Commander James Sloan kept up a constant stream of talk into the dead interphones, speaking alternatively to the phantom air-sea rescue and the phantom tanker. He was becoming bored with the charade, but saw no alternative to it. He had to keep Hennings in Room E-334 until Matos was down, and until he could decide what had to be done with the Admiral.
Outside the door of the room, voices and footsteps approached.
Hennings looked up from his chair, an uneasiness in his eyes.
Sloan replaced the green interphone. “Just a changing of the watch, Admiral. Room E-334 is inviolate, off-limits to everyone except the few of us with an official need-to-know. I don’t think even the Fleet Admiral would walk in here without calling first.”
Hennings slumped back into his chair. That had been the problem from the start. An illegal test, shrouded by secrecy, had concentrated an inordinate amount of power into the hands of James Sloan.
Sloan looked at the old man hunched over in his chair. The long years of sea duty had permanently darkened his face, but the last few hours had cast an unhealthy pallor over his features.
Hennings seemed to rouse himself out of his lethargy and looked up. “Why are we taking the transmissions from the tanker and the rescue operation through the interphones? Let’s put a few radios on those frequencies.”
Sloan shook his head; he had already thought of an answer for that. “These are not my operations. They are being handled from separate electronics rooms, separate commands. And I don’t want two more squawk boxes turned on. I have enough to think about without listening to a lot of jet jockeys talking to each other.”
Hennings nodded and slumped back into his chair.
The gold-colored bridge phone rang, and Sloan snatched it up. This was a real call. His heart began to pound. “Yes, sir.”
Captain Diehl’s voice sounded unsure, almost apologetic. “Commander, I’d like a status report on Navy three-four-seven.”
Sloan had known this call would have to come eventually. The Captain wanted to know as little as possible about the Phoenix test, and that was the reason Sloan had kept control so long. But now Diehl wanted to know why one of his aircraft was overdue. “Status unchanged, sir.” He glanced at Hennings.
There was a pause, then the Captain said, “I can assume, then, that everything is going well with three-four-seven?”
“Right, sir. He’s employing fuel-saving techniques at this time.”
“I see. That was part of the test profile?”
Sloan paused purposely, as though he were reluctant to commit a security breach. “Yes, sir.”
“All right. The Admiral is still with you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fine. I won’t take any more of your time, Commander.”
“Thank you, sir.” Sloan hung up, took a deep breath, and turned to Hennings. “The Captain is concerned about three-four-seven.”
“So am I.”
Sloan stared at the radio speaker. Matos’s open transmitter filled the room with rushing noises, noises of the cockpit, noises that came from nine miles above the earth. Occasionally, he could hear Matos, forgetful or uncaring that his transmitter was on, talking softly to himself, humming once, cursing many times. Then his voice came through the speaker loud and clear. “Homeplate, no tanker in sight. No air-sea rescue in sight. Fuel estimated at fifteen minutes. Maintaining heading of zero-seven-five, at thirty one thousand feet.” He read his coordinates from his satellite navigation set. “Storm still below me. Shutting off transmitter so I can receive you.”
The rushing sound stopped, and Sloan quickly picked up the microphone. “Roger. Civilian and military air-sea rescue closing on you. Tanker should be in sight.”
“I don’t see it.”
“Stand by.” Sloan picked up the green phone and spoke for a few seconds, then took up the microphones. “Matos, he thinks he has visual contact with you as well as radar contact. As a backup, keep your transmitter sending a signal so he can home in. Hang in there, Peter.”
“Roger.” The rushing sound of the open transmitter filled Room E-334 again.
Sloan looked at his countdown clock, which had been set at Matos’s estimated forty-five minutes of flying time. It read fourteen minutes. Fourteen minutes to keep this incredible juggling act with the dead, colored interphones, with Hennings, with the live, gold interphone to the bridge, and most of all with Lieutenant Peter Matos. A lesser man than himself would have fallen apart long ago, but James Sloan had a strong will, and he knew that one man, with a strong sense of mission and a keen sense of self-preservation, could control any situation. People wanted to believe, and if you gave them no cause for suspicion, if you acted with confidence and assurance, they would believe.
Suddenly, the room was filled with a voice that was at once familiar and unfamiliar. “Mayday! Mayday! Navy three-four-seven is flaming out!”
Hennings jumped to his feet.
