Mayday

11

John Berry turned his head and looked over his shoulder into the lounge. He was about to call to Stein, but Stein wasn’t there. Terri O’Neil stood at the door, looking in like a departed spirit who had returned home and who could not cross the threshold without an invitation. Berry looked past her. His eyes darted around the lounge. “What the hell…?”

Sharon Crandall looked over at Berry. “What’s the matter?” She turned her head and followed his gaze. “Oh, for God’s sake.”

Berry jumped down from the pilot’s chair and stood in the doorway. Harold Stein was gone. But worse than that, six passengers from the lower cabin had found their way up to the lounge. As he watched, Berry saw another appear out of the stairwell. He looked back at Sharon Crandall. “Stay here and keep them out of the cockpit.”

Crandall stood and placed herself in the doorway. Terri reached out toward her. Crandall took her friend’s hands in hers and held them, but would not let her pass.

Berry stepped quickly into the lounge, taking Terri by the arm and pulling her along.

He saw Linda Farley sprawled out near the piano. He walked to the middle of the lounge, ignoring the people milling around him. “Linda!”

She didn’t answer.

Berry felt an unexpected fear seize him. He released the flight attendant’s arm and ran across the carpeted lounge. John knelt beside the girl, took her shoulder, and shook her. “Linda!”

Linda Farley opened her eyes slowly.

First Officer Daniel McVary, lying a few feet away, opened his eyes also. But his eyes opened quickly, in a flash, wide and staring, like a night creature’s when the sun goes down. He lifted his head.

Berry helped the girl to a sitting position. He could see that her lips were dry and cracked, and dried tears streaked her face. “Almost home, honey.”

Linda Farley’s head turned, out of habit, toward the man she had been told to look after. She screamed. “He’s awake!”

Berry looked down into the bloodshot eyes of the copilot.

Daniel McVary sat up, his head hitting the leg of the piano. He let out a grunt and rolled over, then crawled toward Berry, his tongue hanging out like a dog’s.

Berry pulled the girl toward him and lifted her to her feet.

McVary continued to crawl toward them.

Berry pushed the girl behind him, then slowly, cautiously, bent over and helped the copilot stand. He looked into the man’s eyes. This was the man on whom Berry, a few hours before, had placed all his hopes. But that was before he had fully understood the scope of what had happened to the men, women, and children of Flight 52. Before he had made contact with San Francisco, before he had gained some confidence in himself. He saw now that this man standing in front of him, red eyes blinking and face twitching, could be of no more help to him than the others. Reluctantly, with some sense of guilt, he turned the man around and gently pushed him away. McVary stumbled a few feet, collided with the piano, and lay sprawled across it.

Berry looked up at the cockpit door. Terri O’Neil was again trying to enter the cockpit. Sharon was standing in the doorway with her arms thrust in front of her, pushing her friend away, too gently, Berry thought. A man who had come up from the cabin was also heading toward the cockpit. Berry looked quickly around the lounge. The other passengers were aimlessly stumbling into the lounge furniture and into each other. Berry wondered what force, what residual human intelligence it was that possessed and propelled them in so persistent a fashion. What were they seeking? What were they thinking?

Berry took Linda’s arm and pulled her to the staircase. He knelt and yelled down. “Stein! Harold! Can you hear me!”

There was no answer from Stein, only the howling wind and the coarse, vulgar sounds of the others. “Stein! Barbara! Barbara Yoshiro! Can you hear me?”

A group of passengers were on the stairs, climbing toward him. Berry waited a second until the first one, a young woman with long blonde hair, came within reach. He put his hand on her face and pushed. She stumbled back, lost her footing, and fell into the man behind her.

Berry rose quickly and wiped his wet hand over his trouser leg. “Oh, Jesus!” he mumbled.

Linda Farley cried out.

Berry turned in time to see the copilot lunge at him. McVary’s outstretched hands hit him in the face and Berry stumbled back, almost falling into the stairwell. He recovered quickly and grabbed McVary’s arm and pushed him toward the stairwell. He took the girl’s arm and walked quickly toward the cockpit door, pushing people aside. At the door, he pulled away Terri O’Neil and two men near her. He pushed Linda into the cockpit past Sharon. “Get back.”

He pulled the door by its broken latch and drew it shut as far as its sprung hinges allowed. “Damn it! We can’t lock this.” He turned and faced Crandall.

Sharon Crandall had her arms around Linda. The girl was sobbing quietly, pressed against her body. Crandall was stroking the girl’s hair.

It was several seconds before anyone spoke, then Crandall said, “What could have happened to Stein… to Barbara?”

Berry ignored the question. He glanced back at the door. It was open about three inches. Someone pressed on it and it closed a bit more. He was satisfied that the closed door presented enough of an obstacle for the moment. He sat in the pilot’s seat and turned back to the girl. “Linda, keep watching the door. Sharon, sit in the copilot’s seat.”

Crandall sat and turned to him. “John, what about Barbara… and Harold Stein? Can’t we…?”

