Chapter 9

Day Nine: Monday

For the second morning in a row I woke up early wedged between Irene and Kari. This time there was no knee on pressed against my bladder and no urgent reason to leave my comfortable confines. I guess most married men know that one of the joys of marriage is the wonderful feeling of being snuggled close to your mate. For me this pleasure was multiplied threefold and on our second night sleeping together we seemed to have each discovered our place in the nest. My hand, seemingly of its own accord was resting between Irene's bountiful breasts. Kari had her arm around me with her hand on my stomach and I could feel her soft breasts lightly touching my back. Julie's hand was draped over Kari and rested lightly on my side as Julie must have been snuggled up to Kari. As I thought about the wonderful turn my life had taken my dick began to slowly grow and fill the space between Irene's warm ass cheeks. I have heard that sex is 98% mental and the stimulation of each of these small connections seemed to build one upon another in my mind. In what seemed like an eternity but must have actually been less than a minute I was slowly rocking my hard-on almost between Irene's wonderful twin nether cheeks. My mind warred between its enjoyment of the delightful sensations and the feeling that this was nothing more than me masturbating with Irene's unknowing cooperation.

That conflict was resolved by Irene's moan as she awoke and lifted her leg to allow me penetration. I found her wet and hot as my rigid member effortlessly entered her almost on its own. My hand moved to caress and awaken her nipples as my thrusts became both sure and regular. The movement half-wakened Kari as her hand began to caress my ass. Julie's hand remained limp against my side for the next few minutes as Kari gradually wakened to what was happening.

As Kari awoke more fully she became caught up in our lovemaking and began to nibble and nuzzle my ear sending a shiver through my hormone charged body. Kari then slipped her leg over mine and began to hump her mound against my hip in sync to my outstroke with Irene. This actually gave me increased forward impetus. The slick feel of her moist mound tattooing in counterpoint on my hip was a stimulation I had never expected. Kari then stuck her tongue into my ear as I kissed Irene's neck and fondled her breast and nipples. Soon I felt another hand slip between Kari and myself and begin to squeeze Kari's breasts. I heard Kari moan as Julie began some unseen ministration that obviously excited her. Kari came before Irene and her moans of pleasure along with my now almost frantic thrusts sealed Irene's fate as she climaxed next. Her spasms in turn triggered my almost painful release and the three of us collapsed to the bed.

We were all momentarily exhausted from our efforts. As our senses returned I had an infusion of energy, almost like an ethereal connection to each of my mates. We lay there for a moment, bathed in that afterglow. As I was about to drift off to sleep again I heard Julie's pouting murmur, "Hey, what about me?" Her soft cry helped me realize that our lovemaking had not been the totally perfect connection I had sensed.

I used my infusion of energy to climb over Kari and move atop Julie. Since I knew my dick hadn't recovered sufficiently to do her any good at the moment I began to work on other more tactile methods of stimulation. I began with small kisses of her lips and face and moved slowly to her ears and neck. I kissed lovingly around her long neck and slowly moved down to her breasts. By this time both Kari and Irene were snuggled together watching us. Ignoring their lack of help I worshiped her breasts with my fingers and mouth. Julie's nipples are very sensitive and during our other times together I had discovered she loves to visit that fine line between erotic pleasure and pain. For those reasons I moved between her nipples and the less sensitive areas of her breasts. Even with that effort I soon felt her hands pushing my shoulders, directing me down her body. I somehow sensed that she wasn't trying to move me to her taut stomach and so lingered there only momentarily before attacking her sweet honey pot.

Julie's aroma was intense and her pussy was sloppy wet by this time. I avoided her almost distended clit as I began to slurp her juices and coat my cheeks with her aromatic fluids. At this point my dick was ramrod straight under the assault of Julie's pheromones, taste and aroma. I moved my sloppy wet face up to hers and slid my dick inside of her in one stroke. Soon we were wildly moving in mankind's original dance. Julie came after only a few strokes. I persevered as her love channel erotically began to squeeze my dick like a warm, wet gloved hand. I suppose it was because of the intensity of my earlier coupling but I was nowhere near a climax of my own. I began a steady but fairly quick tempo of thrusts as I looked deeply into her eyes.

