Читать книгу Fireburst - Don Pendleton - Страница 8

PROLOGUE

New York City, New York

Following a rumble of thunder, lightning flashed across the night sky, illuminating the roiling storm clouds from within like misshapen Japanese lanterns.

“God, I hate the rain,” a passenger on the jetliner growled under his breath, sliding shut the plastic cover to block his view out the window.

“Oh, sir, our aircraft is one of the safest planes in existence!” a pretty flight attendant said with a comforting smile. “We get hit by lightning two or three times every trip, and it doesn’t even damage the paint! I can assure you that there is nothing to fear.”

Completely unconcerned, the slim woman walked away to check on the other passengers.

Twenty miles ahead of the jetliner was John F. Kennedy International Airport, a glowing oasis of incandescent and halogen lights, mixing together into a whitish haze that dominated the night in open defiance of the rumbling storm.

“How’s the traffic?” the pilot asked the navigator, keeping one hand on the yoke while reaching out to tap the glass front of a fuel gauge. The needle quivered, but didn’t change position.

The curved banks of controls surrounded the three members of the cockpit crew in a rainbow of technology, while outside lightning flashed again, much closer, and then farther away.

“We’re in the pipe,” the navigator replied, infinitely adjusting the delicate controls on her radar screen. “There’s nothing in the sky closer than a klick.”

No other airplanes were visible because of the tumultuous summer storm, but the radar showed that the sky was full of flying metal, with an even dozen commercial jetliners steadily circling the busy airport, impatiently waiting for permission to land.

“This must be a slow day for Kennedy,” the copilot said, keeping both hands on the yoke.

She shrugged. “Pretty much so, yeah.”

“Bad for them, good for us,” the pilot said, unclipping a hand mike and thumbing the transmit button. “Hello, Kennedy? This is flight one-nine-four out of Oslo. Do you copy? Over.”

“This is Kennedy Tower, one-nine-four. We hear you five-by-five.” The ceiling speaker crackled. “You’re behind schedule. Should have been here an hour ago. Over.”

“We hit a headwind over the Atlantic,” the pilot replied. “Kennedy, could I please have an ETA?”

“Fifteen minutes until you can have a runway, one-nine-four. Stay on your heading and maintain—”

Suddenly, a blinding light filled the windows, and every instrument on the control boards flickered wildly.

“Say again, Kennedy. We got tickled,” the pilot said with a laugh, as the instrument readings returned to normal once more.

“Any damage?” the navigator asked, glancing up from her screen.

“Nope,” the copilot said, brushing back his thinning hair. “Just a—”

The terrible light filled the windows again, and the controls dimmed. But before they could reboot, another lightning bolt hit the aircraft, then another, and yet another, the force of the last one cracking a side window.

“What the fuck just happened?” the copilot demanded, looking around the flight deck. Nothing seemed to be damaged, but the overhead lights were dim, one of them flickering, and most of the control boards were dark and inert.

“Radar is down!” the navigator announced grimly. “The radio is dead, and ILM is off-line!”

“Maybe we blew a fuse,” the pilot said, flipping switches with both hands. “Oh, Christ, we blew every fuse!”

“What about the backup circuits?”

“Dead! Everything is dead!”

Just then, the entire airplane shook as another bolt of lightning struck.

“Left engine is gone,” the copilot announced in a strained voice. “Not dead. Gone. There’s just a hole in the wing!”

“That’s impossible!” the navigator stated furiously, twisting dials and pressing buttons. “This plane is designed to withstand any conceivable storm!”

The reply of the copilot was lost in the noise of a lightning bolt hitting them again. A spray of sparks erupted from a wall unit, and smoke trickled out from under the floor.

“Kennedy, this is one-nine-four!” the pilot said into the hand mike, but there was only silence from the overhead speaker. Tossing away the mike, he wrapped both arms around the yoke and braced his legs. “Fuck it, we’re going straight in! Kennedy will just have to figure out what happened on their own!”

The copilot tightened his seat belt. “Okay, I’ll tell the—”

This time the flash of the lightning came with the scream of ripping metal as a section of the roof broke off and sailed away in the storm. Instantly, the flight crew was hammered by a howling wind, and every loose item swirled around the compartment before vanishing into the rain.

With a wordless scream, the navigator was torn from her chair, the seat belt dangling loose. Flailing both arms, she was slammed against the ragged edge of the hole before tumbling away.

A split second later, lightning crashed in through the breech, killing both pilots, and drastically widening the hole. Lurching out of control, the aircraft flipped over sideways, the startled passengers screaming in terror. Then the lightning hit the plane several more times in rapid succession, and all of the fuel tanks simultaneously detonated.

The roiling fireball was briefly visible for several miles along the coastline of both New York and New Jersey before fading away.

Minutes passed in rainy silence. Then irregular chunks of burned metal and smoking corpses started to fall across the airport. An engine slammed into the main terminal, punching completely through to crash inside the concourse, killing people standing in line to check their bags. Next, bodies started to plummet from the sky, splattering across the tarmac, shattering windows and smashing into cars in the long-term parking lot.

As a strident siren began to howl from on top of the control tower, a dozen other planes were trying to veer away from the wreckage dropping onto the runways. Not all of them were successful, several crashing into one another in a seemingly endless chain reaction of fire, death and destruction… .