Mayday

9

Edward Johnson strode briskly down the long corridor toward the blue door marked DISPATCH OFFICE. He stopped abruptly, stuffed an unlit cigar in his mouth, and tried on several expressions in the reflection on a glass door. He picked one that he called disdain mixed with impatience. He stared at himself for a second. Good jawline, hair graying at the temples, cold gray eyes. An executive. Vice President in Charge of Operations, to be exact. He had enough of the ex-baggage handler left in him to be considered salty and intimidating, yet he had cultivated a veneer to make him accepted by the people who were born into the white-collar world. Satisfied with the effect he would produce with the dispatchers, he strode on.

The windowless steel door at the end of the corridor loomed up before him. How many times had he made this walk? And for what purpose? After twenty-seven years with the airline, experience had shown him that nearly every one of these calls had been a false alarm. A real emergency had taken place more than three years before, and even that had been a waste of time. Everyone aboard that flight was already fish food long before he got the message.

So what the hell was it this time, he wondered. Someone in the Straton program probably lost his lunchbox, or some dispatcher couldn’t find his pencils. He stepped up to the door and grabbed the knob.

He paused and ran through what he already knew. It wasn’t much. Just a brief phone call that had interrupted an important management lunch in the executive dining room. A junior dispatcher named Evans or Evers. An emergency, Mr. Johnson. Flight 52. But it’s probably not too bad. Then why the hell had he been called. That’s what he wanted to say. Junior executives were supposed to take care of all the “probably not too bad” things.

Edward Johnson knew that Flight 52 was the Straton 797. The flagship of the Trans-United fleet. The Supersonic Queen of the Skies. But as far as he was concerned it was a 412-ton piece of shit. At one hundred and twenty-seven million dollars per aircraft, any problem with one of their eight 797s was a pain in the ass. The aircraft itself was reliable enough and it produced a small fortune in profits. But as Operations Chief, the fiscal considerations didn’t concern him. The goddamned airplane was too precious and too visible to the Board of Directors, and to the media. It made him too visible, too vulnerable. To make matters worse, he was one of the people who voted to buy the 797s, and he was the one who had recently pushed through the huge cost-reduction program to cut back on lots of unnecessary maintenance and checks.

Johnson pushed open the door and strode into the dispatch office. “Who’s the senior man?” he demanded. He looked around the half-empty office. An awkward silence hung over the room, broken only by the sound of a loud telephone ringing. He took the cigar out of the corner of his mouth. Before the Corporate no-smoking policy, he was able to puff on it to good effect instead of keeping the damned thing unlit. Wimpy bastards. “Where the hell is everybody?” His intimidation techniques were working well today, he noticed, but he was not so insensitive that he couldn’t read the signs of trouble, smell the stench of fear in this place. “Where is everybody?” he repeated, a few decibels more softly.

Jerry Brewster, standing a few feet from Johnson, surprised himself by speaking. “In the communications room, sir. Mr. Miller is the senior man.”

Johnson moved quickly toward the glass-enclosed room. He stuck his cigar back into his mouth, pushed the door aside, and entered the crowded communications room. “Miller? You in here?”

“Over here,” answered Jack Miller, his voice the only sound in the suddenly silent room.

Several of the dispatchers backed away to allow Johnson to pass. A few of them quickly left. Dennis Evans moved unobtrusively away from Miller and stood near the door, prepared to go either way. Jerry Brewster reluctantly walked into the small room.

Johnson went up to the data-link machine. He looked down at Miller. “What’s the problem?”

Miller had carefully rehearsed what he would say. But now that Johnson stood before him, all he could do was point to the video screen.

Johnson looked up at the screen on the far wall.

TO FLIGHT 52: VERY NICE WORK. STAND BY. RELAX. EVERYONE HERE IS WORKING ON BRINGING YOU HOME.

Johnson looked down at Miller. “What’s very nice work, Miller? Relax? What the hell kind of message is that to send to one of our pilots?”

Miller looked up at the screen. He’d been so immersed in this problem for what seemed like so long a time, he couldn’t imagine that someone didn’t know what was happening. “The Straton is not being flown by one of our pilots.”

“ What? What the hell are you talking about?”

Jack Miller quickly reached down and picked up the stack of printouts from the machine. “Here. This is the whole story. Everything we know. Everything…” He paused. “Everything that we’ve done. I’m afraid it’s worse than we originally thought.”

