Stealing Gulfstreams, Page 3

  “What the hell is this? Play money? It’s purple!”

  For a moment my whole body goes tense as a rock. León definitely lowballed us back there, big-time. But he couldn’t have ripped us off completely…could he?

  I glance inside the envelope myself—and chuckle with relief.

  The cash is real. But it’s not the hundred-dollar bills we’re usually paid in.

  It’s a stack of five-hundred-euro notes.

  So that’s how León managed to fit a quarter-million bucks into a single envelope. Smart.

  “Listen, Cole, I know you’re pissed off—”

  “Damn right I am!” he says, stuffing the envelope back into his coat pocket. “That plane was worth twenty million!”

  “Think of it this way,” I say. “We just made two hundred fifty large for a single day’s work. Not too shabby, brother. Not too shabby at all.”

  Cole shakes his head. He knows I’m right.

  But we both know our real work is only just beginning.

  Chapter 9

  And that’s when he smells it. A pilot’s absolute worst fear.

  Smoke.

  In an instant, John’s cockpit is engulfed in flames. He pulls the windshield-release lever, and the glass top goes flying off. But the smoke is still billowing too much for him to see a thing—except for the ground, coming up fast.

  John yanks hard on the yoke, trying desperately to soften his crash landing, praying fervently that his two sons will be taken care of.…

  My eyes shoot open. My breath catches in my throat. My hands are clammy, each one gripping the sheets like a vise.

  That goddamn nightmare again!

  I feel my father’s presence every day. In every plane I fly. Why won’t he let me have peace when I sleep?

  I dab my sweaty brow and force myself to take some slow, deep breaths. At least I’m in my own bed this time, not some fleabag motel.

  The clock on my nightstand tells me it’s a few minutes past five a.m. Might as well get to work and start my day.

  It’s going to be a long one.

  After a thirty-minute drive on US-6 through the barren Nevada desert, I pull my beat-up black Camaro into the rear service entrance of Tonopah Airport, a barely used public airstrip in the middle of the state—in the middle of nowhere. The runway is cracked and potholed. Most of the hangars look like dilapidated wooden barns.

  It’s the perfect home base for our operation.

  I unlock my “office.” It’s a tiny mobile trailer with a faded sign on the door: FLYNN FLIGHT SCHOOL & AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE, LLC. The cramped suite inside is stuffed floor to ceiling with papers, navigation charts, flight manifests, repair orders, and airplane deeds of sale (most of them forged). All part of our legit business cover.

  I flip on the ancient coffee machine and give it the good whack it needs to start brewing. Then I take a look at the calendar hanging on the wall.

  Shit! I forgot. This morning I have a new student.

  An hour later, I’m shaking hands with Hal Stauber, a husky, good-ol’-boy-type from a cushy Vegas suburb, a recent college grad and Air Force ROTC dropout. Just promoted to VP at his father’s nearby plastics factory, Hal is looking to get his pilot’s license so he can “take hot chicks 4 the ride of their life. LOL!”

  Not that he’s told me any of this. But it’s amazing what you can learn spending a few minutes googling somebody and checking his Facebook profile and Twitter feed.

  “Yeah, this is mostly gonna be a refresher course for me,” Hal says with a smirk as we walk along the tarmac. “I did a little preflight training back in the Air Force.”

  Is this punk for real? Claiming you’re an airman because you spent a year in college in ROTC is like saying you played in the majors because you used to be in Little League. It’s an insult to everyone who truly serves or served in uniform.

  But of course I bite my tongue.

  “That’s great to hear!” I say cheerily. “We can probably skip ahead then to some more advanced maneuvers. If you’re feeling ready for it, that is.”

  Hal’s grin wavers a bit, but he’s too arrogant to say no.

  We climb inside the red-and-white twin-seat Beechcraft T-34 parked alongside the runway. She was a rickety Navy training jet from the 1980s that Cole and I saved from a scrapyard a few years back, then stripped and put back together, piece by piece, till she was good as new. Better. Part of Flynn Flight School’s appeal, after all, is that our more advanced students get to fly in souped-up military jets, not dinky turboprops.