Berry shook his head impatiently. “Forget them.” His hands were still shaking. “Stein… Stein went below to be with his family, and I don’t think he’s coming back… ever. Barbara… well, she must have run into something too big to handle.”

Crandall nodded.

Daniel McVary focused on the door to the cockpit. Several half-thoughts ran through his mind. The predominant one concerned water. He wanted water, and he remembered that he had drunk water in the place behind the door. He’d sat in a chair surrounded by big windows and drunk from cups. He was beginning to remember a lot more. He remembered that he belonged in the chair. His mind’s eye flashed pictures, clear and vivid, but their exact meaning wasn’t fully understood.

Daniel McVary’s brain still functioned on many levels, but there were huge dead areas, black places, where nothing lived, no synapses connected, no memory was stored. Yet the brain was finding open circuits around these dead areas and thoughts were forming, wants and needs were recognized, action was contemplated.

First Officer McVary’s mind focused on the image behind the door that he had seen before it closed. Someone stood near his chair. A woman. He wanted to go back to his chair. The man who had pushed him was in there also. His arm still hurt. He stepped toward the door.

Linda Farley shouted. “Mr. Berry!”

Berry spun around and jumped out of his seat, but it was too late. The copilot crossed the threshold and walked into the cockpit. Berry lunged at him, but McVary lurched out of the way and stumbled against the side wall of the cockpit.

Berry stood still, holding his breath. He watched as the copilot brushed across a board jammed with circuit breakers and several switches, afraid to move toward him again, knowing that if those switches were inadvertently moved, he might never be able to set them right again.

Very slowly, Berry began moving toward McVary and reached out his hand toward the copilot as the man kept groping at the console and electronics board to regain his footing.

McVary got his balance and turned. He came to meet John Berry. Berry proceeded more cautiously, aware that the man had a fair amount of agility and even some cunning. They moved toward, then around, each other, circling cautiously in the confined area of the cockpit.

A group of passengers stood at the door, craning their heads, watching.

Linda Farley moved back and climbed into the pilot’s chair. Sharon Crandall edged out of the copilot’s chair and tried to get in a position to help.

It occurred to Berry that anyone with as much mental ability as McVary seemed to have might be capable of understanding reason. He spoke softly. “McVary. McVary. Do you understand me? Can you speak?”

McVary seemed to listen to the words, but he kept circling. He opened his mouth. “I… I… I…”

Berry nodded. “Yes. Please go. Go. Out to the lounge. Lounge. Lounge…”

McVary picked his head up and looked into the lounge, then suddenly bolted toward his flight chair.

Sharon Crandall screamed and tried to get out of his way. McVary grabbed her and threw her to the side.

Berry caught McVary from behind, and both men fell to the floor. Berry struck his head on the seat track and a black, searing pain shot through his skull.

He was aware that he was on the floor and that McVary wasn’t. He knew that the copilot could not be restrained by Linda or Sharon, but he couldn’t get to his feet. He felt blood running over his forehead and face. He saw McVary’s legs near his face. He looked up. McVary was struggling with Sharon. Everything became blurry, then he heard a noise, a noise that filled the cockpit and sounded like the rushing of steam through a burst pipe. McVary screamed.

Berry was aware that Sharon was helping him sit up. He looked around. McVary was gone. The door was closed again. “What happened?”

Sharon Crandall dabbed at his bleeding wound with a handkerchief. She motioned toward Linda Farley.

Berry looked at the girl. She stood, trembling, with a bright red fire extinguisher in her hand, Halon still visible around its nozzle.

Crandall touched Berry’s cheek. “Can you stand?”

“Yes. Of course.” He stood slowly and looked at Linda Farley. “Good thinking. Very good.”

Linda dropped the fire extinguisher and ran to Berry. She buried her face in his chest.

Berry patted her head. “It’s all right. You didn’t hurt him. Just scared him a little.” He cradled her head in his hand and with the other hand reached out for Sharon. The three of them stood quietly for a few seconds, calming themselves.

Berry heard scratching on the door and stepped over to it. He could see faces through the small piece of one-way glass in the door. He took a deep breath, then hit the door with his shoulder, sending two men and a woman sprawling. He looked back into the lounge. A procession of people were coming, one at a time, out of the stairwell, filling the lounge from wall to wall, pressing closer to the cockpit bulkhead. Berry looked at their blood-red eyes set in those gray, ashen faces. His head swam. His hold on reality was beginning to weaken. An irrational thought flashed through his mind, the thought that he was already dead and this place was not the Straton but some sort of perpetual flight that would never end, never land…

He pulled the door shut tightly and turned, facing back into the cockpit. He felt sweat on his face and his breathing had become difficult.

Sharon Crandall looked from the door to his face, then back at the door. There was fear, thought Berry-no, terror-in her eyes. Berry controlled his voice and spoke to her. “We… we’ve lost a major advantage… with them in the lounge… but… as long as we keep them out of here… out of the cockpit…”

His world was shrinking, reduced to these square yards-this small room that contained their only link with the world they had left… that contained the instruments of their survival and the only mechanical and human intelligence left onboard.

