Vegas Flyer (Chapter 9)

by aha

James ripped off the fake mustache and taxied the Cessna 175 out on to the tarmac, ran his engine up, and checked his instruments. Everything checked out. He pushed hard on the toe brakes and waited for instructions from the tower. While he waited he began to remove the money from his legs and waist. Looking around, he found a large black medical kit bag, standard equipment on most planes and emptied out the various bandages and medicine into the back seat of the plane. He carefully placed the money inside the bag.

"Cessna 25766 Charley Whiskey, taxi to runway one eight and hold." The voice in the tower crackled. He spread his map on his knees. Burbank airport was 243 degrees southwest of Las Vegas, approximately two hundred and sixty air miles. His radio came to life again.

"Charley Whiskey 25766 you are cleared for take off on runway one eight...have a good evening." He closed the throttle and the engine on the Cessna roared as he began picking up speed. In a couple of minutes he was high above the landscape. He took one last look down at the Vegas airport and he could see police cars at all entrances and exits. It was only minutes before sundown and he switched over to instrument flight rules. The little plane practically flew itself and James relaxed for the first time in many hours as he watched the Nevada landscape moving slowly out of his left window. He should be in Burbank in a couple of hours he thought, and then he would catch a flight to Miami at the main terminal. The trick had been to get out of Las Vegas and he had done that. He didn't think that Caesars Palace would spend huge sums of money to try and track him down for a half a million. Just then his radio crackled to life.

"Charlie Whiskey 25766 this is Nevada ground control over."

He was shocked. He must be at least 25 miles out of Vegas by now. What could Nevada ground control want with him? Habit, training and curiosity made him pick up the microphone.

"Umm Yes Nevada ground this is Charlie Whiskey 25766 over." He replied.

"Charlie Whiskey, you have been requested by Nevada authorities to bring your craft about to180 degrees and land at Nevada international on runway 36 left. I have you on radar and will advise, over." Damn he thought, looks like Caesars Palace and the local police weren't giving up that easily. He picked up the microphone again and pressed the button.

"Sorry Nevada ground I can't do that."

