Mayday

  “No. In addition to the other reasons I gave you, we don’t have the fuel for that any longer. We have only enough to fly straight to California.”

  Crandall looked at the fuel gauges. They read less than one-third full.

  Berry played with the radar controls. If he could understand the picture on the screen, he might be able to pick out a weak spot in the wall of clouds in front of him.

  Crandall remembered other storms she’d gone through in other aircraft. The Straton 797 flew above the weather, and that, at least, was one advantage to traveling in subspace. “We can’t climb above it?”

  Berry looked up at the sheer wall of clouds. “Not with this aircraft. It won’t hold its air pressure.” He looked at the oxygen mask hanging beside his seat. An oxygen mask should be enough, as long as they didn’t climb much above 30,000 feet. Was that high enough to clear these storms? He couldn’t tell for sure, but he didn’t think so. Besides, the oxygen tanks would probably be empty, and he didn’t know if there was a reserve tank.

  Crandall was following his thoughts. “There may be an unused oxygen tank that we could switch to.”

  “There might be. But do you think we should put those people through another period of oxygen deprivation? Don’t we have to draw the line somewhere?”

  “Not if it’s our lives.”

  “They are not dead, and we don’t know that they won’t get better, and even if they won’t . . . Besides, in order to gain enough altitude to get over this weather, I’d have to circle—spiral upward. I’d rather not try my flying skills at this point. Anyway, the maneuver would burn off a tremendous amount of fuel.”

  “What you’re saying is that we’re committed to bucking into the storm.”

  “I’m not sure. The other options look better in the short run, but I’m thinking of the California coast.”

  “Me too.” She hesitated, then said, “Will the holes in the cabin . . . could the plane. . . ?”

  “I don’t think it will come apart.” But he didn’t know if the structure was weakened, how many longerons were severed. Completely airworthy craft had broken up in storms. He said, “It’s the wings that take the most punishment. They don’t appear to be damaged.”

  Crandall nodded. There was something reassuring about John Berry’s voice, his manner. Most pilots had that ability to make even bad news sound routine. Yet she felt there was something else troubling him. “If you think the Straton can handle it, then I can handle it.”

  Berry decided that he had to tell it to her truthfully. It was her life too, and she had a right to know what could happen. “Look, Sharon, the major problem is not the aircraft. If the turbulence gets too rough—and there’s no reason to think it won’t, by the looks of those clouds—then the autopilot could disengage itself. Then I’d have to hand-fly this thing. Christ, three experienced pilots in an undamaged craft have their hands full during a storm. I have to think about the throttles, the pitch trim . . . I haven’t flown this aircraft in good weather. The plane could get away from me . . . spin out . . .” Berry suddenly wanted to turn, to run and get away from the black wall closing in on him, even if he had to put the plane down at sea. Anything would be preferable to the nightmare of a bouncing, heaving aircraft caught in the center of a storm of unknown width and breadth. He turned to Sharon. “Do you want to turn? We can outrun it, but we’d probably have to ditch before we reached any land.”

  Crandall considered the options: Running from the storm knowing that each minute of flight time was another minute from the coast. Then putting it down at sea. And if they survived the landing, there would be the agony of the sea, maybe other passengers floating in the water. . . . She weighed that against the storm. They would live or die in the storm—nothing in between. She looked up at the clouds. Somewhere on the other side of that black veil the sun shone, and over the next horizon was the coastline of America. That’s where they said they wanted to go, and that’s where they would go. A sense of calm came over her, and she knew that one way or the other the end of their long trial was near. “We should maintain our present heading.”

  Berry nodded. He also had a need to meet the storm head-on. He thought about his wife and children for the first time in over an hour. Then he thought about his employer and his job. The worst thing that could happen to him, he realized, was that he would survive, only to pick up his life where he’d left it. He believed that somehow the crucible of that storm would cleanse him, even rebaptize him.

  Crandall said, “We should call San Francisco and tell them what’s happening. They may be able to give us some advice.”

  Berry nodded. He realized that, subconsciously, he had been avoiding the data-link. Instead of it being a lifeline, the link had become an intrusion into his small world. He typed.

  TO SAN FRANCISCO: WE ARE APPROACHING AN AREA OF THUNDERSTORMS. I AM UNABLE TO WORK OR READ WEATHER RADAR. WE HAVE DETERMINED THAT THE BEST COURSE OF ACTION IS TO MAINTAIN PRESENT HEADING. IS THERE ANYTHING WE SHOULD DO TO PREPARE THE AIRCRAFT?

  He reached for the transmit button, then decided to type an additional line.

  IS THERE ANY INDICATION AT YOUR END THAT WE CAN GET AROUND THE WEATHER WITHOUT EXPENDING TOO MUCH FUEL? BERRY.

  He pushed the transmit button, then looked up at the windshield. Thin wisps of smoky gray clouds sailed past the Straton; the cockpit became a little darker. “I’d say we’ve got about fifty miles to go before we’re into the heavy weather. Nine or ten minutes’ flying time.”

