Dean Koontz - Cold Fire

Impact in five minutes.

Jim twitched in shock and almost spoke those four words aloud when they came to him.

Instead, when the captain finished talking to the tower, Jim said, "Is your landing gear operable?" "We got it down and locked," Delbaugh confirmed.

"Then we might make it.”

"We will make it," Delbaugh said. "Unless there's another surprise waiting for us.”

"There is," Jim said.

The captain glanced worriedly at him again. "What?" Impact in four minutes "For one thing, there'll be a sudden windshear as you're going in oblique to you, so it won't drive you into the ground.

But the reflected updraft from it will give you a couple bad moments.

It'll be like you're flying over a washboard.”

"What're you talking about?" Anilov demanded.

"When you're making your final approach, a few hundred feet from the end of the runway, you'll still be at an angle," Jim said, once more al lowing some omniscient higher power to speak through him, "but you'll have to go for it anyway, no other choice.”

"How can you know that?" the flight engineer demanded.

Ignoring the question, Jim went on, and the words came in a rush: "The plane'll suddenly drop to the right, the wing'll hit the ground, and you'll cartwheel down the runway, end over end, off it, into a field.

The whole damn plane'll come apart and burn.”

The red-haired man in civilian clothes, operating the throttles, looked back at Jim in disbelief "What crock of shit is this, who the hell do you think you are?" "He knew about engine number two before it blew up," Delbaugh said coolly.

Aware that they were entering the second of the trio of planned degree turns and that time was swiftly running out, Jim said, "None of you in the cockpit will die, but you'll lose a hundred and forty-seven passengers, plus four flight attendants.”

"Oh my God," Delbaugh said softly.

"He can't know this," Anilov objected.

Impact in three minutes Delbaugh gave additional instructions to the red-haired man, who manipulated the throttles. One engine grew louder, the other softer, and the big craft began its second turn, shedding some altitude as it went.

Jim said, "But there's a warning, just before the plane tips to the right.”

"What?" Delbaugh said, still unable to look at him, straining to get what response he could from the wheel.

"You won't recognize what it means, it's a strange sound, like nothing you've heard before, because it's a structural failure in the wing coupling, where it's fixed to the fuselage. A sharp twang, like a giant steel-guitar string. When you hear it, if you increase power to the port engine immediately, compensating to the left, you'll keep her from cart-wheeling.”

Anilov had lost his patience. "This is nuts. Slay, I can't think with this guy here.”

Jim knew Anilov was right. Both System Aircraft Maintenance in San Francisco and the dispatcher had been silent for a while, hesitant to interfere with the crew's concentration. If he stayed there, even without saying another word, he might unintentionally distract them at a crucial moment.

Besides, he sensed that there was nothing more of value that he would be given to tell them.

He left the flight deck and moved as quickly as possible toward row sixteen.

Impact in two minutes Holly kept watching for Jim Ironheart, hoping he would rejoin them.

She wanted him nearby when the worst happened. She had not forgotten the bizarre dream from last night, the monstrous creature that had seemed to come out of her nightmare and into her motel room; neither had she forgotten how many people he had killed in his quest to protect the lives of the innocent, nor how savagely he slaughtered Norman Rink in that Atlanta convenience store. But the dark side of him was outweighed by the light. Though an aura of danger surrounded him, she also felt curiously safe in his company, as if within the protective nimbus of a guardian angel.

Through the public-address system, one of the flight attendants was instructing them on emergency procedures. Other attendants were positioned throughout the plane, making sure everyone was following directions.

The DC-10 was wallowing and shimmying again. Worse, although without a wooden timber anywhere in its structure, it was creaking like a sailing ship on a storm-tossed sea. The sky was blue beyond the portholes, but evidently the air was more than blustery; it was raging, tumultuous.

None of the passengers had any illusions now. They knew they were going in for a landing under the worst conditions, and that it would be rough.

Maybe fatal. Throughout the enormous plane, people were surprisingly quiet, as if they were in a cathedral during a solemn service. Perhaps, in their minds' eyes, they were experiencing their own funerals.

Jim appeared out of the first-class section and approached along the port aisle. Holly was immensely relieved to see him. He paused only to smile encouragingly at the Dubroveks, and to put his hand on Holly's shoulder and give her a gentle squeeze of reassurance. Then he settled into the seat behind her.

The plane hit a patch of turbulence worse than anything before.

She was half convinced that they were no longer flying but sledding across corrugated steel.

Christine took Holly's hand and held it briefly, as if they were old friends-which, in a curious way, they were, thanks to the imminence of death, which had a bonding effect on people.

"Good luck, Holly.”

"You, too," Holly said.

Beyond her mother, little Casey looked so small.

Even the flight attendants were seated now, and in the position they had instructed the passengers to take. Finally Holly followed their example and assumed the posture that contributed to the best chance of survival in a crash: belted securely in the seat, bent forward, head tucked between her knees, gripping her ankles with her hands.

The plane came out of the shattered air, slipping down glass-smooth for a moment. But before Holly had time to feel any relief, the whole sky seemed to be shaking as though gremlins were standing at the four corners and snapping it like a blanket.

Overhead storage compartments popped open. Traincases, valises, jackets, and personal items flew out and rained down on the seats.

Something struck the center of Holly's bowed back, bouncing off her. It was not heavy, hardly hurt at all, but she suddenly worried that a traincase, laden with some woman's makeup and jars of face cream, would drop at precisely the right angle to crack her spine.

Captain Sleighton Delbaugh called out instructions to Yankowski, who continued to kneel between the pilots, operating the throttles while they were preoccupied with maintaining what little control they had left. He was braced, but a hard landing was not going to be kind to him.

They were coming out of the third and final 360-degree turn. The runway was ahead of them, but not straight-on, just as Jim-damn, he'd never gotten the guy's last name-had predicted.

Also as the stranger had foreseen, they were descending through exceptional turbulence, bucking and shuddering as if they were in a big old bus with a couple of bent axles, thundering down a steep and rugged mountain road. Delbaugh had never seen anything like it; even if the plane had been intact, he'd have been concerned about landing in those treacherous crosswinds and powerful rising thermals.

But he could not pull up and go on, hoping for better conditions at another airport or on another pass at this one. They had kept the jumbo jet in the air for thirty-three minutes since the tail-engine explosion.

That was a feat of which they could be proud, but skill and cleverness and intelligence and nerve were not enough to carry them much farther.

Minute by minute, and now second by second, keeping the stricken DC-10 in the air was increasingly like trying to fly a massive rock.