High Wire Excerpt
1 CHAPTER
The jolt was sudden and caught both pilots off-guard. Each reached for the controls instinctively. After a tense moment, and when it became clear that the autopilot was still holding, First Officer Edmond Bell cautiously eased his grip and tentatively leaned back in his seat.
“Can’t wait to get this damn night over with,” he muttered—just loud enough to be heard.
In the dark cockpit, Captain Kate Gallagher’s face, illuminated by the faint green glow of the instrument lights, was a portrait of concentration.
“Five more minutes and it will be,” she whispered back.
Bell shook his head. “With my luck, we’ll be up here for another hour, holding, waiting for a clearance to land, then have to go back and try this damn thing all over again tomorrow.”
Kate let the comment pass as she had so many others that day. After fourteen hours, three landings in bad weather with an irritable first officer who thought he was Superman, all she wanted was a little time with her daughter, Molly, a warm bath, and a soft Mozart symphony to unwind to. But first, there was the business of landing the plane.
“I’m showing winds of almost sixty knots up here at four thousand feet.
Ask them if there’s been any change since the last report.”
Bell picked up the mic. “Kennedy approach, this is Jet East 394. We need the latest surface conditions.”
“Jet East 394, this is Kennedy.” The controller sounded as weary as they were. “It’s not getting any better, Sir. Reported ceiling is still at two hundred feet but the winds have picked up now. Wind three-four-zero at two-eight, gusting three-niner knots with blowing snow. There is a half an inch of packed snow on all runways, but we haven’t had a landing here for almost fifteen minutes, so I have no braking-action to report.”
Bell replaced the mic in its cradle and pinched open the iPad screen to expand the approach chart. Jabbing his index finger at the number, he said,
“Right at the limits of Cat-One and too windy for auto-land. Better make this one count, Captain,” he said almost mocking. “Last thing I want to do is go all the way back to Dulles.”
Kate shook her head. She didn’t know what the hell this guy’s deal was, but the fact that she was a woman hadn’t escaped his attention. Add to the fact that she was barely thirty-four, a full five years younger than he, with an extra stripe on her epaulets, and she had a problem she could do without.
A woman, especially one as striking as Kate Gallagher, occupying the captain’s chair was still a rare sight. She wore little makeup and bothered even less about her chestnut hair, which she wore shoulder length.
Her skin was not the fair color of her father’s Irish ancestors’: it was a shade darker, olive-hued, favoring her mother’s Greek heritage. Her eyes, more green than blue, were the only thing she had inherited from him. Everything else, from her perfectly arched eyebrows to her nose, long and narrow and just the tiniest bit crooked, came from her mother, as did her independence, stubbornness, and fiery temper. It was that particular trait she was feeling mostly now. Back on the ground, Kate might have been tempted to give Bell a taste of it. But up here, her sole priority was the safety of the two hundred and eleven passengers and twelve crew members who were anxiously waiting for the moment the wheels finally touched the pavement.
The airport was just to their right and less than fifteen miles away. On a clear night, she would be able to see not only the lights of the two parallel runways, but also Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and half of the Jersey shore.
But tonight, as they fought their way through the turbulence and one of the worst snowstorms the Northeast had seen in a decade, she could barely see the nose of the aircraft, less than five feet in front of her.
“Jet East 394, turn right to a heading of zero one zero. Descend and maintain three thousand feet. You are cleared for the ILS, runway three-one-left at Kennedy.”
Kate punched the Approach button on the glare shield and reduced the speed. The engines wound back and the jumbo jet began a shallow, descending turn into the thick, muddy night. With a flick of a switch on the yoke, she kicked off the autopilot, and with her clammy hands gripping the controls, Captain Kate Gallagher guided Jet East flight 394 onto the final segment of its approach into Kennedy International Airport.
The intensity of the turbulence multiplied almost immediately. Outside, the beam of the landing lights illuminated sheets of snow, which looked heavier than she ever remembered. With one hand still on the controls and her total attention focused on the instrument panel, Kate tightened her seat belt and felt the restraint of the shoulder harness pull against her body.