At that moment I felt a warm breeze across my flanks and glanced back to find Kari and Irene kneeling on either side of me. They both smiled at me and leaned over me and kissed each other. Irene almost casually cupped my balls, letting her hand rest lightly on them as I moved in and out of Julie. Soon her touch turned to a light fondly and Julie moaned letting me know that she had just received some extra stimulus as well. My ass tightened up as I felt a hand lightly caress my butt. I never looked back again as I kissed Julie and felt her nipples jiggle across my chest in an irregular pattern as we moved together. Finally before I even realized what had happened, my own release surged through me and I felt Julie tighten up in response as she moaned, caught in the midst of her own orgasm.

The aftermath of that coupling completely drained me of any energy I had. I dropped on top of Julie and just lay there, a dead weight on her body. Kari and Irene rolled me to the side and we all embraced in a tender moment before Kari made us laugh when she said, "Hey, what about us? We only got it once and you haven't been inside me all morning."

As Irene and Julie tittered I responded, "You'll have to wait honey because twice in one morning is all your poor old husband can manage."

Kari kissed me and said, "That's okay, I love you anyway."

A few minutes later we all struggled out of bed. Julie quickly called dibs on the toilet and Irene started the shower. Fitting three into the small bathroom was a problem but as I looked at the lovely flesh being displayed so freely I knew that this was a small price to pay for our being together. We danced around each other and in a surprisingly short time were all ready to move out and meet the day. I started the coffee first thing and then poured three glasses of orange juice. Kari for some reason hated both orange juice and coffee so I got her morning diet coke from the refrigerator. To me drinking a soft drink for breakfast was almost sacrilege but I have some strange tastes of my own. I drank my juice and grabbed the first cup of coffee just as Kari emerged from the bathroom.

We ended up moving outside with our drinks and found our neighbors sitting around the table in the early morning sun. It was a gorgeous fall day and I knew that later on the temperatures would probably again reach the 90s. There was a slight breeze and the warmth of the sun made it feel almost balmy. As soon as I sat down Tom looked up from notes that he was making and said, "Good morning Steve. Ladies, did you sleep well?"

It wasn't what he said as much as how he said it and I'm sure it surprised him when Kari, Irene and Julie burst out laughing. I wasn't even exactly sure why they were laughing but their laughter seemed to be contagious and soon we were all chuckling. I noticed a plate of pancakes on the table and my stomach rumbled at about the same time Tom said, "Dig in. Lana brought those out and told me not to touch them. She said she made them for you to show you she could cook."

Lana had just walked back out and walked up behind Tom. He must have known she was there because he was teasing when he said, "I'd take a small bite first to make sure they're edible. Laura is the real cook between the two of them."

Lana acted miffed and said, "Daddy how could you say that. Last time I made them you said my pancakes were even better than momma's."

Janet, who had been sitting quietly at the table drinking her own coffee, put down her cup and said, "Honey, he says that to anyone who'll feed him. Your daddy's idea of best pancakes is the ones he's busy wolfing down."

Tom realized that the kidding had gone on too long smiled weakly and said, "Janet, you are by far the best cook in this county and who knows maybe even the state. Heaven knows I can never get enough of your cooking. Lana honey, you learned how to cook from your mom and your cooking is getting better and better every day."

Then he looked over at me and winked as if to say that he had given me a lesson in family harmony. Lana saw his wink and thought it was for a different reason. She stomped her foot and said, "Daddy!" before heading back for her room. Tom shrugged his shoulders and we all laughed.

