Olympus Device 1: The Olympus Device (10 page)

And then everything was quiet.

The red and white stripes of the parachute’s fabric were the first thing his re-oxygenated brain registered – the colors beautiful, the air calm, the sensation of floating downward a comfort. It all began coming back to him.

His first
priority was the chute, a quick glance assuring him that it had deployed properly. Next was his wingman, but a scan of the sky didn’t reveal Taylor’s plane. Despite his neck feeling like it was broken, Chamberlin kept pivoting his head in an effort to locate the other aircraft under his command.

On the third
pass, he found Taylor – an identical red and white parachute drifting downward about a mile away.
At least he got out
, supposed the flight leader.
I hope his ejection was clean
.

A distant rumble drew his
eye to the ground, a ball of black smoke rising into the air. That disturbance was quickly followed by another, almost identical sound. A second column of yellow flame and dark soot rose skyward. The green prairies of central Texas were now scarred with dark smears – the remains of both Falcons scattered across the landscape.

Dusty didn’t know
how long he’d been standing with his mouth open. Searing pain in his lungs reminded him of the need to breathe. The realization that he’d just shot down two of the world’s most advanced fighter jets caused mental paralysis for some unknown period of time. Eventually he shook it off. Like a child who had just broken a neighbor’s window with a baseball, his instinct was to run. He desperately wanted to get away from the scene of the crime.

His hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t disassemble the rail gun. Instead, he stuffed it
into the pack and began trekking back to the Thrush on weak legs, a mixture of guilt and fear filling his chest.

Doing the pre-flight checklist was calming – the structured routine bringing discipline back into his scrambled mind. The crop duster achieved wheels-up four minutes later.

The fact that he’d managed a take off without becoming a third crash site restored some of his confidence. As he gained altitude, the burning debris of his former nemesis came into view, but Dusty couldn’t look. He forced his attention on the route ahead and keeping his plane level.

It occurred to him that continuing to head west
was folly. The military had stockpiles of aircraft. Visions of angry pilots, scrambling toward rows of waiting war machines filled his mind. He could almost see the need for revenge painted on their stoic faces, almost feel the bloodlust rushing through their veins.

He turned south, choosing that direction for no specific reason.

The desire to flee quickly evaporated, suddenly replaced by the need to hide. “I need to think and gather my wits,” he mumbled to no one. “I feel like a big, fat target up here.”

A sort of calm came over him, the cold hand of
self-preservation finally coming to grips with the panic attempting to take control of his being. For the second time in the last 30 minutes, Dusty began looking for someplace to land his plane.

The landscape below the low flying Thrush was mostly rural, obviously utilized for agriculture. The occasion
al farmhouse passed by, a campground, a small settlement in the distance.

The sun would be down in a few hours, and Dusty knew finding a suitable spot after dark would be next to impossible.

While he covered the miles, he tried to anticipate what the authorities would do next. Someone would realize the fighters had crashed within minutes, if not seconds. Their last known position was probably already displaying on a computer screen somewhere.

There was also a high probability that some local rancher or passerby was reporting the exact position of the wreckage. The area below was sparsely populated
, but not deserted.

He assumed local sheriff’s departments would be the first responders – federal officials soon behind. It wouldn’t be shocking to learn that additional fighter aircraft had been launched to complete the mission. Perhaps military investigators, medical teams
, and pilot recovery units would respond as well.

Regardless of the
authorities’ reaction, Dusty needed to get out of the air and become invisible, find a spot where he could conceal the Thrush from both ground and airborne searchers.  That wasn’t an easy ticket to punch.

Thoughts of landing next to a wooded area and covering his plane with limbs and branches were dismissed. He didn’t have an axe or sa
w and most anything he scavenged from the ground would be devoid of foliage. Besides, the effort would take a lot of greenery to cover the plane’s bright yellow paint job.

A small, unmanned regional airport
might
be equipped with hangars – covered parking for airplanes. They
might
be unlocked. They
might
not be visited by the local police. His plane
might
not be discovered by another pilot coming or going. Too many, far too many “mights.”

Luck was with him as he flew over a small knoll and spotted a large, isolated barn. There had been several such structures beneath his wings, but a
ll had been close by the owners’ homes. This particular example sat all alone in the middle of a relatively flat tract of wheat or barley.

Banking to circle the barn, Dusty first checked for nearby structures, but didn’t see any other sign of civilization. His next lap was to see if any utility lines or fencing might be in the way. On the third pass, he landed the Thrush and rolled close to the barn.

The old building showed weathered, gray colored, wood plank under a rusted metal roof. It was a two- story affair, a small swing door leading to what was likely a hayloft at one point in time. The main entrance was a doublewide opening, originally built extra wide, so tractors, implements, and other machinery could easily fit inside. From the outside, the growth of weeds around the threshold indicated the barn hadn’t been used in some time.

Dusty shut down the Thrush’s engine and dismounted, the still-assembled rail gun poking out of the A&M pack slung on his shoulder. He approached cautiously, peeking through the numerous cracks between the rustic
planks.

