Airport (117 page)

As they crossed the border, Toronto Center signed off, adding to the final exchange, “Goodnight and good luck.”

Cleveland Air Route Center responded to their call a moment later.

Glancing back toward the passenger cabins, through the gap where the flight deck door had been, Demerest could see figures moving–though indistinctly, because immediately after the door had gone, Cy Jordan had dimmed the first class cabin lights to avoid reflection on the flight deck. It appeared, though, as if passengers were being ushered forward, indicating that someone in the rear had taken charge–presumably Cy Jordan, who should be reporting again at any moment. The cold was still biting, even on the flight deck; back there it must be colder still. Once more, with a second’s anguish, Demerest thought of Gwen, then ruthlessly cleared his mind, concentrating on what must be decided next.

Though only minutes had elapsed since the decision to risk another hour in the air, the time to begin planning their approach and landing at Lincoln International was now. As Harris continued flying, Vernon Demerest selected approach and runway charts and spread them on his knees.

Lincoln International was home base for both pilots, and they knew the airport–as well as runways and surrounding airspace–intimately. Safety and training, however, required that memory should be supplemented and checked.

The charts confirmed what both already knew.

For the high speed, heavy weight landing they must execute, the longest possible length of runway was required. Because of doubtful rudder control, the runway should be the widest, too. It must also be directly into wind which–the Lincoln forecast had said–was northwest at thirty knots, and gusting. Runway three zero answered all requirements.

“We need three zero,” Demerest said.

Harris pointed out, “That last report said a temporary closing, due to obstruction.”

“I heard,” Demerest growled. “The damn runway’s been blocked for hours, and all that’s in the way is a stuck Mexican jet.” He folded a Lincoln approach chart and clipped it to his control yoke, then exclaimed angrily, “Obstruction hell! We’ll give ‘em fifty more minutes to pry it loose.”

As Demerest thumbed his mike button to inform air route control, Second Officer Cy Jordan–white-faced and shaken–returned to the flight deck.

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I
N THE MAIN
terminal of Lincoln International, Lawyer Freemantle was puzzled.

It was most peculiar, he thought, that no one in authority had yet objected to the big, increasingly noisy demonstration of Meadowood residents who, at this moment, were monopolizing a large segment of the central concourse.

Earlier this evening, when Elliott Freemantle had asked the Negro police lieutenant for permission to hold a public censure meeting, he had been firmly refused. Yet here they were, with a curious crowd of spectators–and not a policeman in sight!

Freemantle thought again: it didn’t make sense.

Yet what had happened was incredibly simple.

After the interview with the airport general manager, Bakersfeld, the delegation, led by Elliott Freemantle, had returned from the administrative mezzanine to the main concourse. There, the TV crews, whom Freemantle had talked with on the way in, had set up their equipment.

The remaining Meadowood residents–already at least five hundred strong, with more coming in–were gathering around the TV activity.

One of the television men told him, “We’re ready if you are, Mr. Freemantle.”

Two TV stations were represented, both planning separate film interviews for use tomorrow. With customary shrewdness, Freemantle had already inquired which TV shows the film was destined for, so that he could conduct himself accordingly. The first interview, he learned, was for a prime-time, popular show which liked controversy, liveliness, and even shock treatment. He was ready to supply all three.

The TV interviewer, a handsome young man with a Ronald Reagan haircut, asked, “Mr. Freemantle, why are you here?”

“Because this airport is a den of thieves.”

“Will you explain that?”

“Certainly. The homeowners of Meadowood community are having thievery practiced on them. Thievery of their peace, their right to privacy, of their work-earned rest, and of their sleep. Thievery of enjoyment of their leisure; thievery of their mental and physical health, and of their children’s health and welfare. All these things–basic rights under our Constitution–are being shamelessly stolen, without recompense or recognition, by the operators of Lincoln Airport.”

The interviewer opened his mouth to smile, showing two rows of faultless teeth. “Counselor, those are fighting words.”

“That’s because my clients and I are in a fighting mood.”

“Is that mood because of anything which has happened here tonight?”

