Desert Secrets

Lexi laughed again. “When I first flew here, I arrived at night, then we drove in the rest of the way, so this is my first up-close view of the desert from the air. But I know you make these flights all the time. Does it ever become routine? At least when you’re not rescuing damsels in distress?”

“Routine?” He shook his head. “Hardly. This is the third largest desert in the world after the Arctic and Antarctica. Some might call it barren—and a lot of it is—but I find it fascinating. Have you ever been up in a Cessna before?”

“My grandfather’s a pilot, though he doesn’t fly as much as he used to. I always wanted to take flying lessons myself, but for some reason I’ve never taken the time to learn.”

“It’s never too late.” Colton said. “What does your grandfather fly?”

“He used to have a 1979 Super Viking.”

Colton let out a low whistle. “I flew one of those once. Loved it.”

“He named her Abigail after my grandmother. She—well, both the plane and my grandmother were his pride and joy.”

“I can imagine. At least for the plane, that is.” Colton chuckled. “Single-engine, four seat, high performance. The one I flew handled like a dream.”

“I have a feeling you and my grandfather would hit it off. He’s a veteran with dozen’s of stories to tell. I keep telling him he needs to write them all down.”

“I’d love to hear them sometime—”

The sound of an explosion drowned out their conversation. The entire plane shook and started veering toward the right.

Lexi pressed her hand against the window to hold herself upright. “What in the world just happened?”

He glanced out the window, his own heart hammering as the plane started to dive.

You’ve got to be kidding...

“Colton?” Bret grabbed his shoulder from behind.

“Looks like we’ve been hit,” Colton said.

“What?” He caught the panic in Lexi’s voice as she spoke. “You can’t be serious?”

“Trust me, I wish I wasn’t,” Colton said, managing to pull them out of the dive.

At least for the moment.

“Hit with what?” Bret asked.

“I don’t know, but whoever followed us must have brought some firepower with him.”

“How serious is it?”

“Let’s just say, I’m going to try to keep this bird in the air as long as I can, but eventually I’m going to have to find a place to land. And probably sooner rather than later.”

He picked up the radio to contact his base back in Timbuktu, but all he could hear was static. Whatever hit them must have knocked out the antenna. Glancing out the window again, he saw smoke coming out the side of the plane.

“What do you see down there?” he asked.

“I think there’s a vehicle. Maybe the one that was following us. I don’t know,” Lexi said.

“Whoever’s down there has to have some kind of surface-to-air missile,” Colton fought to keep the plane in the air. He needed to get them as far away as he could from the men on the ground before he brought the aircraft down.

He let out a sharp huff of air. Actually landing the plane could turn out to be least of their worries. If they managed to survive the landing and avoid whoever was after them, they were still going to have to deal with the harsh elements of the terrain below. With its shifting sand dunes, barren plateaus, and limited water and vegetation, most people couldn’t even fathom the actual size and dangers of the desert that engulfed northern Africa. He scanned the horizon. All he could see was the miles and miles of sand that spread out around them. The nearest town was hours away by foot—if they could even find it—and when night fell the soaring temperatures were going to drop.

Colton tried to shove back the worst-case scenarios flooding through his mind in order to deal with the emergency at hand. “I need you both to tighten your seat belts. This is going to get rough.”

Thirty minutes later, the engine sputtered and died. He reacted automatically thanks to hours of practicing emergency scenarios and began planning his approach. Because no matter what happened in the next few seconds, he had to be in control of the aircraft. Full flaps, gears down, wings level...

God, I could really use your help right now.

Colton held his breath, straining to keep his plane just above the stall speed as he dropped in altitude and made his approach. The theory of landing an aircraft on a soft surface was fairly simple. Control the airspeed of the plane so the wings could support the weight of the craft as long as possible, then touch down at a minimum speed with the nose at a high pitch as the wheels made contact with the ground.

Whether or not their actual landing ended up to be that straightforward with a section of the plane hit was going to be a whole other story.

THREE (#ulink_9d8326da-f827-594e-abc6-8f4d1868f2aa)

The impact jolted Colton forward as he touched down the plane, then managed to slide to a stop. Silence engulfed the cabin. His lungs let out a swish of air, but he wasn’t done yet. He needed to get the three of them off the aircraft.

“Are you two okay?” He glanced at Lexi as he undid his seat belt before moving to open the door. Her face had paled, but she nodded. Bret was also clearly shaken, but seemed okay, as well.

He waited for them to disembark, still needing to determine the damage to the aircraft. Frustration simmered to the surface as he made his initial assessment. Inside the cockpit, the radio was dead, which likely meant the instrument panel had been damaged on impact, and they’d lost their only way to communicate. Outside the plane, the damage was just as extensive. Beyond the hole left by the attack, one landing gear plus the nose of the plane had been sheared off. There was no way they were flying out of here.

He joined the others beneath the shadow of the wing, his forehead already beaded with sweat from the heat. He shrugged off his jacket.

“What can I do to help?” Lexi asked.

Colton glanced up at sun that had already begun its descent and ran through his options. There was still a strong chance that his team would be able to find them via the plane’s GPS tracker. But for the moment they were on their own. And from his military experience, he knew firsthand how quickly a situation like this could spiral out of control. If they were going to survive, it was going to take them working together and not panicking.

“It’s going to be dark before long,” he said, quickly taking charge, “which means we need to be prepared to stay here tonight.”

“What about going for help?” Bret asked. “There’s got to be a village nearby. Because if whoever shot us down finds us...”

“That’s an option, but we have no idea how far the nearest village is, and with the sun setting, we don’t have time to find it. At least here with the plane’s emergency rations, we’ve got shelter, food and enough water for the time being. And it’s better than heading out unprepared and getting lost. When my team discovers we didn’t make it to Morocco, they’ll start looking for this plane. And if they can track us via the GPS—”

“If they can track the GPS?” Lexi tugged at the bottom of her T-shirt.

Colton shook his head. “With no way to communicate with them, I can’t be a hundred percent sure they’re getting the signal. But if they are—and I’m assuming they are—we should be in Morocco by tomorrow.”

But if his team wasn’t able to receive the signal and track the plane, he knew that surviving the landing intact had been only one of many hurdles they were liable to face. Because statistically, the odds were against them. The average healthy person exposed fully to the sun in this environment wouldn’t last a day without water, and then there were other dangers, as well—like snakes, scorpions and dust storms that were as unpredictable as they were deadly.

“What do you need me to do?” Bret asked. “I could take a look at the radio. It can’t be much different from one of Noah’s science projects I’ve helped him with over the years.”

“Are you up to it?” Colton asked.

“If it’s a way to get help, I’m up for anything.”

“Just remember, both of you, that with the temperatures as high as they are, we need to conserve both our energy and our water, and stay out of the direct sun as much as possible. Covering your heads and the back of your necks will help, as well.”