RATTLEMAN: Praise for 18 Seconds 'Excellent! Stephen King Page 10

  Sure, she was terrified of losing her job, but even worse was the implication of what malady lay behind the panic attack. Maybe something was wrong with her physically, like there was always something wrong with her mother and it had lain dormant all those years. Was it happening to her now as well?

  Right or wrong she was consciously avoiding the decision over whether or not to show up at the range. She could do like her boss said and throw in the towel until she talked to her doctors. Or she could take the chance it had been a fluke and wouldn’t happen to her a second time.

  She crossed C Street through stalled traffic and was thinking about Jack’s admonition when her cellphone rang. Tossing her bags onto a park bench she reached for it as the pigeons began to close in around her.

  “Hello?” she said, loudly over the traffic noise.

  “It’s Carlisle.”

  A taxi blew its horn. She cupped a hand over her ear. “What do you have?”

  “Leesburg tomorrow, ten kilos like before. Tell your people in Ohio there’s going to be someone meeting the plane.”

  “Time?”

  “I’m leaving for Newport at four. Shouldn’t be more than two or three hours.” Then the line disconnected.

  Judy sat on the bench and dialed the office, feeling a guilty sense of relief. The decision had been taken off her shoulders. Jack’s priority, she knew, was going to be Latora. The range would have to wait another week.

  In Friday’s pre-dawn hours, three men in dark clothing crossed a field toward the hangar. They carried backpacks and wore black knit caps and shoulder holsters.

  They entered the door with simple lock picks and emptied their bags on the concrete floor.

  The steel walls were insulated with foam and they drilled holes through it, low to the ground, inserting lead wires with miniature microphones, patching them over with gray putty. They placed a transponder under the tail wing of the airplane and departed as utility company vans took positions on roadsides adjoining the airstrip.

  Morning rush hour came and went. The sun climbed in a hazy humid sky. By noon it was sweltering and the airstrip was deserted. At two o’clock a black Honda arrived and a man pulled up to the gate, punched in the code and parked outside hangar number four. They listened as he entered the building, shoes scuffing noisily across the concrete floor. Finally he turned on a radio rock station and the listeners settled in for the wait.

  At six-fifteen a maroon Mercedes came into view, turned up the dusty road and raced along the glimmering security fencing to the electronic gate.

  The men in the surveillance vans sat up in their seats, attentive, recording the conversations from within.

  “Hey,” Carlisle said.

  “Pretty late,” the man in the hangar said, but the comment was without nuance.

  “Friday rush hour,” Carlisle said casually. “You’re going to be met on the tarmac. Don’t go in the office and sign the register this time. It’ll be handled before you arrive.”

  “What if I gotta piss?”

  “Piss on the side of your plane,” Carlisle said indifferently, dropping the satchel on the floor.

  The listeners could hear the thud and then footsteps and then the door. Carlisle emerged into the light and walked back to the Mercedes.

  There were metallic sounds, a door latch and then footsteps. The radio terminated abruptly. Then there was a scraping sound and long-range camera lenses recorded the hangar doors beginning to open. A few minutes later the Cessna’s engine began to pop, then turned over and the whir of the propeller drowned out all else. The plane coasted onto the tarmac, the doors closed and the plane accelerated down the runway.

  The pilot banked west on his climb out of Leesburg. Legions of birds swooped in and out of fields of ripe hay. Strings of glittering cars sat in gridlock on every highway. In the far distance he saw the line of Blue Ridge Mountains and above it a shimmering orange sun. He cranked up the volume on the CD player and lit a hand-rolled joint, feet pumping time to the music.

  He checked the heavy Rolex replica on his wrist and looked around the cockpit. The 172 Skyhawk had autopilot, a luxury seldom spared in his line of work. In an hour he would be over the Appalachians and in three he would start his descent into Ohio. He yawned and looked down at the foothills, isolated communities twinkling like tiny constellations. He watched them come and go, getting fewer as he neared the Shenandoah Valley. He leaned back against the headrest and turned on the autopilot. Then he took another hit off the joint and closed his eyes.