"Charlie Whiskey please be advised that two pursuit craft are in route to your present location to ensure that you comply over. He has to be bluffing Tanner thought. Then he looked out his right window and sure enough there was a Cardinal 180 not 500 feet off his right wing. He could see the man inside motioning Tanner to turn his plane around. Looking down he could see the running lights and the outline of another Cardinal not 2000 feet below his left wing. He looked again at the plane on the right and saw the man brandishing a rifle. Then he watched incredulously as the man forced open a side window and pushed the barrel of the gun out and pointed it straight at him. He saw a puff of smoke and light, which disappeared instantly in the 130 mile an hour wind, and almost simultaneously a bullet pierced his right cockpit window missing his head by six inches and exiting the left window. The bullet left a perfectly round hole in both windows and sent glass flying all over the inside of his plane. A chip caught Tanner just over his right eye. Blood began to flow from the cut into his eyebrow then down into his eye. He wiped at it but it was flowing so freely that he couldn't control it. But that was the least of his problems right now. Glancing at the plane on his right, he once again saw the flash of light and smoke come from the barrel of the rifle and this time he felt a heavy thud as the slug entered the right side of his engine cowling. Oil immediately covered the front of his cowling and windshield. An oil light on the dash began blinking for attention and he knew that if he hesitated for another moment he would be dead. Tanner sent the plane into a shallow dive. What the hell could they hope to accomplish by killing him and crashing his plane? Where those intended as a warning shots? He quickly decided he was not going to stick around and find out. The Cardinals were at least 30 knots faster than his one seventy-five, and had a much larger fuel and range capacity. He was going to have to out maneuver them to get away. He reached over and turned off his outside strobe and his blinking red running lights, the sun had almost set now and he would soon be essentially invisible to the Cardinals, but he was sure they were in contact with Nevada tower who no doubt had him on radar. Then to his dismay the crippled engine coughed twice and died. His instincts took over as he kicked the left rudder hard sending the one seventy-five into a downward spiral. He watched the altimeter count steadily backwards, from 8000 feet as the little plane plunged silently towards the earth at 120 feet per second. At 2000 feet with the wind screaming through the struts he tried starting his engine again. It refused to start. He knew from experience the momentum of the dive was pushing the fuel in the lines backwards and the carburetor was starving. But even if he could get the engine started it would only be a matter of seconds before it seized up from lack of oil. By then he was at a death defying 1500 feet. Only one more chance left. I love you Margaret he said silently. He jammed the throttle open and closed several times, which under normal circumstances would have flooded his engine but in this situation was the perfect thing to do then turned the key and hit the starter. This time the motor sprang into life. He pulled back hard on the stick and prayed. At 800 feet the plane began pulling out of the dive and James could have counted the branches on the mesquite bushes on the desert floor and at 600 feet he had control of the plane and began to fly somewhat straight and level. By then the Cardinals where long gone. He brought the nose up; he was going to have to gain as much altitude as possible because there were only seconds left on the life of his engine. Tanner wiped the blood from his forehead and headed his plane due east at 90 degrees on the compass rose and put it in an almost vertical climb. His situation was not good, he was lost, needed fuel and he was losing oil at an alarming rate. He also had to find out where he was without turning on his radio, which would give away his position. Then he remembered something he had learned as a student pilot. If lost, the higher a pilot, flew the more the earth looked like a map and the better one could see and assess the situation. Soon he began to see shimmering lights everywhere. At 12000 feet he saw a large cluster of lights off to his right. It had to be Laughin Nevada. If so, the map showed a small grass field airport just to the south of town. He headed for it. But just then his engine seized and abruptly stopped. He tried restarting but it was frozen in place, fused together by heat and the lack of oil to lubricate its parts. He put the plane in a glide; it was going to be a "dead stick" landing. He brought the plane in on the grass field ten minutes later using only the nose light and a few smudge pots, lit by whoever operated the tiny terminal during the day. It was a landing that few pilots could have made at an otherwise dark and closed airport with a dead engine. He looked at his watch it read 8:00 p.m. Walking around the field he spotted a nearly new twin engine beech sitting next to one of the hangers. He tried the door, it was locked. Searching around he finally found a piece of old rebar used in concrete construction. He inserted the long skinny piece of iron into the loop of the metal lock and pried, the door lock released with a loud pop. He climbed inside the twin beech and in fifteen minutes he had the ignition hot-wired. Checking his gauges he saw that the plane was full of fuel no doubt "topped off” by the owner to keep moisture from forming on the inside top of the tanks and causing the engine to run rough. He needed rest, but needed to get moving too. Sitting down in the seat of the plane he napped till 4:00 a.m. then took off into what would soon be the rising sun.

Cruising at 8000 feet, Tanner drew a line to El Paso then across Texas and straight to Miami Florida on the map. Flying constantly at 160 mph he should be able to make it by sometime late that night using only two tanks of gas he reasoned. He reached over and gently pushed in on the gas throttle and at the same time slowly pulled out on the red fuel mixture button. This would serve to lean out his carburetors, using the least gas with the most speed, much like a cruise control on a car. Then he began a pattern of climbing gently and then shallow diving for miles, which added another ten miles per hour to the twin beech. By noon that day he had flown over Arizona and New Mexico and was sitting at the Red Bird airport just outside of Dallas, Texas. He had polite conversation with the man running the terminal building, filled up the plane, paid cash for it from the black bag and was once again on course to Miami. Tanner flew the rest of the day and around midnight was approaching Miami international airport. He was so sleepy that he was nodding off when he found the small airport on the map near town. Landing the plane he taxied it over to one side of the field and got out. He wrote a quick note and left it on the windshield, explaining where the plane belongs. Giving it a final pat on the wing and a silent thank you he turned and walked to the darkened terminal. The payphone was just outside of the front door but he had no small change to use it. Then he spotted the 1976 Gremlin parked over on the other side of the terminal. Scanning the inside he saw that the keys where in it. That was not surprising as many small airports have an old Junker paid for by the contributions of businessmen who need it, parked for them to use when they came into town. He threw the black bag inside and drove off towards the Miami International airport.

