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Back Dead Horse Gap Save as PDF
Chapters (58)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  3. DEDICATION
  4. Prologue
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Thirty-eight
  43. Thirty-nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-one
  46. Forty-two
  47. Forty-three
  48. Forty-four
  49. Forty-five
  50. Forty-six
  51. Forty-seven
  52. Forty-eight
  53. Forty-nine
  54. Fifty
  55. Fifty-one
  56. Fifty-two
  57. Fifty-three
  58. Acknowledgements

Fierce gusts buffeted the light plane as he worked the throttle, controlling his descent. Focused on his instruments, his mind totally in the cockpit, he checked the plane was straight and level, checked his airspeed was good, checked his altitude and GPS track. He looked up, scanning the darkness for the visual cues he needed to put the light plane safely on the ground. The clouds parted, and in the momentary wash of moonlight he glimpsed the three-kilometre stretch of water he’d been searching for. He closed the throttle, raised the nose and extended the undercarriage, slowing the Cessna before it dropped into the bank of fog hovering over the Khancoban pondage. He switched on his landing lights. Two bright beams appeared on each wingtip.

Tension gathered at the top of his spine. In the reflection of his landing lights, he could see the strands of fog becoming thinner.

Now. Any moment now.

The pilot let out a triumphant whoop. He was over the water, flying at a slow 70 knots and one minute away from landing. He chose full flap before opening the throttle to maintain his approach as the flaps ran to position. The airstrip was short and devoid of runway lights, but it was there, waiting in the darkness, just on the other side of the concrete spillway.

Five seconds to landing, and the pilot glimpsed the turbulent water below, gushing from the spillway and flowing into the Swampy Plain River. Then he was touching down, applying the brakes as soon as the wheels struck solid ground.

Euphoria raced through his body but it was immediately replaced by horror at a looming shape blocking the runway. Unable to stop in time, he wrenched the plane to the left, hoping to ground loop whatever it was. Time slowed. The plane careered to the left, a tyre exploding like a bomb. Above the blood pounding in his ears, he heard the grating, tearing sound of metal as the right wing clipped the tractor and was torn from the plane. The engine hit the ground, flinging fuel across the airstrip and sending the control column slamming into the pilot’s chest. With the breath punched out of him, he groped for the Cessna’s door handle, sparks spraying like fireworks all around him.

One

Detective Constable Mitchell Flowers had never been a fan of light planes. As a passenger, he worried about the single engine failing, or the lone pilot suffering a medical emergency. But as he walked across the part-asphalt part-grass runway of Khancoban Airport, it was clear that neither of those things were responsible for this accident. The burnt-out tractor with a slasher on the back in the middle of the airstrip was quite obviously the culprit.