Headwind

by John J. Nance Narrated by John J. Nance

Overview

In Athens, a Boeing 737 noses into the gate, and its crew is suddenly confronted by Greek officials waiting to arrest one of its passengers, a beloved ex-President of the United States, John Harris. Captain Craig Dayton, believing Harris' life is in danger, stages a daring escape by backing the jet away from the gate without clearance and taking off down a vacant runway.

The dilemma for Captain Dayton and his precious cargo is that Peru has signed an Interpol warrant for President Harris' arrest, using the same treaty employed to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The Peruvian government alleges that Harris is personally responsible for a supposed CIA-led strike against a biological weapons factory during his term of office. But the nightmare for Harris - and the U.S. State Department - is this: There is no place to hide, because almost every nation in the world has signed the treaty and every one of them must honor the warrant and give Peru what it wants - a president to humiliate on the international stage.

Captain Dayton flies Harris and his crew on an against-the-clock mission around the world to find a safe haven, while Harris' rumpled and out-gunned lawyer wrestles an international team of legal sharks snapping at their biggest prize yet.

Editorial Reviews

bn.com

The Barnes & Noble Review
As the proclaimed master of the airplane disaster novel, John J. Nance -- the bestselling author of such well-received heart-stoppers as Blackout, Pandora's Clock, and Medusa's Child -- brings his aeronautic expertise to the field of the thriller. In Headwind, he slowly builds a story filled with great political peril and brings it to a shattering, high-flying crescendo.

After a worldwide treaty against torture is signed by nearly every nation on the planet, former U.S. president John Harris learns the hard way that he’s still a political pawn. During his presidency, a CIA-sponsored team of mercenaries attacked a Peruvian drug base, torturing and killing the innocent families forced to labor on and process the narcotics. Now the president of Peru is looking to embarrass the United States by making an example of Harris.

The commercial jet Harris is on has just landed in Athens when the Greek police attempt to serve an Interpol warrant for his arrest. Captain Craig Dayton, pilot of the Boeing 737, realizes that Harris has been set up for execution and makes a dangerous, unauthorized takeoff. Attempting to find refuge in Italy, Dayton and Harris learn that all of Europe will enforce the warrant and that no place on the continent is safe for them. Via cell phone, the ex-president hires Jay Reinhart, a noted international lawyer, to fight the warrant and find him a safe haven. Reinhart is forced to battle the brilliant Sir Stuart Campbell, an old enemy who represents Peru in the World Court.

Though some parallels to the Harrison Ford blockbuster Air Force One are bound to be made, Nance manages to use similar elements to a much different advantage. The jet itself becomes a symbolic prison for all onboard as fear and claustrophobia set in. Each new country initially appears as a possible haven, but as successive runways are closed to the lost flight the white-knuckle tension becomes even greater. With fuel running out, the passengers are forced to confront the idea that their very fate is being determined in a courtroom thousands of miles away. Headwind is a gripping, international action story that will chill and enliven readers whether on the ground or in the air. (Tom Piccirilli)

Tom Piccirilli is the author of eight novels, including Hexes and Shards, and his Felicity Grove mystery series, consisting of The Dead Past and Sorrow's Crown. He has sold more than 100 stories to the anthologies Future Crimes, Bad News, The Conspiracy Files, and Best of the American West II. An omnibus collection of 40 stories titled Deep into That Darkness Peering is also available. Tom divides his time between New York City and Estes Park, Colorado.

