“We’re circling,” Jake realized.
Outside the plane, the Spaceport America buildings slid by again. The Astra Super rocket stood straight and tall at its launchpad two miles away.
“Circling?” Tami asked.
Jake’s phone blared again. Piazza. “Let me talk to him,” Nick pleaded.
“He doesn’t want to talk to anybody,” Jake said.
“Jesus Christ, he can’t do this! He mustn’t!”
“He’s doing it.”
Tami pointed at the window beside her. “We’re circling again.”
He’s working up the nerve for the final plunge, Jake thought.
Sure enough, the plane started climbing. Then it turned and began a thundering dive toward the Spaceport building, gleaming in the desert sun.
Jake reached for Tami’s hand again and squeezed it hard. She squeezed back, her eyes shut tight, her mouth open in a silent scream.
This is it! Jake knew.
Suddenly the plane angled upward. Jake’s stomach dropped out of his body and he saw the Spaceport building flash by as the Citation climbed into the clean blue sky.
“He didn’t do it!” Jake exulted.
Tami opened her eyes. “He didn’t do it!” she echoed.
Trueblood’s voice came over the cabin intercom, low, subdued. “I couldn’t do it,” he confirmed, almost sobbing. “I couldn’t do it.”
Jake unclicked his seat belt and staggered to the cockpit door. “Thanks, Billy. You did the right thing.”
“Yeah.” Trueblood’s voice sounded shaky.
“You chose life over death,” Jake continued. “It’s a hard choice. But it’s the right one.”
“You don’t know how hard it was.”
“Thank you, Billy. Thanks for our lives. And your own.”
A few heartbeats of silence. Then, “We’re not out of the woods yet. I’ve never landed a Citation before.”
“You can do it.”
“Maybe. You guys strapped in?”
“Tami is. I’m going back to my seat now.”
“Okay. I’m gonna try to put this bird down at the Spaceport strip. No traffic to worry about, like Albuquerque.”
Jake nodded as he got into his seat, fastened the safety belt, and yanked it tight enough across his lap to cut off the circulation in his legs. Despite everything, Tami made a pathetic little smile for him, her eyes teary.
Now she lets the tears out, Jake noted. He reached out to her again and they clasped hands once more.
The Spaceport’s ground controller’s voice came snarling through the intercom speakers. “What the hell d’you think you’re doin’? Buzzin’ the building like it’s a fuckin’ air show? You’re gonna have your license revoked, mister.”
Trueblood merely replied, in a strictly professional tone, “Request landing instructions, please.”
It was a tense five minutes. Jake saw the desert scrubland coming up fast, heard the roar of the landing gear’s hatches opening, watched the ground coming closer, closer, flashing past.
Then the plane hit the ground with a brutal thump, waddled back into the air, finally banged down again hard enough to send a flash of pain shooting up Jake’s spine.
But they were on the ground, rolling along the runway, engines roaring in reverse to kill their speed. Through the closed cockpit door Jake heard Trueblood give off a heartfelt yowl of victory. Or maybe anguish.