Chapter 10B

Day 1...

Jim O'Daniel didn't like his new boss, in fact his gut had told him to quit the second day on the job, but he hadn't. Now two months later he was sitting next to his boss' sixteen year old daughter, Sara, in her daddy's Gulfstream 550 en route to the hunting lodge his boss had just purchased. Six more days, just six more days and he'd be through with this jerk, he'd given his two week notice and in six days he'd be without a job and damn happy because of it.

"Do you like the mountains Jim?" Sara asked.

Jim looked out at the vast range of the Rockies under their thick mantle of snow and ice and shivered. "Not these," he answered, "too cold. I have a rule. Never go anywhere that it's cold on purpose." Jim looked at the girl sitting next to him. Her dad, Eric Dillon, wasn't worth a cup of cold piss, not now not ever, but Sara, she was special. As far as Jim was concerned Sara was Eric's only redeeming virtue. "Have you ever," his question was interrupted as the plane suddenly dropped several hundred feet. Jim still had his seat belt on but Sara had come out of her seat and the cola she had been drinking was now flying through the air. Jim grabbed for Sara, the freefall stopped and a gut wrenching left hand turn began. "Here," Jim grabbed one end of her seat belt, "get this on."

Sara got her seat belt on just as the plane took another freefall, followed this time by a hard right hand turn. Jim wasn't afraid of flying, when he was in the service he had flown a lot sometimes with angry people shooting at him. No, flying didn't bother him as long as he trusted the person flying the plane. And that was the problem he had right now, he didn't trust Eric any further than he could throw the man. Looking out the window he saw something else he didn't like. They were a lot lower than they should be. Jim figured that Eric was showing off for the blonde bimbo he had in the cockpit that or the stupid bastard was trying to fuck her rather than flying the plane.

Vancouver British Columbia

"Sir! That Gulfstream 550 just disappeared off the screen." It was Tom Smith's first day on the job as an air traffic controller and this is not how he wanted to start his career. His supervisor John Gibson walked over to look at the radar screen.

"Do you have a fix on their last position?" John asked. Tom worked the keyboard feverishly trying to pull up the information his boss wanted.

"It looks like they were just east of Prince George, sir." Tom waited to see what his boss wanted to do.

John turned to Tom, "Call out search and rescue and notify the RCMP, and see if you can find out if they had a flight plan filed and where."

Throughout Western Canada crews were being alerted, but a plane crash in the mountains, what were their chances?

The bottom fell out of it one more time as they used up the precious little altitude that they had left. Then Jim heard something he really didn't want to hear as the engines throttled back, but before he could worry much about that the plane started into a barrel roll.

"Jim, I'm scared." Sara's voice was quivering, and when Jim looked at her she had tears streaming down her face. He reached for her hand, and just as he had given her hand a squeeze there was the loud crashing noise of metal being ripped apart. The cabin lights went out. It was dark save for the window by their seat as it was the only one open.

"Duck your head down now!" Jim screamed. There was a hard hit and the cabin got cold as the wind roared through it and light from outside streamed in. There was another hard hit then it felt as though they were going backwards. It was a rough and bumpy ride and Jim knew they were already on the ground. He looked up to see the whole front half of the plane gone and they were sledding down the side of a mountain backwards but they were slowing.

Jim saw a tree go past, "Sit up Sara quick, put your back and head against the seat." More trees passed and they were getting bigger. They hit a tree but not hard enough to stop them, it seemed to have turned them just a little. Two more scraped the plane's side on the opposite side from them. They were still slowing, a hard bump, then nothing, smooth, silent, they were falling for just a second then another hit, 'it must have been a cliff' Jim thought to himself, and then more trees and a bone jarring stop ... Jim could taste blood where he must have bitten the inside of his mouth.

Jim realised that Sara was squeezing the crap out of his hand. He looked down to see her hand on top of his, her fingernails digging into the skin of his fingers. "Sara, you can turn loose now." Jim smiled at her, "Think Six Flags has a ride that would have matched that one?"

Sara couldn't believe he was making jokes, she was about to say something when he said, "We need to get out of this thing before we take another ride."

They quickly undid their seatbelts and walked out the hole where the rest of the plane had once been. A quick look showed that a couple of trees had arrested the tail section of the plane and they would also keep it from sliding down the hill. Jim walked to where he could see up the mountain but with the top in the clouds he saw nothing.

Sara had walked back into the piece of fuselage, coming back out with her coat on and carrying Jim's, "Here," Sara said, "you better put your coat on."

Jim took his coat and put it on, "Let's see if we can get to all that fancy camping gear your dad bought us before we left. Jim thought back on the trip to the Cabela's sporting goods store. While Eric had been entertaining the bimbo he had sent Jim and Sara to get everything they needed for backpacking and just general camping. Jim had picked out the stuff for Sara but when Eric saw that Jim had not gotten anything for himself he went into one of his tirades. Jim thought if that's what the man wanted, that's what he'd get. Jim and Sara had gone back up and loaded up their carts. Jim and Sara now had the very best of everything that they could possibly need, complete with freeze-dried food and snowshoes. At one point Sara had given Jim a look that he would not soon forget, she then walked over to a display that held large duffel-bag like travel bags and brought one over and began filling it with the pre-packaged food. Her comment was, "He did say get everything we wanted and needed, didn't he?"

