Mayday

12

Edward Johnson stared down at the message that had just come from Flight 52.

TO SAN FRANCISCO: WE DO NOT WANT TO TURN. HAWAII IS TOO SMALL A TARGET. WILL MAINTAIN CURRENT HEADING OF 120 DEGREES. ADVISE US OF EXACT COURSE AND DISTANCE/TIME TO SAN FRANCISCO AS SOON AS YOUR COMPUTATIONS ARE AVAILABLE. BERRY.

“Shit.” Johnson took out a cigar and bit the end off. “Smart-ass son-of-a-bitch.” He looked at the cigar for a moment, then threw it on the floor.

Metz looked at Johnson. He hadn’t liked this idea of heading the Straton toward Hawaii, and he was half relieved that it hadn’t worked. “You have to do something, Ed. You have to give him instructions that will put him down so we can get the hell out of here before-”

“Shut up, Metz. I know what I have to do.” There was some question in his mind about whether or not Berry was onto his game. “I can’t push him. He’s too savvy.”

“What are you going to answer?”

“What choice do I have? I’m going to give him the information he asked for.”

“Christ, now we’re helping him.”

“I have to get him off our backs for a while.” Johnson walked to the Pacific chart. He picked up a ruler from the counter and took some crude measurements. “They won’t be any better off with this new heading. Maybe a little worse off. But I can’t make it too absurd. Berry is…”

“I know. Sharp.”

“I was going to say he may be suspicious.”

Metz walked to the data-link machine and slapped his hand on it. “Don’t let this guy spook you. He’s some weekend pilot sitting in the biggest, most complicated aircraft ever built-which, incidentally, has two rather large holes in it, and is crammed full of the living dead. Christ. John Wayne couldn’t buck those odds.” He paused, then said softly, “All Berry needs is a little nudge in the wrong direction and he’ll fall.”

Johnson ignored him and sat down at the data-link. He typed.

TO FLIGHT 52: WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU BUT WILL DEFER TO YOUR JUDGMENT IN THIS MATTER. PLEASE FOLLOW OUR TECHNICAL INSTRUCTIONS TO THE LETTER. IN COMPLIANCE WITH YOUR REQUEST, ACCURATE HEADING TO SAN FRANCISCO IS 131 DEGREES. DISTANCE IS 1950 MILES. ESTIMATED TIME EN ROUTE IS FIVE HOURS AND TEN MINUTES AT CURRENT SPEED. AM ARRANGING FOR MILITARY INTERCEPT. PROBABLY INTERCEPT YOU WITHIN TWO HOURS. SAN FRANCISCO HQ.

Metz glanced up at the wall clock. It read 2:02.

Johnson followed his gaze. “That’s right. They won’t be in ATC radar range much before six P.M. We have time before anyone sees them on a radar screen.”

“What about the military?”

Johnson allowed himself a smile. “If you don’t call them, I promise, I won’t either.”

“I mean, hasn’t Air Traffic Control called them already?”

“Sure. Half the Air Force and Navy are headed their way. But they don’t have their true heading, and it’s a mighty big sky out there.” Johnson walked over to the weather map printer and glanced down at it. “To add to the search problems, some bad weather is moving in out there.”

Metz looked impatient. “The way our luck is running, they’ll probably find them in the next ten minutes.”

“ Our luck? Mr. Berry’s luck hasn’t been too good today, either. I’ll bet this is one flight he wished he’d missed. I’ll take our luck over his. Anyway, even if a boat or plane does spot them, they can’t do much for them. Only we can do that, because only we are in contact with them, and no one knows that but us.”

“Well, what are we going to do for them? What are we going to do to nudge that pilot down?”

The telephone rang. Johnson rose, walked to the counter, and picked it up. “Johnson.” He paused. “Yes, sir. We’re still trying to make contact. No, sir, I think I can be more effective here.” He spoke for a minute, then said, “If any questions arise, I’ll be here. Thank you.” He replaced the receiver and looked at Metz. “That was our illustrious airline president. Everyone is in the executive conference room. And with any luck they will stay there, close to the bar and the air-conditioning. They don’t like this room.”

“I’m not crazy about it myself.” Metz looked at the telephone. “I have a boss, too, and he’s probably wondering what the hell is going on. If I knew what was going on, I’d call him.”

“You’d better call him before he starts hearing things on the news, or before our president calls him. Presidents are like that. They call people and ask what’s going on. Anyway, if insurance company presidents are like airline presidents, he’ll really want to know everything.”

