TEN

Joshua and Abigail were sitting across from their daughter, Deborah, and her new friend, Ethan, in the big living room of their Colorado lodge. The log mansion was nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with land stretching all the way down to a winding river. The family loved the retreat. For Joshua particularly it had been a haven from the world, a safe house from the forces of destruction, from men whose aim was to spread chaos and death. At Hawk’s Nest he could keep some of that at bay.

Deborah, with some help from Ethan, had just described their experience on Flight 433 the day before. The boarding. The takeoff. The wild deviation of the big jet. The gut-wrenching experience of the big 797 being jolted into a drastic turn, and Deborah being grabbed by Ethan, keeping her from being tossed up into the ceiling. Then the flight’s return to JFK, and the interrogation of passengers.

Her parents listened, unmoving. They took turns peppering her with questions. Finally Joshua said, “Two things are clear. First, your jet was responding to an actual security threat, not just a perceived one. Those pilots must have known they were at risk.”

Ethan was nodding fiercely. “Colonel Jordan, copy on that. I think you’re absolutely right, sir.”

Joshua turned to him. “And the second thing, Ethan, is that your quick thinking probably saved my daughter from a fractured skull, or worse. How can a father find the words to thank a man who does that?”

“No need, sir. I’m proud to be of service to your family. Your service and bravery on behalf of the nation, Colonel — ”

“Retired, Ethan. Now a civilian. You can call me Joshua.”

“That’ll be hard.”

“Well, I can’t pull rank and order you around anymore.”

“So you do remember me, sir, when I served under you at McGill Air Force Base?”

Joshua nodded. He was silently recalling the details of a few nasty incidents involving Ethan. The drunken bar fights, the violation of flight rules. But Joshua was not going to dress down the man who had protected his daughter. Not a chance in a million.

“I remember you, Ethan. And here you are. So my daughter says you worked with Raytheon.”

Just then the phone beeped. Abigail picked it up. “Hello, Ted,” she replied. “Great to hear from you.” She fell silent and turned toward Joshua, her expression growing somber. She winced and said, “Josh, you’d better take this in the study.”

Joshua quickly stepped around the corner, dodged into the library, to his big desk with the multiple computers, and closed the door behind him.

“Ted, what’s up?”

Ted was the chief weapons-design engineer for Jordan Technologies. “Josh, bad news …”

“Tell me …”

“The jet crash … the one on the news …”

“Out of Chicago?”

“Right. Flight 199. It went down because of a missile strike. Our sources in the Pentagon say that the White House is about to release an official statement.”

“What — ”

But before Joshua could formulate his next question, Ted jumped in. “There’s something else. That flight was outfitted with an onboard RTS unit when it was struck.”

“Did the pilot launch our Return-to-Sender laser?”

Silence.

“Ted. Talk to me. Did the pilot — ”

“He tried to.”

Joshua hesitated, as if he’d been punched in the solar plexus.

Ted kept talking. “Reports are that the pilot went through the launch sequence for the RTS. They’ve retrieved the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder from the wreckage. No word yet on that. But the tower said the pilot announced hitting the RTS button after the primary countermeasures, the flares, failed. But the RTS didn’t stop the missile.”

“How many … my God, Ted … how many — ”

“There were eighty-eight on board.”

“Did anyone — ”

“They’re all gone, Josh. All dead.”

When Joshua had collected himself, he said, “I want all your data transferred to me so I can review it here at Hawk’s Nest — on the secure line. Everything you’ve got on that flight: our install on that 797, all our protocols, the verification of the test runs, the sign-off by the FAA on that particular jet. Whatever you have on the crash. Everything, Ted. I want everything. And I want it stat.”

After he hung up, Joshua turned in his wooden swivel chair to look through the window, out to the tall trees and the impenetrable line of mountain peaks in the distance.

His insides were numb, as if he’d received an anesthetic, but his mind raced wildly.

More than that, there was the awful, crippling inner torque, the crush of responsibility bearing down on him like a ten-ton weight. The solitude of Hawk’s Nest had been broken. The world was pressing in.