“I thought you were a pilot,” said Crandall.
“Yes, I am,” answered Berry. “But I’m not familiar with this craft. I can fly it with a little help. Do you knowanything about the cockpit?”
“No,” said Crandall. She helped Yoshiro into Fessler’s seat. They both noticed the blood on the desk but didn’t comment on it. “How bad are the pilots?”
“They’ll be okay.”
“There’s no need to lie to us,” said Crandall.
“They’re brain damaged. Maybe—just maybe—the copilot will come out of it with enough faculties left to help.”
Crandall considered this for a long few seconds. She’d liked McVary. Liked all of them, actually. Now they were all gone, including the other flight attendants she’d spent so many hours with. Flight crews rarely spoke about accidents, but she had heard talk about decompression incidents. “What exactly happened?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t make a lot of difference, does it?”
“No.”
Berry turned and looked at Barbara Yoshiro. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. I’m feeling better.”
Berry nodded. He had the feeling, no more than intuition, that she would remain calm from here on. It was a good thing to know, and it didn’t especially matter if it was true or not. He asked her, “Do you know the cockpit at all?”
Yoshiro shook her head. “I usually stay downstairs in the kitchen. Below the main cabin.”
Crandall spoke. “I come to the cockpit often, but I never really noticed much.”
“You probably know more than you think. Sit down.”
Sharon Crandall sat in the copilot’s seat. “This is not going to help.”
At first Berry had no special recollection of her, but as he looked at her profile closely, he knew who she was. He felt a smile form on his lips. He was happy that she had made it. It was a conversation that had taken place a century ago, but it had brought him a few minutes of pleasure and he was happy to pick it up where it had ended. “Do you remember me?”
She looked at him. “Yes. Of course. The salesman. I was going to sit with you.” Crandall paused. “You’re not a pilot.”
“Yes, the salesman. I fly, too.”
“Fly what?”
“This and that. My company airplane. I can handle this.” He had suddenly become an old hand at keeping everything calm. Perhaps he was being too reassuring. He guessed that no one would stay calm for very long once they watched him attempt to fly the airliner. “Where were you two when the decompression began?”
Yoshiro answered. “We were both in the lower kitchen.”
Berry nodded. “There must have been pressure trapped down there. The three of us were in lavatories.”
“That’s what the other man told us,” Yoshiro replied. “I guess there might be others.”
“Yes. That’s why I sent Stein down.” He lowered his voice. “His wife and two children are down there. The girl’s name is Linda Farley. Her mother was near the hole. I’m John Berry.”
“Barbara Yoshiro. You know Sharon.”
“Yes,” said Berry.
“Look,” Sharon Crandall said, “call Trans-United Ops. They’ll give you a course to fly, and then coach you through the landing.”
Telling him to use the radio was not the sort of information he had been looking for. “Good idea,” said Berry. “But the radios don’t work.”
There was a long silence in the cockpit. Berry broke it. “I’m going to turn and put us on an approximate heading for California. If the fuel lasts, we’ll decide then if we should look for a landing area or put it down near the beach. Maybe I can raise someone on the radio when we get closer. How does that sound?”
The two flight attendants said nothing.
Barbara Yoshiro stood. “I’m going below to see if anyone else is … sane.”
“I wouldn’t do that now,” said Berry.
“Believe me, Mr. Berry, I’d rather not go. But there were two of our company pilots aboard—going on vacation with their wives—and I have to see if they’re alive and sane. And I’m still on duty and I have an obligation to the other passengers.”
Berry refused to get excited about the possibility of finding real pilots who could fly the Straton. “The passengers are dangerous.”
“So am I. Black belt, judo and karate. And they’re not very coordinated, I assume.”
“There are three hundred of them.”
Crandall turned in her seat. “Don’t go, Barbara.”
“If it looks really bad, I’ll come back.”
Berry glanced at her. “I can’t let Stein go with you. He has to stay at the top of the stairs to keep anyone from coming up.”
“I didn’t ask for company.”
Berry nodded. “All right, then. Call at the flight attendant stations every few minutes. If we don’t hear from you … well, if we can, we’ll come after you.”
“Okay.” She walked quickly out of the cockpit.
Berry turned to Sharon Crandall. “Lots of guts there.”
“More than you know. She doesn’t know any more about judo or karate than I do. She’s trying to make it up to us for fainting. But thereare two of the company’s pilots back there. We both spoke to them. And I hope to God they’re all right.”
“Me, too.”
He tried to picture Jennifer doing something selfless, noble. He almost laughed. God, if only he could get back and tell her what he thought of her.
Crandall picked up the copilot’s microphone and held it awkwardly. “I’ve used this a few times.” She held down the button. “Trans-United Operations, this is Trans-United Flight 52. Do you read me? Over.”
They both waited in the silence of the cockpit.
Berry looked at her as she sat with her head tilted, waiting for the speaker to come alive the way it always had. “Forget it,” he said.
She put down the microphone.
The minutes ticked by. Suddenly, the interphone buzzed. Sharon Crandall grabbed the phone from the console. “Barbara!” She listened. “All right. Be careful. Call in three minutes. Good luck.” She replaced the phone and turned to Berry. “The pilots. They’re both dead.” She added, “It’s your ship, Mr. Berry.”
“Thanks.”
Crandall thought about the government-approved procedures in her manual. It was technicallyher ship, or, more correctly, Barbara Yoshiro’s. Barbara was the senior surviving crew member. What difference did it make? Barbara’s ship, or Sharon’s? Impossible. Absurd.
Berry tried not to show any emotion. “All right. Let’s talk about this cockpit. Is there some sort of emergency signal device, for instance? Here … what’s this?”
