Read Online Tears of a Dragon by Bryan Davis - Free Book Online

learning about their new world, voraciously reading every book from Sense and Sensibility to Superman and enthusiastically engaging in every new activity from hot-air balloons to hopscotch. Fifteen centuries inside the crystalline prison had stirred up an insatiable appetite for knowledge.
    Marilyn’s voice sounded from the cockpit. “Now take us down a hundred feet.”
    Bonnie swung her head around. As rain pelted the windshield, Billy’s mom pointed at a gauge on the panel. Ashley nodded, her headset and extended microphone bouncing up and down as she pushed the control yoke. “Is that smooth enough?”
    Marilyn, a matching headset pressing down her shoulder-length brown hair, hovered her hands over her own control yoke, allowing it to shift along with Ashley’s maneuver. “Perfect. I should’ve known you’d learn fast. You could probably fly this bird already.” She pressed a button on a colorful screen in the middle of the dashboard. “The only thing I haven’t taught you is how to use the GPS, but you can see the airstrip on the map. It won’t be long now.”
    Karen’s red head bobbed up from behind the pilot’s seat, her face tinted green. “Thank God!” She sat back and tightened her seatbelt. “Let’s get this bucking bronco on the ground before I run out of barf bags.”
    Sir Patrick unbuckled his seatbelt and grasped Karen’s seat. He ripped open a small foil pouch, took out a pill, and reached it forward. “Better take another one,” he said softly.
    As Karen took the pill with a swig of water, Patrick glanced at Shiloh and Bonnie. He smiled, the crow’s-feet around his eyes more pronounced than Bonnie remembered. When they met in England, he seemed heartier, livelier.
    Patrick locked his gaze on Shiloh, his eyes adoring. After losing his daughter for forty years, it seemed that he wanted to drink in every second of her presence. He patted Karen on the shoulder and leaned back in his seat.
    Marilyn gave one of the gauges a light tap on its glass surface. “Now take a peek at the altimeter every few seconds while we’re descending and I’ll show you—”
    A flash of light zoomed past the right side of the plane, too fast to tell what it was. The plane suddenly rocked to the left, tipping its wing nearly straight up. Marilyn snatched her yoke and corrected, throwing Merlin II to the right, then back to the left again before stabilizing.
    Marilyn barked into her microphone. “Security breach? What are you talking about?”
    Ashley pressed her hands over the headset earpieces. “Restricted airspace? How could we be in restricted airspace?”
    Bonnie leaned forward. It was torture not knowing what the two pilots were hearing.
    Marilyn gripped the control yoke with both hands and shouted, “This is Cesna N885PE calling Elkins/Randolph County air control. We are not in restricted airspace. We’re over the West Virginia mountains, for crying out loud! Call off the escort jet!”
    Marilyn banked the plane hard to the left. Bonnie felt her body press against the seat as if she had gained fifty pounds.
    Marilyn’s face twisted with anger. “We will not proceed to Elkins airport or any other airport!”
    Ashley kept her hands over her ears, her eyes growing wider.
    Marilyn’s eyebrows shot upward. “Shoot us down! Are you nuts? We’re not commercial or military, and there are children on board!”
    Marilyn nodded several times, then sighed. “Two miles south of Elkins, runway thirty-two, fourteen. Roger. I copy.” She threw off her headset. “This can’t be for real! Someone’s after Bonnie. I’m sure of it.”
    Ashley spun around. “Karen! Fire up the handheld and send Larry our coordinates! Maybe he can figure out a way to confuse the jets.”
    Karen, holding her fingers over her puckered lips, rummaged through a duffle bag behind the pilot’s seat. She gasped. “Busting . . . into radar systems . . . might take a while.” She withdrew Ashley’s palmtop computer from the bag.