Mayday

5

Jack Miller sat at his long, functionally modern desk in the center of the starkly lit, windowless room. He glanced at the wall clock-11:37-then looked over at his assistant, Dennis Evans, who sat at a smaller desk, flipping desultorily through some papers. “I’m breaking for lunch in five minutes, Dennis.”

Evans glanced up from his desk. “Okay.”

The Trans-United Airlines dispatching office at San Francisco International Airport was experiencing its usual midday lull. The morning departures were well into their routines, and it was too early to begin the flight plans for the late-afternoon trips. The half-dozen dispatchers read newspapers, their assistants made an attempt to look occupied, and the junior aides tried to appear busy and eager.

Miller yawned and stretched. After twenty-eight years at Trans-United, he had enough seniority to get the two things he’d always wanted: a nine-to-five dispatcher’s shift, and assignment to the Pacific desk. Now that he had them both, he was bored. He almost yearned for the night shift and the more hectic South American desk again. Such was life.

Miller flipped absently through the pages of his Sports Illustrated, then laid it aside. He looked at his computer console, at the display of assigned trips. He was, at that moment, responsible for monitoring only four flights: 243 from Honolulu, 101 from Melbourne, 377 to Tahiti, and 52 to Tokyo.

The weather across the Pacific routes was good, and all the flights had ample reserve fuel. No problems. Not much to do. On days like this, he found himself watching the clock. Miller’s eye caught an empty entry on his display screen. He regarded the blank column for a second. “Dennis.” He spoke in a voice that years of practice had trained to penetrate the ambient sounds of the room without actually rising above the noise. “Dennis, did you forget 52’s update?”

“Hold on.” The young man walked over to a stack of computer messages on a countertop and leafed through them. He went through them a second time, more slowly. He looked up and called across the room. “Didn’t get one. It’s overdue. Want me to send a request?”

Miller didn’t like Dennis Evans’s choice of the word “overdue.” Overdue connoted something quite different from late in airline parlance. Miller looked at the wall clock. The fuel and position report was only a few minutes behind schedule. Late. It was purely routine. Minor information. Yet Miller would not, under any circumstances, turn anything over to Evans that wasn’t perfect. Twenty years before, he had left an open item on his sheet and gone to dinner. When he returned, he’d found the dispatcher’s office full of company executives. One of their new Boeing 707s had gone down somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico. That was the night that the euphemism “overdue” became clear.

Miller glanced back at the wall clock, then at the computer screen again. He didn’t like it, but he wasn’t overly concerned. “Well… we’ve got time.” He punched the computer keys to get a different screen, then looked down at the names of the crew. He was familiar enough with the name Alan Stuart. Like a lot of modern business relationships, this one was totally electronic. Just a voice on the telephone and the radio. Yet he felt he knew the man, and he knew that Flight 52’s captain was dependable. Miller wasn’t familiar with the other names on the crew list, but he knew that Stuart ran a tight ship. Miller was certain that Stuart would soon discover the oversight and send an update. Bugging a pilot, especially a conscientious one like Stuart, was the quickest way to become a disliked dispatcher, and Jack Miller had no intention of doing anything like that during the remainder of his career. It was the sort of stunt that Evans was noted for. He looked up at Evans, who was going through the messages again. “We’ll get the update soon. If we don’t, then…” Miller paused and considered. He didn’t want to request Flight 52’s updates by relaying a message through air-traffic control for everyone to hear. His eyes fixed on the door to the small glass-enclosed communications room that housed the data-link machine. “If we don’t hear from them by, say, twelve o’clock, type out a request to them on the link.”

Evans grunted a reply. The radio was faster and easier than the data-link-sometimes link messages just didn’t get through-but Miller was always concerned with discretion and politeness. If a captain was sitting on his thumb up there, he ought to be called on the radio and told about it. Evans pushed the computer messages aside and sat back at his desk.

Miller glanced at the computer screen again, then punched a button to turn off the display. “It’s a nice day out there,” he called to Evans. “They’re drinking coffee and daydreaming.”

Evans mumbled something as he worked on another flight’s data.

Miller watched the clock. The room became still except for the background noises of the electronics. Miller focused on the sweep second hand. He was accustomed to this kind of waiting, but it always made him uneasy. Like the times his wife was overdue. Late. Or his teenaged son or daughter. The clock moved, not slowly, but quickly, at times like this, running through the minutes, making the awaited party more awaited. Making one wonder all sorts of things.

John Berry sat strapped into the captain’s seat of the Straton. The midday sun poured through the cockpit windows, bathing him in bright sunlight. He pressed the talk button on the hand microphone again and spoke loudly. “Do you read me? Does anyone read?” Beads of perspiration dotted his forehead, and his mouth felt dry.

With his right hand, he made careful adjustments on the audio panel. “Mayday. Do you read Mayday? Any station. Do you read Mayday?” He sat back and listened. Listened for the familiar crackle, the squelch-break that was the electronic equivalent of a man clearing his throat before he spoke. But there was only the persistent, unbroken hum of the speakers.

Berry slumped into the seat. He was confused. If there was one thing he knew from his years of flying, it was how to work a radio. It seemed simple enough even in the Straton. The airliner’s radios did not seem much different from all the other sets that he had operated. Yet there must be something different about them, some small esoteric task that had to be performed before the radios would transmit. But what? And why? Why should these radios be different? “Damn it.” Berry wondered how in God’s name he could ever fly the aircraft if he couldn’t even work the radios.

