Accidental Heroes

by Danielle Steel

  * * *

  —

  Tim had made it to his grandchildren’s school by then, and without hesitating, he strode to the principal’s office. She was just coming back after a meeting and he told her what was happening. The news had said it was a flight from New York, but admitted that there were two flights due in from New York within half an hour of each other and they didn’t have a confirmed flight number for this one.

  “Are you sure it’s Helen’s flight?” the principal asked, looking shocked. She had seen him at the school before, picking the kids up from sports games and after-school activities. He had an active role in their lives, and he shook his head in answer to her question.

  “No, I’m not sure. But I’ll be stunned if it isn’t. She was due in now, on a flight from New York. I’d like to get the kids out of their classes. I don’t want them seeing or hearing about this from someone else.” She nodded agreement.

  “I’ll have them brought to my office right now.” And within minutes, he had his arms around them in the principal’s office. There was a TV in the room and he had turned it on and was watching his daughter’s last desperate maneuvers to save the plane and fly under the bridge. He knew what she was doing, and it was a daring move.

  “Is Mom going to be okay?” his younger grandson asked as all three children stood watching with them. The principal left the room out of respect for them and what the children were seeing. Possibly their mother’s death in the next few minutes, and that of many other people when the plane went down.

  “She’d better be,” Tim said in a hoarse voice. “Your mom is a hell of a fine pilot,” he said as tears rolled down his cheeks and the children clung to him like barnacles. “If anyone can pull this off, she will,” he said, willing her to succeed, at least at saving the passengers and herself. He didn’t give a damn about the bridge or the plane. All he wanted was for his daughter to come out of it alive. Her children needed her, and so did he.

  * * *

  —

  Ben and everyone in the New York office had a perfect view of what Helen was doing from the camera in the news helicopter that was shooting live footage for TV. It was the same scene Helen’s children and her father were watching in Petaluma, at their school.

  “Oh, my God, what’s she doing?” Ben could see that she couldn’t bring the plane up. It was too late, and the only thing she could do was a water landing, but the plane would sink fast when she did.

  Phil was pacing, Amanda was speechless, Bernice was crying. All she could think of was Toby, and how she would feel if they were on that plane and about to die. It looked like a long shot for Helen not to hit the bridge, keep the plane floating long enough, and get everybody out. Possibly only a few would be saved, those closest to the exits, or maybe none at all. Dave hadn’t said a word since Jason got control of the plane, overshot the airport, and headed for the bridge. He’d never seen anything like this, and didn’t want to again. It had been the most stressful day of his life.

  Ben understood what Helen was trying to do by then, and he didn’t think she could pull it off. It was a stunt kids had done in small private planes, daredevils, show-offs. Trying to fly under the bridge in an aircraft that size was insanity. But what other choice did she have? If she didn’t go under it, she would hit the bridge.

  * * *

  —

  Nancy had made the announcement as soon as Tom came out of the cockpit covered in blood, and told her Helen’s instructions. She told the passengers they were going to make a water landing, reminded them again how the life vests worked, and said they were going to have to move fast as soon as the plane touched down. The crew would help them, but the plane couldn’t float for long. She wondered for an instant what this would do to her baby, but she couldn’t think about that now.

  Tom got to his seat and grabbed Catherine’s arm.

  “I want you out as soon as we hit the water. Do you understand?” She nodded and looked at him, too frightened even to panic.

  “What happened?” He was covered in Jason’s blood, but unharmed himself. It was a gory sight.

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  The crew members were shouting to everyone to remove their shoes and take crash positions, which they all did, too terrified not to. As Tom glanced out the window, he saw them heading straight for the bridge. And by some miracle, Helen pulled the plane down just enough, leveled it barely above the water, and flew it under the bridge, close enough to touch it. Skimming the choppy waves beyond it, they glided on top of the water, and came to a stop. Tom knew that was their cue and so did the crew. They opened all the doors and shouted to everyone to head for the exits, leave their belongings, and not to wear their shoes. And before Nancy could get to the two children sitting behind them, the Saudi couple had taken off their seatbelts and pulled the children out of their seats. Ahmad put on their life vests as they stared at him.

  “Don’t be afraid. We will take care of you,” he said, holding Nicole in a firm grip. She was crying and Mark was close to it. Ahmad and Sadaf got them to the nearest exit, pushed them down the slide toward the part that became a raft and would detach from the slide later, and followed them immediately. They each held one of them on their lap in the boat bouncing on the choppy water. And all down the length of the plane, the slides were operating, the rafts were inflated, and passengers were sliding out as fast as they could. Catherine wound up in the raft with Ahmad and Sadaf and the two children, and she told them they would be all right. She was more worried about them than she was herself.

  “Go!” Joel said to Nancy, as they shepherded their passengers out.

  “I’m not leaving till we get them all out,” she said fiercely.

  “Bobbie says you’re pregnant, get down the slide.”

  “I’m not leaving little kids and our passengers on this plane. If we make it out of here, you’d better invite me to your wedding.”

  “Promise. How long do you think we’ll float?” he whispered to her.

