I sprint at human speed down the street until I'm out of what I think is the FBI's range, then pick up the pace. I slip between two dark beach houses and pop into the air, searching for anyone who might see me. There is a couple on the beach, but they are too busy to notice. I'm up to a couple hundred feet in the darkness, invisible to anyone on the ground who's not looking really hard.
Due west for a mile or so, enough distance off shore to further minimize the possibility of detection, I accelerate to a few hundred knots and set course 360 degrees, due north. I clear myself to climb to 500 feet, a safety margin from eyes, but something of an increase in radar signature. It let's me fly faster though, without stirring up the ocean below.
My arms are at my sides, my hands open, palms toward my thighs. The wind blows across my face, cool as it always is. I know my hair is not moving, despite the 500 mph velocity. I get north past Santa Monica pier, and turn inland, crossing over the state park, picking up Mulholland, then over Griffith Park carefully avoiding the observatory, taking the 134 into Pasadena. Slowing so as not to miss anything I need to see, I do my best to listen to myself breathe, listen for any hint, not let my emotion cloud my senses. I may know where the attack will be, but that simply limits the options to a few thousand. Or million.
The stadium lights are bright in the distance, illuminating the sky even to my altitude. A blimp and five helicopters float over the stadium, one LAPD and four TV channels. I sweep around them, working to stay out of sight. The golf course is there, cars parked across its fairways. He could be in any of them, but no bells ring in my brain. I make a wider loop, crossing over Pasadena, into La Canada, Glendale, Eagle Rock, South Pasadena, and back to Colorado Boulevard.
Twice I loop, twice I fail to feel. Half time is nearly ended, the sounds of the bands fading. The announcer's voice carries for miles in the air, and I know the second half is about to start. Ali is out there somewhere, and I can't find him. It could be a van, a rental truck, a light aircraft, a missile. Too many possibilities for the grape jelly where my brain is supposed to be. I'm heading west once again, a third pass into Glendale, when I see it.
It's a Bell 222 helicopter, which Perez would certainly recognize instantly as Airwolf, except this one is navy blue. It's flying low, too low, below what the FAA would allow. It's following the route I took, straight down the 134 toward the stadium, now only a couple miles out. At its present speed, it will be there in under three minutes.
Trust the light, yet I don't. To beat it there before it reaches the eyeballs of a hundred thousand fans in the stadium and millions of television viewers around the world, I would have to shatter every window in three cities. Don't fuck it up. Don't. Once again, Perez's wisdom has come home to roost. Frak the Fog Bastards for not giving me better eyes.
I turn toward the stadium, but stay at my steady subsonic pace, gaining a little altitude in fear of the lights and blimp. Then the chopper makes its move, a sharp turn off the freeway and due south. Frak me, I am too far away. Without the nozzle, it can't be a spray attack can it? I had assumed a more brutal assault, a bomb, a truck crash into the exterior, something. This looks wrong, my Brain by Welch's can't cope.
He's reached the stadium and I have reached the final choice point. Right or wrong, in or out, I must be somewhere, and I must be there now. Molecules leap to my aid, and I shatter only half the windows in Pasadena. I beat the helo to the stadium by a tenth of a second, and there he is, sitting in the right hand seat, my buddy Ali.
I am on his four o'clock, right and behind, he can't see me. All eyes in the stadium are on him, I remain invisible to the crowd as well. He pulls back and initiates a hover, the LAPD chopper maneuvering to intercept, but too slowly, death to 100,000 people too slowly.
I have no choice. Fuck me, I never have a choice.
One final massive push and I am standing on air, five feet in front of him, staring through the cockpit glass, my right fist cocked at my side. There are six large metal cylinders in the helo, and what appears to my television educated brain to be plastic explosive. The bastard looks me in the eye, I happily see his fear, then he yells something I cannot hear, and pivots the chopper hard to his left. I beat him to the spot, my right fist now clenched so hard I am hurting myself, even in my invulnerable form.
The air is ripped by screams from below us, and by the LAPD chopper using its speaker to order him to the ground. We all know he's not going. Except he is. He tilts his head down, eyes closed, quietly saying something else I cannot hear, then looks at me, yells a few final words, shakes his fist in defiance, and chooses.
He pushes the cyclic between his knees fulls forward and drives the 222 earthward at its maximum velocity. I dodge the blades and grab for the hub between them as he flies past, my one chance. My left hand catches it, and swings the chopper around, its turbine engines straining against me. Ali stomps the control pedals and pulls the throttle, spinning the tail of the helo wildly side to side, trying to shake me.
I will not let go,
will not let go
, too much at stake. With my right hand I reach out and grab one of the two main rotor blades, twist it, and wrench it from the hub. It falls to earth at the 50 yard line. The other blade soon joins it. I toss the 8,000 pound machine a few feet in the air, get beneath it, turn the nose toward the ocean and push every molecule I can find.
The helicopters behind me try to keep up, but I am at least four times as fast, avoiding supersonic flight only out of fear that it would rip the helo apart. Ali has thankfully forgotten that he has a bomb, at least for now, or he designed it to detonate on impact, not on command. Either way, I am not stopping to ask him.
We reach the ocean, and I take the helo in my right hand, pull my arm back behind my head, and let fly. Not a very tight spiral, but I'm not a quarterback. It doesn't matter. The helicopter hits the ocean, bounces up once, and then crashes down, exploding into a ball of aviation fuel, plastic explosive, nerve gas, and No Longer a Problem Ali.
I float there, watching, making sure no head still attached to a body comes up and swims away. The news copters have finally caught up, first flying over to the burning scene, and then turning like a swarm of bees, racing toward me. It is time to go. Straight up, supersonic, fuck the windows. Then hard over to the north losing altitude at a dizzying rate, and finally ripping to the west, away from my real destination.
The coast of Molokai is in my sights before I turn around, maintaining 20 feet, and heading home. I'm pretty sure that nothing built by man could follow me, and as far as I know, I am the only thing built by fog. I land quietly at 2 a.m. on the beach by my apartment, and bounce into the dark space between two houses. I take my jacket and pants off, leaving me in just underwear and socks, and squeeze the light.
Retracing my earlier path, without the record high jump, I slip quietly into my building and up to my floor. Perez is sitting with her back against the door to my place, still in uniform. She gets up slowly as I walk down the hall, then gurgles gleefully, and starts pounding on my left arm with both fists.
I stop her with a big hug, and a whispered thank you. She pulls back and hits me again.
"Stop it." I'm laughing as I say it, her joy becoming mine.
"You didn't fuck it up. You saved everyone."
"Except Ali."
"Is that a problem?" She's looking at me funny.
"No. I just wanted it to be more personal, for what he did to you."
She shakes her head. "You already set that right, Air Force. And by the way, you looked way cool in HD, but we have to do something about those stupid socks."
This time it's me shaking my head, as I open the door and invite her in. "Every plan I've made has ended up in the garbage. Ali just ended my year long quiet phase after four months. You up for helping figure out what to do next?"
She smacks me on the arm again, and pushes me through the door.
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