Divisible man nine lives.., p.26
DIVISIBLE MAN--NINE LIVES LOST, page 26
I dove for the floor and his feet. He balled his fists to rain them down on me, but before the first blow landed, I hooked the knife behind his ankle and pulled hard. I felt the tendon snap. He screamed again and dropped sideways while I scrabbled out of reach. He howled and grabbed his sliced Achilles tendon. I lunged forward again and drove the knife down as hard as I could against the back of his left hand. The knife powered through bone and tendon and into his leg. I tried to pull the blade free. It resisted. He threw a punch at me with his other hand. It glanced off my shoulder and landed at my left ear, thankfully weakened, but sharply painful. I twisted the knife and jerked it free.
I rolled away. He threw an impotent punch—more of an arm lunge—in my direction. I met it with the knife blade, which drove deep into the webbing at his thumb. He jerked his hand back, screaming.
At any moment, the cockpit door would open and Danzig would appear, probably shooting. I couldn’t be sure if Shotgun got off a warning before I kicked off his headset, but the pilots could be trying to speak to the loadmaster. Absent a response, they would come in a hurry.
I crawled back across the deck to Lillian. She sat with her back to the fuselage wall, hands bound, wearing what looked like an old ballistic vest. Wally appeared to have on the same garment. For protection? I wondered, from what? I tipped her forward and found the plastic cuffs at her wrists. Careful not to cut her, I broke open one of the two. Good enough. She quickly unzipped the vest and threw it off. It landed heavy.
Weight. Lillian and Wally didn’t get a steel cable and lead weight. They got heavy vests for the ride to the bottom at Point X.
I handed Lillian the knife.
“Cut him loose!”
She closed a firm grip on the weapon and sliced his restraints, then pulled off his heavy vest. I hopped to my feet and moved forward. Baker stared at me through saucer eyes. He also wore a heavy vest.
“You’ve got to help me!” he cried. “They’re going to kill me!”
“They’re going to kill us all, dummy.” I ignored him and moved to the front of the cargo bay, searching.
The tidy aircraft offered nothing.
I had hoped to find a means to block the cockpit door, which was centered on a bulkhead just ahead of the parked van. Something loose. Something strong. There was nothing except a toolbox, two backpacks, a propane cylinder and a long spear-like device that connected to the propane cylinder through a hose. I’d seen something like it used at the airport to keep weeds down along the fence. A flamethrower. A flamethrower in an aircraft is a terrible idea. Why would they—?
That’s how they did it.
The crop circles. The burns. A stupid garden-variety flame thrower. I knew there was never a mothership, but this just seemed absurdly simple.
And utterly useless. I looked for a way to use the long shaft of the flamethrower to bar the cockpit door, but the bulkhead lacked structure to prop the device against or hold the door.
On the other hand…
I dropped to the toolbox and flipped open the lid.
Yes!
Like any good aircraft toolbox, the first and most important tool sat in plain sight. I grabbed the roll of duct tape and hurried to the flamethrower. An igniter dangled from a hook on a small, wheeled frame that held the propane tank. I unwound the hose, then positioned the long shaft so that the business end of the flamethrower pointed at the cockpit door. I leaned over and closed the lid of the toolbox and dragged it against the bulkhead. I pulled free a length of tape and slapped it on my thigh. Then another. Then another. I dropped the tape and positioned the flamethrower shaft against the toolbox, then taped it down. A few more circuits with the tape roll secured the device.
Feeling seconds tick by that would render this entire effort moot, I scrambled for the igniter. I twisted open the valve on the top of the propane tank, then opened the control valve on the side of the flamethrower handle.
I was shocked when my first snap of the igniter produced a foot-long jet of flame.
But not enough.
I grabbed the tape and pulled a section loose, then squeezed the trigger on the handle of the flamethrower.
The device roared. Blue-yellow flame shot from the end, hit the cockpit door, and bloomed for several feet in all directions.
“Holy shit!” I ducked and turned my face away from a blast of heat.
I adjusted the flame to spread over the door latch. With a little luck, it would get hot in a hurry, too hot to touch. Too hot to open.