Sloan grabbed the microphone and glanced at the countdown clock. Eleven minutes left. Matos had made some kind of calculation error, or the fuel gauges were slightly off at the low end. Maybe the missile produced more drag than he thought. “Roger, Peter. I understand. Air-sea rescue has a good fix on you.”
Matos’s voice was shaking, but he fought for control and replied, “Roger. I’m going through thirty thousand now. I’ll be into the top of the storm in a few seconds.” He read his coordinates, then said, “Violent updrafts, buffeting the aircraft. Unstable.”
Partly out of instinct, and partly because Hennings was in the room, Sloan gave Matos the best advice possible under the circumstances. “Peter, hold off on ejecting for as long as possible. When you eject, hold off on the chute as long as you can.”
“Roger.” Sloan pictured Matos falling, still in his flight chair, waiting as long as possible before opening the parachute, then opening it at the last possible moment, being caught in the wild currents-being taken up instead of down, then dropping again, then rising with the currents-a process that could go on for a long, long time. If that didn’t kill him, the sea would.
Hennings stood next to Sloan and watched the radio speaker, then looked toward the interphones. “How far is the closest air-rescue craft?”
Sloan grabbed the blue interphone and poised a pencil over the clipboard that covered the switches. “Operator. Patch me into the rescue command craft. Quickly. Rescue? This is the Nimitz. How far is your closest air or sea craft from the target aircraft? Right. He has flamed out. Copy these coordinates.” Sloan read them off. “He will eject shortly. Do you still have a good fix on his transmission signal? Right.” Sloan nodded his head. “Yes, all right…” This absurd monologue into a dead phone was becoming tiresome. He hoped he was still doing it well. “All right, we-”
Matos’s voice cut into the room. “Homeplate-I am down to twenty thousand. The ride is very rough. Rain and hail. No visibility.”
Hennings grabbed the microphone. “Navy three-four-seven, we are talking to air-sea rescue now. You will be picked up soon. Stand by.” He looked at Sloan.
Sloan spoke into the interphone. “Hold on, rescue.” He turned to Hennings. “Tell Matos he will be in the water in less than ten minutes. Tell him to keep the fighter’s transmitter signal on. After ejecting, the air-sea rescue craft will home in on his raft transmitter.”
Hennings spoke into the microphone and relayed the message. He added, “Don’t worry, Lieutenant. We’re with you, and we’re praying for you. Out.” Hennings released the microphone button so that Matos could continue to transmit. Tears came to his eyes, and he turned away and stared out toward the porthole.
Matos’s voice broke the silence in the room. “I am down to ten thousand feet. Preparing to eject.” His voice had become matter-of-fact, as though he were reporting on someone else’s problem. “Eight thousand feet.”
Hennings took note of the calmness in his voice. He knew it was important for a pilot, as for a seaman, to do this well, to go down with dignity.
“Still extremely turbulent…” The sound of Matos’s breathing came through loudly on the speaker and filled the electronics room. “This is my last transmission. I am leaving the aircraft now.” The speaker gave a loud pop as the canopy blew off, followed by an earpiercing rushing sound as the transmitter picked up the three hundred-mile-an-hour wind that filled the cockpit. Then, a split second later, they heard the loud explosion of the ejecting charge as Peter Matos’s flight chair was blown clear of the F-18.
The continuous, unnerving roar of the abandoned fighter was broadcast into Room E-334. Hennings thought for a moment that he could hear the crashing sea, then an odd sound, like a muffled slap vibrated through the speaker, followed by silence.
Sloan reached out and shut off the radio. He spoke softly into the interphone. “The aircraft is down. The pilot has ejected. Home in on his raft transmitter when he lands. Yes. Thank you.” He hung up. Sloan put his hand on the digital clock and erased the remaining minutes of fuel time that Matos never had. The digits 00:00 seemed appropriate. He sat down. “We can console ourselves, Admiral, with the fact that one F-18 is a small price to pay for the continuation of the Phoenix program. The program, like its namesake, will rise from its own ashes and fly again.”
“Your attempt at metaphor is grotesque, ill-timed, and inappropriate, Commander. What I’m concerned about now is Flight Lieutenant Matos.”
