Mayday (45 page)

“Don’t try to save your job on my time. I might have enough trouble saving my own. Step back.”

Metz stepped back. He could see that Johnson was still volatile, but he knew that as soon as he settled down, he would begin
to think in terms of helping Metz save his job. He had no choice, really. The two of them were in it together.

“One minute!”

Johnson took a cigar out of his pocket and lit it. He looked around the room. Kevin Fitzgerald stood with Trans-United’s public-relations
man and a few other executives. The president stood with the chairman of the board and presumably God stood beside them both,
though Johnson’s irreverent eyes could not see Him. Everyone had agreed that this conference was too important to be left
to the public-relations people, and too sad an occasion to have the president’s face and name associated with it.
Bastards.
He straightened his tie and wiped his brow.

“Thirty seconds!”

Johnson looked at the clock. Twelve after six.

A TV technician shouted from across the room. “We’re ready, Mr. Johnson.”

Johnson nodded. He turned and faced the cameras squarely as the last of the bright lights were turned on.

Metz stepped even farther back from Johnson. Out of nervous habit, he felt inside his sports jacket for the data-link messages,
as a man feels for his wallet, and his heart jumped when his fingers found nothing. Then he remembered, with some embarrassment,
that he and Johnson had stopped on the access road between the Trans-United hangar and the administration building to burn
them. They were no more than a pile of ashes now. But, still, his fingers went deeper into his inside pocket. He had the sudden,
irrational fear that he had somehow left one of them in his pocket, and that the TV camera would suddenly swing around and
zero in on it like an X-ray zeroing in on a suspicious spot. His fingers felt the line at the bottom of his pocket. He patted
his other pockets quickly. He saw Johnson giving him an annoyed look.
Calm down. Almost over.

A young woman with a clipboard called out, “Mr. Johnson, watch for the red light.”

Johnson glowered at the production assistant. “I know that.”

“Right. Begin with your prepared statement, then we’ll go into the Q and A from the newspeople.”

“Fine.” It seemed to Johnson that the newsmen—or newspeople, as they called themselves—were literally licking their lips over
the assignment to cover the first air crash of a supersonic transport.
If the bastards only knew the story they almost had.

The camera’s red light came on.

“You’re on.”

Johnson cleared his throat and put on an expression that was appropriate to the gravity of the first sentence he could speak.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to announce that Trans-United Flight 52 has apparently crashed at sea. The flight, a Straton
797 supersonic airliner, left San Francisco International Airport this morning at eight-thirty
A.M
., on a nonstop flight to Tokyo. Onboard the aircraft were 302 passengers and a crew of fourteen. Approximately midway across
the Pacific, there was an in-flight emergency, the exact nature of which is unknown but apparently involved the hull—the fuselage
. . .”
Fuck Abbot,
“. . . and cabin pressure was lost. The aircraft turned around and headed back to San Francisco.” Johnson paused and took
a breath. “What you may have heard concerning a passenger piloting the aircraft is true.”

There was an excited murmur in the room, and Johnson could see pencils moving and cameras clicking away at him. He continued,
“Because of a malfunction in their voice radios, we established contact with them via data-link—a computer screen for typed
messages. The last message was received from Flight 52 at approximately one
P.M
., San Francisco time. Since then—”

A wall telephone rang loudly in the back of the quiet room.

Johnson glanced up at it with unconcealed annoyance, and saw Kevin Fitzgerald pick it up. He glanced at the production assistant
who was motioning him to continue. “Since then, an extensive search-and-rescue operation has been mounted by military and
civilian authorities. . . .” Johnson saw that Fitzgerald was speaking excitedly into the telephone, and something inside him
signaled a warning. “Flight 52 had . . . still has not been found as of this moment . . . and if they were still flying .
. . their fuel would probably have been consumed by now . . .” Fitzgerald had motioned for the president and the chairman
of the board.
What the fuck is going on back there?
“And is still . . . that is . . . we have many of the relatives and friends of the passengers here at the terminal . . .
in our lounge . . .” Fitzgerald was speaking into the phone and relaying a message to the people around him. There was a stir
in the back of the room. “And the chief pilot, Captain Kevin Fitzgerald . . . has been with the passengers . . . the passengers’
relatives . . . constantly . . . until now. The search will continue until—”

“Wait!” Fitzgerald held the phone in his hand and was signaling to Johnson.

