Oh, god. My mother. She's the principal of a middle school. I called her on the way to the base, waking her up, and told her that I was finally going into space.
That's when she said she'd have the whole school watch the launch.
Jesus.
What do you think of your hero now, kids? What do you think of your son, mom?
You know what? Let's not worry about that right now. My primary concern is the Brazilian jet next to the cockpit and the two far off blinking lights on either side that have started shadowing me.
Russian MiGs? I'm still too far out of range of their Venezuelan air base, but they have access out of Bolivia…
Capricorn said they would try to shoot me down when I was in the spaceship. Would they do the same to a French passenger jet ostensibly loaded with people?
I'm real glad I took the time to close some of the windows. My claim of hostages won't stand up to the claim of the pilot whom I stole the plane from.
I hope that while he's insisting the plane is empty, the authorities are nervous that the hijacker may have snuck some onboard — hell they have to know it's me by now, the pilots would have pointed to my photo and said that's the asshole.
All the more reason not to talk to them. I'd crumble if they asked to speak to a hostage.
"Well… um… they're in the bathroom right now…"
BOOM! And they shoot me from the sky.
"What would you do, Cap'n?" I ask the smiling face I tore from the cereal box and stuck to the co-pilot's chair.
Oh crap, they probably got a photo of him too.
Wonderful. Maybe I should find some Rice Crispies and recruit Snap, Crackle and Pop into my terrorist organization?
Let them figure out the political significance of that.
I ignore my escorts and decide to worry about how I'm going to land and not die or spend my life in prison.
Although I told them my destination was LAX — realizing the panic that's probably causing, I now think that was a mistake, um, oh well, next time I'll figure out a better solution. I can't actually land there unless I have some brilliant master plan to evade the most highly trained terrorist response teams in the world.
Fun fact: The Los Angeles Police Department actually invented SWAT. And I chose there of all places.
Of course, it'll be the FBI team that probably launches the assault. They have actual airplane fuselages that they train on practicing these scenarios. But they won't even need to board the plane. One sniper in an elevated position will be able to fire an armor piercing round straight through the cockpit window before I even power down the engines.
Nope. There's no good outcome in that situation unless I get on the radio and announce that I'm ready to surrender.
And that will lead to another scenario without a good outcome.
What's my story? That some guy on a broken sat phone told me to do this? The plastic square with the Russian letters? What will that prove, other than the fact that I stole something from the K1 space station?
That's all assuming I can trust the government folks that handle this. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but Capricorn's warning that there's someone very highly placed working with the Russians isn't out of the question. All it takes is one CIA chief to make something up and nobody will believe me. I mean clearly I'm a lunatic.
I take the pilot charts out and start considering my options. Obviously LAX is out of the question if I'm going to try to avoid arrest or a rapid lead injection.
Bailing out of the airplane would be an option if I had a parachute and was willing to smash $400 million-dollars-worth of aircraft into some hopefully uninhabited area — only to find out the black square in my pocket contained evidence of some really minor infraction, like stealing satellite television on the K1.
So… no jumping out.
I have to land this thing in a place where the cops can't get to me quickly.
I run my finger along South and Central America searching for a potentially friendly country that might give me asylum. All I realize is that I know next to nothing about international politics.
I need some other option besides a diplomatic one.
A little spot on the map catches my eye.
There's a thought…
But to make it work I'll have to crash this plane.
36
Deep Six
Looking at the charts and tracing my route to my presumed destination of Los Angeles, I have a very scary realization and inspiration. Whether or not those twinkling lights in the distance are Russian MiGs flying out of Bolivia, I know for sure I'm going to get a real Ruskie escort when I pass over international water by Bolivia and Venezuela. I'll be well within range of anything flying out of Caracas and Cuba.
They're probably not going to bring me down over land — even the Amazonian jungle, but open water is a different matter.
The Russians haven't been shy about doing that kind of thing in the past. I'll never make it to Mexican airspace if I keep this course.
I need to get them off my back and hopefully out of range. And out of range may not even be a possibility if they have a Tupolev Tu-160 long-range bomber anywhere near Central America. That can go further than I can and carries cruise missiles that adds another 1,500 miles to its striking distance.
To get them off my back, I have to do something really, really stupid.
The upside is that if it works, they'll think I'm dead, as will the American and Mexican authorities.
I don't know how long the ruse will work, but it might be enough to get me onto a different path and confuse the situation enough that I get past their air defenses.
I check the autopilot and set a timer so I can steal a nap. Thankfully, this bird has enough alarms and alerts that I'm able to sleep reasonably confident that I'm not about to smash into a mountain.
I wake up two hours later as the plane begins to jostle from some turbulence. Nothing major, but probably a good time to get up.
Once I'm through it, I let myself use the bathroom, although I leave the door open in the event I have to run to the controls.
We're heading towards the Colombian border and I'm sure they're going to want to send their own planes to greet me.
The Brazilian Gripen left a while ago — as did the twinkling lights. My radar doesn't show anything close, but a military jet flying at a high altitude could shadow me without my knowledge. This thing is more useful for collision avoidance and weather.
It'll take me less than an hour to fly over Colombia. After that, I'm over the ocean and fair game to anyone that wants to shoot me down.
I run through my hare-brained scheme one more time. Yep, it's a dumb plan. Yep, I'm going to go through with it.
Two minutes before I reach the coast I turn the plane almost due north.
To everyone tracking me this has to have come as some kind of surprise. For some random reason I'm now heading away from my stated course.
For the Russians who are on an intercept path, this complicates things.
They'll be able to reroute, but this buys me a few extra minutes to get over international waters and do my really stupid thing…
I cut almost all my thrust and push the nose towards the sea.
I'm at 33,000 feet…
Now 32,000…
30,000…
25,000…
20,000…
15,000…
This is where it gets tricky.
Full throttle…
5,000…
I can see waves in the moonlight.
I'm probably going to die.
Pull out of the dive… wait for it… bank port!
I'm flying less than a hundred feet above the ocean and the plane is shaking like crazy.
This is not an optimum altitude but I keep going and keep turning.