The windowless steel door at the end of the corridor loomed up before him. How many times had he made this walk? And for what purpose? After twenty-seven years with the airline, experience had shown him that nearly every one of these calls had been a false alarm. A real emergency had taken place more than three years before, and even that had been a waste of time. Everyone aboard that flight was already fish food long before he got the message.
So what the hell was it this time, he wondered. Someone in the Straton program probably lost his lunchbox, or some dispatcher couldn’t find his pencils. He stepped up to the door and grabbed the knob.
He paused and ran through what he already knew. It wasn’t much. Just a brief phone call that had interrupted an important management lunch in the executive dining room. A junior dispatcher named Evans or Evers.An emergency, Mr. Johnson. Flight 52. But it’s probably not too bad . Then why the hell had he been called. That’s what he wanted to say.Junior executives were supposed to take care of all the “probably not too bad” things.
Edward Johnson knew that Flight 52 was the Straton 797. The flagship of the Trans-United fleet. The Supersonic Queen of the Skies. But as far as he was concerned it was a 412-ton piece of shit. At one hundred and twenty-seven million dollars per aircraft, any problem with one of their eight 797s was a pain in the ass. The aircraft itself was reliable enough and it produced a small fortune in profits. But as Operations Chief, the fiscal considerations didn’t concern him. The goddamned airplane was too precious and too visible to the Board of Directors, and to the media. It madehim too visible, too vulnerable. To make matters worse, he was one of the people who voted to buy the 797s, and he was the one who had recently pushed through the huge cost-reduction program to cut back on lots of unnecessary maintenance and checks.
Johnson pushed open the door and strode into the dispatch office. “Who’s the senior man?” he demanded. He looked around the half-empty office. An awkward silence hung over the room, broken only by the sound of a loud telephone ringing. He took the cigar out of the corner of his mouth. Before the Corporate no-smoking policy, he was able to puff on it to good effect instead of keeping the damned thing unlit.Wimpy bastards . “Where the hell is everybody?” His intimidation techniques were working well today, he noticed, but he was not so insensitive that he couldn’t read the signs of trouble, smell the stench of fear in this place. “Where is everybody?” he repeated, a few decibels more softly.
Jerry Brewster, standing a few feet from Johnson, surprised himself by speaking. “In the communications room, sir. Mr. Miller is the senior man.”
Johnson moved quickly toward the glass-enclosed room. He stuck his cigar back into his mouth, pushed the door aside, and entered the crowded communications room. “Miller? You in here?”
“Over here,” answered Jack Miller, his voice the only sound in the suddenly silent room.
Several of the dispatchers backed away to allow Johnson to pass. A few of them quickly left. Dennis Evans moved unobtrusively away from Miller and stood near the door, prepared to go either way. Jerry Brewster reluctantly walked into the small room.
Johnson went up to the data-link machine. He looked down at Miller. “What’s the problem?”
Miller had carefully rehearsed what he would say. But now that Johnson stood before him, all he could do was point to the video screen.
Johnson looked up at the screen on the far wall.TO FLIGHT 52: VERY NICE WORK. STAND BY. RELAX. EVERYONE HERE IS WORKING ON BRINGING YOU HOME.
Johnson looked down at Miller. “What’s very nice work, Miller?Relax? What the hell kind of message is that to send to one of our pilots?”
Miller looked up at the screen. He’d been so immersed in this problem for what seemed like so long a time, he couldn’t imagine that someone didn’t know what was happening. “The Straton is not being flown by one of our pilots.”
“What?What the hell are you talking about?”
Jack Miller quickly reached down and picked up the stack of printouts from the machine. “Here. This is the whole story. Everything we know. Everything …” He paused. “Everything that we’ve done. I’m afraid it’s worse than we originally thought.”
Johnson took the folded printouts and began reading. He took his unlit cigar out of his mouth and laid it on the table. He finished reading but kept his eyes on the printouts in his hand.
