Page 76 of Radar

Xander realized he was expecting that eventuality.

He’d been through explosions before. He’d pulled through.

Xander’s muscles were locking up along his back as he held the weight from a twisted position.

If he did paralyze his muscles into this configuration, he thought wryly, at least he could get the door open and maybe toss himself sideways down the slide out of everyone’s way.

He sniffed, trying to detect smoke. Was the belly of the plane on fire from one of those damned Russian incendiary devices?

From this angle, all Xander could see out his window was blue. The passengers’ bodies covered the windows below him.

No flames licked into view. No one was screaming fire.Ohenif he were in Slovakia.

Was this another communications dead zone, like Newark, where the towers couldn’t tell the flight crew anything at all? At any minute, another jetliner could fly into their side. Was that what they were avoiding? A mid-air collision?

Xander wrestled his mind away from the possibilities. He could do zilch against any of them. All he could control was the three feet around him that included his dedication to the safety of the elder and his dog.

“Ma’am, I know this is uncomfortable. Are you doing okay?”

She lifted her head. “Okay,” she panted.

Xander turned back to the door. If we crash, pull Radar onto my lap, let go of the woman, reach with my right hand to grab the bar, and with my left hand, run it along my knee to grab the release handle.

He kept that series of actions looping in his head—a survival mantra. If he were injured, he’d need to act anyway. When someone’s injured, pragmatic steps are hard to reach for; clear thinking is gone.

Have a mantra, work that mantra.

Pull Radar onto my lap. Let go of the woman. Right hand to grab bar. Left hand release handle.

The husband across the way had dropped an elbow. And his wife was screaming for him to get off of her, that she couldn’t breathe, and he was smothering their kid.

What the actual hell? Straighten it up, man.

Though Xander got it. His biceps and quads shook from exertion. He figured he had about a hundred-plus pounds per hand.

If you start something. You finish something. Xander was committed to keeping his row safe. But it would be nice if the pilot righted them soon.

Xander knew that the concept of time was useless in these situations. Absolutely f’ing useless. He had no idea, except for the fatigue in his muscles, how long the plane passengers had been dangling and screaming.

There was a roar of engine noise that freaked the passengers out. They shrilled their horror, not knowing what that sound could mean. The pilots were probably pulling out all their tricks to keep the plane from falling from the sky.

The fall would be shitty, but death would come quickly. And that’s really the way Xander wanted to go. He wasn’t big into suffering without a cause.

Whatever the hell was happening, the pilots in the cockpit were getting screamed at. The equipment alerted them to problems, sure, but it also breaks concentration and ups anxiety. Shaky hands on the control wheel, that was no bueno.

Xander was back to thinking about the loss of communication in Newark. Was Orest up to his tricks here? The thing that had created the communications blackout in Newark went through security with Orest Kalinsky. What if Orest put something in Elyssa’s backpack?

But that would be putting his great-niece in harm’s way. And the Zoric family was nothing if not deeply loyal to family.

None of this made sense. None of it did. And Xander would rather not leave this world in a state of confusion.

The old lady’s armpit was sweating enough now that Xander’s grip was getting slick.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Xander

Sunday