“Yes, of course. We all are. Lieutenant Matos is trained in sea survival. His life raft will keep him afloat and his flight suit will keep him dry. And at these latitudes, the water is not that cold.” Sloan rocked back in his swivel chair and closed his eyes. He pictured Peter Matos dropping quickly into the sea, his parachute ripped apart by the winds. Then another picture flashed through his mind: Peter Matos landing softly, inflating his raft, clinging to it. How long could he live in the sea? No one was looking for him. It might take days for him to die. Then again, he might not die. There had always been that possibility. He suddenly saw Matos being transferred from a rescue craft to the Nimitz — stepping aboard, his flight suit covered for some reason with seaweed, walking across the wide flight deck before him. No. Even without the storm, he had no chance if no one was looking for him in the right place.
The sound of Hennings’s voice penetrated Sloan’s thoughts. He opened his eyes and looked up at the Admiral. Hennings was speaking into the blue interphone.
“Hello? Hello?” He pushed repeatedly on the headset buttons. “Hello? Air-sea rescue?” Hennings looked down at Sloan, then down at the series of colored phones in their cradles. He reached over and slid the clipboard away from the switches, saw that they were off, then looked back at Sloan.
Sloan sat silently and met the old man’s eyes. Finally, he said, “Sorry, Admiral. It was the only way out for us.”
Hennings let the phone fall from his hand and heard it hit the floor. His voice was barely above a whisper. “You… you son-of-a-bitch. You murdering son-of-a-bitch… How in the name of God
…?” Hennings’s senses reeled, and he had to make an effort to stand steady. His eyes tried to focus on Sloan, but he saw sitting in front of him not Sloan himself, but Sloan’s true essence. “Who are you? What are you?”
“ We, Admiral. We.”
The illusion passed, and Hennings regained control of himself. “Matos was… he trusted you… he was one of your men…”
“I see you’re not giving as much thought to the hundreds of people we sent down on the Straton. Don’t civilians count?”
Hennings put his hands on the console and leaned over, close to Sloan. “You know the expression: three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.” He looked Sloan in the eye. “Me next?”
“Don’t be absurd.”
Hennings straightened up. “Call air-sea rescue right now.” He reached for the phone switches.
Sloan grabbed his arm and held it tight. “Don’t be a fool. We’ve already consigned a planeload of civilians to their deaths. If we start a search for one man who can hang us, we may as well do it for all of them.” He tightened his grip on the Admiral’s arm. “And it would be a useless exercise. No one can survive that sea.” He released Hennings’s arm and spoke in a calmer tone. “Admiral, it’s not even jail I mind very much. It’s the indignity of the proceedings. We’ll be treated as the most vile things that ever lived. Our names will be spit out in the officers’ clubs and ward rooms for generations. That’s no way to end a career. If you remain silent, no one will ever know. Nothing is gained by confessing. Nothing. The dead are dead. The Navy and the nation are intact.” He changed the tone of his voice and spoke as though he were giving an official report. “Flight Lieutenant Peter Matos was killed when the rocket engine of his Phoenix missile exploded while strapped to his aircraft. He will receive full military honors and his family will cherish his memory, and they will receive his insurance and all standard benefits due an officer’s family. His name will not be besmirched in any way.” Sloan paused for a long time. “Admiral?”
Hennings nodded.
Sloan looked up at the wall clock. Three-ten. “Isn’t your flight off the carrier scheduled for 1600 hours?”
“Yes,” Hennings answered absently.
“Then I suggest you gather your gear, Admiral. You’ve only got fifty minutes, and I expect you’ll first want to pay your respects to Captain Diehl.”
Hennings glared at Sloan.
“Also,” Sloan added, waving his hand at the report sheets that still lay on the radio console, “I expect your report to the Joint Chiefs will stress that this mishap was in no way my fault.”
Without answering, Randolf Hennings turned and walked out of Room E-334
John Berry felt the familiar pilot’s control pressures in his hands and realized that this was the first time he had attempted to hand-fly the giant Straton. The warning horn sounded weak and the lights became dimmer as the electrical energy was being drained away from the dying airliner. The cockpit became quieter as they dropped beneath the worst part of the storm. From the lounge, Berry could hear the moans of the injured. He released one hand from the wheel and turned on the windshield wipers. Through the rain and clouds, he thought he could see glimpses of the ocean. His heart pounded quickly. He forced himself to look down at the altimeter. “Four thousand feet,” he said aloud. They were dropping at the rate of about forty feet a second. “Less than two minutes to impact. Hold on. Sharon… the life vests…”
“Yes. In the orange pouch against the rear wall.”