Sharon Crandall held Linda Farley and nodded, but she did not see how they were going to keep the passengers of Flight 52 out of the cockpit.

Edward Johnson walked to a long shelf and took down a heavy spiral-bound book. Wayne Metz watched him carefully. The man was still walking a mental tightrope, and the slightest thing could upset his balance.

Johnson sat on a stool and placed the book on the counter. He picked up the telephone.

Metz spoke softly, choosing his words carefully. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

Johnson didn’t answer. He placed the slip of paper that Evans had given him on the counter and began dialing. At the same time, he opened the big book in front of him.

Metz was becoming anxious. “Who are you calling? What’s in that book?”

Johnson looked at him as the phone began ringing on the other end. “I’m calling ATC.”

“Why?”

“Because, Wayne, from now on I have to handle it just like it’s supposed to be handled.”

“What’s in the book?”

Johnson spoke into the telephone. “Mr. Malone, please.” He looked up at Metz. “There’s a coffeepot in that cabinet. Make coffee.” He turned to the phone. “Mr. Malone, this is Ed Johnson. Vice-President of Operations at Trans-United.”

“Yes, sir. What’s the story with 52?”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t look very good. They are no longer transmitting.”

“Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

“Before I fill you in, take down these coordinates of their last estimated position. Please take the necessary steps to begin a search-and-rescue operation.”

“Yes. Go ahead.”

Johnson read the coordinates. “They turned before we lost contact, so they are now on a heading of 120 degrees at a speed of approximately 340 knots. You can extrapolate from there.”

“Yes, sir. Hold the line while I get the ball rolling on this.”

Johnson flipped through the book in front of him.

Malone came back on the line. “The search-and-rescue operation will be rolling shortly. Is there any chance they could still be flying?”

“Always a chance. Incidentally, when was the last time you heard from them, Mr. Malone?”

There was a short pause. “At eleven o’clock they radioed their position.”

Johnson nodded. “Why didn’t you call us?”

“Well… we were trying to contact them. Actually, we didn’t try until they’d missed their next mandatory report. It should have occurred at 12:18, so it’s not that long. And all the airlines’ 797s have a little radio trouble because of the altitude and-”

“I understand. We’ve been a little lax here too, I’m afraid. My dispatcher didn’t have his regular one-o’clock update from them and he let it go for a while.” He would have to fill in the missed 12:00 update. “Then, when he tried to radio, he experienced the same trouble that you apparently did. But, of course, he wasn’t concerned.”

“That’s understandable, Mr. Johnson. But what exactly happened to the aircraft? How did you finally make contact with them?”

“Well, we’re not certain exactly what happened. A short while before I called you, we received a message on our company data-link. It was a distress message. It said only SOS.”

“SOS?”

“Yes. No identification of any sort. We thought, of course, that it was a hoax of some sort.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then, some time later, a dispatcher discovered another message sitting in the data-link. There is no way to determine how long either message sat in the data-link.”

“What did the message say?”

Johnson pulled the message toward him and read, “‘Emergency. Mayday. Aircraft damaged. Radios dead. Mid-Pacific. Need help. Do you read?’”

“That was it?”

“My dispatcher acknowledged immediately, then called me. Are you writing this all down?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. They did not immediately call you, I’m afraid, because there was some confusion over the way the message was received and because of the wording in our company emergency handbook.”

“Wording?”

“Yes. It says-let me read it.” Johnson placed the handbook over the big book in front of him. “It says, ‘When Air Traffic Control notifies you of a midair emergency, contact the following.’ So my dispatcher called the numbers on the list but never thought to call Air Traffic Control, since your number wasn’t listed in the FAA-approved handbook. He may also have believed that someone else was calling you already. You know how it is, when you see a fire, you think everyone’s called… Anyway, it was a damned stupid oversight and he will be properly reprimanded. In any case, there is nothing lost except some time in getting a search-and-rescue underway.”

“Yes, I see.” Malone’s voice sounded apologetic. “Do you know what the nature of the emergency was?”

“I suspect that the damage to the aircraft was too great to continue flying.”

“What damage is that?”

Johnson put a tone of sadness and anger in his voice. “A bomb-or structural failure… two holes in the hull. Decompression killed or incapacitated the crew and passengers.”

“Good God… Then… who…?”

“A private pilot was in a positive pressure area. The lavatory, probably. He made the transmissions and turned the aircraft at our suggestion. I suspect, too, that he may have touched something in the cockpit that led to the final… led to the possible… crash. I hope to God it’s only because of a malfunction of the data-link machine…” Johnson found something in the book that he needed.

“Yes. Let’s hope so. Do you have copies…?”

“Yes. I’ll send copies of the printouts to you right now. It shows everything we know and everything we’ve done.”

“As soon as possible, please.”

“There won’t be any further delay on our part. I’m taking personal charge of the operation at this end.”

“Yes. Very good. I’m still a bit concerned-”

“There has, of course, been an unconscionable delay in getting the ball rolling here, and we will take full responsibility.”

