But James Sloan was not listening. His entire universe had shrunk. There was nothing he cared about now except the words that were about to come through the radio speaker. There was no other inroad to his thoughts.
“There’s no doubt, Commander,” Matos’s transmission began.
Sloan’s face went pale. He listened to the remainder of the pilot’s message through a filter of personal static, as his mind raced.
“It’s right in front of me. I’m only fifty feet in trail. Trans-United, a Straton 797. There’s a three-foot hole on its port side, and another hole in the starboard fuse-lage. The starboard hole is bigger—three or four times as big. I don’t see any movement in the cockpit or the cabin.”
Sloan stood with his eyes shut, both his hands laid against the console. He had not been face-to-face with fear since he was a young boy. All his body muscles tensed and he wanted to run, to bolt from the room and get away. He wanted to shake himself awake from the incredible nightmare.
“Now what?” Randolf Hennings finally asked, his mild voice barely breaking the silence. “What can we do? What should we do?”
Sloan slowly opened his eyes, then turned his head to stare at Hennings. As he held eye contact with the Admiral, James Sloan pulled himself out of the deepest emotional pit of his life. He had very nearly lost his self-control. The Commander’s frown had returned, as had his iron-willed expression and bearing.
“What do you suggest, Admiral?” Sloan asked in an obviously sarcastic tone; he was goading the old man. Hennings appeared puzzled. Sloan waved his hand nonchalantly. “Perhaps we should take a walk below-decks. We could lock ourselves in the brig. Better yet, let’s go to the officers’ ward room. They’ve got a nice pair of ceremonial swords on the wall. We could take them down and fall on them.”
Hennings uttered an unintelligible sound that showed his surprise.
“Listen, Admiral,” Sloan continued, “we’ve got to evaluate this situation realistically. Figure out precisely where we stand. The last thing we want is to rush off to do something we’ll regret. Something bad for the Navy.”
Sloan hoped he had not pushed the old man too far. Or too quickly. Still, it was his only chance. Without Hennings along, there was no way he could pull off some sort of cover-up. Sloan had done it once before, when, because of a foul-up, one of his pilots had shot up a Mexican fishing boat. The responsibility for that one might have wound up in Sloan’s lap, so he moved quickly to fix it. It had taken only a quick helicopter ride and a small pile of Yankee greenbacks. This one would require more. Much more. But it could still be done.
“I don’t know what you mean. What is it you want to do?” Hennings finally asked.
Sloan sat down in the seat in front of the console. He took out a cigarette. He took his time lighting it, then inhaled deeply. He swiveled the seat around to face Hennings and sat back.
“Let’s list the obvious things first,” Sloan said. His words were slow, full measured, and carefully picked. “Neither of us wanted this. It was a pure accident. God only knows how it happened. That area was supposed to be clear of air traffic. I checked it myself this morning.”
Sloan paused. Procedures had required him to re-check, in case of a last-minute change. He had tried, but he hadn’t been able to get through on the normal channels, even on the patch. The chance that a flight would have altered its course during the short time he was without a clear channel was minuscule. Less than minuscule. Yet it happened, Sloan thought. He managed to dispel the miscalculation with a simple shrug of his shoulders, then returned his attentions to Hennings. “How that aircraft got there is beyond me. I guess our luck was super-bad.”
“Our luck?” Hennings said. “What the hell’s the matter with you? What about that airliner? It’s got people aboard. Women and children.” The old man’s face was red and his hands trembled. The volume of his voice filled the room and made it seem smaller than it was. Hennings had the sudden disquieting sensation of being closed in. The smallness of the electronics room had trapped him, and he desperately wanted to go above-decks.
James Sloan sat motionless. He continued to wear the same ambiguous expression. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s a tragedy. But it’s not our fault. ” Sloan stopped speaking for a moment to let his words sink in. He took another deep drag on his cigarette. He knew that it was his fault, at least partially. But that was beside the point.