“Yes, sir, We have seen demonstrated the callous indifference of this airport’s management to my clients’ problems.”

“Just what are your plans?”

“In the courts–if necessary the highest court–we shall now seek closure of specific runways, even the entire airport during nighttime hours. In Europe, where they’re more civilized about these things, Paris airport, for example, has a curfew. Failing that, we shall demand proper compensation for cruelly wronged homeowners.”

“I assume that what you’re doing at this moment means you’re also seeking public support.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you believe the public
will
support you?”

“If they don’t, I invite them to spend twenty-four hours living in Meadowood–providing their eardrums and sanity will stand it.”

“Surely, Counselor, airports have official programs of noise abatement.”

“A sham, sir! A fake! A public lie! The general manager of this airport confessed to me tonight that even the paltry, so-called noise abatement measures are not being observed.”

And so on.

Afterward, Elliott Freemantle wondered if he should have qualified the statement about noise abatement procedures–as Bakersfeld had done–by referring to exceptional conditions of tonight’s storm. But semi-truth or not, the way he had said it was stronger, and Freemantle doubted if it would be challenged. Anyway, he had given good performances–in the second interview as well as the first. Also during both filmings, the cameras panned several times over the intent, expressive faces of the assembled Meadowood residents. Elliott Freemantle hoped that when they saw themselves on their home screens tomorrow, they would remember who had been responsible for all the attention they were receiving.

The number of Meadowooders who had followed him to the airport–as if he were their personal Pied Piper–astonished him. Attendance at the meeting in the Sunday school hall at Meadowood had been roughly six hundred. In view of the bad night and lateness of the hour, he had thought they would be doing well if half that number made the farther trek to the airport; but not only did most of the original crowd come; some must have telephoned friends and neighbors who had joined them. He had even had requests for more copies of the printed forms retaining himself as legal counsel, which he was happy to pass out. Some revised mental arithmetic convinced him that his first hope of a fee from Meadowood totaling twenty-five thousand doUars might well be exceeded.

After the TV interviews, the
Tribune
reporter, Tomlinson–who had been taking notes during the filming–inquired, “What comes next, Mr. Freemantle? Do you intend to stage some kind of demonstration here?”

Freemantle shook his head. “Unfortunately the management of this airport does not believe in free speech, and we have been denied the elementary privilege of a public meeting. However”–he indicated the assembled Meadowooders–“I do intend to report to these ladies and gentlemen.”

“Isn’t that the same thing as a public meeting?”

“No, it is not.”

Just the same, Elliott Freemantle conceded to himself, it would be a fine distinction, especially since he had every intention of turning what followed into a public demonstration if he could. His objective was to get started with an aggressive speech, which the airport police would dutifully order him to stop. Freemantle had no intention of resisting, or of getting arrested. Merely being halted by the police–if possible in full oratorical flow–would establish him as a Meadowood martyr and, incidentally, create one more color story for tomorrow’s papers. (The morning papers, he imagined, had already closed with the earlier reports about himself and Meadowood; editors of the afternoon editions would be grateful for a new lead.)

Even more important, Meadowood homeowners would be further convinced that they had hired a strong counsel and leader, well worth his fee–the first installment checks for which, Lawyer Freemantle hoped, would start flooding in right after tomorrow.

“We’re all set to go,” Floyd Zanetta, chairman of the earlier Meadowood meeting, reported.

While Freemantle and the
Tribune
newsman had been speaking, several of the Meadowood men had hastily assembled the portable p.a. system, brought from the Sunday school hall. One of the men now handed Freemantle a hand microphone. Using it, he began to address the crowd.

“My friends, we came here tonight in a mood of reason and with constructive thoughts. We sought to communicate that mood and thoughts to this airport’s management, believing we had a real and urgent problem, worthy of careful consideration. On your behalf I attempted–in reasoned but firm terms–to make that problem known. I hoped to report back to you–at best, some promise of relief; at least, some sympathy and understanding. I regret to tell you that your delegation received none. Instead, we were accorded only hostility, abuse, and an uncaring, cynical assurance that in future the airport’s noise above and around your homes is going to get worse.”

