They did one slow turn over the crowd, following ATC directions, increasing the radius, and were straightening out for the approach into Wilson Airport, Pero spotted wreckage in Nairobi National Park. It was still burning, but the wreckage was contained in a ten by ten yard square of scorched earth. The vultures were already circling below them.

  Pero could imagine the deadly realization, by the pilot, Purim-Sm
ythe, when the updraft and hail started. The vacuum capacity of the turboprop, the motor sucking in ice, and breaking the internal fan blades. Maybe the engine seized or threw a rotor back into the cockpit, like shrapnel. It didn’t matter by that time the outside of the plane was being pummeled. The windscreen would have shattered, and the pitot tube would have been ripped off. Flying blind, with no airspeed indicator, no working horizon, no power, and with dented, un-glide-able, wings, no pilot could bring such a heavy lump of useless metal to earth safely. They hadn’t.

  That old Cessna one fifty pilot at Wilson Airport never realized why he survived. His plane was slow, the motor was enclosed and, most important of all, his plane was light enough to be able to be captured by the hail updraft, not fight it and gravity. That little Cessna one fifty had been spat out of the top of the cloud.

  No such luck for the lumbering Caravan with its huge turbojet intake. The cloud had killed her and then it cast her away to fall, like a Mungu la-ubawa, a wingless god, to kill her occupants.

  “Home Amogh, safely, slowly, please. I too have had enough.” Pero looked about them. Two little men in a big, big sky.

  Amogh called up the tower. “Wilson Tower, Beech Baron six, one, three, two, Foxtrot. Scratch one rogue Cessna Caravan; it’s a flaming wreck in Nairobi Park. Tell the authorities.” And he started to laugh, “Oh, and again for good measure, Mayday, Mayday.”

  “Roger Beech Baron six, one, three, two, Foxtrot, we’ve been monitoring. State your emergency, over.”

  “No rudder, throttle control only, bullet holes all over the fuselage, coming in to land. Please prepare emergency crews.”