Mayday

by Nelson DeMille

  Berry found the switch. Not only was it covered by a special guard, but the guard was fixed in place by a thin strand of safety wire. Clearly, this switch was not used very often. “Are you sure?”

  “I’ll read it again … a covered switch labeled fuel valve emergency power. Engage the switch. …” She paused. “John, please hurry. We’re almost into the storm.”

  Somewhere in the deepest recesses of Berry’s mind a warning flashed for a thousandth of a second, like a subliminal message on a video screen. He could not see it, though he sensed it for a passing moment, but did not believe what he thought it said. For to believe it was to admit to something he could not possibly handle. Without another thought, John Berry snapped the safety wire with his thumb and lifted the guard.

  He pushed the emergency power switch into an engaged position.

  Within the span of a microsecond, an electrical signal went to each fuel valve on the Straton’s four jet engines. Before John Berry had even taken his hand off the switch, the valves had already begun to choke off the flow of fuel to all four of the engines.

  13

  * * *

  Lieutenant Peter Matos had never fired a shot in anger, but now he was to fire one in sorrow. His first kill would be an unarmed American civilian transport.

  Matos edged his F-18 twenty-five yards astern of the transport’s towering tail and one hundred fifty feet above it. He snapped his manual gun sight into place and looked through it.

  Shredded clouds flew by his canopy and over the wide expanse of the silvery Straton, causing alternating overcast and bright glare in the gun sight. Matos rubbed his eyes. These were not optimum conditions for a close-in shot.

  He looked out toward the horizon. The dark, ugly storm clouds rolled toward him like a high surf sweeping up the beach. In front of the storm were several thin layers of clouds, and he would pass under them within a minute. Then and there, under the heavy veil of gray, he would strike. “Okay, okay, let’s go,” he said to himself, and pushed forward on the control stick, then hit the transmit button. “Navy three-four-seven beginning the attack.”

  “Roger.”

  Matos snapped back the safety cover and put his finger over the missile’s firing button.

  The target proved more difficult to align this time. The increasing turbulence caused the two aircraft to sway and bounce, and the bull’s-eye danced in circles around the center of the airliner’s high dome.

  They were under the cloud cover now, and the light was subdued but consistent. He stared through his gun sight. Several times he almost pushed the button, but the Straton would sway out of his bull’s-eye. He glanced up. He was only a few minutes from the front of the storm. If the Straton got into the black clouds, his chances of holding a trail formation were zero. “Homeplate! I have turbulence. Can’t hold it steady!”

  Sloan’s voice cracked in his ears like a whip. “Shoot the goddamned missile!”

  For an irrational moment Matos thought of ramming the Straton’s high dome. He went as far as to give a slight forward impulse to his control stick, and the motion carried his fighter closer to its target. Suddenly, he pulled back on the stick and backed off. What held him back was not a fear of death but something he had seen, with a fighter pilot’s highly developed sense of peripheral vision, from the corner of his left eye.

  As he slid back and above the Straton, he looked down at the airliner’s left wing. The flow of hot exhaust gases from the Straton’s number-one engine had stopped. Then the number-two engine cut out. Matos looked quickly to the right and saw that the two star-board engines had also stopped producing power. He jammed his thumb on the transmit button. “Homeplate! Homeplate! The Straton is flaming out! I say again, the Straton is flaming out!”

  Sloan’s response was quick, and his voice was as excited as Matos’s. “Are you positive? Where are you? Can you see it clearly?”

  Matos composed himself. “Yes. Yes. I’m right on its tail. No vapor trails. Flame out.” He watched as the Straton began its slow, powerless descent toward the sea. “It appears that the autopilot is still flying it. Its speed remains at three-forty. The rate of descent is increasing. It’s dropping. Going down.”

  “Stay with it, Matos. Stay with it. I want you to see it hit the water.”

  Even the scrambler, thought Matos, could not mask the vengeance in Sloan’s voice. “Roger, Homeplate.” Matos had already begun his descent to follow the dying airliner. He could see that it was still steady on its 131-degree heading, and its glide would take them both directly into the thunderstorms. Matos slammed his hand on the dash panel. “Shit!”

