LITMIR.BIZ

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      Maddie continued on, forced to her hands and knees to avoid the smoke and the bits of broken glass and plastic shooting through the air. She couldn’t see Paul. Whatever they’d crashed into struck the rear of the aircraft. What would she find there? Was it a matter of moments before she was killed? Before they all slammed into the mountains and died?

      She swallowed hard, her mouth dry, tongue coated with a bitter metallic taste. Something sharp cut through the knee of her pants. A moment later it seemed as though the crazy movement of the floor had tapered off, the cabin almost leveling out. Using the arm of the chair next to her, she pulled herself to her feet.

      Out of the darkness, a figure emerged. She didn’t recognize Paul at first. His face was bloodied and soot-stained. He scanned the area until he saw her.

      “Maddie.” He grabbed her and pushed her back into her seat.

      “Let me go. I’ve got to get the box.”

      “The plane’s in trouble,” he said. “You need to sit.”

      She fought against his hands. “Let me go, Paul.”

      He took her by the shoulders and pressed her harder into the chair.

      She struggled in his grasp.

      “Stop it, Maddie,” he shouted.

      In the four years they’d been together she’d never heard him raise his voice. The sound shocked her so much she stopped.

      The cabin floor sloped downward suddenly and he almost fell on her lap, landing instead on his knees in the aisle.

      He leaned close. “Listen to me. The pilot has lost control for some reason. He must have managed to level us out. He’s probably trying to land, but we’re headed into the mountains. Do you understand me? If you are going to live through the impact, your best hope is to be buckled up.”

      She stared at him. “I’ve got to save the Berlin Heart.”

      His eyes were the same pearl-gray as the soot that clung to his forehead. “It’s safer where it is, instead of flying all over the cabin.” He turned to Jaden. “Are you injured?”

      Jaden shook his head, face expressionless.

      A whine rose above the other noises. With a sharp crack, the window fractured and pulled loose. Paul shielded her body with his.

      With her cheek pressed to his chest she could feel the racing of his heart, hear his sharp intake of breath as the glass cut into him from behind. He pulled away.

      She searched his face. “Are you hurt?”

      He ignored the question, bending over to buckle the seat belt around her waist. His voice was quieter now. “Please stay here, Maddie. I’m going to see if I can help Dr. Wrigley.”

      Through the hole where the window had been, freezing air barreled in. Alternate streaks of white and green flashed by, pine trees against a blanket of snow. Close. Too close.

      She did not fight any more. “I’ll do it, but only if you stay here, too.”

      He gave her a quizzical look. Then he rubbed a hand across his face, smearing the soot into oozy spirals. Without a word, he moved to take the seat behind her, but before he did he pulled a blanket loose and tucked it around her, giving her a corner to hold. “Protect your face from any flying glass.”

      The blanket smelled of singed plastic, but she huddled behind it anyway, thinking she must be in the grip of a powerful nightmare. It could not be true that she was sitting in a crashing plane, and the device that would save her father’s life was going down with it. Not now, not when she had a chance to fix things.

      She eased the blanket aside and peeked behind her at Paul, eyes closed, lips moving.

      He was praying to a God she used to know, a God that let little children die in pain and adults live in agony.

      The pain swirled inside her with vicious intensity. She wished in that moment she still had someone to pray to, to help her with the fear that choked the breath out of her.

      When Paul was done, he opened his eyes and looked out the window. “It won’t be long now,” he said.

      He didn’t look scared, only perplexed, as if he wondered how he came to be aboard a crashing plane. Absently, he patted the pocket of his coat.

      “What are you looking for?”

      He started, then grinned. “Candy.”

      She knew he’d given up smoking at age nineteen and developed a ferocious candy habit, encouraged by long nights eating out of vending machines at the hospital. The gesture brought tears to her eyes for a reason she couldn’t understand. “Paul, are we going to die?”

      His expression was one of myriad emotions, probably the same ones he showed to families when there was no hope to give, no comfort left to offer. He pushed his hand through the gap between the chairs and squeezed her hand. “We’ll make it.”

      She was grateful for the lie.

      Paul watched as the ground loomed closer with every passing moment. The smoke that filled the cabin made it impossible to see Dr. Wrigley or Maddie’s seatmate as they careened on. He couldn’t hear anything over the deafening roar of the dying aircraft.

      They were low enough now that the trees slapped and crunched under the belly of the plane. He suspected the pilot was either unconscious or disabled. Paul wished for a crazy moment that he had the arsenal of skills of the ex-marine in the novel. He could take over the controls and find a flat spot to land. The galling reality was, he was powerless to do anything. He had no idea how to fly a plane, and the cockpit doors were reinforced against any kind of breach, and if two experienced pilots couldn’t land it, neither could he.

      Another window ripped free and hurtled through the cabin behind them. With a wild swing of his arm, he batted it away from Maddie. She was huddled under the blanket. He was glad. Better for her not to see the mountain rushing up at them.

      Ironically, he remembered the last airplane-crash victim he’d treated. It was a nine-month-old baby who survived the horror with only a slight scratch on her cheek. Rescuers named her Sunny, since she greeted them in the midst of the smoke and fire with a tiny-toothed smile.

      Her parents hadn’t been so lucky.

      He considered trying to free his cell and call someone to alert them of their location, but he didn’t think he could hold the phone steady against the vicious tremors of the plane.

      The wing struck a projection of rock and spun around, cartwheeling them into dizzying circles. The whirling dislodged cushions and broken equipment, hurling them around the cabin. Metal gave way and a fissure ripped through the roof, raining a mixture of hot steel and freezing snow down on them.

      Maddie screamed.

      He shouted to her, but the din covered his words. The only thing he could do was grip her shoulder around the side of the seat and ask God to spare her.

      She’d been through enough.

      Her father had, too, and Paul knew Berlin Heart or no Berlin Heart, Bruce Lambert wouldn’t survive the death of his daughter.

      The plane flipped and rolled. Paul heard the sound of shearing metal and he hoped the seats were not ripping loose from the floor. Another crack appeared in the ceiling. The aircraft was beginning to break apart.

      “Paul!” Maddie screamed. “We’re—”

      Her words were snatched away in the wind.

      The whine of the engines stopped abruptly. His stomach fell as the plane began a steep dive to the ground. He held on to her until the turbulence tore them apart. The grinding of metal sounded from under their feet and Paul watched in horror as Maddie’s seat began to shudder from its moorings.

      He tried to unbuckle himself to grab at her chair, to somehow keep her anchored to him

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