Page 28 of Identity Unknown
“I can’t see you yet. I’m looking out my window.” The Green Bank astronomer has an Indian accent.
“We’re ten miles to the northeast, Route Ninety-Two under us.”
“I’d like you to do the same as before, please. Turn on a one-ten heading when you’re five miles from the observatory.”
“Roger that.”
“You will want to follow Route Four around Buffalo Run again,” Dr. Rao instructs. “You’ll see the police cars and the flatbed truck.”
“The ground crew’s in place and all set?”
“They’re ready for you.”
“Thanks again for your help.” Lucy ends the call. “Marino?” she asks. “You alive?”
“Barely. How much bumpier is this going to get?” He’s very unhappy.
“We’re going silent again. Got some tricky maneuvering to do. You might want to take another pill and close your eyes like you’ve been doing.” She flips the switch on the intercom before he can respond.
CHAPTER 11
The Appalachian Mountains rise around us, the storm front rolling in like an advancing armada. Winds buffet the helicopter as we fly over foothills, the treetops thrashing beneath our feet. For long intervals there’s no sign of civilization, nothing but forests.
Over a ridge, we emerge in a valley where the Green Bank radio telescope dwarfs a barn in a grass clearing. Sal once told me that it’s sensitive enough to pick up my cell signal on Jupiter should I visit and call home. Appearing through gaps in trees, the structure appears like a gigantic ghost forged of metal, the three-hundred-foot-wide dish pointed up in a mushroom position.
The summer Sal and I were together in Italy, he’d just begun doing research at Green Bank. I remember he said that telescopes like theirs are time machines detecting gases and stardust from the formation of the universe.
We’re witnessing what’s happening billions of years ago,he’d marvel.We’re watching our own creation, amore.
The ground flows by like a movie fast-forwarding, a scattering of mobile homes, a cemetery, an old train station. As weapproach the tiny town of Arbovale, Lucy points out the Red Caboose near the train station. The restaurant is known for its barbecue, and Sal was a regular when visiting. She says that last night he, Marie Rao and another colleague ordered the Monday special of pulled pork platters with coleslaw and tater tots.
Turning on a northeast heading, the elevation rising, Lucy lowers the collective, slowing down. We thread through a notch in the hills, blue and red lights flashing on the other side. Police cars, the flatbed truck block the narrow winding road below. Rescuers in bright orange are gathered around Sal’s blue pickup truck lodged against trees at the verge of a ravine, the sight shaking my composure.
Finding a menu on her heads-up display, Lucy lowers a retractable orange nylon strap. A hundred feet long with two cargo hooks on the end, it’s called a dual point load, she fills me in. I watch the hooks dropping straight down as if she’s fishing for a whale while holding the helicopter steady as the wind pummels us like a heavy surf.
The sun slips in and out of smoky clouds, the helicopter casting a flickering shadow on the ground. The long blades reach out like the arms of a swimmer as Lucy lines up the sight picture from her side window. She positions the bright orange line over Sal’s truck while making small adjustments on the controls. When the cargo hooks are in reach, a loadmaster attaches them to fittings on chains around the axles.
Lucy begins lifting gradually, keeping the dangling truck in her side window as we rise vertically above trees dancing wildly. I take in the damage to the truck’s front end, the hoodbuckled, the bumper hanging off, when suddenly one of the chains breaks free, the helicopter lurching violently. I look down in dismay at the truck swinging like a pendulum, tugging us out of trim as if we’re having a mechanical failure.
“That’s not good. Somebody screwed up.” Lucy’s voice is surprisingly calm, the truck hanging nose down, swinging and twirling.
It seems to take forever to stabilize, and Lucy moves into position over the flatbed. She sets down the old Chevy while the ground crew in hard hats is at the ready with hands reaching up. Releasing the cargo hooks, Lucy retracts the line and it snakes up, disappearing into the helicopter’s undercarriage like a strand of spaghetti.
We fly away as dark clouds gather, the first drops of rain streaking the windshield. The imaging systems paint the artificial terrain, and radar tracks weather in real time on the cockpit’s multiple displays. I’m seeing a lot of orange and red shades warning of dangerous conditions.
“Looks like you got the truck out of there just in time,” I say to Lucy as the rain gets harder. “I don’t suppose it’s destined for my place.” I know the answer.
“It’s not.”
“I didn’t think so. Are you going to tell me where it’s going?”
“When it’s time for you to know.” The lenses of her computer-assisted glasses are amber in the churning grayness.
“You don’t think I should have a vote or even an opinion?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think, Aunt Kay. And you’re better off not knowing certain things. As is Marino. At least for now. That way if anything leaks, you can’t be blamed. You’llunderstand better later, and he’s the one we have to worry about. He’s not going to handle it well.”
“Handle what well?”