Chase Baker and the Golden Condor: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series No. 2) (18 page)

I can’t tell if what I am seeing and experiencing is a vivid
dream or reality.

I’m floating above the earth, my body entirely suspended
in space. The aircraft is no longer there. It’s as if I have been ejected from
it and now float helplessly in outer space with no means to control whether I
will live or die. Curiously I am not afraid. In fact, I feel empowered, not
like I’m about to drift away into an endless black space, but instead have come
face to face with heaven.

Then I see Leslie.

She is far off in the distance, but coming closer to me
all the time. That gunshot wound is still visible, the entry wound in her
stomach dripping dark red blood. But the closer she comes to me, the smaller
the wound gets, the more the blood disappears. By the time she reaches me, the
wound has disappeared entirely.

She smiles and takes hold of my hands.

“It’s okay,” she says. “I’m not in pain anymore.”

Releasing my hands, she turns and leaves me, drifting
away from me like a long-haired angel until she disappears entirely from view.

The dream shifts…

Suddenly I am on my back on one of the steel tables. I am
not alone. To my left, Peter Keogh III is also situated on his back on a steel
table. To my right, the Keogh Enterprises goons are also lying on their backs on
two separate tables, their eyes closed. They seem to be fast asleep, their
weapons still gripped in their hands.

I try and lift myself off the table, but I can’t. I’m
paralyzed from head to toe. I can see, hear, feel. But I can’t move. Shifting
my eyes to my feet, I see Keogh II standing along with three figures who are
shorter and thinner than him. They appear human but not entirely. They are
dressed in gray clothing that fits tightly to their skin and their heads are
shaved. Their movements are slow and deliberate, but not threatening. I hear
voices, but I cannot possibly make out the language being spoken. The
conversation, however, seems to be a pleasant one.

As the conversation comes to an end, the three small
figures approach Keogh III. They hold their hands over him for a time while his
body enters into convulsions.

The dream shifts once more…

I feel myself flying again. Dropping out of the sky like
an asteroid. It’s so hot I am breaking out in a sweat, but not so hot that I
burn. Struggling to look up from the table, I can see that the interior skin of
this aircraft glows bright orange. Something goes bang, like we’ve just broken
through some kind of barrier, and just like that the orange glow disappears.

I close my eyes and drift away.

Moments later, when I come to, I find myself seated up against
the stone wall where the Golden Condor is once more parked. Keogh II stands in
front of the two goons who are holding their guns on him. Set before the old
pilot is a gurney. I can see that there’s a body set out on it with a white
sheet laid over it. My heart sinks then, because I know who the body belongs
to.

Leslie.

Standing off to the side, looking at his reflection in a
square piece of hand-held mirror, is Peter Keogh III.

“Fantastic,” he says. “Truly fantastic.”

From where I’m seated I can see how much he’s changed since
having visited the heavens in the Golden Condor. His once pale skin has
returned to its youthful tanned tone. His thin patches of gray-white hair have
now given over to a rich thick head of blond curls. His eyes are alive and blue
while his body appears to be muscular and agile. The body of a man in his
mid-twenties.

He tosses the mirror to the floor, where it shatters.
Looking down at it, I see the faces of the two Keoghs multiplied one hundred
times in the jagged broken pieces of mirror glass.

“You did good, Dad,” Keogh III says. “I’m sorry it didn’t
work out for the girl. A damned shame really.”

“Please don’t refer to me as your dad,” Keogh II says. “I
did what you asked me to do, now go in peace so that Chase and I might see to
it that this young lady has a proper burial.”

“Boys,” Peter Keogh III barks.

The goons shoulder their weapons, both barrels aimed
point-blank for the old pilot’s leather-capped head.

“We’re not leaving this place without the Golden Condor.
That means we need you to do a little more flying.”

“You must be mad,” the old pilot says. “That aircraft
belongs to the Incan people. Before that it belonged to the universe. One day
it will belong to the universe again.”

“Now it belongs to me.”

