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Nicholas was adjusting instruments, turning knobs, one hand on the yoke. The plane seemed to soften. The mad shimmying and spinning lessened, and finally, finally, after a lifetime, the plane began to even out. Nicholas said, “The copilot said ‘green flash’ before he passed out. The only thing I can imagine is he was hit with a green laser. There’s nothing commercial grade that can cause this kind of burn. It has to be military. Or private sector.”
“Are you saying another plane hit us with a laser, or were we hit from the ground?”
“I don’t know.” He took a deep breath. “I think we’re okay now. I need to get in touch with the tower at London City Airport, let them know they have a guest flying the plane. And then—”
There was a second loud boom, and the plane began to shake and shimmy, harder this time, like it was breaking apart. The instrument panel turned red. “Son of a bitch.”
Mike watched the engine light begin to flash on the control panel.
Nicholas shut the engine down and grabbed the radio. “Mayday. Mayday. This is FBI Gulfstream Five. We’ve been attacked, repeat, we’ve been hit. Our pilots are down and we’ve sustained damage to engine one. We need to land immediately.”
Mike fought panic. All she could see ahead and to the left and right was blue. A wide expanse of blue. They were over water. There was no land in sight.
“Parachutes, Mike. Now. If we have to jump, we can’t go out the door, we’ll be sucked into the engines or hit the wings, even at a low speed. We’ll have to go out the baggage hatch. So keep that in mind. When the time comes, don’t open the cabin door.”
She stumbled to the back of the plane, above the galley, where she knew the chutes were stashed. She pulled out four. After fighting her way back to the cockpit, she managed to get both pilots into chutes.
She’d done an emergency egress once before, during the Academy, out of a plain old Cessna with a jump instructor strapped to her. Not something she ever wanted to do again. She prayed harder than she ever had in her life—Get the plane on the ground, Nicholas, in one piece, you can do it.
The plane was shuddering, flinging itself about, as if it was fighting the air itself.
“What’s happening?”
“We’ve been hit again. The laser is coming from the air, not the ground. There’s a plane up here shooting at us, but I haven’t a clue with what. It whipped past a few moments ago. It looks like a retrofitted private jet of some sort—it’s definitely not a military jet
. Whatever it hit us with damaged the fuselage.”
She handed him a parachute, saw her hands were shaking. “You need one, too.”
He looked up at her, gave her a smile and nodded toward the yoke. “Hold it steady. It’s going to take a bit of strength, since we have no instrument help.”
She took the empty pilot’s seat, clutched the yoke in a death grip while Nicholas threw his arms through the pack, tightened it down.
“Trade.” They switched seats. He did a quick check of the instruments. “All right. We’re hanging in, but the stress on the other engine is beginning to show. There’s a backup for the engines, so keep the faith, Mike. While you were getting the parachutes, I spoke to the nice gentlemen at the RAF base in Cardiff, Wales. That’s where we’re going to land, only about a hundred miles to go. Listen, if something goes wrong, and I say jump, we jump. They’re with us, they know we’re in distress. We’ll be rescued before the sharks nibble our legs.”
“Happy thought. Nicholas, honestly, can we land? Can you get us to Cardiff?”
“We’ll soon have an RAF escort, and they’ll see us into the air base. With any luck, they’ll identify the plane that’s shooting the lasers at us. I can fly us in a straight line, but I can’t run us through a dogfight.”
She realized he hadn’t answered her question.
59
Nicholas wasn’t at all sure he could land the plane, but he wasn’t about to tell Mike that. He’d done flight simulators before, flown with instructors, but he’d never done a solo landing.
The radio squawked in his ear, and the tinny voice of a British NATS air traffic controller spoke calmly. “We’re going to begin your talk down now, Mr. Drummond. Come round to heading two-four-zero.”
“Coming about to two-four-zero.” As the plane turned, Nicholas squinted out the glass. Land ahead.
Mike saw it, too. “Land ho, Nicholas,” and she gave him a shaky smile.
“Very good, Mr. Drummond. Keep to this heading and slow your airspeed to three hundred knots.”
He was throttling down when a flash of white burst into his field of vision. “It’s that bloody plane again.”
It whipped past them, and he saw a bright green light begin to flash.
“Mike, shut your eyes and duck!”
