andyjohnston

My takeoff and return to Katmandu was a lot smoother. The landing, not so much. From there it was into a 747 where I was given a plan to follow, it was almost 10,000 miles long. I had to put down at Eareckson to refuel, by that time I was running on fumes. I'll see how far I can get before stopping again.

Thank you, I appreciate the feedback!

Sure enough, the next morning there was a helicopter waiting, and it was no Robinson. As the team piled in, I whispered a few silent words to encourage myself. Takeoff was not terrible, and for the most part the flight wasn't bad either. At least that's my story. Approaching the designated co-ordinates, I found I was way too close, way too high, and going way too fast. I had to circle around and give myself an extra few miles to try again. The landing was hard and I overshot the field, coming to a stop just before hitting the trees at the perimeter. As the team jumped out I heard someone mutter "If they didn't already know we were here, they know now." An accurate assessment of my ability to fly this helicopter. What happened next, I'll never know exactly. Only a few minutes passed before I hear gunfire. Imagine all those movies you've seen where the Seal team moves in, except this was much more real. And scary. It didn't last more than a few minutes, then I saw the team coming back across the field, dragging an extra person wearing an orange shirt with a bag over his head. As they climbed onboard, someone tapped me on the shoulder. "Go, go!"

We refueled again in Russia, then made it all the way to Katmandu. We had enough fuel to go around if required, but we couldn't have diverted. Luckily the weather wasn't bad. It was after dark, and I was surprised when they told me they wouldn't be going until dawn. I found myself a place to spend the night. I wouldn't call it a hotel, more of an inn. As I was closing the door, one of the guys asked me an odd question. "Have you ever flown a helicopter?" I was shocked because it was the first time any of them had asked about what I knew how to fly. "Sure," I said. "I've flown some Robinsons and stuff like that." "Hmph," he snorted. "I'm not talking about a Robinson."

I can imagine you're thinking "here we go again." How do you think I felt? I won't bore you with the meeting that took place in the bowels of the United Nations building. Suffice it to say this time no one batted an eye when I entered the war room. Before long I had been shipped over to La Guardia where I took their team out in an Airbus. Destination? Katmandu. Why Katmandu you ask? Because it seems they want me to go as far out of the way as possible. The flight is only about 9000 miles. Somewhere over northern Ontario one of the engines cut out and needed restarting. After that the plane was pulling to the right and I seriously considered diverting to another location except even then the closest airport I was at all familiar with was an hour away. Once I had it stabilized, I decided to push on instead, and after a bit figured out that somehow, the plane had used up all the fuel on the left side first instead of pulling from both equally. Very odd. I decided to land in Inuvik to refuel. I'm sure it's the biggest plane to land there in a long time.

I've been through some stuff which have made me a pretty terrible sleeper. And yet when I got home, I slept. Like I used to back in the old days. After a few days, I was back at work. Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months. Life was quiet. I liked it that way. One day, I was flying into New York again. It's not rare, I go through there all the time. The aircraft I was in was practically empty, no passengers or cargo. Just myself and a few crew members. One of them was Amanda. She was a flight attendant who loved to use the old Lethal Weapon line about how she was too old for this...stuff. She was in the cockpit with me as we joked about whatever it was, when a surprised look crossed her face. "Oh," she said. "I almost forgot. Just before we took off, someone gave me this, and asked me to hand it to you." She pulled a little envepole from her pocket and handed it to me. I opened it up to find a piece of stationary inside with a hand written note. "Job isn't done, you know what to do."

There's something I've learned over the almost quarter of a century I've been flying. People think that if you're a pilot, you can fly anything. As such, I was once again horrified to find the next ride they had set up for me: We flew in formation to Straka's airfield to take it out. Okay, everyone else would fly in formation, I'd do everything I could to end up in the right place at the right time. When it was my turn to take to the runway, I powered up and before long found myself climbing to a ridiculous altitude. I adjusted the throttle and dropped back down, following my wingmen as I poked the buttons on the panel hoping to figure out how to make things work. I did manage to change the brightness on the heads up display. We flew to the field and I just had time to catch a glimpse of it over my shoulder before it erupted in flames. Then I turned around. Once again I found myself climbing uncontrollably. Just short of 70,000 feet the plane ran out of speed and dropped. I couldn't control it as it flopped around falling 25,000 feet in the next few minutes. Through absolute dumb luck, I was able to get the aircraft to settle down, then navigated back to the field we had taken off from using the time-honoured tradition of "point where you want to go and hope for the best." I cleared the runway and once I was out of the plane I learned they had no further use for me at the moment. But, I was told, I could expect to do more work for them in the future, so they agreed to fly me home. I got home and the next time I logged into my bank noticed they had paid me. $1.00, minus tax. Which made me think of the time that...well, that's another story.

