Eternity's Sunrise (A New Doc Palfrey Thriller)

by Richard Creasey

  Pilot Rupert Alan glanced sideways at me and blushed, realising I was listening in. I was in the co-pilot’s seat in a VIP plane chartered just for me, sitting next to a suntanned pilot wearing his captain’s hat and white Armani shirt. In the back was the reason for his embarrassment, a long, long-legged stewardess.

  “Ruby’s just along for the ride.” A statement replaced the captain’s white lie. I raised my eyebrows with a smile and a shrug as if to say ‘None of my business.’ and sank back even further into the luxury leather seat, grinning quietly. This, after all, was the flight of a lifetime, a short hop to surprise my boyfriend.

  Ruby brought a glass of champagne — somehow I knew she’d already poured one for herself — and the three of us swept through the crisp spring air, low over Alaska’s magnificent wind farms.

  Surprisingly low.

  Spectacularly low.

  Pushing more wind through the turbine blades of a coastal wind farm. And everything was crisp and white: the pilot’s shirt, and the frozen winter landscape that sparkled in the rays of the blinding sun. Right in front of us the sunrays danced through growing towers of grey cumulonimbus clouds.

  Armani Rupert opened up the throttle and pulled back the yoke to climb above the clouds. “Let’s take her up a bit.”

  I should have caught the concern in his voice.

  “Strap in tight.” I got that tone now.

  I felt it too. Those judders which turn into jolts that force a spontaneous glance out of the window at the wings. Slight turbulence that in a passenger jet is followed by the safety-belt sign flashing on and the calming air stewardess ordering her flock to buckle up. But this wasn’t slight turbulence.

  “Ruby, you strapped in?” Rupert shout was drowned out by the rapidly rising noise.

  A series of lightning strikes, thunderclaps and pressure waves tossed the tiny plane about as if it was caught in the downdraft at the crest of a mountain range.

  Somehow the wings stayed on.

  But the single engine staggered...

  Ruby crashed to the floor, her scream shut off as she smashed her head on the corner of the table that should have been folded away. The perfect fall in the perfect storm.

  Both radios, both GPS — the whole flight panel — went totally dead.

  Except for an alarm:

  Beep - Beep - Beep - Beep - Beep - Beep - Beep

  ‘Turn it off!’ I yelled inside my head. Far too scared to scream at Rupert — the pilot of this now fractured, single-engine, turboprop charter plane — who had flown her straight into a nightmare.

  A nightmare that was only going to get worse.

  After less than a minute, which felt longer than an hour, I took my life in my hands and struggled back to Ruby, she was unconscious; blown out like a light.

  I strapped her into a seat, found a white bandage from the Red Cross medicine chest to stem the blood from the angry cut to her forehead. It was quickly tinged bright red.

  Beep - Beep - Beep - Beep - Beep - Beep - Beep welcomed me back to my co-pilot’s seat.

  “The alarm could be a signal fault, or it could mean we’ve got a problem.”

  A problem? The engine, the only engine, is stuttering. The flat panel display screens are all dead. And ‘long legs’ is stretched out cold.

  Beep - Beep - Beep - Beep - Beep - Beep - Beep

  “Let’s assume it’s a signal fault.” And with that Rupert dextrously flipped open a cover on the instrument panel, as if it was something he did on every flight, took a couple of seconds to select a thin, bright red wire, tucked his forefinger around the back of it and — Beep — yanked. For a nanosecond he froze, his forefinger held in mid-air.

  The engine, the only engine, roared on.

  “Signal fault.” A statement. Matter of fact. No emotion.

  “Anything I can do?” Polite as can be again, because I mirror whomever I am speaking to. If someone’s polite, I’m polite. If someone’s concentrating silently, I’m concentrating silently. If they’re rude, I’m rude. That’s my character.

  Rupert was clearly the polite kind. Polite, and toweringly calm.

  He tossed his head back in the direction of the passenger cabin. “Tie down anything loose and strap yourself into a backwards facing seat.”

  “Why?” Spoken more sharply than I intended.

