Mayday

by Nelson DeMille

  “Ed, my only concern right now is to bring that aircraft home,” Miller said. “I don’t care about any shit that is going to be flying around here later.”

  Johnson frowned. “You ought to.” But then he suddenly patted Miller on the back. Johnson had forced himself to change gears. “You’re right. We have to bring 52 home before we can think of anything else.”

  Miller turned away and walked to the Pacific chart. A little red spot of grease pencil on a field of light blue represented more than three hundred seriously sick and injured people heading home. And the thought that their fate was in the hands of Edward Johnson was not comforting. Miller hoped that John Berry was an exceptionally competent and discerning man.

  * * *

  Wayne Metz sat comfortably in his silver BMW 750 as he cruised in the right lane of Interstate 280. He adjusted the knobs on his Surround-Sound CD player until the resonance of Benny Goodman’s “One O’clock Jump”—one of his favorites from his old jazz collection—was just right. He glanced at himself in the rearview mirror. Yesterday’s tennis had deepened his tan.

  He passed Balboa Park and looked at his dash clock. He’d be at the San Francisco Gold Club early enough to review his notes before tee-off with Quentin Lyle. He glanced up at the sky. Beautiful June day. Perfect for business. Before they reached the ninth hole, the Lyle factories would be the latest client of Beneficial Insurance Company. By the last hole he might have the trucking company as well. He hummed along with the music. His reverie was broken by the insistent buzzing of the cellular phone that lay on the passenger seat. He shut off the CD player and picked up the phone. “Yes?”

  The voice came through with a slight hollow sound to it. “Mr. Metz, this is Judy. Trans-United Airlines has just called.”

  He frowned. “Go on.”

  “A Mr. Evans. The message was as follows: Flight 52, Straton aircraft, sent Trans-United a message saying aircraft damaged. But Mr. Evans said they were still transmitting so it might not be too bad.”

  “That was the whole message?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Not too serious?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Hold on.” He put the phone down in his lap and turned over several alternatives in his mind. But none of them was viable, really. Trans-United was far too important a client for him to pretend that he was out of touch with his office. Still, Beneficial didn’t insure what they called the hull—the aircraft itself. They were only the liability carrier. If no one was hurt, he was safe. He picked up the phone. “All right, I’ll call them from here. I may have to go down there. Call Mr. Lyle at the club. Tell him I may be late. Emergency. Hope to be there for the back nine. Maybe sooner. Make it sound really catastrophic, but don’t mention Trans-United. Got all of that? I’ll call you later.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Metz hung up and drove by the San Jose Avenue exit. With any luck at all, his presence at the airport wouldn’t be necessary. He slowed his car, picked up the telephone, and punched a pre-stored number. The cellular phone immediately dialed the private New York number for Beneficial’s president, Wilford Parke. A few seconds later, Parke’s secretary put him through.

  “Wayne? You there?”

  Metz held the phone away from his ear. Like many older men, Parke was speaking too loudly into the mouthpiece. “Yes, sir.” He glanced at his clock. It was almost quitting time in New York. “Sorry to bother you so late in the day, but—”

  “That’s all right, Wayne. Some sort of problem out there?”

  Metz smiled.Out there . To most New Yorkers, anything west of the Hudson wasout there . To Wilford Parke, anything west of Fifth Avenue was in another solar system. “Possibly, sir. I thought I’d keep you posted.” Metz’s thoughts were already two sentences ahead. “A call from Trans-United Airlines. Some sort of problem with an aircraft. No details yet, but they said it didn’t seem too bad and may only involve the hull. Still, there may be a liability claim. I thought I should call you before you left the office.”And before you heard it from another source , he thought.

  “Good thinking, Wayne.”

  “Yes, sir. And I thought I might go out there and see to it personally.”

  “Fine, Wayne. Fine. Keep me posted. Glad to see you’re taking care of it personally. Where are you calling from?”

  “Car. I’m already on the highway to the airport.”

  “Very good. Let me know when you have some details.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good-bye, Wayne.”