"So...I'm done now, right?" With raised eyebrows, Samuelson and the other (who's name I still didn't know) looked at each other. Finally he spoke. "No, you aren't done." Under my breath, I swore. "In fact, we may just need you now more than ever." Exactly what I didn't want to hear. The next morning I was at JFK with the rain pouring down in front of an aircraft anything like I'd ever seen. I boarded and took my seat. After a while, the plane started to move, and the liftoff was one of the smoothest I'd ever felt. We turned to follow the course and I relaxed in my seat. But it was only a few minutes later that I heard the engines spool up again as I was pressed back into the seat. It was shortly after I was given the option of going up to see the cockpit, like I might say no! The flight lasted a while longer, until we finally descended and landed, coming to a stop much faster than I thought would be possible.

When you fly as a passenger on a plane rather than as the pilot, you just sit back and relax, it's boring. Just the same, I was happy to get in to New York, where I caught a cab to the UN building. I pulled out my phone and brought up the list of recent numbers. The one I had been given was practically right at the top. it seemed as though so much time had passed when it had only been a few days. I pressed it. The first time I had called, and answer had come immediately, this time the phone rang several times. "I wasn't expecting to hear from you so soon," came a familiar voice. "Yeah, well, there's been a bit of a...snag." I think you'd better come in, you know where the door is." Indeed I did, so I went around to the side where I'd ben before, and took that same long elevator ride down. Samuelson was waiting when the doors opened.

As I left Central America, I really didn't have any idea what I could do, other than retrace my steps. I set a course for Dallas Love, but after a while began to doubt I had enough fuel. So instead I changed destinations to Miami. I landed and called the police. With a dead body in the back of the plane, there wasn't much I could say. I gave as much of my story as I could without revealing anything I thought might be considered secret. After a number of hours, and leaving my contact information so they could reach me to ask more questions, I found my way to the airport. On the plane, I finally was alone with my thoughts. David Straka, it was a name everyone knew. One of the most ruthless drug kingpins in the world. And I had stood not more than a few feet from him while he murdered Luis in cold blood.

A long trip, time for a nap.

The number two engine caught fire part way through the flight, and I used my little GPS unit to find us the nearest place where we could set down. The landing was terribly bouncy, the plane ran off the runway but came to a stop before hitting the trees. It was getting dark by then as Luis and I wandered along the field. A noise it the distance caught our attention as a small aircraft landed and taxied over to the remains of our plane. We got close just in time for the door to swing down, and Jefe stepped down with his pilot. He strolled across the grass to meet us before giving Luis a hard look. "You were supposed to get in this evening. I have a deadline to meet." "Yes Jefe, but we couldn't help it. It was the plane." "The plane, the plane," Jefe mimicked him. He pulled a gun and pointed it at Luis. "I hate it when people disappoint me." We circled each other slowly while Luis begged Jefe not to hurt him, switching between English and Spanish. After a few minutes, I was closer to the plane than anyone else. Luis's hands were held high as I glanced between Jefe and the pilot. "No no no no," Luis was saying and then an incredible bang filled my ears. I'd never heard a gun fired before, and it was much louder than what you hear in movies. Luis spun around and I caught him before he fell, rushing him to the steps of the plane, which I pulled up behind us. I ran to the cockpit and started the engines, through the window I could see Jefe pointing at me. But he didn't fire, I wondered if he didn't want to hit the plane. I put the flaps out and jammed the throttles forward, and the plane jolted. Jefe had to jump to stay out of the way. I pulled back on the controls and left the field behind. I set the autopilot before hurrying back into the cabin where Luis was slumped in on of the seats. I grabbed him. "Are you okay?" Luis tried to speak but nothing came out. "Just hang on, I'm going to get us some help." With a grimace, Luis shook his head and took my hand. With his last breath, he whispered two words which chilled me to the bone: "David Straka."

Another aside, still enjoying? Thoughts? It takes a lot to come up with ideas. I have something coming up, but not sure how to get there. Be patient.

Luis gave me few other frequencies until we landed at a small strip on the eastern coast. The plane came to a halt as I pulled off into the grass. Luis lowered the door and a small number of people were already approaching him. They slowed as they saw him, although they seemed to be a bit suspicious of me coming up behind. Luis passed into the small crowd, speaking a few words to the different people there (my Spanish consists of the words "si" and...not a lot more.) Finally, he stopped in front of one individual who had dark hair and a dark moustache, with a much lighter complexion that the others . He waved me forward and I joined him. "This is Jefe," he said. I admit that it was another of the few words I knew. Jefe wasn't a name but a title identifying him as the boss. He nodded in my direction. "You ready to work?" To my surprise, he didn't have any trace of an accent, he sounded more like an American than anything. "Of course," I said. He looked back at Luis. "Start loading the plane." Luis nodded and gave me a quick look before turning away. Jefe looked in my direction. "Goodbye," he said. I got the hint and turned back toward the plane. I climbed back up into the cockpit as several workers loaded boxes into the cabin.

