“I’m not so sure your buddy could take it. Besides, it’s safer this way.” She seemed disappointed and sat in silence as they flew out to the training area over the desert. The FAA inspector checked them in with Phoenix Approach and quickly set up the next maneuver with Pontowski chasing him in a climb. Twice, they went through the Immelmann followed by Pontowski’s overshoot. Satisfied with the results, they entered the scissors in an exact recreation of the air show. Then, at 7,000 feet, the inspector’s Marchetti departed controlled flight and flipped into an inverted spin. “Knock it off and recover,” Pontowski radioed, the same as before.
But this time, the inspector went through the recovery procedures and safely recovered the Marchetti. “I was wings-level with five hundred and sixty feet to spare.” He transmitted. They went through the maneuver again. But this time, the inspector entered a fully developed inverted stall, just as Johar had experienced. The aircraft was still inverted when it fell through 5,000 feet, where the ground would have been if they had been at the same altitude as the air show. “Shit-oh-dear,” the inspector radioed. “You have to hold it with wrong stick and rudder to make it happen. The bird wants to fly out of it naturally.”
“What does that mean?” Kate asked.
“Jim just confirmed what we saw and heard on Johar’s videotape. Beason was on the controls.”
“Do you want to try it?” the inspector radioed.
Pontowski looked at the lawyer. “Oh, yes,” she said.
Again, they repeated the scissors maneuver, only this time Pontowski did the spin. But his Marchetti would not flip inverted and they entered a normal spin. They only lost 600 feet before recovering. “Can we do that again?” Kate asked.
“We can try.” He keyed the radio. “Miss Winston wants to do it again. She wants to see the world from upside down.”
“Ah,” the inspector answered, “maybe we should RTB. My guy looks kinda green. Oops, he’s puking his guts out.” The lawyer’s stomach had caught up with him once they were flying straight and level.
The two planes joined up in a loose formation for the leg back to Williams. “I love it,” Kate said. “That was the most exciting thing I’ve ever done.”
Before Pontowski could answer, an annunciator light on the control panel blinked at them. He scanned the engine instruments. The oil pressure gauge was reading zero. “Jim, I’ve lost my oil pressure,” he radioed. “I’m gonna have to shut the engine down.”
“There’s a fairly straight part of a dirt road at nine o’clock, two miles,” the inspector replied. “Shut ’er down while I check it out.” He nosed his Marchetti over and stroked the throttle, racing for the ground while he radioed Phoenix Approach about the emergency. Pontowski went through the engine shut-down procedures and set up his glide airspeed while the inspector overflew the dirt road. “It looks kinda rough, Matt. Plus there’s a series of high-tension power lines crossing the road. You might want to look somewhere else.”
“It’s pretty rocky out here,” Pontowski radioed. “Unless I see something more promising, I’ll go for the road.” The inspector answered with two short clicks on the radio button. When all was said and done, it was Pontowski’s decision. “The road is the smoothest piece of real estate around here,” Pontowski told Kate, an obvious understatement.
Kate sucked in her breath when she saw three sets of power lines that made big droops as they crossed the dirt road in front of them. “Can we make it?” she asked.
“No problem,” Pontowski answered.
Her breath was coming in short bursts. “We don’t have enough altitude!”
“Check the road,” he ordered. “Look for potholes.” He concentrated on the power lines as he descended.
“I see some holes,” Kate shouted. They cleared the first power line by fifty feet. Ahead of them, she could see the next high-tension wire. “We’re not high enough to fly over it!” she screamed.
“Who said anything about flying over,” Pontowski replied, his voice calm and measured. He dropped a notch of flaps and hit the gear handle, lowering the landing gear. The sudden drag caused the Marchetti to drop like a rock without changing its attitude. They dropped beneath the second power line and flew under, touching down on a smooth section of road. “Nice, baby, real nice.” He was talking to the Marchetti as they rode out a series of rough bumps. They rolled to a stop and he radioed they were down safely.
He slid the canopy back as the other Marchetti flew by and did a wing wag before heading for Williams. “Cheated death again,” Pontowski told her, pulling off his helmet.
Kate turned to him, her eyes wide and unblinking as she removed her helmet. Then her hands pulled at the quick release on her safety harness and it fell away. She reached for Pontowski’s face and pulled him to her as she twisted in the seat. Her mouth was on his as her tongue explored his mouth. “Please, please,” she whispered.
Her fingers pulled at the leg clips on her parachute and the straps fell away. He released her chest strap and she shrugged off the parachute harness. She came out of the seat in a fluid motion. He crawled out of the cockpit as she ran around the tail of the airplane and threw herself into his arms. Her mouth captured his tongue and she sucked. At the same time, she tugged at his shirt. Suddenly she pushed back and proclaimed, “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.” She pulled free and ran for the bushes, unbuttoning her jeans.
Pontowski looked around and saw a cloud of dust coming down the road toward them. “A car’s coming,” he said. Kate’s head bobbed up from behind a bush.
A sheriff’s patrol car pulled up and stopped. “Everything okay here?” the deputy asked, a big smile on his face. He was looking at the bushes where Kate had disappeared.
A scream answered him and Kate ran out of the bushes, pulling up her pants. “A scorpion bit me!” she shouted.
“Where?” Pontowski asked.
She turned and pulled down one side of her jeans and panties, revealing a red mark on a well-shaped buttock. “Oh, dear,” the deputy said. “One of us will just have to suck it out.”
FIVE
Maddy Turner stood in the shower and let the hot water course over her head. Forty-seven, she thought. The water felt good and she turned up the pressure. Her skin tingled and came alive and, for a moment, she was young again. She turned off the water, wrapped a big towel around herself, and stepped out of the shower. Automatically, she checked the clock. Just after 5:00 A.M. Who’s the master here? You or me? She knew the answer. She was a slave to the clock.
She toweled her hair, feeling rested and fresh after a good night’s sleep. Then the number was back. Forty-seven. How many good years do I have left? She reached for the hair dryer and her towel fell away. She glanced at herself in the mirror. Would a man still find me attractive? As quickly as it came, the thought was gone and she pulled on a white terry-cloth robe to finish drying her hair. She heard the knock at the door.
It was Mary, one of the duty officers who rotated the night shift in the residence. “Madame President, I’m sorry to disturb you but since I saw your light on—” She didn’t finish the sentence. The light in question was the motion-detector system that tracked the president’s movements in the White House.
“It’s okay,” Maddy said. “I was awake. What’s the problem?”
“The watch officer just received a message from the CIA and thought you should see it. It’s a category three.”
Maddy’s heart stopped racing. A category-three message only required the president’s attention.