Jim had smiled back at her and said, "You know, you're right."

Sara's grin grew even larger when she said, "And when you're right, you're right. Right. " They laughed as they had parroted one of her dad's favourite sayings. They had both fallen into a fit of giggles that was something he didn't understand. Sara was a kid, just sixteen years old but she could give him that look and reduce his insides to mush or say something and he would feel like a school boy again.

That's how it had been when they were shopping; he had watched as she tried on clothes. Yeah, she was sixteen all right, but she was all woman. She could put that sultry look on that would take your breath away one minute. The next she was a school girl herself. Like when Jim had tried on a dark brown hat, a cheap knock off of a good hat, she had loved it but they didn't have one that would fit. She found one that fit her and put it in the shopping cart and Jim thought that was the end of it. It was the end until they got back to the car and she ordered the driver to find a western wear store. When he found one Jim was dragged inside, Sara showed the clerk the hat she had bought and asked for her to make Jim one just like it. Four hundred dollars and two hats later she was happy.

They had everything they could ever possible need or want with the exception of a satellite telephone, now all they had to do was get it out of the baggage compartment of the Gulfstream. It had taken three quarters of an hour to get in and get their stuff out; it was now ten a.m.

As soon as they had found their packs Jim had Sara go into the plane to strip down and put on the silk underwear and redress and as soon as she had finished he had done the same. While he had been changing clothes he had heard Sara digging around in the baggage compartment cussing like a sailor. After he had put his clothes back on he was about to ask her what she was looking for when he heard her say, "Found it"

Jim walked out of the section of the plane where he had gone to change clothes to see her opening a box. "What have you got there, a cell phone?"

Sara looked up smiled and held up the etrex Vista C GPS, "Remember, when you're right."

Jim nodded and finished the phrase, "you're right!" But Jim saw something else, he saw the hurt in her eyes, he walked over to Sara, and put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her deep blue eyes, "Sara, honey you know chances are your dad wasn't as lucky as we were, don't you?"

Sara nodded her head and Jim saw the first of the tears that she had been holding back begin to fall. "I know." She looked up at Jim and asked, "He was doing something with that blonde bitch on the plane wasn't he? That's why we crashed isn't?"

Jim wasn't sure what to tell the girl but he wasn't going to lie to her either, "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what was going on."

"Stupid bastard!" Sara spit, "He never could keep it in his pants." She looked up at Jim, "Did you know the night my mother died he left me at the hospital to watch my Mom die while he left with two of his whores?"

Jim shook his head. Just when he didn't think his opinion of Eric Dillon couldn't get any worse he heard Sara's tale. He took off his gloves and used his finger to wipe the tears off her face, but he realised that the tears weren't for her dad they were because of him. Jim pulled the girl into a hug and just held her as she cried out the hurt that her father had done to her. Thinking it would be good to get her mind off their situation he said, "Sara do you see that bare ground over there under that overhang?" He pointed to the place her was talking about.

She nodded her head still unsure of her tear choked voice. "Let's set up camp right there. This is a south face, it should be a little warmer there out of the wind."

Sara grabbed her backpack and started carrying it the forty or so yards to the cliff face. Jim grabbed one of the two big tents that he and Sara had bought and started setting it up at the far right of the site. The tents were Cabela's big Alaskan Guide models. Jim and Sara had taken advantage of Eric's generosity and had bought two of the big tents as well as a vestibule that connected them. When he finished setting up the first one he dug out the second tent, and the vestibule section that went with it, and in short order Jim and Sara had a nice two room tent. Sara went to work putting their sleeping pads and bags in order while Jim set up one of the small stoves and started melting some snow so they could have some tea.

Sara came out of the sleeping tent, "Jim how long do you think it will take for them to find us?"

"I don't know. Did you ever get that GPS working so we could figure out where we are at?"

Sara had forgotten all about the GPS. She pulled it out of her pocket and finished installing the batteries, put the battery cover on and turned the unit on. After a few minutes she said, "125 West and 53 North." Sara looked at the display and, frowning at it, she punched the buttons for it to recalculate their position. After seeing the same result she shook her head, walked back the fuselage and returned with her school backpack. After unzipping the back section she pulled out her laptop and started it up. "That's what I thought. Jim, come here." Sara pointed to the map she had saved on her laptop. Pointing to a red line on that map she said, "This is the route we were supposed to take. Dad used my laptop to file his flight plan." She then pointed to a spot several hundred miles away from their flight path. "That is where we are."

Jim looked at the distance and silently worried if they would be found. "Let's see how good that freeze dried food is. I'm getting hungry." Later, as they were eating their 'beef stew', Jim said, "You know one end or the other of that plane should have a beacon in it, they'll find us. It may take a day or two, but they'll find us."

After supper they went about securing their camp, they then crawled into their sleeping bags while there was still day light and talked till dark.

Day 2 ... The next morning Jim awoke to the felling of being watched. Sara watching him sleep in fact, "What's the matter?" he asked