Johnson dropped his cigar on the floor and stared at Fitzgerald.

Everyone turned toward the back of the room.

“It’s the control tower,” said Fitzgerald. “The radar room.”

The production assistant barked an order and the camera turned toward Fitzgerald. Technicians ran across the room with hand
microphones and the electrical crew swung several of the white lights around. The shadow of Kevin Fitzgerald holding the telephone
in his outstretched hand rose up on the stark wall behind him. “The control tower says,” shouted Fitzgerald over the rising
noise, “that they have a large unidentified aircraft on their radarscope. The aircraft is headed directly toward San Francisco
Airport. It is now sixty-two miles west of here, flying at a low altitude, and at an airspeed of three hundred and forty knots.
They believe the aircraft may be . . .” He glanced up at Johnson, then finished the sentence with the words that were already
on everyone’s lips: “. . . the Straton.”

The room exploded with sound. Some reporters rushed up to Fitzgerald, and others grabbed the phones on the long conference
table. The Straton executives had already positioned themselves at the door in the rear of the room. They disappeared into
the corridor and headed for a small VIP conference room across the hall.

Wayne Metz pushed through the crowd and grabbed Johnson by the shoulder. “
How?
How can this be possible? Johnson?”

Edward Johnson looked at Metz as if he hadn’t understood the question.

“Johnson, damn it! Can it be true?”

Johnson was in a daze. A few reporters, unable to get to Fitzgerald, crowded around Johnson. Questions bombarded him from
all sides. He pushed through the reporters and broke out into the corridor, half walking, half running toward the staircase.

Wayne Metz came up behind him, breathless. “Johnson! Is it true? Is it
true?”

Johnson turned and spoke distractedly as he bounded down the stairs. “How the hell do I know?”

Metz followed. “Where are you going?”

“To the damn ramp, Metz. At the speed that aircraft is traveling, it’ll be here in less than ten minutes.”

Metz followed him to the lower level, down a long corridor that led to a satellite terminal, then to a door that led to the
aircraft parking ramp. Johnson put his identification card into an electronic scanner, and the door opened. The two of them
walked outside, onto the airport ramp. “Can it be the Straton? Tell me. Please.”

Edward Johnson ignored Wayne Metz and looked up into the setting sun, shielding his eyes with his hands as he moved. He tried
to think clearly, but his mind was unable to absorb all the ramifications of what had happened. Stunned with a terror he had
never before known, he ran across the parking ramp. He felt that the Straton was sweeping down on him as he ran, like a winged
nightmare from hell, a dead thing that came back from a watery grave. He thought he saw a small dot coming out of the sun,
but realized it was too soon yet to see it.
Please God. Not the goddamn Straton.

S
haron Crandall looked at the distance-to-go meter. “Twenty-three miles.”

Berry held the wheel tightly in his hands. He stared at the fuel gauges. They were within a needle’s width of empty; two low-fuel
warning lights glowed a brilliant red, probably for the first time since the aircraft was built.

“John, do we have enough fuel to reach the airport?”

The time for thin assurances was ended. They could flame out before he drew his next breath. “I can’t tell. Fuel gauges aren’t
accurate when they’re that low.” He saw the electronic needle nudge against the empty mark. Technically, they were already
out, but feasibly the engines could run for as long as ten more minutes. There was no way to tell until that first sickening
sensation of power loss, which he remembered from when he had put faith in the data-link instructions and almost landed in
the sea. He felt the muscles in his stomach and buttocks tightening.

“Twenty-two miles. Still on course.” She paused. “We’re going to make it, you know.”

Berry glanced at her and smiled. “What time is it? Exactly.”

“Six-twenty-one.”

Berry looked down at the unbroken top of the low white fog that stretched out in all directions. Some of the vapor rose up
and obscured his windshield. “Damn it, if we’re twenty-two miles from the airport, we can’t be more than ten miles from the
Golden Gate Bridge. We would be able to see the bridge or the city by now if it weren’t for this fog.”

