Kevin Anderson - Ill Wind

Parked in the weedy gravel lot, his black jeep was plastered with muck from a weekend of four-wheeling around dry Owens Lake. He loved doing doughnuts out in the brackish standing water and spraying salt and powder in a rooster-tail behind him. He didn’t want to waste time washing the jeep right now, but he knew how much damage the alkali mud could do to his paint job. With a little time until the preflight briefing, Bobby decided to use the base’s self-service wash three blocks down the street.

Bouncing into the driver’s seat, he poked his keys into the ignition and tried to start the jeep. The engine barely turned over, and when it caught, the jeep rattled as if it were running low on gasoline. The gas tank read full; he had filled it up after returning late last night. Bobby frowned. He smelled a faint odor of rotten eggs.

Bobby nursed the chugging jeep along the street lined with old barracks buildings and a small BX. He parked in the service station lot crowded with the hodgepodge of other vehicles. He swung out of the jeep and jogged inside the station. A female captain and two men out of uniform stood in line at the service desk; another two women—wives of enlisted men—sat in chairs in the waiting area.

Bobby listened to the mechanic taking information from the first customer. The phone rang, but the attendant ignored it. Bobby glanced at his watch. The two women sitting in the plastic chairs looked impatient and surly, as if they had been here a long time. He sighed. He would have to leave the jeep here and walk the couple blocks to base operations for the flight. He regretted not being able to wash the mud off, but it was only a jeep, not a Jag. Jeeps were supposed to get dirty.

The service attendant looked harried. “Got five people ahead of you, Lieutenant,” he said with surprising courtesy. “Don’t know if we can get to it this morning.”

“Can I leave it? I’m gone for the week.”

The attendant shoved a triplicate repair sheet across the desk. “Sure. Fill it out on top and sign here.”

Bobby scribbled his name and details about the jeep. “Looks like you’re pretty busy. What’s up—two-for-one special?”

“You tell me. Started this morning. If I didn’t know better I’d think we got some of that bad batch of gasoline, but our gas comes from Bakersfield, not the San Francisco refineries.”

Bobby dug into his flight suit for the keys. He tossed them across the counter. “I’ll be back on the 9th.”

Outside, he retrieved his flight bag from the driver’s seat, pulled the canvas cover over the top of the jeep, and started walking down the street. The way his luck was going, Corpus Christi would probably be hit with a hurricane when he was halfway there, and he’d have to divert to Del Rio instead….

Squadron headquarters was a long one-story building painted white to reflect the sun. The squadron mascot, a Tasmanian Devil with an arrow through its head, was painted on the cinder-block outside walls. Inside, photos of old F 4s taking off from a wooden-decked aircraft carrier, a lumbering P 3 flying patrol over the ocean, a pair of F 14 Tomcats launching missiles hung on the walls. At the end of the hall a set of doors led to the ready room, weather unit, orderly room, and the CO’s office.

Entering the preflight area, he saw Barfman in a gray flight suit hunched over a chest-high table, drawing with a red magic marker. Maps, computer listings, and Notes-To-Airmen covered the bulletin boards.

“Just finishing off the flight plan, Rhino,” Barfman said. “I want to go before the hunger pains start. Ready to head out?”

“Yeah,” said Bobby. “My jeep conked out on me, had to leave it at the service station.”

“From what I heard in the ready room, you’re lucky they even put your name on the waiting list. Base motorpool is backed up, and they’re refusing to take any more vehicles.”

The memory of that guy running out of gas in the Death Valley desert raced through Bobby’s head. “Is there some sabotage going on around here or what?”

“Yeah, it’s some new Commie secret weapon. Magically exchanges the engines of American-made cars with top-of-the-line North Korean jobs. That’s why everything’s breaking down.”

Bobby swung his flight bag to the foot of the table. “Thank you for explaining. Now let’s book out of here before they cancel our flight.”

“Hey, I’ve waited three months for this cross country. No way am I going to let a bad batch of gasoline put a hold on my vacation.” Barfman pushed a sheaf of lined papers over to Bobby, folding open to the right page. “Log in the flight plan and I’ll check with Weather.”

Bobby looked over the route Barfman had outlined in marker. They were set to make the trip with an intermediate stop at Nellis AFB in Nevada, just outside of Las Vegas. They probably could have stretched the hop to El Paso, but if they broke down, spending time in Las Vegas was preferable to the Texas border town any day….

“Ah, Rhino, got a little problem here.” The sound of Barfman’s voice crackled through the white-noise roar of the jets.

It took Bobby a second to snap away from a daydream of sea breezes, warm sand, and a Gulf shrimp dinner. They were no more than an hour out of Las Vegas, heading across the blistered barren desert of central New Mexico. Cramped in the cockpit of his one-man fighter jet, Bobby bent to pick up the handset. He clicked the radio, using the frequency he and Barfman had agreed on.

“What’s up, Barfman?” He spotted his partner’s A/F 18 Hornet two miles ahead of him. Frosty white contrails streamed from the engine in the cold thin air.

“I show a faulty pump indicator. Doesn’t look good.”

“Try Emergency Repair Procedure number 1,” Bobby said.

“I already tapped the damned dial. It’s not a faulty reading.”

“How’s your flow rate?”

“Next to nothing. I got a sluggish response on the controls. Something’s not hooked up the way it should be.”

Bobby scanned his own instruments in the cockpit. Everything looked fine. “What do you think?”

“Well, I’d say I was running out of fuel—but we just tanked up at Nellis. Can you zoom up here and give me a once over? Is one of my tanks leaking?”

Bobby squeezed his transmitter twice to click off an acknowledgment, then pushed the throttles. He felt an immediate surge as the engines gulped more kerosene-based JP 4 fuel. Pulling back, he slowed to match Barfman’s velocity and inched toward the A/F 18. He circled the fighter, craning his neck to inspect it. “Negatory, Barfman. Can’t see anything wrong.” He started to move behind his partner’s aircraft when he glanced at the altimeter. “Hey, watch your altitude.”

“I’m losing airspeed,” said Barfman, his voice grim.

“You ready to declare an emergency?”

He waited, listening to the static. “Ah… not yet,” Barfman said at last. “But we’d better find someplace flat to put this baby down.”

“Rog,” said Bobby, feeling a mixture of relief and deeper concern. “You keep her flying, I’ll check things out.” He eased back on the throttles.

Bobby reached into the leg pocket on his flightsuit and pulled out an airfield map of the southwestern states, unfolding it against the cramped front panel of the cockpit. Smoothing the map, he scanned it for the nearest runway, but saw nothing close. He clicked the radio. “Doesn’t look good, Barfman. I’m calling the cavalry.” Bobby glanced at his INS—the Inertial Navigation System—before calling. On their routine flight path, they had been handed over to the Albuquerque regional FAA control center some minutes before.

Barfman acknowledged only with two clicks on the radio, no words at all. Bobby swallowed. Barfman must be having a much harder time than he realized.