Blackout

by Nance, John J. ;

  “I’M TELLING YOU THERE’S NO WAY TO GET IN WITHOUT CHOPPING THROUGH THE FRIGGING FLOOR!”

  Dallas let silence fill the cockpit as Dan realized what he’d said.

  “Sounds like a plan, Dan. Didn’t I see a crash ax around here?”

  Dan Wade stuck his palm out and shook his head. “Oh, no you don’t! NO! You can’t attempt that. You could end up cutting through a control cable.”

  “Are there any manuals around this bird that show where those cables are?”

  “They run through the ceiling—” Dan began, then stopped himself suddenly. “Ah, as a matter of fact, they are in the ceiling. I’d forgotten that. They wouldn’t be a factor. But there still may be electrical lines in the floor. That’s a lot of metal to cut.”

  “The floor isn’t that strong, Dan,” Dallas said. “I’ve felt it bounce up and down just walking up the aisle. Does the crew downstairs know where the baggage bin is in relation to the floor?”

  He thought for a second. “Maybe. But you’re talking about major effort, peeling back sheet metal and chopping through fiberglass around the compartment.”

  “Dan, any real reason why we couldn’t do it?”

  He thought for less than a minute before shaking his head. “No. I guess not. Just make sure no one gets too energetic using that ax. Peel back the sheet metal after you cut it, and don’t try to cut through any beams, however small. If you make a big enough hole, remember that cut metal is going to be very, very sharp.”

  “Let’s get moving. Robert? If you’ll grab that ax, we’ll go bobbing for bags.” Dallas turned to her left and patted Steve Delaney’s shoulder. “You’re doing great, Honey! Just keep her straight and level. You holding out okay?”

  Steve nodded. “Yeah.”

  “How about cell phones?” Dan asked. “I hadn’t asked you whether anyone came forward with a cell phone.”

  Robert cleared his throat. “Britta asked on the PA, and dozens of passengers offered theirs, but she couldn’t get a signal on any of them.”

  “Okay. Tell Britta to ask if anyone has one of those new worldwide satellite phones, since the onboard satellite phones are out.”

  Robert nodded. “She tried. No one came forward.”

  “Wonderful,” Dan said with a labored sigh. “Tell Britta to go ahead. Tell her I authorized this. She’s very Germanic. She’ll need specific assurance.”

  Dallas had already left the cockpit when Dan turned around once more, hoping to catch Robert on his way out. “Robert, wait a second!”

  Robert stopped and turned at the cockpit door. “Yeah, Dan?”

  “I forgot to tell you about the blowout panels back there … big panels under the rug. You’ll see them when you pull back the carpet. They’re there to prevent the floor from collapsing in case one of the cargo doors boomed open in flight.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “If the underside of the floor were suddenly depressurized and the top side still had seven pounds per square inch pressure, the main floor would instantly collapse without blowout panels. Point is, if you find and cut through one of those panels, it should provide a quick path to the baggage bin.”

  One hundred and sixty feet to the rear, Dallas Nielson found Britta Franz in the rear galley and explained the plan.

  “And he said this is okay?”

  Dallas nodded as Robert, ax in hand, came down the aisle to join them. “Ask The Washington Post if you don’t believe me.”

  “Oh, I believe you, Ms. Nielson,” Britta said, glancing at MacCabe.

  “You have any idea where to cut, Brits?” Dallas asked.

  Britta grimaced and looked at the floor, then looked back at Dallas. “Yes. I’ve never thought about it, but I know exactly where all the bumping and knocking about comes from when the baggage people are in that rear bin.”

  “Shouldn’t we tell the passengers what we’re doing?” Dallas asked. “You should’ve seen the looks on their faces when Robert walked through cabin with that ax.”

  Britta turned and picked up a handset, punched in a two-digit code, and held it to her mouth.

  Ladies and gentlemen, this is your lead flight attendant. We are going to be cutting a hole in the floor of the aircraft to try to gain access to the baggage compartment. One of our passengers has a bag down there with a navigation unit the pilot needs badly. Please help by staying out of the way and staying calm.