Johnson took the folded printouts and began reading. He took his unlit cigar out of his mouth and laid it on the table. He finished reading but kept his eyes on the printouts in his hand.

Edward Johnson’s lunch of poached salmon churned in his stomach. Less than half an hour before, they had been discussing his possible presidency of Trans-United Airlines. Now this. Disasters made and broke men very quickly. A man had to immediately sense the pitfalls and opportunities presented by these things and act on them. If this accident had been caused by any of the cutbacks he had personally authorized… Johnson looked up from the printout with no discernible expression on his face. He stared at Jack Miller for several seconds. “You told them to turn around.” It was a flat statement, with no inflections that might convey approval or disapproval.

Miller looked him squarely in the eye. “Yes, sir. They’re turned.”

It took Johnson a second to figure out that cryptic response, and another second to decide if Miller was being insubordinate. Johnson smiled a rare smile. “Yes. They’re turned. Nice work.”

Miller nodded. He found it odd that the Operations Chief had no further comment on what had happened to Flight 52. But on second thought, he expected no extraneous words from Edward Johnson.

Johnson looked around the room. Everyone was, in a perverse but predictable way, almost enjoying the drama they found themselves in. These were the situations on which were built the legends of the airlines. Every terse statement he made, every expression on his face, would be the subject of countless stories, told and retold. Only Jack Miller and his young assistant, Jerry Brewster, seemed not to be enjoying themselves.

“Sir?” It was Jerry Brewster. He took a hesitant step toward Johnson.

“What?” Johnson could see that the young assistant was nervous.

“I’m afraid I might have… contributed to the problem.” Brewster was speaking rapidly, getting his confession out as quickly as he could. “When I first saw the original SOS, I’m afraid I didn’t respond immediately. I thought it was a hoax.”

“A hoax?” Johnson raised an eyebrow. “What the hell kind of hoax could an SOS message be?”

“No, I mean a practical joke. I thought it was someone’s idea of a joke.” Brewster fidgeted with the clipboard in his hands. This was going to be more difficult than he thought it might be. “But I didn’t wait very long. I went back as soon-”

“Any delay is too long,” Johnson said, cutting Brewster short. “I’ll talk to you later about this,” he said angrily, dismissing the young man with a wave of his hand. Johnson turned to the other men in the room. “As for the rest of you, I’d like to remind everyone that there’s no room in this business for jokes. Nothing should be treated as a joke. Ever.”

Brewster turned away, embarrassed, and left the room.

Johnson stood quietly for a moment. He was glad that he now had at least one ass to hang, if things came to that. He could use a few more. He turned to Miller. “Jack, who have you called? Who knows about this?”

“I had Evans handle that.”

Evans spoke quickly. “I did what was in the book, sir. The emergency handbook.”

“No outside press, then?”

“No, sir.” Evans licked his lips. He had an opportunity to make points, and he didn’t intend to blow it by saying or doing something stupid. He had, however, done something daring. He took a deep breath and put a confident tone into his voice. “I followed procedures-up to a point.”

Johnson took a step toward him. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I mean I didn’t call anyone on the list except you and Mr. Metz from our liability carrier-Beneficial.” He shot a quick glance at Miller.

Miller gave him an annoyed look.

Evans continued. “I didn’t call the hull carrier either, because we have no real idea of the damage. I also did not call the Straton company’s representative.” He looked at Johnson.

Johnson’s face was expressionless. “Did you also not call the president of the airline or our press office?”

Evans nodded. “I only called you and Mr. Metz.”

“Why?”

“There seemed to be no pressing need. I thought I’d wait until you arrived, sir. I knew you were in the executive dining room. I thought I’d let you make the decision about who to call. This is not like a crash. This is an ongoing thing, wouldn’t you say, sir? Also, at first it didn’t seem too bad. That was my reasoning, sir.”

“Was it?” Johnson reached down and picked up his unlit cigar. He put it back in his mouth. He let a few seconds go by. “Good. Good thinking, Evans.”

Evans beamed.

Johnson looked up and addressed everyone. “Now, listen to me, all of you. No one does a thing unless they check with me. Nothing. Clear?”

Everyone in the room nodded.

Johnson continued. “Except for Miller, I want everyone to go back to his usual routine. Evans, you take complete charge of the Pacific desk. It’s all yours except Flight 52. I am taking personal charge of 52. If anyone asks you about 52, refer them to me.”