  The winds were with him, pushing his tail to one-seventy knots, calm and level and a mile above the earth. His thoughts drifted; the music and marijuana took him away.

  Forty minutes later – yet just a moment in time to him – he opened his eyes and blinked in disbelief.

  The horizon had changed. Drastically changed! And what he saw now no longer made sense. The pink strip of dusk was gone, replaced by pitch-darkness, but the darkness wasn’t smooth-edged anymore. There was something about it that bristled, like the quills on the back of a porcupine.

  He fought to clear his head, snapping it from side to side. Then he realized what he was looking at and a metallic taste began to develop in his mouth. The bristles were … “fuck!” … trees! He yanked hard on the wheel and begged the console’s gauges for altitude.

  The groaning Cessna climbed, but agonizingly slowly. The pilot held the wheel in a sweaty death grip, trying to will the small plane over the mountain. The new pitch sent shudders through the cockpit, but soon the nose began to respond and the needle on the altimeter moved slightly.

  Then, even though he was gaining on the mountain, the pilot had what could be the last bad idea of his life: sacrificing all new altitude, he banked left where he thought the terrain looked a little lower.

  Seconds later his wing clipped a forty-foot oak, catapulting him against the controls. He fought to stabilize the plane, all the while skimming treetops, gaining five feet, then ten.

  Then a new rise appeared. An ancient ridge only thirty feet high, but the trees on it were more than the Cessna could overcome and they took him down quickly, snapping wings and tail, smashing out the small panes of glass around him. Long limbs seemed to reach for him as the light metal tube hurled through the forest amid sounds of screeching, wrenching, ripping metal. Finally he saw one sturdy hardwood hurtling toward him. He was still conscious when the plane struck.

  Rolfe was on the mountain when the green, red and white lights of the airplane first appeared. He watched them growing larger until they were as big as small moons, then suddenly he could hear the drone of the airplane. It was heading straight for him, seemingly unable to gain enough altitude. It was too little, he thought, too weak surely, to fly any higher.

  Mesmerized, he watched it begin to take form. First the smooth round contour of the nose and then the windshield and struts beneath the wings. He ducked, shielding his face as it flew across his head. He heard metal scratching trees and then a violent wrenching noise.

  And then nothing at all, but silence all around him.

  He grabbed his packs and ran in its general direction. The moon offered light beneath the trees, but it took almost an hour before the smell of fuel led him to the debris.

  The wreckage had settled in a neat quarter-mile strip. Although Rolfe could smell the fuel, there was no fire. Embedded in the soft wood of an enormous pine, heavy foliage covered all but a section of the tail. He saw the pilot, motionless. He must be dead, Rolfe thought.

  Seeing what was left of the aircraft he marveled at how small it was, the fuselage no bigger than a car. All of its extremities – wings, tail, wheels – had broken away. There was nothing left but a bare metal hull.

  The thing sounded almost alive, sizzling and popping. Once or twice he jumped from it. Then cautiously he came closer until he was alongside the frame where the windows had been. The nose had completely collapsed against the tree. The pilot was still strapped in the cockpit, complexion surreal in the sof
t blue light, black blood covering his torso where the column had impaled his chest. Rolfe considered lighting a match, but decided against it. There was too much fuel in the air and daylight would come soon enough. He tossed his rifle and packs on the ground and sat at the foot of a tree to wait. And went to sleep.

  In the murky light of dawn, Rolfe awoke and collected his things, looking once more into the openings where the plane’s windows had once been. The air was still filled with fuel and the coppery smell of blood, and the cockpit buzzed with insects.

  He walked around to the pilot’s side and reached inside to tug the gold wristwatch off the man’s arm. He smiled as he plucked a clear glittering jewel that was pinned to one ear, and put them both in a pocket.