Hennings looked down at Sloan in disbelief. “Are you somehow suggesting that we pretend this never happened?” He was beginning to wonder if Sloan was insane. For a person to even entertain such wild notions seemed evidence enough of insanity. “We’ve got to help those people.”
Sloan leaned closer to Hennings. “That’s the point, Admiral. There are no people.”
A dead quiet hung between the two men. Numbers paraded by on the digital clock, but time stood still. Finally, the Admiral shook his head. He did not understand. “But it’s an airliner,” he said. “Trans-United. It’s got to have passengers. It must have a crew.”
“No, Admiral. Not anymore.” Sloan was choosing his words carefully. “The impact of the missile punctured two holes in their pressurized shell. At sixty-two thousand feet, they couldn’t survive. They’re dead, Admiral. All dead.”
Sloan sat back and watched as the words registered on the old man. Sloan had known, as soon as he had begun to think clearly again, that the hole made by the Phoenix missile would make the aircraft decompress. A decompression at 62,000 feet would be fatal.
Hennings’s expression had changed. Shock had been replaced by pain. “Dead? Are you sure?” he asked.
“Certainly.” Sloan waved his hand in a gesture of finality. But he knew that there was still a measure of technical doubt. If he let those doubts surface, they would erode his resolve and eat away at the basics of his plan. He knew that Hennings would need an excuse to go along with a cover-up. He figured that the old man wanted an excuse. Sloan would be happy to provide one. More than likely, everyone aboard that airliner was already dead—or soon would be. The harm had already been done. It was now a matter of saving himself. And the mission. And, of course, the reputation of the Navy, which needed all the help it could get these days.
Sloan leaned closer to Hennings. “I know that Matos won’t say anything. He’s in this with us. We do no good by turning ourselves in. This was an accident. If the truth came out, the entire Navy would suffer.”
Sloan cleared his throat. He took a few seconds to gauge how Hennings was reacting. So far, Sloan still had him. Hennings had nodded in agreement. The good of the Navy was his soft spot. It was worth remembering. Sloan might need to play on it again, now that he was coming to the sensitive part.
“Our best bet,” he continued, “is to have Matos put his second missile into the . . . target. It’s being flown by its autopilot. At close range, he could direct his missile toward the Straton’s cockpit. It would wipe out the ship’s controls.” The coup de grâce to the back of the neck, he wanted to say, but didn’t. “It will go down. No evidence. Just a sudden disappearance in mid-Pacific. Terrorists. A bomb. Structural failure. We’d be off the hook. The Navy—”
“No!” Hennings shouted, pounding his fist on the console. “It’s insane. Criminal. We’ve got to help them. They could still be alive. They’ve probably sent out distress signals. More than just the three of us know. Everyone knows.” Hennings pointed to the radio equipment. “They must have sent an SOS.”
“That’s not true, Admiral.” The conversation between them had taken on the atmosphere of a debate, and James Sloan was not unhappy about that. He had hardly expected to reach an agreement with Hennings without some sort of fight. Hennings was still talking and deliberating, and that was a good sign. Now all Sloan had to do was find the right words.
“We monitor both international emergency channels on these two sets,” Sloan said, pointing to two radio receivers at the top of the console. “There’s been nothing from them. You’ve heard that for yourself.
Our shipboard communications center, down in CIC on the 0-1 level, would instantly get any word of a problem from ships or planes anywhere near here. We even get the routine stuff. Things like ships with minor leaks and aircraft with minor equipment difficulties. There’s no way that a distress message was sent from that aircraft without our CIC getting involved in it. The CIC duty officer would immediately call me if he had gotten something.”
“But what about the people?” Hennings said. “We just can’t assume that they’re dead.”
“Matos reported that he saw no activity. There was no one in the cockpit. He can get within fifty feet of that aircraft. If there’s no one visible, it’s because they’re dead. Slumped in their seats.”