  “We might be going down in a hurry.” Reasonable, as he always was. “Ruby stirring?”

  “I’ll check.”

  I dragged myself out of the co-pilot seat and turned towards the six white leather passenger armchairs. Three on each side, two facing backwards. I chose the seat on the port side. Diagonally opposite Ruby who was just as I’d left her, out cold.

  Port side. I grimaced at the thought of ‘port’, left side to those that didn’t know planes and boats. The same terminology as the old British sailing Man o’ War. ‘And off to the left the port bottle would go.’

  And often as not slap bang into a storm. They got through it… often as not.

  I thumped down hard into my well-padded chair. That felt good. And strapped in tight. Glanced at Ruby, to check the reddened bandage had stopped the bleeding, and stared out of the porthole for a moment of respite.

  The cold white of the arctic glared up at me.

  What was I doing here?

  I knew exactly why.

  And as I stared out of the porthole I could almost see his last text written in the sky:

  ‘Hey Lucille. Brunching in Nome Nugget Inn. Wanting you here. xxxxxx Bernard your sci-guy’

  I could see him writing it, right down to making sure the cap was left off the first kissing x.

  ‘Your sci-guy.’ He was! A shaggy haired, Einstein-wannabe science graduate.

  And he wanted me in Nome. Well, why not? I had never been to Alaska and had the weekend free. I’d decided to go. Right there and then.

  Straining against my safety-belt I stretched just enough to reach my bag — a Gucci ‘hysteria’ bag — what a perfect name for right now, and dug around inside looking for my mobile.

  I wanted more time out from this nightmare to, see, touch and be immersed in Bernard’s message.

  My forefinger clicked the buttons that took me to my Sent File.

  Click, click, and up came my text to Father:

  ‘Father. In Fairbanks. Hiring charter plane to Nome. Bernard’s there, clapping the end of Iditarod. That ok with you? xx Lucille’.

  Just a couple of kisses confirmed we were close but not that close.

  Father in Geneva; me based in New York.

  Both of us grieving for Mum.

  I used to add a whole line of kisses in every text to her. Mum was my absolute best friend. Had been from the day I was born. I often wonder if that made Father feel a bit left out. But I knew that wasn’t it. He’d changed, that’s what Mum said. From a carefree beach bum born to surf to a man of responsibilities.

  Not me or Mum. Money.

  I can remember him wearing faded, worn out Levis, cheap white T-shirts and no hat. No need. His flowing, sun-bleached hair kept the sun off the back of his neck and shoulders.

  Now Father seldom goes out without a hat to cover his shaven head. ‘Much sexier than being bald,’ I can hear my Mum whispering to me. And he’s now totally at home in a suit. Not any old suit, of course: Canali, Ralph Lauren, Bottega Veneta were the labels that filled his wardrobe.

  Ever since Mum died, Father had encouraged me to ‘see the world and learn’, which didn’t help bring us closer, but I did respect him for it. I could use my Amex card to book any flight any time I wanted, provided I found the cash to live off. That meant cheap hotels and youth hostels. At twenty-eight who cared about luxury? The expensive bit was flying. And a charter plane wasn’t part of Father’s overall deal. I just hoped the ‘Hiring charter plane’ would kind of slip through.

  It didn’t. Father’s reply was almost instant.

  ‘What kind of plane?’ He was a stickler for detail.

  I saw myself turning to Rupe
rt, who had just come up with a price.

  ‘Pilot says it’s a Pilatus PC-12, single-engine turbo prop with an excellent safety record.’ The text flew back to Father and kicked off an instant reply:

  ‘Made in Switzerland. Have a great flight. Father’

  I glanced at my watch, we’d been in the air two hours. Where on Earth could we be?

  With no answer to that question I kept staring at my watch concentrating in the hope of an answer, from Mum.

  This watch, a Rolex Submarine, was a gift from Father to Mum, in their surfing days.