Berry turned and looked at the orange pouch hanging on the wall, then saw the small emergency exit near the right rear of the cockpit. “When we hit, you get the vests. I’ll open the door. Linda, stay in your seat until we come for you.”
Crandall grabbed his arm. “John… John, I’m scared.”
“Stay calm. For God’s sake, stay calm.” Berry held the controls tightly. He knew he should be thinking about how to bring the aircraft in, and what to do if they survived the crash. But he couldn’t get his mind off the problem of the dead engines. The fuel was shut off. But the fuel is now on again. What else…?
A bolt of lightning flashed close outside his left window and the cockpit was illuminated with an orange glow, followed by the crackling sound of unharnessed electricity. Berry sat up quickly. Suddenly, all the complexities of the overhead instrument panel were swept away. “Oh, for God’s sake!” He saw in a moment of unbridled clarity his old Buick, rolling down a hill in Dayton, Ohio, engine off, and he saw his hand turn the ignition switch, and heard again the sound of the Buick’s engine firing into life. “Sharon! The ignitors! The ignitors! Listen. Listen to me. Get up. Get up!” He looked down at the altimeter. Two thousand feet.
As she unbuckled her belt and slid from her chair, the Straton broke through the bottom of the thunderstorm, and Berry could see the surface of the ocean clearly now. The sky was relatively calm, and the aircraft flew without much turbulence. But even from this altitude he could see the towering white foam of the swelling waves. He knew that even if they could get out of the aircraft, they wouldn’t survive that sea.
Sharon Crandall was holding his arm and looking at him. Berry realized in an instant that she had perfect trust and confidence in him; as a flight attendant, she must have known that to ditch without a restraining belt meant almost certain death.
Berry spoke clearly and firmly. “I can’t look away from the flight instruments… On the overhead panel there are four switches marked ‘engine ignitors.’ Hurry.”
She knelt down behind the pedestal between the pilot’s chairs and looked up. Her eyes swept the instruments and switches above her. “Where? Where? John…”
Berry tried to reconstruct the panel in his mind while he kept his eyes glued to the flight instruments. He finally glanced up for a brief instant, for as long as he could dare. “Lower left! Lower left! Four switches. Yellow lights above them. Yellow! Yellow! Turn them on. On!”
Crandall spotted them and passed her hand over all four switches at once, pushing them into the on position. “On! On!”
Berry looked down at the altimeter. Nine hundred feet. The rate of descent had slowed slightly, but they had lost some airspeed. They had less than half a minute before the Straton would hit the water. He called out to Sharon, “Back in the seat. Strap in.” He stared at the center panel and watched to see if the Straton’s engine instruments would come to life. He tried to think if there was anything else he had to do to fire up the engines, but couldn’t think of anything. He focused intently on the four temperature gauges. Slowly, the needles began to rise. “Ignition! Ignition! We have power!” But he knew that the process of accelerating the jet engines and producing enough thrust for lift would take time, perhaps more time than they had left.
He glanced at the altimeter. Two hundred and fifty feet. The airliner’s speed had bled off to 210 knots and the descent was slower, but he sensed he was very close to a stall. As soon as that thought entered his mind, the stall warning alarm began to sound-a synthetic voice repeating the word AIRSPEED, AIRSPEED, AIRSPEED. Berry knew that he should push forward on the wheel, lower the nose, and pick up airspeed to avert the stall, but he had no altitude left for that. Reluctantly, he pulled slightly back on the wheel and felt the nose rise. The Straton began to vibrate, the tremors shaking the air-frame so violently that it became nearly impossible to read the instruments. The Straton was engaged in a test of strength between gravity and the thrust of its accelerating engines. As he glanced at his altimeter, he saw that gravity was winning. One hundred feet.
He looked down out of the side window. The hundred feet that was showing on the altimeter seemed less than that in reality. The swelling sea that sped by beneath him seemed to rise up to the wings of the airliner. He glanced out the front windshield. Huge, towering waves rose and broke only a short distance below him. If even one of those waves reached up and touched the Straton, the aircraft would lose enough speed to make a crash a certainty.
