Ancestor

  Miller ripped open a cabinet, pulled out gauze and an air splint. “Just hold tight, buddy. You’ll be okay.” He looked up at Sara. “We need that landing site, now.”

  Sara walked to the infirmary’s intercom and pushed the cockpit button.

  “’Zo, what’s our status?”

  No response.

  She pushed the button again.

  “’Zo, talk to me.”

  Still no response.

  Then she smelled it … smoke.

  She felt the rush of yet another adrenaline surge and sprinted down the short hall to the cockpit.

  Thin tendrils of white curled up from the closed cockpit door. She wrenched the door open. Smoke hung in the air, expanding the hazy glow of the multicolored control lights.

  “’Zo! You okay?”

  “Where the hell have you been?” Alonzo kept his hands on the yoke, not bothering to look back at her. “The radio is out. As soon as I tried to transmit I heard a pop. I tried calling you, but whatever it was also took out the intercom. I put out the fire. We’re okay, but we’re deaf and mute until I can get in there and fix it.”

  A pop … as soon as he tried to use the radio.

  “Oh, fuck,” she said quietly.

  She tried to remember where she’d seen Magnus. She looked at the comm station, under the observer’s seat, all over the cockpit. Nothing.

  Alonzo turned in his chair to look back. “Sara, what are you doing? What the fuck … you’re covered in blood!”

  “Not worried about that now,” she said, then ran out the door. She ran into the bunk room, looked under the metal bunks, ripped mattresses off and threw them. Nothing. She tried the head, in the small supply cabinets, under the tiny washbasin … still nothing.

  Please, please, please, let me be wrong.

  She moved to the game room. Her eyes instantly fell on the flat-panel TV. She felt a tingling on her scalp as she ran to it, angled her body to look behind it.

  There, wedged between the TV and the hull wall, was more plastic explosive than she’d ever seen in her life.

  NOVEMBER 30, 9:03 P.M.

  SARA STARED AT the bomb. So many wires, connected to the hull, to the back of the TV, to the floor. She knelt, careful not to jostle anything, eyes scanning until she found it—a small, LCD timer that read 9:01 … 9:00 … 8:59 … 8:58.

  Calm down calm down keep it cool if you don’t think clear you die.

  Colding and Magnus weren’t sending the C-5 to Manitoba; they were sending it to the bottom of Lake Superior. By the time the storm blew over, there would be no trace of the C-5 or anything in it. A thousand feet of water would cover the wreckage forever.

  They couldn’t even bail out: in this storm their parachutes would foul and they’d drop. If hitting at terminal velocity didn’t kill them instantly, drowning in ice-cold water would follow shortly. Even if they managed to get into a raft, they’d be up against twenty-foot swells and seventy-knot winds. SOS or no SOS, no one would reach them in time.

  She took a deep breath. Think. Stay rational, think. There had to be a way out. Sara synchronized her watch with the bomb—at 9:12 P.M., the plastique would rip the C-5 to shreds. She didn’t know anything about defusing a bomb. Neither did her crew. All those extra wires … if they moved the bomb, she had no doubt it would blow instantly. She could start pulling wires, but only as a desperate final option. She sprinted to the cockpit where she grabbed a flight map and threw it down on the small table in the navigator’s section. Her hands smoothed the map, accidentally smearing blood across the paper.

  “’Zo, where are we?”

  “Halfway through our circle around the storm. We’re only a hundred miles from Houghton-Hancock.”

  She traced the path on the map. “We’re not going to make it to Houghton-Hancock. There’s a bomb onboard, we’ve got nine minutes to live.”

  Alonzo quickly set the autopilot and scrambled out of his seat to join Sara. “Nine minutes? Who planted a bomb?”

  “Had to be Magnus. I saw him in here a few hours before takeoff.” She checked her watch: 9:04 P.M. Eight minutes. They couldn’t reach Houghton-Hancock. Magnus’s crazy circular flight path had them dead smack in the middle of Lake Superior—they couldn’t reach anything.

  Almost anything … there was one place they could reach.

  “Take us back into the storm,” she said. “Gun it, full throttle. We’re going back to the island.”

  “Back to the island? Where Magnus is? No fucking way!”

