Loss Of Reason - Miles A. Maxwell (best books to read all time TXT) 📗

Andréa began an uncomfortable pass along the runway’s right side. “How’s it look?” she asked. “I — I can’t see anything.”

“No active planes on the field,” Everon said. “I don’t see chunks of debris or anything. The lights are pretty dim though. Runway numbers aren’t too clear. A lot of dust, maybe?”

“No beacon on the tower,” Andréa breathed. “No strobes. Runway lights barely visible. I don’t know . . .”

“They’re probably on emergency power,” Everon said. “It’s the best shot we’ve got. Let’s take it.” He called again: “Teterboro area traffic. Learjet One-Oscar-Mike turning downwind, Runway Two-Four.”

Franklin buckled himself in.

Andréa took a deep breath. Turned forty degrees or so and entered the approach pattern — any moment ready to pull up. Not being able to talk to the tower was unsettling. If there was something on the runway, it could be the last landing she’d ever make.

“Learjet Oscar-Mike, Gulfstream Six-One-Six-One-Sierra-Golf, here. About six miles out. We’ll follow you.”

Another jet? Behind us?

“Okay, Sierra-Golf,” Everon radioed.

“Cross your fingers,” Andréa muttered. She pulled on the throttles to reduce power.

The runway was wet when they touched down, and looked dirty. Andréa taxied them over next to two other small jets parked inside the airport’s chain-link fence.

Everon hadn’t lived in New Jersey for years. But he knew it well. It wouldn’t be the first time the land surrounding Teterboro had been flooded by storm. It was the first time the result could be so deadly.

He had the side door open before they stopped moving.

“Wait here,” he yelled and disappeared.

Through the door Franklin watched a larger jet set down on the runway they’d just vacated. Over the next ten minutes two more landed, parked parallel wing-to-wing with them down the line.

A dark-haired man wearing a black leather jacket, and a rail-thin woman whose straight blonde hair hung over the shoulders of her shiny red coat, leaned their faces into the Learjet’s open door. Both probably in their thirties, tanned as if they’d just spent a week on a Florida beach.

“Anybody know what’s going on?” the woman asked nervously.

“An Ohio radio station claimed the device was nuclear,” Franklin told her.

“We know it’s nuclear,” a male voice rumbled behind her in the dark.

A sudden bright white glow appeared in the distance. BOOM! The sound hit them as it faded back to red.

“What was that! Was that a plane?”

Like a series of bombs going off, half a dozen smaller explosions followed.

Helicopters zoomed overhead, their spotlights sweeping for potential landing areas. People trying to talk all at once. Craziness reigned.

The woman had backed up enough to let Franklin step into the cold air. He edged forward.

It smelled of smoke and dust outside. There were more people behind her.

One man, face pink with cold, in a high voice said, “I got a report on a portable. The station we picked up over West Virginia said the Mayor of New York’s missing.”

“They think he’s dead,” somebody said.

“The deputy’s in charge.”

“Where’s the President?”

Everybody started talking at once.

Everon ran up out of breath. “Let’s go! Got us a small four-place helicopter. The last weather briefing says we’ve only got a few hours to fly in, do our own search — find Cynthia, Steve and Melissa, before the wind changes and blows the fallout back in our direction.”

“Everyone’s supposed to be subject to military law, even the police,” said a dark-skinned man.

“We’ll see,” Everon said, Franklin grabbing his gear.

“Do you want my help?” Andréa said, as Franklin stepped from the jet. Everon didn’t answer.

“You’re going in there?” the thin woman in red called after them, voice jittery and rising.

But Franklin and Everon had already disappeared into the darkness.