Miller suddenly felt that he had been relegated to a sort of limbo. He had become a junior assistant. He wished he could get back to his desk, or anywhere that was away from Johnson.

Johnson pointed with his cigar. “No one-I repeat, no one — is to say anything to anyone. No calls home to your wives or to anyone else. Also, the normal duty shift is extended indefinitely. In other words, no one goes home. Night-differential and double time will be in effect. The incoming shift is to report to the employees’ lounge and stay there until further notice. I want as few new people as possible to know what’s happening. We’ve got a four-hundred-and-ten-ton aircraft streaking back toward the California coast with some weekend pilot in the left-hand seat and three hundred dead or injured passengers onboard. I don’t have to tell you why I want the lid on this. Understand?”

Everyone murmured his assent.

“All right, make sure everyone out there understands too. Get back to work.”

The dispatchers filed quickly out of the hot, airless room.

Evans hung back a second. “Mr. Johnson, if there’s anything further I can do…”

“You’ve done enough, Evans. Good initiative.”

Evans smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

“And the next time you fail to follow procedures, it had fucking well better make me happy, Evans, or your ass is out. Got it?”

Evans’s smile faded. “Yes, sir.” He left quickly.

Johnson turned to Miller. “Well. Here we are, Jack.”

Miller nodded. He and Johnson went back a lot of years. Now, with the audience gone, Johnson would start thinking and stop playacting. As if to confirm this, Johnson threw his cigar into the garbage can in the corner. Miller was certain that the man hated cigars, but trademarks, like the Trans-United logo and Edward Johnson’s cigar-mostly unlit these past years-took a long time to cultivate and develop, and one didn’t drop them so easily.

Johnson glanced down at the printout in his hand. “This is one hell of a thing.”

“Yes, it is.”

“A bomb. Why the hell do people want to blow up an airliner? Shit.” He paced a few feet. “Tell me, Jack, do you think they’ve got a chance?”

Miller glanced at the video screen, then at Johnson. “At first I didn’t give them any chance. Now… maybe. That pilot-Berry-handled the turn all right. Just to get as far as he did-taking the controls, figuring out the link, turning-that took a lot of guts. Skill, too. He’s got what it takes. Read the messages again. He’s a cool character. It comes through in the messages.”

Johnson stepped up to the Pacific chart that had been hung in the room earlier. He examined the markings on it. “Is this their estimated position?”

“That’s our guess. We didn’t have much to go on.” Miller rose from his seat at the data-link console and walked to the wall chart. He pointed to another spot on the chart. “This is the Straton’s last verified position. This one is an extrapolation that Jerry Brewster worked up. Now we’re working up another one based on their turnaround and present heading. Brewster will have-”

The thin sound of the data-link’s alerting bell cut him off. Both men glanced up at the video monitor.

FROM FLIGHT 52. ALL FIVE SURVIVORS WERE TRAPPED IN POSITIVE PRESSURE SPOTS DURING DECOMPRESSION. MOST PASSENGERS STILL ALIVE, BUT SUSPECT SUSTAINED LACK OF AIR PRESSURE CAUSED BRAIN DAMAGE.

Miller stared at each letter as it appeared, knowing what the last two words were going to say after he saw the B. The message went on.

SOME PASSENGERS BECOMING UNMANAGEABLE. ATTEMPTING TO CLIMB STAIRS INTO LOUNGE/COCKPIT. STEIN HOLDING THEM BACK. BERRY.

Miller looked up. “Jesus Christ Almighty.”

Johnson slammed his hand down violently against a countertop. “Son-of-a-bitch! Goddamned rotten luck!” He turned to Miller. “Is this possible? Could this happen?” Johnson’s technical knowledge was sketchy, and he never saw a need to pretend otherwise.

Jack Miller suddenly understood exactly what had happened. A bomb had torn two holes-two big holes-in the Straton’s fuselage. Had they been smaller holes, the pressure might have held long enough. Had it been one of their other jets, its lower operating altitude would have made it possible for everyone to breathe with oxygen masks. But at 62,000 feet, where the only commercial traffic was the Straton 797 and the Concorde, a decompression, if it was sudden and complete, could theoretically cause brain damage. Miller would have guessed that it would be fatal, but Berry said that most passengers survived. Survived. Good Lord. How did this happen? He stood up and felt his legs wobble a bit. “Yes,” he said weakly. “It’s possible.”

