Mayday

  He scrambled up the slick, foam-covered wing toward the fuselage where the wing-top emergency door was located. He slid precariously sideways, then found some traction and finally reached the door, grabbing for the recessed emergency latch.

  He caught his breath and pulled at the latch, but the small door wouldn’t open. “Damn it!” He propped his knees under the door and kept pulling, but the door held.

  Down below, firemen were yelling to him to come down. Berry stood and edged toward the front of the wing, pressing his body against the fuselage for friction even as his shoes slipped on the foam. He inched his body closer to the hole in the fuselage, which was just above and forward of the wing.

  A fire truck pulled up to the Straton only a few feet below him. The firemen were still shouting at him, and he saw now a hydraulic platform rising up toward him with two rescue workers on it.

  Berry realized he couldn’t quite reach the hole in the fuselage, and he conveyed this to the firemen below by turning toward the rising platform and nodding his willingness to come down. The platform came up to a level position with the wing, and one of the rescue workers held on to a safety rail while reaching out to Berry with his other hand. Berry grabbed the rescue worker’s hand and jumped onto the platform.

  Before the platform began to descend and before either of the rescue workers could react, Berry broke the man’s grip and dove off the platform into the hole in the side of the fuselage.

  He found himself on the floor amid the pulverized and twisted wreckage. A few bodies lay in the swath of destruction, and Berry could hear a few people moaning. He pitied these men, women, and children who had lived through the terror of the explosion and decompression, then the oxygen deprivation, followed by the crash landing and smoke inhalation. It occurred to him—no, it had always been there in his mind—that he should have just pushed the nose of the airliner into the Pacific Ocean.

  But he hadn’t done that, so he had left himself with some unfinished business.

  The two rescue workers on the platform were shouting to him to come out. “Hey, buddy! Come on out of there! It could still blow. Come on!”

  Berry glanced back at them standing in the sunlight and yelled, “I’m going up to the cockpit to get my wife and daughter!”

  The Straton listed to the right and was pitched slightly upward. Berry made his way up the left-hand aisle toward the spiral staircase.

  The windows were covered with foam, and the farther he got from the two holes in the fuselage, the darker it got and the heavier the smoke became. He heard people moving around him, and he felt someone push past him in the dark. It was strangely silent, except for an eerie sort of growl coming from somewhere close by. Berry thought it could be a dog.

  He had given up on Barbara Yoshiro and Harold Stein a long time ago, but he had to give it a try. He shouted, “Barbara! Barbara Yoshiro! Harold Stein! Can you hear me?”

  There was no reply at first, then someone, a male, close by in the dark, said, “Here.”

  “Where? Mr. Stein?”

  “Weah. Mista. Heah.”

  “Damn it! Damn it! Shut up!” Berry felt himself losing control, and tried to steady his nerves. He was fairly certain that Yoshiro and Stein were either dead or unconscious, and beyond his help.

  He continued on in the dark, crouching lower because of the smoke. Finally, he found the spiral staircase and grasped the handrails, discovering that the whole unit was loose. He took a few tentative steps up the stairs, then stopped and glanced back toward the shaft of sunlight passing through the holes in the midsection. He tried to see if any of the rescue workers had followed him, but all he could see was one of the brain-damaged wraiths stumbling around, his hands over his eyes, as if the light were blinding him.

  Berry took another step up, and the spiral staircase swung slightly. “Damn. . . .” He shouted up the stairs,

  “Sharon! Linda!”

  A voice shouted back, “Shaarn. Linaah!”

  Berry took a deep breath and then another step, then another, carefully making his way up the swaying staircase, shouting as he went, “Sharon! Linda!”

  And each time he was answered with “Shaarn! Linaaah!”

  He could hear people now at the bottom of the stairs, and also people in the lounge at the top of the stairs. Smoke from the cabin was rising up the staircase and, he guessed, out the open emergency door in the cockpit, so it was as if he were standing in a chimney. He found a handkerchief in his pocket and put it over his face, but he felt nauseous and dizzy again, and thought he might black out.