“Well . . . Idon’t know,” Hennings said. What Sloan said seemed to make sense, although he wondered for an instant if the Commander was being completely honest. Hennings wanted to do what was best for the Navy. The accident was a monumental tragedy. But, as Sloan pointed out, nothing could change that. Nothing could erase the errors, oversights, and coincidences to bring those people back. Disgracing the Navy was the last thing he wanted to do. Hennings’s friends in the Pentagon would be exposed. He knew that they were vulnerable, since the testing had not been authorized. He realized that he, too, was in an impossible position if the truth became known. The faces of his old friends in the Pentagon flashed through his mind. Protect the Navy. Protect the living, Hennings thought.
“Admiral,” Sloan said, sensing that Hennings could now be pushed to the conclusion he had steered him toward, “I understand your reservations. Your points are valid. I want to check them out. I’ll call down to CIC to be sure that no emergency message was sent by the Straton. Then we’ll get Matos to take another look. A close look. If he reports that there’s no one alive, then we know what we need to do.”
As Sloan reached across the desk for the direct telephone to CIC, he kept his eyes riveted on Hennings. Sloan was playing the percentages. He wanted to cement the retired Admiral into the conspiracy. He needed him. The odds were low that Matos would be able to see any life aboard the Straton transport.
Hennings stood rigidly, every muscle of his body tensed. He watched as Sloan held the telephone. His eyes wandered to the digital clock. Half a minute ran off while his mind stayed as blank as the Nimitz ’s gray walls. Hennings turned to Sloan. Everything seemed to be in a state of suspended animation, waiting for him. Finally, with a nearly imperceptible motion, retired Rear Admiral Randolf Hennings nodded his head.
The young girl clung to John Berry as he stood in the aisle of the forward cabin of the stricken airliner. The din from the Straton’s engines and the noise of air rushing past the two holes in its fuselage filled the cabin, yet Berry could still hear the girl’s sobs and feel her wet tears against his arm. He was thankful for her physical presence. Facing the nightmare alone would have been too much. Any companion, even a child, was better than none.
Berry’s first notion that something unforeseen would break into their moment of tranquillity came from a muffled noise from behind. Berry, still holding the child, turned.
“Down!” he yelled, and he shoved the girl into an empty center row of seats. A tall and muscular man with wild eyes rushed toward them, a jagged section of a serving tray held high in his right hand. The people who had followed the man up the aisle stopped a few rows before reaching Berry and the girl. They seemed more curious than aggressive. They stood in mute wonder, watching the encounter in front of them.
The man yelled incoherently. His facial muscles were contorted with hatred, and sweat covered his forehead. Somehow, in his damaged brain, the man had formulated the thought that the young girl was crying because Berry had hurt her. The man would protect the young girl. He would kill Berry.
“Stop!” Berry screamed. As the man approached, Berry wheeled himself to one side. The jagged serving tray was flung harmlessly past him. Deranged and acting alone, the crazed man was no match for a normal adult. With a right uppercut against the man’s jaw, Berry knocked him backward across a row of seats.
John Berry stood in the center of the aisle. His right hand throbbed with pain, and for a few seconds, he thought he might have broken it. He rubbed his aching hand, and while he did he felt an awakening, a long-forgotten sense of pride. He had successfully defended himself and the girl.
Berry glared at the other passengers and raised his fists. It was an act, a show of force for the half dozen of them who stood around him watching. Inwardly, Berry wanted to run. But if they were to attack en masse, he would have no chance. Deranged or not, there were simply too many of them. Too much muscle. He hoped that his threatening gesture would be enough to keep them away.
In the minds of the passengers, rivulets of rational thoughts ran across arid areas of damaged brain cells. They could still sense personal fear, and it had caused them, one by one, to back off. Berry thanked God that they did not have enough presence of mind to gang up against him. Not yet, anyway.
Berry took the young girl’s arm and ushered her toward the circular staircase.
“You okay, mister?” she asked.
“Yes.” His heart pounded, and his mouth was dry. He flexed his fingers and could tell that nothing had been broken. He would need to be careful. If he allowed himself to be hurt, they would be defenseless. He would get himself some sort of weapon as soon as he could, and get one for the girl, too.