  “Not long,” she said honestly. The plane was bouncing on the waves, and water had started to seep into the cabin. They saw Susan Farrow and her dog come down the aisle then, going the wrong way, heading toward coach.

  “You’ve got to get to the slide,” Joel said, trying to turn her in the right direction, with the dog sticking his head out of her life vest, which she hadn’t inflated yet, since she hadn’t left the plane.

  “I’m seventy-six years old. No one’s going to miss me if I’m gone. And if they do, they can watch my movies. I’m not leaving these people on a sinking plane. I’m heading back to coach to help,” she said and marched past them before they could stop her. When she got there, she saw Robert with his baby in a front pack, helping the girls from the chorus down the slide. Their chaperone had been one of the first out, and the girls were crying and panicking, left to their own devices as Bobbie and the other crew members and Robert got them all out. There were other passengers with young children, and he helped a dozen of them off, after the girls, before he went down the slide himself. They were all sprayed with the salt water as soon as they got out, and the Coast Guard tenders were all around them, a flotilla of them, lifting people out of the rafts, onto the deck of the Coast Guard rescue boats. The helicopters were hovering to fish anyone out of the water, but so far, miraculously, no one had fallen in.

  Ahmad had carefully lifted both children into the hands of the Coast Guard rescuers, and then lifted Sadaf up, and let the other women pass before him. He was the last one out of his raft, as it danced crazily on the water, but he kept his balance and managed not to fall out. Sadaf burst into tears the moment he reached the deck of the Coast Guard boat and stood sobbing, clinging to him.

  * * *

  —

  “Captain Smith?” Air traffic control checked every few minutes to see if she was still there. She hadn’t left the plane yet, and didn�
��t intend to until the last passenger was out. It pained her to see Connor Gray’s body in the rising water in the cockpit, but there was nothing they could do for him now. He had lost his life for a noble cause, trying to save her, the passengers, and the plane. He had died a hero’s death. What remained of Jason was on the floor near his seat, where he had fallen. “You need to get out, Captain,” air traffic control told her, sounding anxious. She was watching the evacuation from the windows, and they still had people coming down the slides and getting into rafts.

  “I’m not leaving till everybody’s out,” she said firmly. “I think we’re almost there. The water is up to my knees now.”

  “Get out!” the controller shouted at her.

  “Not yet! I think we’re going down nose first.” It was what she had expected, with the weight of the plane. “I’m going to check the cabins now.” She left her seat and headed back then. First class was empty, and business class. The crew had moved to the tail section and were all still there, helping the last people down the slides. A woman with two teenage children, a handful of men. Everyone was in shock but focused on getting out before the plane went down, and helping each other. The water level was rising at the back of the plane too. The last passenger was off, as they stood up to their thighs in the water, and Helen ordered the crew down the last slide and into the life raft. More Coast Guard rescue boats were waiting for them.

  “You too, Captain,” Joel said, as he turned to look at her. She had Jason’s blood all over her shirt, on her face, and in her hair. Nancy was already out of the plane, and Bobbie was in a raft with Annette, waiting to be picked up, along with Jennifer the purser, who had stayed till the end. The crew had been remarkable. Joel went down the slide next and was the last person off the plane, except for Helen. She took a final look to make certain everyone was gone, and the plane suddenly sank lower in the water, and the opening to exit from shrank dramatically, and the slide detached. She slipped through the opening into the water, and knew that one of the boats would pick her up, and was surprised to find herself under the water for what seemed like a long time. She was a strong swimmer, and made it through the water, underneath the waves, and then felt a powerful pull trying to take her down deeper with it, and she realized that the plane was sinking. She fought to swim free of it, and had to fight hard. Her lungs felt like they were exploding as she bobbed to the surface. The current had taken her far from the lifeboats and she tried to float for a few minutes to catch her breath, and then another wave took her down with it, as she wondered if she would come up again. For her children’s sake, she hoped she would, but she was sure that Jack had felt that way too before he died.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Where is she? What do you mean the Coast Guard didn’t pick her up, and she’s not in the life rafts?”

  “She was the last one to leave the plane, after the crew,” the head of emergency services in San Francisco told Ben, who was pacing in his office screaming at him. “They never saw her come down the slide. The last one detached just before she got out, and the plane went down. They didn’t see her get out before it did.”

  “Well, for chrissake, are they looking for her? What are they doing? She’s got to be in the water somewhere.”

  “She may have been pulled under by the plane if she got out too late. It went down pretty fast, and created a powerful undertow. She may not have been able to swim free of it. We’re looking for her. We’ve got rescue boats in the water, and helicopters in the air. If she’s out there, they’ll find her.”

  “She’s out there! Find her!” Ben shouted, and hung up for the third time since the rescue had started. They had all been watching it on CNN. The recovery operation had been brilliantly efficient so far. The crew had gotten the passengers out in record time and had been the last to leave. They didn’t have a totally reliable head count yet, since there were passengers on an assortment of boats, as they were being transferred to the Coast Guard ships in the bay, particularly those needing medical attention. Ben wondered if Helen could be one of them. If the numbers they’d been given so far were accurate, they had lost no passengers or crew other than the three pilots, and they knew that two of them were dead. Ben was praying that the third one had survived.