  This was more than heroics, he thought. For one thing, he knew he couldn’t live with himself if he survived by getting down the chute and they died in the cockpit, so close to safety. Also, there was the matter of the data-link printouts, which would prove that he wasn’t crazy when he told the authorities that someone had given him instructions that would put the Straton into the ocean. And then there were his feelings about Sharon Crandall. . . .

  He took another step up the staircase. A shadow loomed at the top, and a hand from below grabbed his leg. A voice shouted, “Shaarnn!” Someone laughed. A dog growled.

  He was back in hell.

  Edward Johnson and Wayne Metz stepped out of the rapid intervention vehicle a hundred yards from the massive Straton, which was surrounded by yellow fire trucks that looked small by comparison, and Johnson was reminded of carrion-eating beetles around a dead bird.

  Johnson surveyed the evacuation site—the aluminum trestles and stretchers, the gurneys, empty wheel-chairs, ambulances pulling away. He found a woman with a clipboard who looked official, and he identified himself as the senior vice president of Trans-United, which he was, and which he wanted to continue being, which was why he was here; he had to control the situation to the extent possible, and with any luck, the man named Berry would be dead, and so would the flight attendant, and the data-link printouts would be sitting in the collecting tray in the cockpit. If none of that was true, Johnson knew he’d have to make some tough decisions and do some unpleasant things.

  The woman with the clipboard identified herself as Dr. Emmett of the airport Emergency Medical Service.

  Johnson asked her, “Doctor, how many people have you pulled out?”

  Dr. Emmett replied, “We haven’t pulled any out. Some came down that chute. Twenty-two, to be exact.”

  Johnson glanced at the yellow chute in the far distance.

  Dr. Emmett continued, “The rescue workers will enter the aircraft shortly. Then we’ll have our hands full.” She thought a moment, then said, “Unless, of course, they’re all dead from smoke inhalation . . . which is possible since we’ve seen no one inside trying to get out, and no one has deployed any other emergency chute.”

  Johnson nodded and asked her, “What’s the condition of the people you’ve got here?”

  Dr. Emmett hesitated, then said, “Well, they all seem to have suffered some physical trauma . . . bleeding, contusions, and such, but no burns. All seem to have experienced smoke inhalation—”

  “Their mental state, doctor,” Johnson interrupted. “Are they mentally well?”

  Dr. Emmett considered a moment, then replied, “No. I thought at first it was just shock and smoke inhalation—”

  Johnson interrupted again and said, “They experienced a period of oxygen deprivation when”—he pointed to the hole in the distant fuselage—“when that happened.”

  She nodded. “I see.”

  “Have you noticed any people who look mentally . . . normal?”

  “I don’t think . . . Some of them are unconscious and I can’t—”

  Johnson said, “We know there were at least three people who were not affected by the loss of oxygen—a man, a female flight attendant, and a young girl. There may also be another female flight attendant— Oriental—and another male passenger who is not . . . brain damaged.” He looked at Dr. Emmett and asked her, “Have you seen anyone like that?”

  She shook her head. “No.
No women in flight-attendant uniforms for sure, and no young girls. About ten men, but. . .” She glanced at her clipboard and said, “We’ve taken identification from those who had ID on them—”

  “The men were named Berry and Stein.”

  Dr. Emmett scanned her list, then shook her head. “No . . . but there was one man in a pilot’s uniform . . . name tag said McVary. . . . He was not well.”

  Johnson nodded to himself as his eyes scanned the people in the stretchers around him.

  Dr. Emmett said, “Another gentleman was asking about those people.”

  Johnson turned back to her and described Kevin Fitzgerald, right down to his tan.

  Dr. Emmett nodded.

  Johnson asked, “Where is that gentleman now?” She shrugged and motioned around at the controlled chaos spread up and down the runway. “I’m sure I have other things to worry about.”

  “Right—”

  It was Dr. Emmett’s turn to interrupt, and she said,

  “We’re taking everyone who got out of that plane and who might get out of that plane to Hangar 14, where a field hospital is being set up.” She added, “The field morgue is in Hangar 13. Please excuse me.” She turned and walked quickly away.