“Better make sure everyone’s down,” she said.
Bell picked up the interphone and punched-in two numbers. “You guys ready?”
“Yeah, all buttoned up,” the senior flight attendant said.
Dorothy Maples was in her fifties, with dark eyes and brunette hair cut page-boy short. She sat on the jump seat at the front of the cabin facing her passengers, smiling and trying hard to hide her apprehension behind her best business-as-usual face. Like everyone else, she was eager to put an end to this very long night.
The landing gear had already thumped into place and the actuator motors had sounded as they slid the flaps from the trailing edges of the wings and readied the plane for its landing. Preparing themselves for their imminent arrival, the passengers jostled to get a look at the ground below, but all they could see was a wasteland of dense, black clouds intermittently glowing blood red from the reflection of the flashing beacon light.
Kate could sense the mounting anxiety in the cabin just behind her. She had been a passenger enough times herself to know what it felt like to be trapped tight in a sea of seats, waiting for the moment the wheels touched the earth.
She adjusted her five-foot-eight inch frame in the seat and wiped her hand on her pant legs. Let’s get home, she told herself.
“Localizer captured. Glide slope’s alive,” Bell announced, as the Flight Director on the primary instrument indicator on the captain’s side flashed amber twice.
“Flaps thirty,” Kate instructed. Bell moved the handle to its proper position.
Barely a moment after that, the crosshairs that formed the Flight Director began to move slowly to the right, indicating that the plane was moving to the left, away from its intended course.
“Localizer,” Bell called out immediately, but Kate was already making the correction and turning the aircraft slightly to the right. Seconds later, the needle settled back in the center, then started to move again, this time to the left.
They were descending now, less than a thousand feet above the ground, in zero visibility and with no room for error.
“You’re off the center line again. Localizer,” Bell barked, his eyes darting between the small white needle and the captain to his left.
“Come on,” Gallagher muttered to herself. “You’ve done this a thousand times before. Trust the instruments. Just trust the damn instruments.”
The Flight director began to move again, but this time did not stabilize. It oscillated from one side to the other like a broken toy. But this was no toy, and this close to the ground, there was no room for child’s play.
“Let’s get out of here,” Kate said, simultaneously advancing the throttles and pulling back on the yoke. “Initiating go-around. Give me maximum power. Flaps twenty.”
The two Ryan engines began to howl, clawing their way into the black, wintry sky.
“Kennedy tower, Jet East 394 is on the go,” Bell announced on the mic.
“Roger Jet East 394, this is Kennedy tower. Climb and maintain three thousand feet. Contact New York approach on 124.9.”
“We’ll go to approach.”
Flying through the turbulence, snow, and clouds, the pilots of Jet East flight 394 retracted the flaps and gear and climbed to the designated heading and altitude. Once there, they prepared for one more shot at landing before lack of fuel would force them to divert to their alternate airport.
“You’ve got the plane. I’m going to make a P.A.” Gallagher said. Bell took over the controls.
“Ladies and gentlemen, as you can tell, we have aborted the landing. It’s strictly a precautionary measure and there’s nothing to be alarmed about.
We’re currently being vectored into a position to begin the approach again.
We should be on the ground in less than ten minutes.”
“I’m back,” Kate said. She reached for the controls but felt some resistance. She looked up. Bell was still gripping them.
“I’ve got the plane,” she said, looking over at him. But he didn’t even acknowledge her, and he didn’t let go. He just sat there, his hands wrapped around the controls, staring dead ahead at the instruments.
What the hell was this, a mutiny? Was he saying that he could do a better job? That she was dangerous? What?
She had never flown with this character before, so she had no way of reading him. Did he have a problem with her, or all women? Or was he just a dick.
Either way, she had no time for this bullshit.
“I’ve got the plane,” she snapped, and jerked the controls slightly to one side.
Bell silently relinquished control without looking at her.
Kate looked over to him one last time with a glare that could melt steel.
They were going to get on the ground, shut down the engines, and park the plane. After that, Bell had better pray that God was on his side because she was going to rip him limb from limb. She turned away from him and focused back on the instruments with renewed purpose.
