Blank, that is, except for a single plane.
They had lost radio contact some minutes ago and though they kept trying to re-establish it, it was quite clear that they weren't going to succeed. The sensible thing for them to do now was to leave the exposed environment of the control tower and find some sort of shelter from the hurricane. But while none of them said it out loud, they all felt that to do so would somehow be to abandon that doomed flight and its passengers. It was the least they could do to see it through to the end.
Jack Simpson simply couldn't take his eyes off the screen. Like all of them, he had heard the terrified voice of the kid who had taken control of the aircraft. Terrified but somehow brave — Jack wondered if he would have had the same kind of guts in that situation. He suspected not. Now, however, all they could do was watch and wait. If the plane continued on its current course, it would crash-land somewhere in the Everglades National Park, an unpopulated area that was no doubt deserted by now because of the evacuation.
But the Everglades was also where the hurricane was heading. They might be feeling the edges of it here in Miami — and heaven knows that was bad enough — but the plane was much nearer the centre. Those passengers were going to be lucky to be alive even if they survived the impact.
Under ordinary circumstances, a whole fleet of rescue aircraft would be on standby to rush to the crash site. But these circumstances were far from ordinary. There was no way any aircraft — choppers or planes — would be able to risk flying in those circumstances. If they did, they would surely end up in the same state as the passengers on flight GXR1689.
They would end up dead.
And so there was nothing to do but leave the aircraft to its fate. Jack wanted to howl in frustration at his powerlessness. He wanted to shake his bosses and the military commanders who had decided not to engage their troops in a dangerous search and rescue mission. It was the twenty-first century, he wanted to shout. Surely something could be done.
Deep down, however, he knew that nothing could be. He knew that sometimes men simply couldn't battle against the extremes of nature. In a fight like that, there would only be one winner.
No. They would all have to wait until the hurricane passed. The storm that had just hit land was worse than anything anybody had seen in their lifetime. There would be casualties and devastation all around the southern tip of Florida. It would be shown on TV for weeks, even months afterwards. But none of it, Jack knew, would touch him as deeply as the scene that he knew was going to happen. None of it would be as bad as the pictures of a shattered plane and the burned, dismembered corpses among its wreckage. Because somewhere deep within him, Jack felt that he should have been able to do something. He should have been more in control. He should have been able to help.
Everyone in the control room gasped, Jack included. He felt his skin tingle and go cold as he blinked at the screen. The plane had disappeared, and they all knew what that meant.
Impact.
There was an instant of stunned silence. And then Jack's boss shattered the nightmare moment. 'OK, guys,' he shouted. 'Show's over. There was nothing more any of you could have done. Your priority's to get out of here and to a place of shelter. There's a bus waiting to take you off the airport grounds. Get a move on! Go!'
Everyone scrambled for the door. Everyone, that is, except Jack. He found himself rooted to the spot, staring at the blank screen.
His boss came up beside him. 'You couldn't have done anything, Jack,' he said quietly. 'No one could have predicted what just happened. This isn't down to you.'
Jack took a deep breath. He knew that what his boss was saying was right, but somehow that didn't make him feel much better.
It was with a heavy heart that he turned his back on the screen, left the control tower and prepared to face the storm himself.
Chapter Seven
The plane wobbled dramatically. It felt like a futile gesture, but Ben tugged at the control stick to get them straight.
Fifty metres up. The road appeared in the middle of his sights, but it was touch and go.
Twenty-five metres. The plane was speeding. Too fast. Far too fast.
'Hold on!' Ben shouted. They were about to hit the ground. 'HOLD ON!'
It was only as they touched down that Ben realized he hadn't put the landing wheels down — not that he'd have known how to do it even if he'd remembered. The fuselage crunched horribly against the ground. The noise was deafening, and Ben felt a vicious shock as his body jolted fiercely. The plane bounded into the air, spinning 180 degrees as it did so before coming to land again. Ben's hands flew away from the control stick; everything in front of him became nothing but an awful, dizzy blur. It was out of his control now.
This is it, he thought to himself. We can't possibly survive a crash like this.
As that thought ran through his mind, the plane bounced again. Something flew up to the windscreen: it cracked and shattered. Suddenly the noise doubled before the plane bounced a third time. It was still spinning — any second now, Ben thought, and they would be plunged into the marshland on either side of the road. He closed his eyes, bent over, braced his head in his arms and prepared himself for the worst.
The noise continued to thunder in his ears.
They were going to die. There was no way they could survive this. They'd be crushed or drowned, or both. It was going to happen.
Any moment now. It was going to happen…
But it didn't.
It took a full minute for the aircraft to come to a halt, a full minute for the roaring of the crash landing to stop, replaced by the sound of the high winds howling through the shattered screen. Ben was shaking with fear, his breath coming in short, sharp, desperate bursts. When he dared gradually to look up, his whole body aching from the impact, he couldn't quite believe that he was still alive.
He stayed perfectly still, dumbfounded.
'You OK, Ben?' a voice croaked from beside him.
Ben looked over. Danny's face was drawn and shocked. His nose was bleeding and there was a nasty-looking cut on his forehead. But he looked like he was in one piece. 'Yeah,' Ben replied. 'I think so.' He allowed himself a rueful smile. 'Just as long as they don't make me pay for the damage.'
'I think they're more likely to give you a medal, Ben,' Danny said quietly. 'I don't know how you managed that.'
Me neither, Ben thought to himself. But for the moment he was happy to accept the praise. 'We should go and see how the others are,' he said. 'I reckon everyone was bumped around pretty hard back there — could be some casualties.'
Danny nodded and they both started to unbuckle themselves. Ben had barely stood up, however, before he heard the shouting from the cabin.
'I can smell burning!' someone yelled. 'Quickly! Something's on fire! We have to get off the plane before it blows!'
It was the sparks that had caused it. As the plane had bounced and scraped along the ground, showers of them had erupted on the undercarriage. The final bounce had ripped the metal of the fuselage and as the plane came to a halt, the sparks had showered into the hold. It hadn't taken long for the pallets of luggage to ignite, and only moments later, the whole area was billowing with smoke.
The temperature was rising rapidly. They had very little time before the fuel stores would explode…
The scene in the cabin was now one of utter devastation.