instruments and no visibility, they were flying blind. The pilot and copilot fought to regain control of the aircraft.
Fifteen hundred feet above the ground, the pilots managed to pull the nose back up and slow their descent. But with no thrust from the remaining engine, they were still falling. They had to find someplace to land.
Peering through the weather, the pilot could see they were flying over a dense forest. Ahead was a clearing of some sort. It might have been a field or a frozen lake. All he could tell was that it appeared to be devoid of trees.
“There,” the pilot said.
“There’s not enough length. It’s too short.”
“That’s where we’re landing,” the pilot insisted. “Extend the landing gear. Prepare for impact.”
The copilot obeyed and engaged the emergency landing gear extension system. With no electricity with which to activate the PA, he turned and shouted back into the cabin, “Brace! Brace! Brace!”
The command was acknowledged by the loadmaster, who then yelled over and over in Russian from his seat, “Heads down! Stay down! Heads down! Stay down!”
Only a few hundred feet above the ground, the pilot pulled back on the yoke to lift the aircraft’s nose in an attempt to slow it down, but he misjudged the distance.
The belly of the plane scraped across the tops of the tall snow-laden trees. The left landing gear was snapped off, followed by the right.
Just before the clearing, one of the wingtips was clipped, and the plane went into a violent roll.
CHAPTER 2
* * *
* * *
GOVERNORS ISLAND
LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE
GILFORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Police Chief Tom Tullis had seen plenty of dead bodies over his career.
But this was a record for him at a single crime scene.
During the height of the summer, the popular resort town of Gilford could swell to as many as twenty thousand inhabitants. Off-season, like now, the number of full-time residents was only seventy-three hundred. Either way, four corpses were four too many.
Pulling out his cell phone, the tall, crew-cut-sporting cop texted his wife. They were supposed to meet for lunch. That was impossible now. He told her not to expect him for dinner either. It was going to be a late night.
Returning the phone to his duty belt, he focused on the bodies—two men and two women. They had all been shot, either in the head, the chest, or both. Judging from a quick scan of the walls and windows, no rounds had missed their targets. That told him the shooter was skilled.
Interestingly, three of the four victims were armed. One of the women had a Sig Sauer P365 in her purse, the other a Glock 17 in her briefcase. One of the two men carried a Heckler & Koch pistol at his hip. No one had drawn their weapons. That told Tullis something else. Either the victims had known their killer, or they had all been taken by surprise. Considering who the victims were, he doubted it was the latter.
The woman with the Sig Sauer had credentials identifying her as a former Boston Police Detective, eligible to carry concealed nationwide. The woman with the Glock had no such credentials, but in the “Live Free or Die” state of New Hampshire it was legal to carry without a permit. Not that she would ever have had trouble getting one.
Seeing the name on her driver’s license, Tullis had instantly recognized her. She had made a lot of headlines when the President had elevated her to Deputy Director of the CIA.
The gun-carrying male victim had ID that claimed he was an active military member. United States Navy.
What the hell were they all doing here? the Chief wondered. And who had killed them?
He suspected the key might lie with the final victim.
Just off the dining room, facing a large TV, a hospital bed had been set up in the den. In it, shot once between the eyes, was a man who appeared to be somewhere in his eighties. He was the only victim Tullis and his team hadn’t yet identified. The Chief had some decisions to make.
Judging from the postmortem lividity of the bodies, they had been dead for at least two days, maybe more. The killer’s trail would already be going cold.
As a seasoned law enforcement officer, Tullis knew the importance of doing everything by the book. He needed to secure not only the house but also the grounds.
Going the extra step, he decided to shut down the lone bridge that connected the 504-acre Governors Island to the mainland and to request Marine