Page 58 of Lieutenant

I don’tfuckingknow.

Except those two words Carter left me with blare in my brain.

Stay safe.

My men would no doubt tell me, if they could speak to me at this moment, to fight as hard as I can.

To survive.

To come home to them.

That, however, is no longer up to me. It’s up to the guy with his hands likely tightly fisted around the controls, and hopefully with a voice muffled by an oxygen mask he had time to put on as he frantically calls out a mayday and reports our coordinates to an air traffic control tower somewhere.

Hopefully, this aircraft is equipped with some sort of functional emergency GPS beacon.

Hopefully, the life rafts have EPIRBs, or equivalent devices.

Hopefully, the planehasfucking life rafts.

If not, we’re all fucked anyway.

I breathe and close my eyes and hold on.

Hold on.

Hold.

On.

Chapter Sixteen

Susa

The world ends.

That’s what it feels like.

The plane tentatively levels out for a little bit, and I lift my head from the brace position and glance around to see some passengers around us who had passed out now awakening, meaning we’re likely at or under ten thousand feet.

Some of them put on their masks, some don’t. All of them look as terrified as I feel.

The plane is rolling back, side to side, in a disconcerting way I don’t remember feeling before on other flights, not even rough ones where the pilot has to land in heavy cross-winds. This feels like a last-ditch struggle for the life of the aircraft.

Forallof our lives.

The shuddering starts again, bone-jarring and driving me to renewed tears.

Stay safe.

We descend again, my ears popping, the wind screaming, my teeth chattering. We’re going down, and it’snotgoing to be pretty.

In fact, it only takes a couple of minutes before someone’s yelling something over the PA system, words that I think are, “Brace! Brace! Brace!”

I can’t really understand them, but I’m back in my brace position, and see others, who were watching me earlier, have assumed it, too.

We’ve flown under the clouds now. It’s still damned cold, but at least it’s slightly warmer than before. Looking across the aisle, to my left, through those windows, I can see grey skies above us and rain around us.

I don’t want to crane my head to the right to look through the gaping hole and see how far away the water is, because I’d have to look at what’s left of Mike’s body to do it.