Cut and Run by Donn Cortez Page A

I’d help him out.”
    â€œVery generous of you, Mister Kwok. Did you ever meet the man who hired Timothy?”
    â€œNo. Why would I?”
    Horatio looked away, took his sunglasses out of his pocket. “That, Mister Kwok,” he said, slipping them on, “is the question, isn’t it…”
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    â€œOkay,” said Calleigh. “Now, you understand we’re not going up that high, right?”
    She stood in the same field Timothy Breakwash had launched his final voyage from, talking to the owner of the bright yellow balloon that now towered above her. Liam Fellows was a tall, cheerful-looking man with long black hair pulled back in a ponytail.
    â€œNot afraid of heights, are you?” he asked her.
    â€œOh, no. I just want to duplicate the flight path Timothy Breakwash took as closely as possible, and he never topped a few hundred feet.”
    â€œWell, I can’t promise you we’ll duplicate it—we’re more or less at the mercy of the wind. But it’s blowing in the same direction it was yesterday, and I’ll keep it low.”
    Calleigh nodded. The balloon she’d rented was the same size as Breakwash’s, holding a hundred thousand cubic feet of air and able to lift up to four people; she’d watched them inflate it, using a large, generator-driven fan to blow cold air into it first, then switching to a propane heater once the bag was almost full but lying on its side. It was early morning, the sun having just risen; it was the closest Calleigh could come to copying the conditions of Breakwash’s flight.
    â€œAll aboard,” said Fellows. She climbed into the basket, and a moment later they were off.
    It wasn’t quite what she imagined. The ascent was so smooth and gradual it didn’t feel like they were going up at all; more like the Earth was dropping away. “How exactly do you control this thing?” asked Calleigh. They were approaching the edge of the ’Glades, but she still had a moment or two before she had to get to work.
    â€œLook up.”
    She did, looking past the huge propane burner that perched over them like a giant Zippo, into the throat of the balloon itself. “What am I looking for?”
    â€œSee that little circle on the inside, at the very top? That’s the parachute vent. I pull on this line here, and it pulls open. Hot air escapes, and we go down. I let go, and the outrushing air pushes the vent back in place.”
    â€œIt’s so— basic,” said Calleigh. “Call me old-fashioned, but I’m used to having a whole aviation industry backing me up when I’m flying.”
    â€œThat’s what I love about ballooning—it’s simple. No engines, no computers, no complicated flight protocols…just a gasbag, a basket, a big blue flame, and the sky.”
    She had to admit he had a point. Other than the occasional throaty hiss of the burner—it sounded to her like a giant, fire-breathing cat—it was eerily quiet. Since they were moving at the speed of the wind, even the air seemed still. Below them, the brilliant green edge of the Everglades was rapidly getting closer.
    Calleigh dug into the satchel she’d brought with her and pulled out two bright orange plastic bricks. They were transponders, each one emitting a radio signal that she could track with a handheld unit. Her plan was to throw one to either side of the balloon at periodic intervals, giving her a broad trail that would, she hoped, provide the ground-based equivalent of Breakwash’s flight path. The transponders were encased in tough, impact-resistant plastic—unless they fell directly onto a boulder, they should survive the fall.
    She’d already placed two at the boundary of the field and the Everglades. She waited until they’d gone fifty or so feet past that point, then launched the first one over the edge.
    â€œBombs away!”
    She was fortunate in that most of the