  Crandall noticed that her calm had turned to edginess, as it always did when she entered a storm. It seemed like the waiting was the worst part of it—until you were in it. Then, when you thought the worst was happening, it got even worse than that. But breaking out of a storm into the sun or the moonlight was one of those rare and exhilarating moments in flying. She turned to Berry. “Is there anything you’d be doing in your private plane that we haven’t done yet?”

  “Yes.” He forced a smile. “Turn around and get the hell out of here.” The aircraft bumped slightly, and he turned and looked back at Linda. She was awake now, sitting in one of the empty flight chairs with her knees up to her chin. He turned to Sharon. “Buckle her into the observer’s seat.”

  Crandall rose from her chair and walked over to the girl. “Let’s get up and sit over here where you’ll be more comfortable.” She took her by the arm and led her to the observer’s seat that was directly behind the captain’s chair. “That’s right. Here. I’ll buckle you in just like when you first came onboard.”

  “Thank you. Are we going into a storm?”

  “It’ll be all right. But remember, it’s going to get very dark in here. You’ll hear the rain against the windshield. It might be louder than you expect. And it will be a very bumpy ride. But Mr. Berry will fly us right through it. You’re not afraid of lightning, are you?”

  “No. Only when I was little.”

  “Good. Lightning is nothing to be afraid of.” Crandall patted the girl on the cheek, then climbed into her chair and buckled herself in.

  The three of them sat quietly in the darkening cockpit as the Straton sailed toward some thin, layered clouds that preceded the wall of thunderstorms. Wisps of light gray flew past the windshield. The Straton bounced suddenly, and from the lounge came a wailing and moaning that Berry recognized instinctively as something very primeval, an ancient inborn terror that came from the very soul of the species. “Poor bastards.” They were going to be hurt if it got very bad. There was nothing he could do for them.

  The alerting bell sounded.

  TO FLIGHT 52: NO INDICATION AT THIS END

  THAT WEATHER IS AVOIDABLE

  CONSIDERING YOUR ESTIMATED FUEL

  RESERVE AND CONSIDERING THE

  UNPRESSURIZED CONDITION OF THE

  AIRCRAFT. MAINTAIN PRESENT HEADING

  AND ALTITUDE AS YOU INDICATED. IT IS

  VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU ALTER CENTER OF GRAVITY FOR TURBULENCE BY

  TRANSFERRING FUEL BETWEEN
TANKS. STAND BY FOR DETAILED INSTRUCTION.

  ACKNOWLEDGE A READY CONDITION. SAN FRANCISCO HQ.

  Berry typed.

  EXPERIENCING SOME TURBULENCE.

  SHOULD I CIRCLE TO AVOID TURBULENCE

  BEFORE PROCEDURE IS COMPLETE?

  The reply came quickly.

  NEGATIVE. MAINTAIN HEADING.

  PROCEDURE WILL TAKE ONLY TWO OR

  THREE MINUTES. ALL CONTROLS ARE

  LOCATED ON OVERHEAD PANEL.

  “Okay.” Berry looked up at the large panel above his head. “Sharon, read me the instructions as they print.”

  “Here it comes, John. Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  “In the center of . . . the overhead panel . . . four switches . . . labeled . . . low pressure fuel valve position . . . acknowledge. . . .”

  “I see them.”

  “Good.” Crandall typed a quick acknowledgment. “Okay . . . here comes more. . . . Turn the switches . . . to off. . . .”

  Berry looked over at her. “All of them?” He glanced down at the display screen himself, but at the angle he was at it was difficult to read.

  “That’s what it says.”

  Berry looked back at the switches. There was something wrong. Some instinct told him to be careful. To proceed cautiously. He remembered a line from an aviation magazine. Operate important switches one at a time . He put his hand on switch number one. Tentatively, he pulled it toward him so it would clear its guard, then pushed down on it and moved it to the off position. He counted off a few seconds.

  “Done?”

  Berry looked around the cockpit, then scanned the panel in front of him. Nothing unusual was happening.

  “Did you do it?”

  “Wait a minute. That’s just the first one.”

  Crandall looked back at him. “Is anything wrong?”

  “No. I’m just proceeding cautiously.” Crandall turned to the console. “They want an acknowledgment.”

  “Tell them to hold their fucking horses.” Berry hit the second switch, then the third, and finally the last. He sat very still but could feel nothing in the seat of his pants to indicate any transfer of fuel, any shift in center of gravity. Maybe the autopilot was compensating. It probably was. “Finished. Is that all?”

  Crandall typed the acknowledgment, then read the next message as it came through. “Last step . . . a covered switch . . . labeled . . . fuel valve emergency power . . . engage the switch . . . then fuel transfer . . . will be done . . . automatically . . . it will take . . . two or three more minutes.”

  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 starboard 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 i
ncreasing 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. Airspeed 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.