Metz stared at the phone. “I’ll wait.” He turned to Johnson. “Well, what instructions are you going to give to Berry?”

Johnson opened the pilot’s manual. He glanced at Metz. “There’s an expression: the first time you give bad advice it’s excusable, the second time it’s suspicious, the third time it’s enemy action. I suppose I have one more shot at it.” He looked down at the book.

“Don’t overestimate him. If we’re going to sink him, we have to take some chances.”

Johnson flipped through the book as he spoke. “When I offered him that vector, I held my breath. You know why? Because there is absolutely no way we could have determined his true position, and I didn’t know if he knew that. Also, vector is shorthand for radar vector, and there is no radar out there. That’s the equivalent of me telling you that the fastest way to Sausalito is to drive over the bay without using the Golden Gate Bridge. I gambled that Berry knew nothing about over-ocean flying. I also gambled that Ms. Crandall never spent a lot of time hanging around the cockpit listening to our pilots bore her with flying lessons. So don’t tell me about taking chances.”

Metz wiped the perspiration from his face with a handkerchief. “God, I didn’t know it was going to be this complicated.”

“Ignorance, Mr. Metz, is bliss. And if you are so ignorant that you think we can yell ‘Game’s over’ and go home and forget what we tried to do, then I have news for you. As soon as I sent that bullshit message, we were committed. Because if he gets back, we may be able to lie about the phony break in communications, but we can’t lie about that phony vector.”

Metz lowered himself into a chair. “If they get back… if they do land… we can say they misunderstood. They were suffering from lack of oxygen…”

Johnson stopped at a page and began reading, then looked up. “Right. If they do get back and survive the landing, we can say that. Maybe we can make everyone believe that an amateur pilot who was smart enough to land a supersonic jetliner is too stupid to accurately recall the messages we sent a short while before. Besides, there are still three normal people in that cockpit with functioning brains. But the biggest factor of all might well become the printouts. Wayne, do you see the printouts that are coming from our data-link?” Johnson asked.

“Yes.” Metz had forgotten about them, and what their existence implied. “We’ve got to get rid of those.”

“Good thought, Sherlock. But before we do, take a guess where the corresponding printouts are. Go ahead. One guess.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Right. Data-links sure act funny sometimes, but they don’t get brain damaged, and don’t babble on with conveniently murderous messages. What we’ve sent to that cockpit is more than enough to have us indicted for attempted murder. If the printer in the cockpit is turned on-and it usually is, as a backup-then they’ll have all the physical evidence they’ll need.”

Metz slumped forward in his chair. “Good God! Why didn’t you tell me all this?”

“Why? Because you have no real balls. You were all for this as long as you thought I could come up with a simple technical solution to the problem of putting the Straton in the ocean. If you knew all the problems involved, you would have run off to your group therapy or wherever it is that screw-up insurance whiz kids go.”

Metz stood slowly. “It’s more than our careers now. If…”

“Right. It’s our lives against theirs. If they land, we go up for twenty to life. That might affect our promotions.” Johnson looked back at the book, then glanced up at the data-link. He turned to Metz. “Instead of standing there with your finger up your ass, go over to the link and very coolly remove the printouts of the last messages.”

Metz walked over to the machine. His hands were shaking and perspiration ran from his face. He looked up into the dispatch office. Occasionally a man would glance up at him.

Johnson stood and walked toward the door. “Go on, Wayne. One quick motion, from the printer to your pocket.” Johnson put his hand on the doorknob to attract the attention of anyone outside who was watching them. “Go.”

Metz ripped the messages off and stuffed them in his trouser pocket.

Johnson pretended to change his mind and walked away from the door. He sat back down at the counter. “Very good. In case of imminent capture, eat them.”

Metz walked up to Johnson. “I don’t like your sense of humor.”

Johnson shrugged. “I’m not sure I like your lack of one. First sign of mental disease-lack of humor. Inability to see the funny side of things. Humor keeps you alert and opened to all possibilities.”

Metz felt he was losing control of the situation. He felt he had unleashed forces that were now beyond his control. Everything in this room, including Johnson, seemed so alien. He could manipulate people and he could also manipulate, through them, their technology, their factories, their machines. But he couldn’t manipulate the machines themselves. The human factor was really not so unpredictable as the technical factors-the computers and the engines that ran when they should have stopped, stopped when they should have run. “I have a feeling that the Straton will land unless we bring it down.”