“Well, of course, Mr. Johnson, it was an unusual set of circumstances, to say the least.” There was a pause. “What time did you say you received the first data-link transmission?”

Johnson took a deep breath. He had figured that it must have been at about 12:15. He looked at his watch. It was now 1:30. “About one o’clock.”

“That’s a long time.”

“Not when you’re trying to deal with an unusual set of circumstances. But, of course, you’re correct. And please keep in mind that the Straton was still flying up until a few minutes ago, and may still be flying this way, I should add.”

“Yes. Well, we’ve all been a bit… slow.”

“Please keep me up-to-date on the search operation.”

“Of course.”

“Meanwhile, the printouts are on the way. I’ll have them faxed to this number we show for you.”

“Good.”

“And we’ll keep transmitting on our data-link at three-minute intervals in the event…”

“Yes, very good. I’m sorry.”

“So are we.”

“Thank you.” He hung up and turned to Metz. “Well, that went all right. A little trouble with the Federal Aviation Agency is better, I guess, than losing my job and bankrupting the company.”

“I’d say so. Will the ATC people come here?”

“Not them. FAA air carrier inspectors. But as long as they think we’re out of contact with the Straton, they won’t be in any rush to get here.”

“How about the rescue operation you just set up?”

“They’ll probably call the Navy and Air Force, and commercial shipping in the area. That’ll take hours. By that time we’ll have…” Johnson stopped, then looked directly at Metz. “By then, we’ll be finished with this.”

Metz nodded. “How about your Trans-United people? Will they want to come here?”

“I’ll take care of that in a minute.”

“Good. What’s that book you’ve been looking at?”

“Get me a cup of coffee.”

Wayne Metz had not gotten anyone a cup of coffee in ten years. But he turned toward the coffeepot.

Johnson slid off his stool and walked to the data-link. He took the printouts from the receiving basket and quickly read through them again. No times. No indication of spaces between the messages. Nothing that could be considered poor judgment on the part of Trans-United. The last messages since Miller’s “… working on bringing you home” looked a bit compromising, and he tore them off. With his pen he marked the SOS message: Discovered by dispatcher in link machine at approximately 1 P.M. He walked to the door and opened it.

At Johnson’s appearance the room became quiet. Johnson’s eyes swept the room and fixed each man in turn. He said tonelessly, “Gentlemen, I’m afraid we’ve lost contact with Flight 52.”

There was a rush of moans and exclamations.

“I have called the Air Traffic Control and they have initiated a search-and-rescue operation. Of course, the problem may simply be the link, but…” He stepped a few feet into the room. “I will remain in the communications room and continue transmitting.” Johnson was aware of Metz behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw the man holding a cup of coffee. That was good for the dispatchers to see. There was no doubt that Edward Johnson ran things and ran people. He turned and took the coffee from Metz. He spoke in a low voice. “Get back in the communications room and close the damned door. If that alerting bell goes off and they hear it, we’re finished.” He turned and addressed the dispatchers. “Gather round, please.”

The more than two dozen dispatchers moved around him.

Johnson began in an official, but friendly tone. “Gentlemen, there is no doubt in my mind that Jack Miller,” he nodded to Miller, “Dennis Evans, and Jerry Brewster,” he looked at the two men, “did everything they could do as quickly as possible. However, there was a time lapse between the first link message and now of about half an hour.” He paused and studied the faces of the men around him. Some glanced at the wall clock, some at their watches. A few looked surprised, others nodded eagerly. “The first message came in at about one o’clock, I believe someone told me. There will be some problems with ATC and even with our own people over that lag, but I’m solidly behind you, so don’t worry too much about it.” He looked around the room.

There were more people nodding now.

Johnson looked at Evans. “You call everyone on the list, including our press office. Have the press office call me for a statement. To the president of the airlines and to everyone else, you say the following: Flight 52 has suffered a midair decompression. Radios dead. Amateur pilot flying and communicating on data-link. Communications lost at…” he looked at his watch, “one twenty-five P.M. ATC is initiating a search-and-rescue. I suggest an emergency meeting in the executive conference room. Got it?”

Evans nodded quickly. “Yes, sir.” He moved rapidly to his desk.

Johnson looked at the men around him. “Each one of you call your flights and tell them to keep off the data-link.” He scanned the faces of the men. “Brew-ster?”

“Here, sir.”

“Okay. Brewster, you will take these printouts and make only one copy. Then fax one copy to ATC at the number they show in the Emergency Handbook.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then send our copy to the executive conference room in the company office building. The original comes back to me. Quickly.”

Brewster took the messages and double-timed out of the dispatch office.

“That’s all, gentlemen. Thank you all for your help.” He paused. “If any of you are of a religious nature, please ask the man upstairs to look after that Straton and everyone aboard her. Thank you. Miller, come here.”

The dispatchers moved back to their desks silently. Jack Miller approached Johnson.

Johnson put his hand on his shoulder. “Jack, fill in the empty updates for 52 and note that they were posted at noon. Leave the one P.M. updates blank, of course.”