The urge to talk to someone had become overwhelming. It had gone beyond the simple necessity to report the disaster and ask for assistance. It had become an overpowering need to hear a human voice just for the sake of hearing it. But as each minute of silence passed, Berry was losing hope and was becoming alternately frantic and despondent. His hand shook so badly now that he stopped trying to transmit and sat back and tried to calm himself. He glanced at the instruments. Everything looked good, but after his failure with the radios, he was beginning to doubt his ability to read even standard gauges. And the majority of the Straton’s instrumentation was standard enough to be familiar. But the markings-the altitudes, speeds, fuel reserves, engine temperatures-were incredibly amplified. He tried to imagine he was in the Skymaster and tried to reduce the problems and the instrument panels to manageable proportions.

He looked at the fuel reserves. Less than half full. What this meant in flying time at the present speed and altitude, he didn’t know. But he’d figure it out soon enough as the needles drifted leftward and the minutes passed. He stared at the control wheels as they moved slightly-inward, outward, left, right. The rudder pedals made small movements. The flight was steady.

Something odd caught his eye and he looked down near his left knee. He stared at the open protective cover and read the words above it. AUTOPILOT MASTER SWITCH. He stared at the toggle, which was pointing to ON. He understood. The Captain had either lost his nerve or lost consciousness before he could complete his last mission. Berry nodded. It sort of made sense. But for Berry, there was no such easy way out. Not yet. He reached down and snapped back the protective cover.

He found he was building up a healthy anger toward fate and toward death, if for no other reason than to tell his wife what he really thought about her. Unfinished business. He reached down and grabbed the microphone. “Mayday! Mayday, you sons-of-bitches! Answer Mayday!”

He began changing the frequency he was using, alternating between the frequencies left on the radios. When he transmitted, he knew he should keep to the universally understood words. He could save the explanations for when he made contact. “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” He waited for a reply, but again there was none.

Out of desperation he began to randomly turn the dials and transmit on every channel and on each of the four radios in the cockpit. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.”

He switched back to the original frequency. “This is Trans-United Flight…” What was the flight number? What difference did it make? He tried to remember his boarding pass but couldn’t. “This is the Tokyo-bound Trans-United Airlines Straton 797. Mayday. Do you read Mayday? Trans-United Operations, this is the Tokyo-bound Straton 797, we have an emergency. Do you read?” He waited. Nothing.

He could see that the radio’s transmission lights blinked whenever he pressed the microphone button. He could tell from the sidetone in the cockpit speakers that the radios were operating. But for some reason they were not putting out. He suspected that something-the antenna perhaps-had been damaged. He had hoped that someone in the cockpit had been able to put out a distress signal, but he was fairly certain now that they hadn’t. The fault in transmitting was not his-he’d known that, really. The radios were all set by the pilots to transmit. They simply weren’t sending. That’s all there was to it. No distress call had been sent and none ever would be sent.

No radios equaled no chance of flying the plane home. He almost felt a measure of relief. The responsibility of flying and landing this huge machine was not a prospect he’d looked forward to. But he did want to live. He put the microphone down and stared at the clear skies around him. His problems on the ground were in their proper perspective now. He could and would change a lot of things if he ever got back to New York. But everyone facing death must make that observation. One more chance. But more often than not, nothing changed if you were lucky enough to get a second chance. Still, he didn’t want to lie down and die. That’s what he’d been doing for the last ten years. He had to think it all out. Later.

John Berry turned and looked back through the open cockpit door into the lounge. He could see Linda Farley sitting in a club chair, weeping quietly.

Berry slid out of the captain’s seat and walked back into the lounge. The Captain and the copilot lay near the piano where he and the girl had dragged them, covered with blankets. The body of the flight engineer lay against the far bulkhead, his face and torso covered with a lap blanket.

Berry watched the flight attendant whose name tag said Terri. She was sitting on a small sofa, speaking incoherently to herself. Her face was smeared with blood and saliva. She seemed calm, but he’d have to watch her carefully for signs of violence. He’d have to keep her away from the cockpit, where she could do real harm.

Berry noticed that the old lady had stopped babbling to her dead husband and was now crouched behind a club chair peering over the top and making odd clucking sounds. Blood and drool covered her face also. Her husband’s body was still slumped over the cocktail table, but it seemed to have shifted. Berry wondered if rigor mortis was setting in already.

The five passengers on the horseshoe-shaped couch were still unconscious. One, a pretty young woman, was making odd sounds that came from her throat, and Berry wondered if that was what was called the death rattle.

The lounge smelled of feces, urine, and vomit. Berry closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against his temples. His head still ached from the oxygen loss, and he was becoming queasy.

He opened his eyes and surveyed the scene again. He’d thought that the confusion of these people might improve, might be reversible. But he was fairly certain now that it wasn’t. His world was divided neatly and irrevocably, with no fuzzy lines, between Us and Them. And there were a lot more of Them.

Berry walked over to the girl and put his hand on her shoulder. His daughter had been this girl’s age when her remoteness and alienation had begun. But that was on the earth. Here, an adult enjoyed all the old prerogatives. “You’re going to have to calm down and start helping me.”

Linda Farley wiped her eyes and nodded.

Berry walked to the bar and found a can of Coca-Cola and opened it. He rummaged through the debris under the bar and extracted a miniature bottle of liquor. Johnny Walker Red. He opened it and drained off the ounce and a half, then carried the cola to the girl. “Here.”

She took it and drank. “Thank you.”

Berry knelt down beside McVary and pushed his eyelids back. Partly dilated. Breathing regular, but shallow. He looked up at the girl. “Did he move at all?”