  Metz spoke quickly. “Sir, where can I reach you later?”

  “Later? Oh, yes. Atrium Club. Having dinner. Over on East Fifty-seventh.”

  Metz did not care where the club was located. “Can I page you there? Is the number listed?”

  “Yes. Of course. You know the place. We were there last February. We had a bottle of Chateau Haut-Brion ’59. You can reach me there until about ten o’clock. Speak to you later.”

  Metz tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. Wilford Parke was somewhere between senile and brilliant. In either case, he liked the old man. Talking with him was always a pleasure. He was a real gentleman of the old school. He was a man who believed in his company and who shared management’s privileges with those whom he trusted—like Wayne Metz. Metz had always been sure to stress his own Long Island boyhood and his college days at Princeton, which was also Parke’s alma mater. But the main reason he liked Parke was that Parke thought Wayne Metz could do no wrong. And he had thought so even before those embarrassing lapses of memory had set in. Wayne Metz hoped that Wilford Parke could hold on to his job long enough to secure Metz’s next promotion.

  Metz wheeled his BMW through a pack of cars, then accelerated again through an open stretch of highway. He knew he’d been lucky to get the call when he did, on the highway, not far from the airport. From his downtown office it would have taken him over an hour to get there. That was typical of the luck that had propelled him to the head of the West Coast office. Yet he might have to miss the first few holes with Quentin Lyle. That might be ominous. He half believed in omens, and though he found astrology silly, many of his friends read their horoscopes each morning.Money can be worrisome. Set example for loved ones by cutting down. Do what you believe to be correct. Don’t be afraid to trust your heart.

  But certainly his success had not all been luck, thought Metz. It was talent. Wilford Parke had years before seen something in Metz that as a young man he had not been aware of himself. In the corporate hierarchy, where a significant battle could be announced by a gesture as innocuous as the polite declining of a drink, Wayne Metz flourished. He was the master of the oblique and muted signal. He had an uncanny talent for projecting, in the most subtle ways imaginable, his likes and dislikes. He was, to quote his own analyst, perhaps too young a man to be so blessed.

  Metz’s cellular phone buzzed again. He picked it up. “Metz.”

  “Ed Johnson, Wayne.”

  Metz stiffened in his seat. If the Operation VP was calling, it had to be a real problem. “I was just about to call you, Ed. What’s the latest?”

  “It’s bad,” said Johnson, evenly. “It’s the Straton 797.”

  “Oh, shit.” He and Johnson had once, over drinks, kidded each other about their mutual jeopardy in the Straton program. It had been Metz’s idea that Beneficial be the sole liability carrier for Trans-United’s fleet of the giant supersonic transports. He’d offered lower premiums with the elimination of the usual, but cumbersome, insurance pool. Johnson, for his part, had been one of the people to vote for the idea. Also, he had once admitted candidly to Metz, after a third martini, that his career was closely tied to the Straton’s success for a variety of other reasons. “Where did it crash?” Metz asked. “How many were killed?”

  “It was en route to Japan. The good news is that the airliner’s still flying, and there weren’t many killed … yet. But the bad news is worse than you’d ever dream,” he said. “A bomb blew two hole
s in the hull and the air pressure escaped. The passengers suffered the effects of decompression. Up there, as you may know, it’s like outer space.”

  Metz didn’t know. No one at Trans-United had told him about this possibility, and he had never had the foresight to have the dangers of high-altitude supersonic flight researched. It was all supposed to be government approved, so he had assumed that there was no extraordinary risk. “What did you say was the condition of the passengers?” Metz asked.

  There was a pause, then Johnson said, “We’re not absolutely certain, you understand, but the consensus here—and up there—seems to be that they’re brain damaged.”

  “God Almighty.” The BMW nearly went off the road. “Are you sure?”

  “Isaid we weren’t sure, Wayne. But I’d put money on it.”

  Metz realized that he had not assimilated all of it. “The survivors … how did they … ?”

  “We’re communicating with them on the data-link. That’s like a computer screen. Radios are gone. There are only five unimpaired survivors. They were all in the whiffies or someplace like that.”