Berry scanned his instruments. Engine power was up, airspeed was good, but altitude was still dropping. Berry nudged the control column, trying to keep the nose up. He was walking a shaky tightrope, and one slip would put them into the violent sea at nearly 200 knots.
The synthetic voice announcing AIRSPEED continued, and so did the prestall vibrations. Berry worked the flight controls judiciously, trying to trade their few ounces of available energy for a few inches of extra altitude.
The altimeter read zero, though he guessed the airplane was still about twenty feet above the water. It was becoming obvious that the Straton was not going to make it, given the rate of increasing thrust against the rate of descent. Involuntarily, the muscles of his buttocks tightened and he rose imperceptibly from his seat. “Come on, you pig-climb! Climb, you bastard!” He turned to Crandall and shouted above the noise. “Locate the afterburners! Afterburners!”
She scanned the overhead panel again, near where the ignitor switches had been. She raised her arm and gave Berry a thumbs-up.
“Hit the switches!” He paused for a split second and said, “Then get into position to ditch.”
Crandall hit the four switches.
Berry heard and felt a two-phased thud as the after-burners kicked in. He had no idea what would happen next.
Crandall called to Linda. “Put your head down! Like this.” Crandall hunched over into a crash position, as well as she could with the copilot’s wheel in front of her. Before she put her head down, she glanced up to see if Linda had done the same.
Berry felt the slight sensation of being pressed against his seat. The Straton was accelerating as fuel was injected directly into the jet exhausts and ignited to give extra thrust to the engines. The prestall airframe buffeting lessened, and he pulled farther back on the control wheel. The nose came up, and the ocean seemed to sink beneath his windshield. The stall alarm voice sounded one more time, then stopped. The altimeter showed 100 feet and climbing. “We’re climbing! We’re climbing! We’re lifting!”
Sharon Crandall picked her head up. She felt the increased Gs against her body as the aircraft rose. “Oh, God. Dear God.” Tears ran down her cheeks.
Berry held the control column with his left hand, reached his right hand out, and spread his fingers over the four engine throttles. For the first time since he had climbed into the flight chair, he was in control.
He called out to Sharon Crandall. “Afterburners-off.”
She reached up and shut them down.
The Straton decelerated slightly and Berry worked the four throttles, feeling the aircraft accelerate again. He watched the engine temperature and pressure gauges rise and the altimeter needle move upward. Five hundred feet, six hundred. Berry sat back. The unknown terrors of flying the airliner, like most unknown terrors, had been exaggerated.
No one spoke. All the lights in the cockpit came back on, and most of the warning lights extinguished. Outside, the violent storm raged above them, but at their lower altitude it produced no more than rain and manageable winds. John Berry cleared his throat. “We’re heading home. Sharon, Linda, are you both all right?”
The girl answered in a weak voice. “I’m not feeling good.”
Crandall released her seat belt, stood, and stepped over the girl. She noticed that her own legs were wobbling. She took the girl’s face in her hands. “Just a little airsick, honey. You’ll be all right in a minute. Take a lot of deep breaths. There.”
Berry recognized the automatic words of the veteran flight attendant, but the tone was sincere.
Crandall leaned over and gave Berry a light kiss on the cheek, then slid back into the copilot’s chair without a word.
Berry concentrated on the instruments. He let the Straton come up to 900 feet, then leveled out before they rose into the bottom of the thunderstorm.
He listened for sounds from the lounge, but heard nothing that penetrated the noise of the rain, the hum of electronics, or the droning of the jet engines.
He shut off the windshield wipers, experimented with the flight control for a few minutes, then reached out and reengaged the autopilot. The amber light went off, and he released the wheel and the throttles and took his feet off the pedals. He flexed his hands and stretched his arms, then turned to Sharon. “That was about as close as it comes. You were very cool.”
“Was I? I don’t remember. I think I remember screaming.” She looked closely at him. “John… what happened? You didn’t do something
… no… I read the message.”
“Neither you nor I did anything wrong… except to listen to them.”
“What…?”
The alerting bell rang.
They looked at each other, then stared down at the data-link screen. TO FLIGHT 52: DO YOU READ? ACKNOWLEDGE. SAN FRANCISCO HQ. Berry motioned toward the console. “Those bastards. Those sons-of-bitches.”
Crandall looked at him, then back at the message. She had not had time to think clearly about what had happened, and had not yet come to terms with what she’d thought about, but her half-formed conclusions suddenly crystallized. “John… how could they…? I mean, how could… why…?”