“Landing gear down. Flaps thirty after you get three green,” she ordered and Bell did as he was instructed.
They were below fifteen hundred feet again, in the clouds and flying at 170 miles per hour, when the Flight director began to twitch again. Kate corrected immediately, but felt a new stiffness in the controls. She looked at Bell, but his hands were in his lap. She looked at the overhead panel and checked the anti-icing equipment. Everything was on. If the unresponsiveness of the controls was not caused by surface icing, then what?
The crosshairs of the Flight Director came back to the center, but like a pendulum, began moving in the opposite direction again. What the hell was happening? Was this her?
Kate wanted to say something, but hesitated. She wasn’t going to give Bell the satisfaction. Still what the hell was going on? Was this an instrument malfunction?
She glanced over at Bell’s Flight director, then at the standby instruments.
All three indicated the same thing: the aircraft was moving erratically off course and she wasn’t able to correct it. So if this wasn’t an instrument malfunction, that left only one thing…It was her.
The captain never handed over his command, not at a time of crisis—not to someone like Edmond Bell. But as Jet East 394 descended below five hundred feet, still unstable and off course, Gallagher considered doing just that.
Maybe Bell was right, she thought. Maybe they all were. Maybe she should just hand the plane over, let him land, then bolt from the airport and never come back.
BULLSHIT! She scolded herself. This was her plane and those people were her responsibility. “Focus, Goddammit,” she said loud enough to be heard. “Focus!”
Taking back an ounce of control felt good, and Kate felt herself breathe.
But passing through three hundred feet, the Flight Director began to move again, this time faster than it had previously. Again, Kate attempted to correct, but the instrument continued to move erratically, and by the time the aircraft had reached two hundred feet, it was fully deflected to one side. They were sinking fast, too fast.
“Go-around. Go-around,” Bell shouted, a clear note of panic in his voice.
Kate had already pressed the small go-around button on the throttles.
“Going around. Max power, flaps twenty,” she commanded a second time.
“Push the throttles up, way up.” Once again Jet East 394 struggled its way back into the night sky. Then it happened.
It began with a shallow turn to the right. Kate immediately corrected it by turning the controls in the opposite direction. The plane responded for an instant, then continued to roll slightly back to the right. She applied more pressure, but it wasn’t enough. With both hands on the controls, she pushed to turn. Still it wasn’t enough. She felt as if something was fighting her—as if Bell had finally decided to take over. But she could see his hands, one still on the throttles, adjusting maximum power, the other reaching for the microphone so he could tell the tower that they had aborted the second approach. He was doing what he was supposed to, they both were. Just as they had done ten minutes ago, just as they had practiced a thousand times before in the simulator. But this was different. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
“Push with me,” she shouted to Bell, who threw down the mic, and grabbed the controls with both hands.
“What’s happening?” he yelled, but Kate had no time to explain.
“Terrain, terrain, pull up, pull up,” the computer-generated voice warned.
A half-dozen red lights began to flash in the pilots’ faces.
There had been no training for this kind of scenario. Kate had two choices: continue the go-around and hope that whatever was causing the problem would correct itself in the next second, or—
Instinctively she chose the second option, grasped the throttles, and pulled them back to idle. The roar of the engines instantly died and Jet East 394 began to plunge into the darkness.
“What are you doing?” Bell shouted, lurching over to force her hands off the throttles. He was too late.
From the corner of her eye, Kate saw an orange and red flash. An instant later, the controls shuddered in her hands as the aircraft was forced violently upright. The tip of the right wing hit the ground, causing the nose to pitch up and veer in the opposite direction, completely out of control. Within an instant all hell broke loose.
There was the sickening sound of scraping metal, and vibrant flashes of red, orange, and yellow erupted all around them. Agonizing screams of terror were followed by a sensation of weightlessness as the aircraft bounced over and over again. The heat, the smoke, the fire…and then, blackness.
Buy on Amazon | Bookshop.org
Read the full spotlight https://www.whatisthatbookabout.com/promos/2023/5/2/spotlight-high-wire-by-kam-majd
