The Plan

Chapter 48.

MILO DULEO HAD SEEN MORE THAN HIS SHARE OF DEATH. He'd learned to fly in the Navy. He'd had the dangerous but important job of monitoring the Russian-Afghanistan war in his supersonic high-flying Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. He would streak off at stratospheric heights, the wing cameras whirring as he took surveillance photos along the Afghanistan border. He had been shot at dozens of times but had finally gone down when he got jumped by a squadron of Yakovlev 38s. He'd been taking an adrenaline ride against orders, streaking low through narrow valleys, the huge rock outcroppings racing past on both sides. Before he knew it, he was dodging ASM rockets and, finally, took one up the tailpipe and had to eject over hostile territory. He'd been lucky and run into a Mujahedin scout patrol, and was returned after two months to his carrier. He'd been asked to stand for a naval review and was found to have lost his aircraft unnecessarily. The decision ended his gonzo years. He found a home in commercial aviation, but grew bored with it and took a job flying Joseph Alo's Lear-55. With the Alos, he was occasionally asked to do some dick-puckering work, and he lived for those jobs… Like the time they'd grabbed a black drug dealer with the unlikely name of Napoleon Outlaw and pushed the sorry son of a bitch out of the Lear without a parachute, forty miles out over the Atlantic Ocean… Not exactly the same as dodging MiG-29 Foxbat missiles, but at least with the Alos, he still had a chance to pump a little joy juice.

Milo was looking forward to tonight's flight as he packed his jump chute and prized Heckler and Koch MP-5 submachine gun with the retractable stock and rotating rear sight cylinder. He loaded his gear into his black Range Rover and took off for the Providence executive terminal, where Pulacarpo Depaulo and Anita Farrington Richards were scheduled to arrive just after dark. The only tricky part was getting aboard unobserved. He had asked Mickey to rent a Lear-55 because he was familiar with the avionics, and if it was locked, he could access the cabin through the rear luggage compartment. The plane would be parked at the terminal, and because of the cold weather, he figured the pilots would be in the lounge drinking coffee. He should be able to scale the fence and get to the plane without difficulty.

It worked pretty much the way he figured. Milo jumped the six-foot fence and moved quickly across the tarmac and opened the rear luggage compartment. He unscrewed the panel that accessed the toilet. Within minutes, he was in the back of the plane. He shinnied into the small head, sat on the toilet seat and replaced the panel. Once it was secure, he remained there with his parachute and backpack duffel on his knees.

At nine-fifteen, he heard the door of the plane being lowered and the two pilots talking.

"What's wrong with her?" one of them asked.

'Then Milo heard the thick Italian accent that he recognized as Pulacarpo's.

"She's a' got too much'a to drink. I'm'a bring da car out so we get her in'a plane much bets' a"

Sitting in the small rest room Milo pulled the machine gun out of the top of his bag.

"Did you see her out there in the car? What the hell's wrong with her?" one pilot asked.

"If she's sick and gets in trouble while we're flying, we're gonna have an insurance claim, sure as shit. You better call the office and find out what they want us to do.

Milo opened the door and stepped out into the cabin with the H amp;K MP-5 on his hip. The two pilots turned and saw him standing behind them. Their expressions registered shock.

"Why don't you two sky kings go on up and start the preflight, okay? Anybody gets loopy, I'm gonna take him out," Milo said softly, his adrenaline giving him a rush.

"You shoot that in here, you break this bird's skin; we'll never get off the ground," the taller one said to him.

"Bullshit… Guess what, Sky, I'm qualified in this equipment."

He herded them into the cockpit but kept his distance so there was no chance they could spin and grab him.

"Put the seat belts on, fellas, just so nobody'll be pop-pin' up, unannounced."

Both put on three-point belts; then Milo unplugged the two headset mikes and took them out of the cockpit. He sat on the jump seat with the machine gun on his knees and waited until the limo pulled onto the tarmac. He saw Pulacarpo leading Anita out of the limo. Her hands were tied and she looked drugged. Pulacarpo helped her to the plane and Milo grabbed her arms to steady her as she came aboard.

"Is she drugged? What's she got in her?" Milo asked, concerned that a body pumped full of chemicals would raise eyebrows at the autopsy.

"She's a' been drink vodka… too much, is'a my think:'

"Okay, that works. Get outta here." Milo helped her into a seat.

