Mayday

17

Hot lights always annoyed Edward Johnson, and today they seemed more annoying than usual. The long, walnut-paneled press conference room on the second level of the main terminal building was filled to overflow capacity with newspeople, camera crews, company officials. Everyone loved a disaster, reflected Johnson, except the people who were physically or financially involved. “Goddamn vultures,” he said.

“Lower your voice,” said Wayne Metz. Metz stood next to Johnson, trying to look inconspicuous, as though he had no direct connection with Johnson. “There are microphones in front of you.”

Johnson was feeling reckless. “Goddamn vultures.” There was such a din in the room, he didn’t think anyone could hear him if he shouted out a full confession. He mopped his brow and noticed with annoyance that half the lights had not yet been turned on. “It’ll be over soon.” He glanced up at the clock. 6:08. “These goddamned things never start on time.”

Hank Abbot, the Straton Aircraft Corporation representative, pushed his way through the crowd. “Hello, Ed. Bad break.”

Johnson glanced at him. “Yeah.”

Abbot turned to Metz. “Wayne Metz, right? Beneficial?”

“Right.”

“Bad break for you, too.”

Johnson broke in. “Have you notified your insurance carrier yet?”

Abbot looked at him for several seconds until he understood. “Hold on, Ed. One of those data-link messages mentioned a bomb.”

“Did you see the damage, Hank?”

“No, of course not, but…”

“Neither did an engineer. Do you think some half-hysterical, possibly brain-damaged passenger could tell the difference between a bomb blast and a structural failure?”

“Wait a damned minute-”

“If a wall or window blew out because the hull couldn’t handle the air pressure, that would be your problem, wouldn’t it?”

“Look, Ed, we’ve done business with Trans-United since before the war. On those rare occasions when an accident was caused by structural failure or faulty design, we’ve owned up and made good, but…”

“Sorry, Hank. No aircraft, no survivors, no one knows anything. I don’t think we should be speaking to each other at this time without counsel present.”

“You bastard.” Abbot stood in front of Johnson for several seconds, then turned abruptly and pushed his way to the back of the room.

Metz turned to Johnson. “God, you almost convinced me that it was his fault.”

“It was.” He looked closely at Metz. “It was.”

Metz nodded. “How will the government investigations be?”

“Not too bad.” Johnson didn’t think there was any way an investigating agency could unwrap the package in which he had sealed the Straton’s fate. As he had basically reminded Abbot, there was a saying they used in these things: No aircraft, no survivors, no one to hang-or everyone. “I spoke to the president,” Johnson said. He nodded toward a pleasant-looking man near the back wall. “He says your boss is pissed off at you.”

Metz nodded. “Yes. I just spoke to him. He was all right this afternoon, but he turned nasty when he got an idea of what the bill might be from Trans-United.”

“Does he have a check in the mail?”

“If he only knew how bad it could have been. Damn it, if he only knew what I did…” He looked around him. “I have to go to New York tonight. See him first thing in the morning. Christ. I hope we can stick the Straton people with this.”

“We have a good shot at it. And, Wayne,” he lowered his voice, “don’t even hint to Mr. Wilford Parke that his fair-haired boy helped deep-six the Straton for the good of the company-because if you do…”

Metz nodded. It had occurred to him, as he spoke to Parke, that he had committed mass murder for nothing. His days at Beneficial were definitely numbered. Johnson, on the other hand, seemed to be coming through this intact. “Life can really suck-you know?”

“Tell me about it.” Johnson wanted nothing more out of life at that moment than a drink and a good night’s sleep. He wanted to get into his car, drive out to the beach, check into a motel, and get far away from this airport.

A voice yelled out, “Two minutes!” Evidently, they were going with live TV coverage rather than videotapes.

For Metz, the television and press coverage was a foreign and overwhelming event and a further addition to his problem. He hoped Johnson could handle it. He had a sudden desire to disappear into the shadowy corners of the room. “Should I move farther away?”

“How about Brazil?”

“I mean-”

“Stay here. Just step back out of camera shot, but don’t get too far.”

Metz had a sudden inspiration. “I wouldn’t mind answering questions. I could say something.”

“Don’t try to save your job on my time. I might have enough trouble saving my own. Step back.”

Metz stepped back. He could see that Johnson was still volatile, but he knew that as soon as he settled down, he would begin to think in terms of helping Metz save his job. He had no choice, really. The two of them were in it together.

“One minute!”

Johnson took a cigar out of his pocket and lit it. He looked around the room. Kevin Fitzgerald stood with Trans-United’s public-relations man and a few other executives. The president stood with the chairman of the board and presumably God stood beside them both, though Johnson’s irreverent eyes could not see Him. Everyone had agreed that this conference was too important to be left to the public-relations people, and too sad an occasion to have the president’s face and name associated with it. Bastards. He straightened his tie and wiped his brow.

“Thirty seconds!”

Johnson looked at the clock. Twelve after six.

A TV technician shouted from across the room. “We’re ready, Mr. Johnson.”

Johnson nodded. He turned and faced the cameras squarely as the last of the bright lights were turned on.

Metz stepped even farther back from Johnson. Out of nervous habit, he felt inside his sports jacket for the data-link messages, as a man feels for his wallet, and his heart jumped when his fingers found nothing. Then he remembered, with some embarrassment, that he and Johnson had stopped on the access road between the Trans-United hangar and the administration building to burn them. They were no more than a pile of ashes now. But, still, his fingers went deeper into his inside pocket. He had the sudden, irrational fear that he had somehow left one of them in his pocket, and that the TV camera would suddenly swing around and zero in on it like an X-ray zeroing in on a suspicious spot. His fingers felt the line at the bottom of his pocket. He patted his other pockets quickly. He saw Johnson giving him an annoyed look. Calm down. Almost over.

