The reading mother now held her child tightly as the child’s once captive teddy bear floated weightlessly up and down as the aircraft rolled wing over wing, spiraling downward into the deep blue abyss.
The old couple a few rows back gently gripped each other’s hands and looked into one another’s eyes, figuring it was their last moment together and wanting to remember their years of happiness. The newlyweds sat in a tight embrace, bitter about the life they’d never get to experience.
“Wolf, let’s put her in the Pacific,” Cooper exclaimed as he muscled the yoke to pitch the plane’s nose up.
“I don’t think she’s giving us much of a choice!”
For Cooper the world went silent, as if time were standing still. He was responsible for so many lives that were about to end, and though he was doing everything he could to prevent that, a picture of Stormy flashed through his mind. He should have told her he loved her, should have fought to see her.
“I’ve still got things to say to people,” Cooper told Wolf. “We have to stop the aircraft from rolling over on itself if we’re to have any chance of making it out of this alive.”
The two pilots moved the control yoke with great effort to the right in an attempt to counteract the aircraft from spiraling upside down.
“Wolf, when I tell you to, I need you to add full flaps to try and stabilize and counter the roll,” Cooper shouted as he placed his hands on the throttles.
Wolf looked over at Cooper with a nod of his head, approving the plan. He placed his steady fingers on the flap lever.
“Now!”
As the flaps began to cycle down, a shudder could be felt throughout the spinning aircraft. Cooper advanced the throttles, straining every ounce of power from one remaining engine, as the flight computer continued to alarm: “Whoop, whoop. Pull up! Altitude! Too low! Whoop, whoop. Pull up!”
The two pilots continued battling the dying aircraft, their muscles pushed to the limit, groaning under the pressure of the g-force and strain of the controls. Their view quickly became dominated by the ocean waiting below.
“Come on, baby . . . come on,” Cooper pleaded with the plane.
“We’ve lost number two!” Wolf called out, as the gauges indicated that the one remaining engine had begun to spool down—the red lights and caution alarms confirmed its untimely death.
Meanwhile, Cooper gave no further heed to the alarms, his aim only to level the aircraft in time to guide it into the water as gently as possible.
The flight computer cried out their altitude, pleading desperately with the pilots to save the plummeting plane: “Five hundred! Pull up!”
The jet continued to spiral, falling below five hundred feet. “Whoop, whoop. Pull up! Too low! Terrain! Pull up!”
In an instant, all people on board Trans Pacific 422 experienced the same jarring flash of brilliant light and deafening noise as the commercial flight disappeared off the air traffic control’s radar and into the sea.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Nick lay in his bed listening to the radio. It was a calm night—no storms, no waves, and the chances of a call coming in were slim to none. He wished he could turn off his mind and drift to sleep, but he was used to being on alert when at the station.
Soon, though, his lids grew heavy, and he found his body relaxing as he tuned out the men playing a card game in the other room. Normally, he’d be out there with them, but he was worried about his brother.
It was stupid, really. He shouldn’t be worrying about Cooper or Stormy. They were grown adults, for goodness’ sake. They would work through their issues. There was something between them, something he’d never expected to see from his hardened brother.
“Hey Dad, looks like you might get your way after all,” he whispered.
He could almost swear he heard the heartfelt laughter of the man who’d been gone for over six years now. He missed the old man, even if his father had devastated him on his dying day.
“Time to go, Nick. Gear up!”
Nick shot up in bed as he looked toward the empty door. His crew knew he wouldn’t need to be told twice. If they said it was time to go, then he was alert.
“What’s going on?” he asked, all grogginess instantly gone.
“A 757 crashed about three hundred miles out. We don’t have much more information than that. Don’t know if there are survivors. All we know is the tower lost communication after they called in a mayday.”
“Shit!” Nick exclaimed. His gut always clenched when he heard the words plane crash. He had too many pilots in the family for it not to.
“Say what you’re not saying,” Nick demanded through clenched teeth.
“It’s Trans Pacific,” the man finally mumbled.
Nick tried not to panic. He tried telling himself there were thousands of flights a day across the US alone. The chance of this being his brother was slim. Of course, Nick didn’t believe in odds. Hell, the chances of him working tonight had been slim to none and look how that was turning out!
Still, he tried to keep a cool head.
“If you need to sit this one out, we can call Tony in,” the man said.
“Not a chance, Sean. I’m going to make a phone call first, though. Suit up.”
Nick marched into the other room and picked up his phone, horrified when he felt his fingers tremble. He was the chief pilot for the base. He couldn’t lose control now. They wouldn’t let him fly.
He couldn’t get through to his brother, and he couldn’t get through to Trans Pacific. He slammed the phone down, cracking its base, and then rushed back out to the room where the men were gathered around the television.