Only he hadn’t really saved anyone.
He stared back at Emma, trying not to rise to her words.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to be that FBI guy anymore, and for a split second the temptation called to him to take back his words. To just be a tired, hurt, and vulnerable victim of a plane crash.
If anything, he owed Brody more than that. He owed him a job well done. And if Mac wanted to get these passengers to listen and obey, he had to follow his instincts one last time.
He turned away from Emma, hardening his emotions to her indictment. “Sorry you don’t like that, lassie, but that’s the truth. I’m in charge here as of right now.”
Her face registered his words, and her eyes narrowed slightly. Then she said, “Would you like some soup, Mac?”
She handed him a Sierra cup of watery chicken noodle soup. He took it, thankful for the heat that burned his hands, noticing the wary look she gave him.
She handed out the portions to the others. “It’s not gourmet, but hopefully it will warm us.”
Mac held his cup close, letting the aroma feed him as much as the temperature. The wind howled outside the shelter, and he sat on his end of the tarp to keep the air trapped inside. When Emma turned off the stove, darkness seeped into the crannies of their fears and the unknown hours ahead. He heard the other passengers hunker down in the cold, slurping their soup. Flint had a sleeping bag in his pack and extended it to Nina, while Ishbane wrapped himself in his space blanket. Phillips had a blanket around him, which left two for Mac and Emma. She looked frozen, huddled at the entrance only a few feet from him.
Phillips’s soft, reflective voice came out of the darkness. “When the apostles Paul and Timothy were suffering in Asia, they thought they were going to die. The Bible says that they were under great pressure, far beyond their ability to endure. But they knew that God had put them there so He could reveal Himself as their Savior. They prayed for deliverance.” He paused. “I think we should pray.”
Mac felt an odd peace when no one objected and Phillips prayed for their safety and for Sarah. He felt like it might have been a couple millennia since he’d prayed—at least since the day he’d stood at Brody’s grave. But he’d been raised in a Christian home, and the fact that he hadn’t thought to pray sooner told him that perhaps Brody’s death had sliced deeper than he’d thought. For a moment, he longed to have a relationship with God like the one the apostle Paul had. Trusting Him for every sunrise, despite the darkness.
“Amen,” Emma said. Mac heard her move, assumed that she checked Sarah’s breathing again.
“You should move away from the door,” Mac told her. “Let Phillips sit there.”
He heard her exhale deeply. Then, “I’m fine. I need to be here with Sarah.”
He sighed. If Sarah and Emma truly had a friendship, then he didn’t blame her for not wanting to leave her side. If Mac had been able to stay with Brody instead of trying to locate help, he would have chosen those moments in a heartbeat. Instead, he’d been on the radio begging some air jockey to land and save Brody’s life.
He felt the familiar ache—now more than three months old—reach in under his rib cage and twist. He’d find Andy MacLeod, and when he did . . . well, he wasn’t sure what he’d do. But the feelings that pooled at the end of that sentence felt dark and too enticing to be anything but wrong. He hadn’t begun to offer forgiveness. Didn’t want to. Probably that had something to do with why he couldn’t pray.
Someone started to hum. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he recognized Emma’s voice. The song wheedled through his memories and found that place in childhood where he’d sat in his mother’s lap, leaning into her embrace. He remembered the words:
“Jesus Loves me! this I know,
For the Bible tells me so;
Little ones to Him belong,
They are weak but He is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me! . . .”
A child’s song for a child’s faith. But he needed more than the Bible’s word that God loved the world. Especially when the reality of terrorism and death argued against it. The place God had once inhabited in Mac’s heart suddenly felt as cold and raw as the wind.
Mac’s cynicism tasted bitter in his throat as he heard Emma’s ragged breathing. She might be crying. Again he thought of the radio but pushed the thought away. He refused to care. His hunches about the pipeline and a saboteur among the passengers had to be correct. The country couldn’t afford for him to be wrong.
Outside, the wind buffeted the shelter, blowing through the cracks. He shivered in his coat.