Johnson looked through the glass enclosure into the dispatch office. Dispatchers and assistants in the main room were trying to read the new message on the video screen. Johnson motioned to Miller. “Erase the video screen. Shut it off. We’ll use only the small display screen from now on.”

Miller pushed the buttons to do away with the video screen’s repeater display.

Johnson walked over to the door and locked it. He stood next to the data-link, put his foot on a chair, and leaned forward. “Type a message, Jack.”

Miller typed as Johnson dictated.

TO FLIGHT 52: LOCATE SATELLITE NAVIGATION SYSTEM. IT IS ON RADIO PANEL AND IS LABELED AS SUCH. READ OUT YOUR POSITION. ACKNOWLEDGE. A few seconds passed before the message bell rang. FROM FLIGHT 52: HAVE PREVIOUSLY LOCATED SATELLITE NAV SET. IT MUST NEED REPROGRAMMING FOR READOUT. IT READS NOTHING NOW. ADVISE ON PROGRAMMING.

Johnson walked over to the Pacific chart again and stared up at it. He had a vague idea of how to plot positions and no idea of how to program a satellite set. Still looking at the chart, he spoke to Miller. “Tell him that we’ll advise later.”

Miller typed the message.

Johnson turned. “He really can’t land that thing, can he?”

“I don’t know.” Miller was already in over his head. Despite years in the dispatch office, he couldn’t tell a man how to program a satellite navigation set. In fact, he had a vague memory of having read that they couldn’t be altered or reprogrammed en route. Miller had only a textbook image and knowledge of the cockpit of a 797, no conception of what actually flying the craft was about, and he knew that Johnson had even less. “Why don’t we get Fitzgerald in here?”

Johnson thought for a moment about the chief pilot. Kevin Fitzgerald was another candidate to fill the president’s chair. It would be good to have a pilot in the room with them, but not Fitzgerald. But to ask another pilot in would be an unforgivable insult whose intentions would be obvious to the Board of Directors. Though why give Fitzgerald an opportunity to play hero? The answer was to exclude him from the game for as long as possible. It was generally known that if either of them became president, then the other one would spend the rest of his career in oblivion. Johnson knew that he could easily wind up supervising lost baggage claims instead of in the president’s office. He looked at Miller. “Not yet. If that Straton gets within, let’s say, two hundred miles of the coast, we’ll get Fitzgerald.” He thought for a second. “If we can’t find him, we’ll get the head flight instructor. He’d do a better job of it, I think.”

Miller knew that it would be a good thing to start Berry’s flight instructions immediately. Either man would do. But Miller also knew that Johnson did not make any decisions based purely on rationality. Edward Johnson’s decisions were always based on ulterior motives. “Do you think it’s time to put out a brief statement to the press?”

“No.”

“Should we have the PR people privately contact relatives of the passengers? We can start booking them on flights to San Francisco and-”

“Later.”

“Why?”

Johnson looked at him closely. “Because we are not going to encourage a media circus here. This is not some cheap TV drama. This bullshit about right-to-know is just that-bullshit. There is not one damn reporter or hysterical relative who is going to make a useful contribution to this problem. It’s about time somebody started exercising their rights to privacy and secrecy again in this country. This is Trans-United’s business and no one else’s except, unfortunately, the Federal Aviation Agency. We’ll notify them in just a few minutes. As far as a public statement, it may be necessary to release only one. The final one.”

“Ed, my only concern right now is to bring that aircraft home,” Miller said. “I don’t care about any shit that is going to be flying around here later.”

Johnson frowned. “You ought to.” But then he suddenly patted Miller on the back. Johnson had forced himself to change gears. “You’re right. We have to bring 52 home before we can think of anything else.”

Miller turned away and walked to the Pacific chart. A little red spot of grease pencil on a field of light blue represented more than three hundred seriously sick and injured people heading home. And the thought that their fate was in the hands of Edward Johnson was not comforting. Miller hoped that John Berry was an exceptionally competent and discerning man.

Wayne Metz sat comfortably in his silver BMW 750 as he cruised in the right lane of Interstate 280. He adjusted the knobs on his Surround-Sound CD player until the resonance of Benny Goodman’s “One O’clock Jump”-one of his favorites from his old jazz collection-was just right. He glanced at himself in the rearview mirror. Yesterday’s tennis had deepened his tan.

