02 Thunder of Heaven: A Joshua Jordan Novel Read Free Page B

It kept traveling due west and eventually fell harmlessly into the Pacific surf, a half mile offshore.
    Three hours later, a group of Navy SEALS and the L.A. bomb squad located the missile and defused it. For some reason, the explosive never detonated.
    The RTS system hadn’t been utilized.

FOUR
    In the Colorado Rockies, Joshua Jordan and his wife, Abigail, had been riding their horses. Earlier that day they had taken the pass that wound through the tall pines and eventually ended at the barn near their log mansion. Now the ride was over, the horses had been stalled, and they were walking in the door of their massive retreat house. Both were wondering when they would hear from their daughter, Deborah, who was soon expected at the Denver airport.
    Joshua migrated to the big family room, with its high-timbered crossbeams, and turned on the Internet television set. Then he took a few steps back and dropped into a cowhide chair. On the end table were pictures from his years in the Air Force, before he’d started his own defense-contracting company. One framed photo showed Joshua and a former president, shaking hands after his successful surveillance flight over Iran. Another showed him with several members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The third, his favorite, showed Abigail back when she practiced law with a D.C. firm; she was heading down the steps of the federal courthouse in Washington after arguing a case to the Court of Appeals — one of many she would win.
    Suddenly, Joshua’s attention was drawn to the ticker scrolling across the bottom of the screen.
    N ORTHERN A IR FLIGHT FROM C HICAGO CRASHES ON TAKEOFF. F EAR NO SURVIVORS . F LIGHTS FROM LAX AND N EW Y ORK TURNED BACK .
    Joshua yelled to Abigail, who dashed into the room. Joshua pointed at the message that was still scrolling.
    A look of panic came over Abigail’s face. “Flight numbers … what flight numbers?”
    “They haven’t given any. What’s Deborah’s flight out of JFK? Where’d you write that down?” Abigail dashed to her study. Joshua was trying to make sense out of it.
    Three flights in three parts of the country. One crashed. Two turned around. This is sounding terribly familiar …

FIVE
Washington, D.C.
    Mike Leaky sat at his desk eating a Cuban sandwich and slurping Mountain Dew from a plastic bottle. He was hitting the Dew because he needed an energy boost. He’d been out late partying the night before.
    His job at the U.S. Geological Survey, National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center, was to analyze weather data, specifically on global warming. Sometimes the endless stats all seemed to blur together. Like today. He chugged more Dew while he reviewed the latest printout in the empty computer room.
    As he studied it, he groaned, “Oh, no, man. No …”
    It seemed clear that he had entered the hundred-year average rather than the one-year average. So he loaded the parameters into his computer once again, this time making sure he was asking for the one-year average. He punched Enter and waited.
    Bored, he decided to wander down to the office of his supervisor, Dr. Henry Smithson. When he got there, Smithson and Ernie, his assistant, were glued to the little Internet television set.
    When Mike started to ask what they were watching, Smithson put his finger to his lips and pointed to the screen. There was footage of the smoking, charred wreckage that had landed in the Chicago neighborhood.
    Smithson said, “This is awful. No facts yet. The NTSB is investigating but isn’t talking. Someone on the ground thought they saw an explosionin the air. Just to make sure, other flights are being cancelled. Know anyone flying today?”
    Mike shook his head.
    “Me neither.”
    Smithson hit the search function on his remote, and on the right-hand column of the screen a series of weblogs and Insta-News articles appeared. All were reporting the same thing. Smithson scrolled down. After fifteen more entries, all nearly identical, one finally