Twister

Chapter Six

'Pilot, identify yourself.'

The voice at the other end sounded completely unmoved by Ben's outburst.

'My name's Ben Tracey,' he screamed. 'I'm a passenger on the plane. At least I was until about a minute ago. You've got to believe me — I'm not a hijacker. Please! Tell them to pull away! They're too close — I don't know if I can keep this thing straight! If they don't, we could all be history!'

Radio silence. The fighter planes didn't move from their positions.

'We've taken control of the plane!' he screamed.

'They don't need to be there!'

Still silence.

'Listen to me! I'm not a hijacker! I'm just trying to keep this plane in the air, OK?' Terror exploded from his voice.

And then, suddenly, as suddenly as they had arrived, the fighter planes curved off and disappeared. Ben felt a moment of relief, but it didn't last long because the radio suddenly crackled into life again. 'Flight GXR1689, this is Miami International, do you read me?'

The voice sounded urgent.

'Yeah,' Ben replied through gritted teeth. 'I read you. Where have those two planes gone?'

'Back to base. There's nothing they can do to help you now.'

'Right. Well, thanks for getting them off my back.'Like they were there to help me in the first place, he thought to himself.

'Nothing to do with me, son. You must have been pretty convincing. How are you guys doing up there?'

'Oh,' Ben replied edgily, 'you know. Probably could be better.'

'How much experience you had flying a plane, son?'

Ben took a deep breath. 'Just a microlight,' he replied. 'Oh, and a few goes on a computer flight simulator.'

There was an ominous pause. 'That's it?' the voice asked.

''Fraid so.'

'And there's no one else on board with any flying experience?'

'Not as far as I know. I'm afraid you're stuck with me. Sorry.'

Another pause. 'What's your name?'

'Ben.'

'OK, Ben. Everything's going to be all right and you're going to do just fine as long as you follow my instructions carefully. Do you think you can do that?'

'Why don't we just get on with it?' Ben replied impatiently.

'Good idea, Ben. Now listen to me. You know about the hurricane?'

'I think someone might have mentioned it, yeah.'

'You need to stay calm, Ben. I don't want you to panic, but when your plane lost control just now, you changed direction. You're heading straight towards it. You've lost a lot of altitude, so you're going to start experiencing the headwinds very soon. You need to turn the plane back on course. Do you copy?'

Ben realized he was breathing heavily. His stomach had twisted into a knot at what he heard. 'Yeah, I copy. What do I need to do?'

'Can you see the instruments in front of you?' the voice asked.

'Some of them,' Ben replied. 'A lot got damaged when we attacked the hijacker.'

'Is there anything that looks like a compass?'

Ben quickly scanned the instruments in front of him. 'Nothing,' he replied curtly.

'OK,' the voice replied. 'You need to pan to the east.

That'll take you out of the way. You're currently heading—'

There was a sudden burst of white noise. Ben blinked. The radio was crackling and whatever the guy at the other end was trying to tell him was lost in the interference.

'Hello!' Ben shouted. 'Hello! Do you copy?'

But there was nothing other than an ugly-sounding hiss.

It was at precisely that moment that the winds started to hit. The whole plane shuddered with a level of turbulence Ben had never felt before. Vaguely, in the background, he heard people in the cabin shouting, but he tried to put that from his mind as he felt himself juddering in his seat. He gripped the control stick firmly and shouted into the radio. 'Do you read me? Do you read me? I need to know which way to turn!'

There was no reply.

The shaking was getting worse now. Ben knew he had to steer the plane away, but he couldn't tell which direction he needed to go in. A mistake now and it could be an end to everything.

'What's going on?' a voice yelled behind him.

Ben realized it was Angelo, but there was no time to reply. 'Hold on!' he shouted. He felt all his muscles clenching as he started to pull the aircraft into a turn.

They were at an angle now, and the plane was juddering worse than ever. From the corner of his eye, Ben realized that Angelo had been thrown to the floor. There was nothing he could do about it though. He just had to hold his nerve — and the control stick. As the plane was at an angle, he saw the ocean down below from the side of the cockpit window. It made his blood freeze, made him feel like he had left his stomach a mile back. Without any instruments in front of him, he could only guess how long he should keep this turning circle going, so after a few moments, he straightened up, fervently hoping that he had redirected the plane to safety. Safety of a kind at least.

The winds were still buffeting the aircraft, however. Angelo shouted something behind him, but Ben didn't even hear what it was. All his concentration was taken up now by flying the plane, and by wondering if he had made the correct manoeuvre. It still felt like they were being flung around in the air. Maybe they were still heading straight for the hurricane. Maybe he should turn the plane round again. As that thought crossed his mind, though, he nodded his head to himself. If he kept turning, he'd get nowhere: he'd just have to trust his first instinct. He'd just have to keep to his current direction.

Danny staggered into the cockpit, doing his best to stay upright despite the shaking of the plane. 'We've tied the hijacker up,' he announced. 'What's going on in here?'

