The Lost Key

Mike fought panic. All she could see ahead and to the left and right was blue. A wide expanse of blue. They were over water. There was no land in sight.

“Parachutes, Mike. Now. If we have to jump, we can’t go out the door, we’ll be sucked into the engines or hit the wings, even at a low speed. We’ll have to go out the baggage hatch. So keep that in mind. When the time comes, don’t open the cabin door.”

She stumbled to the back of the plane, above the galley, where she knew the chutes were stashed. She pulled out four. After fighting her way back to the cockpit, she managed to get both pilots into chutes.

She’d done an emergency egress once before, during the Academy, out of a plain old Cessna with a jump instructor strapped to her. Not something she ever wanted to do again. She prayed harder than she ever had in her life—Get the plane on the ground, Nicholas, in one piece, you can do it.

The plane was shuddering, flinging itself about, as if it was fighting the air itself.

“What’s happening?”

“We’ve been hit again. The laser is coming from the air, not the ground. There’s a plane up here shooting at us, but I haven’t a clue with what. It whipped past a few moments ago. It looks like a retrofitted private jet of some sort—it’s definitely not a military jet. Whatever it hit us with damaged the fuselage.”

She handed him a parachute, saw her hands were shaking. “You need one, too.”

He looked up at her, gave her a smile and nodded toward the yoke. “Hold it steady. It’s going to take a bit of strength, since we have no instrument help.”

She took the empty pilot’s seat, clutched the yoke in a death grip while Nicholas threw his arms through the pack, tightened it down.

“Trade.” They switched seats. He did a quick check of the instruments. “All right. We’re hanging in, but the stress on the other engine is begi

“Happy thought. Nicholas, honestly, can we land? Can you get us to Cardiff?”

“We’ll soon have an RAF escort, and they’ll see us into the air base. With any luck, they’ll identify the plane that’s shooting the lasers at us. I can fly us in a straight line, but I can’t run us through a dogfight.”

She realized he hadn’t answered her question.

59

Nicholas wasn’t at all sure he could land the plane, but he wasn’t about to tell Mike that. He’d done flight simulators before, flown with instructors, but he’d never done a solo landing.

The radio squawked in his ear, and the ti

“Coming about to two-four-zero.” As the plane turned, Nicholas squinted out the glass. Land ahead.

Mike saw it, too. “Land ho, Nicholas,” and she gave him a shaky smile.

“Very good, Mr. Drummond. Keep to this heading and slow your airspeed to three hundred knots.”

He was throttling down when a flash of white burst into his field of vision. “It’s that bloody plane again.”

It whipped past them, and he saw a bright green light begin to flash.

“Mike, shut your eyes and duck!”

They both ducked, hitting their heads together over the throttle with a sickening crunch. The plane began to shudder again, the fuselage begi

“What are they doing?”

“Trying to blind us and cut through the metal to create an even bigger problem. Stay down.” He keyed the mike to the radio. “We are under attack, repeat, we are under attack. The plane has a laser, that’s what incapacitated our pilots to begin with. Burned their skin, blinded them. The laser seems to be able to penetrate the fuselage of the plane.”

The NATS controller said, “Hang tight, Gulfstream Five. Keep on this heading. Help is on the way.”

Nicholas risked a look. The sky in front of him was clear. He sat up, and Mike followed. The plane came back into their sights, whipping around in the sky in front of them, trying to disrupt the second engine by making them fly through its jet wash. Nicholas saw the plane bank hard, coming around until it was aimed straight for them.

The NATS controller said, “Stay the course, don’t move your flight path. Keep your speed. You’re going to see a Tornado on your port side. They will eliminate the threat. When they signal, you’ll need to bank hard. Make your heading four-four-seven, and hold on tight.”

Sure enough, a moment later they saw the gray metal Tornado fly up beside them. The pilot gave them a salute. They watched an ASRAAM missile drop from the underside of the wing, a white tail streaming out behind it. Nicholas heard the Tornado pilot’s transmission, “Fox three away.”

There was a large explosion that rocked the air around them. Nicholas twisted the knob to move the plane out of the blast radius and away from the falling debris.

“Nicholas, look! They shot him down. Did you see that? They shot him down!”

There were few things more deadly than a short-range air-to-air missile off a Tornado. Nicholas said, “Good. That plane was attacking federal agents in British airspace.”

“But who? Who in the world would attack our plane? They tried to kill us.”

He said grimly, “When they fish the pieces of the plane out of the Bristol Cha

“Havelock.”

“Oh, yes.”

“You do know what you’re doing, right?”

He gave her a cocky grin. “We’ll see, won’t we?”

Nicholas kept his hands steady on the yoke, and the radio spoke to him again. “You’re clear, Gulfstream V. Follow the Tornadoes home, sir. Come to heading two-two-zero, drop your speed to one hundred fifty knots. I’m handing you off to Cardiff Tower, they’re going to talk you down. Good luck.”

Mike had headphones on now, heard the exchange. “Where are we going, exactly?”

“I would expect we’re heading to Ministry of Defense—MoD—Saint Athan. It’s a Royal Air Force base in southern Wales. It’s where the Tornadoes scrambled from.”

“I wonder if Prince William will be there to greet us.”

Nicholas laughed. “I’m glad you can still joke at a time like this.”

She started to say it was better than hysterics, but she didn’t. She stared straight ahead and prayed for all she was worth.

The tower at MoD St. Athan hailed them. “Hello, Special Agent Drummond. I’m Daniel Healy, the National Air Traffic Services general manager here at Cardiff Tower. We work both landing strips because of the proximity of the base to our airport. I understand you’re hand-flying the plane; you have no autopilot and your ILS has been knocked out?”

The man’s voice was wonderfully calm and Mike felt some tension ease.

“Correct. Our electronics are damaged. And engine one is out as well.”

“That is vexing. Have flying experience, do you?”

“Some. In a Tornado simulator. A few years ago.”

Healy laughed a bit. “Roger that. You’ll be fine. Now, the airport should be at your ten o’clock. Do you see us?”

“I do.”

“Set your flaps to twenty, and make your speed one hundred twenty-five knots. Be prepared, we have some low-level wind shear, you’ll want to flare as you’re landing, then do an idle reverse to slow yourself down.”

“Easy for you to say.”

They lined up, and the landing strip at MoD St. Athan appeared on their horizon a few moments later, a long snake ru