Edward Johnson’s lunch of poached salmon churned in his stomach. Less than half an hour before, they had been discussing his possible presidency of Trans-United Airlines. Now this. Disasters made and broke men very quickly. A man had to immediately sense the pitfalls and opportunities presented by these things and act on them. If this accident had been caused by any of the cutbacks he had personally authorized … Johnson looked up from the printout with no discernible expression on his face. He stared at Jack Miller for several seconds. “You told them to turn around.” It was a flat statement, with no inflections that might convey approval or disapproval.
Miller looked him squarely in the eye. “Yes, sir. They’re turned.”
It took Johnson a second to figure out that cryptic response, and another second to decide if Miller was being insubordinate. Johnson smiled a rare smile. “Yes. They’re turned. Nice work.”
Miller nodded. He found it odd that the Operations Chief had no further comment on what had happened to Flight 52. But on second thought, he expected no extraneous words from Edward Johnson.
Johnson looked around the room. Everyone was, in a perverse but predictable way, almost enjoying the drama they found themselves in. These were the situations on which were built the legends of the airlines. Every terse statement he made, every expression on his face, would be the subject of countless stories, told and retold. Only Jack Miller and his young assistant, Jerry Brewster, seemed not to be enjoying themselves.
“Sir?” It was Jerry Brewster. He took a hesitant step toward Johnson.
“What?” Johnson could see that the young assistant was nervous.
“I’m afraid I might have … contributed to the problem.” Brewster was speaking rapidly, getting his confession out as quickly as he could. “When I first saw the original SOS, I’m afraid I didn’t respond immediately. I thought it was a hoax.”
“A hoax?” Johnson raised an eyebrow. “What the hell kind of hoax could an SOS message be?”
“No, I mean a practical joke. I thought it was someone’s idea of a joke.” Brewster fidgeted with the clipboard in his hands. This was going to be more difficult than he thought it might be. “But I didn’t wait very long. I went back as soon—”
“Any delay is too long,” Johnson said, cutting Brewster short. “I’ll talk to you later about this,” he said angrily, dismissing the young man with a wave of his hand. Johnson turned to the other men in the room. “As for the rest of you, I’d like to remind everyone that there’s no room in this business for jokes. Nothing should be treated as a joke. Ever.”
Brewster turned away, embarrassed, and left the room.
Johnson stood quietly for a moment. He was glad that he now had at least one ass to hang, if things came to that. He could use a few more. He turned to Miller. “Jack, who have you called? Who knows about this?”
“I had Evans handle that.”
Evans spoke quickly. “I did what was in the book, sir. The emergency handbook.”
“No outside press, then?”
“No, sir.” Evans licked his lips. He had an opportunity to make points, and he didn’t intend to blow it by saying or doing something stupid. He had, however, done something daring. He took a deep breath and put a confident tone into his voice. “I followed procedures—up to a point.”
Johnson took a step toward him. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I mean I didn’t call anyone on the list except you and Mr. Metz from our liability carrier—Beneficial.” He shot a quick glance at Miller.
Miller gave him an annoyed look.
Evans continued. “I didn’t call the hull carrier eit
her, because we have no real idea of the damage. I also did not call the Straton company’s representative.” He looked at Johnson.
Johnson’s face was expressionless. “Did you also not call the president of the airline or our press office?”
Evans nodded. “I only called you and Mr. Metz.”
“Why?”
“There seemed to be no pressing need. I thought I’d wait until you arrived, sir. I knew you were in the executive dining room. I thought I’d let you make the decision about who to call. This is not like a crash. This is an ongoing thing, wouldn’t you say, sir? Also, at first it didn’t seem too bad. That was my reasoning, sir.”
“Was it?” Johnson reached down and picked up his unlit cigar. He put it back in his mouth. He let a few seconds go by. “Good. Good thinking, Evans.”
Evans beamed.
Johnson looked up and addressed everyone. “Now, listen to me, all of you. No one does a thing unless they check with me. Nothing. Clear?”
Everyone in the room nodded.