But beyond the shiver, Mac felt nearly on fire, knowing that God had given him a second chance to save the pipeline.
To be the hero he should have been.
Chapter 5
ANDEE WRAPPED HER arms around herself, shivering in the predawn darkness. She closed her eyes, willing herself out of the cold’s embrace. Sleep came too easily perhaps. Sleep and summer and the hum of a Continental engine.
Periwinkle clouds hung over the snow-dusted peaks of the six-hundred-mile Brooks Range. Andee smiled into the memory of holding the yoke of the Cessna 185 amphibious float plane, her father’s proud gaze on her, his brogue in her ears. She felt weightless.
“Watch your trim,” he’d said, speaking quietly through the headset.
Below, she saw a herd of caribou so tightly packed that they resembled one long, brown-and-white carpet against the shades of green taiga. Cotton grass with its white tufted heads spotted the surface in patches and warned of soggy, wet tundra, unsuitable for landing. Arctic poppies, yellow bursts of color, and purple moss campion reminded her that summer stretched before her. A season of fishing on Disaster Creek outside their home, of berry gathering—blueberries and currants she and her mother, Mary, would can for winter and store in the shed off their two-room cabin.
The Cessna hummed so loudly that usually her thoughts and the rhythm of her body merged into the music of flight. But today as she helmed their trip to Anaktuvuk Pass, her nerves rippled with anticipation. She knew the wind gusts that raked the village nestled into the pass were unpredictable and potentially dangerous and could toss their plane the way she wrestled with Pakak, her malamute. She gripped the yoke through her gloves, switching her attention from the instrument panel to the scenery and back. Someday she’d be rated to fly with only the instruments, but right now she could only thank God for clear weather.
Wouldn’t Mary be surprised to see Andee at the helm, landing like a puffin on the newly built runway?
She stole a glance at her father. His long brown hair was pulled back and tied with a lanyard. He’d turned up the collar of his flight jacket from Vietnam, and the headphones crushed the top of his favorite Yankees cap. His eyes twinkled. She recognized mischief—the kind that hinted at adventure ahead.
“After this peak, you need to descend to three thousand feet. The runway is at 2,200,” her father said.
The snow became diamonds sparkling in her eyes, even though she wore sunglasses. Here in the high Brooks Range snow stayed nearly year-round, the earth thawing for only brief snatches of time. Even around her cabin, winter fought against the invasion of summer. Vanquished for only a month or two at best, winter lurked like a grizzly, waiting to close in and regain its ground.
Andee levered the flaps down and descended into the long valley toward Anaktuvuk Pass. She loved the trips to her mother’s old village. The daughter of a French gold miner and a Nunamiut Indian, Mary MacLeod had met Gerard while working as a nurse in Fairbanks, when he’d been brought in for a broken leg. Gerard claimed she’d mended more than his leg, that something in his soul had been broken before Mary soothed it with her smile. Fresh from Vietnam and his job as a UH-1 Huey pilot, he’d escaped to Alaska in hopes of also escaping his demons. Looking at him, Andee wondered if flying also gave him escape.
Up here, above the jagged peaks with only the sky pinning her down, something inside her also felt free. She reveled in the glory of f
loating like an eagle.
A downdraft caught the plane, and it shook as Andee struggled to right it.
She noticed her father didn’t even lift his hands from his lap. “Calm down, Emma. Don’t listen to your heartbeat.”
Andee swallowed back the rush of panic and kept the yoke firm while descending. The sky fell away, the ground rising to meet her. In the distance a dirt runway had been cut out of the tundra in a strip of brown.
Another sweep of wind took the plane, jerked it, and dropped it hard. Andee’s stomach leaped to her throat.
Splotches of black oil littered the front windshield as she fought the plane. The crankcase vent tube must have frozen, blowing the crankshaft seal.
Her father still didn’t move. “Steady, keep her steady, Emma.”
The plane shimmied and jolted. Why didn’t her father take the yoke, guide them to safety?
She checked the instrument panel. The oil-pressure gauge had started to slide toward zero. “Gerard! The oil pressure.” Even she knew that without oil pressure the engine would seize and they’d be a tin can in the air, plummeting to earth.