Linda nodded. “He opened his eyes once. He said something, too, but I couldn’t understand it.” She pointed to Stuart. “That one never moved.”

Berry turned to Stuart. The blood and vomit on his face were dry and crusty. Berry pushed back the eyelids. The pupils were fully dilated. The Captain’s skin was clammy and his breathing was irregular. The man was dying.

Berry rose and looked down again at McVary. If the copilot regained consciousness, and if he was at all coherent, they might have a chance. The plane was flyable. All it needed was someone to fly it. Berry thought he could do it if someone talked him through it. Someone on the radio, if he could get it working, or this copilot. Without help, he’d have to wait out the hours in full consciousness of his impending death. He almost envied the others.

“Listen!”

Berry shot a glance at the girl, then steadied his breathing and listened.

“The stairs,” she whispered.

Berry nodded. “Be quiet.” The circular metal stairway that led down to the first-class cabin had apparently been loosened, and Berry remembered it creaking when he’d used it. It was creaking now.

Berry heard the footsteps on the stairs clearly now. They were coming slowly, hesitantly. He thought there was only one person, but he couldn’t be certain.

He walked quickly around the lounge searching for something to defend himself with. The barstools were fastened to the floor, the scattered bar bottles were miniatures, and the mixers were in small cans with pop tops, which meant no openers were needed. A canister of precut lemons and limes was in the galley. No knife. “Damn it.” He looked over the floor. Almost everything else that was movable had been sucked down the stairwell. He searched desperately for an attache case, an umbrella, the blind man’s cane, but he knew he would find nothing. The footsteps got louder.

Linda Farley screamed.

Berry looked at the stairwell and saw the top of a man’s head. He shouted at the girl, “Get in the cockpit and stay there. Go on!” He then moved quickly past the stairwell and knelt beside the body of Carl Fessler. He pulled the man’s belt off and wrapped it around his right hand, which still ached from the confrontation in the cabin. He let the buckle end swing free.

Berry stood quickly and moved to the opening in the rail around the stairwell. He looked down and saw a large man looking up at him. “Stop!”

The man stopped.

Berry saw that the man’s hands were on the floor a few inches from his ankles. He moved back a step. “Go down!” He raised the belt.

The man hesitated.

Berry knew that as long as he stood there he could keep anyone from coming up the stairs. But he couldn’t stand there indefinitely. “Go!”

The man backed down a few steps. He looked at Berry with an uncomprehending expression. He opened his mouth and made a small sound, then spoke clearly. “Who are you?”

Berry leaned over and looked at the man’s face. Flecks of vomit covered his chin and white shirt. His eyes looked alive. No blood covered his face, no saliva ran from his mouth. “Who are you?” Berry asked.

“Harold Stein.”

“Where are you from?”

“What?”

“What is your home address?”

The man took another step down. “Where’s the pilot? I was in the lavatory when…”

“Answer me, damn it! Tell me your home address!”

“Chatham Drive, Bronxville.”

“What day is this?”

“Tuesday. No, Wednesday. Look, who are you? Good God, man, don’t you realize what’s happened down here? Where is the pilot?”

Berry felt his chest heave and his eyes almost welled with tears. There were now three of them in that small minority. “You’re all right?”

“I think so.” Things were becoming more clear to Stein. “The people down here…”

“I know. Come up. Come up, Mr. Stein.”

Harold Stein took a hesitant step.

Berry backed off. He unwound the belt from his hand and stuffed it into his trouser pocket. “Come on. Quickly.” He glanced over his shoulder at the three men and two women sitting on the horseshoe-shaped couch behind him. Some of them were starting to stir. “Hurry.”

Stein pulled himself up to the lounge deck. “What in the name of God…”

“Later. You wouldn’t be a pilot by any chance, would you?”

“No. Of course not. I’m an editor.”

Berry thought he was beyond disappointment, but his heart sank lower still. He regarded Harold Stein for a moment. Fortyish. Big. Intelligent face. He could be of some help.

Stein’s eyes were fixed on the cockpit door. “Hey, what the hell happened to the pilot?”

Berry jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

Stein looked more closely at the scene in the lounge. “Oh, no! My God…”

“Okay, Mr. Stein. Forget that. Let’s talk about survival.”

“Survival.” Stein nodded. He was taking in about ten percent of what was happening. He’d known they were in very serious trouble, but he thought the pilots were still in control. He looked at the cockpit again and saw the captain’s wheel move. “Who’s…?”

“Autopilot.”

“What happened?”

Berry shrugged. “Bomb, I guess.” But the two holes didn’t look like bomb damage to him, and he’d heard no explosion before the other noises. “Did you see or hear anything?”

Stein shook his head.

The two men stood awkwardly in the middle of the lounge, unsure of what to do next. The overwhelming scope and speed of the disaster had kept them off balance, and they needed the situation to remain static for a few minutes until they got their bearings. Finally, Stein spoke. “Just us two?”

Berry turned toward the cockpit. “Linda, come on out!”

The girl ran out of the cockpit and placed herself beside Berry, and under his encircling arm, as though she were being displayed at a family reunion.

Berry felt her body trembling. He looked down and spoke to her. “This is Mr. Stein. He’s going to help us.”

Stein forced a distracted smile. His eyes were still darting around the lounge.

“I’m John Berry.” He extended his hand.

Stein took it.

Berry looked down at the girl. “This is Linda Farley.”