When I landed, I was greeted for the first time by someone who was willing to speak to me. "Hello, so glad you made it." He was a little over five feet tall with short dark hair and an accent so thick that sometimes it was hard to understand him. "My name is Luis." Luis led me to where an old DC-3 sat in the grass. I climbed into the pilot seat, and Luis sat next to me. He pulled out a piece of paper. "Here are the instructions I am to give you. You are to go south-east to the two-six-zero endeb." "The what?" "The endeb," Luis repeated. I took the paper from his hand and read it for myself. "The 260 NDB." Luis shrugged. "I am not a pilot, I don't know these things." "No problem." I taxied down to the active runway and took off, setting the simple autopilot to go to the south-east. I used the pitch control to maintain about 10,000 feet. A few gusts of wind really knocked us around shortly after takeoff, and I was glad to be wearing the seat belt. Luis was as well, but for a few minutes he looked a little green. I was tempted to ask him to go elsewhere if he was going to throw up, but I bit my tongue. In the end it wasn't required. "Luis, can you tell me what's going on? I have no idea what's happening." Luis crinkled his brow. "I can tell you some," he finally said. "There is a drug ring operating here, and the United States government wants to stop them." "And me?" "You will act as a pilot, they won't suspect you." I was worried, and I'm sure it showed on my face. "There is no reason for concern. As far as they know, you are nothing but the pilot who is there to help out."

I felt Matthews's neck for a pulse, though I knew I wouldn't find one. By that time I should've known what would happen next, but I wasn't watching as the pickup truck pulled up beside me. It was old, red and heavily rusted. "Get in," the driver said as he leaned out the window. He was at least as old as the truck, with a grey beard, and wrinkled hard skin on his face. I did what I was told, and he silently drove me to a spot at the field where a small jet waited. I climbed aboard and waited for the driver to follow, but he didn't and pulled away. I hadn't noticed before but the truck belched out a lot of exhaust, and made an incredible racket as it drove. Alone, I wandered into the cockpit. A flightplan was already loaded into the GPS, and I got the hint. It would take me down into Central America. The autopilot was the most ridiculously awful system I'd ever had the misfortune of dealing with, and I had to fight with it a lot. The flight gave me time to think about my situation. Why was I bothering to do all this? Someone with my qualifications could easily get a job...in the average fast food chain. I sighed.

Just an aside, is anybody actually reading this? Should I continue?

You know that old cliché of "it was quiet, too quiet." That's how I felt. I could hear Matthews tapping on his phone, and wondered what new orders he might be getting. The answer came pretty quick. Without warning, the engines fired up again as Matthews swung us around 180 degrees onto the runway. We were airborne almost before I had a chance to wonder what was happening. We passed downtown, and then the plane banked sharp to the right. Matthews pulled back hard and the G-forces sucked me into the seat. I could hardly breathe, and just a my vision started to go dark, the pressure relaxed as the plane turned inverted. We were ridiculously close to the ground, and then a roaring filled my ears. The plane's nose dropped and we were going down even further. I grabbed the stick and jammed into one side until the plane was right side up again before pushing the throttle forwards and pulling back. "Matthews, are you okay?" I yelled into my headset. "Luke?" There was no response. I pressed the button on the display in front of me that showed all the nearby airfields. Going back to Dallas Love was the closest, it was almost right underneath us. But I had never landed a plane like this, I could hardly see over the panel in front of me. I flew past the airport while gaining altitude before turning back. I was going to have to make a steep approach if I wanted to be able to see. How I managed to get it down in one piece, I'll never know. I opened the canopy and climbed around to Matthews's seat, where he was slumped with blood pooled around the right side of his neck. I looked at the glass and it didn't take long to find the single bullet hole.

We were a bit out from our destination when Matthews told me to take control of the plane before switching off the autopilot. It was the only chance I was going to get to practice. I tried, without much success, to hold a steady altitude until Matthews drew my attention to the map on one of the displays. "That's where we're going, take us down." I played with a few buttons and got the display to show me the ICAO of the field, KDAL, which I recognized to be in Dallas. I pulled the throttle all the way back and the aircraft settled into a gentle descent. It didn't take long for me to figure out that I was going to have to dive a lot steeper to make it. I extended the spoilers, which caused the nose to rise at first as the speed bled off. Then we were dropping. Ten degrees, fifteen, even then I knew it wasn't enough. I could see the field just a few miles away at my two o'clock, so I pushed the nose down and rolled to the right before pulling back hard on the stick. We got down to about 3500 feet before I retracted the spoilers again and gave it a bit more power. "Okay," Matthews said. "I have a better view of what's in front of us, so I'm taking control." He called the tower and was cleared to land on 31L. the landing way not terrible, though we skidded as we exited the runway, I thought we were done for. Obligatory image, self portrait of me imagining what I must have looked like realizing I was being put in charge of that plane.

