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  Dani offered the blonde one of her patented Looks of Death.

  The feet went away. Experience had taught him that Dani Evers’ Look of Death could scorch a pushy guy in a pub right down into a puddle on the beer-stained floor. He could almost feel the blonde shrug as if it was no big deal.

  However, in keeping with her stated background, she launched into her observations, explaining the status to Dani in a way that was detailed, concise, and rattled off like the professional she claimed to be.

  Quint buckled in and cut the fuel flow to the left wing.

  Dani looked at him in question when she described the damage to the wing.

  He nodded that it looked exactly as bad as the assessment made it sound.

  Dani’s semi-eyeroll was her version of a violent curse—not something you did when the cockpit voice recorder was listening. It was one of the many reasons he liked flying with Captain Dani Evers. No games; there was never any question about what she was thinking.

  He watched the fuel gauges for a minute to make sure the flow had stopped, and tried not to feel incompetent just listening to the passenger.

  “You’ve got an ETOPS-330 rating on this jet,” she reminded them as she finished her analysis. “Three hundred and thirty minutes of Extended Operations flying time on a single engine. All that right ripper ability won’t be doing you a spec of good if the wing comes a cropper first.”

  “We’re eighty minutes past Hawaii,” Quint checked the charts. Then glanced back at the blonde.

  She was staring at the Escape Rope cubby beside the overhead breaker panel. There was one on each side so that, in the event of a crash blocking the cockpit door, he and Dani could open a side window and descend safely.

  It had always been an academic bit of knowledge from training—maybe not anymore.

  After a long study, she turned back to him.

  “I might just be chucking a wobbly,” she was perhaps the least berserk person he’d ever seen, “but I don’t think you have reaching-Hawaii kind of time. And eighty minutes past Hawaii means that Howland Island is the next nearest watering hole, two hours the other way—that’s if you want to be landing on a deserted sandy beach and curling up in a watery sleepout with Amelia Earhart. Howland’s the place she never reached in the end. Leaves you but one squat to plant your tush.” She stopped, not telling him where, of course.

  Quint had to search around a bit until he found Johnston Atoll. The island was abandoned and the runway closed, which was why it hadn’t shown up right away as an alternate field. It was less than twenty minutes away. It would take them that long to descend seven miles—unless they lost the wing, then it would be much faster. More like ninety seconds, which wouldn’t end well.

  Technically, Johnston wasn’t available for any kind of landing. But nine thousand feet of decommissioned US military-grade runway compared with crashing into the ocean when their wing fell off wasn’t a contest for him. He’d argue with the Yanks’ FAA after he’d survived. Better, he’d let Dani do it; she was the Captain after all.

  “How sure are you?” Dani asked as Quint put Johnston on the center screen, then flipped the radio to the satellite frequency for their airline’s emergency mechanic.

  “Personally, I’m surprised we’re still aloft.” The blonde recrossed her legs the other way as if she had nothing better to do. He did notice that despite her apparent ease, she’d put on the jump seat’s full five-point seat harness: lap belt, shoulders, and the crotch belt from the front edge of the cushion to the central clasp that any mere tourist would have missed.

  “Who the hell are you?” Quint felt as if he should know. But even thinking about her being in a totally unexpected place, he couldn’t account for her.

  “Sergeant Holly Harper, retired from the Oz Special Air Service Regiment. At your service, mate. Wondered when you were going to ask.”

  Quint could only stare at her.

  Couldn’t even blink.

  SASR were the elite special operators of the entire Australian military. Which explained why she was so calm in a crisis.

  What it didn’t explain was…Holly Harper?

  “Christ. I thought you were dead.”

  “Close a few times, maybe more than a few, but not yet. Why were you thinking that?”

  It would take far too long to explain.

  He turned to Captain Evers.

  “We’re going down, Dani. We need to get on the ground fast.”

  Because if there was anyone who knew about surviving, it was Holly Harper.

  1

  “Okay if I place a call?” Holly pulled out her phone.

  “You’d need a sat phone from here to—” Dani glanced back.

  Holly waggled her satellite phone at her.

  “Sure, go ahead.” Then she turned to the copilot. “Quint, plot me a course to Johnston. Then get a call in to operations and find out what a minimum stress descent looks like—make it a quick one.”

  “Roger that.”

  Holly dialed, then studied the back of the first officer’s head while it rang.

  Quint? Quint Dermott? That actually fit. He’d been a skinny kid of twelve when she was a still-gawky sixteen-year-old who’d left town after being thrown out by her parents. He’d certainly shaped up very nicely—all handsome, broad-shouldered, and Australian.

  “This is Miranda Chase. This is actually her, not a recording of her.”

  “Hey, her.” Holly could feel herself relaxing, even if Miranda was three thousand miles away in Seattle, it made Holly feel better just to hear her voice.

  “Where are you? Passing over Johnston Atoll? Can you see it? I’ve always wanted to go there.”

  “Funny you should mention that. I expect that I’ll be seeing it real soon now—up close and personal like.” Then she explained their situation.

  “The runway is not authorized for use. Not even for emergency landings.”