  She moved quickly up the aisle and knelt to find a seam in the carpet. “Here!” She pulled at the edge of the seam and began to peel it back from the yellow adhesive holding it to the floor, exposing the edge of a panel that yielded to the touch. “Here it is. A blowout panel.”

  “Cut it here?” Dallas asked, down on all fours herself.

  Britta said nothing and turned to MacCabe with her hand out for the ax.

  “I can do it,” Robert replied, moving forward.

  Britta looked up at MacCabe, then over at Dallas with a determined expression. “If anyone is going to start chopping up my cabin, it will be me.”

  “Whatever you say, Honey,” Dallas said, and looked up at Robert. “Give her the ax, Babe.”

  Britta lifted the crash ax and took aim, bringing the sharp edge down with a powerful stroke that immediately breached the surface of the floor. She raised it again, and began a rapid, rhythmic series of blows.

  “One …”

  Whap

  “… thing I want to …”

  Whap

  “… get straight with you …”

  Whap

  “… is the fact that my name …”

  Whap

  “… is Britta!”

  Whap

  “Not ‘Brits.’”

  Whap

  “Not ‘Honey.’”

  Whap

  “But BRITTA!” She stopped and glared at Dallas. “Understand?”

  Dallas raised her eyebrows. “You think I’m gonna argue with an angry woman carrying an ax?”

  Britta was motionless for a moment, then nodded and took another swing.

  “Okay, then.”

  Whap

  “We should get along just fine.”

  Steve Delaney had said nothing since Dallas and Robert left the cockpit. His concentration on the task of keeping the 747 on the same altitude and heading was becoming progressively easier, leaving more of his conscious mind to face the question of what lay ahead.

  “Are we going to make it?” he asked suddenly.

  Dan Wade swiveled toward him and searched for an answer. “I, ah, Steve, there’s no reason we can’t make it, but …”

  “But I’m gonna have to land it, right?” Steve said suddenly, his voice clearly conveying the tension he felt.

  “No, we’ll do it together.”

  “How? You’re blind! How’re you going to help?” Steve sounded increasingly panicky, raising caution flags in Dan Wade’s head. There were only so many realities the kid should have to face, Dan decided. His corrections were becoming more pronounced and erratic.

  “Look, kid—Steve—we’re going to make it. Here’s how we’ll do it. You’ll tell me what you see and I’ll tell you what you need to do. It’s going to be simple. I’ll get the landing gear and the flaps extended. The object will be to fly the airplane onto the runway and use the rudder pedals to steer, just like you do in your dad’s simulator.”

  “That’s just pretend. This …” Steve was breathing hard. “This is the real thing! If I crash a simulator, all I have to do is hit the Reset button.”

  “Steve, listen to me. Calm down!”

  “What if I screw it up and crash?”

  “Not going to happen. You’re doing great. Your dad would be proud of you.”

  “Yeah, right!” Steve snapped.

  “He would,” Dan said. “You’ve been flying this airplane like a veteran pilot.”

  “I don’t want to be a damn pilot. Just shut up about my father!”

  “Hey, look, I may not be good with kids, but …” />
  Steve whirled on the copilot, his small hands shaking on the control yoke. “You’re just like him! Just like all damn pilots. Anyone my age is just worthless till you need something, and even then no one can ever please you.”

  “Steve—”

  Steve’s voice rose to a mocking tone. “Why are you too stupid to hold that flashlight steady, Steven? Steven, I knew you’d screw this up when I asked you to do it. Steven, you couldn’t pour piss out of a boot if the directions were printed on the heel.” He paused for a second before continuing. “I showed him how stupid I was. It took a lot of hours in the simulators in the middle of a lot of nights, but I taught myself how to fly his precious airplanes!”

  Steve shot a quick glance at the copilot, then brought his eyes back to the instruments. “I’m not just a kid, and I’m not stupid! I’m flying your goddamn airplane, aren’t I?”