Johnson smiled. “I think you’ve finally arrived at the truth. There is nothing radically wrong with that aircraft or its pilot. If his nerve holds, he’ll bring it down on some runway, somewhere, and in some sort of condition that will allow him or some of the others in the cockpit, or the flight recorder, to survive.”

“We can’t let that happen.”

“No, we can’t.” Johnson tapped his finger on the pilot’s manual. “In this book is something that will finish him-quickly. And I think I’m onto what it is.”

The early afternoon sun reflected brilliantly off the tranquil sea that surrounded the USS Chester W. Nimitz. The aircraft carrier plodded steadily along its course. A moderate breeze, generated by the ship’s eighteen knots of forward speed, swept across its empty flight deck from bow to stern. Belowdecks, the afternoon’s activities were routine.

Commander James Sloan and retired Rear Admiral Randolf Hennings sat quietly in Room E-334 on the 0–2 level of the conning tower. Neither of them had spoken for several minutes; each was lost in his own thoughts. For Sloan, the problem was clear and the solution was obvious. For Hennings, the situation was far more complex. Sloan’s face was set in a rigid, uncompromising expression. Hennings’s face betrayed his inner struggle.

Sloan finally spoke. “The situation has not changed. Our only mistake was waiting for the Straton to go down by itself. But there’s no sense continuing this argument. Try to think of it as a tactical war problem.”

Hennings was fatigued and his head ached. “Stop giving me those war analogies, Commander. That doesn’t work anymore.” After Matos’s report that the Straton had made a turn, Hennings thought that Sloan would see that they couldn’t proceed with the destruction of the aircraft. Hennings was almost relieved at the prospect of confessing to Captain Diehl what they had done. But Sloan, as Hennings should have known, had not given up so easily. To Sloan there was little difference between shooting down an aircraft that they first believed to be filled with corpses, and shooting down an aircraft that showed signs of life. “And stop telling me nothing has changed. Everything is changed now.”

“Yes, and for the worse. Let me point out again, Admiral, that I don’t want to go to jail. I have my whole life in front of me. You may get VIP treatment in Portsmouth-a cottage of your own, or whatever they do with admirals, but I… Which reminds me, you’ll be the first American admiral to be court-martialed in this century, won’t you? Or maybe with your retired status, you’ll suffer the indignity of a civilian trial.”

Hennings tried to remember-to understand the sequence of small compromises that had brought him so far down that he had to listen to this from a man like Sloan. He was either getting senile or there was a flaw in his moral fiber that he had not been made aware of. Certainly James Sloan wasn’t that sharp. “You think a lot of yourself, don’t you?” he said. “But if you were as shrewd as you think you are, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“I don’t mind sticking my neck out if I can gain by it. What I do mind is your getting in my way. This would have all been resolved long ago if you hadn’t procrastinated, and if we hadn’t listened to Matos’s bullshit about fatigue cracks and damage.”

Hennings nodded. That was certainly true. For the last hour, Sloan had explained to him why Peter Matos should destroy the Straton. For the last hour, Hennings had advised waiting for some word from Matos that the Straton had gone down by itself. Matos’s reports had confirmed that the Straton was damaged but still flying, straight and steady, except for one deliberate but unexplainable course change from a 120-degree heading to a 131-degree heading. Also, Matos reported people falling or jumping from the airliner. None of this was comprehensible. “Why did they change course? Why are people falling from a steady aircraft? There was obviously no fire. They can’t be jumping. That makes no sense. What the hell is going on up there?”

Sloan wasn’t sure he knew what was going on up there either. The first heading seemed to put the Straton closer to its home base of San Francisco. The new heading might put them on a parallel course to the coast. He looked at Hennings. “The pilot must be lost. His navigation sets are probably malfunctioning. As for the people…” He thought for a moment about that bizarre happening. “I told you they’ve probably suffered brain damage.” He was beginning to imagine for the first time what it must be like for the people onboard the Straton. “The pilots may be brain damaged, too. That’s why they’re changing their headings.” He looked Hennings in the eye. “They may crash into a populated area. Think about that.”

Hennings was through thinking and through arguing. His only argument had been based on his own understanding of the moral and ethical issues involved. Against that thin, apparently weightless argument, Sloan had thrown a dozen expedient reasons for destroying the Straton and the people onboard.

“We’re running out of time.” Sloan said it casually, as if he were late for a tennis match at the officers’ club. “Matos is low on fuel.”

Hennings stepped closer to Sloan. “If I say no?”

Sloan shrugged. “Then I go to Captain Diehl and tell him my side of the story.”

“You don’t bluff well.”

