It was a recurring nightmare, a plane falling from the sky, the panicked cries from the passenger cabin, the thunderous explosion and raging firestorm that would silence every scream. He was not afraid for himself. Tony Kingston had confidence he could handle any crisis, as long as the ship didn't fail him.
"Lighten up, Tony," Dozier said. "Atlantica's never had a fatality. Not one."
Jim Ryder took off his headset and turned toward the captain. "Larry's right. You're crying wolf so often no one pays attention. No one cares."
"I care!" Kingston thundered.
# # #
Rita Zaslavskaya stood awkwardly to let the man to her right get out of his window seat and open the overhead compartment. He grabbed a weathered brown leather jacket and slipped it on, then crunched her right foot under his wing tips as he slid back into his seat. Rita had a fair complexion, dark, curly hair, and a strong face that was more handsome than beautiful. She was a large-boned woman in her midthirties who stood six feet one and played volleyball with other Russian immigrants on Sundays at a Jewish Community Center in Brooklyn. She'd asked for an aisle seat in an exit row because her bum knee did not take kindly to cramped quarters. One of these days, she'd have it scoped. It was on her list of to-do's, along with getting contact lenses, having her hair straightened, and finding a husband. The last on the list was inexorably linked to the first two, she thought and would be considerably easier if she would refrain from spiking the ball off the heads of every eligible bachelor in Bensonhurst, including a handsome but frail cantor from Minsk who had flirted with her ten minutes before she deviated his septum with a particularly vicious kill.
Maybe it was for the best. He was such a shmendrick.
"Excuse me," her seatmate said, lifting his foot from hers. He'd been in and out of the overhead ever since they had left LaGuardia. When he wasn't popping up and down, he was staring out the window in grim silence.
"No problem," Rita replied, glancing at the old leather jacket, which the man had zipped all the way up to his Adam's apple. "Isn't that a little warm for Miami?"
"I'll take it off as soon as we're inside." He was a small, paunchy man in his thirties with wispy pale hair and wire-rimmed glasses. He wore a wedding band, she noticed out of force of habit.
"Nice-looking jacket," she allowed. "Good material."
"It's an authentic re-creation of the Army Air Force A-2 jacket from the Second World War, right down to the seal brown horsehide, the wool cuffs, and brass zippers," he said, pointing to the sleeve patch with its winged logo boasting of the 9th Bomb Group. "Steve McQueen wore one in The Great Escape."
Rita didn't know Steve McQueen from Butterfly McQueen, but her sense of logic was offended. "So why put it on now if you're just going to take it off when you get inside the terminal?"
"The A-2 isn't just for warmth. It'll protect you in case of a crash or enemy attack."
That made her smile. "I live in Brooklyn. Maybe I should get one."
"I'm talking about fire. The danger is greatest on takeoff and landing, which is why I always bring this along, too." He bent over and reached into his carry-on bag, drawing out what looked like a SCUBA mask. "My personal smoke hood. It'll filter out the toxins."
He pulled the mask down over his face, tested his breathing, then slid it onto his forehead, as if he were about to explore some exotic tropical reef. "Some people might regard my safety consciousness as …"
Meshugeh, she thought. Crazy.
"Excessive," he said, placing a pillow between his bulging belly and the seat belt, then cinching the buckle hard. "Do you know the correct bracing position in the event of a crash landing?"
Before she could answer, the man bowed forward, as if in prayer.
# # #
Tony Kingston guided the aircraft on the downwind leg, occasionally looking out the windshield at the pitch black Everglades, a prehistoric creeping river of sawgrass, alligators, and marshy hammocks. The three men in the cockpit reviewed the landing checklist and waited for instructions to turn left and begin looping back to the airport.
Suddenly, an explosion reverberated behind them, a booming rumble accompanied by the discordant shriek of shearing metal.
"Jesus, what was that!" Ryder shouted, instinctively looking back toward the cabin.
Kingston tightened his hands on the yoke as the airframe shuddered. "Larry, what do you see?"
The flight engineer scanned his gauges. "Pressure on engine two has gone to zero. Fuel flow is zero. Shit, we must have blown the aft engine."
"Perform engine shutdown checklist," Kingston ordered. As Ryder ran through the items, turning off the fuel to the tail engine, idling the throttle, the aircraft rolled slightly to the right. Kingston fought the yoke to level the plane. "Ailerons not responding."
Dozier checked the gauges. "Double shit! Hydraulic pressure zero. Hydraulic quantity zero."
"Can't be," Ryder said. "We've got three redundant systems. You can't lose them all just blowing one engine."
Kingston struggled with the yoke, which trembled under his hands but wouldn't turn. He locked his hands on the wheel, took a breath, and threw his shoulders into it. Nothing. The aircraft continued to tremble.
Ryder's fingers danced over half-a-dozen switches as he scanned his gauges. "Elevators, ailerons, and rudder all inoperative," he said, his voice strained.
"It can't be," Dozier repeated. "How the hell are we gonna turn? How are we gonna control our descent?"
We're not, Kingston thought, rapidly analyzing the situation. Without flight controls, it'll be virtually impossible to land. He tried to activate the speed brakes. "Spoilers not responding either," he said after a futile try. He