After breakfast we divided into the crews that Sheila had created for the day. We agreed to meet back at the BOQ for lunch at 12:30. After lunch Tom would take Janet, Lana and Laura to the range for M-16 qualification. My team that morning was Kari, Lana and Carrie. My respect for Billy went up a notch when I didn't hear any grumbling from him after Sheila announced the morning's assignments. I had decided that for the first couple of days I would need to fly familiarization flights for those that hadn't flown before. That meant we'd be doing short flights and mainly searching the local area. Kari suggested that she and Lana would search operations for another large area map while Carrie and I were flying so that we could accurately plot all of our searches.

We began by finding helmets and torso harnesses for Lana and Carrie. There was no problem fitting Lana but Carrie was even more of a problem than Kari had been. We searched every bin in the flight equipment shop but found nothing that would fit the young girl. Kari then unselfishly suggested that her torso harness could probably be adjusted to fit the younger girl. We made the adjustments and then headed out to the flight line. We performed the same quick egress training on the same aircraft that we had used earlier. I had both Lana and Carrie accompany me on the walk around and Kari helped explain what they would do on the flight line as well as in the air.

Before we took off Kari suggested we stow an air-droppable CB radio in the front compartment so that if we did find someone we wouldn't have to return to base. The crew compartment was small but there was room behind the headrest for the Styrofoam container provided we could secure it somehow. Kari remembered seeing long rolls of Velcro 'hook and pile' tape in the flight equipment room and we decided that we would glue a strip to each of the radio containers and then glue a strip to the flat surface behind the front cockpit headrest. The glue we found in the seat shop was fast drying and in 15 minutes we had a container in place. The downside would be that the front seat observer would have to turn somehow and unfasten his or her seatbelt and remove the container, should it be needed. We wasted another 15 minutes practicing this maneuver on the ground. Both Carrie and Lana had no problems doing it on the ground. I just hoped it would work when we needed it.

It was almost 10 o'clock before we got the first flight into the air. We had laid out the search grid north of the base. This was mainly uninhabited forest areas with a few small farms and the small community of Munson. Carrie was quite talkative during the trip but still seemed to be able to concentrate on the areas outside the aircraft. I told her to be especially watchful for smoke since without electricity many people would resort to fires for cooking. The first leg of the trip was uneventful. During the second leg we saw a large pack of dogs chasing a deer across a dirt road. Dog hunting of deer had been a popular sport in this area and these dogs were probably abandoned hunting dogs using those abilities to find food. The only other excitement was when we saw a flash of light, as if from a signaling mirror, play across the cockpit. We went back through the area several times without any repeat of the flashes.

Carrie told me before we landed that she had decided that she wanted to learn to fly as soon as she could. I found out she sang in the church choir, received mostly A's on her last report card "except for a B in science", her favorite color was blue, her birthday was March 3^rd, which made her 12 and 1/2 and a hundred other things that I couldn't possibly remember. She seemed to be a bright girl and, although she was a chatterbox, I felt sure that if there had been anyone out there she would have seen them. I thought that based on her calling off landmarks and checkpoints as she talked about school and boys.

When we returned from the flight she helped me debrief Kari and Lana before we marked the route of our flight and the approximate location of the light flash. I thought it could have been a windshield from a car off of the road but we hadn't seen any cars in that area and the sun didn't seem to be in the right spot for that to be the case. I had thought Carrie was talkative in the plane but it was nothing to the mile-a-minute retelling of the events of the flight to Kari and her sister. I smiled as I remembered the adrenalin rush that my first flight had generated and the excitement that I had felt for days afterwards.

I drank a bottle of water, drained a little of it off behind the MCP and then headed out with Lana for her first flight. We took off in the same northerly direction and I could see from her reaction that Lana did not enjoy flying. Now I hadn't performed any acrobatics with her or with any of the others except for the time Julie had dropped the radio. The weather was also clear and there was no turbulence. Still, even without that, Lana was not enjoying the flight as everyone else had. Her voice was tinged with fear as she answered my questions about the familiar landmarks I used as a reference. Her voice trembled so much as I tried to take her mind off of the flight that finally I came right out and said, "You know flying isn't for everyone. We can go back and no one will think less of you because you don't enjoy flying."