  “Situation report,” said Sloan tersely.

  “Roger. Rate of descent is twenty-one hundred feet per minute. The airspeed has slowed to two-ninety. The wings are level and steady. It still appears that the autopilot is engaged.” He broke the transmission, then hit the button again. “Homeplate, there are thunderstorms just ahead. I may lose them shortly.”

  “Matos, you son-of-a-bitch, your mission is to keep that fucking aircraft in sight until it crashes. I don’t give a shit if you have to follow it to hell.”

  “Roger.” Matos put James Sloan from his mind and concentrated on following the plunging Straton. The first scattering of oversized raindrops splattered against his canopy. Within seconds, his visibility had dropped to less than a half mile, then a quarter mile, then five hundred feet. Matos edged as close to the Straton as he dared, but the increasing turbulence made any tighter formation suicidal. There was no reason to throw his life away—not anymore.

  “Situation report.”

  “The Straton is down to forty-eight hundred. Air-speed and descent rates are constant. No power in any engines. They’ll hit within two minutes.” As he looked up, the huge silver outline of the Straton blended in with the heavy rain and gray clouds, then the airliner faded from sight.

  “Roger. Understand two more minutes. Do you still have visual contact with target?”

  “Stand by.” Matos peered into the grayness in front of him. Now that the Straton was no longer visible, he was afraid of colliding with it. Almost involuntarily, his hand pulled back on the control stick. He considered trying to track it with his radar, but the calibration would take too long and it would not work well at this close range.Damn it . He was becoming frightened. At this distance he knew he wouldn’t see the airliner until it was too late to take evasive action. He pulled back further on the control stick.

  “Matos! Do you have visual contact?”

  “Visibility near zero. Heavy rain. Turbulence.” Matos’s eyes darted around to all the places where the Straton might be, but he saw nothing. Sheets of water ran from his canopy and a bolt of lightning cracked behind him, suffusing his cockpit with an eerie luminescence.Fuck this . The only way he’d find the Straton again was if he rammed into it. His hands were shaking as he pushed on the fighter’s throttles and pulled back hard on the control stick.

  As the fighter began to climb out of the storm, he hit the transmit button. “I have the Straton in sight again,” he lied. “Straight ahead. Twenty yards. All conditions remain the same.”

  “Roger. What is your altitude?”

  “Descending through twenty-six hundred feet. Approximately one minute to impact.” As he spoke, Matos glanced at his altimeter. Seven thousand feet and climbing. He turned his fighter northwest so he would clear the storm as quickly as possible. Even in a high-performance aircraft like the F-18, the turbulence was jarring. He felt his stomach heave. For a brief instant, Matos pitied whoever might still be alive on that Straton.

  “Report.”

  “Down to twelve hundred feet. Turbulence heavy. Clouds less dense here. I can see the ocean now. No chance of a successful ditching in this kind of heavy sea.” The F-18 broke out into the sunshine at 19,000 feet. Matos continued to climb at full throttle, as if the altitude would get him far away from the whole situation. Below him nothing was visible except solid, heavy rain clouds.

  “Too
heavy a sea for survivors?”

  “Roger.” Matos glanced down but could see only the thunderstorms he had just risen out of. He turned to the blue sky ahead. When the F-18 continued climbing, he thought about James Sloan. Matos had heard a tone of triumph in Sloan’s voice. Not for the first time, he wondered if the Commander was sane. It occurred to him that even the first navigation error that had started this nightmare might not have been his own fault. He thanked God that he had not fired his second missile into the Straton. At the worst, he was guilty of criminal negligence. He could live with that. But he was not guilty of murder.

  “I say again—too heavy for survivors?”

  “That’s correct, Homeplate. The seas are too heavy for survivors,” Matos transmitted, reinforcing his lie. But he, too, was relieved. So relieved that tears came to his eyes and he took a deep breath to control his voice. “The Straton is nosing down,” he added as he kept his eyes fixed to the distant horizon.