He passed Balboa Park and looked at his dash clock. He’d be at the San Francisco Gold Club early enough to review his notes before tee-off with Quentin Lyle. He glanced up at the sky. Beautiful June day. Perfect for business. Before they reached the ninth hole, the Lyle factories would be the latest client of Beneficial Insurance Company. By the last hole he might have the trucking company as well. He hummed along with the music. His reverie was broken by the insistent buzzing of the cellular phone that lay on the passenger seat. He shut off the CD player and picked up the phone. “Yes?”

The voice came through with a slight hollow sound to it. “Mr. Metz, this is Judy. Trans-United Airlines has just called.”

He frowned. “Go on.”

“A Mr. Evans. The message was as follows: Flight 52, Straton aircraft, sent Trans-United a message saying aircraft damaged. But Mr. Evans said they were still transmitting so it might not be too bad.”

“That was the whole message?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Not too serious?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Hold on.” He put the phone down in his lap and turned over several alternatives in his mind. But none of them was viable, really. Trans-United was far too important a client for him to pretend that he was out of touch with his office. Still, Beneficial didn’t insure what they called the hull-the aircraft itself. They were only the liability carrier. If no one was hurt, he was safe. He picked up the phone. “All right, I’ll call them from here. I may have to go down there. Call Mr. Lyle at the club. Tell him I may be late. Emergency. Hope to be there for the back nine. Maybe sooner. Make it sound really catastrophic, but don’t mention Trans-United. Got all of that? I’ll call you later.”

“Yes, sir.”

Metz hung up and drove by the San Jose Avenue exit. With any luck at all, his presence at the airport wouldn’t be necessary. He slowed his car, picked up the telephone, and punched a pre-stored number. The cellular phone immediately dialed the private New York number for Beneficial’s president, Wilford Parke. A few seconds later, Parke’s secretary put him through.

“Wayne? You there?”

Metz held the phone away from his ear. Like many older men, Parke was speaking too loudly into the mouthpiece. “Yes, sir.” He glanced at his clock. It was almost quitting time in New York. “Sorry to bother you so late in the day, but-”

“That’s all right, Wayne. Some sort of problem out there?”

Metz smiled. Out there. To most New Yorkers, anything west of the Hudson was out there. To Wilford Parke, anything west of Fifth Avenue was in another solar system. “Possibly, sir. I thought I’d keep you posted.” Metz’s thoughts were already two sentences ahead. “A call from Trans-United Airlines. Some sort of problem with an aircraft. No details yet, but they said it didn’t seem too bad and may only involve the hull. Still, there may be a liability claim. I thought I should call you before you left the office.” And before you heard it from another source, he thought.

“Good thinking, Wayne.”

“Yes, sir. And I thought I might go out there and see to it personally.”

“Fine, Wayne. Fine. Keep me posted. Glad to see you’re taking care of it personally. Where are you calling from?”

“Car. I’m already on the highway to the airport.”

“Very good. Let me know when you have some details.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good-bye, Wayne.”

Metz spoke quickly. “Sir, where can I reach you later?”

“Later? Oh, yes. Atrium Club. Having dinner. Over on East Fifty-seventh.”

Metz did not care where the club was located. “Can I page you there? Is the number listed?”

“Yes. Of course. You know the place. We were there last February. We had a bottle of Chateau Haut-Brion ’59. You can reach me there until about ten o’clock. Speak to you later.”

Metz tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. Wilford Parke was somewhere between senile and brilliant. In either case, he liked the old man. Talking with him was always a pleasure. He was a real gentleman of the old school. He was a man who believed in his company and who shared management’s privileges with those whom he trusted-like Wayne Metz. Metz had always been sure to stress his own Long Island boyhood and his college days at Princeton, which was also Parke’s alma mater. But the main reason he liked Parke was that Parke thought Wayne Metz could do no wrong. And he had thought so even before those embarrassing lapses of memory had set in. Wayne Metz hoped that Wilford Parke could hold on to his job long enough to secure Metz’s next promotion.

Metz wheeled his BMW through a pack of cars, then accelerated again through an open stretch of highway. He knew he’d been lucky to get the call when he did, on the highway, not far from the airport. From his downtown office it would have taken him over an hour to get there. That was typical of the luck that had propelled him to the head of the West Coast office. Yet he might have to miss the first few holes with Quentin Lyle. That might be ominous. He half believed in omens, and though he found astrology silly, many of his friends read their horoscopes each morning. Money can be worrisome. Set example for loved ones by cutting down. Do what you believe to be correct. Don’t be afraid to trust your heart.