Miller looked at the big man standing next to him. “Ed… we’re not going to get away with this.”

“Of course we are. I’m doing it for you and the company as much as for myself. There have been a series of errors and blunders here, and we have nothing to lose to try to cover it. If we don’t, you, I, Evans, Brewster, and about ten random scapegoats will be fired, then we’ll be investigated by the FAA and maybe be charged with something. Your lovely wife can bake cookies for all of us and bring them out to San Quentin on Sundays. Bring the kids along, too.”

Miller nodded. He started to move away, but Johnson held onto his shoulder.

“Are the men with us?” Johnson asked.

Miller nodded again. “It’s not the first time we’ve had to cover ourselves.”

Johnson smiled. “I always knew you bastards lied for each other. Now you have to lie for me. For yourselves, too, of course. Go fill in those updates.”

Miller moved off.

Johnson walked quickly back into the communications room. He looked at Metz, who was staring down at the big spiral-bound book. “You know, Wayne, the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that Straton should go down.”

Metz looked up at him quizzically. “I thought we agreed on that.”

“In principle. Everything I did just now is standard operating procedure. I’ve done nothing wrong yet, except delay.”

“You told everyone the plane went down.”

“Did I? I said we lost contact with them. You don’t see any new link messages, do you?” He turned and looked out into the dispatch office. “Actually, my responsibility in this screw-up is pretty light. Those idiots out there blew it. ATC was not too swift either.”

“They’ve all given us a chance to save it.”

Johnson nodded. “Yes. The man who can really testify to our mishandling of this whole thing is Berry.”

“And he’s heading home.”

“I know. God, I wish he’d just crash,” Johnson said.

“He probably will. Right into San Francisco. You’ve got to put him in the ocean.”

“I know.”

Metz sat down behind the data-link. “Look, Ed, I know this is difficult for you-it goes against all your instincts. But believe me, there is no other way. Do what you’ve got to do. If it will make it any easier, I’ll type the message to Berry.”

Johnson laughed. “You stupid bastard. What difference does it make who types the message? There’s no difference in guilt, only a difference in nerve. Get out of that chair.”

Metz quickly vacated the chair behind the data-link.

Johnson sat down. He glanced up at the dispatch office outside the glass. A few heads dropped or turned away. “As far as they know, I’m still trying to contact Flight 52.”

“What are you going to tell him to do?”

“There’s only a few things about a cockpit I know for sure. I’ve ridden in the observer’s seat enough times and had to listen to enough pilots give me unwanted flying lessons to know what’s dangerous and what can bring an aircraft down. That book I was looking at is the Straton’s pilot manual.”

Metz nodded appreciatively. “Any ideas?”

“A few. I’m trying to work them out. But they’re tricky.” He looked at his watch. “That meeting in the executive conference room will be rolling in a while. They’ll chew over those link printouts and wail and whine for a good fifteen, maybe thirty, minutes. Then they’ll ring me here.”

“Then you’d better hurry. Jesus, this is cutting it close, Ed. You didn’t leave yourself any room.”

Neither man was aware of the insistent rapping on the glass door.

Johnson finally looked up.

Jack Miller stood outside the door.

“Oh, Christ,” said Johnson. “If we let Miller in and Flight 52 begins transmitting, that would be the end of the game.” Johnson knew that if he turned off the machine, Miller would notice and ask why they weren’t trying to reestablish contact. He quickly went to the door and opened it.

Miller took a step in.

Johnson moved forward and edged him out a few steps, but couldn’t close the door without being too obvious. “What is it, Jack?”

Miller’s eyes moved past Johnson into the small room. He stared at Metz, and without looking at Johnson, handed him a sheaf of papers. “Here’s the data-link printouts. Faxed to ATC and copied for the executive conference room.” He looked at Johnson. “The chief pilot, Captain Fitzgerald, is on his way here in case we make contact. Mr. Abbot, the Straton Aircraft representative, is also on his way. Is there anyone else you want here?”

“I don’t want anyone here, Jack. Have a dispatcher intercept them in the parking lot and tell them to drive over to the executive conference room in the company office building. Okay?”

Miller ignored the order as if he hadn’t heard it. He said, “I just don’t understand what could have happened up there. That aircraft was steady and that pilot-”

“It had two great big fucking holes in it. You wouldn’t fly too well with two great big damn holes in you.” He pushed Miller’s chest with his forefinger and backed him up a step. “Go home and get some rest.”

“I’m staying here.”

Johnson hesitated, then said, “All right. Take over the Pacific desk from Evans.”

“I mean here-in the communications room.”

Johnson knew what he meant. “It’s not necessary.”

“Does that mean I’m relieved of my duties?”

Johnson, for some reason he couldn’t explain, felt that the data-link bell was going to ring momentarily. He began to perspire. “Jack…” He had to be tactful, careful. “Jack, don’t start getting sullen. You may have made a few mistakes, but you did a few heads-up things too. It’s like in the military. You’re somewhere between a medal and a court-martial. Now, don’t forget our conversations. Play it my way and we can all save our asses. Okay?”