  “Roger.”

  Matos leveled the fighter at 36,000 feet. The storms were far astern and below him, and the warm afternoon sun bathed his face. He looked down at the weather below him. Rising from the top of the large mass were the distinctive anvil-shaped clouds that made the cloud layer easily recognizable as thunderstorms. It was, thought Matos, almost as though God made them that way, in the beginning, so that one day man would recognize that he was approaching the forge and the blast furnace of the heavens.

  “We’re down to four hundred feet,” Matos lied.

  The thought that he should go to Captain Diehl crossed his mind. He had to confess, not so much for his own soul but more importantly so that Commander Sloan would be put away where he could do no more harm. “We are down to two hundred feet. The rain is lighter. Visibility improved. The seas are very high. The Straton is nearly in. Nearly in. Stand by.” Matos closed his eyes tightly. It was madness. He tried to forget that his playacting was a duplication of what was happening to that airliner. He could see it in his mind’s eye very clearly now, hitting the towering water—

  “Matos! Matos! Is it in? Is it in?”

  Matos took a deep breath. “Yes.” He put a heavy tone in his voice and noticed that it was not all an act. “Yes. It’s in. Much of it … broke apart in the ditching … The seas are too rough … Most of it has already sunk … Only the tail … part of one wing remains above the surface. No possible survivors.”

  “Roger. Circle for a while to be sure.”

  “Roger.”

  “What is your fuel status?”

  Sloan’s question jolted him. He had forgotten to monitor his fuel status for more than an hour. He’d heard stories of pilots in combat doing that under stress. He didn’t have to look at his gauges to reply, “Critical.” He glanced at the gauges. His climb to 35,000 feet had been a foolish indulgence. “I’m down to forty-five minutes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Maybe less. Where is that tanker?”

  “Close. Heading westbound from Whidbey Island. Their last position was four hundred miles from your current position. He’ll be closer now. Are you looking for survivors?”

  “Yes. But my fuel iscritical . No survivors.”

  “Roger. Okay, okay, begin your climb and steer a heading of zero-seven-five to expedite the intercept.”

  “Roger.” Without hesitation, Matos turned his F-18 to the easterly heading. He was now pointed into the worst part of the thunderstorms, the part that towered high above his present altitude. “Homeplate, there’s a lot of severe weather out here. The new heading is taking me further into it.” As much as he wanted to find the tanker, he wanted nothing to do with that line of storms.

  “Navy three-four-seven, this is Rear Admiral Hennings. Commander Sloan is on the phone with the tanker. These are your instructions—the tanker is cruising at thirty-one thousand feet, so you might as well get to that altitude to meet it. The weather should be better at that altitude than down lower.”

  “Yes, sir.” Although Sloan had mentioned the Admiral earlier, Matos had no idea who Admiral Hennings was. But the voice was reassuring. Any vague misgiving that Matos had concerning Commander Sloan’s intentions was put to rest. He pictured the electronics room crowded with officers and men, all trying to get him home. He looked out of his windshield. He was already above most of the weather at 35,000 feet. Now he had to descend slightly to meet the tanker. “The climb has taken—is taking—a great deal of fuel. I’m really low, sir.”

  The Admiral’s voice came back, gentle, fatherly. “Take it easy, Peter. The tanker is cruising at five hundred knots. He’ll be on station within twenty-five minutes. A few minutes for the fuel hook-up and you’ll be heading back. Here’s Commander Sloan.”

  Sloan’s voice filled Matos’s earphones. “It’s important to stay calm, Peter. Practice fuel-conservation techniques. Keep us filled in.”

  Matos pictured himself flaming out just before he reached the tanker. He was glad that Sloan was so calm. It wasn’t Sloan’s ass. “Roger. Can you arrange air-sea rescue just in case?”

  “Roger that,” said Sloan. “Way ahead of you. Some of the air-and-sea rescue for the Straton is closing in on your area, including F-18s from theNimitz . Plenty of help out there, but don’t think about that now. High-tail it to thirty-one thousand and call me when you’re leveled out.”

