D. MacHale - The Never War

A few times I looked back to check on Gunny. The poor guy was having a rough time. His face looked green, but he still gave me a brave thumbs up. At one point I wondered if Gunny thought the thumbs up meant “I’m going to puke again,” because that’s pretty much all he was doing.

They didn’t have radio beacons or radar back in those days. All Jinx had to navigate was a compass, her eyes, and a great sense of direction. As it turned out, she had been down to Lakehurst before, so she knew what landmarks to follow. I think back on that flight and I realize that Jinx’s cockiness was deserved. She really was a great pilot. It was too bad nobody recognized her for it.

There was one whopper of a hairy moment that still makes my palms sweaty when I think back on it. We had been flying for almost two hours. That was bad. The flight was taking way longer than Jinx figured. It was because of the weather. We were fighting head winds the whole way. I was getting more anxious by the second.

We then entered a huge cloud bank. This was the darkest, longest one we had been in yet. I kept looking ahead, praying to see light on the far side that would mean we were about to break out. But it wasn’t coming. This cloud was huge. No sooner did we enter than we were pelted with more rain. Remember, we were in open cockpits. When it rained, we got wet. We had to keep wiping off our goggles or we would have been totally blinded. I kept reaching forward to wipe off the glass shield in front of Jinx so she could see better. Total waste of time. Visibility was pretty much zero.

I had just finished wiping off the windshield and sat back in my seat, when I saw something that made me stop breathing. There in front of us, only a few yards ahead, was a sight so unbelievable I thought I was imagining it. But I wasn’t. It was a giant, floating, black swastika on a white circle, surrounded by a red field.

“Look out!” I shouted.

Jinx banked the plane hard to the right. The engine groaned, the g force built up so hard that I was crushed back into the seat. I think our wings went vertical. I shut my eyes, ready for the collision, but it never came. Jinx had dodged it. It wasn’t until a second later that I realized what we had nearly hit.

It was the tail of theHindenburg.

It had crossed right in front of us. We didn’t see it because of the cloud, and we didn’t hear it because our own engine drowned out its engines. I swear, we couldn’t have missed it by more than a few inches.

Jinx looked at me and smiled. “That was exciting.”

Exciting. Okay, that was one word for it. I looked back at Gunny…and he wasn’t there! My first thought was that he had fallen out. But a second later he sat up and looked at me with watery eyes. He had been doubled over, losing it once again. He couldn’t even give me the thumbs up this time. The poor guy wouldn’t be the same until his feet were back on solid ground.

“Does that mean we’re getting close to the field?” I shouted to Jinx.

“We’ve still got a few minutes,” Jinx shouted back.

That’s when we finally blasted out of the cloud bank. I looked down to the ground and saw something that made me sit up straight. It was a long, silver bus moving along the narrow highway. This was a pretty empty section of New Jersey. There wasn’t a whole lot of traffic down here. I motioned for Gunny to look down.

“Could that be the bus Spader is on?” I shouted.

Gunny looked, then nodded and gave the thumbs up. Either this was the bus, or he had to puke again. I figured it was the bus. It was a huge stroke of luck. If we could get to Spader, we could stop him from going after Winn Farrow. Then all we would have to worry about was Max Rose. I quickly turned to Jinx.

“You gotta put us down,” I shouted.

“What?” she shouted back. “Why?”

“We’ve got to get to that bus!” I shouted over the roar of the engine.

Jinx looked down at the ground. She banked the plane right, then left, so she could get a view of the landscape.

“Can’t do it, Pendragon,” she shouted back. “There’s no place to put down.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I’m sorry. I would if I could,” was her answer. “I won’t be able to land until we get to the air station.”

That would be too late. I needed to get to Spader now, before he had the chance to mess with Winn Farrow’s plans. Stopping him was going to be half the battle. This could very well be the critical moment of the mission. I didn’t want to blow it. There had to be a way.

A few seconds later, it came to me. I once again remembered an adventure I had with Uncle Press. Like I wrote before, I now understood that he was preparing me for my life as a Traveler. I learned a lot of skills through him, and I was about to put another one to use. The idea scared me to death, but I knew I could do it. I had to.

“Fly ahead of the bus,” I yelled to Jinx.

Jinx didn’t question. She gunned the throttle and shot forward. I glanced over at the plane’s altimeter to see we were flying at three thousand feet. I then asked her, “Are these parachutes okay?”

She gave me a sideways look and said, “Of course. I packed ‘em myself. Don’t worry, you won’t have to use it.”

That’s where she was wrong. ”Thanks, Jinx. Make sure Gunny gets to the airfield,” I said.

Jinx gave me a strange look. She had no idea what I was talking about. I turned back to Gunny and shouted, “I’ll see you at the airfield.”

Gunny gave me a strange look. He didn’t know what I was talking about either. How could he? There was no way either of them would think in a million years that I was about to do what I was about to do. I glanced at the altimeter and saw we were still at three thousand feet. That was plenty high enough to make a safe jump. At least that’s what the book said. Before I had the chance to convince myself I was being an idiot, I clicked out of my seat buckle and turned to Jinx.

“Thanks for the ride, Jinx,” I said.

“What are you doing?” she shouted back, stunned.

I showed her. With one quick move I launched myself up and out of the cockpit. A second later I was freefalling through the clouds, really hoping that Jinx was as good at packing parachutes as she was at flying airplanes.

Before today I’d jumped out of a plane exactly three times. Each time I had other, experienced divers with me and always used a static line. That was a line on my ripcord that stayed attached to the plane. After falling for only a few seconds, the static line automatically pulled the ripcord and the parachute came out. I think they do that with new divers to make sure they don’t freak and forget to pull the cord. Yeah, right, like there’s any chance ofthathappening.

Now, jumping out of Jinx’s plane, I was totally on my own. I thought back to all the instruction I’d had. I was taught proper body position and how to sight objects on the ground and all those things that had to do with good form. But as I plummeted away from that plane, all thoughts about good form went right out of my head. All I wanted to do was get down alive.

A second after I left the cockpit, I yanked on that ripcord as if my life depended on it, because, well, it did. I was three thousand feet in the air and dropping fast. This was dangerously low, but if the chute opened the way it was supposed to I’d be fine. I’m happy to report that no sooner did I pull that cord than I felt the familiar tug of the chute and shroud lines being quickly pulled out. Lucky for me, Jinx knew how to pack a parachute. Phew.

Two seconds later I was floating lazily under a beautiful, round white canopy. I looked up to see that the chute was fully open and all the lines were clear. Believe it or not, that’s when I got scared. When I decided to jump from the plane, I bolted so fast I didn’t give myself time to think about what an idiotic move it was. Now I found myself floating through a thunderstorm. Judging from the bright shots of lightning that were tearing through the sky around me, I’d be lucky to get down to the ground without being flash fried. It wasn’t like I could do anything about it though. I had to take deep breaths and force myself to calm down.