“For your prized collection?” I say, from where I’m seated
against the wall.

I pull myself back up onto my two feet and stand, a bit out
of balance.

“Yes, for my prized collection. But that’s the least of it.”
He waves his hand in the direction of the Golden Condor. “This isn’t just a
plane. It’s history and it’s the future, and it’s proof that we are not alone.
It will make me the most influential man on the planet and perhaps beyond the
planet.”

“Your father is right,” I say. “You’re quite mad.”

“And you’re about to be quite dead, Mr. Baker,” he says.
“Boys, take care of him.”

The goons turn at me, the two black barrels on their weapons
staring me in the face like twin devils.

But something happens then.

In the split second before the goons depress their fingers
on the triggers of their automatic rifles, Keogh II shouts out, “Chase, get
down!”

He drops down onto his chest and I do the same. That’s when
three bright beams of laser light shoot forth from the belly of the Golden Condor,
the brilliant beams connecting directly with the heads of the goons and Peter
Keogh III. The men fall to the stone floor on their backs. They seem paralyzed,
until they begin to writhe in convulsions, white foam spurting from their
mouths. As fast and as sudden as the light shoots out of the craft, it then
disappears.

Sucking in a breath, I quickly grab their weapons, tossing
them aside. I also pull the old pilot’s six gun from his son’s pant waist.

“What the hell was that?” I ask Keogh II, as I hand him back
his Colt Peacemaker.

“In the time since I’ve been down here, I believe a very
famous British pop group sang a hit tune called, ‘With a Little Help from My
Friends.’ Well, that, my adventurous amigo, was a little help from my friends.”

“Your friends up there, you mean,” I say, now knowing that
the small men I saw communicating with the old pilot up in the spacecraft was
not a dream, but a dream-like reality.

I look down at the goons. They are no longer writhing or
moving. They are clearly dead. My eyes shift to my employer. He too is lying on
his back, perfectly still, his young face no longer full of life, but having
taken on the chalk white pallor of the newly departed.

Looking into Keogh II’s eyes I can see that he is not taking
the sudden death of his long-lost son lightly. His eyes fill, as a tear runs
down his cheek. He lowers himself onto one knee, placing his brown gloved hand
on his son’s chest.

“I’m sorry, son,” he says. “But you left me no choice.”

With his father’s hand laid upon his sternum, Peter Keogh
III’s face begins to change. The youthful skin begins to dry up, becoming
wrinkled and saggy. The thick blond curls fall out, until all that’s visible is
a bald scalp tattooed with age spots. The muscular body loses its tone, the
musculature turning to worn-out flesh. Not only has death touched Peter Keogh
III, but so has advanced old age. His final punishment for the murders he’s
committed and the murder he would inevitably commit in the name of his own
fortune and glory. How damned tragic that it had to come from his own father.
Or perhaps, in the end, entirely fitting.

Keogh II makes the sign of the cross and stands. He goes to
Leslie, pulls the sheet off her face. Even in death, her face is as beautiful
and perfect as ever. It makes my throat close in on itself just to look at her.

“I want you to do something for me,” the old pilot says.

“What is it?” I say, my voice cracking.

“I want you to turn around.”

I nod and do it.

I begin to feel an earthquake-like shaking and a rattling so
violent, it’s like the entire mountain is about to collapse in on the interior
stone structures. The trembling is accompanied by a bright light that’s
different from the lasers that sucked the life from Peter Keogh III and his
goons. This light is more like the morning sun shining through an opening in
the treetops. I feel it’s warmth on my back, and I swear to you now, I can feel
it throughout my own body, like a newborn child can feel the heart beating in
his mother’s chest the first time she holds him tightly.

Then, as the light slowly fades, the mountain goes still.

My body feels soaked with sweat and my eyes are filled with
tears, and I can’t exactly explain why, other than knowing that what just
happened inside that big ancient stone room is nothing short of miraculous.

“You can turn around now,” Keogh II says.