I'm not proud of what I did to Matthews, but I freely admit it. I laughed, in his face. "I've never flown anything like this," I said as he climbed into the forward seat. "You'd better learn fast, cause neither of us have a say in the matter." Despite myself, I got into the rear seat just as Matthews nudged the craft forward until we were lined up with the runway. "You have the aircraft," he said. I wasn't sure what to do. But I put the flaps to half and pushed the throttle lever all the way forward. I had no idea what the speeds were for this plane, so I gave a guess and pulled back on the stick. It lifted off and I retracted the flaps and gear. Matthews went about setting the autopilot and we were off to a destination I still didn't know.

We passed through the door at the end of the hall to a room with so many computers it might have been mission control,. All conversation in the room faded away as I was led to the front, where I was looked up and down by someone with a bunch of stars on his sleeve. "I suppose you know why you're here?" he asked. "I don't have a clue." "What? You haven't been briefed?" I shook my head and he rolled his eyes. "Follow me." He led me to a tiny office off to the left of the room, and closed the door on Samuelson, who attempted to follow. "We have an ongoing mission down south, and we need someone who won't be too conspicuous to help us out. You'll be told what to do only on a need to know basis. Don't ask questions, just follow orders." He opened the door and bellowed out, "Matthews, get in here!" Another soldier appeared. "This is Captain Matthews, he'll be flying with you. Go!" I was pushed out of the office, and Matthews led me back into the hall. As we walked along, he tried to be a little more friendly. " Luke Matthews," he said. "We need your help, and we'll be relying on you." Soon we were back above ground and in the helicopter as Matthews gave me directions as to which way to go. We climbed above the buildings of Manhattan and over to a smaller airport on the Jersey side of the river. I think it was Teterboro. We landed, and as I shut the helicopter down, he climbed out before turning to me. "I want you to wait here. Just so you're aware, it may be a while." That was an understatement. As the time dragged on, my eyes got heavy, and I eventually dozed off if the pilot seat. I awoke to the door being opened, and the sky was already a little light. Matthews led me around the corner of one of the buildings where a small jet waited.

It was after dark by the time I arrived in New York, just a little before 10:00. I landed and immediately got myself into something to take me to the destination. The flight only took a few minutes. When I landed I didn't know if anyone would still be there. I dialed the number. "Took you long enough. Don't move." With that the line went dead. I waited about two minutes when a man dressed in an army uniform appeared next to the helicopter. He was about the same height as me, and he reached out one hand as I climbed from the chopper. Once I was on the ground he offered a half-hearted salute. "Lt. Samuelson," he said. "Follow me." He wasn't much for conversation. Ignoring the main entrance, Samuelson led me to a door around the side of the building, and as we passed though we were in a small foyer with elevator doors ahead. He pressed the button and the doors slid open immediately. You know how on tv and in movies elevator rides take so long people can have entire conversations? Ever been in an elevator that took that long? Me neither. Until now. Samuelson pressed one of only two buttons and we started down. It was a long ride, and I began to worry. Finally, the doors slid open and Samuelson led me down a long corridor.

My phone is not real good with encrypted e-mails, and this one was no different. It took me a few tries to get it open, but eventually it worked. There was much in terms of information, but the basics were to get to the United Nations building in New York and call the number they gave me. What could go wrong?

Getting airborne again out of Portland was surprisingly easy, it just took a little pressure on the pedals to keep the plane from drifting off the runway. I turned north and flew to 5000 feet before switching the autopilot on. Nope, that's not going to work. It didn't take long for me to learn that I was going to have to turn it off and climb some more to avoid the terrain. I got a little lost headed for Seattle, I'd forgotten the frequency and had actually been following the Vancouver VOR for a little while before realizing I was going to the wrong place. Wait...no...I meant to follow it to give myself a challenge. Yeah, that's it. Anyhow, after a while I got headed in the right direction, and managed a landing. A very rough landing where it was so lopsided I'm surprised I didn't end up ripping the left wing off. But I made it. I taxied over and parked, heaving a sigh of relief. As I relaxed, I pulled out my phone and checked my e-mail. Mostly it was spam, I don't know how they got my address. But one item wasn't, in fact it was encrypted as secret...

Somehow I managed to coax the plane all the way to Portland. With a little working the controls, I was able to sort of line with the runway Although the landing wasn't completely smooth, and the right tire touched before the left. Any landing you can walk away from, right? I've still got a bit to go, I'm hoping for the best!