Loss Of Reason, Miles A. Maxwell [electronic reader txt] 📗

“Waaaahoooo!”

“. . . I don’t think . . . you’re supposed to do barrel rolls, Everon — in — a — Leeeear!”

The night sky rolled around the windshield then the sparkled earth was overhead. The blond man’s fingers on the yoke held their assigned altitude perfectly.

“Less than a hundred feet deviation!” he laughed at the end of the corkscrew. You don’t think? . . . I’m supposed to do barrel rolls in a Learjet? . . .Wahoooo!” And took them over again. Free of meetings, Everon Student thought. Free of traffic — free of the earth, blasting at 300 knots across the sky!

But Everon’s attempt at getting Andréa Buer into the spirit of things wasn’t working. That petulant look seemed to be growing more intense, and to deny the intimate things they’d done only minutes before.

“Come on — relax!” he tried with her. “The Lear was developed from a Swiss fighter! These babies are certified to three g’s but they’ll probably take something like six. We’re not even pulling a g-and-a-half. Enjoy the ride! How often do you get to let your hair down at thirty thousand feet? — upside down!”

And over they went again.

It’s perfect! he thought. Not too big but not all that small either.

He’d worked very hard to afford the little jet. It was time. This was the payoff. He was actually going to own it! He’d flown plenty of jets — though always for other people. This one would be his! Well, the company’s — but I’ll be the only one flying it! He felt — what was the word? Giddy? He laughed and took it over one more time.

There were actually two things Everon liked about this particular aircraft. The joy of controlling such incredible strength and agility, and the best-looking female pilot he’d ever seen. He took another look at Andréa as they inverted. Deep brown eyes, long red hair that flew out as they went around . . .

Beautiful!

Granted, she looked better without the greenish tinge. Maybe I should cool it. But this sure beats the hell out of flying commercial. I could get used to this!

The jet belonged, for the moment, to Hunt Williams, an independent power producer — IPPie for short. Williams Power owned more transmission lines than anyone else in east Pennsylvania and west New Jersey. Several generating plants too.

Six hours ago they’d had lunch, Hunt with hopes of purchasing Everon’s two solar power farms — one, west of Las Vegas; the other, south of Phoenix. Everon said he didn’t want to sell, but he’d be happy to trade Hunt all the solar panels he wanted for the jet. The older executive had already replaced it with a larger model, a Gulfstream. They worked out a deal. The Lear would be Everon’s first.

The flight out from Nevada had been fun — a vague, flirtatious sexual tension right from the start, while Andréa took him through the jet’s systems.

Sometime later, she mentioned she’d seen his picture on the cover of Entrepreneur magazine, and some other high-tech rag she couldn’t remember the name of. She nearly purred, recalling an old story she’d read in Gliding about him setting a U.S. sailplane distance record out of San Diego. She said she’d been wanting to meet him for a long time; even asked for his autograph, which he thought was pretty funny. That was a new one! He’d obliged, scribbling on a napkin from the jet’s tiny galley.

Andréa gave him a little kiss on the cheek when he handed it to her. A gorgeous, lithe female pilot with flaming red hair? It was only good manners to kiss her back, wasn’t it? To Everon, she seemed adventurous and provocative. But that was as far as it went — until he left his sister Cynthia at JFK for the trip back home.

Headed west over New York State, he and Andréa had cleared the clouds, looked at each other, and simply started kissing.

Things escalated. She turned on the autopilot — not the only thing that got turned on, her left knee against his right, a hand up his thigh to let him know what she wanted. He returned the move. He felt the moisture building in the crotch of her tightly-knit pants.

The cockpit was tight but instead of going back to use one of the jet’s roomier foldout beds, Everon kept his position in the pilot’s seat — to retake control if he had to. Andréa unzipped his fly, rose from the right seat, slid her pants down, and in one deft motion, turned sideways and engaged him, her fingers weaving into his wavy blond hair, taking him inside at twenty-six thousand feet. Mile High Club? Hell — five miles! It was unbearably romantic, so intense, linked together — stars above — the feel of her lips on his — and her body, more alone than two people could ever be on the planet’s surface; Andréa Buer proved to be a wild, insatiable, undeniable woman.