'Radio's down,' Ben said tersely. 'Something to do with the weather, I suppose. I'm trying to avoid the hurricane.'

'Er, Ben,' Angelo butted in. 'I don't want to interfere or anything, but it still feels quite windy out there.'

As if to underline Angelo's sarcastic comment, the turbulence suddenly increased dramatically. Ben grabbed the radio once more and started shouting into it again, but there was still no reply. 'What are we going to do?' Angelo demanded hysterically.

'I don't know,' Ben replied. 'Hope I'm doing the right thing, I guess.'

As he spoke, however, the turbulence subsided. Ben breathed out deeply. 'Nice one,' he heard Danny say from behind him.

'How's everyone doing back there?' he asked.

'Non bene,' Angelo replied weakly. 'A few people have been knocked about a bit, but they're panicking more than anything.'

'I don't blame them,' Ben muttered. He peered through the windscreen. 'Look out there,' he said quickly. 'Does that look to you like land up ahead?'

Danny and Angelo squinted into the distance. 'I think you're right,' Angelo murmured. He turned to look at Ben. 'Do you know how to land this thing?'

Ben didn't reply. He didn't have time, because at that very moment there was another lurch as the plane seemed to dip sharply to one side. A feeling of dread crept over Ben's body as he compensated for the sudden change by steering in the opposite direction. The plane straightened up, but the change in lift was noticeable at the controls. He cursed under his breath. 'Feels like we lost an engine,' he said grimly.

Angelo stared at him, then rushed out to the cabin. When he returned, he was out of breath. 'The propellers are still turning on the bad side,' he said.

'They would do,' Ben replied. 'It's the movement of the plane that's making them go round, though, not the engine.' He furrowed his brow and stared straight ahead. 'We've got to land this thing,' he said. 'Make sure everyone's sitting down and strapped in. This isn't going to be fun.'

'You need any help here?' Danny asked.

Ben shook his head. 'Not unless you know how to land a plane,' he said.

'Well, I think you could use the company.' Danny sat in the co-pilot's seat and buckled himself in. 'If we don't get through this, Ben, I want you to know that you've been incredibly brave.'

That wasn't what Ben wanted to hear.

'We're going to get through it,' he said between gritted teeth.

'Yes,' said Danny. 'Yes, we are.'

They fell into an uneasy silence. Ben concentrated on keeping the aircraft straight with only the horizon line to help him. The land that they had spotted was approaching surprisingly quickly. Gradually, gently, he started to reduce the velocity and altitude. He felt sick with fear at the thought of trying to land this thing, but he knew he had no other choice but to try.

As the plane lost height, Ben noticed something. Up ahead and to one side, the sky was darkening. He felt his lips go dry — it didn't look dissimilar to the bubbling sky he had witnessed just the previous night at Alec's house. It was the storm they were escaping. It had to be.

'You'd better hold on,' Ben murmured to Danny. 'This is going to be nasty.'

The closer they got to land, the bumpier the ride became. Ben gripped the control stick fiercely, gradually reducing the altitude. From time to time he tried to kick the radio into life, but it was completely dead and in the end he just gave up and concentrated on the matter in hand: getting to land.

They were perhaps still a mile out to sea when a cloud bank seemed to come from nowhere. As he stared at it in horror, Ben heard Alec's voice in his head. 'Amazing thing, nature. Always got a surprise up its sleeve.'

'You can say that again,' Ben murmured.

'What?' Danny asked.

'Nothing,' Ben replied as the plane was suddenly plunged into the cloud. Instantly he lost all visual contact with the horizon and, not having any instruments to tell him if he was level or not, he found himself flying blind, without even a few metres' visibility.

'Hold it steady, Ben,' he told himself. 'Just hold it steady.'

His breath came in deep, long lungfuls. The turbulence increased in the cloud, making it even harder to keep the plane straight, if indeed it was straight. It was horrible, flying without any sense of what was in front of him. Ben half expected to crash into some unseen obstacle at any moment. When finally he came below the cloud line, he realized he was at an angle and veering away from land. He straightened up and tried not to think too much about what was about to happen.

It was raining now and the sky above them was black. The winds had increased again — Ben could feel them knocking the plane around. It was worse now that he had reduced his speed. More and more he felt like a speck of dust at the mercy of some incredibly powerful forces. The sea below them was grey and rough, and it was a relief when they finally flew over land. As the plane continued to lose altitude, Ben felt a momentary flash of relief that the land ahead appeared to be unpopulated.

He shuddered to think what sort of devastation he would cause if he crash-landed in the middle of an urban sprawl. But as soon as that thought flew through his mind, it disappeared. He had other things to worry about, after all… Hurtling onwards through the sheeting rain, Ben thought he could see greenery down below. And then, a long way in the distance, he thought he could make out a long, straight road running at right angles to the direction of the plane.