There was a cry of outrage. Freemantle raised a hand. “Ask the others who were with me.
They
will tell you.” He pointed to the front of the crowd. “Did this airport’s general manager, or did he not, inform us that there was worse to come?” At first a shade reluctantly, then more definitely, those who had been in the delegation nodded.

Having skillfully misrepresented the honest frankness which Mel Bakersfeld had shown the delegation, Elliott Freemantle continued, “I see others, as well as my Meadowood friends and clients, who have stopped, with curiosity, to discover what is going on. We welcome their interest. Let me inform you…” He continued in his customary, haranguing style.

The crowd, sizable before, was now larger still, and continuing to grow. Travelers on their way to departure gates were having trouble getting through. Flight announcements were being drowned out by the noise. Among the Meadowooders, several had raised hastily scrawled signs which read:
AIRLANES OR PEOPLE FIRST?… OUTLAW JETS FROM MEADOWOOD!… NIX NOXIOUS NOISE… MEADOWOOD PAYS TAXES TOO… IMPEACH LINCOLN!

Whenever Freemantle paused, the shouts and general uproar grew louder. A gray-haired man in a windbreaker yelled, “Let’s give the airport a taste of their own noise.” His words produced a roar of approval.

Without question, Elliott Freemantle’s “report” had by now developed into a full-scale demonstration. At any moment, he expected, the police would intervene.

What Lawyer Freemantle did not know was that while the TV sessions were taking place and Meadowood residents assembling, the airport management’s concern about Trans America Flight Two was beginning. Shortly after, every policeman in the terminal was concentrating on a search for Inez Guerrero, and thus the Meadowood demonstration escaped attention.

Even after Inez was found, Police Lieutenant Ordway remained occupied with the emergency session in Mel Bakersfeld’s office.

As a result, after another fifteen minutes, Elliott Freemantle was becoming worried. Impressive as the demonstration was, unless halted officially, it would have little point.
Where in God’s name,
he thought,
were the airport police, and why weren’t they doing their job?

It was then that Lieutenant Ordway and Mel Bakersfeld came down together from the administrative mezzanine.

Several minutes earlier the meeting in Mel’s office had broken up. After the interrogation of Inez Guerrero and dispatch of the second warning message to Flight Two, there was nothing to be gained by retaining everyone together. Tanya Livingston, with the Trans America D.T.M. and chief pilot, returned anxiously to the airline’s Offices in the terminal, to await any fresh news there. The others–with the exception of Inez Guerrero, who was being held for questioning by downtown police detectives–returned to their own bailiwicks. Tanya had promised to notify Customs Inspector Standish, who was distressed and anxious about his niece aboard Flight Two, immediately there was any new development.

Mel, not certain where he would keep his own vigil, left his office with Ned Ordway.

Ordway saw the Meadowood demonstration first and caught sight of Elliott Freemantle. “That damn lawyer! I told him there’d be no demonstrations here.” He hurried toward the concourse crowd. “I’ll break this up fast.”

Alongside, Mel cautioned, “He may be counting on you doing that–just so he can be a hero.”

As they came nearer, Ordway shouldering his way ahead through the crowd, Elliott Freemantle proclaimed, “Despite assurances from the airport management earlier this evening, heavy air traffic–deafening and shattering as always–is still continuing at this late hour. Even now…”

“Never mind that,” Ned Ordway cut in brusquely. “I already told you there would be no demonstrations in this terminal.”

“But, Lieutenant, I assure you this is not a demonstration.” Freemantle still held the microphone, so that his words carried clearly. “All that’s happened is that I granted a television interview after a meeting with the airport management–I might say a highly unsatisfactory meeting–then reported to these people…”

“Report some place else!” Ordway swung around, facing others nearest him. “Now, let’s break this up!”

There were hostile glances and angry mutterings among the crowd. As the policeman turned back to Elliott Freemantle, photographers’ flash bulbs popped. TV floodlights, which had been turned off, went bright once more as television cameras focused on the two. At last, Elliott Freemantle thought, everything was going just the way he wanted.