“Autopilot on,” the pilot said, and Eli complied. “Now I’ll set you up on the ILS approach to runway 32 on your navigation radio. The autopilot will automatically capture the inbound radial and, if we set it up right, will even manage the glide slope. It will cut off automatically below five hundred feet, but we’re gonna take it off sooner and walk you through the last few moments of landing, okay, One?”

“Okay,” Jed said again, realizing how much he must sound like a scared kid.

Eli followed the detailed, step-by-step instructions, and moments later, the plane began a gentle left turn, scaring Jed until he realized it was doing just what it was supposed to do. Slowly the wings leveled, and Jed saw the airport, a sprawling field of crossing runways and taxiways on a peninsula stretching into the mouth of a river that dumped into the bay—the Patuxent River, he assumed from the name. They were lined up dead center on a runway that looked dangerously tiny from this height and distance. He’d been promised ten thousand feet, over a mile and a half, which sounded huge but presently looked like a driveway.

“Two, set the speed bug for one hundred and eighty knots,” the pilot said.

Eli did and the throttles adjusted on their own, slowing them to exactly 180 on the indicator.

“Okay, good. Two, now I want you to put in thirty degrees of flaps and lower the landing gear in that order . . .”

Eli did, and Jed felt like someone had just lassoed the plane with a giant invisible rope.

“You’ll intercept the glide slope in a second, guys. The plane will begin to descend on its own, and it will adjust power to keep the speed at one hundred and eighty knots. Keep your hands on the controls, One, and we will transition to manual on final, okay?”

“Roger,” Jed said, just not willing to say “okay” again.

The plane flew smoothly in a slow descent, the altimeter winding down, the power staying constant, and the runway gratefully growing in both length and width in the windscreen.

“Eighteen hundred feet,” the voice said. “Fifteen . . . At twelve hundred set the speed to one hundred and sixty, Two. . . . Set that now, please.”

Eli did.

The plane slowed.

The runway grew.

“Eight hundred . . . Get ready, One. We’re gonna go off autopilot in a second. Remember what to do?”

“Hold it lined up with the runway, wings level, and when you say, I start pulling slowly back on the yoke.”

“Set speed for one hundred and fifty, Two. Let it settle in then, here we go . . . Okay, autopilot off . . .”

Jed felt little change at first; the beast of metal and electronics followed its angular momentum perfectly. The left wing dipped a bit, and he brought it back up.

“Five hundred feet . . .”