  Johnson took Metz’s arm and steered him toward the aircraft.

  Metz asked, “Where are we going?”

  “To the Straton, Wayne.”

  “What if it explodes?”

  “Then we don’t have to face charges of attempted murder. We’ll be dead.”

  Metz broke free of Johnson and said, “Hold on. If it explodes, the evidence goes with it. I’m waiting here.”

  “Wayne, don’t be reactive. Be proactive.”

  “Don’t give me that management-seminar shit. I came this far with you, but no further. If you want to get closer to that . . . that fucking aluminum death tube filled with gasoline—”

  “Kerosene.”

  “—and brain-damaged people, go right ahead.” He added, “I’ll stay here near the ambulances and see if our friends get this far.”

  Johnson looked at Metz and asked him, “And if you happen to see them, what will you do?”

  Metz didn’t reply.

  “Will you kill them?”

  He shook his head.

  Johnson reminded Metz, “Wayne, if that guy Berry lives, you and I will spend at least ten, probably twenty years in a state or federal prison. I have better ways to spend my golden years than walking around an exercise yard in blue denims.”

  Metz seemed to stare off into space for a long time, then said, “I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Johnson laughed unpleasantly. “I figured you’d say that.” He turned to Metz, then said, “Okay, partner, you can stay here and watch the store. But if I don’t get to Berry and Crandall, and if I don’t get my hands on those data-link printouts, then you can be certain that you’ll be in the cell next to mine.” Johnson turned and walked toward the Straton.

  Wayne Metz watched him go, then turned suddenly and ran toward an ambulance. He shouted to the attendants, who were about to close the doors, “Wait! I need a ride!” He brushed past them and jumped into the back of the ambulance.

  The attendants shrugged and closed the doors.

  Wayne Metz found himself crammed among three stretchers on which were three people. The first thing he realized was that there was a smell of vomit, feces, and urine coming from them. “Oh . . . ah . . . ah . . .” He covered his face with his handkerchief.

  The ambulance suddenly took off at high speed, and Wayne Metz stumbled into a stretcher that held a middle-aged man whose face was smeared and crusty with things Wayne Metz didn’t want to think about. Metz’s stomach heaved, and he made a retching sound. One of the patients let out a howl and another began to grunt.

  Metz backed up to the doors and called out to the two men in front, “Stop! Let me out!”

  The driver called back to him, “Next stop, Hangar

  14. Pipe down.”

  Metz would have opened the doors and jumped, but the ambulance was going very fast.

  As the vehicle streaked toward Hangar 14, the three patients on board began screaming and babbling, then one of them howled again.

  Metz felt a chill run down his spine, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. “Oh . . . God . . . get me out of here. . . .”

  “You jumped on board,” said the attendant in the passenger seat. “Now, keep quiet.”

  “Oh. . . .” Metz forced himself to look at the faces of the three people strapped into the stretchers. “Oh, my God. . . .” The term “continuing liability” suddenly struck home.

  He realized he was out of a job, but that didn’t seem so important anymore compared to spending a decade or two in the penitentiary.

  Metz turned and looked out the rear window of the ambulance and focused on the retreating Straton. He said a quiet prayer. “God, let the Straton explode, killing everyone on board, especially Berry and Crandall, and anyone else who has the mental capacity to testify against me, and please, God, let the data-link printouts burn, and let Ed Johnson go up in smoke, too. Thank you, God.”

  But as he watched the Straton, nothing happened. It smoked, but didn’t blow. “Please, God.”

  The patients were babbling, the ambulance reeked, and Wayne Metz’s heart was racing. He had never in his life been so miserable. He began sobbing and choking.

  The attendant had climbed out of his seat and come up behind Metz. “Here. Take these. Tranquilizers. Take the edge off. Make you feel good. Here.”

  Metz swallowed the two pills whole. “Oh . . . get me out of here. . . .”

  “Sit down.”

  Wayne pounded on the doors of the ambulance. “Stop!”

  One of the patients shouted, “Stob!”