  Let’s see if my new friend Hal here can handle it on day one.

  After I walk him through the cockpit’s control array and preflight checklist, it’s clear he doesn’t know an aileron from his elbow.

  Oh, this is going to be fun.

  I taxi and take off, then transfer control of the bird to my student.

  At least, I tell him I do.

  “Okay, Hal. Let’s climb to four thousand feet, heading one-two-niner.”

  “Uh, copy,” he says, fumbling with the control column, trying to comply. “But isn’t that a little low for cruising? I mean, I’m sure you know what you’re doing and all, but—”

  “Trust me. I do.” When we’ve reached the altitude I want, I say, “Wow, nice work. You really are a well-trained pilot. Let’s try a simple stall/spin recovery. Sound good?”

  Before Hal can protest, I tug the yoke back and yaw to the left. The plane begins to stall unevenly, and a warning buzzer blares.

  Hal starts to scream as our T-34 starts to shudder and twirl wildly. “Are you nuts, dude?” he exclaims. “Do something!”

  I take both my hands off the control column. “Nah, it’s all you, dude.”

  Outside, the horizon line starts spinning like a pinwheel. Inside, poor Hal is paralyzed by panic. His eyes are shut tight. He’s pressing his palms against the cockpit roof to brace himself, hanging on for dear life.

  I have to chuckle at the sight—until his cheeks puff up like a blowfish. No way is this big guy about to lose his lunch all over my pristine plane.

  So after one more spin, I even out the ailerons, rudder back to center, and easily level us out. Then I pitch sharply up and climb fast—so when Hal finally does puke seconds later, the g-force sends it all over his face and shirt, not my plane’s controls.

  “You all right there, pal?” I ask.

  Hal is wiping his face and shirt in shame. He doesn’t answer. In fact, he never says another word to me, not even after we’ve landed. He simply stumbles out of the plane in silence and staggers back to the airport parking lot.

  As I watch him peel off his vomit-soaked shirt and get into his car, part of me does feel a little bad for the guy.

  “Hey!” I shout. “Hal, I’m sorry, man! I really am! Come back!”

  But Hal puts his car in gear and drives off.

  Oh, well. A jerk like that? He had it coming.

  They always do.

  Chapter 10

  “It was one of the dumbest things I ever did. I’m lucky to be alive.”

  Cole is solemnly addressing a circle of nine eager young faces, each person hanging on his every word. It almost feels like my little brother should add, My name is Cole, and I’m an alcoholic. He is—but this isn’t that kind of meeting.

  “At twelve thousand feet, my engine started sputtering,” he continues. “Then it went kaput. After I’d just finished rebuilding it that morning! By the grace of God, I set her down on a bumpy patch of dirt twenty miles from home. When I got her towed back here and opened her up, I realized my mistake. I hadn’t clamped the induction hose to the metering assembly right. I’d used the wrong-size bolts.”

  Cole pinches his thumb and index finger together in the air.

  “Five millimeters too small. That was it. I came half a centimeter away from death that day. All because I messed up. Got careless. So when my brother and me get on you guys about the details, about double- and triple-checking your tools and parts and practices, it�
��s not ’cause we’re assholes.”

  Cole pauses. “Well, maybe a little bit.” Then he carries on.

  “It’s ’cause we aren’t messing around here. This is serious shit. You want to work for our company? On our planes? You do it right. Every time. Or you go back to wherever the hell you came from. Clear?”

  The hangar echoes with a chorus of affirmations.

  “Good. Now, back to work.”

  The group splinters off. They’re the latest batch of aviation-mechanics-in-training Cole and I hired and have been teaching for the past couple of months. All local kids in their teens and early twenties. Most of them high school dropouts or ex-cons or both. Good folks from bad backgrounds who just need a second chance.

  Like Cole did when he was their age.

  Starting this apprenticeship program was my brother’s idea, actually. And I’ve got to give him credit. I was skeptical, but it’s been working out like a dream. We get a small army of top repairmen for dirt cheap—who are loyal enough to keep their mouths shut.

