Sam gripped the side of the ladder until the whites of his knuckles shined bright. He breathed heavily, and his heart pounded in his chest. And like a child who’d climbed the highest tree only to realize the inherent dangers, Sam glanced down at the water racing by and swallowed hard.
What have I just done?
He planted his feet hard on the slender float below.
The floatplane banked heavily to the left. The pilot’s movement was more of a swift jerking motion than a controlled maneuver. Sam’s weight instantly shifted with it, and the soles of his wet bare feet slipped off the pontoon.
Sam’s legs fell into the open void and his hands slipped, falling to the second rung of the ladder. The wind rushed over him, trying to drag him away with it. The pilot straightened the floatplane and its 450-kW Pratt & Whitney R-1340 geared radial engine grunted as they started to climb.
Sam gritted his teeth and in one quick motion pulled himself up onto the pontoon again. He crossed his legs around the boarding ladder and entangled an arm through a rung so that his elbow formed a permanent lock, while his other hand gripped the edge of the ladder. He breathed heavily again catching his breath.
He shot a glance at the water. It was more than fifty feet below now — much too far to jump, even if he had wanted to. He returned his attention directly above, and his eyes trailed the row of windows along the fuselage. Except for his would-be-assassin, who was piloting the floatplane, the aircraft was empty.
That meant the pilot would have trouble defending himself, but also presented the problem of how to incapacitate the man without crashing the de Havilland in the process. Either way, he needed to come up with a solution before the pilot reached the mainland, where, chances were, his attacker would have reinforcements.
Sam climbed the four rungs up the ladder. His right hand reached the cabin door and tried to turn the handle. It didn’t budge. His luck had run out. The door was locked, and he was fresh out of keys. Or anything else to force the door.
Inside, the pilot glanced over his shoulder and smiled at him with all the confidence of a man who knew he’d already won.
Sam returned the smile. He didn’t lose very often, and when he did, his opponent’s victories never came easy. He had nothing more than the shirt on his back, but there were still a few cards left to play. On the other hand, so did the bad guy. The pilot’s eyes returned to face forward and a moment later, he banked hard to the right.
This time, Sam was prepared for it.
His hands gripped the rungs of the ladder, and his legs kept their footing at the base of the ladder. The plane leveled out again, and the pilot started to seriously put the little seaplane through its paces — banking sharply, diving, and then climbing to shake Sam off. As the plane dipped again, Sam considered his best option may still be to jump next time the aircraft dipped low enough that he might survive the fall.
He glanced back at the Lighthouse Reef to see how far they’d traveled. It was already more than a couple miles away. An impossible distance to swim in the open ocean, where the currents would constantly pull him off course.
The seaplane banked hard enough that it nearly rolled. The airframe gave a distinct creak with the greatly increased wing loadings and g-forces. Sam gritted his teeth and locked his hands together through the ladder’s rung. It was obvious the pilot was willing to risk crashing the aircraft to win. Sam shook his head. His forearms burned.
Could his grip outlast the strength of the airframe?
The pilot could keep playing all day until the seaplane ran out of fuel, or its structure finally gave out. Either way, Sam couldn’t hold on that long. He needed to do something, and whatever action he was going to take, he needed to take it soon while he still had some strength in his reserves.
He glanced across the horizon, trying to get an idea where the pilot was heading. The afternoon sun was somewhere to the right of the aircraft’s nose, which meant they were heading west, toward the Belize mainland. Up ahead, Sam could make out the sandy outline of a beach and surrounding shallow green waters of Turneffe Atoll.
His eyes darted backward toward the Great Blue Hole, confirming his predictions about their location. The sky looked clear and the water inviting. Sam squinted. There was something else on the horizon. Between him and the rapidly dwindling sight of the reef was the most welcome sight he’d had in at least a week.
Was it a small helicopter?
Sam remembered the tiny Robinson 22 on the back of Ridley’s pleasure cruiser. He didn’t know how, but he was willing to bet his life that Tom had either appropriated the helicopter or convinced its owner to follow them.
Maybe he wouldn’t have to swim after all.
Now all he had to do was force the seaplane down, so the fall wouldn’t kill him. Sam’s daredevil nature had put him in many crazy predicaments, but the sight of his old friend once again coming to the rescue somehow made him braver than he probably should have been. They were approaching the mainland rapidly now, and Sam could see Belize City on its little pimple of land sticking out from the mainland.
Sam mentally checked his resources. There wasn’t much. He’d simply thrown on a casual shirt over his board shorts after peeling out of the wetsuit. He climbed the top step of the ladder and gripped the large strut fixed to the wing. It gave him a clear view of the pilot. The man looked at him, and then dipped the wing to the left, trying to throw him off.
The pilot was close to succeeding at it, too. With his elbow wrapped around the strut, Sam ruefully considered his $4000 titanium dive watch. It wasn’t the price tag that upset him. The watch was a gift from his dad, and he hated the thought of losing it. Deciding his life was worth more than the watch or the sentiment, he unclipped the lock clasp and waited.
When the pilot banked again, Sam was ready for it.
The aileron — that small hinged flap at the trailing edge of the left wing — jolted upward. The immediate reduction to the overall camber of the wing reduced lift and caused the left wing to dip. The seaplane rolled to the left.
Sam gripped the strut fixed to the wing, and then using his left hand, he shoved the titanium wristwatch into the small gap between the aileron and the leading edge of the wing, so the aileron was now permanently locked in an upward position.
Under normal circumstances, ailerons worked to turn the plane by creating more lift on one wing while decreasing the lift generated by the other. The upward aileron reduced the overall camber of the wing exposed to the relative airflow, which reduced its ability to create lift. As the wing dips, the aircraft rolls and then turns to that side.
Sam watched as the pilot tried to bring the steering column back to straight and level. It didn’t budge. Instead, the seaplane continued to dip farther to the left. The loss in the overall lift of the wing caused the nose to drop, and the entire aircraft to stall — entering what is known as a death spiral, losing altitude as it spun in a tight circle.
The contents of Sam’s gut raced upward as the seaplane plummeted to the ground. He held on and cursed himself for having so much success with his plan, as he raced toward the sea with deadly speed. He wanted to force the aircraft to crash, but hadn’t planned to kill himself in the process.
He glanced toward the pilot, who was madly working the other controls to compensate. The engine whined, as the pilot tried to extract every pound of lift, and the tail rudder was hard all the way over to the right, in an attempt to counteract the roll.
The pilot’s damned good, Sam noted — but not good enough. They were going to crash, and they were going to crash hard.