And when I do, I know that I was absolutely right. What I’m
witnessing is nothing short of a miracle.

She’s sitting up on the table.

Leslie, her eyes wide and blinking, the life returned to her
flesh and blood, her long dark hair draping her face like an angel.

“I must have fallen asleep,” she says. “Are we in space?”

“No, Les,” I say, trying my best to hold back my tears,
“we’re back on the solid ground.”

“What happened?” she asks. Then, while looking deeply into
my eyes, “Why are you crying?”

Keogh II smiles, adjusts the leather cap on his head and the
goggles that rest on his forehead.

“Think I’ll tend to something downstairs,” he says. “You two
take all the time you need.”

He leaves.

Leaning down, I rest my head on Leslie’s now healed chest,
and cry my eyes out.

Two days later, Leslie and I are doing something we never would
have guessed just five days ago when this whole adventure began. We are
boarding a single-engine biplane that was constructed back before my parents
were born. Keogh II hops into the cockpit directly behind us, pulls the goggles
down over his eyes. He’s wearing a white silk scarf which he’s wrapped around
his neck, and he’s smiling proudly.

“Been a long time since I fired up the Tiger Moth,” he says.
“This really should be quite the treat.”

“How long exactly?” Leslie says, as she takes hold of my
hand inside the cramped leather covered seat we’re sharing.

He takes a minute to think about it while scratching at the
scruff under his chin with his thumb and index finger, his eyes peering up at
the hot sun shining down on this landing strip in the jungle.

Lowering his eyes and catching both our gazes, he says, “Why
seventy-five years to be exact.”

“Seventy-five years,” I say. “You mean you never thought
even once about flying yourself out of this jungle back to civilization?”

“Oh sure, I thought about it. Thought about it a lot. But
the plane has always been inoperable. Until a couple of days ago when I was
able to make a special request of some friends who reside in, let’s call it, a
higher place.”

“God,” Leslie whispers into my ear.

“Let’s just go with it,” I whisper back, recalling the
little men who were conversing with Keogh II while the Golden Condor was still
racing through space.

“Now make yourselves comfortable,” the old pilot barks. “And
remember to hold on.”

A portly white man dressed in baggy, grease-stained overalls
and wearing a baseball hat with the logo of the old Brooklyn Dodgers appears
suddenly as if from out of nowhere. He’s wiping his hands with an old oily rag.
Pocketing the rag, he takes hold of the old wood prop with both his thick
hands.

“Switch on,” shouts the old pilot. “Contact!”

“Roger that,” says the mechanic. “Have a swell trip. Bring
me back a newspaper. I wanna catch up on the Brooklyn Dodgers.”

“Sure we know what we’re doing?” Leslie says to me, her eyes
front. “Why do I get the feeling we’re about to be flown out of the Amazon
rainforest in a ghost plane being piloted by a ghost pilot who works with a
ghost mechanic who still thinks the Dodgers play baseball in Brooklyn?”

“Maybe we’re all ghosts and just don’t know it,” I say. “In
which case, we can’t possibly die because we’re already dead.”

The propeller catches and the engine roars to life, its
pistons spitting excess fuel and acrid smoke.

“Hang on,” the old pilot announces. “Here we go!”

The plane inches forward until it comes to a slow roll.
Then, picking up speed, it’s trembling body cruises along the landing strip,
the engine roaring and straining until we feel a jolt and we’re airborne, the
wheels barely clearing the tops of the trees. After a few bounces and bucks,
and I feel my stomach rise into my throat while the old pilot circles the
runway. Looking out over the side, I see the portly mechanic looking up at us,
bearing a broad grin, and waving at us with his grease towel. When he lowers
his hand finally, he begins walking back toward the tree-line, but before he
gets there, he disappears like a piece of tissue paper suddenly lit by flame.

“Okay now!” Keogh II, barks as the biplane levels off, “I’m
gonna open the old bird up!”

The old pilot lets loose with a hoot and a holler as the
engine roars and we head on into the newly rising sun of a brand new day.