Matos huddled over his radar screen. The target had maintained a steady course for a short while after the intercept. Matos turned on two cockpit switches, then made an adjustment to the radar. He could now plot both the target drone and the Phoenix’s altitude losses on his vertical display board. Beyond the target was the faint radar reflection that was the remains of the AIM-63X Phoenix missile. It was visible for half a minute, and Matos tracked it continuously as it fell into the sea. “Homeplate, this is three-four-seven. The test missile has dropped into the ocean. I am now tracking the target drone. I am locked to it in the vertical scan. It is descending. Altitude is approximately fifty-one thousand feet. Descent rate registers as twelve thousand feet per minute.”
“Okay,” Sloan answered, “that’s good. Our readout still shows the target as level at sixty-two thousand. The target’s transmitting equipment must have been damaged by the impact. Maybe the Phoenix just grazed the drone.” With no warhead, Sloan knew that complete destruction would require a full-face hit. “Continue to track, and we’ll consider our shipboard monitors as dysfunctional.”
“Roger.” But something else bothered Matos. The target was not falling very rapidly. His own jet could dive faster than the target was going down. For what should have been a smashed target drone tumbling through the sky, it was not performing as expected.
Data is missing, he thought. The only reason it made no sense was that he was operating without all the information. Garbage in, garbage out, as they said in the computer classes at Pensacola. Don’t jump to wild conclusions. Leave the emotional responses to civilians. Military technicians waited for the data. Technology was really the science of hindsight. When they corrected and analyzed all the material, they would easily discover what had made this test seem so bizarre.
Matos was no longer apprehensive. There was something about rote procedures that was calming and comforting. As long as he stuck to the technician’s routines, then he could push his fears away. The blips on his radar had again become no more than game pieces, and the entire maneuver had taken on the aura of electronic chess.
The impact has distorted the drone’s shape, Matos thought. It’s been bent into some sort of low-drag lifting body. Flattened out into a metal parachute that has already reached its terminal velocity. Wilder things have happened. Matos felt that Commander Sloan’s idea that the test missile had only nicked the target drone was probably right. That would explain how and why the drone’s misleading signals were still being routinely sent to theNimitz .
“Vertical scan indicates twenty-five thousand,” Matos reported. Events had settled down, and things were beginning to make sense. “Seventeen thousand feet. The target is now tracking thirty-eight degrees to the right of its intercepted course. I am showing …”
As Matos’s eyes traveled over the array of data readouts, he froze when he saw the new trend. It was too far from normal to pretend otherwise. “Homeplate … the target’s descent rate has decreased.” Matos’s voice was pitched higher. “Eight thousand a minute. Now it’s six thousand a minute. The altitude is fourteen thousand feet. The descent rate has dropped to three thousand a minute. The target is leveling out at eleven thousand feet!”
After just a few minutes’ pause, Sloan’s voice filled the void. “Navy three-four-seven, I don’t know what the hell has happened out there, but you better find out. Fast.” There was no longer any mistake about the timbre of Sloan’s voice or its intent.
“Roger, Homeplate. Proceeding toward the target. I’ll obtain a visual sighting.” Matos pushed the throttles forward. The F-18 accelerated rapidly, pushing him back against his seat. A flood of disjointed emotions swelled in him, but he held them at bay. He directed all his energies at the technical task of intercepting the moving radar target.
* * *
“That’s a good question, Commander. What the hell has happened out there?” Randolf Hennings had begun to allow himself a small measure of an admiral’s anger. He had played silent errand boy far too long. Retired or not, Hennings’s natural propensity for leadership—in mothballs for the past several years, like his naval uniforms—had begun to emerge. Sloan was losing control of the situation.
Hennings had not liked Commander James Sloan from their first handshake. There was something too shrewd and calculated about the man. He had shown no hint of good nature. It was as if the universe had been created solely for the benefit of Commander Sloan.
