John Nance - Lockout

Are you sure you want to deactivate this account?the screen queried.

He glanced around his small home office, listening carefully to make sure he was alone, before returning his attention to the screen. The connection with an outside Wi-Fi signal he’d hacked into was tenuous but steady, and the server hundreds of miles away in Chicago had no clue it was responding to an unauthorized source.

He highlighted the “Yes” box and hesitated a few seconds over the enter button before pushing it with a smile he couldn’t quite suppress.

There was a small “click” as the screen shifted to black, and a white notification box popped up in the center:

Ironic, he thought to himself as he glanced at the box of personal belongings he’d brought home from the tiny office he’d occupied for years. The item he most prized was a paperweight, a personal gift from Moishe Lavi from many years back. He stared for a minute at the swirls of blue and six-pointed stars. No one ever noticed that the stars had six points instead of five. The fact that the paperweight had always been so blatantly obvious on his desktop, yet still invisible, had amused him throughout the years. Probably because it was just like him: There, but essentially invisible.

He could hear his wife moving around in the kitchen at a distance, and he thought about her worried reaction two days before when he’d announced he was quitting the job he never spoke about. She knew why, of course. It was demeaning for an ex-navy chief to end up pushing a broom. He never complained, but she had been embarrassed that they needed the cash, and he could tell by her worried expression, she was already calculating the impact.

“Did… something happen you’re not telling me about? Were you fired?” she’d asked.

He’d put his hands on her shoulders then. “No, baby! Nothing like that. I just… well, I caught myself cleaning the same hallway twice and realized I was so distracted thinking about how I’d much rather be here with you, I didn’t even realize it.”

“I’m glad, to tell the truth. You’ve been a trooper, but you’re not a janitor.”

“That didn’t matter,” he smiled, kissing her. “I can swab heads with the best of them. No shame in it.”

“How much have we got in the retirement accounts, then?” she’d asked.

“Enough,” he said, mentally toting up the ones he was willing to show her, and the offshore account he wasn’t. “We’ll be great, babe. We’re secure. We’re free !”

Richard Duncan’s attention returned to the laptop and what he had programmed as the last act. He pulled up the internal program he’d written and initiated it, watching with satisfaction as the laptop’s hard drive consumed itself, completely destroying every vestige of data.

An account erased, and a life rebooted , he thought.

When you yank back the curtain on the classic but apocryphal image of an author in “countless” hours of solitary confinement with a laptop, the true story encompasses a writer on a mission leaning on countless people for answers to endless questions and urgent requests for manuscript readings. The convoluted track to finishing LOCKOUT has traversed the same territory, so a lot of thank you’s are in order, beginning with my industrial strength appreciation for everything my wife and fellow author Kathleen Bartholomewdid to help — including use an entire Cabo vacation to tighten the book and weather my pained protests that I couldn’t cut another word! Great appreciation also to Patricia Davenportwho has so ably edited most of my novels over the years, including this one, and to Dave and Bianca Vanderwal, Bill and Katia Robinson, and Shari and Harold Harrisonfor comprehensive help and support for the developing work. Thank you most specifically to fellow author and airline Captain Karlene Petitt(Flight for Control, Flight for Safety, Flight for Survival) for all the technical expertise and connection to many other pilots flying the Airbus A-330. Thank you as well to friend, colleague and fellow military aircraft commander Spence Byrum, and to fellow airline captain, first cousin, and world-class sculptor James J. Nance. And my appreciation to fellow Alaska Airlines Captain Mark Algerfor a valuable 11th hour read. Heartfelt thanks for Arna Robbins, and a sincere thank you as well to Bart Bartholomew, Arthur Ferrara, Curt Epperson,and Doctors Paul Absonand Diana Absonfor giving me precisely what every author needs: unvarnished feedback, not just what I might want to hear, all of which strengthened the story.

And to my new publisher, WildBlue Press, and specifically Steve Jackson and Michael Cordova: Gentlemen, that great line from Bogie in Casablanca applies: “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Orbit

Saving Cascadia

Fire Flight

Skyhook

Headwind

Turbulence

Blackout

The Last Hostage

Medusa’s Child

Pandora’s Clock

Phoenix Rising

Scorpion Strike

Final Approach

Charting the Course (with Kathleen Bartholomew)

Why Hospitals Should Fly

Golden Boy

What Goes Up

On Shaky Ground

Blind Trust

Splash of Colors

For more information about John Nance:

https://www.amazon.com/John-J.-Nance/e/B000API14C

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When a boat and its grisly cargo are found adrift off Fort Lauderdale, the investigation leads to more than “just” murder. In fact, the evidence points to a connection with an “accident” that downed Patriot Airlines Flight 63 in Bermuda with fatal consequences for all on board.

As head of the pilots’ union, Captain Hart Lindy will find himself reluctantly drawn into the National Transportation Safety Board’s inquiry only to discover that someone is going to great lengths that include murder and kidnapping to prevent the facts from being exposed. But who? And why?

These are the dangerous questions Lindy will need to answer in order to get at the truth about what really happened to Flight 63. His task is complicated by his own personal demons, including the horrors of past airline crash investigations, as well as having to walk a diplomatic tightrope with an eccentric FBI special agent who is barely tolerating NTSB protocol, and an ambitious female NTSB investigator with eyes for Hart.

Written by veteran airline pilot and aviation analyst, Les Abend, PAPER WINGS will keep you up in the air and on the edge of your seat in first class. You’ll want to keep your belts fastened while in flight!