Mayday (32 page)

The more than two dozen dispatchers moved around him.

Johnson began in an official, but friendly tone. “Gentlemen, there is no doubt in my mind that Jack Miller,” he nodded to
Miller, “Dennis Evans, and Jerry Brewster,” he looked at the two men, “did everything they could do as quickly as possible.
However, there was a time lapse between the first link message and now of about half an hour.” He paused and studied the faces
of the men around him. Some glanced at the wall clock, some at their watches. A few looked surprised, others nodded eagerly.
“The first message came in at about one o’clock, I believe someone told me. There will be some problems with ATC and even
with our own people over that lag, but I’m solidly behind you, so don’t worry too much about it.” He looked around the room.

There were more people nodding now.

Johnson looked at Evans. “You call everyone on the list, including our press office. Have the press office call me for a statement.
To the president of the airlines and to everyone else, you say the following: Flight 52 has suffered a midair decompression.
Radios dead. Amateur pilot flying and communicating on data-link. Communications lost at . . .” he looked at his watch, “one
twenty-five
P.M
. ATC is initiating a search-and-rescue. I suggest an emergency meeting in the executive conference room. Got it?”

Evans nodded quickly. “Yes, sir.” He moved rapidly to his desk.

Johnson looked at the men around him. “Each one of you call your flights and tell them to keep off the data-link.” He scanned
the faces of the men. “Brewster?”

“Here, sir.”

“Okay. Brewster, you will take these printouts and make only one copy. Then fax one copy to ATC at the number they show in
the Emergency Handbook.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then send our copy to the executive conference room in the company office building. The original comes back to me. Quickly.”

Brewster took the messages and double-timed out of the dispatch office.

“That’s all, gentlemen. Thank you all for your help.” He paused. “If any of you are of a religious nature, please ask the
man upstairs to look after that Straton and everyone aboard her. Thank you. Miller, come here.”

The dispatchers moved back to their desks silently. Jack Miller approached Johnson.

Johnson put his hand on his shoulder. “Jack, fill in the empty updates for 52 and note that they were posted at noon. Leave
the one p.m. updates blank, of course.”

Miller looked at the big man standing next to him. “Ed . . . we’re not going to get away with this.”

“Of course we are. I’m doing it for you and the company as much as for myself. There have been a series of errors and blunders
here, and we have nothing to lose to try to cover it. If we don’t, you, I, Evans, Brewster, and about ten random scapegoats
will be fired, then we’ll be investigated by the FAA and maybe be charged with something. Your lovely wife can bake cookies
for all of us and bring them out to San Quentin on Sundays. Bring the kids along, too.”

Miller nodded. He started to move away, but Johnson held onto his shoulder.

“Are the men with us?” Johnson asked.

Miller nodded again. “It’s not the first time we’ve had to cover ourselves.”

Johnson smiled. “I always knew you bastards lied for each other. Now you have to lie for
me.
For yourselves, too, of course. Go fill in those updates.”

Miller moved off.

Johnson walked quickly back into the communications room. He looked at Metz, who was staring down at the big spiral-bound
book. “You know, Wayne, the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that Straton
should
go down.”

Metz looked up at him quizzically. “I thought we agreed on that.”

“In principle. Everything I did just now is standard operating procedure. I’ve done nothing wrong yet, except delay.”

“You told everyone the plane went down.”

“Did I? I said we lost contact with them. You don’t see any new link messages, do you?” He turned and looked out into the
dispatch office. “Actually, my responsibility in this screw up is pretty light. Those idiots out there blew it. ATC was not
too swift either.”

“They’ve all given us a chance to save it.”

Johnson nodded. “Yes. The man who can really testify to our mishandling of this whole thing is Berry.”

“And he’s heading home.”

“I know. God, I wish he’d just crash,” Johnson said.

“He probably will. Right into San Francisco. You’ve got to put him in the ocean.”

“I know.”

Metz sat down behind the data-link. “Look, Ed, I know this is difficult for you—it goes against all your instincts. But believe
me, there is no other way. Do what you’ve got to do. If it will make it any easier, I’ll type the message to Berry.”

Johnson laughed. “You stupid bastard. What difference does it make
who
types the message? There’s no difference in guilt, only a difference in nerve. Get out of that chair.”

Metz quickly vacated the chair behind the data-link. Johnson sat down. He glanced up at the dispatch office outside the glass.
A few heads dropped or turned away. “As far as they know, I’m still trying to contact Flight 52.”

“What are you gong to tell him to do?”

“There’s only a few things about a cockpit I know for sure. I’ve ridden in the observer’s seat enough times and had to listen
to enough pilots give me unwanted flying lessons to know what’s dangerous and what can bring an aircraft down. That book I
was looking at is the Straton’s pilot manual.”

Metz nodded appreciatively. “Any ideas?”

“A few. I’m trying to work them out. But they’re tricky.” He looked at his watch. “That meeting in the executive conference
room will be rolling in a while. They’ll chew over those link printouts and wail and whine for a good fifteen, maybe thirty,
minutes. Then they’ll ring me here.”

“Then you’d better hurry. Jesus, this is cutting it close, Ed. You didn’t leave yourself any room.”

Neither man was aware of the insistent rapping on the glass door.

Johnson finally looked up.

Jack Miller stood outside the door.

“Oh, Christ,” said Johnson. “If we let Miller in and Flight 52 begins transmitting, that would be the end of the game.” Johnson
knew that if he turned off the machine, Miller would notice and ask why they weren’t trying to reestablish contact. He quickly
went to the door and opened it.

Miller took a step in.

Johnson moved forward and edged him out a few steps, but couldn’t close the door without being too obvious. “What is it, Jack?”