It was surreal, yet comforting, to go through the amenities. That was all they had left. Behave normally, in a civilized manner, and rational thought and action would follow. Berry said, “Let’s sit down.” He’d developed a proprietary attitude about the lounge and cockpit. He indicated an empty horseshoe-shaped sofa with a cocktail table opposite the cockpit door. “Do you need a drink, Mr. Stein?”

“Harold. Yes, please,”

Berry went to the bar and found two Canadian Clubs and another cola. He carried them to the table and sat. He broke open the seal on his bottle and drank. Around him was a scene that had badly shaken him only ten minutes earlier, but like any survivor of a disaster, his mind was blocking out the destruction, the dead, and the dying, which was now irrelevant, and he was focusing on the problems he had inherited.

Harold Stein drank the liquor and let his eyes wander around the lounge. The two men in uniform lay beside the piano in the far corner to the left of the stairwell. One moved, the other didn’t. A third uniformed man lay against the rear wall of the lounge, his face and torso covered with a blanket. The bar in the opposite corner was in a shambles. Directly in front of him was another horseshoe-shaped couch. Three men and two women sat strapped into it. Their bodies moved spasmodically from time to time; every change of position presented Stein with a new tableau, each more grotesque than the last.

Stein turned away and focused on a grouping of the club chairs along the left wall. A man wearing dark glasses sat in a frozen position, his hands apparently reaching for a hanging oxygen mask. An old man opposite him lay across the cocktail table, apparently dead also. An old woman, the most animated of anyone, was hiding behind the old man’s chair, occasionally peeking out and whimpering. A young flight attendant, also conscious, was weeping by herself, curled up on the floor near the cocktail table. Clothes and sundry lounge paraphernalia were strewn over the plush blue carpet. “This is monstrous.”

“Let’s stay calm. This,” Berry waved his arm, “doesn’t concern us

… unless they become… unmanageable.”

“Yes, all right.” He seemed to be considering. “Maybe we ought to

… help these people… get below.”

Berry nodded. “Yes. They’re an unsettling influence, but I’m not sure if that’s the right thing to do with them. I… Anyway, it wouldn’t be an easy job. Let it lie for now.”

“All right.”

Berry leaned forward. “Where were you when the… air let go?” Berry had begun to look for answers. If he could figure out what happened, he might be able to figure out what to do next.

“I told you. I was in the lavatory.”

The girl put down her cola. “Me, too, Mr. Berry.”

“Okay,” said Berry. “That’s it. I was in the lavatory, too. The lavatories held more of their pressure. Did either of you black out?”

They both nodded.

“Okay. But we’re all right now. The people who didn’t put their masks on are dead. Those who did are either dead or brain damaged.”

Stein leaned forward and spoke softly. “Brain damaged?”

“Yes. Of course. That’s what it looks like, doesn’t it?”

“Well… yes. I… my wife… two kids…” Stein put his hands to his face.

Somehow Berry hadn’t thought of the possibility that Stein was not traveling alone. Berry had traveled alone for so many years that it had accustomed him to think only of himself. Even at home, he seemed to think mostly in ones. Everything had happened so quickly that his thoughts had never gotten to the obvious, even concerning Linda Farley. She most of all would certainly have been with someone. “I’m sorry, Harold. I didn’t realize…” He could see that he was losing Stein, and the girl was going with him. “Listen, I’m a pilot and I have experience with these things, and the effects of… of oxygen deprivation are temporary. I didn’t mean brain damage-that was the wrong word. I think I can land this thing, and when everyone gets the proper medical attention, well, they’ll be all right. Now, you’ve got to help me so I can bring us all home. Okay?” He turned to the girl, who was crying again. “Were you with anyone, Linda? Come on. Take a deep breath and speak to me.”

Linda Farley wiped her tears. “Yes, my mother. We were… I tried to find her before. Then everything happened so fast…”

“Yes, I’m sure she’s all right. Where was she sitting?” As soon as he asked the question he regretted it. But something made him want to know.

“In the middle. I think near where the hole is.” Her eyes filled with tears again. She understood what that meant.

John Berry turned away from them and focused on a picture hanging on the far wall near the piano. Dali’s celebrated The Persistence of Memory. A bizarre grouping of melted watches, lying across a surreal landscape. If ever a painting fit a room, it was that painting in this room. He turned away and stared down at the white plastic table in front of him. He had been spared any concern beyond his own survival. He was thankful at least for that. If they ever got back, he would be the only one who would not carry any scars of this. In fact, he thought with some guilt, he could come out of it better than he’d gone in. But there were close to three hundred and fifty souls onboard. Souls, he remembered, was the official term. How odd. And most of those souls were dead or dying. It was a hell of a high price to pay for Berry’s personal resurrection. If he survived.

Berry glanced at Stein. The man wore a numbed expression. He was obviously haunted by the presence of his brain-damaged family, who sat no more than a hundred feet from him. Berry wondered how he, himself, would stand up under a similar strain. For an instant he conjured up the image of Jennifer and his two children.

He tried to examine his feelings. The thought had crossed his mind to give up and simply wait for the fuel to run out, but he had also thought about trying to fly the airliner, fly it to a landing. He glanced at Stein and the girl. He thought of the others in the cabin of the 797, and the word euthanasia came into his mind.