Sloan had ignored the Admiral’s question. “We’ll take over,” he said to Petty Officer Loomis. He dismissed the technician, and Loomis left the room quickly and quietly. “Nothing wrong has happened, I’m sure,” Sloan finally answered, turning toward Hennings. “But even if something has … there’s no need to let it get beyond the two of us. I won’t call the electronics specialist back until we’ve resolved whatever the problem is.”
“There are three of us,” Hennings said. “Don’t forget your pilot. He knows more than we do. He’s the one who’s out there. We don’t get a very clear picture …” He motioned toward the stack of electronics. “… from all of this.”
“Matos is no problem,” Sloan answered. “I know how to pick men. I know how to assign jobs.”
Randolf Hennings looked with marked disdain at the young commander.He doesn’t command men. He uses them , Hennings thought. Men like him were no good for a crew, a ship, or a navy. “Don’t be surprised if your subordinates sometimes take a tack against the prevailing wind.”
“Surprised?Hell, no. I’d beamazed .” But as soon as he said it, Sloan knew he had gone too far. He had let the remark out too quickly, on the heels of all the wrong turns that events had taken. The remark hung in the air between the two men, and Sloan regretted it. An unnecessary indulgence.
Sloan tried to eradicate his error. He smiled at Hennings, then forced a small laugh. “You’re right, Admiral. They sometimes try to tack against the wind. We all do, on occasion.”
Hennings nodded slightly but said nothing. He resented being linked to Sloan, no matter how minor the inference. If this were the old days back on theJohn Hood , he would have called this officer to his quarters and, in private, reamed him out.Remember the mission , Hennings thought, quoting to himself what a lifetime of experience had taught him.
“We’re trying to do a job, not win points,” Hennings said. The retired Admiral had built his naval career on precisely that premise. Embarrassing your subordinates was, he felt, counterproductive. You would get a man’s best only when he cared enough to produce. Threats would get you no more.
Sloan grunted an unintelligible reply, then turned his eyes toward the electronics console. He basically understood how to work the equipment, and he checked it over to refresh his memory. Sloan moved quickly and competently around the gangs of switches and dials, like a skilled surgeon performing a familiar operation.
Hennings watched him for a few moments, then sighed. Perhaps he had been too critical. Perhaps he was getting too old. Times had changed. It was Sloan’s show. Undermining the Commander’s confidence or taking exception with his methods would do no one any good, least of all the Navy. No one should try to be the captain of every ship.
“Just a few more minutes, Admiral.” Sloan was aware of Hennings’s displeasure. It was another factor to be considered. The successful completion of the mission was the first concern, but not alienating the retired Admiral was an important second. He had gotten off to a bad start with the old man, and would need to do some work to get things even-keeled. A successful test firing would make it easy to bridge the gap. Nothing made people friendlier than a shared success.
Hennings sat down on the edge of the console. He gazed blankly across the room at the closed hatchway door.
Sloan found himself tapping his fingers against the glass face of the panel-mounted clock. He shifted positions. Then he coughed lightly to clear his throat. If things went well, it could all be wrapped up within the hour. “Not much longer,” he said to break the silence. “Matos should be
just about in visual range of our target.”
* * *
Matos’s first sight of the target was routine enough: a black dot that hung motionless against the blue sky. Without anything nearby to provide perspective, size was an indeterminate thing.
The target maintained a steady course of 342 degrees. It had gradually slowed during its descent, and it now held a speed of 340 knots. Flying the F-18 over three times the target’s velocity, he was quickly closing the remaining distance between them. He would intercept the target shortly.
Matos had been splitting his attention between the radar and the windshield, and now that he had the target in visual contact, he kept his eyes fixed on it. “Navy three-four-seven has visual contact,” he transmitted.
“Roger,” Sloan answered, his tone impatient.
Matos paid no attention to the implied message. He had stopped worrying about Sloan, and instead concentrated completely on the job at hand. To stay emotionally uninvolved was the proper attitude in any scientific trade.