  “Yes,” Dan said carefully, “you are flying this aircraft and doing a magnificent job of it, and I apologize for using the word ‘kid.’”

  “Yeah, you can say you’re sorry now because you need me. If we were on the ground, it’d be different. Then it’d be, ‘Go away, kid, you bother me,’ one of my father’s favorite expressions.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Steve.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Look, you want me to treat you like an adult, and that’s reasonable. But that means I’ve got to be able to speak frankly to you. Is that okay?”

  Steve was still breathing hard and obviously frightened, but he nodded slowly.

  “Yeah. That’s okay.”

  “All right. We’ve got a job to do up here, you and I. You’re the only one aboard with working vision who knows anything about flying a plane. I’m the only qualified pilot. If … we can successfully put our capabilities together, we can get through this. I need you to concentrate on the job and try to put both fear and upsets aside, and, before you say anything back, let me remind you that I have to do the same thing. I’m scared to death right now. I really mean that. I’m scared I’m going to screw up and kill everyone, myself included. I’m frightened I … may … never regain my eyesight, and therefore I’ll never be able to do the only thing I know how to do, be a pilot. I’m kicking the hell out of myself for losing control and hitting that tower back there. And I’m in terrible pain … and … I need to go to the bathroom, which means I’m going to have to entrust the lives of the over two hundred people aboard to you.”

  There was a long silence from the left seat. “Now that is scary,” Steve Delaney said at last, the shadow of a smile creeping over his face.

  “Okay. So if we’re both terrified, it’s easy to strike out at each other, but we can’t afford to do that. Deal?”

  “You mean about working together?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. Without comparing me to your father.”

  “Promise you won’t call me ‘kid’ again?”

  “I promise. But what if I get mad at you? What can I call you then?”

  “Use ‘Steven Julius Delaney.’ That scares me more than anything when my mom uses it.”

  “Okay. Now, do we have a deal, Steve? And … please don’t let go of the controls to shake my hand.”

  “Deal.”

  Steve heard a seat belt being unfastened. He felt his stomach flutter as Dan Wade lifted himself from the copilot’s seat and carefully swung his leg around behind the center console, feeling his way along. He stood up and reached out to hang on to the back of one of the jump seats.

  “I’ll be in the bathroom just outside the cockpit, Steve. Two minutes max.”

  “What if something happens while you’re gone?”

  “Then you handle it. I know you can.”

  chapter 16

  ABOARD MERIDIAN 5, IN FLIGHT,

  OVER THE SOUTH CHINA SEA

  NOVEMBER 13—DAY TWO

  3:37 A.M. LOCAL/1937 ZULU

  In the rear of the coach cabin, Britta Franz leaned against the back of an unoccupied seat and looked at the gaping, jagged hole in the floor. The struggle to enlarge it had taken more effort than she’d expected, even with Dallas and Robert MacCabe taking turns with the crash ax.

  She could see Dallas’s head moving among the bags below, using a flashlight to search for the one that held the handheld global positioning satellite unit. The PA announcement that they were going to cut through the floor had galvanized almost everyone aboard to wide-eyed silence while they hacked through the metal. As soon as the hole was large enough to climb through, Robert had gone back to the cockpit.

  Britta glanced around the coach cabin, taking inventory of her passengers. Nine people had been moved forward to other seats to clear the aisle, most of them from the tour group, and at least a dozen were still standing at a respectful distance under the watchful eye of their tour director, Julia Mason.

  Britta smiled encouragingly at Julia.

  “You okay?” Julia asked in return.

  Britta nodded. “Just tired,” she fibbed, trying to keep the gnawing fear she was feeling from showing up on her face. This has to be a nightmare. I’ll wake up any time now! she told herself, well aware it was real.

  She thought of the passengers in first class, and the trade delegation. She’d paid little attention to them since the crisis began, but Claire, who was working the lower first-class cabin, had reported that everyone was calm. A third of the passengers in coach were Asian, men and women from Hong Kong and mainland China as well as other Asian nations. Most had remained in their seats with expressions ranging from neutral to barely masked panic, almost all of them searching Britta’s eyes for some new glimmer of hope every time she came down the aisle. The professional responsibility for maintaining a believable smile had never seemed so onerous.

