fields looked the same, built from the same manual, like a triangle with one line segment longer than the other two. They were angling for runway two-seven, indicating a due-west approach run into the prevailing winds. It even had runway lights installed, but the cabling had long since degraded, as had the airport’s diesel generator. But as there was little in the way of snow and ice here to damage the concrete runways, they were as good as the day they’d cured out, twelve inches thick of rebarred concrete.
“There.”
“I see ’em.”
They were, in fact, neon-green chemical lights being broken, shaken, and tossed onto the runway perimeter, and they blazed brightly on the low-light HUD display. Then even more as a truck’s headlights turned on. One such pair even drove down the northern border of the runway, as though to outline it for the approaching aircraft. Neither pilot nor copilot knew, but they assumed that one of the passengers had called ahead on a cell phone to wake someone up.
“Okay, let’s shoot the approach,” the pilot-in-command ordered. He eased the throttles back and lowered flaps to chop air speed. Again the altitude sensor announced their height above the ground, lower . . . lower . . . lower . . . then the wheels kissed the ground. At the west end of the runway, a truck flipped its headlights from high beams to low, back and forth a few times, and the pilot let the aircraft coast all the way.
“We have arrived at our destination,” the pilot said over the intercom as the aircraft came to a slow and gentle halt. He took off his headset and stood to move aft. He opened the left-side door and lowered the stairs, then turned to look at his charter party, most of whom were up and moving forward.
“Welcome to American soil,” he said.
“It was a long flight, but a good one even so,” the chief of the group said. “Thank you. Your fee is already on deposit.”
The pilot nodded his thanks. “If you need us again, please let me know.”
“Yes, we will do that. In two or three weeks, perhaps.”
Neither his voice nor his face gave much away, though now his face was somewhat obscured by bandages. Maybe he was just here to sit through the recovery period for whatever surgery he’d just had. Car accident was the pilot’s best guess. At least it was a healthy climate.
“I trust you noticed the fuel truck. They will make sure you are topped off. You leave for Hawaii when?”
“As soon as we’re fueled,” the pilot answered. Four, five hours. He’d do autopilot for most of it, after clearing the California coast.
Another passenger came forward, then turned to go aft. “One moment,” he said, entering the lavatory and closing the door behind him. There was another door aft of the lavatory. It led into the luggage compartment. There he’d left a duffel bag. He pulled down the zipper and flipped the cover open. Here he activated an electronic timer. He figured two and a half hours would be more than sufficient, then rezipped the closure and came forward. “Forgive me,” he said, heading forward and left for the ten-step stairs. “And thank you.”
“My pleasure, sir,” the pilot said. “Enjoy your stay.”
The copilot was already out, supervising the fueling operation. The last passenger followed his boss to the stretch limo that waited on the concrete, got in, and the car drove off. Fueling took five minutes. The pilot wondered how they’d managed to get what looked like an official fuel truck, but it drove off soon thereafter, and the flight crew made their way back to the cockpit and went through their start-up procedures.
After a total of thirty-three minutes on the ground, the Falcon taxied back east to the far end of the runway, and the flight crew advanced the throttles to takeoff power and raced back west to rotate and climb back into the sky for the third flight of what was already a long day. Fifty minutes later, and four thousand pounds lighter in fuel, they transited the California coast just over Ventura and were “feet wet” over the Pacific Ocean, cruising at Mach 0.83 at an altitude of forty-one thousand feet. Their primary transponder was switched on, this one with the aircraft’s “official” registration information. The fact that it had just appeared on San Francisco Center’s master scopes was not a matter of concern for anyone, since flight plans were neither computerized nor really