Sloan smiled. “Well, I guess it’s not important for you to concur any longer. You’ve already committed a half-dozen court-martial offenses. Just stay out of my way, and I’ll call Matos and finish it off. The Straton’s obviously not going down on its own.” Sloan picked up the microphone and glanced at Hennings out of the corner of his eye. He started to push the transmit button, then hesitated. It would be much better if the Admiral was in on it. As he pondered his next move, the telephone rang. He put down the microphone and snatched up the receiver. “Commander Sloan,” he said impatiently, then listened for a few seconds. “Yes. Go ahead with the message. Exactly as received.”

“Who is it?” Hennings asked, apprehension in his voice.

Sloan ignored him. “Okay. I understand. Then their request is specifically for a broad-area search, and only within the boundaries you’ve described?”

Hennings was certain that it concerned the Straton, but couldn’t guess in what way.

Sloan was shaking his head. “I’m tied up here-with this special test. Yes, it’s still not finished, but that’s not your business. Have Lieutenant Rowles lay out the initial patterns and assignments. At least eight aircraft each shift. To be launched at one-hour intervals. Begin the search in the northern quadrant, and expand the search southward.” Sloan glanced at the console clock. “Tell Rowles to get the first group off within fifteen minutes.” He hung up and turned to Hennings. “A message came from Air Traffic Control to initiate a search and possible rescue mission.”

“The Straton?”

“Trans-United Flight 52. A supersonic Straton 797 from San Francisco to Tokyo. Unless the Trans-United Stratons are having a bad day, that must be ours.”

“But I thought we would hear any transmissions from them.” He gestured toward the radio-monitoring equipment.

Sloan hesitated. He had to pick and choose what to tell Hennings. “They transmitted on a data-link, a typed-out message that displays on a computer screen. I presume only the Trans-United operations office can receive from them. Anyway, the pilot was apparently dying. Brain damage. He made that turn, then made the course change, then they lost contact. They suspect that he died or blacked out, and that the Straton went down and…”

“Then they don’t know it’s still-”

“No. They don’t. The good news is that one of the data-link messages from the Straton mentioned a bomb. Everyone thinks there was a bomb onboard. Do you see it all now, Admiral? A pilotless aircraft filled with dead and dying, and with enough fuel left to reach California. Even if it weren’t our fault, I’d say we had a duty to bring it down.”

“How soon will your search party be in the area?”

“Soon.” Sloan had been asked to search an area that was hundreds of miles from where he knew the Straton actually was. By the time his aircraft worked their search pattern, the Straton would have flown hundreds of miles farther. “Very soon,” he lied. He looked at Hennings. “You can’t avoid any of the responsibility if I order this aircraft shot down. Silence is acquiescence. You’re no better than I am. But if you want to remain silent and let me do the dirty work…”

Suddenly, Hennings understood Sloan’s insistence on getting his approval for an act that he had the power to accomplish by himself. Sloan was looking for a personal victory over Hennings, and all that Hennings represented. All the old notions of honor, virtue, and integrity. Somehow it would make Sloan feel better to rub Hennings’s face in the muck.

Sloan said, “You had no qualms about serving a commander in chief who was a draft dodger, a notorious liar, and who had nothing but contempt for the military. Or, if you had any such qualms, you sure kept them to yourself, Admiral. We all did. Don’t talk to me about doing the right thing, about standing up for principle. None of us resigned over Vietnam, and none of us spoke out against the draft dodger in the White House. We’re all whores and we’re all compromised. The only thing I believe in is the career of James Sloan.”

Hennings made no reply, no protest.

Neither man spoke for a long time.

Hennings looked around the room known as E-334. Sterile, gray metal, covered with mazes of electrical conduit, the smell of electronics hanging in the airconditioned atmosphere. The world was full of Room E-334s now, on the sea, in the air, underground. Small tight compartments with no human touch. The destiny and the fate of mankind would someday be decided from a room like this one. Hennings was glad he would not be around to see it. He looked at Sloan. This man was the future. He knows how to live in this world. “Yes. Of course. Order Matos to shoot the Straton down.”

Sloan hesitated for a second, then sat down quickly at the radio console.

“Make sure he understands what he is to do and why he is to do it, Commander.”

Sloan glanced back at Hennings. “Yes. All right. I know what to do. We had him at this point once before.” But he knew Matos could go either way. “Navy three-four-seven, this is Homeplate. Do you read?” Sloan looked again at Hennings. “You wanted me to be honest with him, and I will.”