  Midway along the fuselage he found a jagged tear and squeezed a shoulder through. There was a canvass bag lying on its side, and pieces of a clear plastic bag that had exploded and covered the carpet and everything else with white dust. Flour, he thought at first, or baking soda, but it glittered on the tip of his finger.

  He reached for the bag. He managed to snag it by a strap and drag it toward him. The material was torn along the seam of a zipper and the inside was filled with more plastic bags.

  Chapter 11

  Washington, D.C.

  Judy Wells walked to a window overlooking D Street, separating blinds to search for the source of commotion. Through a pink haze of drizzle beneath the streetlights, a cop in black rain gear was blowing a shrill whistle. An ambulance was trying to get over the curb around a PEPCO truck with flashing yellow lights. Men in blue hard hats were sawing a tree limb caught on power lines.

  Behind her a door opened and her supervisor entered the room.

  “They find it, Jack?” she asked.

  “Twenty minutes ago.” He took a seat behind his desk and laid a document in front of him. “Mountain top in central West Virginia. Civil Air Patrol spotted a piece of tail wing in the trees.”

  “I can’t believe it,” she said, shaking her head.

  “First for all of us,” Jack said.

  “So now what?”

  “Area’s too remote to do a ground search in the dark. Local Sheriff will lead a search and rescue party in the morning. I want you to go with them.”

  “Do they know what’s on board?”

  “No details,” he said, “but they’re expecting you so you can be sure they’ve already surmised.”

  “This thing about the pistol range?”

  “The only thing I’m worried about right now is why that plane came out of the sky. Consider it a reprieve.”

  She nodded. “Carlisle told me the pilot was a junky. It could have been an accident.”

  “Or sabotage,” Jack said. “We already know Latora’s internal problems. Maybe we’ve misjudged Carlisle. Who’s to say there wasn’t a bomb in that satchel he handed the pilot? Anyhow, NTSB will be joining you.” He pushed the document toward her. “Sheriff’s name up there in West Virginia is Wayne. These are the directions to his office.”

  She picked it up and folded it in half.

  “You can do this Judy, right?”

  She looked back at him and laughed, shaking her head. “I’m fine, Jack.” She made a face, walked back to the window and looked down at the flashing yellow lights on the utility truck.

  “Fine,” he repeated.

  “It’s a walk in the woods for heaven’s sake,” she said softly.

  She turned up the collar of her jacket and lowered the window to keep her awake. There was little traffic on Route 50, but that didn’t surprise her. Who in their right mind would be heading toward West Virginia on a Friday night?

  The dash lights of the Grand Victoria burned blue and the odometer she had set just outside of Washington recorded a hundred and forty miles. She adjusted the radio to scan stations, but it stopped twice on the same drawling preacher before she shut it off.

  For mile after tiresome mile she thought about her life. And felt the hopelessness return.

  There was a flip side to loving people, she decided. For every ounce of love you felt there was a pound of hurt stored away.

  She had often wondered what her father was thinking before he died. Had he died of a broken heart, or was it from loneliness or guilt? If it was guilt, she could understand it. Judy knew all about guilt. Guilt was not being able to save your own child when you promised you would always be there for her.

  Or maybe it was that her father didn’t feel anything. Judy could identify with that as well. Maybe, she thought, he died of nothing more than sadness.

  She took 81 to Staunton and 250 to Durbin, turned on 28 and crossed the Greenbriar on 66 toward Slaty Fork.

  After a thirty-minute climb up Iron Mountain, she saw a sign announcing Marion’s town limits. It was diagonal and green and peppered with buckshot. Someone had spray-painted a skull and crossbones over it.

  The road was barely large enough for two cars, unmarked but for the occasional reflectors stuck in gravel, warning of culverts that had been dug out of the hillsides to keep runoffs from washing it out. It was unsettling; all the darkness, no streetlights, no string of oncoming headlights to light her way.

  Every house looked empty. Yards and driveways were littered with broken toys and pickup trucks. There was a gas station converted to a pizza shop, a video rental store in a small metal building. An auto parts store, convenience store and an Agway with a loading dock … but as the hour approached midnight none were lit.