  On the back of the case, always next to her skin, my skin now, was engraved a ‘Rose of Jericho’, meaningless to most, vulgar for some, gloriously erotic to others. Best known as the tattoo of a red rose with a vulva concealed inside to symbolize pure romantic love. A magical present from Father to Mum, and now it was mine. Binding me to Mum, who I missed so much.

  Suddenly the plane, and my heart, went hiccup-dead as the turbo engine stuttered again.

  And recovered.

  Ruby didn’t stir. Still out for the count.

  “I tried swapping fuel tanks. It didn’t work out.” Rupert’s tone was matter of fact. “This tank will give us ten more minutes.”

  Ten minutes. That’s all?

  “If you see any sign of life below, shout.”

  “And if we don’t, which we won’t, what happens then?”

  “I’ll bring her down. We stay by the plane. We’ll be spotted. It’ll be fine.”

  Did he really believe that? Fine? We’d freeze to death.

  He smiled at me. “Stop worrying. There are three backpacks in the rear locker. They’re stuffed with clothes, food and emergency kit.”

  Rupert’s calm was infectious. As if this was all just routine.

  “Have you done this kind of thing before?”

  “In a simulator. Any sign of life?”

  There’d be more life on Mars. And Mars was tanned, hot and inviting. Below was a winter desert of death, a vast expanse of frozen rock, hard white nothing.

  What was that?

  Buildings? Can’t be, can it?

  “A building. At four o’clock. A village!”

  Rupert banked right so that he could see it and as the plane turned I squirmed in my seat, desperate to keep the buildings in sight.

  They were buildings, set into a mountainside overlooking a valley, where surely we could land.

  Four o’clock! Father had taught me that while flying his Piper Cub. “Twelve o’clock — dead ahead, three o’clock is to my right. Nine o’clock is to my left.”

  “Six o’clock is right behind.” I wanted to demonstrate I understood. “Yes but you can’t see right behind,” Father replied with a smile. “But you’ve got the right idea.”

  Concentrate.

  It was a village. “Eleven o’clock! And there’s smoke.” My neck was aching as I craned to peer out of the window. Shouting with excitement.

  And then the image vanished behind the immersing whiteness.

  “The storm. It caught up with us.” Rupert sounded worried, really worried for the first time.

  He eased back the yoke, pulled back on the throttle. The engine noise dipped, the nose looked up, the speed dropped down, and I stared desperately out of the porthole to catch sight of land.

  Nothing but driving snow.

  “Strap in tight!” Rupert yanked the yoke right back, pushed the throttle right in, dropped the undercarriage. “The altimeter’s gone!”

  Not like this. I closed my eyes as the fear of death drove me into the very back of my backward facing chair. I listened to the turbo engine roar, as the Pilatus almost hung in the air by its four bladed prop.

  I wrenched at the safety belt buckle.

  Was Ruby’s tight enough?

  Too late...

  *

  I’d expected the worst, but this was beyond anything I could imagine.

  Our brand new Pilatus PC-12, Swiss made, single-engine turbo prop VIP aircraft hit the earth with a rending crash, silvery shafts of the undercarriage flying in all directions. Then the port wing, split at right angles and bounced, across the snow.

  Outside the cabin, a mass of flames sprang into life.

  Inside, my body was thrust farther back into the upholstered depths of the leather chair than I thought possible. I felt the headrest saving my neck from snapping at the spine.

  Ruby, facing forwards hadn’t a chance. I watched in horror as her upper body catapulted forward in slow motion, bending at the waist, which was held by her safety-belt. Her head and shoulders crashed again into the tabletop that I’d failed to fold away. Guilt flooded over me and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her as the plane tore across the ice and screamed to a shuddering halt. Ruby was thrown around like a broken doll.

  A hideous cacophony of sound, a grotesque crescendo of pain and a sickening fear of what would come next held me tight. I knew where I was. I knew what had happened, but I couldn’t stir.

  And then I thought of Rupert up there in the front. “Rupert!”

  Nothing.

  “Rupert!”

  I strained to get out of my chair but couldn’t. Why not? I struggled and tugged until in desperation I realised my safety belt was still buckled. I’d lost vital seconds that could save a life, but those seconds may well have saved mine.