Lana in an almost panicked voice said, "Steve, please don't go back early. I'll get better, I know I will. This is my first time flying and the airplane is so small. I'll be okay."

Stating the obvious I replied, "Okay, but I just wanted to ask. As we get further from the base it will take longer to get back."

She surprised me by answering, "Well, Duh!" and then laughing.

By that time we were at the point where I was to deviate to a new search area and so I said, "If you feel alright keep a sharp lookout in this area, we haven't searched this area before."

She was quiet for a while except to point out to me new farms or roads that we crossed. She seemed to overcome her fear and surprised me by commenting, "I've been up in this area before. Daddy had some friends that owned farms up here. He brought me up here hunting last year. I hope they made it through okay."

I could hear the sadness in her voice. I hadn't really thought much about how it must be to have lost all your friends and most of your loved ones. I had been a loner for too long and I guess had been too busy either making preparations or making new friends to think about it. We continued to fly forward for a piece and my daydreaming led to me flying a bit north of our course. The next thing I heard was Lana saying, "Steve, look at that pretty church on that small hill. It looks like it's been there forever. I was just looking down when I heard a shot ring out, then before I could react, another. I felt rather than heard the impact as the bullets hit the aircraft so I nosed the plane over towards the deck.

My first concern was the aircraft and when I had it low, stable and flying back towards the base I asked, "Lana, are you alright?"

Lana answered me immediately with her own question, "Steve, why would anyone shoot at us?"

I repeated, "Lana, are you okay?"

"I'm fine; I heard something hit the plane though. I think they hit the front of the plane. I can see a hole in the top of the hood."

I was trying to figure out what she meant by hood and after a moment of discussion figured out she meant the engine cowling. One of the shots had hit somewhere behind me and unless it hit a control line or fuel tank we would probably be okay. If there had been a fuel tank hit we would have started losing fuel, which hadn't happened and I hadn't noticed any problems with the controls. Still, it worried me that someone shot at us. I decided to take the plane back up, now that we were out of that area and check out all of the controls before we attempted a landing.

The controls worked fine and we made a beeline back to the base. I called Kari on the radio and asked her to get everyone together as soon as we returned. Then I cursed myself for not putting one of the small fire trucks near the end of the runway. Hell, even if someone could get one out there I doubted anyone on the base could operate it. It was just one more thing to study for the future. It was hard for our small group to duplicate the services that were normally performed by several hundred people.

The landing was uneventful but not without its moments of stress. Lana was nervous and the flight control checks had left her stomach uneasy. Poor kid, I wondered if she would ever want to fly again. Added to that was the rush of adrenalin that we both had from being shot at. Lana became more talkative and full of questions. I couldn't be sure that the one of the tires on the tricycle landing gear hadn't been hit, although the likely effect of that would surely have been a secondary explosion of air coming from the tire. Still, I decided to fly by the field low and slow and have Kari and Carrie check to ensure my wheels were down and okay. Of course this upset Lana, making her think that there was something wrong I wasn't telling her. I reassured her as best I could and then did what I had to do.

After landing I taxied the plane back to the line and was met by everyone. They were all worried that there was something I wasn't telling them. We reassured everyone although I'm not sure that what Lana told them was that reassuring. I checked the plane out and found two holes in the engine cowling. It seems the bullet had pierced the cowling at an angle on the side and then had passed through the top of the cowling without hitting anything. Nothing duct tape wouldn't fix. The second shot was in the vertical stabilizer and had gone clean through. The access panel would need to be removed to ensure nothing had been hit, but barring that, it too was fixable with duct tape.