Matos’s left hand eased back the F-18’s throttles. He began a reduction that would have his aircraft flying at a similar speed when he pulled alongside the target, thus avoiding an overshoot. Formation flying was still a matter of practice, skill, and gut reactions. In the modern fighter pilot’s repertoire, it was one area that had yet to be taken over by electronics. Peter Matos was particularly good at high-speed formations. He would sometimes lay far astern of his squadron, then zoom up and rapidly tuck into his assigned slot. “Nice showboat,” his buddies would radio, but everyone was impressed. Matos was good.
Yet today he was having a problem. The target stayed its distance. Matos had misjudged. He had begun a speed reduction from a point too far away. The hundreds of subtle clues that went into compiling a pilot’s instinctive reactions were somehow off base. Something was wrong. Matos took his eyes off the black dot on the horizon and glanced at his radar screen.
Six miles. Christ, he thought.How could it still be that far? Matos looked out the windshield. He sped up again, and the distance shortened. The black dot was apparently not a drone. It was too big. That was what had thrown off his speed adjustment and perception. His mind’s eye had expected a ten-foot object, and he had played off his airspeed accordingly.
As the space between them narrowed, the size of the target grew rapidly. It was huge. The first distinguishing mark was a horizontal line across the middle of the structure. A wing line. Then the tail section sprouted from the indistinctness. Matos sat stunned. It was an aircraft. A large jet. “My God!”
A commercial transport! There was no doubt in his mind that this was the target he had hit. The craft appeared ghostly, like a ship abandoned on the high seas. Dead in the water. He closed the remaining distance without any additional thoughts or feelings.
Matos pulled alongside. The Trans-United logo seemed incongruous. Vibrant colors—green, blue, and yellow. Living colors on a dead ship.
The Straton 797 looked eerie, as if the aircraft itself knew what had happened to it and who had done it. It flew with its nose canted slightly upward. Its four jet engines produced a continuous flow of exhaust gases. It was holding steady at 11,000 feet and was making an airspeed of 340 knots. Matos guessed that it was being flown by its computer.
Matos maneuvered his fighter closer. He scanned the port side of the wide-bodied fuselage and saw what he was looking for. The hole. A black spot on the silver body, like an ominous spot on an X-ray. He took his craft around to the starboard side. The exit hole, like an exit wound of a bullet, was much larger. Huge, jagged, ugly. His hands, then his knees, began to shake. He threw his head back and looked up out of his bubble into the sky. “Oh, Jesus. Oh, God.”
He did not look at the Straton for a long time. Finally he forced himself to study it again. There were no people visible at any of the windows. No eyes looked back as he flew parallel with the rows of Plexiglas, only thirty feet from where the people should have been. He had flown intercepts on transports before, and he knew he should be seeing the people. Matos nudged the throttles and flew forward to get beside the cockpit. No heads in the cockpit, either. There were no people anywhere. No passengers, no crew. No survivors.
“Three-four-seven!” the radio shouted, and Matos jumped. Sloan’s sudden transmission had startled him. “Are you there? What the hell’s happening?”
“I … Homeplate …” Matos’s thumb stayed locked to the microphone button. As he allowed his F-18 to drift aft and fly a looser formation, the shadow from the transport’s upper fuselage crossed his canopy. From below, the 797 appeared incredibly immense. Matos’s F-18 seemed an insignificant speck. He was piloting a toy compared to the mammoth machine he hovered beneath.
Yet the unimaginable had happened. Matos’s toy had destroyed a great airliner. Beyond all doubts and all talk lay the reality of what was in front of him. His face was covered with sweat, and his eyes welled up with tears. “Homeplate. We have hit a transport. A Straton 797. Trans-United.”
There was no reply from theNimitz .