The radio crackled, and Matos’s voice, strained and perhaps even frightened, came through the scrambler and filled the room. “Roger, Homeplate. Go ahead.”

Sloan heard the edginess in the young man’s voice. That was a good beginning. “Peter, this is Commander Sloan. I asked you a question before, and now I want the answer. Why have you been ordered to keep out of sight of the cockpit?”

There was a long silence in the room, then the radio came alive with Matos’s voice. “I was to keep out of sight of the cockpit because there might be a pilot in there. If he was able to get his radios working, and if he saw me, he might understand what happened to his aircraft and radio the message. Or he might tell someone when he landed.”

“Yes. And we have new information from ATC. They think it was a bomb onboard. Go on. What else, Peter?”

“The accident was our… my fault. I have a chance to cover it up by shooting the Straton down.”

“For the good of the Navy, for the good of national security, for our own good.”

“Yes.”

“The test we were conducting is in violation of an international treaty. It is illegal. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“The people onboard are dead or brain damaged. They are heading toward California-like a cruise missile, with enough destructive force to level a small town or wipe out twenty city blocks.”

“I understand.”

“Every boat and aircraft in the area is heading your way now, including a flight from this carrier. If anyone sees you, we are all finished. Within the next ten minutes, you are to fire the Phoenix missile into the Straton, just as you were going to do before.”

“Roger.” There was a pause. “My fuel is low.”

“All the more reason to get it done quickly. When you complete your mission, keep heading for the coast and I will have a refuel mission meet you. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Sloan decided it was time to pull out all the stops. He said to Matos, “I have here with me Rear Admiral Randolf Hennings, who concurs with my decision. He will personally debrief you when you land. Understand?”

“Yes.”

Sloan glanced at Hennings, whose face had gone white. Sloan said to Matos, “Enough talk, Peter. Fire your missile into the cockpit of the Straton. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Get into position, steady aim, and fire. No miss. Ten minutes, max. Call me when you’ve accomplished the mission.”

“Roger.”

“Roger. Out.” Sloan set his countdown clock for ten minutes, then swiveled his chair and faced Hennings. The Admiral looked pale and was leaning against the bulkhead. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I think so.”

Sloan nodded. “I hope you don’t think this is any easier for me than for you.”

Hennings wiped the clammy sweat from his neck. “I suspect it is.”

Sloan stared at him. The old man looked as if he might be having a heart attack.

Hennings stood up straight. “I think I’ll go on deck and get some air.”

Sloan didn’t want Hennings out of his sight. There was an aura in this room, a spell that could be broken by sunlight and other voices, other faces. “I’d like you to stay around. For ten minutes at least.”

Hennings nodded. “Yes. Of course. I’ll see it through.” He pushed aside the blackout curtain, opened the porthole, and took a deep breath. Then, for the first time in more than forty years, he became sick at sea.

Sloan watched the man out of the corner of his eye. Hennings was a very weak link in a three-link chain. Matos was stronger, but he might break too. Now that the problem of the Straton was as good as out of the way, Sloan thought more about Matos and Hennings. He had pretty much decided how to deal with Lieutenant Peter Matos.

Sloan walked over to the end of the console where a half-dozen interphones, color coded to indicate their function, sat in a row. He picked up the green one and, before anyone answered, reached down and switched it off. “Operations? This is Commander Sloan. We have a problem. Navy three-four-seven, F-18, Matos, is in a critical fuel situation. I want a tanker from the closest coastal base to rendezvous with him.” Sloan gave Matos’s present coordinates into the dead phone. “Thank you.” He hung up and picked up the blue phone and switched it off. “Rowles? Sloan. Alert the Straton search party that they may have to split the mission and look for three-four-seven. Yes. He had a fuel emergency, but I have a tanker on the way and it should reach him in plenty of time. Just keeping you alerted. Right.” He hung up and slid a clipboard over the on-off switches, then turned toward the Admiral.

Randolf Hennings was a more difficult problem. As long as Hennings lived and breathed and spoke, with all his pent-up guilt and remorse, James Sloan would never have another good night’s sleep, never know when a summons to the captain’s office would be arrest. James Sloan couldn’t allow that. Not at all.

The view from the captain’s flight chair of the Straton 797 was spectacular. Berry sat, mesmerized by the churning mass of black boiling clouds in the distance. He had seen them first as a vague haziness on the far horizon, shafts of sunlight streaking from them into the ocean at a sharp angle. The closer he got, the more awesome they looked-and the more he knew he was in trouble.