A young woman with a clipboard called out, “Mr. Johnson, watch for the red light.”

Johnson glowered at the production assistant. “I know that.”

“Right. Begin with your prepared statement, then we’ll go into the Q and A from the newspeople.”

“Fine.” It seemed to Johnson that the newsmen-or newspeople, as they called themselves-were literally licking their lips over the assignment to cover the first air crash of a supersonic transport. If the bastards only knew the story they almost had.

The camera’s red light came on.

“You’re on.”

Johnson cleared his throat and put on an expression that was appropriate to the gravity of the first sentence he could speak. “Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to announce that Trans-United Flight 52 has apparently crashed at sea. The flight, a Straton 797 supersonic airliner, left San Francisco International Airport this morning at eight-thirty A.M., on a nonstop flight to Tokyo. Onboard the aircraft were 302 passengers and a crew of fourteen. Approximately midway across the Pacific, there was an in-flight emergency, the exact nature of which is unknown but apparently involved the hull-the fuselage…” Fuck Abbot. “… and cabin pressure was lost. The aircraft turned around and headed back to San Francisco.” Johnson paused and took a breath. “What you may have heard concerning a passenger piloting the aircraft is true.”

There was an excited murmur in the room, and Johnson could see pencils moving and cameras clicking away at him. He continued, “Because of a malfunction in their voice radios, we established contact with them via data-link-a computer screen for typed messages. The last message was received from Flight 52 at approximately one P.M., San Francisco time. Since then-”

A wall telephone rang loudly in the back of the quiet room.

Johnson glanced up at it with unconcealed annoyance, and saw Kevin Fitzgerald pick it up. He glanced at the production assistant who was motioning him to continue. “Since then, an extensive search-and-rescue operation has been mounted by military and civilian authorities…” Johnson saw that Fitzgerald was speaking excitedly into the telephone, and something inside him signaled a warning. “Flight 52 had… still has not been found as of this moment… and if they were still flying… their fuel would probably have been consumed by now…” Fitzgerald had motioned for the president and the chairman of the board. What the fuck is going on back there? “And is still… that is… we have many of the relatives and friends of the passengers here at the terminal… in our lounge…” Fitzgerald was speaking into the phone and relaying a message to the people around him. There was a stir in the back of the room. “And the chief pilot, Captain Kevin Fitzgerald… has been with the passengers… the passengers’ relatives… constantly… until now. The search will continue until-”

“Wait!” Fitzgerald held the phone in his hand and was signaling to Johnson.

Johnson dropped his cigar on the floor and stared at Fitzgerald.

Everyone turned toward the back of the room.

“It’s the control tower,” said Fitzgerald. “The radar room.”

The production assistant barked an order and the camera turned toward Fitzgerald. Technicians ran across the room with hand microphones and the electrical crew swung several of the white lights around. The shadow of Kevin Fitzgerald holding the telephone in his outstretched hand rose up on the stark wall behind him. “The control tower says,” shouted Fitzgerald over the rising noise, “that they have a large unidentified aircraft on their radarscope. The aircraft is headed directly toward San Francisco Airport. It is now sixty-two miles west of here, flying at a low altitude, and at an airspeed of three hundred and forty knots. They believe the aircraft may be…” He glanced up at Johnson, then finished the sentence with the words that were already on everyone’s lips: “… the Straton.”

The room exploded with sound. Some reporters rushed up to Fitzgerald, and others grabbed the phones on the long conference table. The Straton executives had already positioned themselves at the door in the rear of the room. They disappeared into the corridor and headed for a small VIP conference room across the hall.

Wayne Metz pushed through the crowd and grabbed Johnson by the shoulder. “ How? How can this be possible? Johnson?”

Edward Johnson looked at Metz as if he hadn’t understood the question.

“Johnson, damn it! Can it be true?”

Johnson was in a daze. A few reporters, unable to get to Fitzgerald, crowded around Johnson. Questions bombarded him from all sides. He pushed through the reporters and broke out into the corridor, half walking, half running toward the staircase.

Wayne Metz came up behind him, breathless. “Johnson! Is it true? Is it true?”

Johnson turned and spoke distractedly as he bounded down the stairs. “How the hell do I know?”

Metz followed. “Where are you going?”

“To the damn ramp, Metz. At the speed that aircraft is traveling, it’ll be here in less than ten minutes.”

Metz followed him to the lower level, down a long corridor that led to a satellite terminal, then to a door that led to the aircraft parking ramp. Johnson put his identification card into an electronic scanner, and the door opened. The two of them walked outside, onto the airport ramp. “Can it be the Straton? Tell me. Please.”

Edward Johnson ignored Wayne Metz and looked up into the setting sun, shielding his eyes with his hands as he moved. He tried to think clearly, but his mind was unable to absorb all the ramifications of what had happened. Stunned with a terror he had never before known, he ran across the parking ramp. He felt that the Straton was sweeping down on him as he ran, like a winged nightmare from hell, a dead thing that came back from a watery grave. He thought he saw a small dot coming out of the sun, but realized it was too soon yet to see it. Please God. Not the goddamn Straton.