“God, I can’t believe what an idiot I’ve been. Hawaii. That should have been my tip-off. Shift the center of gravity. Fuel gauges. Those goddamned lying sons-of-bitches.”
Crandall was still trying to understand all that had happened. “That was partly my fault. I talked you into-”
“No. I trusted them too. But I shouldn’t have. I should have known. I did know, goddamn it.”
“But why? Why, in the name of God, would they do that?”
“They don’t want”-Berry jerked his thumb over his shoulder-“ them back.”
Crandall nodded. She’d thought of that for some time, but never pursued the thought to its natural conclusion. “What are we going to do? What are we going to answer them?”
“ Answer? I’m not going to answer anything.”
“No, John. Answer them. Tell them we know what they tried to do.”
Berry considered, then shook his head. “Someone who is trying to kill us has control of the situation down there. Someone in that tight little room off the Dispatch Office. Talking to the man-or men-in that room is like shouting to the man who just pushed you into the water that you’re drowning. I’m not going to tip them off that we’re still alive. That’s our secret, and we’ll make the most of it.”
Crandall nodded reluctantly. “Yes, I suppose. God, I wish we could tell someone. If we don’t get back… no one will ever know.”
Berry thought about the data-link messages. He tried to reconstruct them in his mind. “Even if we do get back, we’ll have a hell of a time trying to make anyone believe us. It would be our word against theirs, and we are the ones who suffered decompression, and we are the ones who can’t understand or follow the instructions of trained personnel.”
Sharon Crandall was beginning to get a very clear picture. “Those bastards. Oh, those bastards. Damn them.” She tried to imagine who in the Trans-United hierarchy would be capable of something like this. A few names came to mind, but she decided it could be anyone with enough to lose by having the Straton come back.
Berry was thinking of motives. “They probably don’t want to have to admit that their airport security was bad. They’ll discredit the bomb message we sent them-if they even bothered to pass it on, and try to pin it on someone or something else. The Straton Corporation. Structural failure. What a bunch of conniving, immoral bastards.”
“God, I can’t wait to get back and… But are they going to believe us?”
“We have to remember what we read, and believe that what we remember is correct.”
Linda Farley spoke. “We can show them the words printed on the paper.”
Crandall couldn’t follow what the girl was saying. “Did you understand what we were talking about?”
“Yes.”
Berry kept his eyes on the control panel and spoke to her. “Those men in San Francisco lied to us, Linda. They tried to… they told us things that would make us crash. Do you understand that?”
“Yes.”
“What words?” asked Crandall.
“In the back. Near where I was sleeping before. It’s sitting in a little door on the wall, and it printed while you were typing and-”
“John! There’s a printer at the rear of the cockpit! I forgot about it.” She tore off her seat belt and jumped down from the flight chair. She moved quickly to the aft bulkhead and peered into a space in the corner near the fuselage wall. “Here it is.” She reached in and tore the narrow sheet from the printer, then grabbed a stack of folded messages from a collecting basket. She held them up and stretched them out. “John! It’s all here. Everything.”
Berry found that he was smiling. Nothing, he admitted, is as sweet as revenge. “Let me see them.”
She brought over the stack of perforated paper, no more than five inches wide, and let the loose end fall. It reached down to the center console between the seats. Each small perforated section held a computer-typed message.
Berry scanned the messages hanging in her hand. “That looks like all of them.” He turned back and stared out the windshield. He could see Sharon’s reflection in the dark, wet glass, standing beside him, the paper trailing down from her hand as she read from it. He watched her for a few moments, her movements, her facial expressions.
Sharon refolded the messages. “We have to get back and expose these people.”
Berry nodded. If they died in the crash and the cockpit were destroyed, or if they put down at sea, the printouts would probably not survive. He turned to Crandall. “Give me those. Get life vests for all of us.”
Crandall opened the pouch on the bulkhead and handed out the orange life vests. She watched as Berry and Linda put on their life vests, then put one on herself. She took a first-aid kit from the emergency locker on the bulkhead and treated a small cut on Linda Farley’s forehead. She moved beside Berry. “Hold still. You have a lot of scrapes and cuts.”
Berry watched her as she dabbed antiseptic cream on his arms and face. “Where did you get that kit?”
“In the emergency locker.”
