I can't. I have a company. I have I never even Oh, God. Oh, God. " And the stranger was trying to peel her off him. And nobody was comforting her because she had spent the first 40 milesnutes of the flight teaching every person with an earshot exactly how little she thought of them.
And now that the mask was off, there was nobody in her corner. That's the thing. Cruelty never tells you in advance. It's alone. And it always comes due at the worst possible time.
The intercom again. Reed's voice. And now even he couldn't fully hide it. Folks, we're about 8 minutes out from landing. I need to be straight with you.
We've got a hydraulic problem that's affecting some of our controls. The good news is we're headed to a field with the longest runway and the best emergency crews you could ask for. I've landed in tougher spots than this. When we touch down, it may be firm and it may be fast. And you may hear the crews come out to meet us.
That's normal. That's their job. That's them taking care of us. Flight attendants, prepare the cabin for landing. Everybody else, listen to your crew and let's get down together.
Let's get down together. Jack almost smiled. It was a good line. Reed was a good pilot. You could tell everything about a captain in the words he chose when the wheels were about to come off and Reed had chosen together.
8 minutes. Ashley came through one last time checking belts. And when she reached row three, she paused and looked at Jack and something passed between them. One professional recognizing steadiness in another, though she couldn't have said why she recognized it. You've done this before, she said quietly.
Not a question. Been through a rough landing or two, Jack said. Would you? She hesitated. This was against every rule.
The exit rose right behind you. In an evacuation having someone calm who can never mind. It's not protocol. Ashley. Jack said her name gently.
If we're on the ground and that door needs to open, that door will open. You take care of the front of the cabin. "I've got the back. " Okay. She stared at him. Then she nodded and went forward.
And later she would tell investigators that she didn't know why she'd trusted the mechanic in 3B with the back of her airplane except that she just had 6 minutes. "Dad. " Noah tugged his sleeve. The window. Jack leaned across his son to look and his heart did something it hadn't done in 4 years. It stopped.
Below them, sliding into view as the plane descended, was the field. Long gray runway laid across brown land. The pattern of it, the exact geometry of it, the water tower. He'd know blindfolded the arrangement of hangars, the alert pad on the north end, and lined up on that pad, canopies gleaming, five of them. Wings like knife blades were F22 Raptors, the exact machine in his son's fist.
Jack knew this base. He knew it the way you know the house you grew up in. He'd taken off from that runway at 4 in the morning more times than he could count. He'd landed on it with a dead engine once. He'd stood in that hanger and gotten his call sign painted on his canopy.
He'd walked that flight line with Sarah on his arm at an air show back when the future was a thing you looked forward to instead of a thing you survived. Of all the runways in America, of all the fields Reed could have picked, "Dad. " Noah was staring out the window and his voice had changed. The fear had cracked open and underneath it was pure seven-year-old wonder. "Dad, those are real ones. Those are the real ones.
Look, they're just like mine. They're exactly like mine. "I see them, buddy. " "Have you ever— Dad, are we going to land right next to them? " Are we? Jack couldn't answer. There was something in his throat.
Robert Chen had seen them, too, and he said half to himself, ""That's an Air Force base. We're landing on an Air Force base. " and relief went through him and through the people around him because a military field meant the best emergency response in the country and everyone in earshot exhaled a little. But Jack wasn't relieved. Jack was somewhere else entirely. Jack was 29 years old with a helmet under his arm, walking out to a jet in the cold blue dark and a young crew chief.
The name came back to him unbidden. A kid named Alvarez saluting him and saying she's all yours. Hawk. Hawk. Hawk One.
Sir. Ashley's voice from the front. Sir, are you all right? I'm fine. Jack managed.
He wasn't fine. He was drowning in a life he'd sealed in a box. 4 minutes. The gear came down. Jack heard it, felt it, and did the math on whether it had locked and decided from the sound that it had three green they had wheels.
Thank God. The flaps ran out as far as the failing hydraulics would push them. The plane slowed, wallowed a little, and Reed caught it, fought it level. Brace positions, everybody, brace positions now. Listen to your crew.
Ashley called and the attendants took up the shout and the cabin folded forward. 200 people bending down over their own knees and the crying got louder and someone was praying out loud and Vivien Hart in row one was making a sound like an animal. Jack turned to his son one last time. "Okay, co-pilot, this is it. What do you do? " "Head down, arms over.