Johnson continued. “Except for Miller, I want everyone to go back to his usual routine. Evans, you take complete charge of the Pacific desk. It’s all yours except Flight 52. I am taking personal charge of 52. If anyone asks you about 52, refer them to me.”
Miller suddenly felt that he had been relegated to a sort of limbo. He had become a junior assistant. He wished he could get back to his desk, or anywhere that was away from Johnson.
Johnson pointed with his cigar. “No one—I repeat,no one —is to say anything to anyone. No calls home to your wives or to anyone else. Also, the normal duty shift is extended indefinitely. In other words, no one goes home. Night-differential and double time will be in effect. The incoming shift is to report to the employees’ lounge and stay there until further notice. I want as few new people as possible to know what’s happening. We’ve got a four-hundred-and-ten-ton aircraft streaking back toward the California coast with some weekend pilot in the left-hand seat and three hundred dead or injured passengers onboard. I don’t have to tell you why I want the lid on this. Understand?”
Everyone murmured his assent.
“All right, make sure everyone out there understands too. Get back to work.”
The dispatchers filed quickly out of the hot, airless room.
Evans hung back a second. “Mr. Johnson, if there’s anything further I can do …”
“You’ve done enough, Evans. Good initiative.”
Evans smiled. “Thank you, sir.”
“And the next time you fail to follow procedures, it had fucking well better make me happy, Evans, or your ass is out. Got it?”
Evans’s smile faded. “Yes, sir.” He left quickly.
Johnson turned to Miller. “Well. Here we are, Jack.”
Miller nodded. He and Johnson went back a lot of years. Now, with the audience gone, Johnson would start thinking and stop playacting. As if to confirm this, Johnson threw his cigar into the garbage can in the corner. Miller was certain that the man hated cigars, but trademarks, like the Trans-United logo and Edward Johnson’s cigar—mostly unlit these past years—took a long time to cultivate and develop, and one didn’t drop them so easily.
Johnson glanced down at the printout in his hand. “This is one hell of a thing.”
“Yes, it is.”
“A bomb. Why the hell do people want to blow up an airliner? Shit.” He paced a few feet. “Tell me, Jack, do you think they’ve got a chance?”
Miller glanced at the video screen, then at Johnson. “At first I didn’t give them any chance. Now … maybe. That pilot—Berry—handled the turn all right. Just to get as far as he did—taking the controls, figuring out the link, turning—that took a lot of guts. Skill, too. He’s got what it takes. Read the messages again. He’s a cool character. It comes through in the messages.”
Johnson stepped up to the Pacific chart that had been hung in the room earlier. He examined the markings on it. “Is this their estimated position?”
“That’s our guess. We didn’t have much to go on.” Miller rose from his seat at the data-link console and walked to the wall chart. He pointed to another spot on the chart. “This is the Straton’s last verified position. This one is an extrapolation that Jerry Brewster worked up. Now we’re working up another one based on their turnaround and present heading. Brewster will have—”
The thin sound of the data-link’s alerting bell cut him off. Both men glanced up at the video monitor.FROM FLIGHT 52. ALL FIVE SURVIVORS WERE TRAPPED IN POSITIVE PRESSURE SPOTS DURING DECOMPRESSION. MOST PASSENGERS STILL ALIVE, BUT SUSPECT SUSTAINED LACK OF AIR PRESSURE CAUSED BRAIN DAMAGE.
Miller stared at each letter as it appeared, knowing what the last two words were going to say after he saw theB . The message went on.SOME PASSENGERS BECOMING UNMANAGEABLE. ATTEMPTING TO CLIMB STAIRS INTO LOUNGE/COCKPIT. STEIN HOLDING THEM BACK. BERRY.
Miller looked up. “Jesus Christ Almighty.”
Johnson slammed his hand down violently against a countertop. “Son-of-a-bitch! Goddamned rotten luck!” He turned to Miller. “Is this possible? Could this happen?” Johnson’s technical knowledge was sketchy, and he never saw a need to pretend otherwise.
