“What is it, Anselm” She asked with a smirk.
By God, she’s enjoying herself!
Anselm shook the thought clear, formulating his words carefully. “You’ve called for a helicopter, right”
She nodded.
“So should we be doing this”
“What do you mean” She frowned.
“I mean.the helicopter is going to get there first isn’t it”
“Oh!” She said in sudden understanding, “Maybe yes, maybe no.”
He must have looked confused, so she went on.
“About fifty fifty that he gets bounced out of the Jetstream in a few minutes,” She said seriously, “This happens every now and then. And the chopper is coming from a military base to the north, it won’t be here for a half hour at least.”
“Oh.”
“If we stay under him as long as we can,” She went on, “We’ve got a decent chance of spotting him if he bounces out of the stream.”
“And if he doesn’t”
“It could carry him around the planet until it finally decides to spit him out somewhere.” She shrugged, “But that won’t happen. No one ever goes very far.”
Anselm nodded, but a stray memory flickered to him. “What about that guy who made it to New Zealand or something”
Gwen laughed, “You mean Stef Bingsly. That idiot fought the stream to STAY in it. Unless this Ron guy is an idiot, he’s not doing that.”
“Ok.” Anselm nodded, glad to understand the logic behind the insane rush.
He was also pleased for another reason, or a couple of them actually.
First he wanted to get to Ron Somer as a courtesy to Inspector Somer, and save the man’s life if it were possible, though Anselm wasn’t certain what he could hope to do to manage that. Second, though, was because he had a suspicion that someone had helped Ron Somer along on his accidental trip.
It just didn’t feel right to him that the husband of an Interpol agent would have such an accident the day he arrived to investigate Abdallah Amir.
He wanted to check Somer’s gear, and he wanted to be the first to do so.
To do either, however, required that Somer drop from the sky sometime very, very soon.
Ten kilometers up, fluttering along like a streamer in the wind, the unmoving body of Ronald Somer bounced and jostled in the wind as it was swept along at almost two hundred kilometers an hour. The winds ripped past him, trying to drag him faster, but the flopping of his body and the instability of the uncontrolled air foil above him just fluttered in response.
The Jetstream snaked above the earth, sometimes dropping as low as ten to fifteen kilometers, or climbing as high as twenty five above the surface of the planet. It traveled at speeds up to and exceeding four hundred kilometers an hour as it snaked its way from the west to the east as it circumvented the earth.
Weather systems were often ruled by the intervention of this stream of cold, fast moving air, bringing rains and winds as it interacted with warmer, slower moving pockets.
Now, though, it ruled one man and ruled him utterly as it flung him contemptuously about until finally tiring of his lifeless form and spat him out like a used-up toy.
“Whoa!”
Gwen hit the brakes, bringing the Eliica to a bone jarring halt, “What!”
“He’s slowed down!” Anselm said, pointing to the map. “You were right, he’s dropped clear.”
“Alright.that makes it easier.” She said, hitting the accelerator again, one eye on the map. “But where is he going to land”
Anselm couldn’t answer that.
Too many variables popped into his mind. Wind, whether he was alive and conscious or not, the shape of his air foil.
Far too many variables to count.
“Not good.”
“What” Anselm looked up at Inspector Dougal, catching the stern look on her face. “What’s not good”
“He’s moving too slow.” She said, “Horizontally at least. I think his airfoil must be shredded.”
“Lovely.” Anselm gritted, “Just lovely.”
“It’ll make catching him easier,” She said after a moment, her voice darkly ironic.
“Yeah, but it’s going to make his landing a real bitch.”
Gwen Dougal just nodded as she tried to mentally plot the likely point where the man was going to come down.
It would be in the desert, certainly. The odds against him coming down out on the road were, well, ludicrous. Unfortunately the Eliica, while a master of the road, was somewhat poorer in sand. She’d take the car out on one of the side roads if she had too, there were a lot of them and the local off-roaders kept them well packed, so she could probably do it.
It would likely score the hell out of the bottom of the patrol car, however.
Gwen sighed, a long and suffering sound. She loved the Eliica, but it was a police vehicle after all. It had its duty, and she had hers.
Kamir grinned widely as he watched the commotion kick up around him, knowing full well what it was all about. The rescue vehicles were being manned, tough off roaders that served dual purposes as toys most of the time and occasionally were pressed into service by community-minded drivers when one of the Thermies got tossed by the Stream.
Normally he’d be part of it, but Kamir didn’t feel like it today.
Better that he not be there when the body came down, he might laugh when he saw it.
That wouldn’t do at all.
“There!” Anselm pointed to the sky, his finger crunching into the windscreen of the Eliica. “I see something.”
Gwen nodded, gritting her teeth as a rock scored what she bet was a deep gouge in the underside of the electric car.
A gas car this low would have been stopped already, caught up on something from beneath, or with half its exhaust scattered a quarter mile behind it. The Ellica had a solid and, previously, smooth bottom that skidded off the occasional object as long as at least a few of its eight tires had some traction.
They weren’t getting any speed, by her standards anyway, and the Eliica might accelerate like a jet but it wasn’t built to be airborne as often as they were either. It plowed through a drift of blown sand and dust, covering the windscreen with the stuff, but she kept the pedal down and the powerful motors, combined with momentum, pushed them through.
She resisted the urge to muddy the dust with the wipers and washers, and let the wind blow it off a few moments later, driving but peering through an opening in the dirt.
“Where” She growled, twisting her head from side to side.
“Just ahead and to the right!”
“Damn!”
“What”
“There’s no road over there!” She growled, cursing a blue streak. “Not even a dirt track like this one.”
“He’s coming down fast.”
She snarled and twisted the wheel, sending the specially designed road car off-road and into the bush. The ride got even worse from there, the constant harsh grinding from under them practically bringing tears to Inspector Dougal’s eyes as she fought the wheel of the horribly expensive car and tried to keep an eye out for the falling man.
Finally she spotted him ahead and she had to agree with Anselm. He was coming down fast.
Too fast.
The Eliica protested, screeching it’s horror at the treatment it was receiving as she bounced it over a rock in their road, scoring the undercarriage again, but she ignored it and put the pedal to the floor.
They came to a skidding stop a couple minutes later, just as the body dropped from the sky, the ragged and ripped airfoil fluttering behind it like a child’s streamer.