Fire in an airplane is a bad idea. The jet of flame scorched the aluminum door. The bulkhead was metal. There was no paneling or plastic coating to cause fire to spread. However, electric lines in abundance ran in bundles along the door frame. Flames engulfed the lines, which quickly melted. It would only be a matter of time.
I had known from the start that the only way out of all of this was to leave. It was past time to go.
I hurried back to Lillian, who hugged Boyd. He wore the same blank look and aimed the same distant stare at nothing as always, but surprisingly to me, he returned the hug. Lillian, for her part, wept openly. Tears stained her face. She squeezed her eyes and kissed the boy’s head, clutching him tightly.
I pushed past her to check on Shotgun. I had done a lot of damage, but not enough. Where I had been sitting at the start of all this, a blood trail pointed forward. I poked my head around the van and saw him near the van’s passenger door, crawling desperately toward the front of the plane. If he made it all the way, he would dismantle my duct taped flamethrower.
Lillian had the knife. I hesitated. The idea of stabbing the man in the back repulsed me.
Instead, I scooted forward between the side of the van and the bulkhead until I caught up with him. He turned his bearded face to me. Wet, wild eyes inflated with terror. He struggled to heave himself forward using his remaining good leg.
I reached down and closed a grip on his ankle. He kicked, but I was too fast for him.
FWOOOMP!
We both vanished. I gripped the side mirror of the van with my left hand. With my right, I heaved Shotgun upward, driving my feet against the cargo deck. He wiggled and kicked, but he was nothing but a wildly flailing Styrofoam piñata in my hand. I swept him over my head and heaved him toward the rear of the plane. When he cleared me, I released. An electric snap bit my hand. He reappeared and dropped instantly. He crashed to the deck and rolled up against the rear cargo door.
Fwooomp! I reappeared and threw a glance at my flamethrower rig. It could have been wishful thinking, but the door latch seemed to have acquired a faint red glow. It would not hold them for long. Danzig was surely armed. He wouldn’t have to travel far into the cargo deck to end this.
I jumped to the back of the van and hurried across to Shotgun’s crew station. The loadmaster’s position at the back of the plane had a control panel. There were numerous buttons, but the main switches I wanted were plainly marked.
“Lillian! Get Wally to his feet!” Lillian acknowledged and released Boyd, who returned Malibu Barbie to his backpack and mounted the bag on his shoulders.
Lillian helped Wally struggle to his feet. Wally was fully conscious, but the pain and shortness of breath debilitated him. He leaned on Lillian. I noticed that Baker had been cut loose by Lillian. He backed away as if we were toxic.
“Come with us!” I shouted at him. “We’re leaving!”
Lillian jammed her shoulder under Wally’s armpit and moved him aft. Baker stared, bewildered and terrified.
I slammed my palm against the cargo door button. Danzig intended to lower the door and throw us out. Fine. We’d save him the trouble.
Nothing happened.
I hit it again.
Nothing happened.
“Of course,” I muttered. I hit it three more times. Nothing happened.
I searched for a failsafe lock, a release, a manual latch that would otherwise prohibit the hydraulic system from lowering the door. Then it occurred to me. Maybe the door cannot be opened in flight. Maybe sensors detected an airspeed above which the door could not be activated. Maybe the squat switches on the landing gear had to be triggered for the door to open. Any number of safeguards might prohibit door activation at the wrong moment.
“Shit!”
I looked forward. The fuselage had a side door, but I saw nothing but problems there. Opening the door in the one hundred and eighty mile per hour slipstream. Mustering all four of us out the door at one time. I imagined Boyd or Lillian torn out of my grasp.
Dammit. How did they plan to do it?
The cargo door had to be restricted by airspeed. That and some sort of locking system I could not find without the aircraft manual. How, then, was I supposed to get the four of us out?
The van.
I spun to face Lillian.
“Hey! Move up against the wall. Hold them against the wall!”
I hurried past her.
The van was not locked. The key dangled from the ignition.