Berry knew that the pulse of the engines was lulling him into a false security, a lethargy that made it difficult for him to act as long as there appeared to be no immediate danger. But every minute that passed was a minute less flying time. He wondered if there was actually enough fuel left, considering the high fuel consumption at low altitudes, to get him to a body of land. He supposed he could ditch the plane in the ocean. Did the Straton have an emergency signal transmitter in the tail like his Skymaster did? If so, was it working? If it was there and if it worked, a ship might eventually come. But he didn’t know if the three of them could clear the aircraft before it sank. And how about the others? And if some of them did clear the aircraft, how long would they have to float with their life vests in the ocean? He thought of sunstroke, dehydration, storms, and sharks. Clearly they were all as good as dead unless he did something. For some reason, known only to God, he, Linda Farley, and Harold Stein had been given a second chance, an opportunity to save themselves. He suddenly stood. “Okay. First priority. Find others who did not suffer

… decompression. Mr. Stein… Harold… you go below into the cabins and make a search.”

Stein looked at the staircase. The thought of going down there with three hundred dysfunctional and probably dangerous passengers was not comforting. He didn’t move.

Berry had another idea. “All right. Stay here.” He went into the cockpit and looked around for a moment. Finally, he found what he needed: He grabbed the PA microphone and pressed the button. He heard the squelch-break and took a deep breath. “Hello. This is… the Captain speaking.” His own voice boomed out in the lounge, and he could hear the echoes of his words coming up the stairwell. “If there is anyone in the aircraft who… who…” Damn it. “Who is not affected by decompression, who feels all right, and who can think clearly, please come up to the first-class lounge.” He repeated his message and went back into the lounge.

Berry and Stein stood at the railing of the staircase and watched and listened. Some of the passengers were shaken out of their lethargy by the voice and were making odd noises-squeals, grunts, groans, and growls. A high piercing laugh came from the far recesses of the cabin and penetrated into the lounge. Stein shuddered and shook his head spasmodically. “Good God.”

They waited, but no one came.

Berry turned to Stein and put his hand on his shoulder. “I’m afraid that’s not conclusive. Someone may be trapped or frightened out of his wits. You’ll have to go down.”

“I don’t want to go downstairs,” Stein said in a small voice.

Berry bit into his lower lip. He realized that if he allowed it, Harold Stein would soak up time and attention like a sponge. It was an understandable need. But John Berry could not spare the time, or allow himself a normal man’s compassion. “Stein, I don’t give a damn what you want. I don’t want to die. Neither does the girl. What we want isn’t enough anymore. All that matters is what we need. I need to know if anyone else on this goddamned airplane can help us. We’ve got to find a doctor, or someone from the crew. Maybe another pilot.”

Berry glanced toward the cockpit. The sight of the empty flight deck sent a chill down his spine. He shrugged it off and turned back to Stein. “Take this belt. Find other weapons. We may need them. Linda, you stay here in the lounge and look after these people. Especially look after the copilot over there. All right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If anyone acts… funny, let me know. I’ll be in the cockpit. Okay? Linda? Harold?”

Stein nodded reluctantly. He half believed that his family would recover and almost believed that Berry could fly the aircraft. “I’ll bring my family up here. I’d rather they be up here. They’ll be okay in a little while.”

Berry shook his head. “They’re fine where they are. Later, when they are more aware, we’ll bring them up.”

“But-”

“I have to insist. Please go. I have other things to attend to in the cockpit.”

Stein glanced back at the empty cockpit. “The radio? Are you going to try to contact…?”

“Yes. Go on down below. Let me worry about the cockpit.”

Harold Stein rose slowly and took the belt and wrapped it around his right hand. “Do you think they’re very… dangerous?”

Berry glanced around the lounge. “No more than these people.” He paused. He owed Stein more than that. Some lies were necessary. Other were self-serving. “Be careful. I was attacked down there. Different people react differently to oxygen loss. The brain is a complicated… Just be careful. Each flight-attendant station should have a call phone. You may be able to use the phones if you want to speak to me.”

“All right.”

Berry turned abruptly and walked quickly back into the cockpit.

Stein watched as Berry slid into the pilot’s seat. He glanced at the girl, forced a smile, and began descending the staircase.

Berry had an urge to shut down the autopilot and take the wheel. Just for a second to get the feel of the machine. To take his fate into his own hands. He stared at the switch on his control wheel and reached out his hand. Steering the giant aircraft could possibly be within his skills. But if the craft somehow got away from him, he knew that he would never be able to get it back under control. Yet eventually he knew he’d take the wheel when the fuel ran out. At that point, he would have absolutely nothing to lose in trying to belly-land in the ocean. So why not try a practice run now? His hand touched the autopilot disengage switch. No. Later. He took his hand away.

He thought about going down in the ocean. If nothing else, he should probably make a 180-degree turn and head south before they left the mid-Pacific’s warmer water. He looked up at the autopilot controls mounted on the glare shield that ran between the pilots. One knob was labeled HEADING. Berry put his hand on it, took a deep breath, and turned it to the right.

The Straton slowly dropped its right wing as its left wing rose and the aircraft went into a bank. The tilting motion made him experience that familiar sensation in the seat of his pants. It would take a very long time to turn 180 degrees at this rate of turn, but he didn’t actually want to turn around yet. Not until he had a firm plan of action in mind. It was an old pilot’s creed not to make course changes aimlessly. He glanced at the fuel gauges. He had time. The water beneath them was probably still warm enough for ditching, and would be for a while. Berry was satisfied that the autopilot would respond to its turn control knob. That was all he had the nerve for right now. He turned the knob back slightly and the Straton leveled out. He looked at the magnetic compass and saw that he was on a slightly different heading of 330 degrees. He turned the knob again to put the proper reading under the cursor, and the airplane rolled back to its original heading of 325 degrees.