But certainly his success had not all been luck, thought Metz. It was talent. Wilford Parke had years before seen something in Metz that as a young man he had not been aware of himself. In the corporate hierarchy, where a significant battle could be announced by a gesture as innocuous as the polite declining of a drink, Wayne Metz flourished. He was the master of the oblique and muted signal. He had an uncanny talent for projecting, in the most subtle ways imaginable, his likes and dislikes. He was, to quote his own analyst, perhaps too young a man to be so blessed.

Metz’s cellular phone buzzed again. He picked it up. “Metz.”

“Ed Johnson, Wayne.”

Metz stiffened in his seat. If the Operation VP was calling, it had to be a real problem. “I was just about to call you, Ed. What’s the latest?”

“It’s bad,” said Johnson, evenly. “It’s the Straton 797.”

“Oh, shit.” He and Johnson had once, over drinks, kidded each other about their mutual jeopardy in the Straton program. It had been Metz’s idea that Beneficial be the sole liability carrier for Trans-United’s fleet of the giant supersonic transports. He’d offered lower premiums with the elimination of the usual, but cumbersome, insurance pool. Johnson, for his part, had been one of the people to vote for the idea. Also, he had once admitted candidly to Metz, after a third martini, that his career was closely tied to the Straton’s success for a variety of other reasons. “Where did it crash?” Metz asked. “How many were killed?”

“It was en route to Japan. The good news is that the airliner’s still flying, and there weren’t many killed… yet. But the bad news is worse than you’d ever dream,” he said. “A bomb blew two holes in the hull and the air pressure escaped. The passengers suffered the effects of decompression. Up there, as you may know, it’s like outer space.”

Metz didn’t know. No one at Trans-United had told him about this possibility, and he had never had the foresight to have the dangers of high-altitude supersonic flight researched. It was all supposed to be government approved, so he had assumed that there was no extraordinary risk. “What did you say was the condition of the passengers?” Metz asked.

There was a pause, then Johnson said, “We’re not absolutely certain, you understand, but the consensus here-and up there-seems to be that they’re brain damaged.”

“God Almighty.” The BMW nearly went off the road. “Are you sure?”

“I said we weren’t sure, Wayne. But I’d put money on it.”

Metz realized that he had not assimilated all of it. “The survivors… how did they…?”

“We’re communicating with them on the data-link. That’s like a computer screen. Radios are gone. There are only five unimpaired survivors. They were all in the whiffies or someplace like that.”

“Whiffies?”

“Bathrooms, Wayne. You’d better get here fast and bring your company’s checkbook.”

Metz pulled himself out of his daze. “Look, Ed, we’re both very exposed with this thing. How many people on board?”

“Nearly a full house. About three hundred.”

“When will it land?”

“It may never land.”

“What?”

“The aircraft is being flown by one of the passengers. Our-”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Metz knew that he shouldn’t be speaking so candidly about such a sensitive issue on a cellular phone, but he needed to know more to understand what was happening.

“Our three pilots are dead or unconscious. All that’s left of our flight crew are two flight attendants. The passenger who’s flying it-some guy named Berry-is an amateur pilot. He still has the Straton under control. In fact, he’s turned it around and headed back, but his exact position is unknown. Anyway, I have my doubts that he can land it without smearing it all over the runway.”

Wayne Metz was literally speechless. He kept the telephone pressed to his ear and his eyes on the road, but his mind was thousands of miles away-in the mid-Pacific. He tried to imagine the scene. The giant Straton 797 lost somewhere over the enormous ocean, two holes blown through its hull and everyone aboard dead or brain damaged except for a few people, one of whom, a passenger, was flying it. No, no, no, no.

“Metz? Wayne? You still there?”

“What? Yes. Yes, I’m here. Let me think. Hold on.” As he tried to sort out the incredible facts he had just heard, he inadvertently let the BMW slow. He was traveling at less than forty miles an hour in the left lane of the highway.

A driver in a battered blue Ford behind him hit his horn, then pulled out and passed on the right, glaring at the big sedan. Wayne glanced up distractedly at the other driver, but his mind was on other things. A thought had formed. It was not yet fully shaped, but he could start to see its outline, like a mountain emerging from a fog. The battered blue Ford stuck in his mind, too, for some reason. He cleared his throat. “Listen, Ed, I’m almost there. Who knows about this? Is it on the radio?”