  The sound of bags crashing to the floor in the baggage bin below snapped Britta’s attention back to the baggage search.

  “Dallas? You okay down there?” Britta called.

  The answer came back with a disgusted tone. “Everything’s fine, Britta. Once I shovel two thousand pounds of suitcases off my feet, adjust my attitude, and get past the next twenty years of trying to forget this night, I’ll be just fine.”

  “Okay.”

  Dallas’s head popped up through the hole, carefully clear of the jagged edges. “It was light brown, right, Britta?” Dallas asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “And the name was Walters?”

  “Yes,” she said, brightening. “Did you find it?”

  Dallas shook her head. “No. But I think I know where to look now.”

  Once again she disappeared, and the sound of serious bag-throwing could be heard all the way to the main deck.

  In the cockpit, Dan Wade held the controls while young Steve Delaney took his turn using the bathroom. Robert MacCabe kept up a constant description of what the instruments were showing.

  “You know, this is working pretty well,” Dan said, as fourteen-year-old Steve came back in the cockpit. “I’m able to visualize the attitude indicator as you describe it, and fly what I visualize.”

  “Seems very steady to me,” Robert said.

  “Not enough to land with, of course.”

  “You certain?” Robert asked.

  Dan turned slightly toward the left seat. “You ready to take over, Steve?”

  Steve Delaney nodded before remembering that Dan couldn’t see the gesture. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

  “You’ve got it,” Dan told him. “Keep steering a heading of two-two-zero degrees on the lower instrument there.”

  “Okay.”

  Dan sighed and turned partially toward Robert. “I figure we’ll cross the Vietnamese coast in twenty minutes, and daylight should overtake us in about an hour-thirty. Whatever we decide, we better have it figured out and rehearsed by then.”

  He heard Robert MacCabe get to his feet. “If you two are okay, I’m going to go back for a moment.” Robert left the cockpit door ajar and moved back into the cabin with no particul
ar goal in mind other than to escape the tension for a few minutes.

  Susan Tash reached out and caught his sleeve as he passed. “What’s going on up there?” she asked. Dr. Graham Tash was looking up expectantly as well, and Robert knelt down to talk to them both.

  “Dan’s holding out remarkably well, and the boy, Steve, is doing an outstanding job of flying, but …”

  “Do we have a way to land?” Susan asked point-blank.

  Robert sighed and smiled fleetingly. “I guess there’s always a way, but it looks to me like young Steven is going to have to actually fly the plane down while Dan talks him through it. In any event, we’re going to have to wait until daylight to find a long enough runway.”

  Susan pursed her lips and glanced at her husband’s grim expression before looking back at Robert. “They think they can do it?” she asked.

  The veteran reporter searched her eyes, thinking how beautiful she was, before diverting his gaze to her husband and nodding. “I think they do. I think we all do.”

  “One hell of a story, eh?” Graham asked.

  “Look, I’d …”

  Graham raised his hand. “I don’t mean you’re up there for crass purposes, I just mean that if we get through this, it’ll be a rare event to have a professional wordsmith who can appropriately describe it.”

  Robert thought for a second and smiled at the doctor, nodding slowly. “That’s gracious of you, Doctor. I actually hadn’t thought of it that way, but you’re right. Gives me an even better incentive.”

  Susan squeezed his hand as he stood up. “Thanks,” she said.

  When Robert had gone, Graham stood and motioned Susan back toward the galley at the rear of the upper-deck cabin. The flight attendants were all downstairs, and Graham drew her in close against him and pulled the curtain closed, cupping the back of her head with his hand.

  “Graham? Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know, Suze.” He pulled back and looked her in the eye. “How are you holding out?”

  “You tell me first. You look shell-shocked.”

  He nodded. “I can’t recall ever being this scared, Honey. I’d … like to tell you I have faith it’s going to be all right.”