High Wire - Softcover

Majd, Kam

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0440237343 ISBN 13: 9780440237341

Verlag: Dell, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

A WOMAN STANDS ACCUSED

BUT THE COST TO PROVE HER INNOCENCE…

MAY JUST BE HER LIFE


Captain Kate Gallagher has a plane to land and a daughter to get home to. But first, she’s got to contend with a confrontational co-pilot, blizzard conditions, and something far more treacherous–a plane contaminated with a lethal virus. When the controls refuse to respond to her commands, she’s got two choices: Turn the plane around or trust her instinct.

One day later, the world’s press is picking through the mangled remains of Flight 394 and crying pilot error. To clear her name and find out what really happened, Kate must uncover a shocking conspiracy that has already zeroed in on a new target: another plane, another deadly disaster.

With only seconds to save the 262 passengers on board, Kate Gallagher will fight her way back into the pilot’s seat and up into the air–in a life-and-death race against time, a madman, and a computer code that is wired, running, and ready to kill again....And the price for saving all those lives may be only one...hers.

Über diesen Titel

Aus dem Klappentext

DS ACCUSED

BUT THE COST TO PROVE HER INNOCENCE

MAY JUST BE HER LIFE


Captain Kate Gallagher has a plane to land and a daughter to get home to. But first, she s got to contend with a confrontational co-pilot, blizzard conditions, and something far more treacherous a plane contaminated with a lethal virus. When the controls refuse to respond to her commands, she s got two choices: Turn the plane around or trust her instinct.

One day later, the world s press is picking through the mangled remains of Flight 394 and crying pilot error. To clear her name and find out what really happened, Kate must uncover a shocking conspiracy that has already zeroed in on a new target: another plane, another deadly disaster.

With only seconds to save the 262 passengers on board, Kate Gallagher will fight her way back into the pilot s seat and up into the air in a life-and-death race against time, a madman, a

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Chapter 1

The sudden jolt and unexpected turbulence caught both pilots momentarily off guard before each reached instinctively for the controls. After a tense moment, 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, and a night in a cockpit 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 her favorite Mozart symphonies 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. Why don't you find out if there's been any change since the last report?" she asked.

Bell picked up the mike. "Kennedy approach, this is Jet-East 394. We need the latest surface conditions."

"Jet-East 394, this is New York approach control." The controller sounded as weary as they were. "Sir, the latest observation indicates that the weather has deteriorated further. I'm showing a ceiling of two hundred feet overcast. Wind is from the north at two eight, gusting to three five knots with blowing snow. There is a half an inch of packed snow on the runways, but we haven't had a landing there for almost fifteen minutes, so I have no breaking action to report."

Bell replaced the mike in its cradle and picked up a chart. Aiming the overhead light at it, he pointed to a number. "That's as low as we can go. You'd better make this one count. The last thing I want to do is go all the way back to Chicago."

Kate shook her head. She didn't know what the hell this guy's deal was, but the fact that she was a woman certainly hadn't bypassed his attention. Add to the fact that she was barely thirty-four, a full five years younger than he, and in the male-dominated world of aviation you 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 burnt-almond 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, the bluest green of the Caribbean Sea, 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 most of 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 that moment of relief when the wheels would finally touch 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 New Jersey. But tonight, as they fought their way through 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, this is New York approach control. Turn right to a heading of three five zero. Descend and maintain three thousand feet. You are cleared for the ILS, runway three-one-left at Kennedy International Airport."

Kate punched the Approach button on the glare shield in front of her, and the twin-engine jumbo jet began a shallow, descending turn into the night sky. 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 the falling snow, which looked heavier than either pilot had 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 everybody is down," she ordered.

Bell picked up the interphone. "Are you ready?"

"Yeah, we're 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 bloodred 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 in a sea of seats, waiting until that final reassuring voice comes over the P.A. to inform them that they had arrived safely.

She adjusted her five-foot-eight frame in the seat and wiped the tiny drops of perspiration from her brow. Just like the simulator, she thought.

"Localizer captured. Glide slope's alive," Bell announced, as the two needles on the instrument panel moved toward each other and formed a crosshair.

"Flaps thirty," Kate instructed. Bell moved the lever to its proper position.

Barely a moment after that, the vertical needle 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 pilot 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 needle began to move again, but did not stabilize. It oscillated from one side of the instrument 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....

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Dell
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2002
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0440237343
• ISBN 13: 9780440237341
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 368
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Dell GmbH; 6997927350; DE.CustomerSupport@dell.com; ; Unterschweinstiege 10; Frankfurt am Main; 60549; Deutschland