“What else is in there?”
“Not much. Most of the emergency equipment is in the cabins and lounges.” At the mention of the lounge, Crandall looked toward the cockpit door. She had, until just then, forgotten about what was on the other side.
Berry handed her the printouts. “Put these into Linda’s vinyl pouch on her life vest. Try to wrap them so they’re waterproof.”
Sharon Crandall understood that he was trying to prepare for the worst. She walked to the locker behind the observer’s chair, took out two items, and brought them up front to Berry. “This is a waterproof flashlight. These are asbestos fire gloves.”
Berry smiled. “Very good.”
Crandall unscrewed the end of the flashlight, removed the batteries, and stuffed the printouts into the empty battery case. She screwed the end back on and slipped the asbestos gloves over both ends of the flashlight. She wrapped the entire package securely with a length of bandage from the first-aid kit and placed it in the pouch fixed to Linda’s life jacket, then snapped it shut. “Linda, you know this is important. If anything happens to us, show this to…”
“A policeman,” said the girl.
Crandall smiled. “Yes. A policeman. Tell him it’s very important.”
She nodded.
Sharon Crandall sat back in the copilot’s seat.
Berry reached out and took her hand. He said to her, “No one can say you didn’t earn your flight pay this trip.”
She squeezed his hand and smiled. “When you first came aboard, I said to myself, ‘That guy would make a good pilot… ’”
“You noticed me when I came aboard?”
“Well… you were wearing blue socks with brown shoes.” They both laughed, then Sharon sat back and listened to the engines, and felt their power vibrate through the airframe. She turned back to him. “John, can you land it?”
Berry looked out the windshield. The rain was tapering off and the sky was becoming lighter. Below, the ocean seemed less turbulent. He glanced at the weather radar. It seemed less cluttered with images, and as far as he could determine, the weather to their front was clearing. “Depends on the weather in San Francisco.” He knew it depended a great deal on his ability. He glanced at the fuel gauges. “Depends on the gas, too. The afterburners drank it up. We’re eating it up now at this altitude. But we can’t use any fuel to climb back up there, and the weather at those altitudes might turn bad again.”
“Do you think we have enough fuel to make it?”
“I don’t know. Too many variables. But I’m willing to bet you a dinner that we at least see the coast before we run out.” Berry smiled to hide his real feeling. He knew what a sucker’s bet it was.
“I’ll bet you we make it to the airport. I want to go to the Four Seasons in New York.”
Berry nodded. “All right.” Then his smile faded. “Listen, if we have to ditch at sea, I’ll know in enough time and we can prepare ourselves. That close to the coast, we should be picked up.” But he wondered if they would go down near a shipping lane. He thought about the possibility of sharks but didn’t know how prevalent they were on the West Coast. He wanted to ask, but decided to wait until they were close. The more he thought about ditching in the sea, the more it seemed to be a beginning, not an end, to their problems. But something else was bothering him. Even a safe landing at San Francisco might not be the end of it. “Sharon, we’ve got to come up with a plan. Something for after we land in San Francisco.”
“What?” She was puzzled. To her, getting the damaged Straton safely to the airport was all they had to do. “What are you talking about?”
“These people,” he said, pointing to the data-link, “tried to kill us. They won’t stop just because we’ve landed.”
“That’s crazy.”
The two of them sat silently for a few seconds. Sharon wondered if Berry could be right. Perhaps she was making too little of it. She said, “If we land at San Francisco in one piece… well, we’ll have to be aware that not everyone on the ground is happy to see us.”
Berry nodded, and dropped the subject.
Berry looked around the cockpit. He was trying to anticipate every one of their needs, no matter which way things went. “Is there a life raft in the cockpit?”
“No. The rafts are all back there.” She paused. “But the inflatable escape chute from the emergency door doubles as a life raft. It’s not as big as the others, but it would be okay for three people.”
“Right.” He thought for a moment. “I think I can put it down into a smooth sea. Let’s go over the ditching procedures. Linda, listen to what Sharon-”
The alerting bell rang again.
TO FLIGHT 52: DO YOU READ? ACKNOWLEDGE. SAN FRANCISCO HQ.
Berry shook his head. “Those bastards. I’d love to tell them we’re sailing in and see what they have to say about that.”
Crandall stared at the message. “This is so… obscene. What kind of person does it take to do something like this? To try to murder people… innocent people who haven’t done anything…?”
