Douglas Preston - Gideon's Corpse

“Jesus,” he said. “We could have walked to Santa Cruz by now.”

“Don’t forget—this was your idea.” Fordyce peered out at the windsock, determining the wind direction. Then, goosing the engines, he slowly turned the plane.

“What if—” Gideon began.

“Shut up for a minute,” Fordyce interrupted, his voice thin and tinny over the plane’s intercom. “We’re doing a short-field takeoff and I have a lot to do if we’re going to clear those.” He pointed to a row of cottonwoods a thousand feet ahead.

Gideon shut up.

Fordyce spoke into his headset. “West Santa Fe traffic, Cessna one four niner six niner, taxiing onto active runway three four for takeoff.”

He adjusted his headset, did a final check of his seat belt harness and door lock, then released the parking brake and throttled forward. “West Santa Fe traffic, Cessna one four niner six niner, taking off runway three four, northwest departure.”

They flounced along the dirt, slowly gaining speed, Gideon holding on for dear life.

“We’re rotating at Vr, one twenty-five KIAS,” Fordyce informed him. “So far, so good.”

Gideon gritted his teeth. The bastard’s enjoying this , he thought.

Suddenly the shuddering and jouncing stopped and they were airborne. The prairie fell away below them and blue sky filled the windows. All at once the plane didn’t seem so cramped. It was agile and light, more like an amusement park ride than a lumbering passenger jet. Gideon felt a small thrill of exhilaration despite himself.

“Climbout at Vx,” Fordyce said. “One seven five knots.”

“What’s Vx?” Gideon asked.

“I’m talking to the flight recorder, not you. Stay shut up.”

They climbed steadily, both engines working hard. When they reached four thousand feet, Fordyce took out the flaps and throttled back to cruising speed. The little plane started to level off.

“Okay,” he said. “The captain has turned off the ‘no talking’ light.”

Takeoff safely past, the engines dialed back to a drone, Gideon almost believed he could enjoy himself a little. “Are we going to be flying over anything interesting?”

The plane suddenly gave a lurch and a rattle, and Gideon gripped his armrests in terror. They were crashing. Another lurch, and another, and he could see the landscape sawing back and forth below them.

“Touch of turbulence at this altitude,” said Fordyce easily. “Think I’ll take her up another thousand.” He glanced over at him. “You okay?”

“Fine,” said Gideon, with a forced smile, trying to relax his steel fingers. “Just fine.”

“To answer your question, we’ll be flying over the Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon, Death Valley. We’ll refuel at Bakersfield, just to be safe.”

“Should’ve brought my box Brownie.”

The plane leveled out at the higher altitude, which seemed to be free of turbulence, smooth as silk. Gideon felt a growing relief.

Fordyce pulled a set of aviation maps from his briefcase, placed them on his knees. He looked at Gideon. “Got any ideas about what we should look for on this little trip?”

“Chalker wanted to be a writer. The fact he went to this writer’s conference after getting religion showed it was one of his few interests that persisted post-conversion. Maybe he wanted to write about the conversion itself: remember, the conference was about autobiographical writing. If he gave a copy of a manuscript to someone at the conference to critique—or if someone remembered what he read aloud at a seminar—that might be interesting.”

“Interesting? It’d be dynamite. But if it exists there’s probably a copy on his laptop, which means there are a thousand people in Washington reading it already.”

“Probably. Maybe. But not all writers use computers for their work, and if there was incriminating stuff in there he could very well have erased it. Anyway, even if it’s on his computer, do you think we’ll ever see it?”

Fordyce grunted and nodded. “Good point.”

Gideon settled back in his seat, distractedly glancing at the brown-and-green landscape drifting away beneath them. After a slow start, their investigation was finally picking up—the wife, the mosque, Blaine, and now this. He had a tingling feeling that somewhere, somehow, one of those leads would bring them to a pot of gold.

He was on a magic carpet, floating gently through white-cotton clouds on gossamer threads. Warm breezes, too low and soft to make any noise, caressed his face and teased his hair. The carpet was so smooth, its movements so soothing, it seemed he was not moving—and yet, far below, he could see the landscape passing beneath him. It was an exotic landscape of glittering domes and spires, wide lush jungles, purple fields sighing their vapors to the sky. Far above, the distant sun threw benevolent rays over the tranquil scene.

And then the carpet gave a sudden, violent lurch.

Blearily, Gideon opened his eyes. For a moment, still in thrall to the dream, he reached out as if to grasp and steady the fringes of the carpet. Instead, his fingers encountered metal, knobs, the smooth face of a glass dial.

“Don’t touch that!” Fordyce barked.

Gideon sat up suddenly, only to be restrained by the seat harness. Immediately, he remembered where he was: in a small plane, heading for Santa Cruz. He smiled, remembering. “More turbulence?”

No answer. They were flying through some bad weather, it seemed—or was it? He suddenly realized that what he thought were clouds were actually gouts of thick black smoke billowing out of the left engine, obscuring the view outside.

“What’s happened?” he cried.

Fordyce was so busy he didn’t answer for ten seconds. “Lost left engine,” he replied tersely.

“Is it on fire?” The last clinging remnants of sleep vanished, replaced by sheer panic.

“No flames.” Fordyce slammed a lever down, worked some switches and dials. “Shutting off fuel to the engine. Leaving electrical system on—no sign it’s electrical, can’t afford to lose avionics and gyroscope.”

Gideon tried to say something, found he had lost his voice.

“Don’t worry,” said Fordyce, “we still have one engine. It’s just a question of stabilizing the plane with asymmetrical thrust.” He worked the rudder, then glanced quickly over the controls. “Monkeys find pussy in the rain,” he muttered slowly, then repeated it, like a mantra.

Gideon stared straight ahead, hardly able to breathe.

Fordyce paid no attention to him. “Primer locked,” he said. “Transponder at emergency squawk.” Then he pressed a button on his headset. “Mayday, mayday, this is Cessna one four niner six niner on emergency channel, one engine out, twenty-five miles west of Inyokern.”

A moment later there came a crackling over Gideon’s intercom. “Cessna one four niner six niner, this is Los Angeles Center, please restate your emergency and your position.”

“One four niner six niner,” Fordyce said, “one engine out, twenty-five miles west of Inyokern.”

A brief pause. “One four niner six niner, Los Angeles Center, closest airport on your current heading is Bakersfield, runway sixteen and thirty-four. Airport thirty-five miles out at ten o’clock.”

“One four niner six niner,” said Fordyce, “heading ten o’clock for Bakersfield.”

“Squawk seven seven hundred, and ident,” came the voice from Los Angeles Center.

Fordyce pressed a button on the console.

“This is Los Angeles Center. Contact at thirty-four miles out from Bakersfield.”

The thick smoke had diminished somewhat, and Gideon could see that the sky had clouded over. The land below was foggy and indistinguishable, just the occasional patch of green revealed amid tufts of gauzy gray.