  “Roger. What’s the frequency of the rendezvous?”

  There was a long silence in his earphones. Matos was about to call again when Sloan’s voice came on. “I’m speaking to the tanker on a frequency that is not available on your set. I just requested that they put one of their radios on your channel. They have a voice scrambler set to yours, so leave yours on. Give them a call now. Their call sign is Cherokee 22.”

  “Roger. Break. Cherokee 22, this is Navy three-four-seven. How do you read me? Over.”

  Matos waited in the silent cockpit, then transmitted again. “Cherokee 22, Cherokee 22, Navy three-four-seven, how do you read?” He waited, but there was no answer. “Homeplate, Cherokee 22 does not respond.”

  “I can’t read them on your channel either. Stand by.” After a few seconds, Sloan’s voice came back. “They are having radio problems on most of their command channels. But I hear them fine on their administrative channel, which is patched into my interphone. We can work around their problem. I’ll relay messages between you. But they’re homing in on your channel with a radio navigation homing device and, of course, they’ll have you solidly on radar soon. In the meantime, you have to leave your radio set to this channel. Their homing equipment and radar will lead them in.”

  “Roger.”

  “And leave your voice scrambler on, too. Try to call them every five minutes. They’ll be on voice scramble. If they hear you, they will tell me. Then you can go back to regular communications directly with them.”

  “Roger.” Matos slid his transmitter override button to the continuous position. As long as he was transmitting a signal he knew he could not receive any messages, and hearing any voice, even Sloan’s, would have been reassuring. But the first priority was the tanker.

  Matos turned on his radar. He watched the tube as it glowed luminescent green. He adjusted the knobs and looked for the tanker, which should have been on the outer edge of his range by now. Not only did he not see the tanker within the 500-mile limit of his scope, but he saw no other aircraft either. He spoke into his open radio. “Homeplate. Where the hell are all the aircraft that are supposed to be out here? I don’t see the tanker on a bearing of zero-seven-five, and I don’t see anyone else.” He released his transmit override and waited for the reply.

  Sloan’s voice came back quickly. “Matos, the tanker seesyou . The rescue aircraft in your area see you. Your radar has been the problem from the beginning when … I can’t say anything of a confidential nature any longer. Other aircraft are on this frequency now, and we have to maintain the security of this test. Be careful of what you say from now on. Resume your continuous radio signal and keep working yo
ur radar. You’ll rendezvous with the tanker shortly.”

  “Roger. I have to release the missile to cut down on weight and drag.”

  “Negative. That’s no longer possible. Too much air-and-sea traffic in your area now. We don’t want another … Do you understand?”

  “Roger.” Matos thought that the possibility of hitting an aircraft or ship was very remote—absurdly remote—but without functioning radar he could not be sure, and with the way his luck was running he’d probably hit the tanker. But the damned missile was adding to his fuel problems. “Roger, I’ll hold the missile.” Matos locked his radio on and sat back. There were too many glitches today, too many goblins in the electronics. This was all possible, but not probable. Yet it had happened. This was the stuff that accidents were made of. Fifty percent human error, fifty percent equipment failure. How would they classify this monumental screwup? A little of both, and a lot of bad luck.

  Matos worked his radar for a few minutes, but the results were negative. He alternated his attention between scanning the tops of the churning black clouds for aircraft and glancing down at his sinking fuel gauges. It was ironic, he thought, that he should wind up with the same problem that finally killed the Straton. Running out of gas. That was pure stupidity. He never should have let it go that far.

  Thirty-one thousand feet. Peter Matos had used every trick he knew to keep the fuel flow as low as possible. Someday he’d learn to think about fuel first and everything else afterward. He remembered his flight instructor at Pensacola:Gentlemen, even the best fighter-bomber in the world can only go in one direction when the fuel runs out .

  But even if the worst happened, he would be picked up at sea. He tried to settle down into a calm state of mind and anticipate the coming problem instead of reacting to them as they came.