  While I was still buckled-in, an explosion blew off the tail, thrusting me once more into the back of my padded chair, the force of air blowing out a panel of the cockpit window.

  Despite the fire that was taking hold, a rush of dancing snowflakes streamed into the cabin.

  Buckle undone I struggled to my feet, dizzy and swaying, and hurried to the cockpit.

  Rupert was dead. The yoke he’d pulled back to ease the landing now implanted in his chest. His neck broken. His head smashed like a broken egg.

  Despair flooded over me, chilling me to the bone.

  The fire was roaring in the back.

  Ruby was dead. Rupert was dead. I felt sure I would be next.

  Life was so short, so utterly useless, so pointless and unpredictable.

  I’d see Mum. But what about Father? What about Bernard? Life did matter, of course it did.

  Rupert had mentioned emergency kit.

  I hadn’t even asked where the backpacks were stowed. I momentarily imagined them burning up. But the fire was burning itself out, unable to fight the bitter cold.

  I remember staring out of the cockpit window. I couldn’t go out there, not into that blizzard. I just couldn’t.

  And then I saw him and screamed.

  Goggles emerging out of the driving snow pushed through the blown-out panel of the cockpit window, white and ghoulish. Inside the goggles a pair of searching, swivelling eyes sized up the situation, before the man withdrew into the blizzard.

  Although my body was paralyzed with fear, my eyes moved to the door. I saw it begin to open, the built-in steps dropped down, as if everything was just fine, into the driving snow.

  The blizzard preceded the man.

  A giant of a man, wearing Special Forces arctic white clothing, his face hidden behind goggles and a white balaclava, his hands wrapped in white arctic mittens.

  Everything white, except for the blood — Ruby’s, Rupert’s.

  “Let’s go.” The giant’s first words. He strode past Ruby, pulling off his mittens, leaned behind the seats that backed straight into the raging blizzard and pulled out all three backpacks from the buckled locker.

  Unzipping one, as easily as if he was in a Macy’s changing room, he tugged out a white ski suit that had been packed near the top.

  “Get this on. Hurry.”

  As the giant helped me struggle into the ski suit I had no idea he’d slipped off my watch, Mum’s watch, the Rolex I never ever take off, until he held up it up his enormous hand.

  “I need to take this,” he said quietly.

  “You can’t. It was my mother’s!”

  He was courteous. “I kn
ow.” He nodded at the dead woman. “But they need to think she’s you.”

  “No!”

  He took no notice, just turned away from my disbelieving eyes and, with the dexterity of a magician, slipped and clipped my watch, my charm, my Mum’s, my life onto Ruby’s limp left wrist.

  The giant carried all three backpacks to the steps. He glanced around the shattered, part burnt plane, then scanned me as if I was part of a checklist. “Passport?”

  That was it. “Passport? Why would I need a passport? We’re in America. I...”

  “Lucille,” said the giant. “We’re not in America. Not any more. This is Siberia.” He looked at me. “Gulags. Minus 60. That Siberia.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Guardian

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2004/mar/04/thisweekssciencequestions2

  Précis:

  "There are genuine concerns over how wind turbines can interfere with our radar systems," says the MoD.

  The problems start with the fact that wind turbines are very large, made of metal and have sharp edges. Sound familiar? They would if you were sat at a radar listening for returned "pings" bouncing off aircraft; in fact they might sound exactly like a jumbo jet. Hence civil airport authorities and air traffic controllers have a problem with wind farms, too.

  Wikipedia

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag

  Précis:

  Gulag is the Russian acronym for The Chief Administration of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies of the NKVD:

  Glavnoye upravlyeniye ispravityel'no-trudovih lagyeryey i koloniy

  There were at least 476 separate camps, some of them comprising hundreds, even thousands of camp units. The most infamous complexes were those at arctic or sub-arctic regions (of Siberia).

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Stunned, I watched the six foot five inch, clean-shaven giant grab the fire extinguisher from its place by the Pilatus door and spray foam all over the passenger cabin, covering Ruby, and my watch.