Charon's Landing by Jack Du Brul

Author:Jack Du Brul [Brul, Jack Du]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Action & Adventure, Thrillers, Espionage, General
ISBN: 9780451412119
Google: pSqCw3yLg1MC
Amazon: 0451412117
Publisher: NAL
Published: 1999-01-01T11:00:00+00:00

Over the Atlantic Ocean

Like a blunt-nosed arrow, the shining Boeing 737 sped through twenty-seven thousand feet, its turbofans purring sedately under half their intended strain. The aircraft had been designed as a medium-sized commercial long-haul air carrier, built to ferry more than one hundred people. But this aircraft carried only one passenger in the kind of decadent comfort that hadn’t been seen since the time of the British Raj.

Max Johnston lay sprawled in one of the leather chairs in the cabin’s main salon. Behind him was a galley capable of five-star meals, a conference room with an African stinkwood table, and a private bedroom with an antique Shaker four-poster bolted to the cabin floor. The dresser in the bedroom was Regency in style and predated the aircraft by more than a century, and the silver backing of the mirror above it was so flecked with age that its reflection was like an old photograph. The carpeting throughout the aircraft was a rich maroon pile accenting the tasteful wallpapers and oriental throws that somewhat hid the airliner’s functional outline.

Ostensibly, the aircraft was owned by Petromax Oil and was available to every upper-level executive of the company. However, it was understood that the Boeing was Max Johnston’s private plane, and in the two years since the corporation had purchased it, only Johnston himself had ever used it.

The Scotch in his slack hand was so diluted with melted ice that it looked like urine, and when he took a quick gulping swallow, it tasted as vile. His suit coat lay balled up in the seat next to him, so wrinkled that it would probably be replaced by his valet when he returned to Washington. His shirt was soiled with spilled liquor, and his uncoordinated struggle to pull off his tie had left it knotted tightly inches below his throat. His skin was pale and waxen, dark smudges under his eyes highlighting the pouches that had developed in just the past few sleepless nights. He looked like a hanging victim after being lowered from the gallows.

Johnston heaved himself from the chair and poured his drink into the dip sink of the concealed wet bar. Ignoring the ice bucket, he recharged his glass with a twenty-four-year-old single malt and knocked it back like iced tea. It was his fourth drink in just the two hours since the plane took off from London’s Gatwick Airport. Although he was feeling drunk, his legs unsteady so that he had to brace himself against a television console, his feelings of self-loathing and disgust had not gone away. In fact, they were stronger, clutching deeper into his flesh, taking hold of his very soul.

He collapsed back into his chair, his chin sinking against his chest in a pose of utter defeat and despair. Tonight was the eve of his greatest coup. In several bold moves he was about to launch Petromax Oil into the lofty realm of a supercorporation, in league with the likes of General Motors, Exxon, or IBM, a company whose name and power would be known throughout the world.

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