Page 44 of Air Force One (Miranda Chase #16)

“Oh dear,” Miranda whispered to Andi.

“What?” The senior chief petty officer who’d been looming over her shoulder for the last hour spoke for the first time.

That and his abrupt tone were such a surprise that Miranda jolted away, except there was nowhere to go.

The hastily rigged panel of controls and readouts trapped her. Meg woke up and growled at the senior.

“Why’s that, Miranda?” Andi asked the same question, an unnecessary repetition but her tone was calm and curious, rather than demanding.

That this was foolish in comparison to the error in her calculations and what happened next, didn’t make her feel any better.

Because of the initial slack that the skipper had left in his line wrapped around Air Force One’s tail section and the fast approach of the 747 itself, the winch built for power rather than speed couldn’t haul in the line fast enough to make a difference.

As she’d initially feared, the tail did indeed dig into the next wave. This caused the water remaining in the cabin to slosh toward the stern and drive it downward. The plug they had added to Allyson Liddel’s rear window functioned perfectly.

What Miranda had failed to account for was that the high pressure air that had been pumped into the fuselage would have expanded as the aircraft surfaced.

Once the missing copilot’s window was clear of the mud, excess pressure wasn’t merely released.

The rapid expansion of the air with the aircraft’s decreasing depth acted more like a water-driven rocket engine.

She saw her mistake by how much of the plane rose so rapidly out of the water. Her conclusion was supported by how lightly SAM 29000 was surfing across the waves.

The plane dug its tail into a big wave.

“I am sorry.”

The commander twisted in his chair to look at her. Miranda didn’t look away fast enough and saw his eyes had gone wide.

Very wide.

She tried it herself and it made her eyes hurt.