The plane bucked and shuddered, leveling off at a more or less horizontal angle. Lauren rose to her hands and knees. Her face was practically in the cockpit, where she noted the pilot remained firmly in his chair. At least someone was still trying to control this plane, but the utter blackness of the instrument panel was less than reassuring.
“I can hold ’er steady for maybe thirty seconds,” Kent Garland’s deep voice boomed, muffled slightly by an air mask. “Can you get Mags buckled into a seat in the passenger area?”
“Ma-a-ags?” The word quavered between Lauren’s lips. Oh, the copilot. “I—I’ll try.”
“Good girl.”
Girl! I’ll girl him.
Anger sent fuel to her limbs. Lauren grabbed the copilot’s shoulders and wrestled her into a vacant seat. She had no idea if the woman was alive, but on the off chance they survived the next minutes, she tightened the buckle around the copilot’s waist and fitted the mask around her bloodied face. With shaking hands, Lauren pulled the bright-colored scarf from around the woman’s neck and bound it tightly around her head, covering the gash near the woman’s temple. That was the best she could do at this moment.
“Holler at everyone to get their heads down between their knees.” Garland’s bellow barely carried above the intensifying whine of struggling engines and the screams of terrified passengers. “Then take Mags’s place beside me in the cockpit. Hurry!”
Gripping the seatback in front of her, Lauren yelled the pilot’s instructions then turned and flung herself into the copilot’s spot. She fastened the seat belt and jerked the mask tight around her face. Oxygen filled her lungs and cleared all clutter from her mind.
Silence suddenly flooded the cockpit as engine noise ceased. Even the passenger cabin had gone eerily quiet, as if every person aboard were holding their breaths. The side of a mountain filled the front window, racing toward them at breakneck speed.
“Lord Jesus,” Lauren whispered, “ready or not, here I come.”
* * *
Kent’s muscles ached and his head pounded as he fought to keep the plane’s nose up against the battering of powerful air currents. If they went into a nosedive, they’d implode onto the side of that mountain. In order to maintain any semblance of control, he had to hold the plane’s glide even as he lost altitude. The best he could do was keep her level while the thermals bucked them around like a bee-stung bronco.
The fuel was gone. Whatever took out the avionics and wounded the engines had also damaged the fuel lines. His Challenger 350 had bled out in mere minutes. He could just barely buy that something might go wrong with one of the engines—some tiny little something overlooked. But both of them at once? Uh-uh! Not a snowball’s chance in Hawaii. He took better care of this baby than that.
Kent’s gaze darted toward his instruments, but the panel remained dark and dead, even though the RAT—ram air turbine—must have kicked in as an alternate source of electricity. Something was seriously bent about this flight emergency. There was nothing within normal range about it.
At least it was daylight so he had visual on where they were headed. If he could spot a valley with a decent stretch of level ground and navigate toward it, they stood a slight chance of actually landing without becoming a pile of wreckage—a nonsurvivable pile, anyway.
Somehow, he had to radio in a mayday. Get their position out to someone who could send rescue. But there was no way he could release the stick with even one hand in order to use the radio. Unless... He glanced sideways.
The passenger in the copilot seat gripped her chair arms in clawed fists. Her torso quivered, and her gaze was fixed straight ahead, but at least she wasn’t hysterical. Not hardly. She’d kept her cool and managed to get Mags buckled into a seat under terrifying conditions.
“Any chance you know how to operate a two-way radio?” His voice came out strong but muffled by the oxygen mask.
Seconds ticked past. Was she frozen in shock? Then she slowly turned her head his way. Brilliant green eyes, clear and sharp as a cat’s, fixed on him.
“Y-yes. W-we use one in the hospital for medivac emergencies.”
“Put out a distress call. Frequency, one-two-one-point-five.”
She did as he had asked. Her hands, her whole being, seemed to center and go steady as she set the frequency and put out the call. Evidently, she was the kind that calmed when given a task in an emergency. Good characteristic. She performed the mayday drill once...twice...three times. Dead air met every attempt. Those green eyes sought him again.
“I—I don’t think the radio...” A spasm visibly gripped her throat. “The radio is dead.” The sentence came out in a high squeak.
Kent’s jaw clenched. “This has to be sabotage, pure and simple,” he muttered fiercely between his teeth.
But who? Why? Terrorism? Unlikely on a small plane in the middle of nowhere. Terrorists wanted to make a big statement, spread as much fear and death as possible with a highly public act of chaos. What then? Did someone want to kill one of his passengers badly enough to take the life of everyone aboard?
Fury surged through Kent, shooting adrenaline to the taxed muscles laboring to control an out-of-control airplane. He and his passengers were going to survive, if only to give him the chance to throttle whoever was trying to kill them.
Responding to his iron grip, the plane steadied even as a promising furrow in the mountainside appeared off to his left. He followed his instinct and turned her nose for what could be a navigable valley.
“Hallelujah!” His outburst drew a startled stare from Jade Eyes.
A long, semi-flat stretch of ground appeared in the near distance. Scattered pine trees set up potential hazards, but he’d just have to do his best to miss them. They were coming in too fast, but this was the most optimal valley for landing that he’d spotted since the crisis erupted. It was either bring her down now or crash in harsh terrain with no chance of survival.
There would be nothing graceful about this landing. With no engine power, he had no reverse thrust or flaps to help slow them down. Getting on the ground without flipping over or hitting anything major would have to be enough. Now it remained to be seen if they’d have to come in on their bare belly. If electrical failure were absolute, they’d have no wheels.
Kent barked orders to his unofficial copilot, instructing her how to let down the landing gear. A welcome rumble under the plane’s belly answered her tentative responses to his instructions. The instrument panel was not receiving any of the auxiliary electricity, but the landing gear was. Another anomaly that suggested sabotage focused on his engines and his instrumentation.
Kent hauled in a deep breath and let it out as the ground loomed up at them. “Get your head down, Jade Eyes!”
“What did you call me?” Those brilliant eyes flashed, and her nostrils flared.
“Get! Down!”
The woman bowed her back and hugged her knees as the wheels kissed the earth. The plane rebounded into the air like a gazelle, then slammed down again. Up. Down. Up. Down. The odor of burning rubber invaded the cockpit. Stretched and strained metal screeched like a dying thing, competing with the terrified screams from human throats.
All the peripherals faded as Kent’s consciousness melded with his tortured plane. Any chance of survival depended on his skills and instincts as a former Special Forces pilot and the grace of Almighty God.
If the former failed, in about 30 seconds they’d all be meeting the Lord face-to-face.
Copyright © 2017 by Jill Elizabeth Nelson
ISBN-13: 9781488045387
Deadly Mountain Refuge
Copyright © 2019 by Harlequin Books S.A.
First published as Mountain Ambush by Harlequin Books in 2017 and Mountain Hideaway by Harlequin Books in 2016.
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:
; Mountain Ambush
Copyright © 2017 by Pat White
Mountain Hideaway
Copyright © 2016 by Christy Barritt
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Deadly Mountain Refuge: Mountain Ambush ; Mountain Hideaway Page 40