  “Whiffies?”

  “Bathrooms, Wayne. You’d better get here fast and bring your company’s checkbook.”

  Metz pulled himself out of his daze. “Look, Ed, we’re both very exposed with this thing. How many people on board?”

  “Nearly a full house. About three hundred.”

  “When will it land?”

  “It may never land.”

  “What?”

  “The aircraft is being flown by one of the passengers. Our—”

  “What the hell are youtalking about?” Metz knew that he shouldn’t be speaking so candidly about such a sensitive issue on a cellular phone, but he needed to know more to understand what was happening.

  “Our three pilots are dead or unconscious. All that’s left of our flight crew are two flight attendants. The passenger who’s flying it—some guy named Berry—is an amateur pilot. He still has the Straton under control. In fact, he’s turned it around and headed back, but his exact position is unknown. Anyway, I have my doubts that he can land it without smearing it all over the runway.”

  Wayne Metz was literally speechless. He kept the telephone pressed to his ear and his eyes on the road, but his mind was thousands of miles away—in the mid-Pacific. He tried to imagine the scene. The giant Straton 797 lost somewhere over the enormous ocean, two holes blown through its hull and everyone aboard dead or brain damaged except for a few people, one of whom, a passenger, was flying it.No, no, no, no .

  “Metz? Wayne? You still there?”

  “What? Yes. Yes, I’m here. Let me think. Hold on.” As he tried to sort out the incredible facts he had just heard, he inadvertently let the BMW slow. He was traveling at less than forty miles an hour in the left lane of the highway.

  A driver in a battered blue Ford behind him hit his horn, then pulled out and passed on the right, glaring at the big sedan. Wayne glanced up distractedly at the other driver, but his mind was on other things. A thought had formed. It was not yet fully shaped, but he could start to see its outline, like a mountain emerging from a fog. The battered blue Ford stuck in his mind, too, for some reason. He cleared his throat. “Listen, Ed, I’m almost there. Who knows about this? Is it on the radio?”

  “No. Not many people know. One of our dispatchers handed me a break by not calling anyone yet. So I still have some space to maneuver.”

  “Good. Don’t call anyone else. If we can’t control the situation, at least we can control the flow of information … and that may be just as important.”

  “That’s my thinking too. But you’d better hurry.”

  “Yes. On the way.” Metz hung up. He stared out the windshield and began accelerating. He cut in the cruise control at seventy miles an hour, picked up the phone again, and called New York. Parke was still in his office. “Mr. Parke,” he began without preamble, “I’ve got bad news. There’s been a terrible accident with Trans-United’s Straton 797.”

  “Aren’t we the sole underwriters?” Parke asked quickly.

  Metz winced. “Yes, sir. For the liability coverage. We are not involved in their hull insurance.” Going it alone was a risky, unconventional way to write that sort of policy, but Metz had never liked insurance pools. He had spent months convincing Beneficial that the airline, and especially the Straton program, was extremely safe. Beneficial did not have to share the huge premiums with anyone. But now they had no one to share the loss.

  “Well, Wayne, that’s unfortunate. I personally felt that perhaps we were taking on too large a risk, but I don’t intend to second-guess you on that issue. The Board members approved it. The proposal—your proposal—had merit and was well-received. Naturally, we’ll review our corporate guidelines after a loss of this magnitude. You’ll have to make a presentation to the Board. I’ll get back to you later on that.”

  Metz felt the sweat begin to collect around his collar, and he turned up the air-conditioning. “Yes, sir.”

  “In the meantime, were all those aboard that airliner killed? Do you have a casualty total? Any estimate on our total liability?”

  Metz hesitated, then spoke in a firm, controlled tone. “A Trans-United executive told me that it was nearly a full ship. That would mean approximately three hundred passengers and a crew.”

  There was a long pause as the impact of the tragedy sunk in. “I see. All dead, did you say?”

