PART 2 — THE PASSENGER BESIDE HER SON
The cockpit door opened, and Maya Lin knew immediately that something was terribly wrong.
Warning lights pulsed across the instrument panel in frantic shades of amber and red. Rain hammered the windshield hard enough to sound like gravel. Beyond the glass, lightning tore through the clouds, illuminating a sky that seemed to have swallowed every horizon.
Captain Daniel Reeves had both hands locked around the yoke.
Beside him, First Officer Nolan Pierce was switching between displays, his face pale beneath the glow of the instruments.
“Our navigation system is feeding us false data,” Reeves said. “And we’ve lost reliable communication.”
Maya stepped farther into the cockpit.
“Autopilot?”
“Unstable.”
“Backup instruments?”
“Some work. Some don’t.”
She glanced at the altitude.
Thirty-one thousand feet.
The aircraft was still flying.
But the numbers on three different displays disagreed with one another.
Then Maya saw the radar.