He sat back. His hands were trembling and his heart was beating faster. He took a few seconds to calm himself. He considered trying the radios again but decided that they were definitely malfunctioning. Psychologically, it wasn’t good to have another failure with them, and he didn’t want to cultivate a dependence on them. The hell with the radios. If he was going to fly the Straton, he was going to have to do it himself, unless Stein came back with a licensed airline pilot. Berry wasn’t counting too heavily on that.

Stein stood at the base of the stairs, peering into the dim, cavernous cabin. He’d felt the aircraft tilt and thought it would crash. Then it leveled off. Berry was flying it. He relaxed a bit and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darker shadows around him.

In the center of the first-class cabin, a few feet from the stairs, was the enclosed area that held the two lavatories. He stepped to the side of the wall and looked back into the tourist section. With the section dividers gone, he could see how huge the Straton was. Row upon row of seats, like a movie theater. Shafts of sunlight cut though the windows, and he could see dust motes in them. A larger shaft of sunlight lay across the wide body from hole to hole, and the air rushing past the holes created an odd noise. He noticed a mild and pleasant breeze in the cabin that helped to dissipate the smell of sick people and sewage. The pressure and airflow had leveled out into a state of near equilibrium.

As if they had also reached an internal equilibrium, most of the passengers sat motionless. Their initial bursts of energy had been spent, and they sat with their eyes shut and their faces slack and pasty white, many of them smeared with blood and vomit. A dozen or so people were still making noises, and from the back of the aircraft somewhere came a terrible laugh. A few men and women continued to move aimlessly up and down the aisles, in a sort of trance. It was a cross between an insane asylum and a slaughterhouse. How, thought Stein, who was a religious man, could God permit this to happen? Why did God give man the ability to reach this high into the heavens and then desert them all like this? And why was he spared? Was he spared?

He searched the faces of the people closest to him. None of them offered even the slightest promise of normality. He took a breath and stepped a few feet up the aisle. He forced himself to look at the four center-row seats where his family sat. The two girls, Debbie and Susan, were smiling at him with blood-covered mouths. His wife seemed not to notice him at all. He called her name. “Miriam. Miriam!” She didn’t look up, but a lot of other people did.

Stein realized that the noise had made them active. He remained motionless, then glanced back at his wife and daughters. Tears came to his eyes. He stepped back and leaned against the bulkhead of the lavatory. He thought he was going to pass out, and he took several deep breaths. His mind cleared and he stood up straight. He knew there was no way he would walk the length of the aircraft. He’d just wait five minutes and go back. He’d lead his family up the stairs, too.

A peculiar sensation, a mild vibration, began to inch into his awareness. He turned and laid a hand against the bulkhead. The vibration was coming from inside the enclosure, and it was getting stronger. It was the rhythmic hum of a slow-turning electric motor. He remembered that there was a galley elevator adjacent to the lavatories. He quickly went around to the galley opening on the other side of the enclosure. He looked in at a small metal door. The motor stopped. He took a step back as the handle rotated. The door opened.

Stein stood face-to-face with two women. Flight attendants. One tall brunette, the other Oriental. They were huddled close together in the small elevator. He could see pure terror on their faces. Their eyes were red and watery, and traces of smeared vomit clung to their blue jackets? “Are you all right?” Stein asked. “Can you… understand me?”

“Who are you?” asked the brunette flight attendant. “What happened? Is everything okay?”

Stein took a deep breath to get his voice under control and replied, “There’s been an accident. Holes in the airplane. We lost pressure. A few of us were trapped in the lavatories. The lavatory doors held the air pressure,” Stein said, remembering Berry’s words. “I guess where you were held its air pressure, too.”

The brunette flight attendant said, “We were in the lower galley.”

The Oriental girl asked, “Did a door open?”

“No. A bomb.”

“Oh, God!”

Sharon Crandall stepped out of the elevator and brushed by Stein. She turned and looked down the length of the cabins. “Oh my God, oh no! Barbara! Barbara!”

Barbara Yoshiro came quickly out of the elevator and stood behind Crandall. She screamed, a long primal scream that died in her throat as she blacked out and collapsed into Stein’s arms.

Sharon Crandall put her hands over her face and took a series of short breaths. She turned quickly toward Stein. “The pilots. The pilots! ”

“Dead. Well… unconscious. But there’s a passenger who’s a pilot. Come on. We have to get out of here.”

“What’s happened to these people? ”

“Brain damage… Oxygen loss. They might get violent. Come on!”

A dozen passengers began walking up the aisles toward them. A few more passengers near them tried to stand, but their seat belts held them down. But through trial and error, or because of some vague recollection, some people were beginning to unfasten their belts and stand up. A few of them moved into the aisles. A tall man stood up right next to Stein.

Stein was becoming frightened. “Go ahead! Go first!”

Sharon Crandall nodded and moved quickly up the stairway. Stein dragged Barbara Yoshiro toward the stairway. A male passenger suddenly stood in his seat and stepped into the open area in front of the staircase. With his free hand, Stein straight-armed him and the man spun away, wobbling like a malfunctioning gyroscope.

Stein, dragging the unconscious flight attendant, took the stairs slowly. Someone was behind him. A hand grabbed his ankle. He kicked loose and moved faster up the spiral stairs, almost knocking Crandall over as he reached the top. He laid Barbara Yoshiro on the carpet and slumped over the rail. A half-dozen grotesque faces stared up at him. He thought he saw the top of his wife’s head, but he couldn’t be sure. His breathing was heavy and his heart raced wildly in his chest. “Get away. Go away!”

Sharon Crandall looked around the lounge. “Oh my God!”

Stein stood by the staircase and wrapped the belt around his hand. “I’ll stay here. Go into the cockpit.”

