The Other Side of Midnight

by Sidney Sheldon

  But Larry knew better. As the time wore on, he became more and more furious, until he realized that that was her intention. She was trying to drive him into a rash action that would cost him his job. Larry was in the terminal building talking to the airport manager when Demiris' familiar gray Rolls drove up and Noelle Page emerged. Larry walked outside to meet her.

  "I'm afraid the flight's off, Miss Page," he said, making his voice flat. "The airport at Amsterdam is fogged in."

  Noelle looked past Larry as though he did not exist and said to Paul Metaxas, "The plane carries automatic landing equipment, does it not?"

  "Yes, it does," Metaxas said, awkwardly.

  "I'm really surprised," she replied, "that Mr. Demiris would hire a pilot who's a coward. I'll speak to him about it."

  Noelle turned and walked toward the plane. Metaxas looked after her and said, "Jesus Christ! I don't know what's gotten into her. She never used to act like this. I'm sorry, Larry."

  Larry watched Noelle walk across the field, her blond hair blowing in the wind. He had never hated anyone so much in his life.

  Metaxas was watching him. "Are we going?" he asked.

  "We're going."

  The copilot gave a deep, expressive sigh, and the two men slowly walked toward the plane.

  Noelle Page was sitting in the cabin, leisurely thumbing through a fashion magazine when they entered the plane. Larry stared at her a moment, so filled with anger that he was afraid to speak. He went up into the cockpit and began his preflight check.

  Ten minutes later he had received clearance from the tower and they were airborne for Amsterdam.

  The first half of the flight was uneventful. Switzerland lay below in a mantle of snow. By the time they were over Germany, it was dusk. Larry radioed ahead to Amsterdam for a weather check. They reported that fog was blowing in from the North Sea and getting thicker. He cursed his bad luck. If the winds had changed and the fog had cleared, his problem would have been solved, but now he had to decide whether to risk an instrument landing at Amsterdam or fly to an alternate airport. He was tempted to go back and discuss it with his passenger, but he could visualize the contemptuous look on her face.

  "Special Flight one-oh-nine, would you give us your flight plan, please?" It was the tower at Munich. Larry had to make a decision swiftly. He could still land at Brussels, Cologne or Luxembourg.

  Or Amsterdam.

  The voice crackled over the speaker again. "Special Flight one-oh-nine, would you give us your flight plan, please?"

  Larry snapped down the transmitting key. "Special Flight one-oh-nine to Munich Tower. We're going to Amsterdam." He flicked the switch up and was aware of Metaxas watching him.

  "Jesus, maybe I should have doubled my life insurance," Metaxas said. "You really think we're going to make it?"

  "Do you want to know the truth?" Larry said, bitterly. "I don't give a shit."

  "Fantastic! I'm up in a plane with two fucking maniacs!" Metaxas moaned.

  For the next hour Larry was wholly absorbed in flying the aircraft, listening to the frequent weather reports without comment. He was still hoping for a wind change, but thirty minutes out of Amsterdam the report was still the same. Heavy fog. The field was closed to all air traffic except for emergencies. Larry made contact with the control tower at Amsterdam. "Special Flight one-oh-nine to Amsterdam Tower. Approaching airport from 75 miles east of Cologne, ETA nineteen hundred hours."

  Almost instantly a voice on the radio crackled back, "Amsterdam Tower to Special Flight one-oh-nine. Our field is closed down. We suggest you return to Cologne or land at Brussels."

  Larry spoke into the handmike. "Special Flight one-oh-nine to Amsterdam Tower. Negative. We have an emergency."

  Metaxas turned to stare at him in surprise.

  A new voice came over the speaker. "Special Flight one-oh-nine, this is Chief of Operations at Amsterdam Airport. We are completely fogged in here. Visibility zero. Repeat: visibility zero. What is the nature of your emergency?"

  "We're running out of fuel," Larry said. "I have barely enough to reach you."

  Metaxas' eyes went to the fuel gauges, which registered half full. "For Christ's sakes," Metaxas exploded. "We could fly to China!"

  The radio was silent. Suddenly it exploded into life again.

  "Amsterdam Tower to Special Flight one-oh-nine. You have an emergency clearance. We'll bring you in."

