Powerless by Tim Washburn Page B

Normal voice, no sense of panic.”
    â€œThanks.” The intercom light flashes and he hesitates before answering.
    â€œBetter explain to the flight attendants what’s happening,” Cheryl says.
    He fingers the button and listens for a moment. “Lisa, come to the cockpit and I’ll explain.”
    There’s a single knock at the door a moment later. Cheryl stands to unlock the cockpit door. Lisa Robbins has flown with Steve and Cheryl numerous times. She enters the cockpit as Cheryl retakes her seat.
    â€œWhat’s the deal, Steve?” she says.
    He looks at her briefly. “We have no satellite navigation and no communications. Everything went dead just as we were passing the southern coast of Newfoundland.”
    Lisa takes a moment to digest the information. “What can I do to help?”
    â€œThanks, Lisa. Keep the passengers calm until we can put her on the ground. Tell them Paris is socked in with fog, or whatever else you can come up with.”
    â€œI can do that.” Lisa exits the cockpit.
    Cheryl relocks the door and returns to her maps. Making quick calculations on time and distance, she marks the time to the new compass heading. She pulls a binder from another side pocket of her seat and does a quick read of the landing procedures for London Heathrow. “Steve, we need to think about starting our descent.”
    Steve winces as he reaches for the throttles. “Where do we need to be?”
    Cheryl glances at the altimeter. “Bleed off about six thousand.”
    He looks out the window for any glints of metal in the sun before slowly pulling back on the throttles. “Descending to twenty-seven thousand. Is the TCAS system on?”
    â€œYes, Captain,” Cheryl says while she cranes her neck to survey the brilliant blue sky around them.
    Steve eases off the throttles. “Now might be a good time to say a prayer.”

C HAPTER 26
    Durant
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    Z eke wanders into a vacant waiting room and collapses onto a chair.
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    I took Amelia’s “maybe” response and ran with it. A week later, I gained my release from the hospital and found a run-down one-bedroom apartment near the hospital and signed a six-month lease. I could have cared less that the beige carpeting was stained or that the stove only had one working burner—proximity to Amelia was my only desire. Three days a week, I limped into the rehab office and worked with a therapist to regain my range of motion and had a lunch date with Amelia. Our lunches soon turned to dinners out, and I felt like the luckiest guy in the world when we spent the weekend at her place.
    I found a good job, a career starter, and spent every moment of every day thinking about Amelia. Was I infatuated with her? You bet your ass I was. I was head over heels in love with that caring, understanding, brighten-my-world woman. The memories of war faded as our relationship deepened.
    At the start of our fourth month of dating, I descended to bended knee. “Amelia, I love you more than life itself. Will you marry me?”
    She clapped her hands to her mouth as tears drifted down her cheeks. “Yes, Zeke. Yes.” She grabbed my hands and pulled me to my feet. We were both crying as she covered my face with kisses.
    Amelia had been married once before, to her high school sweetheart, with a big, lavish wedding. The marriage lasted only two years, and another large wedding production wasn’t on her bucket list. We agreed on a small civil ceremony with our very close friends and family members a month later.
    After the ceremony we jetted off to the shimmering waters of the Caribbean for a week of sun. Laughter and lovemaking were constant staples of our week in paradise.
    Two months later, we purchased our first home—a three-bedroom, single-story rancher in a neighborhood of other young couples. The house was older, built in the ’50s, with brick along the bottom third topped out with