“If we can find clean fuel for this plane, I know I can fly it. It’s a lot like the one I took my tests on,” she said confidently.
While Danielle inspected the plane for herself, Chuck went to look for fuel. He found a fuel truck in the maintenance shop that was still three-quarters full and drove it over to the hanger.
“It’ll handle six passengers and has a range of about 800 miles. I’ll need to get fuel when I’m there, but according to the map, there’s a pretty good sized municipal airport just east of the town, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Just to be safe we’re going to put three five-gallon cans on board in case we can’t find any, I’ll be able to get back here.”
“Isn’t that a little dangerous?” Chuck asked as he started fueling the airplane like Danielle showed him.
“What isn’t?” she said after a moment’s thought.
After the plane was thoroughly checked out, the two drove the runway she’d take off on. There were cracks which Danielle marked with black paint she’d found. The debris which had accumulated was cleaned off by the people who came in the other trucks with the supplies she’d carry.
It had taken almost an hour and the flight time from the airport to West Wendover was about three and a half hours. Danielle looked at her watch. It was almost 2 p.m. which would mean she could be in West Wendover by 6 p.m. if she left soon.
Chuck had not seen this side of Danielle. He’d seen her drive like a maniac, sit sullen for hours, lose herself in her own mind, but now she appeared to be focused on helping strangers by flying a plane she’d never flown across a mountain range.
Life had returned to Danielle.
With the plane fueled and loaded with enough food and water, she went over what she planned to do with the rest of the Council. “I’m going to fly there and land as close as I can to the town. Josh has already checked and set the frequency so I can talk to you here most of the way there, but I probably won’t because I’m going to need to concentrate.
“When I land, first I’ll pass out the medicine, food and water and then refuel. If I can’t find any, I’ll fuel up with what I’m taking with me and pick up the six sick people and bring them back here tonight. I want to be on the ground for as little time as possible, so see if those on that end can have fuel and the sick people ready when I get there.” Joshua nodded to her and got on his radio to tell his people back at the compound to get started.
“When I get back here, I’ll be low on fuel and probably won’t be able to circle around, so you guys are going to have to light the runway for me.” She looked at the people who were her closest friends. There was still surprise in their faces that she, the silent friend of Chuck and Yvonne, was going to take such a huge risk.
“Daylight’s wasting,” she said and headed for the plane which had been pulled out of the hanger. Chuck and Yvonne went with her while the others went back to their trucks to clear the area.
Chuck took one of her hands and Yvonne the other as they walked. There wasn’t anything left to say. Chucked opened the pilot’s door for her and Danielle hugged and kissed Yvonne first, then Chuck. He whispered in her ear. “Take care of yourself, White Girl. I love you.” She whispered back that she loved him too and got in the plane.
Twenty minutes later she was safely in the air and headed to West Wendover. She was buffeted by winds over the mountains, but the flight went as planned. She had a few moments of fear when switching tanks. She ran the wing-tip tanks dry and fumbled with the switches under her seat to access the wing-root tanks. She was glad she’d read through the manual before leaving Sacramento.
She kept her cruising speed at 135 knots, or about 155 miles per hour. She flew over Lake Tahoe then Carson City, Nevada and saw nothing but desolation. The city had caught fire some time in the past and it had destroyed the north half of the city. The southern part of the city looked like it had been blown up without the bomb craters. She didn’t see any life in the city and regained some of the altitude she’d lost going down for a look and reported back to Joshua what she’d seen.
Her direction and GPS were pretty good and she arrived over Wendover in just under four hours. Her fuel state was good and she reported to the lieutenant that she could land on the highway north of the airport because the runways were under water.
She located a stretch with no power lines or any other obstructions and took two practice runs to make sure.
Her landing wasn’t perfect...she bounced twice...but she got the plane down without damage. An ambulance with people in it drove up to meet her as she shut the plane’s motor off.
She got out of the plane and went around the other side to begin unloading supplies. The ambulance stopped and a man got out of the driver’s side and another out of the passenger side. The man who got out of the passenger door went to the back of the ambulance while the driver came up to her and introduced himself as Earl. He hugged her and thanked her for coming and she could tell he hadn’t showered in a long time.
“Joshua told you what I need. I can’t wait and I need to get you people back to our compound,” she told him.
“Yea,” Earl said. “The fuel truck is on its way here. We thought you’d land on the other side of town in West Wendover and we parked one we found over there. This is Wendover, but he’ll be here by the time we get our sick people on your plane. There’s only four who are still alive of the sick ones, so we’re sending a woman with you who is pregnant too.”
Danielle saw the man who had gone back to the ambulance bring the woman and two of the sick people with him. In the distance, she heard at least two more vehicles.
The woman was very pregnant and Danielle hoped she didn’t go into labor on the flight. The two sick people were a young man of about 16 and an older woman. She got them situated and belted in by the time the fuel truck and other sick people arrived.
The second man was putting the supplies Danielle had brought with her into the ambulance. He also removed the spare gas cans which Danielle wouldn’t need.
