Mayday (17 page)

Yet Matos, though he didn’t fully understand who ordered the test or how illegal it was, was very much in favor of it. He
pictured himself in front of some sort of investigating committee—Senate, House, maybe Department of Defense. He would defend
his involvement as a moral decision based on national security. A personal decision that transcended any treaty. He would
not
say he was only following orders. That was the coward’s way. He began to take on the mantle of the patriot and martyr: the
Ollie North defense. He would show what he was made of when the senators began firing questions at him. The Navy would be
awed by his loyalty. Sloan would be impressed by his defense of his superiors. Peter Matos had the feeling that he had arrived
at last.

“Navy three-four-seven.”

Sloan’s voice brought Matos out of his reverie. “Roger.”

“Status report.”

“Roger. In trail. No change in Straton.”

He glanced at the Straton. What had happened was, at the most, only half his fault. Someone on the carrier had failed to note
the flight plan of the Straton. The sky was a big test-firing range. It was someone else’s responsibility to make certain
the range was clear.

But the feeling that Commander Sloan had something else in mind—something that didn’t require martyrdom or investigations—nagged
at him. He knew if he put himself in Commander Sloan’s head, knowing what he knew about Sloan, he would know what Sloan’s
next transmission would say. But he wouldn’t let his mind come to the obvious and final conclusion regarding the Straton.

He glanced at the crippled airliner again. It would just fly off into the Arctic Ocean on its present heading, and if no Mayday
had been sent from it, and if no one on the
Nimitz
made a report . . . Why had
he
made the report? Damned stupid.

He looked at his fuel gauges. He couldn’t follow the plane much longer. Yet he knew Sloan would want him to do just that.
He’d have to stay with the Straton until its fate was resolved.

His radio crackled and he felt himself stiffen. He cleared his throat and waited for the message.

“Navy three-four-seven, this is Homeplate.” Commander Sloan’s voice was cool, controlled. Sloan looked at Hennings out of
the corner of his eye as he transmitted. “Status of Straton.”

“Status unchanged.”

“Roger. Stand by for mission order.”

“Roger.”

“Out.” Sloan put down the microphone and turned to Hennings. “All right, Admiral. The time for talk is over. I am going to
order Lieutenant Matos to fire his second missile into the cockpit of the Straton. I am fully convinced that there is no one
alive on that aircraft. If there was a pilot onboard, he would have changed direction long ago.” He paused again and switched
to a conversational tone of voice. “You know that the Navy is required to sink derelict ships that are a hazard to navigation.
Now, the analogy is not precise, but that dead aircraft is a hazard to navigation too. At its present altitude and heading,
it can potentially cross some commercial air lanes and . . .”

“That’s absurd.”

Sloan went on. “And it could also crash into a ship. True, there is no precedent for this, but it seems like an obvious obligation
to order a derelict aircraft brought down. We must bring it down on our terms. Now. Hazard to navigation,” he said again,
hoping the old terminology would produce the necessary response.

Hennings didn’t respond, but a flicker of emotion passed over his craggy features. His memory was drawn back to an incident
that they had often talked about at the Naval Academy. It had occurred at the beginning of the Second World War. One ship,
the
Davis
, had been pulling the crew of a badly damaged destroyer, the
Mercer
, from the water. The
Mercer
was crippled and aflame but showed no signs of sinking, and the Japanese fleet had sent a cruiser and two destroyers toward
it. The last thing the Navy wanted was for the Japanese to take a U.S. warship in tow, complete with maps, charts, codes,
new armaments, and encrypting devices. The
Davis
captain, John Billings, knew there were wounded and trapped men aboard the
Mercer
. The survivors also reported that the
Mercer
’s skipper, Captain Bartlett, a classmate of Billings, was still aboard. Captain Billings, without hesitation or one trace
of emotion, was said to have turned to his gunnery officer and ordered, “Sink the Mercer.”

But that was war, Hennings thought. This was quite different. Yet . . . they
were
at war, or at least could be someday—contrary to what the fools in Congress thought with their politically correct solutions
and reasoning. The Straton, if it was visually spotted or tracked on radar, or crashed near a ship, might be recovered. And
if it was, the nature of its damage would be quickly recognized for what it was. And that would lead back to the
Nimitz
eventually. Hennings knew that was what Sloan was really saying with all his bilge about hazard to navigation.

And if the
Nimitz
were suspected, all hell would break loose. America washed its dirty linen in public. The Navy would be subjected to inquiry,
scandal, and ruinous publicity. It would be Tailhook a thousand times over. The incident would further emasculate the United
States Navy; it was an emasculation that had already gone far beyond belief.

Hennings knew exactly what the Joint Chiefs would say if all that happened. “Why didn’t those sons-of-bitches, Hennings and
Sloan, just blow the thing out of the sky?” They would never
order
that done, but they expected it to be done by their subordinates.
Someone
had to do the dirty work and protect the people on top. Protect the nation’s defense posture and the viability of its military.

Sloan had let enough time slip by. “Admiral?”

Hennings looked at Sloan. If he didn’t dislike the man personally—if the suggestion had come from a more morally courageous
officer—then it would be easier to say yes. Hennings cleared his throat. “Let’s give it ten minutes more.”

