CHAPTER 41
Moran swung his revolver around. “I don’t trust you. The girl goes with us.”
At first Rita was shocked at seeing me, but now the shock had turned to anger. She shook her head violently and stomped her foot. The words couldn’t escape the tape that covered her mouth, but I knew what she was trying to say. She didn’t want me to fly Moran out. She knew he’d kill me when we landed somewhere; I figured the same thing. But she didn’t know that I had a little surprise in mind for him once we got into the air. I had to stall, though. My plan didn’t include taking Rita along.
“You’ve got two seconds.”
“I said I’d fly you out of here,” I said. “But damn it! Let her stay.”
“Shut up. We’re taking her. If she’s in the plane you won’t try anything.”
I heard gunfire in the distance. The police were still shooting it out with the guards. They’d shoot their way back here any minute, firing their riot guns.
I gestured for Rita to cool it. She understood, but shook her head and glared at me. I had no choice. All three of us would be in that airplane.
Moran stuck his cannon in my face. “Move. If we’re not off the ground before the cops get back here, I’ll kill you both.”
He meant it; he had nothing to lose. “Okay, Moran. Let’s go. But be careful with that gun. Anything happens to her and I swear…” There was no need to finish the statement; he knew what I meant. But with the.38 Magnum in his hand, he probably figured it was a paper threat.
We hurried to the Cessna. Moran frogmarched Rita behind me, the gun in her back, as I moved fast around the slag piles and junk.
After I climbed in the plane, Moran shoved Rita into the back seat. She sat directly behind me. He got in next to her, keeping the gun pointed at her the whole time. He had the hammer cocked, holding it with his thumb. Even if I could draw my weapon, aim, and somehow hit him, his reflexive action would cause his gun to fire, killing Rita.
I cranked the engine to life and eased in the throttle; the Cessna moved forward. Moments later I was gazing down the length of a short dirt runway. I wasn’t much of a pilot. I’d had a few lessons. Susie taught me enough to get the plane off the ground, and how to control it in the air, but I was never any good at short field landings and had tried it only twice. Both times she had to take over the controls at the last minute to bring the plane down safely. I would’ve crashed the damn thing.
I felt the gun barrel tap the back of my head and jammed the throttle to the wall.
The engine howled. The plane raced down the runway. Fifty on the airspeed indicator, then sixty. A building loomed ahead. I pulled back on the yoke. The wheels lifted, but then hit the ground again. The plane bounced, and we were airborne.
Moran shouted, “I thought you said you could fly this thing.”
“Screw you, Moran. We’re in the air, aren’t we? Be careful with that gun. Ease back on the hammer. It could get bumpy. And if she gets shot, I’m going to fly this thing into a goddamn mountain. I mean it!”
He fully cocked the gun, locking the hammer. The barrel was still pressed against Rita, but at least it wouldn’t go off accidentally. “Just do as I say and no one gets hurt.”
Yeah, sure… I glanced at the flight gauges; they were bouncing around, telling me nothing. I hauled the yoke back some more.
The nose shot up, the airspeed fell, the plane shimmied-stall! The warning horn blared. Forward on the yoke until we were level. The right wing dipped, but I brought it back with the aileron control.
Sweat gushed from every pore. I fought the plane and wondered how long I was going to be able to keep it in the air. But then I figured as long as I was flying it, Moran couldn’t shoot me. I took comfort in that thought.
I felt Moran’s breath next to my ear. “Take a compass heading of 180 degrees,” he said.
I glanced at the compass above the windshield. It was tumbling and spinning. But 180 degrees was south, and I was heading north. I pressed the left rudder and turned the wheel in the same direction. The nose of the aircraft veered, the plane rolled through an arch. I stopped the turn when we were pointed in the opposite direction, toward the northern slope of the Calico Mountains off in the distance.
I seemed to have the airplane under control. At least I could keep it in the air. The technique was coming back to me. But navigation was always a mystery, a lot of jargon about bearings, headings, and lines of azimuth and altimeter settings, Zulu this and Zulu that; it made no sense. The wings were level, and we continued soaring toward the mountains.
“Are we at 180 degrees now?” Moran asked.
I had no idea what the heading was. The compass bounced and bobbed, impossible to read. “Yeah, we’re flying at exactly 180. Now what?”
“Tell me when we reach the Mexican border. I’ll give you a new heading then.”
What did Moran think, that there’d be a big white line painted on the ground, one side saying “America,” the other “Mexico” in big bold letters? It’s all desert out here. How in hell would I know when we crossed the border? But one thing was certain: Moran knew less about navigation than I did. He couldn’t read the compass either.
“No tricks. If we’re not in Mexico in an hour, your cute little partner is going to be a dead little partner.” Cocky old bastard; the gun that he held against Rita’s side gave him a sense of control.
Fishing around in a pouch attached to the door, I found an aeronautical chart. I unfolded it and held it up with one hand, pretending to examine it.
“Mountains ahead,” I said over my shoulder. “Might hit a few air pockets, some turbulence.” I brought the nose up and climbed steadily at several hundred feet per minute. One of Moran’s borax mines was below us now. I could see trucks coming and going, nothing unusual. We were about ten miles west of where we’d started.
I shouted again over my shoulder: “Right on course, Moran. Why don’t you take a little nap? I’ll wake you when we get there.”
“Funny, O’Brien. You’re a regular riot.”
After I got free of Moran-and a plan was unfolding in my mind-I wanted to be close to the facility. I for sure didn’t want to get lost out here in the middle of a billion square miles of desolate wasteland.
I glanced at Rita, who sat quietly with her back ramrod straight, her eyes opened wide. She was scared, and it was going to get worse. I wanted to let her know to be ready, but Moran’s eyes stayed fixed on me and he would have caught the gesture. I faced forward.
The Calico Mountains weren’t that tall, just a pile of gray granite and rocky ledges a few thousand feet above the ground. But when the hot wind racing across the desert floor hit the mountain slopes the air above them whipped into a turbulent fury. Susie had explained how turbulence was nothing to be afraid of-provided it wasn’t severe. But if I flew real close to the mountaintops, the little plane would be tossed about violently.
“Hang on, the wind is blowing hard. We’re going to hit turbulence.”
“Just get this goddamn plane to Mexico,” Moran snapped.
I headed straight for the small mountain range, aiming just below the top of the ridge.
A few heartbeats later we were close to Calico Peak, and just as I figured, the airplane rose, lifted by the upsurge of wind flowing up the mountain’s side.
At first the little plane just bounced in the air, like a boat in rough water. Then as we neared the peak, it got worse. The plane jumped and fell, whipped from side to side, dancing in a hard, violent rhythm with the wind. The left wing pointed toward the sky, then the ground. I thought it would roll. The nose lifted and we soared higher, pinning me in my seat, before dropping back in a freefall.
Moran was bellowing, but I couldn’t understand his words. The Cessna shook and shuddered, ten-point-zero on the Richter Scale, but we continued to move forward, bouncing furiously; I prayed that the wings wouldn’t rip off from the utter force. Then, a moment later, we shot up like an elevator and skimmed over the top of the mountain. In a matter of minutes we caught the downdraft on the mountain’s backside. We sank fast. My stomach jumped into my throat. The nose dropped due to the air current, but I pushed the yoke in some more. The wind roared over the wings, sounding like a hurricane.