﻿ FLIGHT 715 By Neil Coghlan SMASHWORDS EDITION * * * * * PUBLISHED BY: Neil Coghlan on Smashwords Flight 715 Copyright © 2010 by Neil Coghlan Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This ebook may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this ebook, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support. * FLIGHT 715 * The taste of salt on your tongue was a permanent feature here. Group Captain Manuel Montero licked his lips as he strolled along the runway having completed his daily inspection. He looked over towards the sand dunes. Beyond them, breakers rolled in vast distances and crashed, unheard, on steep shingle banks, throwing up dense clouds of steaming spray. The dunes themselves, running the length of the shore side perimeter, encroached, already beginning to wrap their granular fingertips around the foot of the security fence. Overhead, security cameras scanned the beaches where no-one ever set foot. Not even Manuel. Manuel approached the apron at Chacabuco Air Force Base in Southern Chile, where today stood a Hercules, decked out in the olive of the Chilean Air Force. Behind it, Manuel let his eyes sweep along the saw-tooth line of the distant Andes, snow topped and cutting into the brilliant blue of the sky. Manuel, a fast rising career airman on his first disposal flight, climbed aboard and lowered himself into the pilot’s seat on the left of the cockpit. Manuel's superior, Flight Lieutenant Oscar Alvarado sat immediately to his right as co-pilot. Chacabuco, a spotless outpost of white concrete and aluminium in the southern emptiness of Chile served but one grisly purpose: dealing with 'political inconveniences'. Today's cargo was thirteen, all expecting a pleasant flight up to Santiago for questioning at the Interior Ministry. They'd all been given a dose of pentothal, a powerful anaesthetic: for "altitude sickness" as Manuel had told them. They’d all be out cold for about fifteen more minutes, by which time the Hercules’ ramp would have been opened and these vermin would have been tipped into three miles of deep Pacific waters. "Flight 715, clear to take off." Manuel acknowledged the base tower and began to throttle up. Within three minutes, the Hercules had roared down the wrinkled concrete of the new runway and taken off, tracing a steep, climbing arc westwards, pushing the sun, the near deserted airbase, the creeping dunes and tumultuous seas behind it. They headed out over the blue of the Pacific. Ten minutes out, at a height of nearly ten thousand feet, there were over thirty miles of waves between them and the Chilean coast. "OK, they'll still be deep under. Open the ramp." Manuel, knowing the moment had come to push through his doubts, acknowledged Oscar's order. Manuel couldn’t have refused today’s flight even if he’d wanted to. You simply didn’t get to say “no” under the current regime in Santiago. His hand motioned upwards towards the tiny switch. "Wait, leave it! Look," said Oscar pointing to the radar screen. "Something's coming down from the north. Probably Peruvian. We'll have to wait." "But they'll be awake in five minutes, won't they?" Manuel asked. "We can't risk it. See, there it is." They both peered out of the window on the right, on Oscar's side. There, way to the north and above them, a white fleck moved slowly to the left, in the same direction as the Hercules was flying. They watched it for four minutes, five. It was slowly pulling away in front of them, now crossing their path slightly. "Right, they're far off in front, open the ramp." Manuel flicked the switch above him. He wasn't killing anyone with that switch. Above the roar of the engines, no sound of the ramp opening could be heard but the plane gave a slight kick as the aerodynamic forces wrapping the plane altered their grip slightly. Suddenly, the intercom crackled. A voice, urgent, sounded out in the cockpit as Manuel and Oscar sat in silence. "Hey! Jesus, everyone's unconscious back here. Why have you opened the fucking door?" Time stopped in the cockpit. They had screwed up. They'd waited too long. It only needed one of them to be a little resistant. Screw ups were rare but happened. The mouthpiece for the intercom nestled on a bracket between Manuel and Oscar. Neither made a move for it. "Don't kill us. Please, what are your names?" Oscar placed his hand defensively over the mouthpiece. "Don't speak to him. He doesn't know we can hear. Let's get a little higher. He'll pass out eventually." Manuel, pulled back slightly on the stick and the smudged blue of the horizon slowly dipped toward the bottom edge of the windscreen. He peered up into the glorious blue and prayed to never hear the voice again. But it was back on the intercom within seconds. With an urgency, a knowledge perhaps that it only had seconds left. "Listen, my name is Antonio Federico Mura. I have a wife, Debora, and two daughters Alicia and Stefania. I haven't seen my family for eighteen months. I was arrested in 1975 for printing posters that criticised Pinochet. It was my printing press but I never saw the posters. I didn't even see the posters. I never saw them…" The voice broke up in a flurry of heavy gasps. "I can't breathe, I can't…" Oscar spoke again. "When I tell you, go into the climb like we did in training. Aim for fifty degrees. They'll go out the back. He will too. Don't worry." Manuel was paralysed. He tried to move his hands even a millimetre, but couldn't. He thought about Isabel, just waking now to feed little Maria. Maria's beaming face was just starting to materialise in his head when it was scattered by the gasping voice once more. "Amigos, I am not a politician. I, I am a printer." "Do it, Montero. Do it now!" Manuel's hands remained fixed. Oscar leaned over, placed his right hand behind the stick and pulled back. Manuel, staring ahead, didn't, couldn't resist. He noticed the wisp of cirrus dip into view and fall, fall down and out of view. It was perfect. *** About the author: Neil Coghlan is currently living in Buenos Aires where he divides his time between writing, web design and walking around the city. He has several stories published in anthologies and magazines. He hopes you enjoyed this story as much as he enjoyed writing it. Connect: You can find Neil’s author blog here: http://esllou.blogspot.com Find on Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/esllou