He leaned forward and scanned the horizon. The line of storms stretched as far as he could see in either direction, like a great solid wall between heaven and earth. They’d dropped down into the sea like a curtain, hiding the horizon line, and towered up above them so high that he knew he could not climb above them.

Sharon touched his arm and spoke softly, worry in her voice. “I haven’t seen them this bad in a long time.”

Berry had never seen them quite this bad, ever. The only thing they had going for them had been the weather and the daylight, and he had begun to take that for granted, not believing that anything else could go wrong for Flight 52. “You’ve been through these before?”

“A few times. You?”

“No. Not on a commercial flight.”

“In your Skymaster?”

“No.” In his Skymaster he would simply have turned and found an airport. Out here there was no airport to turn to.

Crandall looked down at the weather radar screen on the center instrument panel. “Do you see a break in the clouds?”

Berry stared at the screen. A thin green trace line swept across the radarscope every six seconds, leaving patterns of colored patches in its wake. “I don’t really know how to work it or how to read it.” He glanced at the line of thunderstorms, then back at the radarscope. What he saw on the scope was supposed to represent what he saw from his windshield, but he could see no correlation. “I’ve read articles on weather radar, but I’ve never worked it.”

Crandall heard a noise behind her and looked back. Linda was curled up near the cockpit’s rear bulkhead, asleep. Crandall looked up at the door. An entire arm, right up to the shoulder, had slid through the opening and the hand was feeling around the inside of the door. The hand found the nylon hose and pulled at it, loosening the tension on the door and allowing his shoulder to slide through. She saw the blue shoulder boards of First Officer Daniel McVary, then saw his face peeking in at the opening. “John…”

Berry looked back. “For God’s sake.” He hesitated, then stood. He walked to the door and examined the knot around the latch. He took the disembodied arm and tried to force it out, but the hand grabbed his shirt. Berry stepped back. There was something grotesque about this arm reaching out to him. He was reminded of the stories told around a campfire at night. But this was real. He reached into his pocket and found the gold lighter that he carried. He lit it, hesitated, then reluctantly touched the flame to McVary’s hand. There was a long scream and the arm disappeared from the cockpit. Berry looked up at Sharon and met her eyes, but there was no censure in them, only understanding.

Berry knelt down beside Linda, who had awakened. “Go back to sleep.”

She closed her eyes. “I’m very thirsty.”

Berry patted her cheek. “Soon. Don’t think about it.” He stood and walked back to his chair.

Sharon fixed her eyes on the radar set. “Are these all the radar controls?”

Berry looked at her. There had developed a tacit understanding among the three of them that they were not to talk about the others. Berry looked down at the console. “Yes. Antenna tilt. Gain. Brilliance. Mode selector… Here’s one called erase rate. I’ve never even heard of that.”

Crandall looked up again at the black wall outside the windshield. It was closer now, and she could see its inner violence, the black-gray smoke churning. “Can we go around it without the radar?”

Berry shook his head. “These lines sometimes stretch for hundreds of miles. I don’t think we have the fuel to try an end run.”

“Hawaii?” She didn’t want to throw that up to him, but it seemed too important to be left unsaid.

“No. In addition to the other reasons I gave you, we don’t have the fuel for that any longer. We have only enough to fly straight to California.”

Crandall looked at the fuel gauges. They read less than one-third full.

Berry played with the radar controls. If he could understand the picture on the screen, he might be able to pick out a weak spot in the wall of clouds in front of him.

Crandall remembered other storms she’d gone through in other aircraft. The Straton 797 flew above the weather, and that, at least, was one advantage to traveling in subspace. “We can’t climb above it?”

Berry looked up at the sheer wall of clouds. “Not with this aircraft. It won’t hold its air pressure.” He looked at the oxygen mask hanging beside his seat. An oxygen mask should be enough, as long as they didn’t climb much above 30,000 feet. Was that high enough to clear these storms? He couldn’t tell for sure, but he didn’t think so. Besides, the oxygen tanks would probably be empty, and he didn’t know if there was a reserve tank.

Crandall was following his thoughts. “There may be an unused oxygen tank that we could switch to.”

“There might be. But do you think we should put those people through another period of oxygen deprivation? Don’t we have to draw the line somewhere?”

“Not if it’s our lives.”

“They are not dead, and we don’t know that they won’t get better, and even if they won’t… Besides, in order to gain enough altitude to get over this weather, I’d have to circle-spiral upward. I’d rather not try my flying skills at this point. Anyway, the maneuver would burn off a tremendous amount of fuel.”

