Apocalypse Read Free Page A

Even the giant Boeing 747s weren’t immune to such volatile events . . .
    MacDonald’s train of thought slowed as he glanced at the magnetic compass on the instrument panel before him. Moments before it had been pointing rock steady at two-seven-zero degrees,
dead west. Now, it was swinging gently between two-five-zero and three-zero-zero, as though unsure of itself.
    ‘You got a heading?’ he asked Sarah.
    She glanced at her own instruments and shook her head. ‘Damn, no. Gyro’s out.’
    ‘Mine too.’
    MacDonald glanced at the GPS screen used by pilots as a backup to traditional compasses, useful when dealing with multiple issues and in need of a quick position fix. But this time there was
nothing to see. The screen was blank but for the No Signal message blinking urgently at them.
    ‘The hell’s going on?’ Sarah muttered, tapping the screen and pressing the reset button. The screen remained blank.
    MacDonald keyed his radio-transmit button.
    ‘Bimini, November two-seven-six-four-charlie, radio check.’
    A dull hiss of static hummed in their earphones as they exchanged a glance.
    ‘Switch to Miami Approach,’ MacDonald instructed Sarah, who dialed in the international airport’s radio frequency.
    MacDonald tried again, twice, but heard only static in response.
    ‘This isn’t good,’ Sarah murmured, looking at her instruments.
    ‘We’re not in trouble yet,’ MacDonald soothed her. He gestured ahead out of the windscreen toward the sun hovering low over the horizon. ‘Keep the sun on the nose. That
way we’ll still be heading due west and should pick up the coast soon enough.’
    Sarah offered him an embarrassed smile.
    ‘Good idea,’ she said. ‘I should have thought of that.’
    MacDonald didn’t reply, instead watching as his magnetic compass began spinning ever more wildly. The secondary instruments were also beginning to lose cohesion as though tugged by unseen
forces. A dread began to settle on his shoulders.
    ‘What was our last known position fix?’ he asked.
    Sarah thought for a moment. MacDonald waited for her to figure the math in her head, and tried to be patient.
    ‘Twenty-six nautical miles due east of Bimini South.’ MacDonald was making rapid mental calculations when Sarah spoke again. ‘Oh hell, we’re headed into cloud.’
    MacDonald looked up out of the windshield to see a mass of cloud ahead of them, materializing as though out of thin air. His brain struggled to resolve what he was seeing, and he realized that
the towering cumulonimbus clouds on the horizon must have concealed the cloud bank directly in their flight path.
    ‘Altitude!’ he snapped as he reached down to slam the throttles wide open. ‘Get above the clouds and keep the sun in sight!’
    Sarah eased back on the control column and the Grumman Mallard climbed upward again. MacDonald looked back at his instruments and saw that the artificial horizon was now spinning crazily. The
most vital of all instruments. Without it they would be doomed if they flew into the cloud.
    He stared out of the windshield as a swirling vortex of dense cloud raced past the aircraft, the sunlight that had beamed into the cockpit beginning to flicker and fade.
    ‘Keep climbing!’ he shouted at Sarah. ‘Keep the sun in front of us!’
    ‘Maybe we should turn back!’
    MacDonald hesitated for a brief moment before shaking his head.
    ‘We’re more likely to find the Florida coast than Bimini, even though the island’s closer. Keep climbing!’
    MacDonald peered forward to search for the orb of the sun and felt his bowels clench as he realized that he could no longer see it. He searched desperately for the horizon as the cloud thickened
around them, tinged with a weird green glow like nothing he’d ever seen before. A blue haze enveloped the wingtips and the nose of the aircraft, shimmering like an electrified sparkler
. St
Elmo’s Fire.
He recognized the bizarre effect once feared by sailors in storms –