Hot Pursuit

23

All was quiet for the first day, as Pat worked away in her borrowed office. On the second day, packages began to arrive, and Joan stacked them in Stone’s office, because, she said, they would end up there anyway, and there was no point in her humping them into the garage, then back again.

On the third day, Pat appeared in Stone’s office with a stack of papers nearly a foot high. “Okay,” she said, “you’ve got some signing to do.”

“What is all this stuff?”

“Your paperwork for RSVM, MNFS, and a few other things. You have to satisfy both American and European regs if you want to fly above flight level 280, and you do want to fly higher because if you stay low, you’ll burn so much fuel you’ll end up in the drink well before your destination.”

Stone began signing, while she double-checked that he had not missed any lines. “Fine,” she said when he had finished. “Now we start opening boxes.”

The first box yielded a six-man life raft, packed tightly into a bag that would explode when a cord was yanked. “Whatever you do,” Pat said, “don’t pull that cord until the raft is outside the airplane.”

“I can imagine what that would be like.”

Other boxes yielded a handheld aviation radio, a marine radio, a GPS locator, two super-duper life jackets, and see-through plastic bags.

“What are the bags for?” Stone asked.

“The small one is for the radios that we take into the life raft with us. The large one is for several thousand calories of trail mix and granola bars.”

“I hate trail mix and granola bars.”

“Don’t worry, they’ll taste great once you’re afloat in the raft.” She cut open a large box. “Now for the pièce de résistance,” she said, producing two emergency-orange duffel bags. She tossed him one. “Put this on, and don’t take your shoes off.”

Stone shook the duffel out and unfolded what looked like the deflated corpse of a science-fiction creature.

“Go ahead, put it on,” she said. “It will save your life, but only if you know how to wear it.”

Stone took off his jacket, sat in his chair, and shoved his feet into the legs of the thing.

“Now stand up and put your arms into it,” Pat said.

Stone wriggled his arms into the sleeves, which ended in integral neoprene gloves. “I could never play the piano in this thing,” he said.

“Not to worry, there won’t be a piano in the life raft. Now put the top onto your head and zip it up,” Pat commanded.

With some difficulty Stone managed to get the thing closed.

“Great! Now you’re ready to float on your back in the North Atlantic Ocean, as icebergs drift by.”

“If we have the raft, why do we need these things?”

“To preserve your body heat, which the raft will only partly do. Besides, you’ll want to look your best when the helicopter shows up.”

“How do we know one will show up?” Stone asked.

“One will, if we ditch within helicopter range — maybe a couple of hundred miles.”

“And if we’re out of helicopter range?”

“Then a very large airplane, a C-130, will come and find our raft, using the GPS location sent out by our emergency transmitter, then circle overhead, tossing out food, water, blankets, and whatever we’ll need until the ship shows up.”

“What ship?”

“One that’s passing not too far away from us that the C-130 has contacted.”

“What if the ship’s captain doesn’t want to come for us?”

“He has to — law of the sea, and all that.”

“How long will it take for him to come?”

“Oh, two, three days, depending on how far away he is when he gets the call.”

“We’d have to spend two or three days in that raft?”

“Unless we’re within helicopter range, then it would be only a few hours.”

“How are we going to, ah, entertain ourselves while wearing these suits?” Stone asked.

Pat laughed. “Ingenuity.”

“Nobody is that ingenious.”

“Now, here’s the drill,” Pat said, ignoring that. “We’ve lost both engines. We start gliding in the direction of the nearest helicopter, say, in Reykjavik. At twenty thousand feet we attempt a restart of both engines. If neither restarts, we prepare to ditch in the sea. You leave your seat and buckle yourself into the nearest rear-facing seat. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Oh, no you don’t. My airplane, my ditching. You will strap yourself into a passenger seat.”

“Oh, all right, exercise your ego, but have you ever ditched an airplane in the water?”

“Yes, I have,” Stone replied firmly. “I took off from LaGuardia in a Citation Mustang, and at three thousand feet I encountered a flock of geese and they destroyed both engines. I tried to return to the airport but didn’t have enough altitude, so I headed for the Hudson and ditched at about Forty-second Street. Nobody got hurt.”

“In your dreams,” she said. “If you had pulled that off, you’d be the new Sully Sullenberger.”

“Fortunately, I was in the Mustang simulator at Flight Safety, in Orlando,” Stone conceded.

“They let you do that?”

“I insisted, so I am not without experience in matters of ditching. How about you?”

“Oh, all right,” she said, “I’ve never ditched, either, but I’ve got a lot more hours than you.”

“Buy your own airplane, and you can do the ditching.”

A voice came from the doorway. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

Stone turned to find Dino standing there. He’d forgotten they had a lunch date. “Nope, we’re just rehearsing our ditching in the North Atlantic after a double engine failure.” Stone picked up the other duffel and tossed it to Dino. “Your turn.”

“I’m not getting into that thing,” Dino said.

“Tell him, Pat.”

“It will save your life if Stone has to ditch the airplane. You have to try it on now, so you’ll know what to do.”

“It’s just a precaution,” Stone said, unzipping his survival suit and wriggling out of it with Pat’s help.

Dino shook the suit out of the bag and regarded it dolefully. “I have to?”

“You have to,” Pat said.

Dino took off his jacket and struggled into the suit; it took him the better part of ten minutes. Pat zipped it up for him.

“Okay,” Stone said, “everybody ready for some lunch? Pat, you’re joining us.”

Dino began struggling with the suit. “How the hell do I get out of this thing?”

“The same way you got into it,” Stone said, “only backwards.” He got into his jacket. “Come on, Pat, we can have a glass of wine while we wait for Dino to join us.”

“You miserable son of a bitch!” Dino hollered.

Pat dissolved in laughter, then went to help Dino extract himself from the thing. Then they went off together to the Four Seasons.