Miller nodded. “Are you still trying to contact…?”

“Yes. Every three minutes. And you’re holding me up now.” Johnson was becoming anxious. He kept glancing up at the door across the room. Soon, someone whom he couldn’t keep out of the communications room might walk into the dispatch office. In a way, he would almost have welcomed it.

Metz called out. “I have to finish this business with you and report to my people.”

Johnson turned his head. “Right.” He turned back to Miller. “Do me a favor. Go to the employees’ lounge-no, to the executives’ lounge-and while things are still fresh in your mind write a full report of everything that happened before I arrived. Make sure the times and actions tally with our estimates, of course. When you finish, report back here and give the report to me and me only.”

Miller nodded.

“Did you fill in the Straton’s updates?”

Miller nodded again.

“Good. When you come back you can resume your duties here in the communications room. See you later.” He stepped back, then closed and bolted the door just as the data-link bell sounded. “Oh, Christ!”

The data-link began to print.

Metz wiped his face with a handkerchief. “That was too close.”

Johnson was visibly shaken. “Wayne, just keep out of this. I understand what’s got to be done, and I don’t need any help from you. In fact, you can leave.”

“I’m going nowhere until that aircraft is down.”

Johnson walked over to the data-link and sat down. He glanced out into the dispatch office, then quickly pulled the message off and put it in his lap.

Metz looked down and they read it at the same time.

FROM FLIGHT 52: IMPERATIVE YOU HAVE QUALIFIED PILOT BEGIN TO GIVE ME INSTRUCTIONS ON FLIGHT CONTROLS-NAVIGATION- APPROACH-LANDING. BERRY.

Johnson nodded. “He’s very sharp.” He turned to Metz. “Wayne, do you feel anything for this poor bastard? Can’t you admire his guts?”

Metz looked offended. “Of course I can admire him. I’m not completely inhuman. But… didn’t you once say that you were in Vietnam? Didn’t you ever see a commander sacrifice a few good men to save the whole unit?”

“Enough times to wonder if the good men weren’t worth the rest of the unit. Enough times, too, to wonder if it wasn’t the commander’s own ass he was trying to save.” Johnson looked up through the glass panels, then down at the keyboard. “I’m going to give Berry a course change that will put them on a heading for Hawaii.”

“Why?”

“Because he’ll never find Hawaii. He’ll run out of fuel in about six hours. He’ll go down at sea looking for Hawaii.”

“Can’t you do something more positive?”

“Too tricky. We’ll try this.”

Metz suspected that Johnson saw a fine-but to him meaningless-line between actually giving information that would cause the Straton to crash and information that would result in its crash several hours from now. “But he’ll keep transmitting. We can’t stay in this goddamned room and guard this machine for six hours.”

“No, we can’t. After he takes up the new heading and stays on it for a while, I’ll short out the data-link with a screwdriver through a rear access panel. Then we’ll call in a technician and leave. The link won’t be fixed for hours.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’ll take over an hour just to get a technician here. Hours, sometimes days, to get parts. These machines are special technology. Never used for vital communications-so it takes a while to get them fixed.”

“What if Berry, when he loses contact, turns from the Hawaii heading and heads back toward the coast?”

Johnson shook his head. “He won’t. We’ll tell him that the air-and-sea rescue units will be intercepting him on his new heading, and that the military and civilian airports in Hawaii are expecting him. He won’t want to throw that chance away.”

Metz nodded. “Can’t he change channels on his data-link?”

“They tell me the different channels are for the relay stations only. There’s a computer somewhere that automatically sends all the Trans-United messages to this unit.” Johnson pointed at the data-link machine in front of him.

“I see,” said Metz, although he didn’t see, not exactly. It was, as they said in business school, all PFM-pure fucking magic-and the details of how and why didn’t interest him in the slightest. Metz looked up at the Pacific chart. In a vast expanse of blue, a few green dots represented the islands of Hawaii. He spoke to Johnson as he stared at the map. “What if he finds Hawaii?”

“With the heading I give him, he won’t come close. He’ll be lost, alone, with no radio, a damaged aircraft, no idea of how to fly the aircraft, no fuel reserve, and no one looking for him. If he survives all that, Mr. Metz, he sure deserves to live.”

Johnson began to type the new heading.

John Berry watched the small piece of one-way glass in the cockpit door.

The passengers of Flight 52 moved up the staircase of the Straton like fish or birds on some perverse and incomprehensible migration. Or, thought Berry, like air and water that moves according to the laws of physics to fill a sudden vacuum. They filled the lounge and wandered aimlessly over the thick blue carpet, around the brightly upholstered furniture-men, women, and children-ready to seep into the next empty place that they could fill. Berry felt comforted by this analogy. It denied the possibility that they were acting according to a plan, that they were looking for the cockpit.

Berry made a quick count of the passengers in the lounge. About fifty now. If they all suddenly moved toward the door of the cockpit, and if one of them pulled it open rather than pressed against it, then he, Sharon, and Linda could not stop them from flooding the cockpit.

