Runaway Heart

THIRTY-NINE

Jack accessed the Ten-Eyck Indian reservation Web site. The cartoon Indian with the peace pipe on the welcome screen was probably designed before Izzy's Bel Air record career blossomed.

A map of the reservation indicated it was, as Izzy said, way out past Indio. The exact location was in the Joshua Tree National Forest, which sounded shady and restful, unless you realized that Joshua trees were actually misnamed cactus plants with no leaves and covered with thorns.

After he located the seventeen-hundred-acre plot on a California road map, Jack bought the cheapest digital camera he could find at Good Guys, then drove out to Van Nuys Airport and cruised around until he found a small, oddly named charter service called Air Jordan.

It was run by an overweight gray-haired woman wearing Ray-Bans, named Jordan Phoenix, which sounded to Jack like a misplaced desert monument. Jordan-who liked to be called "Jordy"-had small planes for rent. A few were in Jack's limited budget range. He picked a fifteen-year-old Cessna 185 at one-fifty an hour. After being assured that the plane was "top-notch," he watched with concern as Jordy, who it now appeared was also going to be his pilot, walked around and did a preflight check, which consisted of rattling control surfaces, then banging her fist a few times on the engine cowling. When she saw the look on his face she quipped, "Wakes up the birds that nest in the carburetor." Then she got in and motioned to the seat next to her.

"Okay, honey, fly your ass right on up here and drop anchor." No doubt about it, Jordy was a pip.

"Contact," she bellowed in a voice that would blow the fur off a cat. Then the Cessna burped to life.

Jack decided to try to break the ice. "Must be pretty exciting, being a pilot."

"Not if I do it right," she deadpanned.

They taxied out toward the runway. Jordan keyed her mike, identified herself as November-eight-six-eight-Charlie-Bravo, and started talking to the Van Nuys tower. They were cleared for takeoff, and in a few minutes they were streaking down the runway and lifting off into the Southern California smog. The wings immediately started jitterbugging in unstable, choppy air.

"I'm gonna get up over this chop at ten thousand," Jordy shouted at him. "Air's a little thin, but I hate flying through Indian country at standard altitudes."

"Indian country?" Jack yelled back, wondering if she was talking about the Ten-Eyck reservation.

"Yeah, it's what we call all this airspace between here and San Bernardino." She smiled. "Buncha dentists out here flying around in Cherokees and Apaches. Most docs can't fly for shit. I hate it when they park their birds in my front seat."

"In that case, don't worry about oxygen. Go as high as you want, I'll hold my breath."

She nodded, keeping the 185 in a steep climb.

She was right. There were a lot of little planes. Some were flying in circles, practicing maneuvers, others were just sightseeing.

Once Jordy was at altitude, the San Bernardino Flight Center routed them in tight behind an American Eagle twin prop shuttle. After fighting his slipstream for a few miles, Jordan keyed her mike and asked San Bernardino Flight Control for more separation.

A frustrated and overworked air traffic controller came back at her immediately: "If you want more room, Captain, push your seat back."

"Asshole," she muttered.

There were enough comics up here to book an open-mike night at the Comedy Store. Soon they were out over the desert past Indio and turning southeast. Jordy called air traffic control to discontinue her flight plan. She notified them she was going to visual flight rules and dropping to two thousand feet.

"Roger, eight-six-eight-Charlie-Bravo," the traffic controller said. "But, if you stay on that heading, in twenty miles you'll be over a Code Sixty-one."

" San Bernardino Center, that's not on my map."

"Roger, Charlie-Bravo, this is a new directive. One month old. Turn right at Longitude one-one-six point seven and notify Palm Desert Flight Control. Good day."

She looked over at Jack.

"Trouble?" Jack asked, reading her look.

"Yeah. That place you wanna go look at is in restricted airspace. Code Sixty-one is a military no-fly zone."

"How close can you get?" Jack asked.

"Not very."

They flew out toward the reservation, but before they could see much of it Jordan banked right and flew along the perimeter of the restricted area.

"This is my hold point," she said.

"What happens if you just do it anyway?"

"I'd have to trade in this Cessna for a taxicab."

"They'll take your license?"

"And feed it to me."

While they were flying along the perimeter a Blackhawk helicopter suddenly appeared on their starboard side. In the open bay door of the huge military chopper were several men dressed in black helmets and SWAT gear. In a side door, behind a fifty-caliber machine gun, sat a waist gunner. The pilot waved Jordan off. The two aircraft flew on the same heading only about thirty feet apart.

Jack took out his digital camera and photographed the Blackhawk. As soon as he did, one of the SWAT soldiers flipped him off. Then Jack aimed the camera at the terrain to the east. Somewhere out there in the desert beyond their hold point was the Ten-Eyck Indian reservation. He took a few more shots, hoping he could blow them up or digitally enhance them and maybe discover something.

Suddenly the door gunner let loose a short burst of tracers that didn't hit the Cessna, but streaked past the nose about forty or fifty feet in front.

"That's it. I'm gone." Jordan made a circle motion with her hand, and the pilot of the Blackhawk waved back and nodded. Then she banked the Cessna and headed back to L.A.

"Sorry," Jordy said. "But I ain't looking for no fifty-caliber renovations. Not much else I can do."

Jack was shaken by the incident.

When they landed at Van Nuys there was a windowless van parked out on the tarmac. Jordan Phoenix shut down the Cessna, and as they climbed out, the doors of the van opened, revealing four men in plainclothes and blue wind-breakers. They jumped onto the tarmac and headed toward the plane. Jack recognized one of the men from the stairwell at Mrs. Zimbaldi's apartment. He turned, looking for an escape, but two other men were already walking toward the plane from the hangar on the right, two more appeared from behind a fuel truck.

The plainclothes feds pulled out Berettas. No lasers this time-just good, old-fashioned, Italian hardware.

One of the men, who was tall and lean with a dark Hispanic complexion, spoke: "Get down on your face, please."

Jack assumed the position. They frisked him, but he wasn't packing. His hands were cuffed and he was yanked quickly back up to his feet.

"Federal arrest," the Hispanic man said, showing a badge to Jordan, who was standing there looking at them through her Ray-Bans, her sun-dried complexion as expressionless as theirs.

"You boys can have him, but he still owes me for two hours of flight time." Jordy was a good pilot, but pretty much worthless when it came to backup. "Two hundred an hour for two hours, fifteen minutes," she calculated, adding fifty bucks to their hourly agreement.

Somebody reached into Jack's back pocket, pulled out his wallet, and extracted cash. "You oughtta have a discount when your clients end up in handcuffs," Jack groused at her as they pulled a hood over his head and pushed him toward their van.

"Renting airplanes is like renting sex," Jordy said, counting her money. "It's expensive, and someone is always keeping track of time."

The case was really starting to piss him off.