With her five passengers belted in and the plane re-fueled, the sun was going down over the mountains and she wanted to be in the air before losing too much more light. She had two men help her turn the plane around so it was facing back the way she landed.
“I’ll be back tomorrow with more food and water,” she told Earl as she climbed back into the plane. “If we’re this quick on the turn around, we’ll be able to get all of you back to our compound where you’ll be safe.”
“We’ll be here and thank you so much. You’re such a brave woman and you’re saving all our lives.”
Danielle hoped she could save them. She would be landing at night by the time she got back to the Perry Compound and while she knew how to land the plane in the daytime, nighttime was something she hadn’t done except once, and that wasn’t really a night landing, just a lowlight / dusk landing.
The plane was more sluggish taking off this time with about 300 more pounds on board than when she took off to fly to West Wendover. The plane was slower getting up to speed with a stronger headwind, but eventually it reached takeoff speed and she pulled back on the yoke.
She did a slow climb of 500 feet per minute to save the passengers from unnecessary jostling and made a slow turn to return to Sacramento. She saw the flooding of the salt flats and from this height it looked like it was only a few feet deep. She flew over the town and saw what Earl had described. All the casinos had been destroyed and there were burned out buildings everywhere. The gas stations were rubble as was the main grocery store. She wondered briefly how they had survived almost nine months before concentrating on gaining altitude to get over the mountains.
The flight back was smoother than the flight to West Wendover, but still two of the patients threw up. The smell was horrible and Danielle had to increase the airflow from her vent wide open to keep from gagging. The pregnant woman slept most of the way, which was good because Danielle was concentrating and rehearsing her upcoming landing.
She s
aw the lights to the field when she came over the last mountain range. Joshua had told her what to expect, but it was nice to see close to 50 vehicles lined up on each side of the runway with their headlights on.
Her first try at lining up the landing was aborted when the wind from the ocean spoiled her approach. Rather than force a landing, she pulled up and swung around for another try. The plane’s tail was being buffeted, but Danielle was able to get lined up and her landing this time didn’t include bouncing.
She taxied to the end of the runway where there were trucks with flashing lights and shut off the plane. Men and women were running up to where she parked, including Chuck and Yvonne.
With the motor off and her door open she heard something she’d never heard before, a crowd of people cheering for her. She heard it the entire time Chuck and Yvonne were hugging on her and telling her what a great job she’d done.
No one had ever done this before and she wasn’t sure how to take it...but she like it nonetheless.
Garrick was already helping the sick to the waiting vans which had been outfitted as ambulances. Another man she didn’t recognize was helping the pregnant woman.
Hours later, after telling her story first to the Council then to the dozens of people who were still hanging around the area where they had barbecues still going, Danielle retired with Chuck and Yvonne to their shelter.
It was a night of energetic passion for all three and they slept like they hadn’t in a very long time.
Chuck was awakened by a banging on the outside door of the shelter he shared with Yvonne and Danielle. He had to roll naked legs off him and he threw on his jeans and a tee shirt before climbing down to the first level. He was still rubbing sleep from his eyes when he opened the door.
It was his younger brother Garrick and his gal pal Marissa. “Hey dude. We thought you might be getting up a little later than usual, so we brought you some breakfast.” Marissa held out a basket and Chuck smelled bacon.
He ushered them into the house and hollered up stairs for the two women. If Danielle was going to fly two trips today, she was going to have to get flying soon and even then it would be a 15-hour day in the air for the young woman. She thought she’d be up to it and Chuck wasn’t going to try to talk her out of it until he saw how she felt after the first flight.
The women came down stairs wearing shorts and tee-shirts, looking like one would expect from two women who had been busy with their man the previous night. Both were smiling sheepishly and Danielle blushed as she put coffee on for everyone. Garrick punched his brother lightly in the arm and gave him a knowing smile and Chuck gave him a scowl.
“By the way, all five people she flew in last night are resting comfortably in sickbay,” Garrick told him, referring to the berthing areas he’d turned into a make-shift hospital.
Another knock at the door came. Garrick said that’d be the Professor to brief Danielle on some areas in the mountain he wants looked at when she’s flying over them.
“Christ on crutch,” Chuck said quietly, using his current favorite phrase that wouldn’t get Yvonne pissed at him. “Doesn’t the White Girl,” his pet name for Danielle, “have enough things to do while flying?” Garrick and Marissa gave him an indication they agreed with him, but the Professor was on the Council too and he did have seemingly good reasons for wanting to know how stable the mountains were. Yvonne let the former teacher in.
“Morning everyone,” he said and got a few replies and nods. “Sun up is in about 45 minutes. CJ and a couple guys went ahead to pull the plane out of the hanger, fuel it up and load it for you.
“Don’t need the extra fuel cans this time,” Danielle told him between slurping up the milk in her cereal. She wasn’t the most cultured eater. “And I’m bringing back at least 10 people today, so there’ll only be three or four people left there tonight so don’t pack so much food and water.”