4
* * *
John Berry lay unconscious in one of the first-class lavatories of the Straton 797. His breathing, which earlier had been forced, had relaxed to its normal rate again. He was motionless except for the involuntary trembling of his left hand. His mind wrestled through layers of troubled dreams triggered by his unnatural sleep. Slowly, like the imperceptible lifting of an early-morning fog, John Berry awoke.
He opened his weighted eyes. He turned his head slowly and looked around the small room without comprehending where he was. At first he could recall nothing beyond his own identity.
John Berry attempted to raise himself from his slumped and uncomfortable position on the floor, but his muscles would not respond.No strength , he said to himself. That had been his first rational thought. Lying on the floor while he gathered the energy to get up, he spotted a shiny object near him. His wristwatch. He picked it up. 11:18. It jarred his memory, and all the missing pieces fell into place. Gradually, he remembered where he was, and then why. He realized that he had been unconscious for fourteen minutes.Decompression , he thought.An opened door. A blown-out window . He could figure out that much. He had read articles about it in aviation magazines.
Still flying. His senses told him that the Straton airliner was being held straight and level, and he could feel the reassuring pulses of engine power through the airframe. The knowledge that the crew still had the ship under control was comforting.
Berry grabbed at the rim of the washbasin and pulled himself up. His legs were still wobbly, and he was light-headed. He vaguely recalled having vomited, and he saw the evidence of it in the corner. But he had already begun to feel better. He looked at his reflection in the mirror. He looked all right. No cuts or bruises, although he had dark circles around his eyes. The eyes themselves were red and watery.
Berry took a few deep breaths and shook his head to clear it. He felt as though he had a giant hangover, except that the symptoms were disappearing rapidly. He would be all right, he assured himself. Decompression was a temporary thing. No permanent damage. It was like passing out from too many martinis. Too many martinis was probably worse. He already felt nearly normal.
Berry reached for the door handle. He pulled on it tentatively, remembering that he could not open it earlier. But the Straton’s pressurization system had automatically shut down once Flight 52 had reached a life-supporting altitude, and there was no longer any airflow coming from the vents behind him. To Berry’s surprise, the door yielded easily. He opened it and stepped into the passenger compartment.
John Berry had no preconceived notion of what to expect in the cabin. He had not let his mind get that far ahead, yet subconsciously, he certainly expected nothing too far from the ordinary. As his eyes took in the scene, what he witnessed caused him to step backward against the fiberglass wall. The appalling sight filled his brain, and a primeval scream rose from the depths of his soul. Yet he made no outward c
ry.
Utter devastation. The worst of the damage was in the forward section of the tourist cabin, only twenty feet from where he stood. That was where his eyes were instantly drawn and his attention riveted. The curtain that had separated the first-class from the tourist sections had been torn away, exposing the entire length of the Straton’s huge cabin.
Through the ragged hole in the left side of the 797, Berry could see the wing, and below that, the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. Spread out from the hole for a distance of ten feet lay an unrecognizable heap of debris. As he focused on the mound, he began to separate the component parts: chair rails, seats, and hand luggage.
While his eyes darted around the boundaries of the rubble, he tried to understand what he was seeing. There were two holes in the aircraft’s fuselage. The hole in the right sidewall was considerably larger and more irregular than the hole in the left. On both sides there were sheets of metal that vibrated continuously in the slipstream. They added a strange undertone to the noises of the howling wind. There was no evidence of there having been a fire. But John Berry did not connect what he saw to any probable cause. His inexperienced eye could not separate the pieces of the puzzle into suitable clues.
Berry slowly realized that the puddle beneath the mass was actually blood. He was suddenly covered with cold sweat. From the pile of debris he recognized what seemed to be chunks of flesh, sections of arms and legs. A mutilated torso rested against the edge of the hole in the fuselage.
A movement from beneath the debris caught Berry’s eye. A woman. She was pinned beneath the wreckage. Berry took a step toward her. As he did, the wind that blew through the gaping hole shifted the wreckage.
Mayday Page 7