'We need to try and land there,' he barked at Danny — quite why, he wasn't sure, as nobody else was helping him fly this thing. He yanked the control stick to the left. The plane veered in that direction, shuddering as it did so. Ben prayed that there wouldn't be much traffic on the road. Surely people would be taking cover from the elements, he prayed. A hurricane was hitting the mainland of Florida — he hoped most people would think it wasn't a very good time to go out for a drive.

He straightened up. They couldn't be more than a hundred metres from the ground, but now that he had a closer point of reference, Ben realized just how much the plane was shaking. The road ahead did indeed seem empty. On either side of it was what looked like swamp land and with each passing second it looked more and more likely that that was where they were going to land. Ben struggled to keep the line of the road in the middle of his sight — a task made doubly difficult by the winds and the fact that one engine was down. He was holding his breath and his muscles were burning from the strain of keeping the plane straight.

They couldn't have been more than seventy-five metres up now, but as Ben fixed his eyes on the ground ahead, one thing became perfectly clear to him.

They were going too fast.

Much too fast.

Danny must have realized it too. 'This isn't going to work, is it, Ben?' he asked, his voice strangely expressionless.

Ben glanced momentarily towards him. Danny was looking straight ahead. His face was calm. He looked like he was preparing himself for something.

Preparing himself for the end.

Ben snapped his gaze back to the landing strip. Danny was right. It wasn't going to work. He took another deep breath and prepared for the plane to hit the ground.

Miami International Airport had been all but evacuated.

At the control tower, the last remaining airport employees crowded round the bank of air-traffic control screens. Half an hour ago these screens had been illuminated with the flight information of the many aircraft in the area. Now those aircraft had been redirected north, away from the freak hurricane that was about to make landfall, and the screens were blank.

Blank, that is, except for a single plane.

They had lost radio contact some minutes ago and though they kept trying to re-establish it, it was quite clear that they weren't going to succeed. The sensible thing for them to do now was to leave the exposed environment of the control tower and find some sort of shelter from the hurricane. But while none of them said it out loud, they all felt that to do so would somehow be to abandon that doomed flight and its passengers. It was the least they could do to see it through to the end.

Jack Simpson simply couldn't take his eyes off the screen. Like all of them, he had heard the terrified voice of the kid who had taken control of the aircraft. Terrified but somehow brave — Jack wondered if he would have had the same kind of guts in that situation. He suspected not. Now, however, all they could do was watch and wait. If the plane continued on its current course, it would crash-land somewhere in the Everglades National Park, an unpopulated area that was no doubt deserted by now because of the evacuation.

But the Everglades was also where the hurricane was heading. They might be feeling the edges of it here in Miami — and heaven knows that was bad enough — but the plane was much nearer the centre. Those passengers were going to be lucky to be alive even if they survived the impact.

Under ordinary circumstances, a whole fleet of rescue aircraft would be on standby to rush to the crash site. But these circumstances were far from ordinary. There was no way any aircraft — choppers or planes — would be able to risk flying in those circumstances. If they did, they would surely end up in the same state as the passengers on flight GXR1689.

They would end up dead.

And so there was nothing to do but leave the aircraft to its fate. Jack wanted to howl in frustration at his powerlessness. He wanted to shake his bosses and the military commanders who had decided not to engage their troops in a dangerous search and rescue mission. It was the twenty-first century, he wanted to shout. Surely something could be done.

Deep down, however, he knew that nothing could be. He knew that sometimes men simply couldn't battle against the extremes of nature. In a fight like that, there would only be one winner.

No. They would all have to wait until the hurricane passed. The storm that had just hit land was worse than anything anybody had seen in their lifetime. There would be casualties and devastation all around the southern tip of Florida. It would be shown on TV for weeks, even months afterwards. But none of it, Jack knew, would touch him as deeply as the scene that he knew was going to happen. None of it would be as bad as the pictures of a shattered plane and the burned, dismembered corpses among its wreckage. Because somewhere deep within him, Jack felt that he should have been able to do something. He should have been more in control. He should have been able to help.

Everyone in the control room gasped, Jack included. He felt his skin tingle and go cold as he blinked at the screen. The plane had disappeared, and they all knew what that meant.

Impact.

There was an instant of stunned silence. And then Jack's boss shattered the nightmare moment. 'OK, guys,' he shouted. 'Show's over. There was nothing more any of you could have done. Your priority's to get out of here and to a place of shelter. There's a bus waiting to take you off the airport grounds. Get a move on! Go!'

Everyone scrambled for the door. Everyone, that is, except Jack. He found himself rooted to the spot, staring at the blank screen.

His boss came up beside him. 'You couldn't have done anything, Jack,' he said quietly. 'No one could have predicted what just happened. This isn't down to you.'

Jack took a deep breath. He knew that what his boss was saying was right, but somehow that didn't make him feel much better.

It was with a heavy heart that he turned his back on the screen, left the control tower and prepared to face the storm himself.