Mistress

Chapter 16

Breathe in, Ben. Fly the plane.

Look around.

Wind out of the north. I need to find a field. This plane doesn’t need a runway, remember? That crazy kid from flight school landed his on the eighteenth green. Oh, how I’d love to be playing golf right now.

I have a rendezvous with Death

On some scarred slope of battered hill,

When Spring comes round again this year

And the first meadow-flowers appear.

Just find someplace flat, Ben.

I bank left, into the wind. At least my instruments are still working. For now.

Seat belt and harness tight. I can do this. Just like power-off landings during training. Except without the pesky runway.

I see a long stretch of two-lane highway, and I’m sorely tempted. No, Ben. Power lines. They’d tangle you up like a fly in a spiderweb.

The most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen appears in front of me-a level pasture, dead ahead. Never have I been so happy to see a bunch of cows.

I can make it. I prepare for landing: Airspeed down to sixty-five knots. Fuel shutoff valve on. As if that mattered. But an engine fire on landing would complicate things.

Focus, Ben. This can still have a happy ending.

Fly the plane. Flaps down. Airspeed to sixty knots.

I tune the radio to 121.5 MHz. That’s one I never thought I would see on the dial-the international aeronautical emergency frequency.

I open the frequency, and with a voice so calm that it doesn’t sound like my own, I say the words that haunt a pilot’s dreams:

“MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY. Watertown tower, this is Skyhawk three-one-six-zero Foxtrot. Repeat: Skyhawk three-one-six-zero Foxtrot with total engine failure attempting a forced landing in a pasture. Last known position 43º6′46″ north, 88º42′13″ west, at fifteen hundred feet, heading twenty degrees. One person on board. I require immediate assistance.”

The radio silence compounds the silence of the engine as the seconds tick away. Don’t panic, Ben. Fly the plane.

The radio crackles to life. “Cessna three-one-six-zero Foxtrot, this is Watertown tower. I read you five by five. Assistance is en route.”

Okay, great. Now, if you could please get here in the next five seconds and toss me a parachute.

The ground hurtles up at me-too fast, too fast. Flaps full down. Nose up, tail down. The wings groan in protest. That’s strange-I didn’t really notice that sound when the engine was running. Slow it down. Float, Ben. Don’t hurtle. Slow it down…but don’t slow down too much or you’ll drop right out of the air altogether and real damage will be done.

Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes-

I unlatch the cabin doors and lock them open so that when the frame is twisted on impact I can still get out. The door bangs deafeningly against the frame, flapping open and shut in the gusts of wind. The noise is a relief after the silence. The quiet engine, like the silence of death, with the wind whistling past.

Did you hear the wind, Diana, as you fell to the pavement?

Dammit, Ben. Fly. The. Plane.

I wait until the very last moment and pull up hard, just before my wheels hit the soft earth. The back wheels collide with the ground, then the front wheel. Perfect. It would have been a shaky landing on a runway, but I feel a premature rush of pride anyway.

Immediately, pride disappearing into panic, I bounce back up, still moving too fast to stay on the ground. Keep her level, Ben. The plane falls back to the ground again with a great thud, and I can see the black and white of the resident cows running frantically from the horrible sound of my Skyhawk skidding through their pasture. I slam on the brakes with every last ounce of strength I have. Full up elevator.

Oh, God, please stop please stop please stop. The noise is excruciating. The plane shakes and shudders so hard that sound and sight and smell and taste and touch all blur together. I stand on the brakes completely, straining against the seat belt and harness.

I hear the sickening shriek of twisting metal, and I suddenly slam forward, smashing my head into the instrument panel. The plane tilts suddenly to the left and the ground is shockingly close to my window. As if in slow motion, the wingtip scratches through the earth and shreds, cracking with the force of the impact. I must have lost a wheel back there. I skid forever, my eyes covered with my blood, and then everything goes black.

It may be he shall take my hand

And lead me into his dark land

And close my eyes and quench my breath-

It may be I shall pass him still.

“Hey, airman, you okay in there?”

I open my eyes, blink away the blood. I kick the door open and crawl out. My head throbs with every heartbeat.

My nose pricks up. I smell…kerosene. What the hell?

Kerosene?

I can see fuel dripping from the damaged wing.

I reach out and catch a few drops with my hand. Drops, like blood, forming a perfect sphere in free fall.

Murder can be made to look like suicide, and suicide can be made to look like murder.

Avgas, or aviation gasoline, should evaporate almost instantly. And 100LL-the kind of gas I use for this plane-is dyed blue. But the drops coming from the wing are not the right color. And they leave an oily residue on my hand.

This isn’t avgas. This is jet fuel.

One of the guys who rushed to help me says, helpfully, “Someone musta put jet fuel in your plane, son. Who’d do something dumb like that?”

I look at him and shrug.

It’s the right question. And it’s a question I intend to ask Jonathan Liu.