“Five.”

“Seven.”

Sloan reached out and set the countdown clock for seven minutes. He hit the start button.

Hennings nodded. Commander Sloan was a man who wasted neither words nor time. “Can you be sure Matos will . . .”

“We’ll know soon enough. But I’d be surprised if he didn’t come to the same conclusions himself. I understand Matos better
than he understands himself, though I’ve hardly spoken to the man. Matos wants to be part of the team.” He sat down and began
writing. “I’m drafting a message to him, and I want you to help me with it. What we say and how we say it will be very important.”

“Well, Commander, if you’ve convinced me, you can convince that unfortunate pilot. You need no help from me in that direction.”
Randolf Hennings turned his back to Sloan and opened the blackout shade over the porthole. He stared out at the sea. He wondered
what fates had conspired against him to make him do such a thing so late in life. The good years, the honest years, all seemed
to count for very little when stacked up against this. He thought of the Straton. How many people onboard? Three hundred?
Surely they were dead already. But now their fate would never be known to their families. Randolf Hennings had consigned them
to their grave. They would lie there in the ocean where so many of his friends already lay, where he himself wished he could
lie.

Jerry Brewster stood idly in the small communications room of Trans-United Operations at San Francisco International Airport,
his hands in his pockets. He waited for the 500-millibar Pacific weather chart to finish printing. Working in this room was
the only part of his job as dispatcher’s aide that he really disliked. The lights were too bright, the noises too loud, and
the chemical smells from the color-reproduction-enhancement machines hung heavily in the stagnant air.

The new chart was finished printing. Brewster waited impatiently for it to dry before he pulled it out of the machine. Jack
Miller had requested the update on mid-altitude temperatures, and Brewster wanted to get the data to him before lunch. Brewster
made it a point to drop everything else whenever Miller asked for something. Brewster liked the old man; Miller was always
available for advice and training.

Brewster reached down and carefully pulled the newly printed chart off the roller and held it up. He walked toward the door
with the map suspended from two fingers, just to be sure he didn’t smudge the still-damp color ink. A bell rang behind him.
The tiny sound carried from the far corner of the room above the other electronic noises. Brewster paused. It was the data-link’s
alerting bell. He listened. The screen was displaying a new message, and even from this far away, he could see that it was
unusually short—a few letters or numbers. Brewster knew what that meant. Another malfunction. More gibberish. A segment of
some half-digested intracompany transmissions. He watched from a distance to see if the screen would update.

After spending a small fortune to equip the entire Trans-United fleet with this electronic marvel, the data-link communications
network was still subject to “technical difficulties,” as they called it. Brewster called it screwed up. Garbled messages.
Phrases or letters that repeated for screen after screen. Misaligned or inverted columns of data. It was almost funny, except
that they were forever calling the system engineers to troubleshoot the damned thing. Fortunately, it was used only for routine
and nonessential communications— meal problems, crew scheduling, passenger connections, routine weather and position updates.
When it worked fine, it was fine, and when it didn’t, you ignored it. Brewster ignored it.

He stepped toward the door. The chemicals in the room stung his nostrils and made his eyes water. He wanted to get into the
cleaner air of the dispatcher’s office, away from the irritants. He opened the door, then hesitated. Monitoring the data-link
was one of his responsibilities.
All right, damn it.
He slammed the door shut, crossed the room and stood in front of the screen. He read the typed message:

That was all it said. Nothing else. No identity code, no transmission address. Brewster was puzzled, annoyed.
What in hell’s name is this?
A prank? A joke? No airline pilot in the world would seriously send an SOS. It was archaic, dating from the days of steamships.
It was the equivalent of someone reporting a rape in progress by saying, “Maiden in distress.” Who could take that seriously?

Brewster rolled up the weather chart and tucked it under his arm. He stared at the machine in front of him. No, an airline
pilot in trouble would transmit a Mayday message on a specific emergency channel using any one of his four radios. He would
not send an ancient message on an electronic toy. And even if the impossible had happened and all four radios were malfunctioning,
and a pilot resorted to the data-link, then he would send a full message with identifying code. This, then, was either a malfunction
in the machine or some pilot’s idea of a joke. A very bad joke. And this pilot knew that his joke would go no further than
the Trans-United communications room.

Brewster realized that the joke was aimed at him, and that made him angry. He pressed the print button, then yanked a copy
of the message out of the machine and held it in his hand.

Idiots. It would serve them right if he reported them. He didn’t know if they could trace which of their flights had sent
the anonymous message. It was a stupid, irresponsible thing to do, and the pilot who sent it would be in trouble if they could
trace it. Then again, it might only be a malfunction. Why get involved? If he reported it, he’d get a bad reputation with
the flight crews. That, somehow, might affect his promotion. Miller had always told him to cover for the flight crews. It
would pay off. He was glad Evans hadn’t seen the message. He crumpled the data-link’s message and threw it in the trash can
and left the room.

Jack Miller saw Brewster walk out of the communications room. “Jerry, can you get that mid-altitude stuff to me soon?”