Miller’s eyes moved past Johnson into the small room. He stared at Metz, and without looking at Johnson, handed him a sheaf
of papers. “Here’s the data-link printouts. Faxed to ATC and copied for the executive conference room.” He looked at Johnson.
“The chief pilot, Captain Fitzgerald, is on his way here in case we make contact. Mr. Abbot, the Straton Aircraft representative,
is also on his way. Is there anyone else you want here?”

“I don’t want
anyone
here, Jack. Have a dispatcher intercept them in the parking lot and tell them to drive over to the executive conference room
in the company office building. Okay?”

Miller ignored the order as if he hadn’t heard it. He said, “I just don’t understand what could have happened up there. That
aircraft was steady and that pilot—”

“It had two great big fucking holes in it. You wouldn’t fly too well with two great big damn holes in
you
.” He pushed Miller’s chest with his forefinger and backed him up a step. “Go home and get some rest.”

“I’m staying here.”

Johnson hesitated, then said, “All right. Take over the Pacific desk from Evans.”

“I mean here—in the communications room.” Johnson knew what he meant. “It’s not necessary.” “Does that mean I’m relieved of
my duties?” Johnson, for some reason he couldn’t explain, felt that the data-link bell was going to ring momentarily. He began
to perspire. “Jack . . .” He had to be tactful, careful. “Jack, don’t start getting sullen. You may have made a few mistakes,
but you did a few heads-up things too. It’s like in the military. You’re somewhere between a medal and a court-martial. Now,
don’t forget our conversations. Play it my way and we can all save our asses. Okay?”

Miller nodded. “Are you still trying to contact . . . ?”

“Yes. Every three minutes. And you’re holding me up now.” Johnson was becoming anxious. He kept glancing up at the door across
the room. Soon, someone whom he couldn’t keep out of the communications room might walk into the dispatch office. In a way,
he would almost have welcomed it.

Metz called out. “I have to finish this business with you and report to my people.”

Johnson turned his head. “Right.” He turned back to Miller. “Do me a favor. Go to the employees’ lounge—no, to the executives’
lounge—and while things are still fresh in your mind write a full report of everything that happened before I arrived. Make
sure the times and actions tally with our estimates, of course. When you finish, report back here and give the report to me
and me only.”

Miller nodded.

“Did you fill in the Straton’s updates?”

Miller nodded again.

“Good. When you come back you can resume your duties here in the communications room. See you later.” He stepped back, then
closed and bolted the door just as the data-link bell sounded. “Oh, Christ!”

The data-link began to print.

Metz wiped his face with a handkerchief. “That was too close.”

Johnson was visibly shaken. “Wayne, just keep out of this. I understand what’s got to be done, and I don’t need any help from
you. In fact, you can leave.”

“I’m going nowhere until that aircraft is down.”

Johnson walked over to the data-link and sat down. He glanced out into the dispatch office, then quickly pulled the message
off and put it in his lap.

Metz looked down and they read it at the same time.

FROM FLIGHT 52: IMPERATIVE YOU HAVE QUALIFIED PILOT BEGIN TO GIVE ME INSTRUCTIONS ON FLIGHT CONTROLS—NAVIGATION—APPROACH—LANDING.
BERRY.

Johnson nodded. “He’s very sharp.” He turned to Metz. “Wayne, do you feel anything for this poor bastard? Can’t you admire
his guts?”

Metz looked offended. “Of course I can admire him. I’m not completely inhuman. But . . . didn’t you once say that you were
in the Korean War? Didn’t you ever see a commander sacrifice a few good men to save the whole unit?”

“Enough times to wonder if the good men weren’t worth the rest of the unit. Enough times, too, to wonder if it wasn’t the
commander’s own ass he was trying to save.” Johnson looked up through the glass panels, then down at the keyboard. “I’m going
to give Berry a course change that will put them on a heading for Hawaii.”

“Why?”

“Because he’ll never find Hawaii. He’ll run out of fuel in about six hours. He’ll go down at sea looking for Hawaii.”

“Can’t you do something more positive?” “Too tricky. We’ll try this.” Metz suspected that Johnson saw a fine—but to him meaningless—line
between actually giving information that would cause the Straton to crash and information that would result in its crash several
hours from now. “But he’ll keep transmitting. We can’t stay in this goddamned room and guard this machine for six hours.”

“No, we can’t. After he takes up the new heading and stays on it for a while, I’ll short out the data-link with a screwdriver
through a rear access panel. Then we’ll call in a technician and leave. The link won’t be fixed for hours.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’ll take over an hour just to get a technician here. Hours, sometimes days, to get parts. These machines are special technology.
Never used for vital communications—so it takes a while to get them fixed.”

“What if Berry, when he loses contact, turns from the Hawaii heading and heads back toward the coast?”

Johnson shook his head. “He won’t. We’ll tell him that the air-and-sea rescue units will be intercepting him on his new heading,
and that the military and civilian airports in Hawaii are expecting him. He won’t want to throw that chance away.”

Metz nodded. “Can’t he change channels on his data-link?”

“They tell me the different channels are for the relay stations only. There’s a computer somewhere that automatically sends
all the Trans-United messages to this unit.” Johnson pointed at the data-link machine in front of him.

“I see,” said Metz, although he didn’t see, not exactly. It was, as they said in business school, all PFM— pure fucking magic—and
the details of how and why didn’t interest him in the slightest. Metz looked up at the Pacific chart. In a vast expanse of
blue, a few green dots represented the islands of Hawaii. He spoke to Johnson as he stared at the map. “What if he
finds
Hawaii?”

“With the heading I give him, he won’t come close. He’ll be lost, alone, with no radio, a damaged aircraft, no idea of how
to fly the aircraft, no fuel reserve, and no one looking for him. If he survives all that, Mr. Metz, he sure deserves to live.”

Johnson began to type the new heading.