Dean Koontz - Sole Survivor

‘Any chance of that?’

‘None whatsoever.’

Though Joe unfolded the three sheets of paper, he didn’t yet begin to read them.

He said, ‘Why didn’t they believe you when you told them what you’d heard on the tape? They were your colleagues. They knew you to be a responsible person.’

‘Maybe some of them did believe it — and didn’t want to. Maybe some of them just chalked it up to my fatigue. I’d been fighting an ear infection for weeks, and it had worn me down even before Pueblo. Maybe they took that into account. I don’t know. And there’s one or two who just plain don’t like me. Who among us is universally loved? Not me. Too pushy. Too opinionated. Anyway, it was all moot — because without a tape, there was no proof of the exchanges between Blanc and Santorelli.’

‘When did you finally tell someone you’d made a transcript word for word?’

‘I was saving that. I was trying to figure the right moment, the right context in which to mention it — preferably once the investigation turned up some detail that would support what I said had been on the tape.’

‘Because by itself your transcript isn’t real proof.’

‘Exactly. Sure, it’s better than nothing, better than memory alone, hut I needed to augment it with something. Then those two creeps ‘woke me in the hotel in San Francisco, and after that. Well, I just wasn’t much of a crusader any more.’

Out of the eastern forest, two deer leaped in tandem into the bottom of the meadow, a Buck and a doe. They raced across the corner of the clearing, quickly disappearing into the trees on the northern perimeter.

Under the skin on the back of Joe’s neck, ticks of apprehension still burrowed and twitched.

The movement he had glimpsed earlier must have been the two deer. From their volatile entrance into the meadow, however, he inferred that they had been flushed from the trees by something — or someone — that had frightened them.

He wondered if any corner of the world would ever feel safe to him again. But he knew the answer even as the question passed through his mind: no.

No corner. Not anywhere.

Not ever.

He said, ‘Who do you suspect — inside the Safety Board? Who did Mirth call next after you? Because that person is probably the one who told him not to pass the word any further — and then arranged to have him killed and the evidence burned.’

‘It could have been any of them he was intending to call. They were all his superiors, and he would have obeyed their instructions. I’d like to think it can’t be Bruce Laceroth, because he’s a bedrock guy. He started out a grunt like the rest of us did, worked his way up. The five board members, on the other hand, are presidential appointees, approved by the senate for five-year terms.’

‘Political hacks.’

‘No, actually, the great majority of the board members over the years have been straight-shooters, trying to do their best. Most of them are a credit to the agency, and others we just endure. Once in a while, yeah, one of them is slime in a suit.’

‘What about the current Chairman and Vice Chairman? You said Mirth Tran was going to call them — supposing he wasn’t able to reach Laceroth first.’

‘They’re not your ideal public servants. Maxine Wulce is the Chairman. An attorney, young and politically ambitious, looking out for number one, a real piece of work. Wouldn’t give you two cents for her.’

‘Vice Chairman?’

‘Hunter Parkman. Pure political patronage. He’s old money, so lie doesn’t need the job, but he likes being a presidential appointee and talking crash lore at parties. Give you fifteen cents for him.’

Although he had continued to study the woods at the foot of the meadow, Joe had seen no further movement among those trees.

Far to the east, a vein of lightning pulsed briefly through the dark muscle of the storm.

He counted the seconds between the silver flash and the rumble of thunder, translating time to distance, and ascertained that the rain was five or six miles from them.

Barbara said, ‘I’ve given you only a Xerox of the transcript I wrote down that night. I’ve hidden the original away. God knows why, since I’ll never use it.’

Joe was torn between a rage to know and a fear of knowing. He sensed that in the exchanges between Captain Blane and First Officer Santorelli, he would discover new dimensions to the terror that his wife and daughters had endured.

Finally, Joe focused his attention on the first page, and Barbara watched over his shoulder as he followed the text with one finger to allow her to see where he was reading.

Sounds of First Officer Santorelli returning to his seat from the lavatory. His initial comments are captured by the overhead cockpit microphone before he puts on his headset with the boom mike.

SANTORELLI: Get to L.A. (unintelligible), I’m going to chow down on so much (unintelligible), hummus, tabbouleh, lebne with string cheese, big plateful of kibby till I bust. There’s this Armenian place, it’s the best. You like Middle East food?

Three seconds of silence.

SANTORELLI: Roy? Somethin’ up?

Two seconds of silence.

SANTORELLI: What’s this? What’re we… Roy, you off the auto pilot?

BLANE: One of their names is Dr. Louis Blom.

SANTORELLI: What?

BLANE: One of their names is Dr. Keith Ramlock.

SANTORELLI: (with audible concern) What’s this on the McDoo? You been in the FMC, Roy?

When Joe inquired, Barbara said, ‘The 747-400s use digitised avionics. The instrument panel is dominated by six of the largest cathode-ray tubes made, for the display of data. And the McDoo means MCDU, the multi-function control and display unit. There’s one beside each pilot’s seat, and they’re interconnected, so anything one pilot enters is updated on the other’s unit. They control the Honeywell/Sperry FMC, the flight management computer. The pilots input the flight plan and the load sheet through the MCDU keyboards, and all enroute flight-plan changes are also actuated with the McDoos.’

‘So Santorelli comes back from the john and sees that Blane has made changes to the flight plan. Is that unusual?’

‘Depends on weather, turbulence, unexpected traffic, holding patterns because of airport problems at the destination…

‘But at this point in a coast-to-coast flight — little past the midpoint — in pretty good weather, with everything apparently ticking along routinely?’

Barbara nodded. ‘Yeah, Santorelli would wonder why they were making flight-plan changes under the circumstances. But I think the concern in his voice results more from Blane’s unresponsiveness and from something unusual he saw on the McDoo, some plan change that didn’t make sense.’

‘Which would be?’

As I said earlier, they were seven degrees off course.’

‘Santorelli wouldn’t have felt that happening when he was in the lavatory?’

‘It started soon after he was off the flight deck, and it was a gradual, really gentle bank. He might have sensed something, but there’s no reason he would have realized the change was so big.’

‘Who are these doctors — Blom and Ramlock?’

‘I don’t have a clue. But read on. It gets weirder.’

BLANE: They’re doing bad things to me.

SANTORELLI: Captain, what’s wrong here?

BLANE: They’re mean to me.

SANTORELLI: Hey, are you with me here?

BLANE: Make them stop.

Barbara said, ‘Blane’s voice changes there. It’s sort of odd all the way through this, but when he says “make them stop,” there’s a tremor in it, a fragility, as if he’s actually in. not pain so much but emotional distress.’