Chapter 14

THE VALLEY

STAR – Wednesday Day 10 part #2

I woke up feeling wonderful.

It wasn't only having the woman I love here in my bed, but I had a great feeling of expectation. This was becoming a habit; waking and wondering what the new day would bring.

I stretched, opened my eyes and found DeDe sitting up looking down at me with a serious, wistful look on her face.

"You've moved on, haven't you?" She asked. "I was watching you with everyone at supper last night. You've now got a quiet air of authority and competence about you that was never there before. In a way, I was reminded of when Steve took us to visit Hap and his bikers out at the clubhouse that time; you rather remind me of Hap when he was Prez..."

Wow. Me like HAP? No way.

I reached up and hugged her, but she was right somehow, it wasn't the same.

I went for a quick shower, then did my face. I hardly wear any makeup these days. It doesn't seem right here in the valley somehow.

DeDe took longer.

"Sorry for dawdling," she said.

What a funny word. She must have seen that I didn't know what on earth she was talking about.

"It's my English friend again," she explained, "If you do something slowly, he says you're dawdling.

"Come on, I'm being picked up by one of our Twin Otters. The pilot's going to do a quick 'stop and go' here after he leaves Sacramento."

So we had a hurried breakfast. Well, it would have been a quick one if Chuck hadn't phoned in the middle of it.

"We've had a warning from the authorities," he began. "They're afraid that we may be a terrorist target. They say that it's caused by a combination of my other job and CS&Ss higher profile. I'm sorry; I should have called you yesterday. I've hired two security managers and they're busy putting together teams of ex-Marines for our own special Guard Force. You'll also be getting a four-man team whose full-time job it will be to generally keep an eye on the valley.

"In the meantime, the Sheriff has been asked to double his patrols in your area until we can get our men on the ground, and I want you to hire a security company to provide guards at the two airparks until then. That's both men on the gates, and mobile perimeter patrols 24/7.

"Can you also see that Fran puts a real high priority on getting the fences repaired, as well as upgrading them with coiled razor wire at the top?

"Oh, yes, and can you please tell Tank to return to Lutz by the fastest means possible? He's badly needed here."

He abruptly ended the call. Do I do that to people too? I hope not.

I told DeDe what Chuck had said. She was immediately worried about LAWest. She said that although they did have security at the airport, she wasn't impressed with them at all.

When we drove in through the gate at Spring Field, I saw immediately that Georgie had been busy. There was a row of three large double-wide mobile homes/offices behind the admin building.

I had a quick look in the end one. It was fitted out as a crew room with rows of lockers around the sides. Do we really need a hundred? Well, yes, I suppose we are heading in that direction.

As we watched the Halcyon Twin-Otter circling to land, DeDe turned to me.

"Can you ask that man you were telling me about, Gunter, I think his name was, to get me some more of those? Take care."

Then she was running off to jump into the plane which hardly stopped rolling before turning and taking off again.

I was standing, watching the plane carrying my oldest friend as it climbed to gain altitude to clear the hills to the southwest, when Johnny drove up and stopped his car beside me. He had a nice looking blonde woman of about his age with him.

"Hi. This is my partner, Helen," he introduced her. "She's a nurse specialising in ER procedures, but the hospitals around here seem only to have vacancies for part-timers and she gets very bored waiting for a call from temp agencies."

She smiled shyly as I shook her hand, and I immediately decided that I liked her.

"We're now employing so many people here that I'm sure there's a regulation which says we need a full-time nurse," I told her. "There are regs on everything, so there's bound to be one that covers this. Want the job?"

"Just like that?" She gasped, with a delighted smile just starting to appear.

Johnny was grinning happily too.

"Yes, she's like that, I've discovered," he told her. "Come and meet Georgie; she'll sign you up and look after you."

I left them to it.

I'd hardly sat down to look through the pile of papers that Georgie had left for me to read, when Kurt called.