“I’ve already figured that into consideration, my dear girl,” the Professor said, earning him a furrowed brow from both Chuck and Yvonne. He didn’t notice.
Instead he was opening up a laptop and setting it on the table in front of the pilot. “I found this GPS program with a map and want to show you what I’d like you to look for.” There were harrumphs around the table and Danielle smiled.
“There are two major reservoirs and four lakes in this area around Lake Tahoe,” he said pointing to an area on the map. “If you get the chance, can you fly in this area and tell us if there is a crevasse which is draining the water from any of them?”
Danielle looked at the map he had on the screen and squinted. “Yea, I flew over there yesterday. The place was just like every other place. Dead.”
“Well, the reason I ask is if those lakes and reservoirs are draining into the side of the mountain, a slice of the mountain could slide down east of here.” The compound had experienced a series of smaller tremors since the big quake and the Professor was trying to determine if the tectonic plate were settling or getting ready for another big move.
The implications of what the professor was saying sunk in. They’d all heard Garrick’s descriptions of what it was like watch land fall into the ocean. The compound was more than 75 miles from the base of the mountains but it was close enough for everyone to be concerned.
They talked a little longer and finished up breakfast before heading out as a group to the airport.
As good as his word, CJ and a crew of six had the plane ready. His crew also cleared the runway to make sure there was no debris left over from the 100-plus vehicles that were used to light the landing strip the previous night.
There were fewer people this morning at the airport and Danielle went right to the plane with Chuck and Yvonne. The lieutenant had set up a makeshift “tower” for communications in the least-damaged hanger and a white Econoline van. He was already set up and cleared the little plane for takeoff.
Chuck, Yvonne, Garrick, Marissa and the Professor watched as she ran through her preflight, wrote a few notes in the log book, and ran the plane’s motor up to speed. When she was satisfied, she began her taxi and took off. It was rather anti-climatic compared with yesterday’s takeoff.
“Well, it’s Sunday and no one is going to be working at the compound, so why don’t we do a little looking around here while we wait for her to come back?” CJ suggested from one of the collapsed hangers. “Maybe we can find something useful.”
There was not one building that wasn’t extensively damaged on the airport property. They realized how lucky they were to even find a plane, let alone one young Danielle could fly. After four hours of searching, they found some tools and equipment they could use at the compound and one of the salvage teams showed up to haul the booty back.
The lieutenant reported that Danielle had landed and taken off from West Wendover with five more passengers, leaving eight yet to be rescued. The group waiting for her had some meals delivered and they began searching across the highway at a self-storage facility. Most of the buildings were wrecked and not yet worth the effort of searching through, but they were able to find two usable travel trailers that would be homes for the rescued people from West Wendover.
At a power tool store, they found more generators for the compound which would help wean the it from the submarine. Just as the equipment was being hauled away on Jo’s flatbed, they received a call from the lieutenant telling them Danielle was coming over the mountain and would be on final in about 20 minutes.
When she landed she was smiling, but Chuck could tell she was tired and insisted she take an hour’s nap before going up again. When she started to argue, Yvonne backed Chuck up.
CJ brought her food and Jo pulled one of the travel trailers to the runway for her to sleep in. She slept for almost two hours and was a little upset that no one had awakened her, but she was still able to get in the air and to West Wendover to pick up five more people. She got back to Sacramento while there was enough light to land without using 100 vehicles. She was tired, but still did her post f
light checks. There would be one more flight the next day and she wanted a good night’s sleep this time.
The next morning, later than the previous day, she, Chuck, Yvonne and the Professor went to the airport together. Something had been added to the plane overnight by Joshua’s team of electronic specialists. Four remote cameras were attached with duct tape to the landing gear. The modifications, Danielle said, wouldn’t change the flight characteristics of the plane because they were small. And the wiring was well taped. The controls for the cameras were expertly routed through to a small box on the dashboard. All she would have to do is push the toggle “up” to turn on the cameras and “down” to shut them off. The professor was unhappy with her previous day’s report about the lakes in the mountains and wanted photos. He’d offered to ride with her, but she refused. Not only did she not like the old man very much...he talked too much for her liking...she said she had to concentrate on flying and would not risk having him along, telling her where or how to fly.
CJ and Chloe showed up beforehand to make sure the airplane was fueled and prepared for the last flight to West Wendover. CJ was no expert, but he did know a little about planes and Danielle would make sure everything was prepared correctly. She was well-rested and the take off was smooth. The group was watching her fly by the airport, waving up at her. Joshua came out of his communications mobile home to report everything looked good for her and she was following her flight plan would not forget to take the pictures.
Joshua finished talking and looking up at the retreating plane when a bullet punctured him through the neck and blood spurted out of the holes, front and back. The former air force lieutenant fell to his knees even as it was registering on the others that they’d heard a gunshot. The lieutenant was trying to stop the spurting blood, but it was flowing through his fingers, and pumping out the back of his neck with every beat of his heart.
Hell Happened (Book 3): Hell Released Page 27