  It was another hour before Tom Birney called him from one of the Coast Guard boats and told him what had happened in the cockpit in the end. Jason shooting Connor, Helen getting the controls back and then losing them again, and then getting control of the plane in the final minutes, and Jason’s dramatic suicide with the plastic gun. Tom said that both Jason’s and Connor’s bodies had gone down with the plane. For his family’s sake, he hoped they would recover Connor Gray’s. And Ben was sure they would find Jason’s too when they pulled up the remains of the plane. It would be a costly operation, but the plane would have to be raised from the ocean floor at the mouth of the bay. The airline and the city would want it removed, before it was dragged out to sea by the currents or became a hazard to incoming boats.

  The group in Ben’s office began to move around. They had been sitting there for hours. It had been a day of agonizing tension that had left all of them drained. But if the passengers had been saved from disaster, it was a major victory, in great part thanks to Helen Smith’s and Tom Birney’s courageous acts in the cockpit.

  The CEO of the airline had conferred with Phil several times, and they were preparing a statement to explain the situation to the public. In essence, the flight had been taken over by a mentally disturbed copilot, and the passengers had ultimately been saved by the heroic captain, a decorated pilot with long years of military experience as a fighter pilot. But they had some heavy explaining to do as to why someone like Jason was still working for the airline after countless warnings and behavioral problems that they knew about.

  Ben spoke to Bernice quietly, after ranting at emergency services in San Francisco. She was still sitting there, waiting to see if they would rescue the captain. She hoped they would, but it didn’t sound likely. Helicopters and rescue boats were combing the area, with no luck so far. The water was rough and the currents strong under the bridge, and she could have been pulled out to sea, or gone down with the plane.

  “I’d like to credit you with finding the postcard and reporting it to us, if that’s all right with you,” Ben said cautiously. “It was brave of you to follow up on it, especially after your supervisor discouraged you from reporting it.” Dave Lee had explained the whole sequence of events to him, and he was duly impressed with Bernice’s intelligence and determination.

  “Could you leave out the part about the supervisor?” she said hesitantly. “She hates me, and she’d probably kill me when I go back to work.” She smiled at him, and he chuckled.

  “We can leave out the part about the supervisor,” Ben assured her. “You should get a medal for this, or some kind of citation, and a promotion.” He looked warmly at her.

  “I’m planning to quit soon,” she said quietly. “I’ve been going to law school online. I’m graduating in June. I’m going to take the bar exam, and I want to get a job in a law firm. That’s what I promised my son I’d do.”

  “You have a child?” He was surprised. She looked like a kid herself, barely out of her teens.

  “I have a six-year-old son,” she said proudly. She had been touched by how seriously Ben took everything, and how hard he had worked to make the right things happen. And he had believed her. After Denise, he had restored her faith in her fellow man. He wrote down the correct spelling of her name, and she went back to watching the big TV screen with the others, as the rescue continued. It was four o’clock in San Francisco by then, and seven in New York. Her neighbor had picked Toby up at day care, and he was spending the night with them. She didn’t know what time she’d get home. The drama wasn’t over yet, although the worst was behind them. Ben was upset about Helen and wishing that a miracle would occur and they’d find her, and so was
everyone else. She was one of the main heroes of the day. It wouldn’t be right if she didn’t survive it, and she would leave three orphaned kids behind, since their father had died a hero’s death too.

  Amanda was watching too, sobered by everything that had happened. She had a lot to think about and some decisions to make. Mildred had left by then, and Dave Lee and Phil were among the diehards who didn’t want to leave Ben’s office until they had the final count of survivors and knew what had happened to Helen. They all were aware that if Helen wasn’t picked up soon, she wouldn’t be among the survivors.

  * * *

  —

  “Where’s Mommy?” Helen’s seven-year-old daughter, Lally, asked her grandfather as they continued to watch the news in the principal’s office. She had brought him coffee and milk and cookies for the children.

  They had watched all of the passengers lifted from the inflatable rafts onto the Coast Guard boats.

  “Is she on one of the big boats?” Lally asked him, sitting on his lap.

  “Not yet,” Tim said with an intense look in his eyes. This couldn’t happen to them again. Life couldn’t be that cruel to leave all three of them orphans at such a young age. Oliver was thirteen, Jimmy was eleven, and Lally seven. One of Lally’s feet dragged slightly, and her right arm was weaker than her left, but other than that she was a busy, active, happy child and never let her slight disability slow her down. She looked somber now, though, as they waited to hear of Helen’s rescue, but nothing came.

  “Are there sharks in the bay?” Oliver asked his grandfather in a whisper, not wanting the others to hear.

  “I’m sure they aren’t that close to land,” he said in a reassuring tone, but he had always heard there were. He hadn’t even thought of that till then.

  “If she’s on one of the big boats,” Lally insisted, “why don’t they show her on TV?” She wanted to believe that her mother had made it to one of the Coast Guard boats.