  "Roger." Larry flicked off the switch and turned to Metaxas. "Jettison the fuel," he ordered.

  Metaxas swallowed and said in a choked voice, "J--jettison the fuel?"

  "You heard me, Paul. Leave just enough to bring us in."

  "But, Larry..."

  "Damn it, don't argue. If we roll in there with a tank half full of gas, they'll jerk our licenses away so fast you won't know what hit you."

  Metaxas nodded glumly and reached for the fuel-ejection handle. He began to pump, keeping a close eye on the gauge. Five minutes later they were in the fog, wrapped in a soft white cotton that wiped out everything but the dimly lit cockpit they sat in. It was an eerie sensation, cut off from time and space and the rest of the world. The last time Larry had been through this was in the Link Trainer. But that was a game where there were no risks. Here the stakes were life and death. He wondered what it was doing to his passenger. He hoped it gave her a heart attack. The Amsterdam control tower came on again.

  "Amsterdam control tower to Special Flight one-oh-nine. I am going to bring you in on A.L.S. You will please follow my instructions exactly. We have you on our radar. Turn three degrees west and maintain present altitude until further instructions. At your present airspeed, you should be landing in eighteen minutes."

  The voice coming over the radio sounded tense. With good reason, thought Larry grimly. One slight mistake and the plane would plough into the sea. Larry made the correction and shut out everything from his mind but the disembodied voice that was his sole link to survival. He flew the plane as though it were a part of himself, flying it with his heart, his soul and his mind. He was dimly aware of Paul Metaxas sweating beside him, calling out a constant instrument check in a low, strained voice, but if they came out of this alive, it would be Larry Douglas who did it. Larry had never seen fog like this. It was a ghostly enemy, charging at him from every side, blinding him, seducing him, trying to lure him into making one fatal mistake. He was hurtling through the sky at two hundred and fifty miles an hour, unable to see beyond the windshield of the cockpit. Pilots hated fog, and the first rule was: Climb over it or dive under it, but get out of it! Now there was no way, because he was locked into an impossible destination by the whim of a spoiled tart. He was helpless, at the mercy of instruments that could go wrong and men on the ground who could make mistakes. The disembodied voice came over the speaker again, and it seemed to Larry that it had a new, nervous quality.

  "Amsterdam Tower to Special Flight one-oh-nine. You are coming into the first leg of your landing pattern: Lower your flaps and begin your descent. Descend to two thousand feet...fifteen hundred feet...one thousand feet..."

  Still no sign of the airport below. They could have been in the middle of nowhere. He could feel the ground rushing up to meet the plane.

  "Decrease your airspeed to one hundred twenty...lower your wheels...you're at six hundred feet...airspeed one hundred...you're at four hundred feet..." And still no sign of the goddamn airport! The blanket of smothering cotton seemed thicker now.

  Metaxas' forehead gleamed with perspiration. "Where in the hell is it?" he whispered.

  Larry stole a swift glance at the altimeter. The needle was edging down toward three hundred feet. Then it was below three hundred feet. The ground was rushing up to meet them at one hundred miles per hour. The altimeter showed only one hundred fifty feet. Something was wrong. He should have been able to see the airport lights by now. He strained to see ahead of the plane, but there was only the treacherous, blinding fog whipping across the windshield.

  Larry heard Metaxas' voice,
tense and hoarse. "We're down to sixty feet." And still nothing.

  "Forty feet."

  And the ground racing up to meet them in the darkness.

  "Twenty feet."

  It was no good. In another two seconds, the margin of safety would be gone and they would crash. He had to make an instant decision.

  "I'm going to take it back up," Larry said. His hand tightened on the wheel and started to pull back and at that instant, a row of electric arrows blazed out on the ground ahead of them, lighting up the runway below. Ten seconds later, they were on the ground, taxiing toward the Schiphol terminal.

  When they had come to a stop, Larry switched off the engines with numb fingers and sat motionless for a long time. Finally he pushed himself to his feet and was surprised to find that his knees were trembling. He noticed a strange odor in the air and turned to Metaxas. Metaxas grinned sheepishly.

  "Sorry," he said. "I shat."