Berry looked over his shoulder into the lounge. “Come in here!”

But Sharon Crandall’s attention was focused on the flight attendant sitting on the carpet with her legs spread out. “Terri!” She ran over to the girl and knelt beside her. “Are you okay? Terri?”

Terri O’Neil opened her eyes wide and looked toward where the sound had come from. It was an involuntary response to the auditory stimulus. Her rational mind had been erased by the thin air at 62,000 feet. The sight of Sharon Crandall’s face meant nothing to her. The memory of the hundreds of hours they had flown together had evaporated from her brain like water from a boiling kettle.

“Terri!” Sharon shook her friend’s arm.

“Forget it!” yelled Berry. “Come in here!”

Sharon glanced into the cockpit and saw a man sitting in the captain’s seat. His voice was vaguely familiar. But she was too shocked to think clearly. She ignored Berry and moved back past the stairwell over to the sprawled bodies of Stuart and McVary beside the piano. She shook the pilot’s shoulders. “Captain Stuart!”

Stein watched as a man in the main cabin mounted the spiral staircase. Another man, then a woman, followed. Soon a line of people were walking clumsily up the circular steps. “Go down! Down!”

“Aaahh!”

Stein braced himself on the rail and brought his foot down on the head of the first man.

The man fell to his knees and toppled back, sending the whole line stumbling and falling backward.

Linda Farley knelt beside Sharon Crandall. “They’re very sick. I tried to help them.”

Sharon glanced at the girl blankly, then looked at Harold Stein by the rail and the unconscious body of Barbara Yoshiro. She walked to the bar and recovered a first-aid box. She carried a vial of ammonium carbonate to Barbara Yoshiro, broke it, and held it under the girl’s nose. “Easy, now.”

Barbara Yoshiro made a gasping sound, then opened her eyes. Crandall helped her sit up.

The two flight attendants held onto each other, Sharon Crandall comforting Barbara Yoshiro as she began sobbing. “Easy now, Barbara. We’re going to be all right.”

Stein looked down at them. “Go into the cockpit and see if you can lend a hand there. Okay?”

Crandall helped Yoshiro to her feet and steadied her as they walked toward the cockpit. “Don’t mind these people. Come on. Into the cockpit.”

Berry glanced quickly over his shoulder. “Do either of you know anything about the cockpit?”

“I thought you were a pilot,” said Crandall.

“Yes, I am,” answered Berry. “But I’m not familiar with this craft. I can fly it with a little help. Do you know anything about the cockpit?”

“No,” said Crandall. She helped Yoshiro into Fessler’s seat. They both noticed the blood on the desk but didn’t comment on it. “How bad are the pilots?”

“They’ll be okay.”

“There’s no need to lie to us,” said Crandall.

“They’re brain damaged. Maybe-just maybe-the copilot will come out of it with enough faculties left to help.”

Crandall considered this for a long few seconds. She’d liked McVary. Liked all of them, actually. Now they were all gone, including the other flight attendants she’d spent so many hours with. Flight crews rarely spoke about accidents, but she had heard talk about decompression incidents. “What exactly happened?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t make a lot of difference, does it?”

“No.”

Berry turned and looked at Barbara Yoshiro. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I’m feeling better.”

Berry nodded. He had the feeling, no more than intuition, that she would remain calm from here on. It was a good thing to know, and it didn’t especially matter if it was true or not. He asked her, “Do you know the cockpit at all?”

Yoshiro shook her head. “I usually stay downstairs in the kitchen. Below the main cabin.”

Crandall spoke. “I come to the cockpit often, but I never really noticed much.”

“You probably know more than you think. Sit down.”

Sharon Crandall sat in the copilot’s seat. “This is not going to help.”

At first Berry had no special recollection of her, but as he looked at her profile closely, he knew who she was. He felt a smile form on his lips. He was happy that she had made it. It was a conversation that had taken place a century ago, but it had brought him a few minutes of pleasure and he was happy to pick it up where it had ended. “Do you remember me?”

She looked at him. “Yes. Of course. The salesman. I was going to sit with you.” Crandall paused. “You’re not a pilot.”

“Yes, the salesman. I fly, too.”

“Fly what?”

“This and that. My company airplane. I can handle this.” He had suddenly become an old hand at keeping everything calm. Perhaps he was being too reassuring. He guessed that no one would stay calm for very long once they watched him attempt to fly the airliner. “Where were you two when the decompression began?”

Yoshiro answered. “We were both in the lower kitchen.”

Berry nodded. “There must have been pressure trapped down there. The three of us were in lavatories.”

“That’s what the other man told us,” Yoshiro replied. “I guess there might be others.”

“Yes. That’s why I sent Stein down.” He lowered his voice. “His wife and two children are down there. The girl’s name is Linda Farley. Her mother was near the hole. I’m John Berry.”

“Barbara Yoshiro. You know Sharon.”

“Yes,” said Berry.

“Look,” Sharon Crandall said, “call Trans-United Ops. They’ll give you a course to fly, and then coach you through the landing.”

Telling him to use the radio was not the sort of information he had been looking for. “Good idea,” said Berry. “But the radios don’t work.”

There was a long silence in the cockpit. Berry broke it. “I’m going to turn and put us on an approximate heading for California. If the fuel lasts, we’ll decide then if we should look for a landing area or put it down near the beach. Maybe I can raise someone on the radio when we get closer. How does that sound?”

The two flight attendants said nothing.

Barbara Yoshiro stood. “I’m going below to see if anyone else is… sane.”