  “You know, the last time you gave that pep talk,” I say to Cole as we head over to the corner of the hangar to inspect our most prized flying possession, “it was the bearing boss you clamped wrong. Is your memory starting to go already?”

  My brother chuckles. “That whole damn story’s bullshit, man,” he says. “It’s the sentiment that counts.”

  We arrive at an aircraft resting on maintenance stilts covered in a thick gray tarp. Carefully we slide the cloth off…

  Revealing a half-built T-2C Buckeye. Gleaming polished silver with blue trim.

  She still takes my breath away, every time.

  “Those new CMX turbine blades are gonna work out nice,” Cole says, inspecting the latest component of the twin engines we just started installing yesterday. “Of course, since you let León pay us pennies on the dollar last week, we’re basically sixty grand in the hole again. But hey.”

  “Drop it, already, would you?” I snap.

  I climb up the stilts and run my hand along the smooth, chilly metal of the fuselage.

  In my mind I can hear the engines purring. The wind screeching past. The pace pilot speaking over the radio: “Gentlemen, you have a race!”

  This right here is a modern, souped-up version of the T-2 Buckeye we watched our father die in fifteen years ago at the National Championship Air Races in Reno.

  It’s the whole reason Cole and I do what we do. Why we steal private planes for a shady lowlife. So we can afford to build a top-of-the-line racing jet of our own.

  It’s the bird I’ll be flying in that exact same race later this year.

  “Pop would be proud,” Cole says, as if he can read my mind. “Real proud.”

  I shake my head. “Not yet.”

  I climb down off the stilts and start preparing to head home for the day.

  “Right now, brother,” I continue, “all we are is a pair of criminals. But soon…soon we’ll be winners.”

  Chapter 11

  It’s high noon at Tonopah Airport, and the inside of my office feels like an oven.

  I’m sitting at my desk doing paperwork, but my shirt is drenched with sweat. The trailer’s AC died a few weeks back, and Cole and I have been a little too busy—not to mention short on funds—to get it fixed. I make a mental note to take care of that.…

  When I feel something strange.

  My entire little trailer starts to rattle. Books and papers tumble off shelves. My flimsy desk chair vibrates beneath me.

  What the hell? Is this an earthquake?

  As the tremors grow stronger, I hear something: a low, distant rumbling that I recognize immediately. It’s a vintage propeller engine on full blast.

  From the sound of it, the bird is flying low—but coming in red-hot.

  Way too fast for a safe landing.

  Uh-oh.

  I leap to my feet and burst out the door. Cole, a handful of our mechanics, and some other airport patrons have stepped outside to get a glimpse of this mystery plane in possible distress.

  And here she comes.

  Looks to me like a fully restored P-51 Mustang, a workhorse fighter-bomber used in World War II and Korea. I see a row of angry shark teeth painted around its nose cone. I’ve only flown a Mustang a few times myself, but she’s one hell of a warbird. Nimble, versatile, one of the fastest old propeller planes around.

  And she’s dive-bombing right at us!

  The sound of the engine grows deafening. I almost run for cover, but the Mustang finally pitches up and veers over our heads into a series of rapid barrel rolls.

  We watch, impressed, as the bird twirls like a top, climbing higher and higher toward the clouds, before finally slowing…to a total vertical standstill.

  Next, it enters a tail slide, a controlled backward fall.

  At least, I hope it’s controlled. Because a P-51 definitely wasn’t built to do that.

  I feel my heart slide into my throat as I watch the Mustang plummet straight back down toward the ground, tail first, getting faster and faster.

  This fall is eating up altitude. The pilot is really pushing his luck. Even our team of mechanics can tell this trick is going on a little too long for comfort.

  Finally, at the last possible second, the Mustang tips all the way backward into a stunning reverse loop, before the pilot regains control and pitches up again—not more than fifty feet from the ground!

  We all let out relieved sighs as the plane curves back around, decreases speed, and comes in for a landing.

  The mechanics cheer and applaud. Cole rolls his eyes, snuffs out his cigarette, and heads back to our hangar.