He thought again of the autopilot master switch. Anything was preferable to the nightmare of sharing the cockpit with dozens of them.

He noted McVary, sitting in a lounge chair facing the cockpit door, staring hard at it. Berry placed his fingers around the nub of the broken latch. He had very little to grab. He pulled the door shut a few more inches, but it sprang open again.

Berry turned and scanned the cockpit for something that would secure the door, but could find nothing. There was a way to do it, he was sure, but his thoughts, which had stayed so calm for so long, were beginning to ramble; fatigue was dulling his reason. “Damn it! Sharon, we’ve got to keep this door closed.”

She turned in her chair and looked at the door. Forms and shadows passed by the opening between the edge of the door and the jamb. “Why don’t I go into the lounge and put my back to the door? I’ll take the fire extinguisher. They won’t be able-”

“No! Forget it. We’ve had enough heroes and martyrs already. If we go…” he looked at Linda Farley, sitting quietly in one of the extra cockpit chairs “… we all go together. No more sacrifices. No splitting up. We’re not losing any more of us.”

Crandall nodded, then turned back and stared out the windshield.

For a long time there was a silence in the cockpit, broken only by the dull murmur of electronics and the soft, susurrant sound of someone brushing by the door.

The alerting bell sounded.

Berry moved beside Crandall’s chair, and they both looked down at the video display.

TO FLIGHT 52: WE HAVE ACCURATELY DETERMINED YOUR POSITION. CLOSEST AIRPORT HAWAII. TURN AIRCRAFT TO HEADING OF 240 DEGREES FOR VECTOR TO HAWAII. AIR AND SEA RESCUE WILL INTERCEPT YOU ON NEW HEADING. AIRPORTS IN HAWAII WAITING FOR YOU WITH EMERGENCY EQUIPMENT. ACKNOWLEDGE. SAN FRANCISCO HQ.

Sharon Crandall clutched Berry’s arm. “They know where we are.” She turned her head to him and smiled. “We’ll be in Hawaii…” She looked up at him. Something was wrong. “John…?”

Berry shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I don’t know.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure.” He reread the data-link’s display screen. “I’m not comfortable with this.”

“Comfortable?” She looked at him for a few seconds. She tried to keep the edge of annoyance out of her voice as she spoke. “How in God’s name can we be comfortable with anything out here? What are you saying?”

Berry suddenly felt angry. “Comfortable,” he said coolly, “is a pilot’s term. It means that I have no faith in that course of action.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” he said, slowly but emphatically, “the Hawaiian Islands are a pretty damned small target, as you might know, while the North American continent is pretty big.” He leaned back against the side of the pilot’s chair. “Look, we are headed somewhere now. North America. California, probably. We can’t miss that coastline. If we do what they ask, we’d be putting everything on a long shot. All we stand to gain is a shorter flight time of maybe an hour or two. But if we miss Hawaii-and it wouldn’t take much of a navigation error to do that… then…” he smiled grimly “… we’ll wind up with Amelia Earhart.”

Sharon Crandall looked down at the display screen again, then back at Berry. Her life, she realized, was totally in the hands of this man. If John Berry didn’t want to make a course change, she couldn’t make him do it. Yet she wasn’t going to let him make the decision without some good reasons. She turned away from him and looked out at the far horizon. “How do regular airline flights find Hawaii?”

“With this.” Berry pointed to the radio console and the blackened readouts of the satellite navigation sets. “They’re either not functioning or I don’t know how to work them. And San Francisco hasn’t responded to my request for instructions.”

“Ask them again.”

Berry slid into the pilot’s chair and typed.

NEED INSTRUCTIONS ON OPERATING NAV SETS BEFORE COURSE CHANGE. SETS MAY BE DAMAGED. FOR THE RECORD, NOW ONLY 3 IN COCKPIT-YOUNG GIRL LINDA FARLEY-FLIGHT ATTENDANT

SHARON CRANDALL-MYSELF-OTHERS PRESUMED LOST. BERRY.

Berry knew that sending a list of who was still in the cockpit-who was still alive and rational-was an unnecessary addition to the message. But after his comment to Sharon about them needing to not split up anymore, sending that shortened list of names seemed like a necessary comment to the world. Berry pushed the transmit button, and they waited in the silent cockpit.

Suddenly, the door swung open. Linda Farley screamed.

Berry vaulted out of his chair and stared up at the door. Faces, some grinning, some frowning, peered in at him. Daniel McVary stepped into the cockpit, looking, thought Berry, very irate.

Berry grabbed the fire extinguisher from the floor and sprayed it into the faces closest to him. The people screamed and tried to move back, but the press from behind was too great and the crowd moved forward, squeezing through the door, one and two at a time, into the cockpit.

Berry was vaguely aware of the sounds of feminine screams behind him and the hands and faces pressing in on him. Without being conscious of it, he had raised the heavy metal extinguisher above his head and brought it down into the face of the man closest to him. The man’s face erupted into a distorted mass of red pulp.

