Drone Command

TWENTY-FIVE

The plane skipped like a flat rock on a rippling pond. Seawater sprayed over the windscreen as they jerked against their safety belts. The HondaJet shuddered until it finally came to a halt.

Judy taught Pearce that ditching a plane on smooth water was as likely a survivable event as a crash landing on flat dirt. The trick was to get out fast.

“We’ve got thirty seconds. Go!” Pearce shouted, as he unbuckled the safety straps. He wasn’t sure if that was all the time they had, but he didn’t want to wait around to find out.

Myers quickly popped her safety-strap releases and climbed out of her seat, racing for the exit door. Pearce pointed at the life jacket strapped to the bulkhead, a safety regulation for commercial jets flying over open water.

“Strap that thing on. I’ll grab the raft.” Pearce felt the plane bobbing in the water but didn’t get the sense it was sinking.

Yet.

“Got it,” Myers said, pulling the jacket out of its harness. She tossed one to Pearce then grabbed one for herself.

“Thanks.” He pulled it on as he scrambled for the emergency locker. He yanked it open and found the inflatable raft folded into a solid yellow square.

Myers struggled to pull on her life vest.

“Need help?”

“No, I got it,” Myers said. “But I should’ve paid more attention when the flight attendant was demonstrating it.”

“I thought you were the flight attendant.”

She laughed, snapping the buckles into place. “That’s the other problem.”

Pearce grabbed the raft out of its container and stepped toward the cabin door.

“All set?”

Myers nodded. “Good thing for you I like to swim.”

“May not have to,” Pearce said, patting the heavy yellow rubber. He dropped the uninflated raft at his feet and grabbed the lift handles on the cabin door and raised them. The door swung open easily, the bottom of it still a few inches above the water.

“So far so good,” Myers said.

Pearce grasped the raft’s red inflation handle in one hand and tossed the square out with the other. It splashed in the water several feet away and Pearce tugged on the inflation handle, activating a compressed-air cylinder that instantly inflated the raft. Pearce secured the tether line to the door handle and pulled the raft back close to the door. The plane had already sunk five inches and the raft was now even with the cabin door opening. Water began lapping into the entrance.

“After you, Madame President.”

“Don’t forget to bring the peanuts and sodas,” Myers said, stepping gingerly into the bobbing raft.

Once she was securely in, Pearce leaped in after her and cut the rope with a utility knife provided in the raft kit. He handed her one of the two short paddles and they pushed away as fast as they could from the plane to avoid getting dragged down with it.

The plane remained relatively stable, the nose sinking by degrees as water flooded in. Pearce pulled out his emergency satellite phone and dialed up the air traffic controller at Ishigaki Airport, which was located on a small island about a hundred miles south of his position. The controller informed him that they had been tracking their flight since leaving Narita International Airport and that a JMSDF rescue helicopter was already on its way.

“Now all we have to do is wait,” Pearce said.

Suddenly, Myers was overwhelmed with the magnitude of what had just happened. A Chinese fighter jet had just thrown them out of the sky, nearly killing them. She shuddered violently, as if badly chilled.

Pearce gathered her up in his arms, shielding her from the ocean breeze.

But she wasn’t cold.

“Won’t be long,” he promised.

She nodded, happy to be held in his strong embrace.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Pearce asked.

“And then some. That sonofabitch could’ve killed us.”

“But he didn’t.”

“Thanks to you,” Myers said. “If only that pilot knew he just did us one hell of a favor.”