  “Good, they can come arrest me if we survive. Warm cell, three squares a day, bolted solidly to terra firma—I could get down with that. Besides, that’s part of the fun of an emergency, you get to break all sorts of rules.”

  “I was never particularly good at breaking rules. Are you with the pilots?” Holly could hear the fast rush of computer keys.

  “Yes.”

  “Speakerphone.” Miranda was also never one for the niceties of conversation.

  She continued as soon as Holly had switched over and called for Dani and Quint’s attention.

  “Temperature at Johnston Island Airport is eighty degrees; winds are east-northeast at seventeen so you’ll be landing on Runway 23 with an elevation of two meters above mean sea level. Barometer is currently 29.96. Visibility is reported at ten miles in light haze.” She continued with their best rate of descent for minimum wing-loading stress, proceeded to tell them what landing configuration to select right down to flaps and airspeed, and might have told them every detail of the approach if Holly had let her.

  “If I don’t die, Miranda, I’ll give you a shout on the mobile to let you know.”

  “I’ll get the team in motion.” Because, of course, Miranda would want to investigate the cause of the crash, whether or not they died. “If it’s going to be a water landing, call me and we’ll mobilize the Coast Guard.”

  Which was surprisingly thoughtful for Miranda. Holly knew that Miranda’s ASD—autism spectrum disorder—made it extremely hard for her to think about people.

  “Though I wouldn’t hold out much hope for recovering the aircraft if it does go into the ocean. The abyssal plain comes within a few kilometers of the atoll and is principally below the four-thousand-meter mark. Recovery from those depths is exceedingly difficult.”

  So much for thoughtful. Thoughtful about the plane anyway. Miranda’s parents had died in the 1996 crash of TWA 800, which was recovered from a hundred and thirty feet of water just off Long Island, New York—not thirteen thousand feet off a remote Pacific atoll. She’d have been sure to remain very well-educated
on the complexities of deep-water recovery operations.

  “That’s an extremely unlikely type of double event, breakaway and then an uncontained turbine failure in the same engine. If anything, the opposite would be more typical, but an ES is an exceedingly rare event. That’s remarkably interesting. It is difficult without a more recent inspection of the skin buckling, but based on your initial description…” there was another sharp rattle of a computer keyboard. “Models are projecting a nineteen percent chance of losing the wing on gear-down and an eighty-two-point-five percent chance of losing the wing during the landing.”

  “Thanks. I’ll hopefully be in touch soon, Miranda.”

  “Okay. Bye.” And she was gone.

  “Who the hell was that?” Dani snapped out, but Holly noticed that she was flying exactly on the profile Miranda had recommended.

  “She’s the NTSB’s top air-crash investigator.” Holly considered what a lame statement that was to describe her. “She’s…unusual. But she’s also rarely wrong.”

  Miranda, despite all her oddities, was also her friend.

  It was going to really suck if she herself died, because neither she nor Miranda had a whole lot of those.

  2

  Miranda called Mike as she hurried from the house, across the meadow, and up the grass runway to Spieden Island’s hangar. She didn’t like breaking the law, but the urgency was high enough that she was willing to drive one-handed while using her cell phone. It was an oversight that she hadn’t set up the island’s golf cart with a hands-free system.

  The data said that the law should have been written to prohibit all phone usage while driving, even hands-free, but that had proved to be too unpopular a choice for vote-minded representatives in Washington, DC. Safety bowing to consumer convenience was a trend she’d witnessed all too often in how the FAA’s decision-making process selected which of her own recommendations to implement and which to ignore.

  And now she was a contributing factor to one of the most dangerous problems that the NTSB’s surface transportation teams were always struggling to correct.

  The fact that she owned the island and was the only person presently here perhaps diminished the risk.

  While waiting for Mike to answer, she navigated along the dirt track over the half-mile from her house to her aircraft hangar. The local deer were very calm when she was the only one here, and she had to wait for a family of them to graze across the track in front of her.

  “Hi, Miranda. What’s up? Do we have a launch?”

  “Holly is on a flight to Sydney, currently over Johnston Atoll in the South Pacific.”

  “Right. I knew that. I’ve been following her with a flight tracker. What’s Johnston Atoll?”

  Miranda considered the priority of answering the question…and chose not to. Holly would congratulate her on proper selection of information organization. However, the “where” was indeed pertinent.

  “It’s where,” she emphasized for clarity that she was amending his question, “her plane will be crashing in approximately nineteen minutes. Or near there if the damaged wing falls off before they arrive at Johnston. I estimate that she has a sixty-two percent overall chance of survival.”

  The deer remained grazing in the middle of the track. As much as she hated to do it, she beeped the golf cart’s horn. They looked at her in some surprise, but moved aside and she was able to continue toward the hangar. She was most of the way there before Mike responded.

  “Would you mind repeating that?” His voice was so soft that she could barely hear it over the swishing of the tall grass against the underside of the golf cart. She really needed to get out the tractor and mow the runway soon.

  “Yes.” She hated repeating herself. Mike knew that, but she did it for him. “Holly is on a flight to Sydney, currently over Johnston Atoll in the South Pacific. It’s where her plane will be crashing in approximately nineteen minutes. Or near there if the damaged wing falls off before they arrive at Johnston. I estimate that she has a sixty-two percent overall chance of survival.”

