Sasha now found himself staring at the controls of a plane he’d never seen. He had no piloting experience. He knew nothing.
“Well, now what, skipper?” she said sarcastically.
“Danil, what the hell am I supposed to do?”
Danil leaned his head back and wiped his face with his hands.
“Danil, you’ve got to think,” Anya yelled.
Danil began mumbling. He was going through a pre-flight check in his thoughts. “Ignition,” he blurted out. Danil raised his hand and pointed to the switches to start the engines. Sasha inhaled deeply and began following the steps Danil was pointing out. Within a minute, both engines on the Cessna were turning and they were headed out the hangar door.
Sasha pointed the plane toward the makeshift runway that ran parallel to the lane. It was nothing more than a gravel strip piled on the edge of the fields. He could feel the wheels struggling in the snow. The new layer from the night before did nothing but hide the frozen crust and just made it more difficult. As he added thrust to push through the snow, he heard the engines spiral up and watched the gauges react. The wheels slipped as he turned onto the runway and the plane slid sideways. He held his breath until he felt the crust give way and the plane began to roll easily. Danil laid his hand on Sasha’s arm.
“Flaps.” He pointed and made a gesture with his hand. Sasha nodded and mimicked the movement. Danil turned and noted the movement on the wings. “Down.”
The path they were taking was bumpy, not the smooth concrete strip of an airport. They were rolling atop large gravel stones. It felt like baseballs beneath the wheels, but the twin-engines pulled it easily along. Sasha brought them to a standstill as Danil straightened himself in the second seat. It was all he could do. That small effort drained him. He heard Anya’s voice from behind.
“We gonna do this?”
Sasha’s answer was a throttle up of the engines as he kept the plane motionless. They had a short ramp and they needed as much speed as they could manage. He released the brakes just as Anya yelled out from behind.
“Shit!” She pointed ahead of them toward the front of the lane. A dark sedan was speeding down the road and there was little doubt where he was heading. “Go, go, go!” She pulled her rifle from the seat beside her and with a quick burst, shot out the window beside her.
“Damn, Anya. Scare the hell out of me!” Sasha screamed.
They could hear stray rounds hit as they ricocheted off the plane’s metal skin. Sasha flinched at the sound and pushed the throttle forward giving it as much power as the plane could manage. They were heading toward each other and the frequency of hits was growing rapidly. Anya returned fire as the angle closed, desperately trying to avoid hitting the wing. More rounds peppered the metal skin and Anya instinctively ducked.
“That last guy I plugged must have made a call,” she shouted.
“They got here too fast. They were probably already been on their way,” Sasha yelled.
“Get this thing off the ground,” she screamed as she let loose another burst, this time emptying her magazine.
The car began to angle toward them but the drift between the lane and their runway proved too much. It plowed into the drift throwing its front end into the air. It came down hard, its wheel buckling beneath the weight as the Cessna roared past to another hail of bullets.
“Pull back,” Danil ordered.
Sasha responded and the plane seemed to lurch as the wheels cleared the snow, the twin engines lifting them away cleanly. Sasha could barely contain himself. He was shaking, his nerves on fire as they lifted into the brightening, morning light.
“Keep going up,” Danil said as he leaned forward. His finger landed on the compass. “Climb to three thousand feet and make your heading two-nine-zero degrees.” He nearly choked on his words as his body fell back into the seat.
Anya pulled herself up behind his seat and put her hand on his forehead.
“He’s burning up.” She pulled back her hand and wiped Danil’s sweat off on her pants. He was drenched.
“You just get some rest, Danil. We’ve got it from here,” Major Francis Brown said.
“Three thousand feet isn’t very high.”
“He probably wants us below any tracking radars.”
“Where’s that course take us?”
“Not quite sure exactly, but it heads us toward the coast. It’s the shortest flight route out of Russia. We’ll make the Baltic States, Latvia, I think.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not,” she replied. Captain Ruth Garrison leaned back into her seat and folded her arms across her chest. “One other thing. I sure as hell hope you know how to land this thing.”
“Piece of cake,” Frank said as he began to laugh. “I’ll make you a deal. If I can get us there, you can land it.”
“I don’t think so, Major. Not my line of work you understand. I generally like to keep my feet on the ground.” Ruth leaned back into her seat. It wasn’t very comfortable, but she was tired. She knew if she closed her eyes, she’d be asleep within minutes. She couldn’t do that to Frank. “How long until we get out of Russia?”
“That’s a good question. I don’t really know. I know our airspeed, but I don’t know the distance we’ve got to travel. If I had to make a stupid guess, I’d say a couple hours.”
“I’ll take that stupid guess. We might just make it.”
Ruth watched as the ground passed slowly beneath them. It was hard to believe they were traveling at two-hundred forty miles per hour. The featureless, white blanket below droned on endlessly. Had it not been for the occasional building, she wouldn’t have been able to tell they were moving. She guessed they were over mostly farmland, but with the white blanket, few details of the landscape made themselves known. She shook her head as she thought of pilots who flew over the arctic. How did they do it? They’d only been at this for less than an hour. The sounds of the engines suddenly intruded into her thoughts, the dull roar encompassing the cabin. A small town below broke up the monotony.
“How you doing up there?”
“Easiest thing I’ve done on this mission,” Frank answered. “I think I missed my calling.” Frank leaned forward and tapped on a gauge. “Hmmm.”
“What?”
“Fuel seems to be dropping faster than I would have thought.”
“That’s not good. Do we have enough to make it?”
“I have no idea. I hope so.” Frank looked ahead as the landscape passed below. “What we need is a big sign that says you have left Russia.”
“I wonder if one of those rounds did some damage?”
“Wonderful,” Frank replied sarcastically. “Couldn’t hit a damn window. Shit!”
“Climb.”
“You okay, Will?”
“Climb,” Jenner choked. “Gain some altitude.”
“How high?”
“Get to,” Will closed his eyes, his mind scrambling. “Get to ten thousand.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
“Aye Captain,” Frank replied.
He pulled back on the wheel and let the plane begin a slow climb. He called it off as he went. Five thousand. Seven thousand. Eight. Nine thousand. Ten thousand feet.
“How long have we been in the air?”
“About an hour and a half.”
“That should put us over the Baltic states.”
“And out of Russia,” Ruth answered, finishing his sentence. “That makes me feel safer.” She pulled her coat tightly around her shoulders. “It’s cold in here.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t have shot out the window,” Frank replied.
“Whew.” Will wiped his forehead with this sleeve. “How long have I been out?” His voice was strained. He grimaced as he coughed. “Ohhhh. I have a splitting headache.”