  Larry looked down at him and nodded. "For both of us," he said. He turned and walked back into the cabin. The bitch was in there, calmly thumbing through a magazine. Larry stood there studying her, aching to tell her off, wishing desperately that he could find the key to what made her tick. Noelle Page must have known how close she had come to death in the past few minutes, and yet she sat there looking serene and undisturbed, not a hair out of place.

  "Amsterdam," Larry announced.

  They drove into Amsterdam in a heavy silence, Noelle in the back seat of the Mercedes 300 and Larry in front with the chauffeur. Metaxas had stayed at the airport to have the plane serviced. The fog was still thick and they drove slowly until suddenly, when they reached the Lindenplatz, it began to lift.

  They rode through the City Square, crossed the Eider Bridge over the Amstel River and stopped in front of the Amstel Hotel. When they reached the lobby, Noelle said to Larry, "You will pick me up at ten sharp tonight," then turned away and walked toward the elevator, the manager of the hotel bowing and scraping at her heels. A bellboy led Larry to a small, uncomfortable single room at the back of the hotel on the first floor. The room was next to the kitchen, and through the wall Larry could hear the clatter of dishes and smell the mixed aromas from the steaming kettles.

  Larry took one look at the tiny room and snapped, "I wouldn't put my dog in here."

  "I'm sorry," the bellboy said apologetically. "Miss Page requested the cheapest room we had for you."

  Okay, Larry thought, I'll find a way to beat her. Constantin Demiris isn't the only man in the world who uses a private pilot. I'll start checking tomorrow. I've met a lot of his rich friends. There are half a dozen of them who would be damned glad to hire me. But then, he thought: Not if Demiris fires me. If that happens, none of them will touch me. I have to hang in there. The bathroom was down the hall, and Larry unpacked and took out a robe so that he could go take a bath, then thought: To hell with it, why should I bathe for her? I hope I smell like a pig. He went to the hotel bar to have a badly needed drink. He was on his third martini when he looked up at the clock over the bar and saw that it was 10:15. Ten o'clock sharp, she had said. Larry was filled with a sudden panic. He hastily slapped some bills on the bar and headed toward the elevator. Noelle was in the Emperor Suite on the fifth floor. He found himself running down the long corridor and cursing himself for letting her do this to him. He knocked at the door to her suite, his mind forming excuses for his tardiness. No one answered his knock and when Larry turned the knob, it was off the latch. He walked into the large, luxuriously furnished living room and stood there a moment, uncertainly, then called out, "Miss Page." There was no answer. So that was her plan.

  I'm sorry, Costa darling, but I warned you that he was unreliable. I asked him to pick me up at ten o'clock, but he was down in the bar getting drunk. I had to leave without him.

  Larry heard a sound from the bathroom and went toward it. The bathroom door was open. He walked inside just as Noelle Page stepped out of the shower. She wore nothing but a turkish towel turbanned around her head.

  Noelle turned and saw him standing there. An apology sprang to Larry's lips, trying to head off her indignation, but before he could speak, Noelle said indifferently, "Hand me that towel," as though he were a maid. Or a eunuch. Larry could have coped with her indignation or anger, but her arrogant indifference made something explode inside him.

  He moved toward her and grabbed her, knowing as he did it that he was throwing away everything he wanted for the cheap satisfaction of a petty revenge, but there was no way he could have stopped himself. The rage inside him had been building up for months, fed by the indignities he had received from her, the gratuitous insults, the humiliation, the risking of his life. All these things were burning in him as he reached for her naked body. If Noelle had screamed, Larry would have knocked her senseless. But she saw the wild look on his face and made no sound as he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom.

  Somewhere in Larry's mind a voice was shouting to him to stop, to apologize, to say that he was drunk, to get out before it was too late to save himself, but he knew it was already too late. There was no going back. He threw her savagely down on the bed and moved toward her.

