moan.
“He will, Mom.” Lauren packed all the assurance she could muster into her tone.
Oxygen masks popped down from the ceiling. Her mother grabbed the mask in front of her. As Lauren reached for hers that grandfather-aged executive staggered up the aisle in a direction away from his seat. His teeth-bared expression was wild and disoriented.
With an exclamation, Lauren ripped her seat belt apart and thrust herself into the executive’s path. Mom’s high-pitched squeal followed her. The elderly executive swatted at her as she reached for him. Panic must be driving him. The guy was clearly not rational. She just needed to shove him into his place and—
The plane delivered a fresh heave. With a howl, the executive staggered and toppled backward. A distinct thunk announced his head connecting with the edge of an extended guest table on the way down. Lauren lost her footing and tumbled down atop him. His doughy middle softened her fall, but her nose was buried in his bony chest. Senses heightened, conflicting odors assailed her—a hint of lavender laundry detergent and an exotic bergamot and tropical fruit cologne. An expensive brand, if she was not mistaken.
That rapid speed bump sensation continued as Lauren struggled to her knees. “Help me get him into his seat,” she cried to the other executives.
They stared at her, shaking their heads. A pair of dainty hands intruded into her line of vision. Mom. Together they fought for balance and wrestled the older man’s limp body into his chair, fastened his belt and put the gas mask around his face. He was alive, Lauren knew that much, but she had no time to assess him medically.
She grabbed her mother’s slender arm and propelled her toward their places. Mom plopped into hers and began buckling herself in, her entire body shivering. Lauren lifted her foot to return to her seat, but the plane took a plunge downward, and she landed hard on her behind in the aisle. Her belly leaped into her throat.
The plane continued to dive, and Lauren slid down the plush carpeting toward the cockpit. Then her hind end hit something that halted her. Bracing herself with a grip on the cabinetry of the galley, she swiveled her head. A pair of feet sticking out into the aisle had halted her slide. Her gaze followed the legs attached to the feet until she found the bloodied face of the copilot where she slumped, unconscious—or worse—up against the exit door behind the galley.
The plane bucked and shuddered, leveling off at a more or less horizontal angle. Lauren rose to her hands and knees. Her face was practically in the cockpit, where she noted the pilot remained firmly in his chair. At least someone was still trying to control this plane, but the utter blackness of the instrument panel was less than reassuring.
“I can hold ’er steady for maybe thirty seconds,” Kent Garland’s deep voice boomed, muffled slightly by an air mask. “Can you get Mags buckled into a seat in the passenger area?”
“Ma-a-ags?” The word quavered between Lauren’s lips. Oh, the copilot. “I—I’ll try.”
“Good girl.”
Girl! I’ll girl him.
Anger sent fuel to her limbs. Lauren grabbed the copilot’s shoulders and wrestled her into a vacant seat. She had no idea if the woman was alive, but on the off chance they survived the next minutes, she tightened the buckle around the copilot’s waist and fitted the mask around her bloodied face. With shaking hands, Lauren pulled the bright-colored scarf from around the woman’s neck and bound it tightly around her head, covering the gash near the woman’s temple. That was the best she could do at this moment.
“Holler at everyone to get their heads down between their knees.” Garland’s bellow barely carried above the intensifying whine of struggling engines and the screams of terrified passengers. “Then take Mags’s place beside me in the cockpit. Hurry!”
Gripping the seatback in front of her, Lauren yelled the pilot’s instructions then turned and flung herself into the copilot’s spot. She fastened the seat belt and jerked the mask tight around her face. Oxygen filled her lungs and cleared all clutter from her mind.
Silence suddenly flooded the cockpit as engine noise ceased. Even the passenger cabin had gone eerily quiet, as if every person aboard were holding their breaths. The side of a mountain filled the front window, racing toward them at breakneck speed.
“Lord Jesus,” Lauren whispered, “ready or not, here I come.”
* * *
Kent’s muscles ached and his head pounded as he fought to keep the plane’s nose up against the battering of powerful air currents. If they went into a nosedive, they’d implode onto the side of that mountain. In order to maintain any semblance of control, he had to hold the plane’s glide even as he lost altitude. The best he could do was keep her level while the thermals bucked them around like a bee-stung bronco.
The fuel was gone. Whatever took out the avionics and wounded the engines had also damaged the fuel lines. His Challenger 350 had bled out in mere minutes. He could just barely buy that something might go wrong with one of the engines—some tiny little something overlooked. But both of them at once? Uh-uh! Not a snowball’s chance in Hawaii. He took better care of this baby than that.
Kent’s gaze darted toward his instruments, but the panel remained dark and dead, even though the RAT—ram air turbine—must have kicked in as an alternate source of electricity. Something was seriously bent about this flight emergency. There was nothing within normal range about it.
At least it was daylight so he had visual on where they were headed. If he could spot a valley with a decent stretch of level ground and navigate toward it, they stood a slight chance of actually landing without becoming a pile of wreckage—a nonsurvivable pile, anyway.
Somehow, he had to radio in a mayday. Get their position out to someone who could send rescue. But there was no way he could release the stick with even one hand in order to use the radio. Unless... He glanced sideways.
The passenger in the copilot seat gripped her chair arms in clawed fists. Her torso quivered, and her gaze was fixed straight ahead, but at least she wasn’t hysterical. Not hardly. She’d kept her cool and managed to get Mags buckled into a seat under terrifying conditions.
“Any chance you know how to operate a two-way radio?” His voice came out strong but muffled by the oxygen mask.
Seconds ticked past. Was she frozen in shock? Then she slowly turned her head his way. Brilliant green eyes, clear and sharp as a cat’s, fixed on him.
“Y-yes. W-we use one in the hospital for medivac emergencies.”
“Put out a distress call. Frequency, one-two-one-point-five.”
She did as he had asked. Her hands, her whole being, seemed to center and go steady as she set the frequency and put out the call. Evidently, she was the kind that calmed when given a task in an emergency. Good characteristic. She performed the mayday drill once...twice...three times. Dead air met every attempt. Those green eyes sought him again.
“I—I don’t think the radio...” A spasm visibly gripped her throat. “The radio is dead.” The sentence came out in a high squeak.
Kent’s jaw clenched. “This has to be sabotage, pure and simple,” he muttered fiercely between his teeth.
But who? Why? Terrorism? Unlikely on a small plane in the middle of nowhere. Terrorists wanted to make a big statement, spread as much fear and death as possible with a highly public act of chaos. What then? Did someone want to kill one of his passengers badly enough to take the life of everyone aboard?
Fury surged through Kent, shooting adrenaline to the taxed muscles laboring to control an out-of-control airplane. He and his passengers were going to survive, if only to give him the chance to throttle whoever was trying to kill them.
Responding to his iron grip, the plane steadied even as a promising furrow in the mountainside appeared off to his left. He followed his instinct and turned her nose for what could be a navigable valley.
“Hallelujah!” His outburst