  Sara’s composure disintegrated. She reached out with her blood-smeared right hand and grabbed the collar of Alonzo’s parka. “We don’t have a choice! Look at the goddamn map. We can’t get anywhere else before the bomb blows up.”

  “But he’s trying to kill us—”

  Sara’s left hand joined her right. She shook his collar with each word, jerking the slick, down-filled fabric.

  “I … know … that! They only turn on the radar for scheduled takeoffs or landings, remember? It’s off, they won’t know we’re coming, so take us back into the storm!”

  She released his collar. He blinked a few times, then he scrambled back to the copilot’s chair. The engines whined. She held the table while the C-5 banked.

  “Heading back into the storm,” Alonzo said. “But they don’t need radar to know we’re there. Even with this shit visibility, they’ll see us land on the airstrip.”

  There had to be a way, something. Her eyes scanned the map … then she remembered Clayton’s words. There. That would work, would have to, or they would all die. She carried the map to Alonzo. “We’re not landing on the strip.” Before he could ask where, her finger jabbed out their destination. He took one look at the map, then looked up, a shocked expression on his face.

  “Rapleje Bay? No way.”

  “It’s a mile long and frozen over.”

  “We’re landing on ice, ice we won’t see until we’re less than a hundred feet from it, and we don’t know how thick it is. I’m taking us to the landing strip, we’ll have to shoot it out with Magnus.”

  “He’s got a fucking Stinger missile! The strip is only a half mile from the mansion; if he hears us coming in, all he needs is thirty seconds to blow us out of the sky. ’Zo, if you want to live, you’ve got five minutes to put us on that bay! Land it, then help Miller get Cappy the fuck out fast.”

  She ran out of the cockpit, tossing the map back on the table as she left. If they reached the bay in five minutes, that would give them two minutes to get off and get clear. She ran down the hall, back into the bloody infirmary. Miller was still working on the unconscious Cappy.

  “I stopped the bleeding,” Miller said. “Get Doc Rhumkorrf up here already, like now.”

  “No time,” Sara said. “Listen carefully. There’s a bomb onboard. Strap Cappy down, we’re going back into the blizzard, back to Black Manitou. Emergency landing on a frozen bay. Our chances are shitty, but it’s the only option we have. Do you understand?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Good. When we hit the deck, ’Zo will help you get Cappy out. Move fast or all of you die.”

  She took off through the upper-deck lab and scrambled down the aft ladder. Rhumkorrf and the unconscious Tim were still in stall number three. Rhumkorrf had found some surgical thread and was finishing up stitches on Tim’s forehead. Even done in crappy flying conditions, the stitches looked tight and tiny.

  Rhumkorrf spoke without looking away from his work. “Tim could have internal injuries. We need a hospital immediately, we can’t move him.”

  “I don’t care,” Sara said. “We’re making an emergency landing, and I need Tim in a crash chair, right now.”

  Rhumkorrf looked up. “Emergency … what’s going on?”

  “Magnus canceled the project, and us along with it. There’s a bomb onboard that goes off in six minutes.”

  Rhumkorrf’s jaw dropped. “A bomb? That doesn’t make any sense. The Pagliones have invested millions in this project!”
br />   “And now they’re cutting their losses.”

  “But what about the cows, they—”

  “Fuck the cows! Don’t you get it? There is no more project. Magnus wants all of this gone, and us with it. Now, go to the cabinets in Tim’s lab. Emergency supplies are there. We have to hide in winter woods for I don’t know how long. Find blankets and jackets, move!”

  Rhumkorrf scrambled to the cabinets, leaving Sara with the unconscious Tim Feely. The man looked seriously fucked up. He was still lying next to Miss Patty Melt, soaked in her blood, his head on the cow’s rear legs, his calves on her front legs. The skin beneath his twenty-odd stitches looked red and swollen.

  Oh shit, his knee. No blood, but it had swollen so much that the pant leg material looked tight and strained. Didn’t take a doctor to see that Tim Feely wouldn’t be able to walk on his own. She grabbed his hands and pulled the unconscious man into a sitting position. She squatted, slid her arms under his armpits and around his back, then stood. Tim rose up like a limp marionette. Hell, he wasn’t that heavy at all, maybe a buck forty-five soaking wet.