The inside appeared to be absolutely empty, and that was a relief. Dusty had been in his share of old barns, many of which served as storage for junk equipment and unwanted machinery.
Whoever owned this property evidently didn’t need to store anything inside.

His first attempt at opening the door added to the mounting evidence that the structure was rarely used or visited. The hinges were rusted stiff, protesting with loud screeches as he forced them open. A quick glance confirmed what he’d seen from the outside – a barren, hard-packed
, dirt floor was the only thing inside.

He then stepped
off the width of the entrance – relieved there would be at least a foot of clearance for each wing. Ten minutes later, the Thrush’s propeller was blowing dust and cobwebs all around the interior of its new makeshift hangar.

Dusty stayed in the cockpit until the air settled, making a mental note to measure the opposite door just in case
the barn’s builders didn’t construct it the same size as the one he’d just driven through. He cursed himself for not thinking of that potential problem sooner – a sure sign of his fatigue. Turning the plane around inside would be back breaking work, if it could even be done at all.

After the interior
debris had settled, he exited the cockpit and scouted the surrounding countryside again, then pulled the large doors shut. The shelter provided a sense of relief. Not only did it feel good to be hidden from prying eyes, standing on the ground and being surrounded by four walls greatly reduced the number of directions requiring his diligence.

Digging the beef jerky and bottled water from his pack also added to his
sense of wellbeing. At least he’d had the forethought to purchase these basics – maybe he wasn’t such a bumbling criminal after all.

He began to notice little things, like the sound of birds singing in the distance and the residual smell of hay
in the barn. Not only were both a comfort, the experience made him realize that he was recovering quickly from what had been the absolute worst day of his life.

Slowly chewing the jerky and sipping water, Dusty began to ponder his next move. Despite the
coziness of his new hideout, it was a short-term solution - an eventual dead end. He’d given his word to Mitch – six months.

Things have changed quite a bit since I made that promise
, he reasoned.
The entire US government wasn’t after me then. I hadn’t shot down any military aircraft when that agreement was made.

Staring at the rail gun propped
nearby, he tried to recall all of the promise within the technology – potential that had caused Mitch to be more optimistic than he could ever remember. Speaking to the gun, he said, “It’s all about you, isn’t it? You’re the cause of all this. Are you worth it? Is your future really that bright?”

The gun didn’t answer, but the sound of his own voice helped Dusty
achieve a clarity of purpose. He had to save the technology – he had to give Mitch the time he’d promised. But there was something else… some other aspect to his determination. The government’s reaction had been completely over-the-top, and that was disturbing.

As he sat nibbling salty meat and sipping tepid water, he
tried to reconcile the events of the last few hours.
It all boiled down to a matter of trust,
he determined. He didn’t trust his own government – had no faith in his fellow countrymen.
Why was that?
he wondered. What had happened to his once rock-solid, foundational conviction that the United States of America was the greatest country on earth? Why had words like “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave” evaporated into a wisp of adolescent memory?

News coverage
came flooding back, troubling headlines of spy agencies monitoring American citizens and prying into private communications. Stories of politically motivated IRS scandals hinted at a punitive federal machine. He recalled worrisome captions that claimed once-trusted agencies, such as the FBI and DEA, circumvented the process of obtaining legal search warrants on a regular basis. He remembered watching footage of overzealous prosecutors twisting facts and spinning circumstantial evidence to achieve convictions. The only word in Dusty’s mind that described the leadership of his homeland was “vindictive.”
Nothing noble about that
, he supposed.

It wasn’t just the f
eds. Stop and frisk policies were implemented by big city police forces while gun control legislation requiring medical professionals to report “thoughts of violence” were passed at the state level.
Thoughts? Seriously?
Now having a bad thought was a crime?
Liberty was eroding, and most of the people seemed not to care. To so many it seemed, liberty was only a statue in New York Harbor.

Dusty’s life in W
est Texas seemed unaffected by it all. Sure, he and Hank would entertain themselves, debating various sides of the issue over coffee at the diner. The two men would play devil’s advocate and argue vehemently, each arbitrarily arguing an opposing stance. When their cups were empty, both men would continue with their days, smug in the knowledge that common folk – everyday Americans – were blind to the effect of it all. The citizens of Fort Davis went about their business, buying feed, putting grocery sacks in their SUVs, sending their children off to school and appeared none the worse from the graduated, creeping loss of freedom.

Adding it all up, he came to the conclusion that his lack of trust in the authorities was justified. Launching fighter jets to shoot down a man who was supposed to be innocent until proven guilty was indicative of a larger problem… a problem he couldn’t solve.
Now he, a freeborn law-abiding American, was in the crosshairs of the unchecked, malicious machine. 

Could the rail gun change all that, or would it make things worse? His brother was book smart
, but optimistic when it came to the hearts of men, especially powerful men. Still, the only person walking the planet that he trusted 100%, Mitch thought the rail’s technology was worth the gamble and sacrifice. His brother’s words resonated in Dusty’s thoughts. “We can turn the desert green,” and “we can end hunger forever, probably eliminate most disease.”