When he arrived at the Meridian Hotel he handed the valet outside the keys and a one hundred dollar bill and asked him to drive it back to the airport. The man at the desk confirmed there was a Liz Smith who had checked in and left him a message that she was in room 2059. James knocked and Margaret opened the door and flew into his arms.

"Ohhh James I am soo glad to see you. I have been so worried." She looked him up and down. "Just look at you, your a mess!" He hadn't realized it but he must have looked pretty disheveled after flying completely across the country. He held her tight.

"No need to worry now Margaret, I am here now and I am not ever leaving you again. And look at this!" He opened up the black medical kit and dumped the money on the bed. She had never seen so much money in her life.

"My God James.... where how?" He sat her down and told her the entire story. As she listened, she began to look at her husband in a new light. It was quite a feat he had performed. She knew it must have taken brains and more than a little guts. After he had told her everything they made love in the middle of the money, which stuck to their skins like so many green stamps. Jasper took his place on the other bed and looked on with a huge doggie grin and grateful eyes.

The next morning over coffee and orange juice they checked their resources. They had plenty of money but James had no clothes other than the wrinkled suit he was wearing. Margaret had gotten nothing of James' from the house. There wasn't anything there he really cared about anyway nothing that he couldn't live without, so they went shopping. James bought several pairs of summer slacks and flowered shirts so that he would look more like the average American tourist. Margaret bought some blouses and a couple of pair of slacks. Back in the hotel Tanner made reservations for two on a commuter flight to Nassau. Commuter fights attracted less attention than the major airlines and after coming this far, he was taking no more chances than was needed. Their flight was the last flight out that afternoon at 5:15 on Bahaman airlines. They packed what they had; put Jasper in a cage that Margaret had bought at the airport in Burbank and started for the airport. When they arrived Tanner went to the first gift shop he saw and bought a book of stamps and two brown mailer envelopes, found a bathroom and an empty stall. Pulling out $15000 in crisp new one hundreds he placed them in one of the mailers, sealed it and put Boardman's address on it. The he put $5000 in the other envelope and wrote Shirley's address on it. He put lots of stamps on both to ensure that they would get to their destination, walked to mailbox just outside the terminal doors and dropped them in. He found Margaret and they walked to the ticket counter and presented their passports. The attractive girl at the counter looked at James' passport and a frown creased her forehead. She excused herself.

What now? He thought. Had he come this far to be nailed by a ticket taker?

"Excuse me sir. " A black customs official appeared in the doorway behind the ticket counter. "Could you step this way please?" He looked at Margaret, she looked at him.

"Stay here." He tried to sound brave and in command. He walked back behind the counter through the doorway into a small room. His heart pounded in his ears. Inside was one other white customs official. He spoke first.

"What is your business in the Bahamas?"

"Vacation." James said quickly. The black one spoke.

"Did you know that your passport has expired?"

"Why no I didn't." James was genuinely surprised. He tried to keep his voice even.

"It’s just been so long since we have had a vacation, I guess I never even noticed." He was trying to remain calm amidst this latest dilemma. The black one spoke again.

"Well Sir, if your stay is under two weeks then all we really need is current proof of US citizenship.

"And what might that be?" Tanner asked.

"A birth certificate would do. The white one said.

"Who carries a birth certificate?" James was talking more to himself than anyone else.

"Then you have to apply to New Orleans for a passport renewal." The black one said.

The white one spoke up.

"However a voters registration would do...keeping in mind that your stay would be for two weeks or less." All of a sudden James felt like hugging the white one. He reached into his wallet and retrieved his voter’s card.

"Well at least you’re a good enough citizen to vote." The black one said with a wink and a smile. "The next time, make sure your passport is in order before going on holiday.

"I will. Thanks."

"You may go ahead and board now." The white one said with a smile. James turned and went out the door. Outside, Margaret stood by the ticket counter looking like an orphan in the storm. He winked at her and smiled. Relief flooded her face. They quickly boarded the twin-engine commuter.