  She clutched his right shoulder, then slid her left arm between his legs and pulled him onto her shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Sara carefully stepped over the cow’s legs and into the aisle, then up to the flight chairs. She set him down gently and fastened his restraints.

  She checked her watch—9:08 … four minutes.

  Sara ran across the aisle to Rhumkorrf, who was making piles of first-aid kits, MREs and blankets. They needed everything they could carry. If they came down undetected, and if they survived the landing, the island was big enough to stay hidden, but for how long?

  She found duffel bags and tossed one to Rhumkorrf. He started cramming his piles inside.

  “Why?” he said. “Why in God’s name would they wipe out the project?”

  “Just pack, Doc.”

  She’d have to take out Magnus, get him before he knew they were back. He had that arsenal in the mansion’s basement—if he and Andy and Gunther went on the offensive, Sara and her boys didn’t stand a chance.

  “They can’t do this,” Rhumkorrf said. “They can’t cancel my project, I simply won’t allow it.”

  “Doc, shut the fuck up!”

  She’d have to start at Sven Ballantine’s place. It was the closest house to Rapleje Bay. Get Cappy inside, probably take Sven prisoner. No way of knowing what the old man knew, or whose side he was on.

  What about Peej? What side is he on?

  She had to face facts: Colding was part of the project, and yet his ass wasn’t on the bomb-laden C-5.

  The plane suddenly tilted up. Sara held on to the cabinet door as supplies skidded across the floor. Rhumkorrf fell back and rolled into the black lab table. The cows’ big bodies strained against their harnesses, and once again the lower deck filled with their bellowing.

  “Doc, you okay?”

  “Fine! I’ll get more supplies.”

  “No, get in your chair, now.”

  The plane heaved sideways even as Rhumkorrf scrambled to the crash chairs and started buckling in. Supplies flew. Sara checked her watch just as the digital number changed to 9:10 P.M.—two minutes to live. They’d be landing any second. She zipped the duffel bags tight and started carrying them to the crash chairs.

  The plane simultaneously bucked to port and dropped hard. Sara felt weightlessness for a second. The floor shrank away, then came up fast and slammed into her face. Dull pain filled her brain like an alcoholic buzz. She couldn’t focus. She blinked a few times, tried to stand.

  Someone calling her name. Rhumkorrf. Sara shook her head, her thoughts slowly coming back into focus.

  “Thirty seconds to landing.” That sounded like Alonzo … but he was … in the cockpit.

  “Sara! Get up!” Rhumkorrf, screaming. “Don’t move, I’m coming.”

  “Stay there!” Her wits returned in a flash. Another drop like that might knock him out as well.

  “Twenty seconds.” Alonzo’s voice, coming over the speakers. He must have fixed the intercom. She’d lost precious time. The plane dropped and lifted underneath her. She ignored the duffel bags and crawled, had to crawl, because there was no way she could stay on her feet. She pulled herself into the chair even as it seemed to move like a wild animal.

  “Ten seconds,” Alonzo called out in a shockingly neutral tone.

  She slid the first clip home, head screaming, throbbing, hands slow to comply.

  “Five …”

  … you won’t make it when the plane hits, you’ll be thrown around, you’ll die …

  “Four …”

  Keep it calm, just find the straps, buckle in …

  “Three …”

  … we’ll crack right through the ice, we’ll drown in freezing water …

  “Two …”

  Her hands found the final buckle, the harness clicked shut.

  “One …”

  … this is it, oh why didn’t you save me, Colding, why why wh—

  The free-fall elevator ride ended with a smashing jolt that jarred every atom of her body. They’d come in just a little too steep. Her brain ticked off assumed damage—no way the nose cone would open, which meant the front ramp was useless. Had the fuel tanks ruptured? Would they catch and fill the plane with fire? Would the C-5 turn sideways and roll?

  The jolts and bounces threw her against her harness. Five eternal seconds rolled by, filled with the shrieks of creaking metal grinding hard against unforgiving ice.

  Momentum pulled her harder against the straps as the C-5 slowed. Ten seconds later the skid ended and her body fell back into the seat. She snapped open her harness and checked her watch: still 9:10 P.M. It had felt like a tortured eternity, but the crash landing had taken less than a minute.