  Metz didn’t say. He temporized. “Actually, the accident occurred only a short while ago, over the Pacific. Many of the details are still very sketchy, and nothing has been released to the press yet. It’s being kept confidential,” he added. “Trans-United didn’t want to speak over the phone.”

  “I understand. We’ll keep it quiet on this end also.”

  “Yes, sir. That would be very good.”

  “Well, bad day at Black Rock for a lot of people, including us. Listen, Wayne, don’t bother to work up a maximum-liability figure. Things are going to be pretty frantic at Trans-United. I’ll take care of it at this end. I suppose there won’t be any secondary property damages since the aircraft was over the Pacific at the time.”

  “That’s right,” Metz lied. “There should be no other claims.” He could not bring himself to tell Wilford Parke that the Straton was, at this moment, streaking toward San Francisco, carrying onboard the largest contingent of ongoing insurance liabilities in history.

  “Call me when you get more,” Parker said. “I’ll be at my club. I’m having dinner with some of the Board. We’ll have a telephone at the table. If you’d like some help, I can get people to you quickly out of the Chicago office.”

  “We should be all right, sir. I’ve got a good staff here.”

  “Fine. One more thing, Wayne …”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I know this is your first loss of magnitude. Paying three hundred death benefits is no small thing. I’m just glad it didn’t happen over a populated area.”

  “Yes, sir.”It may yet.

  “And I’m also relieved that we’re not carrying the aircraft’s hull insurance. What do those things cost—a hundred million?”

  “Something like that.” On his desk was the first draft of a memo proposing that very coverage for Trans-United. When he got back to his office, that memo would go into the shredder before he hung up his jacket.

  “What I’m trying to say, Wayne, is that there is no insurance executive in the business who at one time or another didn’t have his name personally identified with a large loss. I know it’s an embarrassment, but the amount we can expect as the total death benefit is manageable. You’ve had a spot of bad luck. Don’t let it get you down. You don’t cry over spilled milk in this business. You insure for spilled milk and pay for the spillage out of premiums. The Board might grumble a bit, but you’ll come through. We’re just fortunate,” said Parke in a friendly tone, “that the claim isn’t more.”

  Metz shook his head.There are three hundred brain-
damaged people on that aircraft, and they are coming home. Coming home to Beneficial Insurance. We will be totally liable for the care of each of them for the rest of their lives.

  10

  * * *

  Harold Stein stood, coiled, ready to strike again, but the assault seemed to have lost its momentum. The attackers had drifted off; like children, thought Stein, after a game of King of the Mountain, or like wild animals or primitive people whose ferocity subsides as quickly as it begins.

  He breathed deeply and wiped the sweat from his face. His arms and legs ached. He peered down into the cabin. The passengers were apparently occupied with something else now. They were not congregating around the stairway any longer, and their noises had subsided. But they might mass again for an attack if something stirred them.

  He found it hard to believe that he had actually been attacked. But he found it harder to believe thathe had been so aggressive, had punched and kicked these men, women, children—people he had spoken with a few hours before.

  Stein wondered why Barbara Yoshiro had not come back. Perhaps she’d been hurt, or maybe she was still searching for something. He looked into the cockpit. John Berry was talking to Sharon Crandall, but he couldn’t hear them. They sat, silhouetted against the bright Pacific sunlight, working, he supposed, on bringing them home. “They’re quieting down,” Stein called out.

  Berry turned and called back, “Nice work, Harold. If you need any help, holler.”

  “Right.” Stein looked around the lounge. Berry had his hands full just keeping these people out of the cockpit and trying to fly the aircraft. Stein forced himself not to look at his own trembling hands. He took a deep, measured breath to calm himself, but it was becoming an increasingly difficult task. The more he thought about their situation, the more frightened he had become. Stein knew that he had hardly any emotional or physical resources left inside of him.

  His mind drifted back across an ocean and a continent to his home in Bronxville. In his mind’s eye he could see its red bricks, white shutters, and rich green lawns. He could see the red azalea bushes in bloom the way he’d last seen them. Every spring people would go out of their way to pass his house and admire Miriam’s flowers. Who would tend them now?