“Pull the plane up, Emma, and cut your airspeed.”
Andee urged the nose up, climbing, bleeding off airspeed until she nearly reached a stall. Adrenaline ran through her veins, shaking out her limbs.
“Now put the prop in coarse pitch, cut your mixture back, then switch your mags off.”
Andee’s hand shook as she obeyed. But without the mags— Her father wouldn’t let her crash the plane, would he? She glanced at him, and he gave her a slight nod.
The sudden silence as the prop sputtered and stopped, as the wind began hissing across the cockpit, turned Andee cold.
The airplane nosed down and began to plunge to earth.
Andee broke free of the dream and sat straight up, breathing hard. Dawn—or what masqueraded as the sunrise this far north—dented the misty gray of the shelter. Every muscle ached, and her head felt cottony and full. Where was she?
With the emergency blanket pulled up to her nose and the body heat of the other passengers, she’d lived through the night. Oh yeah, plane crash. Sarah.
Andee leaned over her friend, checking her pulse, her breathing.
“She was moaning in the night,” a thin man said. He touched a cut across his nose, then moved his hand back under his blanket. Ishbane.
“Did she say anything?”
“Something. A name, I think”
Andee closed her eyes, relieved. She opened one of Sarah’s eyelids. Pupils seemed normal. Thank You, Lord.
Sarah moaned.
Andee checked her other eye. “Sarah, wake up.” She patted her cheek. “Wake up.”
Sarah seemed restless, as if trying to escape the bonds of her slumber. Andee took her hand and squeezed. Sarah squeezed back. Andee wasn’t sure if the response was involuntary or a message.
She’d take it as a message. One of hope.
Please, Lord, send someone to us today.
She noticed Flint slumped against the back of the shelter, his back to the wall. He shivered slightly in his sleeping bag.
She touched his forehead and found a slight temperature. She also noticed that Mac had vanished from his post. She’d slept soundly. “Where is everyone?”
“Outside,” Ishbane said.
Andee couldn’t believe they’d gotten past her position by the opening without her waking or that she’d fallen asleep in spite of her attempts to drive away her fatigue. She’d spent most of the night monitoring Sarah’s breathing and devising escape scenarios. She had to help Mac overcome his fear or dementia or whatever held him back from taking a full panoramic view of reality and agreeing to let her hike out— and soon.
Twice she had caught Mac with his hand on Sarah’s head, as if testing her temperature. It almost made Andee want to forgive him. But the fact that he’d bullied his way into command of their battered group with his FBI pedigree kept her from letting forgiveness take hold.
She couldn’t believe he was FBI. What kind of dumb luck did she have to be trapped with a Scottish FBI agent? Her mother would be trying to immunize her from the Scottish charm while her father would slap an arm around him, reliving old times at the bureau. Andee considered it history repeating itself, a sort of heavenly joke.
As if things couldn’t be worse.
She felt like she’d slept shoved into a tin can on a bed ofbaseballs. Leaning forward on her knees, she pushed aside the shelter flap. A gust of wind nearly stripped the breath from her lungs.
Snow blanketed the bowl in which they’d crashed, a million tiny diamonds sparkling in the light. It might be pretty if she were soaring above it, enjoying the scene from her safe cockpit. But hidden beneath this morning’s white blanket, the jagged rock, crevasses, and loose boulders lay in ambush.
Good thing Mac had collected much of their debris last night.
Andee scanned the pewter sky, with the sun melting away the night. It boded well for travel today, and she’d be able to make excellent time.
She heard popping and spitting, smelled smoke. Searching for the source, she climbed out of the shelter, pulled her blanket around her, and saw a pile of books and seat cushions.
Nina knelt before the pyre, blowing on the fire, coaxing it to life. Already flames licked the base, and black smoke, fueled by the vinyl seats, rose in a thickening trail into the sky. Sparks spat out, grabbed by the greedy wind and tossed hither. Andee watched in shock as they blanketed the crash area, some landing on the broken wings of the plane. What was worse, she saw Phillips shoving a seat cushion out through the cockpit door.
