Once A Spy Part 14

'Okay,' he said, beckoning the team.

Charlie was last onto the empty terrace.

'Now to the tennis courts,' Drummond said, starting toward the path. The 'news radio' helicopter sat quietly on the far court.

'Can you hot-wire a helicopter?' helicopter?' Charlie asked, curious as much as anything. He took it for granted Drummond could pilot one. Charlie asked, curious as much as anything. He took it for granted Drummond could pilot one.

'Most helicopters don't require keys,' Drummond said. 'There's nothing to*' He was interrupted by a loud and spine-chilling rifle bolt lock-and-load.

Charlie turned around slowly, as did Drummond and the doctors and nurses. The older of the two backgammon players stood in the library doorway, eyeing them down the barrel of an enormous rifle*quite possibly the one used to bag the elephant in the entry hall. He said, 'Those of you who would rather not be on the receiving end of an eleven-millimeter round, place your hands in the air.'

Isadora's Colt was tucked into Charlie's waistband, beneath his gown. He raised his gloved hands because, like the doctors and nurses, Drummond was raising his.

Swinging the rifle toward Drummond, the backgammon player asked, 'Are you pretending not to remember me, Drummond?'

'I think you've mistaken me for someone else, sir,' Drummond said, his voice raspier and a half-octave lower than usual.

Not a bad play, Charlie thought. In all the surgical garb, Drummond could be almost anyone.

'It's Carlton Otto, old man,' the backgammon player said. 'I was on the plane that got you out of Ulaanbaatar!' He called into the library, 'Archie, where in the blazes is security?'

This was the kind of luck that caused veteran gamblers to leave the profession, Charlie thought, when the palm of Drummond's right glove exploded into rubber sc.r.a.ps. A bullet*somehow he'd maneuvered the barrel of his gun into the glove*flew high, smas.h.i.+ng apart the transom. Glittery shards rained onto Otto, sending him sprawling back into the library.

Charlie looked on in wonder. At the same time, like the doctors and nurses, he dropped to the flagstones in fear of return fire from Otto's veritable cannon. Another shot by Drummond kept Otto inside.

But the escape plan was in critical condition: From the clubhouse roof came a siren*a fusion of whine and honk so shrill that Charlie wasn't sure whether it was an alarm or a weapon. Inquisitive members appeared at windows overlooking the terrace.

Drummond scooped Charlie up from a flagstone by the nape of his gown. 'Push the gurney to the helicopter,' he shouted over the siren. 'I'll cover you.'

The heavy gurney would turn what might be a ten-second dash down the winding path into a gravel-ridden ordeal. 'But the doctor game's up,' Charlie reminded him, hoping he didn't require the reminder.

'We need him,' Drummond said of Cadaret.

Charlie couldn't imagine why. But on account of all the other things he'd experienced today that he would have thought unimaginable, he demurred.

20.

While sliding Cadaret's bulk from the gurney and onto the cabin's bench seat, Charlie watched Drummond free the rotor blades from their restraints, leap through the right c.o.c.kpit door, and strap himself into the pilot's seat without glancing at the complex seat belt. Instead he swatted switches on the overhead console, illuminating the instrument panel. Cadaret's bulk from the gurney and onto the cabin's bench seat, Charlie watched Drummond free the rotor blades from their restraints, leap through the right c.o.c.kpit door, and strap himself into the pilot's seat without glancing at the complex seat belt. Instead he swatted switches on the overhead console, illuminating the instrument panel.

Charlie took a moment to marvel: Just yesterday, he'd thought parallel parking was his father's greatest skill.

Turning his attention to the instrument panel, Drummond became a flurry of switch throwing. With one instrument came a loud, harsh drilling noise. He pulled one of the headsets from the overhead center post and popped the cups over his ears.

Worming his way from the cabin into the c.o.c.kpit, Charlie didn't need to be instructed to do the same. The headset reduced the remaining second or two of drilling to a mild drone. He heard clearly as Drummond explained, into his pipe-cleaner microphone, 'That was the fuel valve, a dead giveaway someone's about to take off in your helicopter.' With a wispy grin he indicated the clubhouse. 'Unless you can't hear it over your rooftop alarm sirens.'

Charlie smiled*the revelation that his father had a lighter side was almost as startling as the revelation that he was a spy. Fastening himself into the copilot's seat, Charlie had the sensation of sitting beside someone he'd just met for the first time.

