Drowning

Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.CLICK HERE TO SIGN UPAlready a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox. For the weasels, Grant and Davis The term last-ditch is used to describe an effort that is made at the end of a long line of failures. It is the final attempt and is not expected to succeed.In aviation, the emergency landing of an aircraft on water is called a ditching. CHAPTER ONEWILL KENT OPENED HIS EYES just in time to see the engine explode.His arm shot up to protect the passenger seated at the window, but his daughter Shannon didn’t seem to notice. The eleven-year-old girl just watched the flames spewing out of the back of the engine’s tail cone and uttered an uneasy whoa.Will sat up straight and looked over the tops of the seats. The emergency exit was two rows up. A flight attendant sat there in a rear-facing jump seat staring at the passengers. He could just make out her name bar. Molly. Will caught her eye.Molly didn’t say a thing. She didn’t have to.The aircraft shook. Panic gripped the cabin as everyone craned for a look out the windows. Flames. Chunks of metal ripping off, flying by.Will leaned over Shannon for a better view. The engine was on fire. Parts of the wing were shredded. Below the plane, crystal-clear turquoise water.Shannon looked to her dad. “Why aren’t we turning back to Honolulu?”Will had been wondering the same thing.In the cockpit, every pilot’s worst nightmare was coming true.“We lost thrust in engine one,” First Officer Kit Callahan radioed to ATC, her voice rising involuntarily as the plane dropped. “And all hydraulic fluid in all three systems.”“Say again, fourteen twenty-one?”The air traffic controller sounded skeptical. Even the captain glanced over to see for himself. Any other day, all this second-guessing would have pissed her off.Not today.Kit triple-checked the ECAM, barely believing the display herself. System failures were listed in order of severity. Level 3 failures, the most crucial, were first, in red. Red filled the screen. Every time she cleared one, another would pop up. All were Level 3. The digital screen looked like it was bleeding out.They’d been airborne for less than two minutes. Engine one was dead. So were the hydraulics. This extended beyond their training. Pilots don’t run situations like this in the simulator.There’d be no point.“Fourteen twenty-one, ah, did you say all three? All three hydraulic—”“Goddamn it, dead stick!” Captain Miller said.No hydraulic fluid. No hydraulic power.The plane was dead in the air.Green. Blue. Yellow. The aircraft’s three hydraulic lines. Two layers of redundancy in case of a system failure. It’s that important. The display should have shown three green lines at 3,000 PSI. Kit was looking at three amber lines with 0 PSI. Her best guess was that when the engine blew, fragments of metal sprayed like buckshot through the hydraulic lines and drained the fluid. Any moving component on the aircraft—ailerons, flaps, spoilers, rudder—everything that let them fly the plane, had frozen in place.The pilots couldn’t command the Airbus A321 to do anything. They had no control.“We can’t turn back,” Kit told the controller. “Requesting an alternate in front of us.”Will ripped open one of the plastic pouches he’d just pulled from the compartments under their seats. He passed it to Shannon.She turned the pouch over, looking at the folded yellow life vest tucked inside.“Are we going to crash?”Several passengers looked at her. She’d voiced their worst fears.“Shannon,” Will said, shifting in his seat to face her. “We’ve lost an engine. I don’t know why we’re not turning back. It may be because we can’t.”Will pulled the vest out and shook it open, slipping it over her head before cradling her face in both his hands.“I know you’re scared. But whatever happens, I’m going to be right here with you.”Will heard a seat belt unbuckle. He waited for the refastening click after the passenger realized there was nowhere to run. Instead came heavy footsteps. He looked up just as a red-faced, middle-aged white guy in a blue polo shirt blew past their row on his way to the back. Angry male voices began to rise in the rear of the plane as the guy in the blue polo shirt yelled at a male flight attendant who was seated in a swing-out jump seat in the center of the aisle.“Sir!” the flight attendant bellowed. “Sit down! Sir!”Suddenly, the plane dropped sharply. Everything went down——blue polo went up.His head smashed into the ceiling. Will turned away as the man slammed back to the floor—just in time to see Molly the flight attendant unbuckle her harness and head for the back of the plane. Another jolt made the plane thrash violently. Molly flew forward. Her head smacked into an armrest, with her chin taking the brunt of it. Crawling on all fours back to her jump seat, Molly strapped herself in while blood trickled from a split lip.Will refocused on Shannon. “Shannon. We stay together. You understand? No matter what. We stay together.”Shannon wasn’t listening to her dad. Will followed her gaze. Blue polo was on his feet again, stumbling back to his seat amid the turbulence, moaning in pain. He held his head while blood poured down his face in thick streaks. As he passed their aisle, the plane dipped. He braced himself, then continued on, leaving behind a bright red handprint stamped on the white overhead bin.Shannon stared unblinkingly at the blood.“We stay together,” she repeated.Molly Hernandez winced as she wiped the blood off her chin with the arm of her uniform sweater. She tried to look calm as she blinked at the