By the time I had finished the inspection there were a million questions. We brought the map of the area from the MCP into a conference room upstairs in the hangar. We spread it out on a map and marked the area of the shooting near the church. Lana had already told everyone that it was near Piney Woods, the community where she, Laura and Tom had hunted last year. As soon as we were seated around the conference table Tom said, "Lana's right. I know several families in this area. For the most part they farm the same crops we do. Jim Baxley was the farmer that we went hunting with last year. I've known Jim for years. He's a few years older than me and was my 4H advisor in high school. Janet and his wife were good friends and we used to get together most every year in the winter and go hunting. Jim's wife died a couple of years ago so last winter I took everyone up expecting the women and Billy to keep his daughter and grandkids company while we went hunting. Lana and Laura decided to go hunting with us and made so damn much noise that we didn't see anything to shoot. Over the years I've probably met all of the farmers in that area. They are all fine people as far as I could see. I can't think of any of them that would have taken pot shots at an airplane."

We were still talking about things when we broke for lunch. Neither Tom nor I felt that we should let this go unchallenged. Tom felt that it was either some kids or a nut and that if Jim was still around he could help us figure out who might have done it. We talked about it over lunch but still hadn't come up with an idea of what to do. Tom decided after lunch that he needed to speed up getting his family qualified with the M16, just in case. We all went out to the range, the fencing and flying forgotten for the moment. It turned out that with the exceptions of Sheila, Billy and Carrie, Tom's entire family did really well at the range. Under the military system the highest qualifiers were graded as experts, while those not quite as good were graded as sharpshooter and those that qualified below that were graded as marksmen. Tom qualified as an expert, Laura qualified as a sharpshooter while Lana and Janet both qualified as marksmen. Janet was only two points off from qualifying as a sharpshooter.

As we drove back to the BOQ Tom explained that he had been a Ranger in the post-Vietnam Army. The Army had been going through a lot of transition during that time and that he never took to the spit and polish of military life. He said that he had been thinking while we were shooting and wondered if the best thing might not be to have him check out the area from which the shots had originated. He was hoping that I could drop him off in a field near his friend Jim's farm and then wait until he could see if his friend was still alive and if he knew anything. Tom figured that if Jim was still there he would know what was going on and why we might have been shot at. Jim's farm was just south of the church so we would have to go in low by helo or else he could just drive up there. He thought the helo would be best option as it would allow us to avoid roads and avoid driving by other farms in the area in case something was afoot.

We discussed Tom's idea over a late lunch. Janet had misgivings about Tom going in alone, as did I. The TH-57C helicopter, which was the model suited for night flight, had capabilities to carry a pilot and four students. My idea was to go with Tom to meet his friend Jim. To my surprise that was roundly vetoed by everyone, especially Tom. Tom flat told me that if I insisted on going he would veto going at all. I had to listen to a litany of reasons from several people why my going with Tom wasn't a good idea. It started and ended with me being the only pilot. We decided that Laura would accompany Tom and if possible stay out of sight with an M16 for cover. She was the most qualified, other than Tom, and if discovered known by Jim as Tom's daughter. We argued the merits of taking the dogs and finally decided that it would be better this trip without them.

As soon as we decided to go we started planning. We took our detailed topographic maps of the area and enlarged the area that we would be operating in on the copier. Tom and his family then filled in as much detail as they could remember of the area. We chose a small field about 1000 yards from Jim's farm as the landing zone. The field was in a depression and surrounded on three sides by woods. We would fly in low and slow just out of ground effect and land in the back corner of the lot.

We would go in tonight during EENT (early evening nautical twilight) as the now black helo would be almost invisible at night with the lights off. Because I did not expect any other air traffic I would pull the breakers on all of the outside lights to further reduce our visibility. We could either depart in the dark if we had to or if there were no problems wait until morning to leave. We would only use short radio transmissions to the MCP in case anyone in the area had a scanner with military frequencies. The transmissions would be 'down safe' when we landed and 'retuning' when we were leaving for base. The only other communications would be a warning such as 'taking fire'. There would be someone who would monitor the communications all night in the MCP.