Although this was Charlie's first time aboard a real helicopter, PlayStation's version had familiarized him with some of the controls, including the cyclic, the stick that tilts the rotor blades in order to direct the s.h.i.+p, as well as the collective, the big lever between the pilot and copilot seats that governs ascent. Drummond rolled the motorcycle-handle-style throttle atop the collective, then placed a finger on the starter b.u.t.ton. Charlie a.s.sumed Drummond would now press the b.u.t.ton, the engine would bellow, the s.h.i.+p would throb, and they'd bound into the sky.

But Drummond had more switches to flick and b.u.t.tons to press. Other than the toggles overhead labeled FAN and XPNDR*which Drummond avoided*Charlie couldn't guess their functions. ENDCR? RMI? INV? Most of the dials and gauges and other gla.s.s bubbles on the instrument panel had no labels at all.

When Drummond finally pressed the starter b.u.t.ton, the engine whine drowned out the siren. Now everyone on the club grounds knew both precisely where Drummond and Charlie were and what they were up to. Still, the s.h.i.+p sat on the tennis court, with Drummond continuing to tweak the instruments.

Helicopter takeoff wasn't as simple as PlayStation portrayed it, Charlie thought, or even as simple as an Apollo launch. Unless one of Drummond's blocked mental channels was to blame.

'Would there be a way to speed things up,' Charlie asked, 'if, say, hypothetically, more bad guys were about to show up any second and shoot at us?'

Drummond tapped the temperature gauge. 'Overheating during the start can cause catastrophic engine failure, which would be worse.'

'Sorry, don't mind me,' said Charlie. Feeling his face redden, he turned away, focusing intently on the altimeter.

It read 0 feet, of course.

Drummond cracked the throttle. Fuel howled into the engine. The rotors awoke. The blades tingled. The helicopter went nowhere. Drummond was fixated on the temperature gauge.

Charlie noticed a flash of light from the terrace. Without ado, Drummond jerked open his window, drew his gun, and fired. More than a hundred feet away, a guard grabbed at his shoulder and toppled over the bal.u.s.trade. A rifle fell from his hands, its scope catching the sunlight and replicating the flash Charlie had seen a moment ago.

'Forgetting how you even spotted him, I wouldn't have thought that shot was possible,' Charlie said.

His attention back on the instrument panel, Drummond said, 'The hard part is acting like I do it all the time.'

No, Charlie decided, definitely not the same guy he'd known from 1979 until today.

Four more guards had streamed out of the library, rifles in hand. Drummond glanced from them to the temperature gauge. Of the two, the temperature gauge appeared to trouble him more.

'No choice now,' he grumbled.

He snapped two more switches and wrenched the throttle. The engine responded with a roar. The blades reached full chop, raising dirt and gra.s.s all around. He jerked up the collective. With it went the nose, followed by the skids. Every part of the s.h.i.+p down to the lug nuts trembled.

'Let's get some air,' he said, punching the cyclic.

At once it seemed like the s.h.i.+p was falling upward. Past the clubhouse. Past the treetops. Into a white explosion of sunlight.

On the terrace, uniforms billowed in the helicopter's wash as the men traced the path of the helicopter with their rifle barrels. Their muzzles lit up like flashbulbs. With white knuckles, Charlie grabbed onto the center support strut and braced for the bullets.

They struck immediately, but without the rammed-by-an-asteroid effect he'd expected*it was more like birds pecking at the fuselage.

After five or six such pecks, a rope of blood whipped past his eyes, splattering against his window and peppering his face with warm droplets. He looked anxiously to the pilot's seat.

Drummond was unscathed. 'Our pa.s.senger,' Drummond explained, with a tilt of the head. 'Upper thigh, apparently not serious, thankfully.'

Charlie turned around to see Cadaret stirring, as if in the midst of a bad dream. The seat cus.h.i.+on beneath him had turned crimson. Beyond basic humanity, Charlie wasn't sure why Drummond cared. He decided not to distract him with questions.

The pecking continued. Charlie held his breath, if only because it allowed him to do something besides thinking about a midair explosion.

The pecks dwindled as the helicopter continued skyward. When the altimeter read 1,700 feet, the guards quit altogether.

Charlie took a deep breath of the cabin air. It was rich with the waxy aroma of aircraft hydraulic fluid people often a.s.sociate with going on vacation. He admired the plush carpet of treetops below. The old yellow general store appeared quaint. The rhythmic thumping of the rotors became a song of respite.