  A bar with neon lights appeared, advertising Iron City and Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. She drove into the muddy parking lot and came to a stop between two large trucks. An illegible sign hung over the door, still strung with Christmas lights from some previous year.

  The bar was smoky and filled with men in plaid shirts and beards. They were young and old, longhaired and bald. She went straight for the rail between a neon orange camouflage jacket and a pair of bib overalls.

  Heads turned as she waited for the barmaid who was flirting with a customer. A whistle pierced the air, then laughter. Finally the barmaid turned and headed to where Judy stood.

  “Yeah, honey?” She cracked her gum.

  Judy wore khaki slacks, white oxford shirt open at the collar and burgundy calfskin jacket. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail.

  “I’m looking for the police department,” she yelled over the blaring country music.

  “Kitty, kitty, kitty,” someone howled.

  “ ‘Bout a mile more on the right. Big gray stone building. Can’t miss it, honey.” The barmaid leaned across the bar and playfully slapped one of her customers across the face.

  “You want a drink?” She glanced back at Judy. “I’ll put it on Billy D’s tab.” She pretended to slap the man again and everyone laughed.

  Judy sighed. “No thanks, honey.”

  She drove up behind the stone building and parked next to the gas pump, stopping in the hall to use the ladies’ room before opening the frosted glass door that read ‘Police Department’.

  A man wearing a washed out gray uniform with sergeant’s stripes pushed his newspaper aside when she entered. His nametag read ‘S. Watson’. He looked back at her through heavy glasses. “Ma’am?”

  “Agent Wells,” she said, handing him her ID. “Sheriff Wayne wouldn’t be in?”

  “Left more than an hour ago,” he said.

  She nodded, dropping her purse on the slat-backed wooden bench by the counter. The building smelled of old moldy paper and disinfectant. The walls and ceiling were painted green and were peeling in places above a hot water radiator. Except for rusty stains beneath the radiator, the floor was spotlessly clean.

  “Plane crash,” she said. “Your office is leading the recovery tomorrow?”

  “Sheriff said to tell you we’d meet here at five.” He tapped the desk to indicate here.

  “No one’s been up to see it yet?”

  He shook his head, looking at her carefully. “Be difficult to find in the dark. Must have been some dope on the
plane, huh?”

  “Is there some place I can stay tonight?” she asked, ignoring the question.

  “Cherokee Inn,” he said. “It’s a couple a miles up the road on the left, just opposite the Gas and Go. You’ll see the thirty-foot plywood Indian out front.”

  “Thanks,” she told him. “I’ll be back at five.”

  The sign for the Inn was indeed attached to an Indian. She gassed the Agency car at the all night filling station across the street and bought a pack of blackberry flavored wine coolers, bag of potato chips and a copy of the local paper. It was going to be a big Friday night, she thought, in the metropolis of Marion.

  Half an hour later she was showered and sitting cross-legged on a zigzag maroon and orange polyester bedspread, trying desperately to find a working channel on a cracked Zenith television chained to a dresser. The paper hadn’t taken five minutes to read. The former Five and Dime on Lincoln Street posed a safety hazard and was going to be leveled. Mayor Watkins praised the Preservation Society’s efforts to save it, but admitted it came second to books for the schools. Then there was the pig roast at the VFW and a picture of the Sheriff captioned, ‘Wayne says cause of death remains undetermined in the case of Annie Myers.’ The article was about one of the Mountain State Butcher’s victims who had been found in a local lake last year. The Sheriff looked young for the job, she thought, tossing the paper on the floor.

  Outside her window was a spot-lit billboard advertising a local bank and a not-so-local girl holding hundred dollar bills in her hands. At least there’s a view, she thought dismally.

  After thirty minutes she gave up on the television and drank two wine coolers, staring out the window and wondering where she would be this time next year. Then, unexpectedly, the tears began to fall.