3:32
The story opens with an explosion of a passenger jet at 30,000 feet. The Prologue is by an unknown person, who disappears. Farrell begins with one of the main characters. He writes, “Charlie Radford was working late again and ignored the vibrating phone in his pocket—which he knew was his wife, Wendy, texting him—so he could keep flying the simulator. He needed to get this report exactly right, even if every additional minute made his wife worry and fret. Radford flew the simulated plane around again, this time lowering a notch of flaps as he came abeam the end of the simulated runway. He cut the throttle, and the propellor slowed as he banked the port wing toward a narrow grass field, carved from a stand of Tennessee pine and hemlock” (27).