“What you’re saying is that we’re committed to bucking into the storm.”

“I’m not sure. The other options look better in the short run, but I’m thinking of the California coast.”

“Me too.” She hesitated, then said, “Will the holes in the cabin… could the plane…?”

“I don’t think it will come apart.” But he didn’t know if the structure was weakened, how many longerons were severed. Completely airworthy craft had broken up in storms. He said, “It’s the wings that take the most punishment. They don’t appear to be damaged.”

Crandall nodded. There was something reassuring about John Berry’s voice, his manner. Most pilots had that ability to make even bad news sound routine. Yet she felt there was something else troubling him. “If you think the Straton can handle it, then I can handle it.”

Berry decided that he had to tell it to her truthfully. It was her life too, and she had a right to know what could happen. “Look, Sharon, the major problem is not the aircraft. If the turbulence gets too rough-and there’s no reason to think it won’t, by the looks of those clouds-then the autopilot could disengage itself. Then I’d have to hand-fly this thing. Christ, three experienced pilots in an undamaged craft have their hands full during a storm. I have to think about the throttles, the pitch trim… I haven’t flown this aircraft in good weather. The plane could get away from me… spin out…” Berry suddenly wanted to turn, to run and get away from the black wall closing in on him, even if he had to put the plane down at sea. Anything would be preferable to the nightmare of a bouncing, heaving aircraft caught in the center of a storm of unknown width and breadth. He turned to Sharon. “Do you want to turn? We can outrun it, but we’d probably have to ditch before we reached any land.”

Crandall considered the options: Running from the storm knowing that each minute of flight time was another minute from the coast. Then putting it down at sea. And if they survived the landing, there would be the agony of the sea, maybe other passengers floating in the water… She weighed that against the storm. They would live or die in the storm-nothing in between. She looked up at the clouds. Somewhere on the other side of that black veil the sun shone, and over the next horizon was the coastline of America. That’s where they said they wanted to go, and that’s where they would go. A sense of calm came over her, and she knew that one way or the other the end of their long trial was near. “We should maintain our present heading.”

Berry nodded. He also had a need to meet the storm head-on. He thought about his wife and children for the first time in over an hour. Then he thought about his employer and his job. The worst thing that could happen to him, he realized, was that he would survive, only to pick up his life where he’d left it. He believed that somehow the crucible of that storm would cleanse him, even rebaptize him.

Crandall said, “We should call San Francisco and tell them what’s happening. They may be able to give us some advice.”

Berry nodded. He realized that, subconsciously, he had been avoiding the data-link. Instead of it being a lifeline, the link had become an intrusion into his small world. He typed.

TO SAN FRANCISCO: WE ARE APPROACHING AN AREA OF THUNDERSTORMS. I AM UNABLE TO WORK OR READ WEATHER RADAR. WE HAVE DETERMINED THAT THE BEST COURSE OF ACTION IS TO MAINTAIN PRESENT HEADING. IS THERE ANYTHING WE SHOULD DO TO PREPARE THE AIRCRAFT?

He reached for the transmit button, then decided to type an additional line.

IS THERE ANY INDICATION AT YOUR END THAT WE CAN GET AROUND THE WEATHER WITHOUT EXPENDING TOO MUCH FUEL? BERRY.

He pushed the transmit button, then looked up at the windshield. Thin wisps of smoky gray clouds sailed past the Straton; the cockpit became a little darker. “I’d say we’ve got about fifty miles to go before we’re into the heavy weather. Nine or ten minutes’ flying time.”

Crandall noticed that her calm had turned to edginess, as it always did when she entered a storm. It seemed like the waiting was the worst part of it-until you were in it. Then, when you thought the worst was happening, it got even worse than that. But breaking out of a storm into the sun or the moonlight was one of those rare and exhilarating moments in flying. She turned to Berry. “Is there anything you’d be doing in your private plane that we haven’t done yet?”

“Yes.” He forced a smile. “Turn around and get the hell out of here.” The aircraft bumped slightly, and he turned and looked back at Linda. She was awake now, sitting in one of the empty flight chairs with her knees up to her chin. He turned to Sharon. “Buckle her into the observer’s seat.”

Crandall rose from her chair and walked over to the girl. “Let’s get up and sit over here where you’ll be more comfortable.” She took her by the arm and led her to the observer’s seat that was directly behind the captain’s chair. “That’s right. Here. I’ll buckle you in just like when you first came onboard.”

“Thank you. Are we going into a storm?”

