“And have you ever actually tried this before?” Jed asked, cocking a skeptical eyebrow.

Ben shrugged. “Sure, plenty of times.”

“Let me rephrase: how many times have you tried it when it actually worked?”

“Once.”

Wonderful . . .

Jed’s mind went to the innocents on the ground—even if they could time it perfectly to splash the Boeing into the Chesapeake Bay, there were boaters all over the place. And of course, there was the loss of control over the weapon.

Father God, please be with us . . .

Ben stepped out of the galley and took a seat in the forwardmost leather lounger, sitting and crossing his legs at the knees. Jed watched him exhale and close his eyes.

“Ready, Watcher?” Ben asked softly, his voice just a whisper but much louder in Jed’s earpiece a split second later.

“Yeah,” Corbin said, sounding a bit more kidlike now. “What do you want me to do?”

“Get me on the thread of the man who looked out the airplane window on takeoff,” Ben said. “Can you do that?”

“Pop in and I’ll try,” Corbin said.

Jed watched Ben’s lips moving ever so slightly. The Shepherd commander was in the mind space now communicating with Corbin, making the radio irrelevant for the next few minutes. Jed turned and looked forward, through the open cockpit door and out the windscreen as the Boeing jet grew impossibly large ahead. Terry was working twin throttles as they appeared to be on what looked like, at least to Jed, a collision course. Jed had seen pictures and videos of the Navy Blue Angels and Air Force Thunderbird flight demonstration teams with their wingtips only inches apart and their cockpit canopies less than a foot from the jet above—but those were fighter jets and both pilots were coordinating. That thing in front of them was a Boeing airliner and its pilot was definitely not coordinating.

Feeling nauseated, he looked away and headed aft to join Eli and make ready for the terrible, terrible thing that was coming next.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO

TRANSAMERICA FREIGHT BOEING 717 N6677L

LEVEL AT SIXTEEN THOUSAND FEET

NORTHWEST BOUND ON V157

1622 HOURS LOCAL

“Roger, approach. November-six-six-seven-seven-Lima slowing to three-ninety indicated for spacing.”

Captain Nate Wallace glanced over at his copilot, the quiet and always-angry-looking man who was just a few years his junior.

Yep, there’s the scowl.

“They’re slowing us again?” the copilot said, his voice more growl than anything else. The dude was so hot with anger, it seemed to almost make his eyes glow with rage.

“You got a date or something, bro?” Nate asked, pulling the throttles back and watching the speed drop from the already-snaillike four hundred and twenty knots down to three hundred and ninety—which was barely four hundred and fifty miles per hour over ground.

“Something like that,” the copilot grumbled.