Departure by A. G. Riddle Read Free Book Online Page A

drawls condescendingly. “An EMP wouldn’t have fried our cell phones, but it would have knocked out larger electronics. I just saw a man on the plane with a working laptop.”
    A middle-aged woman in an NYU sweatshirt speaks up. “The Internet went out during the flight. I was reading e-mail. That was at least an hour before we crashed.”
    â€œTrue,” says a tall man beside her.
    â€œMaybe it’s just a problem with the satellites.”
    Northrop Grumman turns to the NYU woman. “A satellite failure could have contributed to the crash, true, but it doesn’t explain the cell phones. They connect to land-based towers—well, except for sat phones. The one thing we can conclude is that all land-based towers in the area must be down.”
    â€œOr there aren’t any,” Doctor Who says. “Maybe we’re not in England at all.”
    That, I find interesting.
    NYU speaks up again. “The little readout showed the plane over England—I saw it.”
    â€œIt’s possible,” Northrop Grumman says, considering, “that if the plane had a malfunction, and all external communication was lost, the readouts would have shown us on the original flight path. The plane’s position could have been calculated based only on our flight time.”
    â€œThen we could be anywhere!” a frightened voice shouts.
    â€œGreenland, for all we know. It’s bloody cold enough.”
    â€œOr Iceland, or another island off the coast of England. No-man’s-land.”
    â€œThey’ll never find us.”
    An elderly woman steps toward me. “What do you think, sir?”
    Every eye turns to me.
    â€œI think . . .” What do I think? I take a minute, finally settling on something I’d been chewing on for the last few minutes. “I think that we’re going to know a lot more once we get into the cockpit. The computers, or hopefully the pilots, can tell us where we are. And the communications equipment could help us contact help.”
    It amounts to kicking the can down the road, the proverbial answer we’ve been waiting for locked just feet away, but it does the trick. The crowd mellows. As food slides down the inflated chute, the group breaks up. People get their half meals and start trooping back to the warmth of the blankets and fire by the lake.
    â€œYou won’t get into that cockpit.”
    I turn to find Northrop Grumman standing bizarrely close to me.
    â€œWhy do you say that?”
    â€œIt’s reinforced. All airplane doors were, after 9/11, especially on long-haul flights. You’d have a better chance of getting into Fort Knox.”
    â€œWhat about the windows?”
    â€œSame. They can withstand about any impact, even at high speed.”
    The guy’s still staring at me, almost expectantly. He’s got more to say. Heck, I’ll bite. “What do you suggest?”
    He moves even closer, almost whispering. “You can’t get in, but if someone is alive inside, they can get out—that’s our only hope. It’s only been twelve hours. Maybe one of the pilots was just knocked unconscious. If we could wake them up, they could unlock the door.”
    â€œMakes sense. So we’ll make some noise.”
    â€œExactly. Now, this is important, Mr. . . .”
    â€œStone. Nick Stone.” I extend my hand, and he shakes quickly.
    â€œBob Ward. Now we need to make sure we—or someone we trust—are the ones who get into that cockpit first.”
    Someone we trust. My mind flashes to the three guys that followed me onto the plane last night—and to Harper. I can’t help wondering how she’s doing. Dread fills the pit of my stomach.
    â€œWhy?” I ask, trying to focus on the issue at hand.
    â€œBecause there’s a box inside the cockpit, filled with guns. If the wrong people get to them, this camp will become a very dangerous place.” He glances back at the