"I thought I'd better warn you," he said. "One of our Golf Tours 737-700Cs will shortly be arriving at Spring Field. It's due to be dropping off a full load of happy golfers at Oakland about now. Chuck says that I'm to base three of them with you and another three here at The Junction. Your other two will be ready to come to Spring Field after they've finished their current charters, and Chuck says I'm not to dispatch them until you're ready.

"Do you need any more qualified mechanics? John says that the eight men from Wilson's have all done Boeing courses."

I don't know about that, I need to talk to Charlie Hanson.

"I'll check," I told him, "Just send the other planes when they're ready. Will we be able to keep the crews?

"Yes, they're yours. They're some of the ex-military men that Lisa magically keeps producing. I hear you've a good charter person there called Jennie. Tell her to keep them busy."

I thanked him and hung up, but before I could go next door to tell Jennie the news, Gunter called.

"Your new Embraer 120 is on the way to you as we speak," he told me. "A ferry crew is flying it up from Phoenix. Can you get them over to Oakland for their flight home?"

"Yes, that won't be a problem," I told him, "What about my Fairchilds?"

"Those are coming up from San Diego later on today, after lunch, I think. You wanted another turbo airliner. I've been offered both an EMB 110 (that's the Bandeirante, an older and smaller 30 seat version of the one you just bought) and one of the larger Dornier 328s. I'd take the latter if I was you. It's newer, but the price is about the same."

"Right, I'll take them," I told him.

"I'll be bringing over the second Eclipse this morning, and the two Hawkers will be ready for you to pick up after 1500 this afternoon. Don't forget that they both need two pilots.

"I've also been told that there's a Bell 214ST coming available, probably on Friday; and the same source is offering some unspecified training helicopters. Are you interested?"

"Yes, to both. If you should hear about any Twin-Otters," I told him, "My colleague down at LAWest who runs Halcyon says she needs some. I might too."

After asking me out to supper next week, he finally ended the call.

This time I did manage to go and tell Jenny that Santa Claus was coming.

She was thrilled about the 700s, as they would really give her leverage in the charter market. She told me that the twin turbo aircraft for the Reno "parties" were both booked solid well into next week, and asked if could she have the Dornier as quickly as possible. The SallyAir aircraft had to go back tomorrow and she thought another 328 would be really good.

"I'm not taking party bookings more than seven days ahead," she told me. "The market's so strong that I bet I could keep filling twice the number of aircraft we have. It's the same with the Gulfstreams and Lears too."

Wow. I'm impressed, where's Bill? We all need to meet to discuss where we're going.

The phone buzzed again. I didn't know the caller, but he explained that he was Willie Carstairs' attorney. So that I could fully act as Willie's deputy out at Lacy Field, Willie had instructed him to prepare a formal power of attorney. So he wanted my full name?

That was a question I had not been asked for years. I was remembering my school friends calling me 'Cyn' as I told him I was named Cynthia Mary Jeffries.

Bill came in, saying that he'd been told I wanted him. He was followed by Johnny and the two flying instructors. Bob slipped in behind them.

"Have you seen the nice comfortable conference room over in the new mobile office?" He asked. "There are never enough chairs for all of us in here."

So we all trooped over to see. He was right, so when we all got settled, I asked our two flying instructors, Hank and Vince, if they had seen enough to come to a decision?

"It's a complete madhouse here," Hank almost sputtered; everyone else laughed, including me. "Well, I mean your Jennie wants me to fly a charter in The Junction's B200 for her, and one of the instructors out at Lacy already has Vince fully booked giving lessons well into next week."

"Yes, it is a madhouse, and we're all going nuts," I told him, "So what's the answer? Do you want in?"

"Oh, yes please. Everything's so informal and exciting here. Just the opposite of what we've been used to."

Vince was nodding hard, with a big grin on his face.

"Right," I told them. "We need to get that B200 back to where it belongs before Bill sells it or something worse happens.

"Borrow another aircraft from Gerry. He should have something that needs a flight test, and fly down to The Junction to get you what you need. Make sure you leave your apartment and vehicle keys with a neighbor, as S&S HR will have all your stuff shipped up here at our expense. You can live with us at the Mansion until you're settled."