She looked at the red button he was pointing to and shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Berry decided to let her sit and think. He mentally sectioned off the cockpit into six areas and began examining the first one to his lower left, switch by switch, button by button, gauge by gauge. There were things he knew and a lot more he didn’t know. He began memorizing locations of the instruments and control devices.
“What about the data-link?” she said.
“What?”
“The data-link. Did you try that?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Thedata-link . This thing.” She pointed to a keyboard mounted between the pilots’ seats and slightly below the radios. “I saw the crew use it a lot of times. They type on it. Messages come in, too.” She pointed to a small video screen on the lower center of the panel. “It’s linked to the Operations Center in San Francisco.”
Berry stared at the device. He had looked at it before but dismissed it as just another gang of unknown buttons. He thought the screen was some sort of radar. Now it was making sense. He had read about datalinks—a discreet electronic screen for sending individual messages to various aircraft. Most airlines had them to link their aircraft together without having to broadcast over the airwaves. He turned to Sharon.
/> “Do you know how to work it?”
“No. But I think they just type on it. Let’s give it a try.” There was an edge of excitement in her voice. “Go on. We have nothing to lose. You need a green light to know it’s on. Here. This light has to be green.”
Berry scanned the keyboard. His hand reached out tentatively and he pushed a button labeled ENTRY. The green light flashed on. Berry assumed this meant that he had a clear channel. He pressed a button labeled TRANSMIT and typed out three letters on the keyboard: sos. He looked at the video screen. Nothing. “Aren’t you supposed to see your message?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t see anything. Goddamn it. Goddamned airplane.”
“I think you type the message first,then you push transmit.”
“Okay.” Berry hit theCLEAR button. “Okay. Let’s see.” He typed sos again. He reached over and pushed the TRANSMIT button. They both looked at the video screen. sos appeared in white, angular computer letters.
Sharon gave a small shout. “We did it! We did it!” She reached out and squeezed Berry’s hand.
Berry was grinning. “Yes. Damn it. We did it. Okay. Okay.” But Berry suspected that the video screen’s picture meant very little. The only way to determine if the signal had actually been sent from the Straton and received by someone else was to wait for an answer to appear on the screen.
Berry was fairly certain that the data-link couldn’t send and receive at the same time, so he resisted the temptation to transmit again and waited for the reply. Unlike a radio, if this machine worked, there was a displayed entry somewhere waiting to be read. He wondered how often the data-links were checked.
The Straton 797 maintained a steady northwesterly heading across the Pacific as the minutes ticked off.
John Berry knew that this was their last hope of surviving. He looked at Sharon Crandall. She seemed to know it too. “Buy you a drink?” He motioned back toward the bar.
“No. Not now. Maybe later. Get one if you want, I’ll watch the screen.”
“I don’t need one.” He glanced at the video monitor, then back at Sharon Crandall. “You want to hear about Japanese businessmen? Japanese customs? It’s very interesting.”
She looked at him. “Sure,” she said, with little conviction and a forced smile. Her smile faded quickly as she looked down at the data-link screen. Except for their own SOS message printed in the upper corner, the screen remained ominously blank.
6
* * *
Lieutenant Matos had the distinct impression, though he was not looking directly at the Straton, that the aircraft had banked briefly, then leveled out again. He stared at it closely, but it seemed level now. He looked at his magnetic compass. Still 325 degrees. No, the Straton had not banked. It was only an illusion. He rubbed his eyes. He was becoming fatigued.
The F–18 lay back in trail and followed the huge airliner at a distance of a thousand yards. Matos experienced some turbulence in the Straton’s wake and lifted his fighter slightly higher. His last message from theNimitz had been bizarre. A bizarre message even for a bizarre situation.Navy three-four-seven. Follow in trail. Keep out of sight of portholes and cockpit. Do not, I say again, do not attempt to communicate with Straton. Acknowledge.
Matos had acknowledged and followed orders without question. Had his position been more tenable, he would have asked for a clarification. But he was now numero uno on Sloan’s famous shitlist, and that had the effect of putting him in a complete state of psychological dependence and subservience. Whatever Sloan said, Sloan would get. Certainly there was some method to Sloan’s madness.
Matos was beginning to recognize tonal qualities in Sloan’s voice despite the fact that the voice was scrambled in transmission, then unscrambled on his audio. And there had been a strange quality in Sloan’s latest instructions that had not escaped Matos’s attention. The voice was not hostile or curt. It was almost friendly, cajoling. The voice seemed to say,All right, Peter, you screwed up, but just follow orders and we’ll be able to square everything.
But how in the name of God could anyone, even Commander Sloan, squarethis ?
It occurred to Matos, now that he had time to think, that his career wasn’t the only one that was finished. He’d been thinking only of himself, which was natural under the circumstances. Now he saw the situation for what it was. A monumental fuckup. It started with him, but it would chain-react and obliterate Sloan and anyone else unlucky enough to be in the electronics room. It would also smash theNimitz ’s commander, Captain Diehl, and probably his staff as well. The blast would reach into the Halls of the Pentagon, the Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense, and maybe into the White House itself. At whatever level this decision had been made to test-fire a weapon banned by the new Voluntary Arms Limitation Treaty, everyone involved from that level down would be culpable.No es tu culpa, Pedro.
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 wouldnot 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 theNimitz made a report … Why hadhe 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 pre
cedent 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, theDavis , had been pulling the crew of a badly damaged destroyer, theMercer , from the water. TheMercer 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. TheDavis captain, John Billings, knew there were wounded and trapped men aboard theMercer . The survivors also reported that theMercer ’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 theMercer .”
But that was war, Hennings thought. This was quite different. Yet … theywere 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 theNimitz eventually. Hennings knew that was what Sloan was really saying with all his bilge about hazard to navigation.
And if theNimitz 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 neverorder 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.
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