Berry swung the extinguisher again and again, striking at the heads and faces of the men and women around him. He was half aware of hitting a young boy in the face. Screams filled the cockpit and the lounge, and drowned out the sounds of even the Straton’s engines. Blood and teeth splattered in the air, and he could hear the distinct crack of skulls and jaws. The loudest sound of all was a voice that he identified as his own. The voice bellowed out like an animal in agony.

Berry swung the extinguisher, but nothing stood around him any longer. He dropped to one knee, picked up a body and pushed it out the door, then pushed and pulled the rest of the limp or writhing forms into the lounge. He laid them in an open space made by the crowd, which stood in a semicircle watching curiously, fearfully, but without any hate or anger that he could detect. McVary, he noticed, was among them.

Berry grabbed the edge of the door and drew it toward him as he stepped back into the cockpit. He turned and looked around, trying to focus his eyes.

Sharon Crandall was standing in front of him. She had kicked off her shoes and was peeling off her panty hose. She pushed by him without a word and tied the feet of the hose around the small broken latch, then pulled on them.

Berry grabbed the top of the panty hose and stretched them out. He looked around quickly for something to fasten it to.

Fingers and hands curled around the edge of the door, trying to pull it open. Berry pulled harder on the hose, drawing the door tight against the probing fingers. He found a cross brace on the left sidewall. He looped the panty hose around the brace and pulled them so tightly that they thinned out, resembling a long rope running between the door and the cross brace. He knotted it quickly, then leaned back heavily against the pilot’s chair, his whole body shaking. An involuntary laugh rose in his throat.

Sharon fell into his arms and they held on to each other, her body trembling against his, both of them trying to keep from crying and laughing.

Linda Farley moved toward them tentatively, then rushed to them, circling their waists with her arms.

Berry looked up at the door. There was less than an inch of opening around the jamb, and no fingers probing at the edges. He saw blood splattered on the door’s blue-green paint. He pressed Sharon closer to him. “Oh, God, Sharon, good thinking… God, we…”

Crandall shook her head quickly and wiped her tears. “How stupid of me not to think of it sooner.”

“Me too,” Berry said. It was an indication of his state of mind, he thought, that his initial resourcefulness was failing him. He wondered if he hadn’t misjudged San Francisco’s intentions.

He stepped away from Sharon and Linda, then looked down at his hands. He was covered with blood, and he could see pieces of teeth, gums, and flesh on his arms and hands. The gray carpet near the door was soaked with blood. As the shock wore off, he felt his stomach heave, and his body began to tremble again. He stumbled up to the pilot’s chair and sat there trying to get control of himself.

Linda sat in the extra pilot’s chair, slumped over the small desk on the sidewall, her face buried in her arms. Sharon stood behind the girl and stroked her hair.

After a full minute, Berry looked up at the data-link screen and stared at the new message that was waiting there to be read.

TO FLIGHT 52: EXECUTE TURN AS INSTRUCTED. SATELLITE SETS NOT CRITICAL FOR FINDING HAWAII-BUT WILL BEGIN NAV OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS EN ROUTE TO HAWAII. UNDERSTAND 3 REMAINING IN COCKPIT. ACKNOWLEDGE. SAN FRANCISCO HQ.

It seemed to Berry that the tone of the last few data-link messages had changed, as though someone new was sending them. But, of course, he knew that it was he, the receiver, who was reading them in a different state of mind.

Sharon stepped over the panty hose at her feet and leaned over Berry’s chair. She looked down at the message. She had decided that if she was going to trust him, she would trust him completely, with no reservations, no hesitation. “What are you going to do?”

Berry kept staring at the new message. It seemed to be patently wrong. If only he could speak to them on the radio, hear their voices instead of reading words displayed on a cathode-ray tube. He remembered his near panic when he had no communication, and knew he ought to be thankful for even this.

Berry thought a minute, then shook his head. “They say they know where we are, but what if they’re wrong? Then the new heading is wrong. A few degrees at this distance from Hawaii would put us hundreds of miles off course. And what if this damned data-link malfunctions before we reach Hawaii? They won’t be able to send us any course corrections. What if the satellite navigation system doesn’t work, or if I can’t work it?” He thought of something he’d read once. The least reliable component of a modern airplane is its pilot. In this case that was he, John Berry. He looked at the control panels in front of him. “We’d run out of fuel somewhere in the Pacific. I’d have to try to land in the ocean. It would be a race between the rescue craft and… the sharks.”

Sharon put her hands on his shoulders, then leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “John, Linda is…”

“Sorry.”

She turned her face and kissed him on the cheek, then straightened up quickly. She looked down at the panty hose and followed it with her eyes to the door handle. It was taut and secure. No hands poked around the small crack in the door. Suddenly, she felt optimistic again. She looked over at Linda. “All right,” she said, trying to put a light tone in her voice. “Linda, Hawaii or California?”

The girl picked up her head from the desk. “I want to go home.”

Sharon smiled. “California it is, then. John, tell them we’re coming home.”

Berry felt the tears collect in his eyes and wiped them quickly. He reached out to the console and typed a short, succinct message.

Mayday