Pulacarpo left the plane and pulled the limo away from the executive terminal. Milo looked at Anita, her eyes at half-mast.

"Having fun, Mrs. Richards?"

Anita didn't answer; her head lolled on her shoulders. He reached down and buckled her in. Her hands were still tied behind her, but he decided to wait until just before the end to take care of that detail. He moved back into the pilots' cabin.

"Okay, let's power up, boys," he said to the two frightened pilots, who began flipping switches. The starboard engine began to whine. As it wound up, Milo plugged the headphone into the jack behind the pilot's head and put it on.

`This is White Lear-55, 7-6-8-9 Whiskey Sierra, requesting first available takeoff," Milo said into the headset mike.

"Roger, Niner-Whiskey-Sierra. You can proceed on taxiway 1-6 to runway 3-5 south and hold short."

Then Milo tapped the pilot on the shoulder with the H amp;K. "Wanna do that, Sky?"

Milo got permission from the tower for takeoff; they taxied out onto the tarmac and began the roll. The engine whined as the sleek Lear-55 roared down the runway and took off into the night sky.

Milo signed off with the tower, contacted Hays Field departure, and told the pilots to head toward Cleveland.

They punched in the omnirange coordinates and Milo leaned back and watched them with a practiced eye. They flew in silence.

Two hours later, they were over Lake Erie and Cleveland appeared on the color radar, fifty miles ahead. Milo took the H amp;K machine gun and stood behind the copilot.

"Gonna use the bathroom. Anybody gets up, he's dead." Then, without warning, he jabbed the copilot under the left ear with the stock. The man's head rolled dow n o n his chest. The pilot let out a yell and struggled to unhook his seat belt. Milo swung the weapon back in hi s d irection. It took two hard blows to the head before th e p ilot stopped struggling and slumped against the side panel of the cockpit.

"Thanks for the lift, fellas." Milo reached into the cockpit and rolled the trim tab forward, putting the plane into a shallow dive. He checked the color radar in the dash and noted the position. They were ten miles from land. His plan was to bail out at about five thousand feet and ride the prevailing winds with his chute, to reach land on the western tip of Lake Erie. He had set the dive so that the plane would hit farmland to the east of Hopkins Field, Cleveland's international airport. There would be questions about the crash, but several flights had gone down trying to land at Hopkins in recent years. The FAA had made extensive investigations and could not explain why the area had become a mini-Devil's Triangle for aviators. Lear-55 Niner-Whiskey-Sierra was going to be the latest in a series of unexplained aviation disasters. Milo untied Anita and checked her. It wouldn't be necessary to knock her out. She was still dazed by the alcohol. He left her and moved to the rear emergency exit, pulled the handle release, yanked the hatch open, and threw it on the carpet behind him. The wind screamed through the opening and Milo could feel the joy juice pumping through his body. Then he lunged out into a blast of cold night air.

Milo was falling. His face freezing. The bitter cold was biting his skin. He counted to ten and then pulled the rip cord. The chute streamed out, then snapped open and he was yanked up, the shoulder straps pulling at his body. Off to the right, he could see the shoreline of Lake Erie and the lights of Cleveland. He pulled on the guidelines, gently leaning the chute in that direction. He saw he would easily reach the shore.

Inside the Lear, Anita was awake. She had been in a stupor, but when Milo pulled the emergency hatch, the cold air brought her to her senses. At first she couldn't figure out where she was and then it came to her… The trip in the limo, the stop at the liquor store, and the whispered instructions by the man with the heavy Italian accent. He had forced her to drink the vodka while he poked her in the ribs with an automatic and held the bottle to her lips till she passed out.

Now she was in a plane… She could hear the screaming engines, much louder than normal and, when she turned, she saw the emergency exit gaping. She unsnapped her seat belt and stumbled forward, where both pilots were unconscious.

"Oh, my God," she said out loud. And then she could see the ground. They were very low, streaking over moonlit farmland, fields, and occasional buildings.

She looked in horror out the windshield, as a brick building rushed headlong toward her. This can't be right, her struggling mind was saying, as the Lear obliterated itself into a concrete and brick grain locker.

The flames shot three hundred feet in the air. The concussions of the explosion rattled the windows of farmhouses miles away. Pieces of the plane were on fire and burning all over the surrounding fields. The main fuselage was a twisted, charred framework of burning metal.

By the time the first fire unit arrived, there was very little left.