  “Holly. Crashing. South Pacific. I’m…going to need…moment.”

  Miranda wondered at that. It wasn’t a difficult concept. Unless this was one of those interpersonal things that she never understood. Mike took care of those for her. But he wasn’t making much sense at the moment.

  Perhaps it was because he and Holly had been lovers for most of a year now. Would that be a significant factor? His stuttered reaction said yes.

  “Is Andi there?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  When nothing happened, she decided that she had to be extremely specific. “Please hand the phone to her.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  For seven more seconds nothing happened, then there was a shuffling sound.

  “Miranda, what did you say to Mike? He’s gone white as a sheet.”

  She decided that her third repetition wasn’t actually repeating herself if a new person was involved.

  “I said, ‘Holly is on a flight to Sydney, currently over Johnston Atoll in the South Pacific.’ Then I told him, ‘It’s where,” she did her best to match her earlier emphasis for exactitude, “her plane will be crashing in approximately nineteen minutes. Or near there if the damaged wing falls off before they arrive at Johnston. I estimate that she has a sixty-two percent overall chance of survival.’ That percentage is only a first-order approximation; I should have mentioned that. Then he asked me to repeat it and I told him the same thing again, also without the first-order approximation amendment.”

  “Okay, Miranda. I’ll try to fix it. You need to think about how important Holly is to us all, but especially to Mike. You could have found a better way to say that.”

  “But she does have a sixty-two percent chance of survival. That’s a good thing.”

  “The fact that she’s in a pending plane crash and has a thirty-eight percent chance of dying is a bad one.”

  “Oh, I get that now.” At least enough to state that she did. But… “No, I don’t. Can you explain it to me?” She’d carefully used as positive an explanation as the data allowed. She always started with the positive once a period of A/B testing had revealed that it made for a much more efficient and effective interview than when she started with a negative—even when the negative was far more factually supported.

  “Later. Let’s get moving.”

  “Oh, right.” Miranda had parked at the hangar but become too involved in the conversation to continue with what she’d been doing. Driving and phone conversations were not a good combination. “I’ll be at the Tacoma Narrows airport in twenty minutes. Call Jon. We’re going to need a longer-range jet than either of mine to fly there.”

  “He’s your boyfriend. Shouldn’t you be the one calling him?”

  “That will only delay my flight to you.” Miranda unlocked the hangar door and pressed the garage opener. She concentrated on keeping in motion, which made it harder to follow the phone call.

  “And he may not wish to use a military asset for a civilian crash.”

  “Remind him that Johnston Atoll, closed or not, is still a military property.”

  “Okay, I’ll twist his arm for you.”

  “Why would you do that? I’m not certified to fly any current military jets. We’ll need both of his arms intact.”

  “It’s a saying, Miranda. It means that I’ll take care of it as soon as I can get Mike and the others moving. Are you sure that you don’t want to call him?”

  Miranda thought a moment. Their last conversations had been…uncomfortable. Jon kept asking for things she didn’t understand; like he was the one in control and her opinion was damaged to begin with. She knew that. She was the one who was autistic after all, not him. But she still had them and—

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Andi spoke up.

  “No what?”

  “No, you don’t want to call Jon.”

  Miranda considered the time factor and the annoyance factor. Weighed separately either would b
e acceptable. Compounded? “No, I don’t.”

  “Okay. I’m on it. Now go,” and Andi hung up.

  Miranda realized that she’d come to a stop again. Cell phones really were dangerous.

  She hung up, pocketed the phone, and did the preflight inspection on her Korean War era F-86 Sabrejet. It was only as she was rotating aloft that she remembered the hat sitting on the mantle over her ocean-cobble fireplace.

  Holly had given each member of their NTSB team a bright yellow baseball hat from her beloved Australian women’s national soccer team, the Matildas. She was quite insistent that they all wore them to every site investigation. They had the added advantage, except when hard hats were required, of making the other members of her team easy to locate at a site investigation.

  Miranda must remember to ask if it was still technically a baseball hat if it touted a soccer team, which being Australian was actually called a football team.

  Instead of being further distracted by that thought, Miranda wondered if there was some deeper meaning in the fact that she’d left it behind.

  Not one she understood.

  Besides, hats were replaceable.

  Holly wasn’t.

  Oh! That would explain why Mike was upset at the possibility of her dying.

  Now that she’d followed the thought full circle, she aimed the jet south and pushed up to the sea-level limit of just under seven hundred miles an hour. From the San Juan Islands, she was now less than eight minutes to Tacoma Narrows airport.

  3

  Holly would have preferred to not overhear Quint briefing the cabin crew over the intercom. The words were quite unnerving: possible water landing, probable hard landing, wing loss might mean that the exits over the port wing would become unavailable, fuselage, break up…

  She’d be happier if she was still in her back row seat, still asleep—which she’d never been and wouldn’t last another thirty seconds anyway. Right now, the flight crew were scrambling to get all the passengers ready and in their brace positions.