“Of course,” I told myself. “Where else would you keep the key?”
I hopped in the driver’s seat in time to look up and see the door to the cockpit blow open, driven by a kick from inside. Danzig threw his hands up to shield his face from the heat of the flamethrower.
I didn’t wait. I twisted the key. The van started. I threw the van in reverse and floored it. The van jerked backward and stopped.
Shit! The cargo nets!
The cargo nets had to be cut to release the front wheels. Lillian still had the knife, but there was no time. Danzig ducked back into the cockpit, surely pulling out Big Gun’s big gun.
I jerked the van into Drive and floored it. The van shot forward and slammed to a stop. I reversed. Floored it again. Wheels spun. The smell of burning rubber joined the wasabi scented propane exhaust in the cargo bay.
Something snapped. One set of the straps parted. The front end slewed to one side.
I threw the shifter in Drive and floored it.
The van shot forward and slammed into the front bulkhead. The bumper crushed my toolbox rig and threw the flamethrower off target. The burner toppled over, clearing the cockpit door for Danzig who had dived back into the copilot’s seat when the van hit.
I reversed. Floored it. Tires screamed on the cargo deck grating. The van snapped free of its restraints and lunged backward.
The rear wheels bumped. The van body lifted, then dropped.
So much for Shotgun.
The van accelerated briefly, then smashed into the rear cargo door. The collision jolted the rear of the van sideways. It smashed into the fuselage wall where I had been sitting when this horrifying ride began.
I threw the shifter in Drive and floored it again. The tires squealed. Rubber burned. The van lunged a few inches then stopped—hooked on something. Metal screamed. I glanced in the mirror to see the geometric patterns of the cargo door, but they were all wrong. The lines were now angles.
Cold wind howled at me through the open driver’s door of the van.
I glanced at the left exterior mirror and saw—
Water.
Harsh. Forbidding. Gray with white caps. Water.
We were over Lake Superior. More importantly, the cargo door had torn free and now hung on an angle in the slipstream, a giant rudder creating immense drag on the airplane. The C-23 decelerated and yawed violently. I felt the pilot fighting the controls.
At the cockpit door, the aerodynamic forces pressed Danzig into his seat. He grabbed the doorframe with his left hand. Smoke rose from where his skin made contact. He jerked his hand free and found a new handhold over his head. He produced and raised the big revolver in his right hand.
I had just enough time to stupidly think, Maybe he’ll miss.
The g-forces on the aircraft abruptly increased. Danzig lost his balance and his aim. He twisted to shout at the pilot, but his words were lost in the roaring sound coming from the rear of the cargo bay.
The C-23 Sherpa pitched up. I saw sky through the cockpit door and the windshield above the instrument panel.
It was the van. The vehicle had been strapped down precisely against this horrifying possibility. Breaking it free and ramming it backward changed the center of gravity on the entire aircraft. Not even full down elevator applied by the pilot could overcome the uncontrolled pitch up. Seconds from now the cargo plane would stall and fall into an uncontrolled and violent descent.
I dove out of the van and slipped on the increasing slope of the floor. I went down.
“Grab them!” I shouted at Lillian. “Hard!”
Baker hooked his arms into a set of cargo straps hanging on the wall.
“Come with us!”
White terror bulged from his face. “Are you insane!?”
I didn’t answer.
I found my feet and plowed into Lillian and Wally who hugged Boyd between them. My momentum eliminated the question of a controlled exit. The impact hurled us to the cargo deck floor. Wally cried out. The nose of the aircraft rose higher. The deck grew steeper. The van scraped sideways. The front end slid across the cargo deck and slammed into the side of the fuselage where Baker stood, pinning him.
I pumped my legs, kicked, scraped, and pushed. The lip of the cargo bay where the door had torn from its hinges slid beneath us. Water, vast and wild, spread out. I shoved hard.
We fell.
FWOOOMP!
I pushed as strongly as I’ve ever pushed and clawed to hold onto Lillian and Wally with Boyd tangled between us. The roaring of the wind ceased. Twin turboprops screamed in vain as the pilots lost an impossible fight against a deadly out-of-balance condition.
