The target was in sight. It was the first high-rise structure he would encounter on this heading in the downtown Reno area, so he wouldn’t have to weave around other buildings, and its distinctive curved shape made it easy to spot. The coordinates he had programmed into the GPS — refined, remeasured, and triple-checked several times over the past few months — were dead on, but he still put his hands on the control yoke, not to correct for any errors but so he could feel the autopilot’s servos making tiny corrections in the plane’s heading…
… and then Carl noticed through his cataract-infested eyes the blinking yellow “AP” light on the instrument panel and realized that the autopilot had disconnected itself ! He didn’t remember doing it. But how in the world could the plane have flown so precisely by itself? He was certainly in no condition to sit upright, let alone fly an airplane!
It was as if God Himself were steering his weapon of war, he decided. This truly was a message that his was indeed a blessed mission, ordained by God. The war was on, and God was indeed on their side.
One last task. He switched to the Reno control tower frequency, pressed the “XMIT” button, and spoke: “Live free or die. The Lord has spoken.”
They had walked another two hundred yards or so in the new direction without any more signs. “Whaddaya say, Marky?” Ron Spivey shouted. “We got nothing. We should’ve stayed on that original track. Now we need to start over.”
Brad looked at Ralph Markham. “Sergeant?”
Ralph appeared indecisive, but only for a few moments: “Another hundred yards,” he said. Ron groaned. Ralph made some quick calculations in his head. “Then we’ll turn right to three-four-zero, go for… for forty paces, turn back to one-seven-zero, and search back toward the crash site.”
“Where in heck did you come up with all that, Marky?” Ron asked. “Why do we have to do all that?”
“He’s putting us back on the reciprocal of the original search bearing,” Brad explained with a smile. “The one-in-sixty rule. We go out six hundred feet and change heading ten degrees, so we’ve offset ourselves one hundred feet, or about forty paces. Ralph’s plan should put us right back to where we found the sneaker, on the original search bearing.”
“So why don’t we just do that now?” Ron asked.
“Because I want to search another hundred yards on this bearing,” Ralph said. “Line up and let’s go.”
Ron rolled his eyes in exasperation but did as he was told.
Brad was starting to get a little tired slogging through the damp, uneven ground, and he could feel the sunburn building on the back of his unprotected neck. The terrain was getting a bit more rolling, and now they came across a wide wash that had a thin rivulet of water flowing through it from the recent thunderstorms. This last hundred yards was going to be tougher than the previous two hundred.
“I say we jog now, before we have to cross this wash,” Ron said.
“It’s not so bad,” Ralph said. “Just sixty more yards.”
Ron said something under his breath but pushed on.
Every now and then Brad would glance up at the search plane overhead. He was so close to becoming a senior member and flying that plane, he could almost taste it. Ground-team work was okay, but where he really belonged was…
Just as he descended from the wash’s embankment and started to look for the best place to cross the water, something made Brad turn around… and there, half buried in the embankment, covered in dust, mud, and insects, was a young boy!
“We are at the scene of a horrible airplane crash here at the Bruce R. Thompson United States Courthouse and Federal Building in downtown Reno,” the female reporter began. “The crash happened about fifteen minutes ago and is the worst air accident in Reno’s history. My cameraman Jerry Fleck is with me and he’ll be providing you shots of this unfolding tragedy.”
The camera panned to the southeast face of the building. Thick smoke and flames were still shooting out of the hole in the building, and the entire structure appeared to be tilting away from the camera. “As you can see, the plane hit almost directly in the center of the ten-story building here on the four-hundred block of South Virginia Street,” the reporter went on. “We do not know who the pilot was, how many passengers he had on board, or what kind of plane hit the building, although some observers say it is a medium-size turboprop used mostly by small companies. We have a call in to air traffic controllers at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport to find out if they were in contact with the pilot and what could have caused this terrible accident.
“We have been told that the fire department has just upped the response to this accident with a fifth alarm. The plane did not appear to crash all the way through the building, but the force of its impact blew out its north and northwest sides, spreading fire and debris onto the Bank of America office complex across Virginia Street, the U.S. Bank office building across Liberty Street, and onto residents and visitors on the streets below. Fortunately, most workers were not in those buildings during the weekend. The police have cordoned off two blocks in all directions, and they ask that you should not try to come downtown for any reason and allow police, firefighters, medical personnel, and investigators to do their jobs.”
The reporter touched her earpiece to listen closer, then said breathlessly, “I have just been given word by my producer, John Ramos, in the truck that, according to a spokesman for the FAA air traffic control facility at the Reno airport, an aircraft called a Beech King Air, which is a medium-size civilian turboprop aircraft, overflew the airport minutes ago at very high speed and very low altitude. We must conclude that it was the same airplane that hit the Thompson Federal Building. There is no speculation from the FAA as to whether the plane was trying to land at the airport and the pilot became disoriented, or if this was a deliberate act. It is simply too early to—”
The reporter stopped and again listened into her earpiece while the camera moved away from her and zoomed in on the shattered building. Off-camera, she said in a whisper, “What do you mean, we’re getting out of here? We’re two blocks away — it’s safe! We’re… John? John?” A moment later, a man wearing headphones ran up to the reporter and pulled her away, briefly crossing in front of the camera. “John, what are you doing ? I’m on the air!”
“I know you are,” the man said. “We’re getting out of here, now ! Jerry, pack it up!”
“I’m not going anywhere!” the reporter whispered angrily. “This is the biggest story of my life! I’m staying with it for as long as—” The producer whispered something in the reporter’s ear as he dragged her toward the crew’s truck. “What? What did you say, John?”
“Radioactivity!” he replied.
“What…!”
The producer grabbed the microphone. “U.S. Secret Service investigators have detected large levels of radioactivity at the crash site,” he said. “The plane that crashed into the Thompson Federal Building was carrying some sort of nuclear device or weapon. The entire downtown district of Reno is being evacuated.”
Two
Youth is wholly experimental.
“Holy crap … contact! Contact! Over here!” Brad shouted excitedly.