The Pleasures of Winter Read Free Page B

the plane kept descending and pulling to the left. They dropped down into clouds and Jack found himself staring at a sea of white. The clouds muffled even the noise of the engines. If it weren’t for the altimeter’s rapidly changing numbers, everything would have seemed strangely peaceful.
    Jack ran through every swear word he knew, and then stopped bothering while he battled the forces of gravity. His eyes watered from staring through the blanket of white, trying to pick out what was below them.
    There was no doubt they were going to crash. The only question was, would it be a crash they could walk away from?
    Without warning, the white gave way to green. Betweenone blink and the next, they were out of the cloud and flying directly above the canopy of the rainforest. Jack wrestled the controls, trying to keep the plane level until he could spot somewhere to land.
    The trees were directly underneath, so close that he swore a couple of them scraped the bottom of the plane. There was no way he could land. He checked his airspeed. Two hundred miles per hour. They were going to be mincemeat soon.
    To the right, something caught his eye. A gap in the green. He banked the plane, hoping it might be a river. If that pilot could land a plane on the Hudson, he could do it too. God, this was even better than a river. It was a tiny airstrip, undoubtedly cleared by drug runners. He sucked in a breath; he might be able to land the plane.
    He banked further, giving himself a bit of airspace before he began his descent. ‘Buckle up and brace yourselves,’ he yelled into the cabin. ‘We’re going down and it’s going to be a rough landing.’
    He ignored the others as they shouted back at him in alarm. The pilot was a deadweight pressing into his arm as he straightened their flight path for the landing. Jack pressed his shoulder against the man, trying to get at the controls. He eased back on the throttle to reduce the speed, and tried to line up with the airstrip. It was so small it was like threading a needle.
    The ground rushed up at him, faster than he expected. He cursed, trying to keep the nose up.
Wheels are good, deploy the landing gear. Lower flaps, reduce speed, what else?
Too late, he saw that the landing strip had been sabotaged. There was a massive trench across it, guaranteed to crashany plane that tried to land. Frantically, he hauled on the steering column, forcing the plane away from the wheel-trapping trench and into the forest.
    They were still carrying too much speed. Jack slammed on the brakes, but not before they smashed into the wall of green. All he could do was try to steer so that they didn’t collide head-on with one of the giant trees that stretched up to cloud level.
    The jerk of a wing hitting a small tree almost knocked him over, especially when it was followed soon after by another.
So, we’re not flying out of here, then.
He was nearly blinded by the vegetation rushing at the cockpit window.
    They were lucky they hadn’t crashed into anything solid enough to pulverize them. Their speed was dropping and Jack began to hope they might get out of this alive.
    The plane tipped forward, knocking him off his feet and crashing his head into the control panel. Only years of physical training kept him from tumbling straight into the window, which was now the lowest point of the cockpit. From the cabin he heard screams and a yell of pain.
    When Jack got back to his feet, he saw that they had tipped into a gully of some sort. They were near the top of it, and only one broken wing caught on a tree had saved them from plummeting to the bottom.
    Sweating, and ignoring the trickle of blood he could feel down his neck, he forced his way back into the cabin. The floor was tilted at a dangerous angle, but by grabbing the seat backs, he could make his way along.
    Abbie and Kev were buckled into the seats, both white-faced and panting, but safe. Zeke Bryan was on the ground, clutching his arm and whimpering. His seat