Blindside by J. R. Carroll

Author:J. R. Carroll [Carroll, J. R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: FIC031000
ISBN: 9781741152746
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2004-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

17

It had been a long time between flights for Shaun. He’d never particularly relished the experience, which in the past had unfailingly put him in a cold, clammy sweat from take-off to touchdown. Crashing to a fiery death in a plane was the one thing he truly feared. Now, as the pilot gave it full throttle, he found his hands involuntarily clenching on his thighs and his eyes closing. The 767 Airbus reached optimum runway speed and lifted smoothly, and shortly afterwards came the double bump of the undercarriage retracting. Immediately a high-pitched whistling noise coming from the wing jolted his eyes open and made his heart thump. He’d always believed that if a plane were going to crash it would occur shortly after takeoff. That was when things went wrong. Whenever he had read about such disasters that phrase was generally used: shortly after take-off. There were many reasons an accident might happen— jetliners were complex machines with miles of electrical wiring, thousands of moving parts and a large surface area that only needed a single hairline crack somewhere for the whole shebang to break up midair. And that wasn’t even taking into account the possibility of some wild-eyed band of fanatics suddenly announcing they had a change of plans for you.

Shaun didn’t think there was much chance of terrorists targeting a Melbourne-Sydney flight. All the same, you could never completely discount the lone madman. Why, just a few months ago on a flight out of Melbourne . . .

The flight was incident-free, however, and since he had only carry-on luggage Shaun bypassed the carousel and made directly for the Hertz counter. Five minutes of form filling, followed by cash payment (he’d applied for,but not yet received, a MasterCard and Visa) and he had in his possession the keys to a spanking new Ford Falcon Forte with all the trimmings, together with an NRMA roadmap of New South Wales. It felt—and smelt—good sliding in behind the wheel. After familiarising himself with the instrumentation and setting the electric mirrors he switched on the ignition. The car was so silent he thought it hadn’t started,so he tried again and triggered an awful screech from under the hood. It was a warm, sunny Sydney day, so he turned on the air conditioning. Then he put the T-bar in drive and left the airport, following the maze of exit signs. By the time he was on the open road, pointed north, it was after eight o’clock. Even though he had avoided the city, the sprawling suburbs of the greater Sydney area took some getting through, and the freeway system was largely new to him. Eventually he found himself on his way to Newcastle, so he was at least headed in the right direction. All he had to do was stay on Highway 1 until the turn-off to Nambucca Heads.

Earlier he had telephoned Dave Wrigley. During their meeting in the pub Dave had said Leon Turner had retired somewhere on the New South Wales coast.

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