It was interrupted by a sickly gasp from the engine.

Abruptly the s.h.i.+p yawed to Charlie's side. The first aid box on the wall behind him popped open, raining supplies. Everything else that wasn't tied down, including Cadaret, drummed the right wall. Charlie grabbed a strut to keep from hanging by his straps.

Drummond maneuvered the cyclic control stick and worked the foot pedals, but he couldn't right the s.h.i.+p. His eyes mirrored Charlie's bewilderment.

'What was the thing I was worrying about?' he asked.

The timing was so preposterous that Charlie wondered whether Drummond's newly debuted lighter side included practical jokes.

That notion died as the engine fell quiet, and in its place came a loud, high-pitched horn. The row of warning lights over the instrument panel blazed red, as did the temperature gauge. The flapping of the blades began to slow, to sickening effect. And that was nothing compared to the ground racing nightmarishly upward. The air rushed past like fighter jets.

Any panic Charlie had ever felt before was an itch compared to this.

Fighting it, he took hold of the collective from Drummond, who slumped in his seat, stupefied. The lever felt like it had been fixed in concrete.

So much, Charlie thought, for his familiarity with helicopter controls. He had a better chance of landing a car from a thousand feet.

He expected scenes from his life to flash before his eyes.

Cadaret surged from the cabin. Although woozy, the killer squeezed through the gap between the pilot and copilot seats, then dove, slamming the collective to the floor.

'Right pedal!' he screamed to Drummond.

'Yes, yes, thank you,' Drummond said, stomping his right foot pedal.

With a groan, Cadaret grabbed Drummond's knee. He manipulated Drummond's foot as if it were a marionette, reducing pressure on the pedal.

Although the gauges still indicated the engine was dead, the rotor blades sped up. Their rich buzz returned. The s.h.i.+p entered a steady glide.

Charlie's jubilation was tinged by disbelief. 'How is this possible?'

'Autorotation,' Drummond said, as if recalling an old friend.

'Yeah,' Cadaret said, pulling back on the cyclic. 'Still we're going to dig a giant hole in the ground unless we can slow the h.e.l.l down.'

The helicopter's nose b.u.mped up and the flight path flattened out. The vertical speed indicator dropped to 1,100 feet per minute, which sounded like a lot but didn't feel it. Charlie suspected he'd been in faster elevators.

'Not bad,' said Cadaret. 'Now if she'll just level off a wee bit more, c.o.c.ktails are on me once we*'

Out of nowhere a tall pine tree bit into the helicopter's Plexiglas winds.h.i.+eld. Green needles that felt like nails filled and darkened the cabin. Charlie s.h.i.+elded his eyes. There wasn't time to think past that. The s.h.i.+p bouldered through branches. The main rotor was snagged by the tree trunk and snapped off. A stout bough peeled away the roof. The ground hit like a giant mallet.

21.

A surrept.i.tious peek into the Waynesboro Airport air traffic control database suggested the helicopter had dropped precipitiously within a thirty-mile radius of the Monroeville club. Front Royal, Virginia, the nearest town, was a likely place for Drummond to surface if he survived, and Fielding had a feeling that he had; the old man had a knack for it. peek into the Waynesboro Airport air traffic control database suggested the helicopter had dropped precipitiously within a thirty-mile radius of the Monroeville club. Front Royal, Virginia, the nearest town, was a likely place for Drummond to surface if he survived, and Fielding had a feeling that he had; the old man had a knack for it.

Fielding drove down Royal Avenue, the two-lane main drag, pa.s.sing non-brand-name fast food restaurants and two-story federal buildings that had been nice, once. The glory days of this little burg had come to an end fifty years ago, he estimated, based upon the chipped and fading Coca-Cola advertis.e.m.e.nt on the side of a vacant bank.

He pulled his rented Chrysler into a parking s.p.a.ce in front of the Rose & Crown. The century-old tavern exuded cheery light, warmth, and tinny Sinatra but little of the usual barroom chatter. Parked in the vicinity were just three cars, all of which looked like they belonged to old men.

Fielding would have enjoyed going in for a rum or two and a cigar nevertheless, but he'd stopped only to see if anyone else would do the same. The pickup truck that had been behind him zoomed past.