“No. Not many people know. One of our dispatchers handed me a break by not calling anyone yet. So I still have some space to maneuver.”

“Good. Don’t call anyone else. If we can’t control the situation, at least we can control the flow of information… and that may be just as important.”

“That’s my thinking too. But you’d better hurry.”

“Yes. On the way.” Metz hung up. He stared out the windshield and began accelerating. He cut in the cruise control at seventy miles an hour, picked up the phone again, and called New York. Parke was still in his office. “Mr. Parke,” he

began without preamble, “I’ve got bad news. There’s been a terrible accident with Trans-United’s Straton 797.”

“Aren’t we the sole underwriters?” Parke asked quickly.

Metz winced. “Yes, sir. For the liability coverage. We are not involved in their hull insurance.” Going it alone was a risky, unconventional way to write that sort of policy, but Metz had never liked insurance pools. He had spent months convincing Beneficial that the airline, and especially the Straton program, was extremely safe. Beneficial did not have to share the huge premiums with anyone. But now they had no one to share the loss.

“Well, Wayne, that’s unfortunate. I personally felt that perhaps we were taking on too large a risk, but I don’t intend to second-guess you on that issue. The Board members approved it. The proposal-your proposal-had merit and was well-received. Naturally, we’ll review our corporate guidelines after a loss of this magnitude. You’ll have to make a presentation to the Board. I’ll get back to you later on that.”

Metz felt the sweat begin to collect around his collar, and he turned up the air-conditioning. “Yes, sir.”

“In the meantime, were all those aboard that airliner killed? Do you have a casualty total? Any estimate on our total liability?”

Metz hesitated, then spoke in a firm, controlled tone. “A Trans-United executive told me that it was nearly a full ship. That would mean approximately three hundred passengers and a crew.”

There was a long pause as the impact of the tragedy sunk in. “I see. All dead, did you say?”

Metz didn’t say. He temporized. “Actually, the accident occurred only a short while ago, over the Pacific. Many of the details are still very sketchy, and nothing has been released to the press yet. It’s being kept confidential,” he added. “Trans-United didn’t want to speak over the phone.”

“I understand. We’ll keep it quiet on this end also.”

“Yes, sir. That would be very good.”

“Well, bad day at Black Rock for a lot of people, including us. Listen, Wayne, don’t bother to work up a maximum-liability figure. Things are going to be pretty frantic at Trans-United. I’ll take care of it at this end. I suppose there won’t be any secondary property damages since the aircraft was over the Pacific at the time.”

“That’s right,” Metz lied. “There should be no other claims.” He could not bring himself to tell Wilford Parke that the Straton was, at this moment, streaking toward San Francisco, carrying onboard the largest contingent of ongoing insurance liabilities in history.

“Call me when you get more,” Parker said. “I’ll be at my club. I’m having dinner with some of the Board. We’ll have a telephone at the table. If you’d like some help, I can get people to you quickly out of the Chicago office.”

“We should be all right, sir. I’ve got a good staff here.”

“Fine. One more thing, Wayne…”

“Yes, sir?”

“I know this is your first loss of magnitude. Paying three hundred death benefits is no small thing. I’m just glad it didn’t happen over a populated area.”

“Yes, sir.” It may yet.

“And I’m also relieved that we’re not carrying the aircraft’s hull insurance. What do those things cost-a hundred million?”

“Something like that.” On his desk was the first draft of a memo proposing that very coverage for Trans-United. When he got back to his office, that memo would go into the shredder before he hung up his jacket.

“What I’m trying to say, Wayne, is that there is no insurance executive in the business who at one time or another didn’t have his name personally identified with a large loss. I know it’s an embarrassment, but the amount we can expect as the total death benefit is manageable. You’ve had a spot of bad luck. Don’t let it get you down. You don’t cry over spilled milk in this business. You insure for spilled milk and pay for the spillage out of premiums. The Board might grumble a bit, but you’ll come through. We’re just fortunate,” said Parke in a friendly tone, “that the claim isn’t more.”

Metz shook his head. There are three hundred brain-damaged people on that aircraft, and they are coming home. Coming home to Beneficial Insurance. We will be totally liable for the care of each of them for the rest of their lives.