“We’ll see it soon.”

“We’re going to have to see something soon. We’re less than five minutes’ flight time to the airport—and we’ll be coming up
to congested airspace. Linda, keep watching for other airplanes.”

“Okay.”

He turned to Sharon. “I hope to God they’ve spotted us on radar and kept everyone away from us.”

“I’m sure they have.” A calm had come over her, brought on in part by the presence of the fluffy white blanket of vapor beneath
them, in part by fatigue, and the feeling that it would be all over, one way or the other, in less than five minutes.

Linda Farley called out. “Look! What’s that?”

Berry and Crandall turned back to her, then followed her outstretched arm.

Berry peered hard out of the Straton’s left-side window. Off the wingtip, he saw a ghostly gray mass rising through the layer
of fog. A mountain. Its peak was at least 1,500 feet higher than the Straton. “I see it. Sharon, look.”

“Yes, I see it.”

“Do you recognize it?”

“I don’t know. Wait . . . I can’t tell.” She leaned closer toward Berry. “Yes, It’s Mount Tamalpais. In Marin County.”

“Okay. Give me the charts.” He looked at the navigation chart and studied it. “That’s north of the Golden Gate Bridge?”

“Yes. The bridge should be ahead. A little to the left.”

“Okay.” He looked over his shoulder and forced a smile. “Linda, you win the champagne . . . the prize. We’ll get you something
nice when we land.”

She nodded.

He turned to the front and began a shallow turn to the left. “I’m going to try to steer directly over the bridge. We have
to stay over the bay.” He knew he was too low to try to cut across either San Francisco or mountainous Marin County. At 900
feet he was below the summit of at least three of San Francisco’s famous peaks, and below the tops of a few of its newer skyscrapers.
The Golden Gate Inlet to the bay was just that—a gate into the harbor, the same for an aircraft at 900 feet as for a sailing
ship. “Sharon, Linda, look for the bridge—we may be able to see its towers.”

“I’m looking,” said Crandall.

Berry continued the left turn toward a course of due east, trying to find the inlet to the bay, trying to feel his way across
the top of the fog. It occurred to him that one of the arguments that must have been used against bringing the Straton home
was that he would be endangering the city, but Berry had no intention of endangering anyone on the ground. He’d keep the flight
over the water no matter what the cost to him or the others. “Sharon, if we don’t see the inlet very soon, I’m going to put
it down in the ocean. We can’t risk hitting a hill or a building.”

“Can’t you climb higher?”

“That takes too much fuel and too many miles. We don’t have either.” He looked down at the fog. He could see a few breaks
in it now, and caught a glimpse of the water. He could see that the fog went all the way to the water’s surface. A blind landing
in the sea would mean almost certain disaster. He consoled himself with the knowledge that this close to the coast, they might
recover the bodies. He thought he felt a sinking sensation in the seat of his pants, as if the airliner were suddenly decelerating.
“Did you feel that?”

“What?”

He sat motionless for several seconds. “Nothing.”
Damn it. There it is again.
Was he imagining it? From this altitude, his glide time after a flame out would be less than thirty seconds, and there would
be no restarting of the engines this time. And a thirty-second powerless glide on this heading might put him into the bridge,
or into the city, but not into the bay beyond the city. “I’m going to put it in the water. We can’t keep heading this way.”

“Wait, John. Please. Just a bit longer.”

“Damn it, Sharon. I might be heading into a mountain or into a building. We have no right to fly over the city. I’ll put it
in the ocean while I know we’re still over it. They’ve seen us on radar. They know where we are.”

She looked at him and said very definitely, “No. Keep going. I know the inlet is straight ahead.”

He looked at her. There was something in her voice and her manner that made him think she had some information from a source
not displayed on the instrument panel. “Sharon . . .” He saw a picture of the Straton plunging down through the fog, the fog
parting, the city of San Francisco rising up through his windshield, and the nose of the huge airliner pointed into the streets
below. He shook his head quickly to clear the image from his mind. He said softly, ”I’ve
got
to put it down right now.“