He backed out of the spot and circled back to the top of the block. He parked among the relative crowd of vehicles outside his actual destination, Eddie's, a tin-sided boxcar diner. He sprung out of his car and, although he had a pocketful of change, bypa.s.sed the meter, where two hours cost a dime.

Inside the diner, many of the old checkerboard floor tiles were missing. From behind a chrome cash register dulled by years of grease, a fossil in a chili-speckled white ap.r.o.n nodded a welcome. Fielding tipped an invisible hat in response. A mailman and two mechanics or plumbers sat at the lunch counter, which was equal parts Formica and cracks; the men were pontificating about the coming Bowl games. The tables were a third filled by the range of the local social spectrum. Fielding, who was only recognized in towns with glossy society magazines, drew looks from most of the patrons, but none conveying familiarity, fortunately.

He approached a window booth, where a prematurely gray itinerant business type with a dour expression was eating alone. Eyeing his bowl, Fielding asked, 'How's the chili?' He waited for the correct response.

'Best I've had in years,' the man said. 'The guys at the counter told me Eddie's arm hair is the secret ingredient.'

'How could anyone resist after hearing that?' Fielding sank into the cus.h.i.+oned bench across from the onetime Green Beret who went by Bull.

'Honored to meet you, sir,' Bull said, reaching across the table.

Fielding shook his hand, cold and clammy from nervousness. Fielding engendered this reaction often*and after all these years, he still got a kick out of it. 'So let me guess,' he said. 'The rent-a-drones are still only giving us nature footage?'

The drones were five-inch-long robot reconnaissance planes the Army had in development at Virginia Tech, where the director of the Center for Objective Microelectronics and Biomimetic Advanced Technology was hamstrung by three alimonies and two child support payments. He had been happy to 'lend' the drones to a 'visiting researcher' in exchange for a 'donation.'

'Just the dense canopy of treetops so far,' Bull said. 'No helicopter or any sign of it, if that's what you mean.'

'I was hoping for a picture of a five-foot-eleven man with white hair.'

The former soldier looked away. 'I'm afraid all we've come up with is a signal from the beacon in Cadaret's wrist.w.a.tch.'

'What's wrong with that?' Fielding asked.

'If the rabbit had been thinking clearly, the first thing he would have done is toss that watch out of the helicopter. Or toss Cadaret.'

'But the rabbit isn't thinking clearly.'

Bull lowered his voice. 'Sir, he took out five professionals, escaped from the Monroeville club, and stole a helicopter.'

'That stuff is second nature to him,' Fielding said. 'If he'd been thinking clearly, he would have taken out the five professionals then simply picked up the phone and dialed Burt Hattemer.'

Bull input a hasty message on his BlackBerry. If any of the diners saw, they would take the display for an online simulcast of a hockey game with digital stick figures representing the players. A few keystrokes and clicks later, he told Fielding, 'Okay, two of the hounds are on their way to the wrist.w.a.tch.'

22.

When Charlie awoke, he felt like he was floating in the air with thousands of diaphanous bits of light in orbit around him. He'd previously thought seeing stars was just the stuff of cartoons. It was the most magnificent and glorious experience imaginable, he decided, when* awoke, he felt like he was floating in the air with thousands of diaphanous bits of light in orbit around him. He'd previously thought seeing stars was just the stuff of cartoons. It was the most magnificent and glorious experience imaginable, he decided, when*WHAM*he found himself p.r.o.ne on the cold forest floor.

The stars were gone, replaced by trees as far as he could see, and it felt like his head had absorbed the majority of the helicopter's impact with the ground.

He tolerated the pain to take inventory of himself. His mouth tasted of dirt. His nostrils were caked with it. His skin was burned and sc.r.a.ped in multiple patches. The rest of him stung. Although slick with blood, his appendages remained attached. Incredibly, everything seemed in working order.

Fifty or sixty feet away, Drummond was pacing by what remained of the helicopter. The crumpled fuselage lay on its side, looking like it originally had been constructed of papier-mache. Drummond appeared to have suffered only sc.r.a.pes. Of course, if half his ribs were broken, would he show it?

His gun was trained on Cadaret, who sat in the dirt, arms behind him, wrapped around the trunk of a tree and bound at the wrists by wire*probably from the helicopter. Blood trickled from his mouth, welling at his collar.

'Who hired you?' Drummond asked. His eyes were still sleepy, and he spoke clumsily, hunting for words as if English were foreign to him.