The two rushed off

"Not eager to do any work, are they?" Bill joked. "Before I forget, I picked up another G550 and a 1900 yesterday. They're being ferried in today. Jennie's already got the 1900 chartered this evening and has three more for it tomorrow. I think she's only got a short trip to Honolulu lined up for the 550.

"There's a man at The Junction, Pete Williams, who has sold Steve an interesting helicopter shuttle operation," he went on. "They fly an hourly service between the LA Skyport and one of the largest resorts on the Strip. It's so successful that Steve's got him extending this to another of the large resorts, and I've got to find four more S-76s for this. Pete's at the hospital for the next couple of days because one of his kids is having an operation, but Steve told him that his next job is to come up here and duplicate the shuttle between here, Reno, and San Francisco.

*I wonder if the FAA would give us licences to run shuttles between Reno and Vegas. Remind me to investigate that."

We were interrupted by Georgie ushering Tiny's large figure in. He was accompanied by Bart Moleson and a new younger man. I was glad to see that the computer expert was with them too.

I gave Tiny a hug, and gripped Bart's hand with both of mine, he's a really super guy, before being introduced to Roy Bean, who Tiny said was both a pilot and a CPA. When I'd introduced Bill, Bob, and Johnny, Tiny began.

"I've had to come myself to make sure this madhouse doesn't get completely out of control," Tiny joked. He looked surprised at the laughter this remark caused among my people. "Now that the Magic Island Resorts are fully open for business, Bart is getting bored (I saw Bart grimace at Tiny's levity), so because all the exciting things are happening in CS&S, he's going to help me keep an eye on you all.

"I'll be leaving Roy here in the Valley to help you. This is intended to be permanent. by the way, although I may also give him the Junction to look after. Our friendly computer man, who is hiding in the corner there, will stay to see that all the systems you need are installed and operational.

"But, Bill, old friend, what's this I hear about you buying another eighteen aircraft from the auction website today?"

Bob, Johnny, and Roy all looked surprised but expectant, as they waited for Bill's reply.

"Yes, and we got them all," he gleefully told us, "I've been told to come to you, Tiny, to arrange payment?"

"Not me. That's Ben's job, and he should already have made the transfer. You're going to be busy arranging for all of them to be picked up, or is that the Chief Pilot's job?"

He grinned at Bob.

"Before I forget, where's Tank? Chuck wants him back in Lutz like yesterday. He can catch a lift in my Citation which needs to be back home for a charter to Toronto by tomorrow morning."

Georgie went off to arrange this.

"What do you want these guys to concentrate on first, the charter pricing?" Tiny asked.

"Yes, please. I'm using the Lutz prices, with an uplift for the higher cost of fuel, and despite the fact that we're paying our pilots more than our competitors, we still seem to he extremely competitive. I'd be relieved if you'd look at that first.

"Can they also set up a dedicated website for chartering, and it should also offer contract maintenance. I'm not sure we really need it yet, but we ought to get it ready for when we do."

Georgie then came back in with Jennie, and after the introductions, she took the two men off to start on her figures.

"Right," Tiny continued, "Bart and I are here with you until tomorrow morning. I can't wait to see this Mansion of yours, and the deer and vintage planes sound interesting too. Can somebody fly us down to Vegas tomorrow? We'll be going on to see DeDe in the afternoon, but that's not your problem."

"I'll do it," Bob volunteered, "It'll be good to see Kurt Eccleston again; I've known him for years.

"Oh. I almost forgot. We haven't heard anything from Mr. McGavin, so Georgie has sent him another registered letter telling him that he's been terminated."

"Before we do anything else," Bill started, "Can you, or somebody, tell me where we are with all this chartering at the moment? I wasn't here yesterday, and things seem to be developing in really interesting directions. I need to know all this so I can try and see you get the aircraft you need."

"Good idea. I'd like to hear that too," Tiny said.