Read Online Raising Atlantis by Thomas Greanias - Free Book Online

archaeologist are you?”
    “The kind you nice people apparently need,” Conrad said.
    “So now why don’t you tell me—”
    Suddenly a throbbing whine alerted the crew. Lundstrom gripped the controls. The copilot checked his instruments.
    The navigator shouted, “Side winds at two-fifty G have shifted around to eighty G!”
    “Wind sheer,” said Lundstrom, adjusting the yoke. “Damn, she’s stiff. Looks like we found the jet stream.”
    Conrad braced himself against his seat as the plane hit heavy turbulence and the gyros began to wander and go wild.
    “Gyro’s tumbling,” called the navigator.
    Lundstrom shouted, “Give me a celestial fix.”
    The navigator swung to the overhead bubble sextant that protruded out the topside skin of the plane and tried to read their location from the stars. But he shook his head. “Soup’s too thick to extrapolate a reading.”
    “Ever heard of GPS?” Conrad shouted over the din.
    “Useless with the EMP.”
    Electromagnetic pulse? thought Conrad. Those kind of microwaves, generated by small explosions of the nuclear variety, had a tendency to knock out all sophisticated technological gear. That explained why they were flying in such an old crate. What the hell was Yeats doing down there on the ice?
    Conrad said, “What about a goddamn Doppler navigation system?”
    “Negative.”
    “Listen to me, Lundstrom. We have to radio the tower at McMurdo for help. How far away are we?”
    “You don’t get it, Conrad,” said Lundstrom. “We’re not landing at McMurdo. Our designated landing site is elsewhere.”
    “Wherever ‘elsewhere’ is, we’re not going to make it, Lundstrom,” he said. “You’ve got to change course for McMurdo.”
    “Too late,” said Lundstrom. “We passed our point of safe return. We’re committed.”
    “Or should be,” said Conrad, “along with Yeats and your whole sorry bunch in Washington.”
    The navigator shouted, “Headwinds skyrocketing—a hundred knots! Ground speed dropping fast—a hundred fifty knots!”
    The plane’s four engines strained to push against the headwinds. Conrad could feel the resistance in the vibrations in the floor beneath his boots. The turbulence rose through his legs like coils of unbridled energy until his insides seemed to melt. For a dead man he felt very much alive and wanted to stay that way.
    “Keep this up and we’ll be flying backward,” he grumbled.
    “Headwinds a hundred seventy-five knots,” the navigator shouted. “Two hundred! Two twenty-five!”
    Lundstrom paused a moment and apparently considered a new strategy. “Cut and feather numbers one and four.”
    “Copy,” said the engineer, shutting down two engines.
    “Ground speed still dropping,” said the navigator, sounding desperate. “Fuel’s almost spent.”
    Conrad said, “What about an emergency landing on the ice pack?”
    “Possible,” said Lundstrom. “But this is a wheeled bird.
    Not a ski bird.”
    “Belly land her!” Conrad shouted.
    “Negative,” said Lundstrom. “In that stew downstairs we’d probably cream into the side of a berg.”
    Another side wind blast hit them so hard that Conrad thought the plane would tip over on its back and spiral down to the ice. Somehow Lundstrom managed to keep her level.
    “You’ve got to do something,” Conrad shouted. “Jettison the cargo!”
    “General Yeats would sooner jettison us.”
    “Then we have to radio for help.”
    “Negative. We have radio blackout. Radio’s useless.”
    Conrad didn’t believe him. “Bullshit. This is a black ops mission. There’s no goddamn radio blackout. Yeats just wants to keep this quiet.” Conrad slipped behind the radio and tried to put on a headset. But the shaking made it difficult.
    “What do you think you’re doing?” Lundstrom demanded.
    Conrad slipped the headset on. “Calling for help.”
    Conrad heard a click near his ear. But it wasn’t the headset. It was the sliding of a sidearm receiver. He turned to see