“I wouldn’t do that now,” said Berry.

“Believe me, Mr. Berry, I’d rather not go. But there were two of our company pilots aboard-going on vacation with their wives-and I have to see if they’re alive and sane. And I’m still on duty and I have an obligation to the other passengers.”

Berry refused to get excited about the possibility of finding real pilots who could fly the Straton. “The passengers are dangerous.”

“So am I. Black belt, judo and karate. And they’re not very coordinated, I assume.”

“There are three hundred of them.”

Crandall turned in her seat. “Don’t go, Barbara.”

“If it looks really bad, I’ll come back.”

Berry glanced at her. “I can’t let Stein go with you. He has to stay at the top of the stairs to keep anyone from coming up.”

“I didn’t ask for company.”

Berry nodded. “All right, then. Call at the flight attendant stations every few minutes. If we don’t hear from you… well, if we can, we’ll come after you.”

“Okay.” She walked quickly out of the cockpit.

Berry turned to Sharon Crandall. “Lots of guts there.”

“More than you know. She doesn’t know any more about judo or karate than I do. She’s trying to make it up to us for fainting. But there are two of the company’s pilots back there. We both spoke to them. And I hope to God they’re all right.”

“Me, too.”

He tried to picture Jennifer doing something selfless, noble. He almost laughed. God, if only he could get back and tell her what he thought of her.

Crandall picked up the copilot’s microphone and held it awkwardly. “I’ve used this a few times.” She held down the button. “Trans-United Operations, this is Trans-United Flight 52. Do you read me? Over.”

They both waited in the silence of the cockpit.

Berry looked at her as she sat with her head tilted, waiting for the speaker to come alive the way it always had. “Forget it,” he said.

She put down the microphone.

The minutes ticked by. Suddenly, the interphone buzzed. Sharon Crandall grabbed the phone from the console. “Barbara!” She listened. “All right. Be careful. Call in three minutes. Good luck.” She replaced the phone and turned to Berry. “The pilots. They’re both dead.” She added, “It’s your ship, Mr. Berry.”

“Thanks.”

Crandall thought about the government-approved procedures in her manual. It was technically her ship, or, more correctly, Barbara Yoshiro’s. Barbara was the senior surviving crew member. What difference did it make? Barbara’s ship, or Sharon’s? Impossible. Absurd.

Berry tried not to show any emotion. “All right. Let’s talk about this cockpit. Is there some sort of emergency signal device, for instance? Here… what’s this?”

She looked at the red button he was pointing to and shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Berry decided to let her sit and think. He mentally sectioned off the cockpit into six areas and began examining the first one to his lower left, switch by switch, button by button, gauge by gauge. There were things he knew and a lot more he didn’t know. He began memorizing locations of the instruments and control devices.

“What about the data-link?” she said.

“What?”

“The data-link. Did you try that?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The data-link. This thing.” She pointed to a keyboard mounted between the pilots’ seats and slightly below the radios. “I saw the crew use it a lot of times. They type on it. Messages come in, too.” She pointed to a small video screen on the lower center of the panel. “It’s linked to the Operations Center in San Francisco.”

Berry stared at the device. He had looked at it before but dismissed it as just another gang of unknown buttons. He thought the screen was some sort of radar. Now it was making sense. He had read about datalinks-a discreet electronic screen for sending individual messages to various aircraft. Most airlines had them to link their aircraft together without having to broadcast over the airwaves. He turned to Sharon.

“Do you know how to work it?”

“No. But I think they just type on it. Let’s give it a try.” There was an edge of excitement in her voice. “Go on. We have nothing to lose. You need a green light to know it’s on. Here. This light has to be green.”

Berry scanned the keyboard. His hand reached out tentatively and he pushed a button labeled ENTRY. The green light flashed on. Berry assumed this meant that he had a clear channel. He pressed a button labeled TRANSMIT and typed out three letters on the keyboard: sos. He looked at the video screen. Nothing. “Aren’t you supposed to see your message?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see anything. Goddamn it. Goddamned airplane.”

“I think you type the message first, then you push transmit.”

“Okay.” Berry hit the CLEAR button. “Okay. Let’s see.” He typed sos again. He reached over and pushed the TRANSMIT button. They both looked at the video screen. sos appeared in white, angular computer letters.

Sharon gave a small shout. “We did it! We did it!” She reached out and squeezed Berry’s hand.

Berry was grinning. “Yes. Damn it. We did it. Okay. Okay.” But Berry suspected that the video screen’s picture meant very little. The only way to determine if the signal had actually been sent from the Straton and received by someone else was to wait for an answer to appear on the screen.

Berry was fairly certain that the data-link couldn’t send and receive at the same time, so he resisted the temptation to transmit again and waited for the reply. Unlike a radio, if this machine worked, there was a displayed entry somewhere waiting to be read. He wondered how often the data-links were checked.

The Straton 797 maintained a steady northwesterly heading across the Pacific as the minutes ticked off.

John Berry knew that this was their last hope of surviving. He looked at Sharon Crandall. She seemed to know it too. “Buy you a drink?” He motioned back toward the bar.

“No. Not now. Maybe later. Get one if you want, I’ll watch the screen.”

“I don’t need one.” He glanced at the video monitor, then back at Sharon Crandall. “You want to hear about Japanese businessmen? Japanese customs? It’s very interesting.”

She looked at him. “Sure,” she said, with little conviction and a forced smile. Her smile faded quickly as she looked down at the data-link screen. Except for their own SOS message printed in the upper corner, the screen remained ominously blank.