  He concentrated on her body, refusing to let his mind think of what his punishment was going to be for what he was doing. He had no illusions as to what Demiris would do to him for this, for the Greek's honor would not be satisfied with merely firing him. Larry knew enough about the tycoon to know that his vengeance would be far more terrible, and yet knowing this Larry could not stop himself. She lay on the bed looking up at him, her eyes blazing. He moved down on top of her and was entering her, never realizing until that instant how much he had been wanting to do this all along, and somehow the need was all mixed up with the hate, and he felt her arms wrap around his neck, holding him close, as though she would never let him go, and she said, "Welcome back," and it flashed through Larry's mind that she was crazy or she was confusing him with someone else, but he didn't care because her body was twisting and writhing beneath him, and he forgot everything else in the sensation of what was happening to him, and the sudden blinding wonderful knowledge that now everything was going to be all right.

  NOELLE AND CATHERINE

  Athens: 1946

  16

  Inexplicably, Time had become Catherine's enemy. She was unaware of it at first, and looking back she could not have told the exact moment that Time began to work against her. She was not aware when Larry's love had gone or why or how, but one day it had simply disappeared somewhere down the endless corridor of time and all that was left was a cold hollow echo. She sat in the apartment alone day after day, trying to figure out what had happened, what had gone wrong. There was nothing specific Catherine could think of, no single moment of revelation that she could point to and say, That was it, that was when Larry stopped loving me. Possibly it had started when Larry came back after three weeks in Africa where he had flown Constantin Demiris on a safari. Catherine had missed Larry more than she had thought possible. He's away all the time, she thought. It's like during the war, only this time there's no enemy.

  But she was wrong. There was an enemy.

  "I haven't told you the good news," Larry said. "I got a raise. Seven hundred a month. How about that?"

  "That's wonderful," she replied. "We can go back home that much sooner." She saw his face tighten. "What's the matter?"

  "This is home," Larry said, curtly.

  She stared at him uncomprehendingly. "Well, for now," she agreed weakly, "but I mean--you wouldn't want to live here forever."

  "You've never had it so good," Larry retorted. "It's like living at a vacation resort."

  "But it's not like living in America, is it?"

  "Fuck America," Larry said. "I risked my ass for it for four years and what did it get me? A handful of two-bit medals. They wouldn't even give me a job after the war."

  "That's not true," she said. "You..."

  "I what?"

  Catherine did not want to provoke an
argument, particularly on his first night back. "Nothing, darling," she said. "You're tired. Let's go to bed early."

  "Let's not." He went to the bar to pour himself a drink. "A new act's opening at the Argentina Night Club. I told Paul Metaxas that we'd join him and a few friends."

  Catherine looked at him. "Larry--" She had to fight to keep her voice steady. "Larry, we haven't seen each other for almost a month. We never get a chance to--to just sit and talk."

  "I can't help it if my work takes me away," he replied. "Don't you think I'd like to be with you?"

  She shook her head and said, "I don't know. I'll have to ask the Ouija board."

  He put his arms around her then and grinned that innocent, boyish grin. "To hell with Metaxas and the whole crowd. We'll stay in tonight, just the two of us. Okay?"

  Catherine looked into his face and knew that she was being unreasonable. Of course he couldn't help it if his job took him away from her. And when he got home, it was natural that he would want to see other people. "We'll go out if you like," she decided.

  "Uhn-uhn." He held her close. "Just the two of us."

  They did not leave the apartment all weekend. Catherine cooked and they made love and sat in front of the fire and talked and played gin rummy and read, and it was everything that Catherine could have asked.

  Sunday night after a delicious dinner that Catherine prepared, they went to bed and made love again. She lay in bed watching Larry as he walked down toward the bathroom, naked, and she thought what a beautiful man he is and how lucky I am that he belongs to me, and the smile was still on her face when Larry turned at the bathroom door and said casually, "Make a lot of dates next week, will you, so we won't have to be stuck with each other like this again with nothing to do." And he went into the bathroom leaving Catherine with the smile still frozen on her face.

  Or perhaps the trouble had started with Helena, the beautiful Greek stewardess. One hot summer afternoon, Catherine had been out shopping. Larry was out of town. She was expecting him home the following day and had decided to surprise him with his favorite dishes. As Catherine was leaving the market with her arms full of groceries, a taxi passed her. In the back seat was Larry, his arms around a girl in a stewardess' uniform. Catherine had one brief glimpse of their faces laughing together, and then the taxi turned a corner and was out of sight.