  She sprinted aft, down the aisle, the sound of braying cows and their lightly kicking hooves filling her ears. She slapped the button to lower the rear hatch. Hydraulic gears whined as the rear doors opened and the metal loading ramp began to slowly unfold and descend. Wind-driven snow blew inside like a billowing gas. The gale howled, almost with delight, as if it had only been waiting for another chance to get at the people inside the huge plane. Sara turned away from the oncoming blizzard and grabbed the intercom.

  “’Zo, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Holy shit, we’re alive!”

  “Help Miller get Cappy down here, move move move!”

  Sara sprinted back up the aisle to the flight seats. Rhumkorrf was already up, walking on wobbly legs, leaning on the lab table as he stumbled toward the rear ramp. She passed him by and rushed to Tim, unbuckling the unconscious man and again lifting him into a fireman’s carry. She stood, shouldering his weight …

  … and felt heavy steps vibrating through the floor. She turned to face the rear ramp—a cow, huge and black and white and insane with wide-eyed panic, barreled down the bay toward her. Sara ran across the aisle to the lab table and lunged on top, the move awkward thanks to Tim’s extra weight. She lost her grip on the man and he slid over the other side, crashing to the deck. The cow rushed by, hooves slamming on the rubberized deck, its big body grazing her feet before she pulled them up past the table’s edge. The cow ran past the crash chairs and smashed into the folded-up forward ramp so hard the entire plane shook from the impact. It stumbled back, then turned violently, cutting itself on one of the chairs. Blood sheeted the black-and-white fur and splattered on the floor as the cow ran the other way, toward the still-lowering rear ramp.

  Screaming, hurricane-force winds poured through the twenty-foot rear opening, filling the cargo bay with billowing snow. Two more cows raged toward the ramp, toward freedom from the terror-filled plane. They pushed against each other in a struggle to get out. One cow’s hoof fouled on the corpse of Miss Patty Melt; it fell hard, the foreleg snapping like a gunshot. The creature bellowed in fear and pain, struggling to get up, to get out, but the broken leg wouldn’t support its efforts.

  Sara saw Rhumkorrf
moving from stall to stall, opening the gates and slapping the harness release buttons. The heavy canvas harnesses lowered slowly an inch or two, putting the cows’ hooves firmly on the deck, then dropped away, straps falling limply to the floor. The animals bolted out of the narrow stalls and stampeded for the ramp.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Sara shouted over the screeching gale and the braying cattle.

  But Rhumkorrf didn’t answer. Wind blew his comb-over back and forth. Some of the cows ran to the ramp. Others stood in place, confused, frightened.

  She heard the whine of the lift machinery from above. The platform started to lower. On the metal grate she saw Alonzo and Miller standing, each grasping an end of the gurney that held Cappy. The lift would bring them down on the other side of the aisle opposite the lab table.

  “Sara!” Alonzo screamed. She could barely hear him over the wind and the cows. “What the fuck?”

  “We gotta move, come on!”

  The lift slowly lowered, exposing their feet, their shins, their knees.

  A panicked cow ran the wrong way, away from the open rear hatch. It slammed against the black lab table, tilting it, dumping Sara on top of Tim. The cow hit the table again and it fell. Sara got her hands up just in time, catching the heavy table’s edge before it smashed into her. Her muscles strained as she tried to push the table clear.

  She heard a metallic rattle, the alarmed shouts of men, a bellow of animal pain, heard the lift’s whine stop, then restart.

  No, Alonzo was taking it back up!

  Sara screamed and forced her shaking arms to push harder. The table slid back a little and she was able to swing her legs free before she let go. The heavy black top hit the floor like a guillotine. The now vertical table-top sheltered her from the bleeding, insane, fifteen-hundred-pound cow.

  “Alonzo, come back!”

  Up above, Sara saw just one foot move off the grate, then nothing. She was too late. The lift was back on the upper deck, a corner dripping blood where the cow had slammed into it. Alonzo was taking Cappy to the aft ladder, looking for a safer way down. Sara threw a glance at her watch: 9:11.

  One minute.

  How much of that last minute had already gone by? Five seconds? Ten? Time was up. Sara felt tears—hot and sudden and uncontrollable—run down her cheeks.