When Andee noticed a pile of used waterproof matches, she didn’t have to ask how they’d gotten the fire going. Had she packed another canister? Thankfully, she still had her lighter.
“What. Are. You. Doing?” She tried not to sound appalled, but had they any idea the resources they were consuming?
“Making a signal fire,” Nina said. Fatigue lined her eyes, sank her face, but her movements betrayed a woman on a mission. Apparently a mission to return to her children. “We figured that if they were looking for us, it would help to have smoke.”
That’s what the Emergency Locator Transmitter was for. The ELT operated on the VHF range of 121.5 kHz, with signals that bounced off satellites designated to listen for distress calls. Not only that, Andee, along with many other pilots, kept her radio receiver on “guard” frequency of 121.5, just in case. Even though no one had located them yet and they weren’t on any normal flight path, someone could still hear them. If help didn’t arrive soon, using up the matches was the first of many bad ideas.
Andee dropped her blanket and strode over to the airplane, grabbing the cushion just as Phillips emerged from the plane. “There is still avgas all over the place. This thing could go up.” She shoved the cushion at Phillips. “Stay out of the plane.”
When he blanched white, she felt instantly sorry. Out of all of them, Phillips seemed the one person she could count on. His prayer last night and his words about the apostle Paul and Timothy had touched her soul in a way she still couldn’t voice. She hoped he’d keep praying for God’s deliverance. She needed a reminder of God’s presence right about now as she faced a day of keeping everyone alive.
As she moved away from the plane, her gaze fell on a backpack— Sarah’s backpack—wedged against the instrument panel. It held Sarah’s Bible and possibly supplies.
Andee took a deep breath and squeezed into the cockpit, reaching for the pack. Her gaze fell on the ELT, their only hope of— She felt hands on her legs, pulling at her. “Let me go, Phillips! I gotta get the ELT!” The hands tugged at the back of her jacket. “Stop—” She turned.
Mac. And he had her by the arm, his face twisted in fury or panic. “Get out of here!” He yanked her away from the plane, practically dragging her over the tundra.
She stumbled behind him and saw the blaze had caught, fueled by the wind and spray of gas on the vinyl seats. A bonfire o
f smoke and flames plumed, the fire hot and roaring, melting the snow around it, sparks showering down.
On the plane. And the damaged wings that stored fuel.
Run. She’d barely put thought to action when the plane exploded.
Ka-boom!
One second she was running, and the next she’d landed face-down in the snow while a scorching, roaring fireball rolled over her head. Andee couldn’t breathe, let alone think. Atop her, she felt something—no someone—heavy pushing her head to the ground, breathing hard into her neck. Mac?
She listened to the flames growl around her as the fire consumed the plane in mini-explosions and found her extra gas can.
She shook. Mac’s arm covered her head. He felt so close and so protective, she didn’t know what to do with the feelings that rushed through her. His breaths came in ragged puffs. Then she lifted her head and looked at him. His blue eyes so luminous, so shocked, even worried. Another emotion followed. It dried her throat.
Anger.
He pushed away from her, turned on his hip, and stared at the plane. Andee’s eyes followed his gaze. Flames clawed out of the windows, chewed at the cover, and peeled the paint.
Mac turned and looked at her. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he blamed her.
“You okay?” he growled. He stood and pulled her up, staring at her for a long time.
She wasn’t sure how to respond. She nodded slowly.
“So much for getting out of here,” he said and marched away.
Mac’s suspect list had just expanded to three. His scrutiny ranged from Nina and Phillips, standing wide-eyed ten feet behind him, to Emma, who held a backpack in one hand as the flames roared through her plane. She seemed shaken when he met her gaze, and he saw fear ring her eyes. But terrorists were trained in deception. If he hadn’t seen the sparks from the bonfire ignite the plane with his own eyes, he’d suspect sabotage, aimed at taking out the ELT and any threat of interference.
Expect the Sunrise Page 8