Berry inhaled deeply and felt his body begin to calm. “Keep your eyes open. Stay alert.”
“Okay,” she answered.
They climbed up the staircase and into the upper lounge. The stairway creaked under their feet.
The scene in the lounge was a welcome relief from the madness below. Except for the dangling oxygen masks, everything appeared normal at first glance. But as they walked through the lounge, the abnormalities became obvious.
There were nine people in the upper lounge, and Berry’s impression was that they were asleep. Then he noticed that they sat in tensed and contorted positions. On their faces they wore expressions of soul-chilling terror. Two of them, a flight attendant and an old woman, were semiconscious.
The flight attendant leaned against the bar and ranted nonsensically. She had a crazed look in her eyes, and she groped spastically at the edges of the bar to maintain her balance. Berry could see from her name tag that she was Terri O’Neil. He had noticed her during the morning snack service. A little more than a half hour before, she had been serving food and drinks in the first class cabin, and now she could hardly stand straight. Berry turned away.
On the other side of the lounge was the old woman. She was stroking the head of her husband as he lay face down across the table in front of her. She spoke to his dead body in singsong tunes, the snatches of her pathetic and childlike words filling Berry’s ears.
Three men and two women sat on a horseshoe-shaped couch near the piano. They all wore oxygen masks, and they looked unconscious. A man wearing the black glasses of the blind sat near them, his arms outstretched in a futile search for the oxygen mask that dangled only inches to his left. He appeared to be dead.
The opened cockpit door was a dozen feet ahead, and Berry could see that all of the crew were slumped over in their seats. With each step Berry slowed his pace, reluctant to enter the cockpit.
Finally, he stepped across the threshold. All three of the pilots were unconscious. Pull yourself together, Berry thought.
The young girl stood directly behind him. She said, “No one’s steering.”
“It’s automatic. Like an elevator.” The flight controls moved gently in unison, responding to small electronic commands of the gyrostabilized autopilot to keep the aircraft on its programmed course.
The girl looked around the cockpit and saw Carl Fessler’s lifeless body draped across his desk. She could hear the hissing sounds that came from the continuous flow of oxygen pouring out of his dislodged mask. She took a step backward and looked in wonder at him.
Berry was hardly aware
of the girl. He had guessed correctly at Fessler’s condition as soon as he saw that the engineer’s mask was off. The Captain, who was still strapped to his oxygen mask, was Berry’s concern. He approached the man and tried to shake him into consciousness. Their survival depended on it.
Captain Alan Stuart was breathing, but comatose. Slowly, Berry accepted the fact that the Captain was probably beyond help.
Berry looked toward the copilot. He, too, was unconscious. Berry and the girl had survived this far, only to discover that there was no one left to fly the aircraft.
Berry glanced around the cockpit. The walls that surrounded the pilot stations were crammed with instruments. He understood some of what he saw, but entire panels and rows of gauges were a total mystery. The difference between a giant jetliner and his four-seat private propeller airplane was like the difference between an airliner and the Space Shuttle. All they had in common was that, on occasion, they flew through the sky.
John Berry knew that he could not fly this huge supersonic aircraft. He was backed against an insurmountable wall of anguish and despair. All he now cared about was their immediate survival—to stay alive within the confines bounded by the sweep second hand of the cockpit clock.
The copilot stirred in his seat and his arm swung off his lap. It fell, with a thud, onto the center console. Berry held his breath while he waited to see what would happen. If the man moved again, he might inadvertently disengage the autopilot or do some other harm to their stable flight condition. In that maze of switches, Berry knew that he could not hope to find the proper combination to set things straight.
“Quick. Help me get him out of the seat,” he said to the girl. She came over and grabbed clumsily at the copilot’s legs as Berry lifted McVary’s limp body out of the chair.
“Don’t let him touch the controls.”
“I won’t.” She raised his feet above the equipment on the center console as Berry lugged the man backward.