  The attendant said to Metz, “Sit down, pal, before you fall down.”

  Suddenly, Metz felt light-headed and his knees felt rubbery. “Oh . . . what . . . what was . . . ?”

  The attendant said, “Did I say tranquilizers? I meant sedative. I always get them confused.”

  “But . . . I . . .”

  “You cause trouble, you get a Mickey Finn. Lie down.” The attendant helped him to the floor.

  “But . . . I’m not . . . a . . . I wasn’t . . . I’m not . . . a passenger.”

  “I don’t care who you are. You’re in my ambulance, and you’re causing trouble. Now you’re out like a light.”

  Metz felt his bladder release, and everything went dark.

  Ed Johnson surveyed the scene at the port side of the Straton. The fire chief had declared the aircraft safe from combustion, and rescue workers wearing fire suits and oxygen masks were being lifted on hydraulic platforms into the body of the dead beast.

  Johnson saw the main guy with the gold trim and went up to him. “Chief, I’m Ed Johnson, VP of Trans-United. This is my plane.”

  “Oh, hey, sorry.”

  “Yeah.” He asked, “Anyone alive in there?”

  The chief nodded. “Yeah. The rescue workers are reporting on their radios that they have dozens—maybe hundreds in there.” He added, “We’re strapping them into scoop stretchers—immobilizing them—you know? Then we’ll begin to start taking them out.”

  Johnson nodded. His mind was working on his own problem.

  The chief thought a moment, then said, “These people . . . They don’t seem right, according to what I’m hearing on the radio. . . . I mean, nobody tried to get out. . . .”

  “They’re brain damaged.”

  “Jeez.”

  “Right. Hey, can you get me in there?”

  “Well . . .”

  “It’s my aircraft, Chief. I have to be on it.”

  “It could still catch fire,” said the chief, though the possibility had greatly diminished. He added, “Toxic smoke and fumes.”

  “I don’t care. I have to be in there with my passengers and crew.” Ed Johnson gave the chief a man-toman stare, not entirely
phony, but partly recalled from the old days before all the politics and compromises. He added, “This is my aircraft, Chief.”

  The fire chief called out to one of his men and said, “Get this man a bunker coat, gloves, and an air pack, and get him up into the craft.”

  “Thanks,” said Johnson.

  As he waited, he stared up at the hole in the side of the craft and said, “What the hell . . . ?”

  The chief followed his gaze and said, “Yeah. It’s, like, blown in . One of the guys said he thought it could be a meteor strike. You know? Or a piece of satellite. But the two holes are in the sides —horizontal. The other one is blown out —and a lot bigger—like something went in this side and out the other. Maybe a missile. What do you think?”

  “Jesus Christ . . .” It suddenly hit him. A missile. A runaway missile. A fucking runaway military missile. Or a drone. Something that operated at 60,000 feet and didn’t explode when it hit the Straton. Some military fuckup of the first order, like all those stories about TWA Flight 800. But this one had actually happened. A missile. That had to be it. And he’d been worried about structural failure or a bomb smuggled aboard through lax Trans-United security. And all the time it wasn’t their fault. “Jesus H. Christ. What a fuckup.”

  “What’s that?”

  Johnson glanced at the fire chief. “Wish me luck.”

  “Right.”

  Two firemen helped Ed Johnson into a bunker coat, showed him the fireproof gloves and flashlight hanging from Velcro straps on the coat, and fitted him with a Scott Air-Pak. Johnson let the mask hang on his chest. He said, “Let me have one of those axes.”

  One of the firemen shrugged and handed Johnson a steel-cut ax. The fireman said, “Be careful with that. It’s sharp as a razor.”

  Good. “Thanks.”

  A hydraulic lift raised Ed Johnson up to the rear catering-service door, that had been opened by the rescue workers.

  Johnson stepped from the sunlight into the cavernous Straton 797, lit now by battery-powered lights. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dimness.

  After half a minute he could see, but he could not comprehend. “Oh, my God . . .”

  Slowly, he made his way up the left aisle, past rescue workers, past dead and injured passengers strapped in their seats or lying on the floor.