“You’re cookin’ with gas, buddy,” came over the radio. Jake was close enough to see the big jet.
“Where are you, Jake?”
“Out of the way, buddy, but thanks for using my name on the radio. Just thought you ought to know that you’re going to need fifty-one hundred feet of runway to get that thing off the ground at your destination—and that’s with full flaps, so save your fuel now. You’d better tell them what you’re doing unless you’ve got collision insurance on that thing.”
Tuck keyed the mike button on the steering yoke. “Honolulu Tower, this is United Flight One requesting immediate clearance for emergency takeoff on Runway Two.”
“There’s no such thing as an emergency takeoff,” the controller said. Tuck could tell he was close to losing it.
“Well, Tower, I’m taking off on Two, and if you’ve got anything headed that way, I’d say you’ve got an emergency on your hands, wouldn’t you?”
The tower guy was almost screaming now. “Negative on the clearance! Clearance denied, United jet. Return to the terminal. We have no flight plan for a United Flight One.”
“Tower, United Flight One requesting you chill and be a professional about this. Clear to ten thousand. I am starting my takeoff.”
“Negative, negative. Identify yourself…”
“This is Captain Roberto T. Fruitbat signing off, Honolulu Tower.” Tuck clicked off the radio, pushed the throttles up, and watched the jet exhaust pressure gauges. When they got to 80 percent of maximum thrust, he re-leased the ground brakes and one hundred and seventy thousand pounds of aircraft rolled down the runway and swept into the sky.
At ten thousand feet he began his turn toward Alualu.
The fighters joined him a hundred miles north of Guam. Evidently, they had found out that United did not employ a Captain Fruitbat. One of the F-18 fighters came in close and Tuck waved to him. The pilot signaled for Tuck to put on his headset. Why not?
Tuck assumed they would be broadcasting across a number of frequencies. “Yo, good morning, gents,” Tuck said.
“United 747, change your course and land at Guam Airport or we will force you down.”
Tuck looked out the window at the sidewinder air to air missiles hanging menacingly under the wings of the fighter. “And how, exactly, do you propose to do that, gentlemen?”
“Repeat, change your course and land in Guam immediately or we will force you down.”
“That would be fine,” Tuck said. “Go ahead, force me and my hundred and fifteen passengers down.” Tuck let off the mike button and turned to Roberto. “Okay, you go in the back and pretend to be a hundred and fifteen people.”
As Tuck had calculated, the fighters backed off while they waited for instructions. They were not about to shoot down an American passenger jet without very specific orders, whether it was stolen or not. He believed his biggest advantage was that the FAA and United would insist that no one could steal a 747. That sort of thing just didn’t happen. Nice of them to give him an escort, though. He punched some buttons and the nav computer told him he was only half an hour from Alualu. He started his descent.
He checked the position of the fighters and hit the mike button. “This is the UFO calling the F-18s.”
“Go ahead, United.”
“Are you guys both listening?”
“Go ahead.”
Tuck affected a singsong teasing tone: “Neener, neener, neener, you can’t get me.” Then he locked the microphone in the on position and began singing an off-key version of “Fly Me to the Moon.”
Malink, I hope you built those ladders, he thought.
Malink had been awakened early by the Sorcerer’s jet taking off and he was on his way to the beach for his morning bowel movement when Vincent appeared to him.
“Morning, squirt,” the flyer said.
Malink stopped on the path and fought to catch his breath. “Vincent. I build the ladders.”
“You did good, kid. Now get everyone together—and I mean everyone—and tell them to go to the airstrip. Take the ladders. I’m sending a plane for you.”
Malink shook his head. “You send cargo?”
Vincent laughed. “No, kid, I’m taking the Shark People to the cargo. You’ll need the ladders to get on the plane. Don’t be afraid. Just get everyone.”
“The Sky Priestess has three who have been chosen. One has just come back to the village.”
Vincent looked at his feet. “I’m sorry, kid. You’ll have to leave them. Go now. You don’t have very long. I’ll see you again.” And he disappeared.
64
Deliverance
Beth and Sebastian Curtis were cleaning the operating room and sterilizing
instruments when they first heard the jet.
“That sounds low,” Sebastian said casually.
Then the fighters, running ahead of the 747, passed over the island.
“What in the hell was that?” Beth said. She dropped a pan of instruments and headed for the door.
“Probably just military exercises, Beth,” Sebastian called after her. “It’s nothing to be concerned about.” He was glad to have help cleaning up and didn’t want to lose it. Usually, at this point, she was on the plane heading for Japan.
“’Bastian, come here!” she called. “Something’s up!”
Sebastian shoved the last of the surgical draperies into a canvas bag and hurried outside. The sound of jet engines seemed to be everywhere.
Outside he found Beth staring at some coconut palms. The guards were standing outside their quarters, looking in the same direction. “Look.” Beth pointed to the north.
“What? I don’t see…” Then he saw movement behind the palms and a 747 coming toward the island at entirely too low an angle.
“It’s landing,” Beth said.
Sebastian’s gaze was caught by more movement in his peripheral vision. He looked across the runway. The Shark People were coming out of the jungle. All of the Shark People.
From the 747 the airstrip looked smaller than he had remembered. To conserve runway Tuck wanted to touch down as close to the near end as possible. He pulled full flaps and checked his descent rate. The Shark People were moving toward the plane in a wave. Some of the men carried long ladders.
As all sixteen tires hit the runway, Tuck slammed the levers that reversed the engines and they screamed in protest. Immediately, he hit the ground brakes and watched the brake temperature gauge zoom into the red as the jet screamed toward the ocean at the far end of the runway at a hundred and fifty miles per hour.
“Did you see the ladders?” Roberto said, but this time it was Vincent’s voice coming from the bat. “Ya fuckin’ mook, I told you they were makin’ ladders.”
“You must come,” Malink said. He crouched at the edge of the jungle where the old cannibal was hiding. “Vincent said all of our people must go.”
Sarapul watched as the huge jet slowly turned at the end of the runway. “No. I am too old. This is my home. They don’t want me where you are going.”
“We don’t know where we are going.”
“Your people didn’t want me here. Would they want me in this new place? I will stay.”
Malink looked to the runway. “I have to go now.”
Sarapul waved him off with a bony hand. “Go. You go.” He turned and walked into the jungle.
Malink ran into the open and began shouting orders to the men with the ladders. The Shark People poured onto the runway and surrounded the jet like termites serving their swollen queen.
Beth Curtis saw the first of the doors on the 747 open and immediately recognized Tuck. A tall ladder was thrown against the plane and the Shark People started climbing.