“It’ll be all right. But remember, it’s going to get very dark in here. You’ll hear the rain against the windshield. It might be louder than you expect. And it will be a very bumpy ride. But Mr. Berry will fly us right through it. You’re not afraid of lightning, are you?”

“No. Only when I was little.”

“Good. Lightning is nothing to be afraid of.” Crandall patted the girl on the cheek, then climbed into her chair and buckled herself in.

The three of them sat quietly in the darkening cockpit as the Straton sailed toward some thin, layered clouds that preceded the wall of thunderstorms. Wisps of light gray flew past the windshield. The Straton bounced suddenly, and from the lounge came a wailing and moaning that Berry recognized instinctively as something very primeval, an ancient inborn terror that came from the very soul of the species. “Poor bastards.” They were going to be hurt if it got very bad. There was nothing he could do for them.

The alerting bell sounded.

TO FLIGHT 52: NO INDICATION AT THIS END THAT WEATHER IS AVOIDABLE CONSIDERING YOUR ESTIMATED FUEL RESERVE AND CONSIDERING THE UNPRESSURIZED CONDITION OF THE AIRCRAFT. MAINTAIN PRESENT HEADING AND ALTITUDE AS YOU INDICATED. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU ALTER CENTER OF GRAVITY FOR TURBULENCE BY TRANSFERRING FUEL BETWEEN TANKS. STAND BY FOR DETAILED INSTRUCTION. ACKNOWLEDGE A READY CONDITION. SAN FRANCISCO HQ.

Berry typed.

EXPERIENCING SOME TURBULENCE. SHOULD I CIRCLE TO AVOID TURBULENCE BEFORE PROCEDURE IS COMPLETE?

The reply came quickly.

NEGATIVE. MAINTAIN HEADING. PROCEDURE WILL TAKE ONLY TWO OR THREE MINUTES. ALL CONTROLS ARE LOCATED ON OVERHEAD PANEL.

“Okay.” Berry looked up at the large panel above his head. “Sharon, read me the instructions as they print.”

“Here it comes, John. Ready?”

“Ready.”

“In the center of… the overhead panel… four switches… labeled… low pressure fuel valve position… acknowledge…”

“I see them.”

“Good.” Crandall typed a quick acknowledgment. “Okay… here comes more… Turn the switches… to off…”

Berry looked over at her. “All of them?” He glanced down at the display screen himself, but at the angle he was at it was difficult to read.

“That’s what it says.”

Berry looked back at the switches. There was something wrong. Some instinct told him to be careful. To proceed cautiously. He remembered a line from an aviation magazine. Operate important switches one at a time. He put his hand on switch number one. Tentatively, he pulled it toward him so it would clear its guard, then pushed down on it and moved it to the off position. He counted off a few seconds.

“Done?”

Berry looked around the cockpit, then scanned the panel in front of him. Nothing unusual was happening.

“Did you do it?”

“Wait a minute. That’s just the first one.”

Crandall looked back at him. “Is anything wrong?”

“No. I’m just proceeding cautiously.”

Crandall turned to the console. “They want an acknowledgment.”

“Tell them to hold their fucking horses.” Berry hit the second switch, then the third, and finally the last. He sat very still but could feel nothing in the seat of his pants to indicate any transfer of fuel, any shift in center of gravity. Maybe the autopilot was compensating. It probably was. “Finished. Is that all?”

Crandall typed the acknowledgment, then read the next message as it came through. “Last step… a covered switch… labeled… fuel valve emergency power… engage the switch… then fuel transfer… will be done… automatically… it will take… two or three more minutes.”

Berry found the switch. Not only was it covered by a special guard, but the guard was fixed in place by a thin strand of safety wire. Clearly, this switch was not used very often. “Are you sure?”

“I’ll read it again… a covered switch labeled fuel valve emergency power. Engage the switch…” She paused. “John, please hurry. We’re almost into the storm.”

Somewhere in the deepest recesses of Berry’s mind a warning flashed for a thousandth of a second, like a subliminal message on a video screen. He could not see it, though he sensed it for a passing moment, but did not believe what he thought it said. For to believe it was to admit to something he could not possibly handle. Without another thought, John Berry snapped the safety wire with his thumb and lifted the guard.

He pushed the emergency power switch into an engaged position.

Within the span of a microsecond, an electrical signal went to each fuel valve on the Straton’s four jet engines. Before John Berry had even taken his hand off the switch, the valves had already begun to choke off the flow of fuel to all four of the engines.

Mayday