Simon Morden - The Curve of The Earth

“You’re not even touching the controls!”

“Because hacking the autopilot is a hell of lot easier, especially if I have real-time satellite data to warn me what’s coming up. A human couldn’t do this, and that’s what I’m counting on.” The throttle stick automatically eased further forward.

“Did we steal this? Don’t tell me we stole this.”

“Newcomen, sit down, there or in the back. Just stop talking. When we’re in Canada, we’ll have all the time we need.”

The aircraft slewed to put Hansville on its left and Whidbey Island to the right.

[Air traffic control has just shut down the airspace over the whole of Washington State.]

The corner of Petrovitch’s mouth twitched.

“Does that mean they have no idea where I am?”

[Western Air Defence Sector is mobilised and operational. National Guard interceptors are being scrambled from both McChord and Fairchild.]

“Forget Fairchild, too far away. Tell me about McChord.”

[Three F-15s are held in combat readiness at McChord, and whilst almost museum pieces, they have look-down radar and air-to-air all-aspect missiles. They are more than capable of destroying this craft, and will be airborne in ten minutes.]

“Okay. That puts me just short of Canada. If I go straight, they can’t catch up before I cross the border. Doesn’t mean they won’t chance their arm, though.”

[I have already informed the Canadians that a possible incursion is imminent. They are making pre-emptive representations to the Pentagon.]

“I can’t get any lower without turning this thing into a submarine, and if those F-15s are the only thing I have to worry about, I’ll take her up another twenty metres and crank the engines up to eleven. Anything else?”

[The Naval Airbase on Whidbey is on alert, though it will take them longer to mobilise.]

“If I had the time, I’d give them a fly-by.”

He rounded the last headland. The foundations of the houses long since swept away flashed by at incredible speed. Vancouver Island was in sight, and there was nothing but clear sky behind him.

He blinked, and became aware of Newcomen sitting next to him, rigid with fear, barely daring to look.

“It’s all information hitting the back of your eyeball. It’s just a question of how fast it happens.” Petrovitch leaned back and flexed his fingers, ready to take the controls when he switched to manual. “We’ll get this executive penis-extension down safely somewhere, and we can take a look at what Buchannan gave you.”

Petrovitch set the plane down in a clearing, dropping from treetop to forest floor quickly as they were no longer under power: he had as much control over the vessel as he would a hot air balloon, and he’d rather not scrape the paintwork — or one of the antigravity outriggers — on a trunk.

He folded the undercarriage out, and it made uneven contact with the ground. They were listing slightly to port, but he was satisfied he could correct for that on take-off.

The instrument panel glowed with a soft pink electroluminescence for a moment after landing. Then it winked out.

Petrovitch blew out a thin stream of air between his pursed lips. “We seem to be still in one piece. Good.”

Newcomen peeled himself off the co-pilot’s chair. His armpits were dark with sweat. “That was terrifying.”

“You thought so? I quite enjoyed it. I lived mainly on adrenalin when I was younger, though, so maybe that has something to do with it.”

“Did we steal this?”

“No. I hired it. Technically, someone else hired it, because if I’d hired it under my own name, the computer would have flagged it up to the authorities. But it amounts to the same thing. I hired it, got it fuelled, filed an entirely bogus flight plan — which is a low-grade federal offence — and then took remote control of it after knocking out its automatic locator beacon, which is another one.”

Petrovitch looked around the cockpit and frowned.

“What?” asked Newcomen.

“It’s always worried me how wildly complicated these things are, when they should grow simpler the more advanced they get. All the pilot does is choose the direction, altitude and speed. That’s it, really. You might be interested in how fast the engines are turning and how much fuel you’ve got, but if you’re running hot or going to be out of juice before you reach your destination, the computer should tell you first.”

“Do you actually have a pilot’s licence?” asked Newcomen, “Or are you insane?”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive. And in the Freezone, we don’t do the licence thing. We concentrate on whether the man or woman at the controls is competent to make the flight.” Petrovitch slipped from his seat and started towards the small cabin. “Rely on a piece of paper to tell us if someone can fly? No thanks.”

Newcomen unbuckled his harness. Having struggled into it mid-flight, he now had to wrestle his way out. Petrovitch moved up the passageway, collected his carpet bag, and opened up the external door.

The scent of cold and pine burst in, and he breathed deeply, ridding his nose of the smell of his passenger’s fear. The forest seemed quiet enough: snow slipped off branches and birds called to each other through the dense green foliage. Apart from that, the most sound came from the cooling engines, ticking and clicking as the cowlings contracted.

A ladder unwound from underneath the opening in the fuselage. Petrovitch dumped his bag on the top step and collected it again when he was one foot from the ground.

He jumped. The undisturbed snow crunched and the leaf mould underneath gave. After their frantic escape, such stillness was welcome.

Newcomen appeared, blinking in the white reflected light. “Why are we going outside?”

“Because it’s nice out, and trees are opaque to infrared. Come on.”

Petrovitch tramped across the clearing and under the canopy of green. The forest was mature, and the trunks far apart, although they had to manhandle the overlapping branches in order to push through. When they were thoroughly embedded, and as far as Newcomen was concerned, completely lost, Petrovitch stopped and settled down on a mossy rock protruding from the carpet of soft brown needles.

Newcomen realised he wouldn’t be able to sit anywhere he wasn’t going to get his suit stained. So he stood instead, trying to shake the melting snow out of his shoes.

“Why did we run? I mean, we both know we’re going to end up in Deadhorse sooner or later. They’ll be waiting for us, despite this.”

Petrovitch opened his bag and started to sort through the equipment inside. “I hate being watched. I hate being controlled. Most of all, I hate being at the end of such unmitigated spite and obstruction. My girl is still out there, and I’m having to deal with all this govno .”

He found what he was looking for: a slim box with several slots in each side. He powered it up and gestured for Buchannan’s data card.

Newcomen reluctantly handed it over, and Petrovitch peered at it, checking it for spyware. It was clean, literally a dime-adozen standard data card that could be bought from any electronics chop-shop across America.

Petrovitch located the right hole in his card reader. A yellow light winked away on the box to show it was busy. While they were waiting for the data to upload, he closed his eyes and tilted his head back.

When Newcomen cleared his throat, Petrovitch tutted. “Shush.”

The yellow light was replaced by green.

“It’s done.”

Without opening his eyes, Petrovitch said: “There can be terabytes of data on each card. It all needs to be sorted and checked.”

“By you?”

“By a committee. It’s private information. If I need to know any of it, they’ll pass the relevant files to me.” He sighed and put the card reader next to him on the rock. “We value privacy much more than you do.”