Jack Miller suddenly understood exactly what had happened. A bomb had torn two holes—two big holes—in the Straton’s fuselage. Had they been smaller holes, the pressure might have held long enough. Had it been one of their other jets, its lower operating altitude would have made it possible for everyone to breathe with oxygen masks. But at 62,000 feet, where the only commercial traffic was the Straton 797 and the Concorde, a decompression, if it was sudden and complete, could theoretically cause brain damage. Miller would have guessed that it would be fatal, but Berry said that most passengers survived. Survived.Good Lord. How did this happen? He stood up and felt his legs wobble a bit. “Yes,” he said weakly. “It’s possible.”
Johnson looked through the glass enclosure into the dispatch office. Dispatchers and assistants in the main room were trying to read the new message on the video screen. Johnson motioned to Miller. “Erase the video screen. Shut it off. We’ll use only the small display screen from now on.”
Miller pushed the buttons to do away with the video screen’s repeater display.
Johnson walked over to the door and locked it. He stood next to the data-link, put his foot on a chair, and leaned forward. “Type a message, Jack.”
Miller typed as Johnson dictated.TO FLIGHT 52: LOCATE SATELLITE NAVIGATION SYSTEM. IT IS ON RADIO PANEL AND IS LABELED AS SUCH. READ OUT YOUR POSITION. ACKNOWLEDGE.
A few seconds passed before the message bell rang.FROM FLIGHT 52: HAVE PREVIOUSLY LOCATED SATELLITE NAV SET. IT MUST NEED REPROGRAMMING FOR READOUT. IT READS NOTHING NOW. ADVISE ON PROGRAMMING.
Johnson walked over to the Pacific chart again and stared up at it. He had a vague idea of how to plot positions and no idea of how to program a satellite set. Still looking at the chart, he spoke to Miller. “Tell him that we’ll advise later.”
Miller typed the message.
Johnson turned. “He really can’t land that thing, can he?”
“I don’t know.” Miller was already in over his head. Despite years in the dispatch office, he couldn’t tell a man how to program a satellite navigation set. In fact, he had a vague memory of having read that they couldn’t be altered or reprogrammed en route. Miller had only a textbook image and knowledge of the cockpit of a 797, no conception of what actually flying the craft was about, and he knew that Johnson had even less. “Why don’t we get Fitzgerald in here?”
Johnson thought for a moment about the chief pilot. Kevin Fitzgerald was another candidate to fill the president’s chair. It would be good to have a pilot in the room with them, but not Fitzgerald. But to ask another pilot in would be an unforgivable insult whose intentions would be obvious to the Board of Directors. Though why give Fitzgerald an opportunity to play hero? The answer was to exclude him from the game for as long as possible. It was generally known that if either of them
became president, then the other one would spend the rest of his career in oblivion. Johnson knew that he could easily wind up supervising lost baggage claims instead of in the president’s office. He looked at Miller. “Not yet. If that Straton gets within, let’s say, two hundred miles of the coast, we’ll get Fitzgerald.” He thought for a second. “If we can’t find him, we’ll get the head flight instructor. He’d do a better job of it, I think.”
Miller knew that it would be a good thing to start Berry’s flight instructions immediately. Either man would do. But Miller also knew that Johnson did not make any decisions based purely on rationality. Edward Johnson’s decisions were always based on ulterior motives. “Do you think it’s time to put out a brief statement to the press?”
“No.”
“Should we have the PR people privately contact relatives of the passengers? We can start booking them on flights to San Francisco and—”
“Later.”
“Why?”
Johnson looked at him closely. “Because we are not going to encourage a media circus here. This is not some cheap TV drama. This bullshit about right-to-know is just that—bullshit. There is not one damn reporter or hysterical relative who is going to make a useful contribution to this problem. It’s about time somebody started exercising their rights to privacy and secrecy again in this country. This is Trans-United’s business and no one else’s except, unfortunately, the Federal Aviation Agency. We’ll notify them in just a few minutes. As far as a public statement, it may be necessary to release only one. The final one.”
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