Gregg Loomis - Gates Of Hades

A flicker of a needle caught his eye. The left fuel gauge was bumping against the empty peg. Gas gauges in airplanes were notoriously inaccurate; hence the visual check of the fuel level before takeoff. Still, the wing tank could have taken the hit he had heard. He quickly searched the floor between the two front seats and found a lever for each tank. He switched the left engine to feed from the right tank. He was unsure exactly what that would do to the balance of the aircraft, but better another unknown than the certainty of a fuel-starved engine.

Squinting, he peered into the blue haze. Clouds made dark patterns on the water easily mistaken for islands. Each form had to be examined closely. Where he was headed, he would quickly run out of altitude at a mere thousand feet. The mountains were some of the Caribbean's highest.

In a pocket in the door beside him was stuffed a tattered map, a color chart published periodically by the United States government's Coast and Geodetic Survey. Jason unfolded it carefully, fearful it might tear. To his pleasant surprise, the side that did not show part of the Turks and Caicos depicted the north coast of the island of Hispaniola. It was well out-of-date-he would riot be able to rely on the printed radio frequencies-but he had no intent of making contact with facilities that could well have been alerted to the theft of the airplane. The depiction of the physical shape of the coastline, however, would be valuable.

He glanced up from the map in time to see shadows ahead coalescing into a definite form. A strip of foamy white surf along a golden beach confirmed his arrival. The question was, exactly where?

He turned to fly almost due east along the coast and passed over what was clearly a resort area. A golf course was laid out amid a jungle; the blue of a swimming pool twinkled in the sun. He was low enough to see people on the tennis courts. A few minutes headed the other way and he was over a finger of land running east and west. It took only a glance at the map to confirm he was over the Samana Peninsula of the Dominican Republic's north coast. Now to find a place to land.

There were several airstrips carved into the jungle, distinguishable from roads only by their straightness and the fact that one or two aircraft were visible on the ground. Tempting, but Jason decided not. Leaving a stolen aircraft where it likely would be found would start a trail he would prefer did not exist.

He descended slowly, his eyes on the beaches below him. Over a slight ridge, a muddy river formed a small delta along the coast. As far as Jason could see, there were no roads or other signs of habitation nearby, probably because the silt from the river's mouth spoiled the beach for swimming and sunbathing.

With one eye on the airspeed gauge and the other on the altimeter, he entered a lazy downward spiral. He made one final check, a low pass over the coast to spot rocks or other obstructions along the beach, before he lowered the gear and let the flaps back down. With the wheels hanging in the airstream, the Piper settled faster than Jason had anticipated. He was reluctant to add power, which would increase speed, which, in turn, would extend the length of beach required to stop. He eased back on the controls until the stall warning's bray began.

With a nose-up attitude, the Aztec slammed its wheels into sand that felt far less solid than it looked. There was the sound of tearing metal and the plane dipped to the left as it careened across the beach toward the river. One of the gear struts had collapsed. Now Jason was a mere passenger with no control over the aircraft. He could only flip off the power switches and hope.

The plane took a couple of spins before the left wing dug into the riverbank and came to a tooth-jarring stop.

Either the frame or the door had been bent, because Jason had to put his back against the exit and use his feet against the other side of the Piper to force it open. Panting with exertion, he dropped into wet, cool mud.

His shoes, still without laces, were underwater, invisible in the brown flow. Holding on to the crippled plane, he climbed onto the bank and surveyed his location. Palm trees screened anything more than a few yards behind the beach. Unless someone happened to be flying along the coast, he doubted the Piper would be seen for some time. Within a day or two, it was likely the force of the river might push it underwater, where it would never be found.

He sat, took off his socks, and wrung them out before putting his shoes back on and beginning what he knew would be a long trek to the resort he had seen. Before rounding a curve of the beach, he stopped and took one last look at the little twin engine.

Old pilots' lore: any landing you can walk away from was a good one.

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Two nights later

The warm night air brought whiffs of salsa music from the band on the beach sixteen stories below the balcony of Jason's hotel room. He could also hear party voices, although he could not tell if the words were in Spanish or English. He had had a spicy Spanish dinner, the name of which he could not remember but one he suspected he would continue to taste for hours, if not days. He had washed the meal down with several El Presidentes, the light Dominican lager. If he was going to make the early flight out in the morning, he needed to go to bed soon.

But he really didn't want to end the evening. He had never been in a city quite like this. He had been to tropical climates before, in the slums of dusty settlements on the Horn of Africa, where the rodent population outnumbered humans and the smell of rotting garbage and open sewers were strong enough to make the eyes water. If he had been lucky, he had arrived by aircraft, fixed-wing or rotor. More often, he and the members of his six-man Delta Force squad had reached their destination by parachute-HALO

(high altitude and low operations)-at night into leech-ridden Asian jungles where the night brought fever- bearing mosquitoes that filled the moisture-laden air with buzzing, and where cotton uniforms were always damp.

The enemies he had been sent to bring out or leave for others to bury frequently did not live in the resort spas of the world.

Santo Domingo had the same humid air Jason associated with snakes, insects, and rot. But here, the night's fragrance hinted at tropical flowers. Here in the city, he had seen more high-rises than tin-roofed hovels. Cars filled streets lined with high-end shops. People smiled at one another and laughed a lot.

Sort of like an egalitarian St. Barts with a Latin beat.

The band below launched into a samba, and Jason took a sip from the Brugal rum and tonic he held.

The old life was behind him. Instead of risking his ass for a soldier's pay, he was rich. Instead of chasing petty warlords, he sought the major pooh-bahs of world-stage nasties. He could afford good hotels and flew first-class only, thank you.

He thought of the Aztec and the cashier's check he had instructed his Swiss bank to send its owner to cover any insurance deductable. Mostly first-class, anyway.

The bigger the game, the higher the stakes. No matter how high, he'd trade it all for a final five minutes with Laurin, a chance to say a proper good-bye rather than wait for a cup of coffee that never came.

The rum, he guessed, was making him maudlin. High stakes, big money. Had he been asked to, he would have hunted at his own expense the animals who killed the innocent. He had a major score to even. Moslem fundamentalists with a hijacked airplane, a shadowy group who killed those who earned a living in a manner they didn't like. Terrorists were terrorists whether using a bomb or a secret weapon. Jason would take pleasure in eradicating them like the vermin they were.