Kirkus Reviews

Retired Air Force pilot Nance shows the same skill at guiding a thriller through white-knuckle weather as he did as a civilian landing a 737. The titles of Nance's fiction (Blackout (2000), etc.) are usually a declaration of the particular hardship a pilot may face against overwhelming odds. This time, the titular headwind doesn't show up until the last 50 pages and isn't really meteorological but instead the power of legal headwinds a lawyer faces while guiding an airline pilot through his storm of difficulties in landing anywhere in Europe. Most nations have signed a world Treaty Against Torture, but, during US President (now ex-President) John Harris's tenure, a CIA-sponsored group of mercenaries invaded a drug base in Peru and tortured-then killed-drug workers and their families. President Miraflores of Peru has signed an Interpol Warrant for the arrest of Harris when his commercial jet lands in Athens. Piloting is Captain Craig Dayton, still a major in the Air Force reserve. Dayton knows that if arrested Harris will be held in a Greek jail, then bounced to Lima for a show trial and execution (by burning, as it happens). So, essentially, he hijacks his own jet and its hundred-odd passengers and flies off to Rome. But the Interpol arrant is in effect all over Europe and there's no place Dayton can land without surrendering his ex-Commander in Chief. Meanwhile, by cell phone, Harris hires Jay Reinhart, a brilliant international lawyer with a checkered past, to stay the warrants and get him safely back to the States. Reinhart fights against devilishly slick international lawyer Stuart Campbell, who represents Peru and chases after the fleeing jet as it approaches endlesslandingfields where it can't land. The first big showdown is in court, where swords will clash before an Irish judge. Hugely entertaining: a gripper that not only battles heavy headwinds while fuel runs low but plunges you headfirst into a meat-grinder of international legal complexities.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172637353
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	05/16/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Gate 35,Athens International Airport, Greece -Monday -2:00 P.M.
"Captain, I think you 'd better get back here!"
The chief flight attendant said as she burst into the cockpit. Captain Craig Dayton snapped his head around and began reaching for his seat belt as soon as he saw the worried expression on Jillian Walz 's face.
"What 's the matter?" Dayton asked, aware that his copilot had shifted around in the right seat to look at her as well.
Jillian shut the door and stood in the tiny space aft of the center console, breathing hard and signaling him to wait. She watched a police car pull up on the ramp of the newly opened airport and stop in front of their Boeing 737,its blue lights flashing. Dayton followed her gaze and spotted the patrol car.
"We 're about to get in the middle of a diplomatic crisis," Jillian said. "The gate agent ..."
A voice on the overhead speakers cut her short. "Flight forty-two, operations."
The copilot lifted his handheld microphone. "Go ahead, ops."
"We will have to hold you at the gate for a while, forty-two."
"Why?" the copilot asked sharply, noting the arrival of a second police car on the ramp.
"Forty-two, there is an of official order ...ah ...wait, please ..."
The microphone in the operations of office remained on while urgent voices conferred in the background. "Ah ...we will have to remove some of your passengers."
Jillian nodded rapidly, her words tumbling out. "Craig, they 're here to arrest President Harris!"
Craig Dayton clasped Jillian 's right elbow as he searched her eyes. "Slow down, Jillian, and tell me precisely what you 're talking about."
The day had started in Istanbul with the exciting news that a former President of the United States would be riding with them in first class through Athens to Rome. Fresh from delivering a speech to an international conference on hunger, President John B. Harris had come aboard with an attractive young female aide and an appropriately dour Secret Service agent, greeting the crew warmly at the door and even sticking his head into the cockpit to say hello. Impeccably groomed, and wearing a well-tailored dark business suit that made him seem taller than his five-foot-ten height, Harris had proven to be as friendly and gracious as the Washington press corps had always described him during his almost legendary single term in office.
"Our agent ...gate agent ...I know her," Jillian was saying. "She came down the jetway all upset and said the Greek government has a warrant for his arrest."
"Why? What for?"
She shook her head, creating a moving blur of chestnut hair. "She didn't know."
First Officer Alastair Chadwick whistled and inclined his head toward the ramp, where a third and fourth police car had parked, all with their top lights flashing frantically. "Something 's definitely up, mate."
"This is a foreign flagged airliner," Dayton said. "No one 's removing any passenger without my permission." He motioned to Jillian to reopen the cockpit door as he moved the captain 's seat back on its tracks and prepared to get up, filling the air with the aroma of peanuts as the contents of an opened snack pouch scattered on the metal floor.
"Damn."
"I'll take care of that," Jillian said..
The copilot caught his arm.
"Craig, you remember I 'm a solicitor in my other life in England, right?"
"Yes, I know," Craig said, his eyes on Jillian as she stepped out.
"A little free legal advice, okay? You 're an American national with a European work visa, you 're the master of a German flagged airliner, and that airliner is currently sitting on Greek concrete. You 're not the U.S. ambassador. They could arrest you for getting in the way."
The captain shook his head impatiently. "This is Greece, Alastair. They've been civilized for at least a few ears now. About two or three thousand, in fact."
"Craig?" Chadwick tightened his grip on the captain 's arm, and Dayton responded with irritation.
"WHAT?"
"Be careful, okay? I know he 's your President, but you can 't protect him."
"No?" There was a flurry of movement as Craig Dayton resumed the process of hauling himself out of the seat." Just watch me!" Reprinted from Headwind by John Nance by permission of Putnam, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright (c) 2000 John Nance. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Videos