Berry remembered his earlier thoughts about climbing above the weather. If he had the fuel, the oxygen, and the confidence to fly, he would have done it. That climb would probably have killed dozens more passengers. Berry wondered if he was really any better than the people in San Francisco HQ, whoever the hell they were. “Sometimes it’s a matter of expedience. It’s not personal, usually. Maybe we shouldn’t take it personally.”
“I take it personally.”
There were sounds coming from the lounge again, whining and moaning, some cries of agony from the injured, and the sound of scraping against the door. Berry heard someone striking the piano keys. For a moment he thought someone was trying to play.
Berry knew that everyone there would drown if he ditched at sea, and he admitted that he would do very little-nothing, really-to save any of them.
He took Sharon Crandall’s arm and turned her wrist toward him. “It’s two-twenty-four. We have a few hours before we reach the coast.” He tried to think in terms of what they would need for an airport landing. He looked down and made sure the autopilot was still engaged, then unbuckled his seat belt and slid out of the flight chair.
“Where are you going?”
Berry laughed involuntarily. “Not far, you can be sure.”
She smiled at her foolish question.
Berry knelt down behind the captain’s chair and slid his hand beneath it.
“What are you looking for?” Sharon asked.
“Charts. I need them for radio navigation signals.”
“The radios don’t work.”
“The navigation radios might. They’re separate from the transmitters and receivers.” Berry continued to fish around beneath the captain’s seat, but he came up empty-handed. “Damn it. They were probably blown out. We could really use them. Damn.” The possibility of finding San Francisco Airport without a good navigational signal was very remote, even if they had fuel enough to wander up and down the coastline, which they didn’t.
“How important are they?”
“We’ll get by without them.” Berry slid back into the captain’s seat. “We can search through all the frequencies on the radio dial when we get closer. We’ll find the right one.” But Berry knew there were too many channels and they had too little time.
Crandall unbuckled her seat belt. “I’ll look over here.”
“Okay.”
She leaned forward and ran her hand beneath the copilot’s seat. “Nothing. Wait…” She leaned as far to the right as the side console would allow. “I think I’ve got something. Yes.” Sharon pulled out a stack of crumpled papers. “Here.”
Berry took them quickly. “Charts,” he said. “They must be the copilot’s.” He thought for an instant about McVary back in the lounge. These were his charts and this was his cockpit. Now it was Berry’s, for whatever that was worth. Berry carefully opened the charts one at a time.
“Are they the right ones?” Sharon asked anxiously.
Berry smiled. “Yes.” He pointed to one. “Here’s San Francisco. This is the frequency I wanted.”
“Will the radios work?” Sharon had her doubts.
“Not yet.” Berry folded the charts so that the San Francisco area was faceup. “When we get within range, we’ll see if we can pick up a signal.”
“And if we can’t?”
“Then wherever we see land is where we go. Could you recognize features on the coast?”
“I think so. I’ve seen it enough times.”
“Would you know if we were north or south of San Francisco? Or if we were near any other city? Any airport?”
She didn’t speak for a few seconds, then said, “When we get there, I’ll have a better idea.”
“All right. Think about it.”
“I will.” She stretched her bare legs out and leaned back in the seat. “Let’s talk. Let’s not think about what has to come later.”
“Might as well. I’ve run out of things to do already.”
Sharon closed her eyes. “Tell me about… your home.”
Berry would have preferred to talk about something else. He settled back and tried to think of what to say. As he did, the autopilot disengage light flickered again, and the autopilot switch popped to OFF. Berry grabbed the flight controls. “Oh, for God’s sake.”
“Autopilot?”
“Yes.” Now he knew that he couldn’t trust it anymore. The autopilot had undoubtedly been damaged during their wild descent. He had no choice but to hand-fly the Straton for the rest of the flight. As Berry concentrated on retrimming the manual flight controls, he could hear from behind him the persistent scraping against the door and the dissonant pounding on the piano. It was beginning to get on his nerves. Then he heard the data-link alerting bell.
“John. They’re sending another message.”
Berry looked at the screen. It was a repeat of the message they had sent a few minutes before. The bastards were still sending out bait, on the chance that Berry had somehow managed to keep the Straton from falling into the Pacific. “Screw them,” he said. He was, without a doubt, taking it personally.