Flying Too Close to the Sun by George Jehn (novels for beginners .txt) 📕

the money bags but replacing them with dummies. I can’t be running all over the airport ‘cause with this terrorist stuff, someone might spot me and report it. If that happens, the cops will put two and two together and implicate you. Bottom line is I gotta have a way to get to your exact location.”

Erik floated the idea of using one of those new personal GPS units that’s supposedly accurate to within feet. But Christina quashed that. “Those satellites are sent up by a government agency, I believe it’s the Department of Defense, meaning there’s probably a record of the coordinates that are selected. So, it would undoubtedly be easy to download that information, allowing the cops to trace it and quickly crack exactly what happened.” They fell into silence, but a moment later Christina’s face lit up. “I’ve got it,” she exclaimed and told Juni about the hand-held portable VOR radio. “It might seem a bit difficult for a non-pilot to understand, but we navigate our planes on avenues in the sky formed by flying from one VOR to another. A VOR is a line-of-sight homing device that sends out signals shaped like a wagon wheel with the VOR located at the center. Each spoke or radial, as they’re called, represents one compass degree. All you do to navigate precisely is select a particular radial and keep the needle on your radio centered. Your only other requirement is to be tuned to the Boston VOR frequency of 112.7. You’ll be steering to the VOR facility located on the airport and you can reach the exact spot where we’ll be waiting. And, there’s no way anyone can track you down. In order to return to the dock you use the same procedure but with the reciprocal radial, a hundred and eighty degrees different.” She had later provided the specific radial to pinpoint their location.

Juni was ready and with gurgling stomach stood motionless, staring out at the pitch black expanse, straining to see beyond the murkiness engulfing everything. He inhaled deeply and untied the boat, leaving the ropes so they could be reached effortlessly upon return. He motored ever so slowly away from the dock, staying close enough to maintain visual contact until he reached the end. At that point he slipped into what felt like another dimension, a sinister world of eerie blackness, with the surface of the water resembling a slab of gray slate occasionally moved up and down by some unseen force beneath. He feared the darkness, but would never confess that to anyone. Besides the chugging of the engine, the only other sound was his own nervous gasps coming in short staccato bursts, causing his heart to beat so hard he felt as though it was bouncing off his ribcage. But the die was cast and there was no turning back.

As instructed, he took up a heading of 150 degrees and held this course until intercepting the 168-degree radial. The only other noise was the gentle slapping of waves against the wooden hull, the material purposely chosen to avoid possible radar detection. The boat amounted to an acoustic sponge smelling of salt and oil. Suddenly, the din of an idling jet engine was followed by a deafening roar, a spine-chilling sound that interrupted the tranquility with throbbing felt to the bone. As a feeling of dread came over him, Juni shook so hard it was as though his sweat had frozen and turned to ice. But the noise did provide some solace, proving he wasn’t on an uninhabited, lifeless planet. But the sounds were only out there somewhere, an oppressive force with the power to disorient. Once the jet departed the silence was once again so overpowering it seemed to have substance. The can of Coke he drank earlier worked its way through his system and he fought off the urge to vomit, instead whispering aloud, trying to convince himself there was a splendid canvas of moon and stars somewhere above the enveloping gloom. But the blackness seemed solid and eternal. Christina had hammered home the point that just like a pilot he must place complete faith in his instruments. Indeed, the success of the job and perhaps his life hinged on his compass and radio.

After what seemed like an eternity, the VOR needle finally centered on the 168-degree radial, meaning he was on course. But this was a short-lived respite. He and Christina had previously practiced near a VOR facility located at Riverhead, Long Island, but that was done from a stationary car. Now, whenever he glanced at the radio, the boat’s heading would shift by thirty or forty degrees, but if he paid attention to the compass, the VOR indicator would deflect full scale showing off-course. He felt like the Lone Ranger, but without Tonto. He occasionally looked toward the sky searching for the lunar face that had to be there, somewhere. A quick glance at his timepiece showed it was 8:55. Juni assumed the navigation would be a piece of cake, but he should have known better because nothing in his life came easy. In spite of sweating, his teeth were chattering, slamming together like torrents from a rifle firing round after round inside his brain. “I’d like to get my hands on that broad and kid right now,” he mumbled. “Those fucking Germans always got some tricky shit up their conniving sauerkraut sleeves. If I overshoot the goddamn airport..?” He even contemplated turning back since Christina said all he needed to do was reverse the procedure one hundred and eighty degrees. At least the marina was still behind him. Or was it? One real fear remained. He didn’t want to die. Please God, not now.

.     .     .

Christina and Erik were in the cockpit, when at approximately 8:40 a ground supervisor asked, “Any weather-related departure delays?”

Woody hadn’t returned, so Christina radioed Boston’s clearance delivery. “Any delays getting into LaGuardia?”

“They’re minimal, running ten to fifteen minutes at most.”

She passed on this information