Twenty minutes later he thought, Whew! Unlike the man who smokes or watches cable TV after sex, Everon needed to recover in his own way. Once every muscle in his body had released its tension, he craved something to cap things off. They were over Pennsylvania when he let loose of Andréa and took control of the plane. He decided to take the Lear up to thirty thousand feet, near its altitude of maximum efficiency — and see what the damn thing would do.

But Andréa’s sexual aggression had misled him. Believing she would be more adventurous after what they’d just done, she surprised him by becoming a real whiner. Now he was beginning to regret making love with her, even flying with her. He leveled out to the tinkling crash of a glass breaking somewhere back in the cabin.

He frowned. “You okay?”

She nodded and gulped, glaring at him, “Please don’t do that again — sir.”

“Hey! What’s this sir stuff?”

Before she could answer, the right wing dipped — hard!

She shot him an angry look, thinking what an ass he was for ignoring her discomfort. But the yoke was level! He had a death grip on it and hadn’t done a damn thing! “What the hell!” he shouted as the plane nosed over, bucking violently.

He twisted the yoke, pulling back, trying to right the wing, trying to bring the nose back up. It appeared to be completely out of his control.

Into The Dirt

His hand beat hers by a second pulling the turbines’ power back to zero. The airspeed indicator was already in the red.

Andréa, seeing his reaction, added her strength to his, pulling back on her own yoke from the right seat.

But the controls seemed to have their own idea. Hurling them vertically toward the ground, now down to twenty-eight thousand feet — pulling on the controls face down, hanging against seat straps that cut into her body — only preferable to being thrown against a windshield a foot from her face.

Neither of them said anything as they struggled together against gravity.

“I think it’s coming up!” she gasped. The plane’s nose slowly rose, its violent bucking smoothing out. Five degrees, ten . . .

And then another wave knocked them right over the falls. The jet’s nose continuing past vertical.

Everon thought the wings would be ripped from the fuselage. The blood rushed to his face. He clamped his teeth against the terror flowing into his skull, pushed it away with one word: PULL! While the plane raced toward an impact that would spell their deaths in the dirt.

Eighteen thousand feet . . . fifteen thousand . . . and the Lear began to respond . . . slowly, much too slowly to suit Everon, but still, the nose came forward.

Air screamed outside over the cabin. How much can the wings take?

Extreme pressure on his arms, pushed against his legs — flight angle changing at a snail’s pace, they rushed downward past nine thousand feet.

Ten degrees, twenty, forty-five . . .

At five thousand two hundred feet they finally regained the horizon.

“Hail Mary, full of grace . . .” Andréa muttered. She took a deep breath, grabbed a look at the flashing console lights. Reached up to shut off the high-pitched alarm still pinging from their sudden altitude loss.

“What was that?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I hate to say it, Everon . . .” she admitted shakily, massaging her stomach, “it’s a good thing you insisted we buckle these belts, preceding your aerobatic unruliness.”

“I guess that sir stuff went out the window a couple miles higher.”

She smiled weakly, “I guess so.”

“See what you can find out on the radio, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, picking up her headset off the floor.

“One-Oscar-Mike — New York Center do you read?”

Static.

She repeated the call. “Nothing.” The jet’s displays flickered.

“Cleveland?” he suggested.

“We’re probably too low now.” She switched frequencies.

“One-Oscar-Mike — Cleveland Center, do you read?”

“Oscar-Mike, Cleveland Center.” The voice was weak and broken.

“We were just hit by extreme clear air turbulence, Center.”

“We’re receiving reports of same from all over the area. Say altitude and position.”

“Level at five thousand. We took a sudden dive from flight level three-zero-zero. Systems functional. Do you have any more on what caused that air we went through over middle Pennsylvania?”

“No information on anything like that yet. No storms on radar. Wait . . . hold on . . . word is . . . Something in New York . . . stand by —”

New York? While Andréa scanned the instruments, Everon frowned into the night. Exhaled.

“Breathe, Andréa,” he reminded her.

She let out a long blast of air. “I wonder what — ? I’ve never