“I’ll try. If I can’t, then I’m going to have to turn us around.”
Byron nodded. “All right.”
“Would you all fasten your seat belts, please?”
The pilot hurried back to the cockpit.
Susan had heard the conversation. She picked up the baby and held her in her arms, suddenly wishing she had not brought her along. I’ve got to tell Byron to have the pilot turn back, she thought.
“Byron—”
They were suddenly in the eye of the storm and the plane began to buck up and down, caught in the gusting winds. The motion began to grow more violent. Rain was smashing against the windows. The storm had closed off all visibility. The passengers felt as though they were riding on a rolling cotton sea.
Byron flicked down the intercom switch. “Where are we, Blake?”
“We’re fifty-five miles northwest of Madrid, over the town of Ávila.”
Byron looked out the window again. “We’ll forget Madrid tonight. Let’s turn around and get the hell out of here.”
“Roger.”
The decision was a fraction of a second too late. As the pilot started to bank the plane, a mountain peak loomed suddenly in front of him. There was no time to avoid the crash. There was a rending tear, and the sky exploded as the plane tore into the side of the mountain, ripping apart, scattering chunks of fuselage and wings along a high plateau.
After the crash there was an unnatural silence that lasted for what seemed an eternity. It was broken by the crackle of flames starting to lick at the undercarriage of the plane.
“Ellen—”
Ellen Scott opened her eyes. She was lying under a tree. Her husband was bending over her, lightly slapping her face. When he saw that she was alive, he said, “Thank God.”
Ellen sat up, dizzy, her head throbbing, every muscle in her body aching. She looked around at the obscene pieces of wreckage that had once been an airplane filled with human bodies, and shuddered.
“The others?” she asked hoarsely.
“They’re dead.”
She stared at her husband. “Oh, my God! No!”
He nodded, his face tight with grief. “Byron, Susan, the baby, the pilots, everyone.”
Ellen Scott closed her eyes again and said a silent prayer. Why were Milo and I spared? she wondered. It was hard to think clearly. We have to go down and get help. But it’s too late. They’re all dead. It was impossible to believe. They had been so full of life just a few minutes before.
“Can you stand up?”
“I—I think so.”
Milo helped his wife to her feet. There was a surge of sickening dizziness, and she stood there, waiting for it to pass.
Milo turned to look at the plane. Flames were beginning to get higher. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “The damned thing is going to blow up any second.”
They quietly moved away and watched it burn. A moment later, there was an explosion as the gas tanks blew apart and the plane was engulfed in flames.
“It’s a miracle we’re alive,” Milo said.
Ellen looked at the burning plane. Something was nagging at the edges of her mind, but she was having trouble thinking clearly. Something about Scott Industries. And then suddenly she knew.
“Milo?”
“Yes?” He was not really listening.
“It’s fate.”
The fervor in her voice made him turn. “What?”
“Scott Industries—it belongs to you now.”
“I don’t—”
“Milo, God left it to you.” Her voice was filled with a burning intensity. “All your life you’ve lived in the shadow of your big brother.” She was thinking clearly now, coherently, and she forgot her headache and the pain. The words were tumbling out in a spate that shook her whole body. “You worked for Byron for twenty years, building up the company. You’re as responsible for its success as he is, but did he—did he ever give you credit for it? No. It was always his company, his success, his profits. Well, now you—you finally have a chance to come into your own.”
He looked at her, horrified. “Ellen—their bodies are—how can you even think about—?”
“I know. But we didn’t kill them. It’s our turn, Milo. We’ve finally come into our own. There’s no one alive to claim the company but us. It’s ours! Yours!”