Chapter 5 - The Saboteur's Signature
Below the cloud layer, the dark, jagged coastline of Northern California rushed up to meet them.
Rain lashed against the soot-streaked cockpit glass. Half a mile ahead, jutting out onto a narrow, wind-swept peninsula, lay the abandoned runway of Point Reyes. It looked terrifyingly small—a grey ribbon of overgrown concrete surrounded by jagged black rocks and crashing white sea foam.
"Altimeter sixteen hundred feet," Audrey called out, her instincts as an aviation executive finally kicking in. "Airspeed one hundred eighty knots. You're high on the glide slope!"
"I'm keeping us high on purpose," Travis said, his eyes scanning the pitch-black landing strip. "Without hydraulic power, I only get one shot at dropping the landing gear using the manual gravity-fall extension. If I drop them too early, the drag will pull us into the ocean. If I drop them too late, we belly-flop onto the rocks."
"Travis..." Audrey hesitated, her voice trembling slightly. "What you said about Bryce... he told the board you resigned to take a private sector job overseas."
Travis let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Bryce lied to protect the stock price. Six years ago, I discovered that the automated flight-control software developed by his primary contractor contained a backdoor port. It allowed remote telemetry modification during flight testing."
"Why would anyone build a backdoor into a flight-control system?"
"Because if you can modify flight data remotely, you can make a failing prototype look like a masterpiece during investor demonstrations," Travis explained, adjusting his glide path against a heavy crosswind ripping off the ocean. "And more importantly—if you control the backdoor, you can disable an aircraft whenever it suits you."
Audrey felt a cold ball of dread settle in her stomach. Langford Aeronautics was currently in the middle of a three-billion-dollar acquisition deal with an international defense coalition. If the Asterion 900 failed its demonstration today, control of the company would automatically revert to its minority shareholders—a hedge fund led by Bryce Callaway's silent investment group.
It wasn't just sabotage. It was a corporate hostile takeover executed with military-grade precision.
"They didn't just want to ruin the demonstration," Audrey realized, her knuckles white as she gripped the jumpseat. "They wanted me dead. If I died in a prototype crash caused by 'pilot error,' Bryce would take over the company without a single vote from the board."
"Now you're catching on," Travis said grimly. "Eight hundred feet! Reaching for the emergency gear handle!"
Travis reached down to the floorboards, pulled a heavy red mechanical lever, and yanked it upward with all his strength.
A loud, metallic clunk echoed through the airframe as the main gear doors unlatched. The heavy steel landing gear swung down into the slipstream, locking into place with a shuddering thud that instantly dragged their airspeed down to one hundred forty knots.
"Gear down and locked!" Travis yelled. "No flaps! We're coming in fast and heavy!"
The overgrown runway was directly in front of them now. Thick patches of weeds and cracks filled with rainwater crisscrossed the concrete.
The wind off the ocean slammed into the side of the glided jet, pushing them off the centerline toward a line of rusted radar towers.
Travis fought the yoke with his forearms, straining against the unassisted flight controls. "Brace for impact! Protect your head!"
The Asterion 900 cleared the coastal rocks by less than ten feet.
The main tires slammed onto the cracked concrete of Point Reyes with a deafening screech of rubber and metal, bouncing violently into the air before hitting the ground a second time.
Without thrust reversers or functional anti-lock brakes, Travis stomped on the manual emergency wheel brakes.
Sparks erupted from the landing gear bays as the tires locked up and blew out. The jet skidded sideways down the wet runway, spinning a full one hundred and eighty degrees as its left wingtip clipped a rusted light pole, shearing off the outer fuel tank in a spray of sparks and metal.
The aircraft finally slid to a halt at the very edge of the cliffside embankment, its nose cone hanging three feet out over the dark, crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean below.
Silence returned to the cockpit.
Travis sat back in his seat, chest heaving, his hands slowly unclenching from the yoke.
Beside him, Audrey slowly lifted her head, looking out at the vast, grey expanse of the ocean. They were alive.
She looked at Travis, her voice barely a whisper. "What do we do now?"
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Travis unbuckled his harness, reached into his coverall pocket, and pulled out a small, encrypted satellite storage drive he had pulled from the jet's diagnostic compartment before the fire started.
"Now," Travis said, looking her straight in the eye, "we go back to Redwood Airfield and show your board of directors who really owns this company."