  I find myself marching over to the taxiing prop plane. I want to meet this cocky stunt flier, who showed up unannounced at “my” airport and almost gave me and my staff a heart attack. Who exactly does he think he is?

  The windshield slides open, and the pilot climbs out. He pulls off his flight helmet…and a silky blond ponytail tumbles out.

  Well, damn. Looks like this ace is actually a woman.

  Pretty, too.

  “You practically gave us a haircut back there with that nosedive,” I call out to her.

  The pilot pulls off her leather gloves and gives me a once-over as I approach, getting close enough for me to notice her green eyes.

  “A little grooming might do you some good.”

  She chuckles, and I’m immediately self-conscious. Cole and I have been practically living inside our hangar installing the new turbine blades we just bought for the T-2. It’s been days since I shaved or ran a comb through my mop. Or even changed out of my grimy, sweat-soaked clothes.

  And here I am talking to a pretty girl who just stepped out of a 110-degree cockpit looking fresh as a daisy. Great.

  “I’m Jack” is all I manage to say. “Nice flying back there.”

  “Natalie,” she responds. But instead of shaking my hand, she gives me a stiff salute. “Or maybe I should say, ‘I’m Lieutenant Hammond…Commander Flynn.’”

  I do a terrible job of hiding my shock. “How do you know who I am?”

  “Did my research. How do you think I knew about this airport?”

  I’m even more taken aback now. How did she know about it? The anonymity of Tonopah is why we like it. But I try to act casual.

  “Then you probably know I left the Navy a couple of years ago. So you can drop all this rank and ‘commander’ business.”

  Natalie nods. “I’m former Air Force myself. Got tired of stealth bombing runs over Baghdad and Ramadi, night after night. I didn’t reenlist.”

  She begins to circle her aircraft, placing wheel chocks around the landing gear. I’ll admit I don’t mind watching.

  “Now I mostly work air shows and trade events,” she says. “Not my dream job…but you couldn’t pay me enough to teach newbies to fly. Or work maintenance? God. I don’t know how you stay sane out here. What’s your secret?”

  Okay, now I’m really getting suspicious.

 
Who the hell is this woman? Why is she here?

  “That just pays my bills,” I answer. “I hardly even think about it anymore. What’s your secret?”

  Natalie simply turns and starts heading toward the airport’s main hangar.

  Without breaking stride, she glances back and offers a beguiling smile. “Good question.”

  Chapter 12

  The sun is setting on Tonopah Airport, and the scorching heat has finally started to break.

  A few recreational pilots have flown in and out, along with a crop duster or two; but compared with Natalie’s death-defying air show, the rest of the day was pretty quiet.

  From behind the stacks of paperwork on my desk, I’ve been catching glimpses of her tinkering away on her Mustang all afternoon. Recalibrating the engine, tightening bolts, topping up the fuel tank, polishing the fuselage. Somehow she makes routine plane maintenance fascinating.

  I did some research and found her Air Force public-service record. Some blurbs on a few aviation blogs about her flying skills. But that’s about it.

  Which is why I’m wary of her. Intrigued—okay, attracted—but uneasy. What’s her deal?

  I glance out my trailer window and notice Natalie’s Mustang is now covered by a tarp. Shit.

  Good thing I’m just about done for the day myself. What a coincidence.

  Grabbing my keys and iPhone off my desk, I hurry out of the office and walk casually yet briskly toward the airport’s rear parking lot.

  Sure enough, I spy Natalie unlocking the door of a vintage fire-engine-red sports car, a 1965 Ford Mustang. Cute.

  “We meet again, Commander,” Natalie calls, flashing me another little smile.

  “Nice car,” I say, heading toward my own late-model black Camaro. “So you fly an old Mustang, and you drive one, too? I gotta give you points for consistency.”

  “Funny. My friends would tell you I’m full of contradictions.”

  And with that, she slips behind the wheel, revs the engine, and peels out.

  I watch her head down the airport service road and turn westbound along US-6. I live to the east, but something inside tells me to follow.