Skyhammer Read Free Page A

answered each call-out tersely and exactly as required. They were closing in on the surface of the storm. Boyd reached
     up to flip on the landing lights. The twin beams, rotating forward from beneath the wingtips, showed ragged wisps of cloud
     rushing at them from the darkness. Turbulence began to jiggle the airframe. Boyd reached up again and switched on the seatbelt
     signs, then activated the ship’s anti-icing systems.
    “Passing eighteen,” Pate said. “Niner five seven set.”
    Boyd reset his own altimeters to local field pressure. A moment later they were into the top of the storm. Instantly the windshield
     went blank, then ignited with millions of tiny ice pellets flying at them like sparks in the glare of the landing lights.
     The plane bucked upward and settled again. Boyd tuned the navigation radios and brought up the volume levers to ID the instrument
     landing system for Runway 5-right. Then he checked the panel again. They were just forty-one miles from the airport, a little
     high still for the distance. He knew MD-80’s were fair gliders, descending slowly even in idle. But they had room; they’d
     make it down in time.
    Except now Pate was advancing the throttle, adding more power to the left engine. Boyd gaped at him.
    “What the hell are you doing?”
    Pate didn’t answer, didn’t even turn his head.
    “We need to get down!” Boyd shouted, reaching out to tap the face of his altimeter.
    “We need sixty-five percent,” Pate answered now. “For single-engine de-icing. Check the book.”
    For a second Boyd didn’t understand. Then he knew what Pate meant. The anti-icing systems needed plenty of hot, compressed
     air, but now there was only one engine to supply it. And the outside temperature gauge was registering minus two degrees Celsius—prime
     condition for icing. Boyd unclipped his penlight from his shirt pocket and shined its narrow beam through the windscreen.
     Nearly an inch of white rime had collected on the wiper post. Without enough heat, more rime would build up on the leading
     edges, adding weight and drag, altering the critical shape of the airfoils. Pate was right. They would have to keep the power
     up to the left engine.
    But how would they get down in time? “We’re only thirty-eight miles out,” Boyd said. “You want a vector, to give us more spacing?”
    Pate shook his head sharply, irritated. “Negative. We’ll get down just fine.”
    “How?” Boyd demanded.
    Pate didn’t answer, and wouldn’t—unless he ordered it? Boyd wanted to, but what if Pate knew something else he didn’t? He
     wouldn’t risk looking stupid again, Boyd decided. But what
was
Pate up to?
    His headset crackled. Indianapolis was calling, handing them off to Cleveland approach. The Cleveland controller responded
     immediately, assigning them another heading and altitude, cutting the corner to shorten the distance to the airport. They
     were still above ten thousand now, only thirty miles from the runway, and Pate was bringing the nose up to slow down to the
     mandatory speed limit. Boyd checked the glide slope indicator. The marker was at the bottom of the scale, the plane well above
     the normal descent path. If they kept to this trajectory they would miss the approach, overshoot and have to go around. Couldn’t
     Pate see that?
    “You want some speed brakes?”
    “Who’s flying this thing?” Pate answered instantly, shooting him a sideways look, as if Boyd were merely an annoyance.
    Until that moment, Boyd had still felt in command of the plane. But now it seemed Pate had taken charge. “Who’s the captain
     of this thing?” Boyd shouted back at him.
    This time Pate looked straight at him. “You want it,
captain
?”
    Boyd knew he wasn’t bluffing. Pate would give up the yoke without hesitation, if Boyd so ordered. The plane rose and fell,
     then pitched to one side as a draft caught it. The airframe creaked and groaned. Such battering would only get worse as they
     neared the