Chapter 7 - A Gamble in the Dark
At five hundred feet above the ground, the mechanical cockpit voice blared through the speakers:
“FIVE HUNDRED.”
“TOO LOW, GEAR.”
“GLIDESLOPE.”
“Silence that damn warning!” Mara shouted.
Evan reached forward, pressing the master warning cutoff.
The runway lights of McChord Field suddenly tore through the gray blanket of rain like twin rows of blazing yellow diamonds. But the wind was howling across the flight path from thirty degrees off the nose, shoving the two-hundred-ton aircraft sideways toward the grass.
“We’re drifting right!” Evan yelled, clutching the armrest with his good hand. “Go around! Mara, you have to go around!”
“Negative!” Mara shouted back, her voice ringing through the cockpit like a gunshot. “We don't have the altitude, we don't have the engine power, and Henderson doesn't have the time! We are landing this airplane right now!”
Mara applied heavy left rudder and dipped the left wing into the teeth of the gale—a textbook military sideslip maneuver designed to keep the fuselage aligned with the runway center while counteracting the drift.
In the cabin, the passengers were pinned to their seats. Children buried their faces into their parents' coats. Prayers were recited in a dozen different languages.
Walter Pierce tucked his chin against his chest, both hands gripping the seat frame until his knuckles turned chalk white. He closed his eyes and whispered, “Bring us down, Commander. Bring us down.”
“THREE HUNDRED,” the automated voice announced.
The crosswind violently sheared. The left wing dipped sharply.
Mara threw the control wheel to the right with all the muscle in her shoulders, catching the roll before the wingtip could scrape the tree line bordering the perimeter fence. Her uniform shirt was soaked through with sweat. Every nerve ending in her body was screaming with pure, undiluted adrenaline.
“ONE HUNDRED.”
“FIFTY.”
“THIRTY.”
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“TWENTY.”
The runway asphalt materialized beneath them, black, slick with rain, and rushing past at terrifying speed.
