Then he turned and ran back toward the hangar, moving faster than Victoria thought possible for a man his size. He came back 30 seconds later with a flare gun and a handheld radio. "Tell him to pull up and circle." Jake shouted at the tower operator, who had stopped running and was now standing frozen near the windsock. She didn't move.
Jake swore and raised the radio himself. "November 74 Alpha, this is ground." Jake said, his voice calm in a way that made Victoria's skin prickle. "You've got a hydraulic failure. Gear's not coming down because your backup system's fried.
You need to circle and burn off fuel before you try a belly landing." The radio crackled. The pilot's voice came through tight with fear. "Ground, I've got maybe two minutes of fuel left. I'm coming in now."
"Negative." Jake said. "You come in hot like that and you'll cartwheel. Listen to me. Flaps to 15, throttle back, aim for the grass on the east side.
You'll slide, but you won't flip." Victoria watched the jet climb slightly, the nose leveling out. The pilot was listening. Jake lit the flare and held it above his head, marking the grass strip he'd described. The Gulfstream came in low and slow, its belly skimming the tops of the weeds.
When it touched down, the sound was like metal screaming. Sparks shot out from under the fuselage as it slid across the grass, tearing a long black scar into the earth. It came to a stop 50 yards from the hangar, smoke pouring from the undercarriage. Jake was already running toward it. Victoria followed without thinking, her heels sinking into the soft ground.
By the time she reached the jet, Jake had the emergency exit open and was pulling the pilot out. The man was shaking so hard he could barely stand. Jake set him down on the grass and checked his pulse, his hand steady. "You're fine," Jake said. The pilot nodded, too rattled to speak.
Jake turned to the tower operator who had finally made it over. "Call it in. Get fire and rescue out here." The woman pulled out her phone, her hands trembling. Victoria stood a few feet away trying to process what she'd just seen.
Jake hadn't panicked. He hadn't frozen. He'd moved like someone who had done this before, like someone who knew exactly what a hydraulic failure looked like from the ground. That wasn't the skill set of a small-town mechanic. That was something else.
Jake walked back toward the hangar without a word. Victoria followed him, her mind racing. When she caught up, he was already back at her Gulfstream pulling tools out of his box like nothing had happened. "Where did you learn that?" Victoria said.
Her voice came out sharper than she intended. Jake didn't look up. "Learn what?" "How to talk a pilot through an emergency landing." Jake shrugged.