Chapter Eleven

What the fuck?

A loud buzzing rang in his ears and he could hear someone swearing in the background. Quinn lay for a moment, trying to work out what had happened. He shook his head.

When he opened his eyes, he was looking down into Mel’s face. Her eyes were closed, and he felt a moment of panic. As he pushed himself up, her lashes flickered open. He rolled off her and got to his feet. The alarm was still ringing, and the plane was listing to the right. Oxygen masks had dropped from the ceiling, but he was breathing okay, so he guessed they weren’t needed yet.

He held out a hand and she slid her palm into his. As he pulled her to her feet, the plane leveled.

“What the fuck just happened?” Kaitlin appeared, rubbing her head.

“At a guess, something hit us.”

“How the hell can something hit us? We’re at thirty thousand goddamn feet. Are we going to crash?”

She sounded more curious than anything else. He glanced across at Mel. She appeared pale but composed.

“I’ll go talk to the pilot,” Quinn said. “Check on Martin and the flight attendant.”

But the door opened, and Martin appeared, slightly disheveled, running a hand over his face. “What happened?”

“No clue. Wait here.”

He reached out with his mind as he rapped on the door to the cockpit. There were two men inside. They needed two pilots to make the long flight across the Atlantic. Both minds were racing but not panicking.

They’d been hit.

The alarm went silent as he opened the door and stepped into the small space. The pilot peered over his shoulder. He was a man in his forties, maybe. His face was free of expression and he was keeping any panic he felt under control.

“We’ve been hit,” he said.

“By what?”

Quinn had already plucked the answer from his head. The man wasn’t happy.

“A missile, at a guess.”

“Could it have been a bird?” He knew he was reaching.

“No. We’re still too high. Besides, birds can’t do that sort of damage. One engine is out, and the tail is damaged. Plus, something is blocking our signals. I’m trying to send out a distress report, but it’s bouncing right back.”

“Are we going down?”

“We are.”

Fucking brilliant. “How long? And where?”

The pilot was tapping at a console, where a series of maps and coordinates flashed across a screen to his right. “Just give me a minute. We’re losing altitude fast. Too fast.” He tapped some more. “There and soon.”

“There what?”

“That’s where we’ll try and go down. It’s the Okefenokee National Park—swampland, pretty much deserted. We have to try and keep away from built-up areas.”

“I take it there’s not an airport anywhere close by.”

“No. The nearest one with a runway big enough is Jacksonville, and we’re not going to make that.”

“Can you get her down in the swamp?”

“We’ll have to,” he said, his tone grim. He shrugged. “Maybe. If we can find open water, we might make it.”

A fifty-fifty chance—Quinn plucked the number from his head and wished, not for the first time in his life, that he couldn’t read minds.

He swallowed as the air pressure adjusted. He could see nothing out of the front of the plane. They were flying through thick cloud now. “Do the best you can.”

As he made to leave, the pilot glanced up. “Do you know who did this and why?”

“No clue.”

“Well, go tell everyone to strap themselves in. It’s going to be rough.”

Quinn took a moment to calm himself, closing his eyes and breathing slow and deep. Then he headed out of the cockpit and back into the main cabin. “We’re going to make an emergency landing,” he said. “You all need to take a seat, and strap yourselves in.”

“Fifty-fifty?” Kaitlin asked in his head.

“Yeah. But we’ll make it.”

“Of course we will.”

Mel was standing in the center of the cabin, arms wrapped around herself, though she seemed calm. “What happened?”

He considered lying, telling her it was an accident, but there didn’t seem to be much point. “The pilot reckons we were hit by some sort of surface to air missile.”

“Heavy stuff,” Kaitlin said. “Someone must really want us dead. It sort of makes you feel important.” She dropped down on a seat and fastened the seat belt. Beside her, Martin was doing the same. And behind them the flight attendant, her face pale, sat down.

The plane gave a jolt and lurched to the side and Quinn put out a hand on the back of the sofa to balance himself. Mel staggered but stopped herself falling. The floor shuddered beneath his feet. They were heading down now, steeply from the angle of the plane. He could hear the air whistling past them. He reached out for the pilot’s mind. Totally focused. There was no room for fear. They had only minutes.

“Sit,” he said to Mel. She gave a quick nod and sat in the seat next to Martin. Quinn took the chair beside her. He watched as she fastened the seat belt, but her hands were steady. “You’re coping well.”

She cast him a glance. “It’s my FBI training,” she said. “Never show any fear.”

So maybe she was afraid.

Were they going to die?

He couldn’t get his head around it. He didn’t want to die.

“We’re not going to die,” Kaitlin said in his head. “Well, I’m not, anyway. I still have things to do.”

“None of us are going to die.”

“Good.”

Mel stared straight ahead, her face composed, but a pulse throbbed in her throat. Her hands were flat against the armrests, her knuckles white, and without thinking, he reached out, pried her fingers loose, and slid his hand into hers, then squeezed. She flashed him a look and a quick smile.

“Aw. Isn’t that sweet.” That was Kaitlin, but as he glanced her way, she reached out and took Martin’s hand in hers.

“You all need to get in the brace position,” the attendant said from behind them. “We’re going down.”

He glanced out the window, just as they came out of the cloud. The ground was below them. Close. They were speeding toward it, still listing to the side, and he could make out trees and areas of water. A large lake was up ahead, presumably where the pilot was heading. Then he leaned forward, keeping hold of Mel’s hand, but placing his free hand on his head. Around him, the others did the same. Without thinking, he slipped into the pilot’s head. His mind was clear of fear, everything focused on getting the plane down. He could see the ground racing toward them. The large expanse of water, so close now, he could make out the water lilies at the edges. They were going in too steeply, and he pulled up as hard as he could, the plane leveling slightly. Then they hit the water. A huge jolt slammed into them, the pilot’s mind went blank, and Quinn shot forward in his seat, only to be brought up short by the seat belt. A loud roar filled his ears. Something hit him on the shoulder, but he felt no pain. He still had hold of Mel, and he gripped her hand harder, forced himself to concentrate. They were slowing, but still moving fast, and he kept his head down. He reached out for the pilot but found…nothing. Then he moved to the co-pilot, found him awake and fighting the controls. The man could see nothing out of the front of the plane—a sheet of water covered the cockpit windows. But the plane wasn’t responding, and they were going too fast and—

There was a huge shuddering thump. Mel was dragged free of his grip and everything went black.