Mayday at Two Thousand Five Hundred Read Online Free Page B

Fleming tapped it out on the keyboard.
    â€œSay the aircraft again.”
    â€œCessna 182 Skylane. I don’t know the tail number.”
    â€œGot it!” Fleming shouted as the flight plan for Rex Kramer and Skylane N758YT came up on the computer screen. “The plane is based at Jessup Aviation, right across the field from here.”
    Fleming was grabbing up a telephone even as Parker said, “We need to talk to someone familiar with that airplane: the guy’s wife, his mechanic, anyone who can advise us on what equipment it has on board—and, does it have an autopilot?” He spoke into his headset again. “Eight Eight Niner, is the passenger flying the plane now?”
    â€œThat’s affirmative. He’s getting guidance from me, but he’s getting too far away. I can hardly see him.”
    Parker stole a look at Maxwell, who glanced at her radar screen and nodded a confirmation. “The Skylane’s pulling far ahead, about two miles now and increasing.” Then she added quickly, “But there’s another problem.” Parker was there in an instant, viewing the radar screen over her shoulder as she pointed out the radar blip representing the Skylane. “Currently flying on a course of One-Zero-Five, altitude three thousand two hundred feet and climbing . . . but not climbing fast enough.”
    Parker nodded grimly, then spoke into the headset again. “Eight Eight Niner, how’s the ceiling over those mountains?”
    Chuck was dismayed as he observed, “Not good at all. The clouds are down over the mountaintops now.”
    â€œSo the problem is that plane’s either going to crash into those mountains or disappear into those clouds and then crash into the mountains. We have to get that plane turned around.”
    Chuck squinted into the distance. Sometimes he could see the wings of the Skylane like a tiny white dash against the gray slopes of the Cascades, and sometimes it would pass in front of the white clouds, making it hard for Chuck to be sure he was seeing anything at all.
    â€œJay,” he called on his first radio, “Jay, come in.”
    â€œI hear you,” Jay replied.
    â€œJay, we need—”
    The Skylane was gone. A cloud, low and gray, and so much closer than Chuck had realized, had swallowed it up.

THREE
    I t’s gone!” Chuck exclaimed over the radio. “It’s gone into the clouds!”
    Parker signaled to Maxwell and she took over, still watching the two blips on the radar screen. “Eight Eight Niner, confirm the Skylane is on 122.8.”
    Chuck responded, “That’s affirmative. We’re talking on the Auburn frequency.”
    Parker said quickly, quietly, “I’ll take Eight Eight Niner, you take the Skylane.” He spoke into his headset, “Eight Eight Niner, we have the Skylane on radar and we’re getting an altitude readout from its transponder. We’re going to try to turn it around. Please stand by, keep looking.”
    â€œRoger.”
    Maxwell asked Chuck, “What’s the young man’s name?”
    â€œJay Cooper.”
    â€œStand by. I’m going to call him.”
    Parker flashed a quick look at Josie Fleming. She was on the telephone that very moment. “I have the pilot’s wife on the phone,” she said.
    Joyce Cooper Kramer, a pretty blonde in her forties, sat in her kitchen. To keep them from shaking, she had one hand clamped firmly on the phone, the other to the edge of the kitchen table. Her stomach was in a terrible knot and her mind was numbed with disbelief, but this was no time to be weak or frightened. Rex and Jay needed her. She took a deep breath to steady her voice and then replied to Fleming, “I believe the airplane does have an auto-pilot, but I don’t know where it is or how it works.”
    â€œIs there anyone who would know?” Fleming asked.
    â€œCall Brock Axley at Jessup Aviation, Boeing Field.