The boxy cargo plane reared up and stalled, breaking harshly to the left. The violent turn snapped the van and the cargo bay door loose. I had time to wonder if Danzig might regain control now that the weight and balance of the aircraft had returned to within its limits. The answer came in the form of a deadly flat spin, from which there would be no recovery. Danzig had been descending, preparing to dump us at Point X. He had no altitude to save himself.
The plane spun on its axis twice before smashing into the churned surface of Lake Superior.
A strong wind grabbed us. Because we rode with it, the wind had no sound. With the airplane gone, only one impossible, unworldly, life-affirming sound filled the sky.
Inside our tight group hug, Boyd laughed his ass off.
61
Lake Superior doesn’t give up her dead.
Danzig’s words rang in my head. Looking down gave me no reason to doubt. The surface of the largest of the Great Lakes roiled and churned. Whitecaps raced across an ugly slate gray seascape. Wind tore away the tops of the waves and sent mist ghosts scurrying ahead. The sky around us carried uneven and ragged clouds. Mist draped the surface as if to stroke and soothe the stormy waters.
I maintained a tight grip on Lillian with my left arm and on Wally with my right arm. I felt Boyd in the center, held close by Lillian. Wally’s arms overlapped mine behind Lillian. The lake spread in all four directions with no sign of land. In our favor, we had good visibility except for low-hanging clouds and random pillars of falling snow. Being this close to the storm center meant high winds. I estimated that the wind carried us at thirty to forty knots. I tested my sense of direction and decided that the waves and wind both marched southwest, which meant we were being driven back toward Michigan, instead of north toward Canada. Danzig said that Point X lay forty miles north of Munising, a town east of Marquette. If that was true, and if we had been close to Point X, then we were less than an hour from the shore at this speed. I tried to recall if Munising had an airport but could not be certain. Not that we needed an airport for landing—or that we would even make landfall there. The northeast wind pushing us might send us to Marquette or into Keweenaw Bay. The jutting peninsula that formed the bay offered some comfort in that sooner or later this wind would put us over land.
The lake swallowed the crashed C-23. Danzig, Shotgun and Big Gun—along with the unfortunate lawyer Baker—were well on their way to a cold, dark bottom in a lake that would never return their bodies.
Serves them right.
I didn’t have to reach far for that bitter but satisfying sentiment. The fat grin Danzig wore when he described doing the same thing to us would stain my memory for a long time.
Despite the strong wind and rough waters, we floated in an eerie quiet, broken only by Boyd’s laughter, the incongruous sound of pure joy. I felt him jiggle inside our group hug. Lillian hitched and jerked several times. Sobbing? It was hard to tell. Emotion of any kind was hard to comport with someone I considered cold and a little inconsiderate.
“Everybody okay? Anyone hurt?” I asked after catching my breath.
“Okay,” Lillian said.
“Where are we?” Wally asked. His rasping voice sounded worse. I didn’t think Danzig added to his injuries or he would probably not be speaking at all. But I also didn’t think Danzig gave Wally aid or comfort.
“They planned to make us walk the plank around forty miles north of Munising, Michigan. I think we were close.”
“Is that Lake Michigan?” Wally asked.
“Lake Superior. Much bigger. Way nastier.”
“What do you…mean…” Wally asked, “…walk the plank?”
I gave a brief synopsis of Danzig’s plan. “A murder without a body is hard to investigate, let alone prosecute.”
“Maybe we can discuss this when there aren’t children present?” Lillian snapped. The take-charge tone I recognized was back. “Maybe right now Stewart you need to get us down on solid ground. My God! I had no idea you can do this with other people!”
“Apparently. I have no idea how many passengers I can take. It’s vital that we stay in contact. Nobody let go.” I flexed my grip for emphasis.
“And who are you?” Lillian asked. “Other guy.”
“That’s Wally,” I answered for him. “Don’t make him talk. He has three broken ribs and a punctured lung. His aunt was at the Tammy Day ranch. He went looking for her but ran into those guys instead.”
