Nelson DeMille - Mayday

Matos knew that selecting the best angle for the shot would have to be a compromise. He slid his fighter to the starboard side of the Straton. The small shadow of his craft passed over the gleaming silver airframe of the huge airliner. He looked down. Normally, a full side view of the target would be best, but he saw that a missile shot from that angle would be far too risky. He was liable to miss the aircraft entirely because of the high-closure speeds and his need to do the firing manually.

He slid his craft back over the top of the Straton and a hundred yards behind its tail. The shot would have to be made from the twelve-o’clock-high position, right down into the dome that was the lounge and cockpit. The angle would have to be such that the missile would enter the roof of the lounge, pass through the cockpit, and exit from the lower nose. That would wipe out everything on the flight deck. He reached for the manual gun sight above the glare shield and snapped it into place. He looked through it. The gunnery crosshairs seemed to bob and weave as the relative positions of the two aircraft changed.

Matos set his experienced hands to work on the flight control and soon had the calibrated crosshairs steadied and within range. The bulge of the upper lounge and cockpit filled the scope. The sight’s bull’s-eye swayed back and forth over the protruding dome.

Matos reached down without taking his eyes off the target and turned off the Phoenix’s safety switch. He moved his hand laterally and placed his finger on the firing button. He took a deep breath and began nudging the F-18’s control stick forward. The fighter came in closer. The bull’s-eye was dead center over the dome and holding steady. The Straton’s towering tail loomed up in front of him. He would fire when he passed over the tail. He judged that from tail to dome was almost two hundred feet, and that was a good yardstick to use. Closer than that would expose him to danger from debris. And if the stricken airliner suddenly rolled, the wing could come up and hit his fighter.

He looked through the gun sight. Thirty feet from the tail. He had never flown this close to such a large aircraft. Twenty feet. The huge Straton was spread out below him like the deck of a carrier. Ten feet. He could see the rivets in the tail. His heart started to beat heavily in his chest.

The nose of the F-18 passed over the tail of the Straton. The bull’s-eye covered the center of the silver dome. The glare of the silvery skin made Matos squint. He exhaled deeply and pressed his finger against the firing button.

John Berry was anxious to get on with the maneuver, yet he was doing nothing. He ran his eyes over the instruments, trying to appear as though he were doing something important.

“John?”

“What?”

Sharon Crandall looked anxious. “Is anything wrong?”

“No. Just a few checks.” He paused. “Try to call Barbara again. I want her to know we’re turning. When we start to bank, she’s liable to become frightened. And tell her to stay away from the holes.”

“Okay.” Sharon Crandall set the interphone for the mid-ship station and pressed the button repeatedly. “She doesn’t answer,” she said in a trembling voice.

“Try another station.”

Crandall selected the aft flight-attendant station and pressed the button. Almost immediately a muffled voice came back, nearly drowned out by the sound of rushing wind and odd babbling voices in the background. “Barbara, can you hear me? Is that you?”

“Yes. I’m at the rear station,” Yoshiro answered in a clear voice.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

Crandall turned to Berry. “I’ve got her. Thank God. She’s at the rear station. She’s okay.”

Berry nodded.

“Barbara, come back up,” Crandall said.

“Give me five more minutes. I have to check one more lavatory. I don’t see the steward-Jeff Price. Maybe I’ll go below to the galley.”

Crandall glanced at Berry.

Berry was ready to begin the turn. “Okay. Tell her we’re about to turn. Stay where she is until the turn is completed.”

Crandall nodded and spoke into the phone. “Wait in the rear station. John is going to turn the aircraft. We’ve made contact on the data-link. Everything is all right. We’re heading in. Stay there until the turn is completed. Take care. See you soon. Okay?”

There was a lighter note in Barbara Yoshiro’s voice. “Yes. Good. Very good.”

Berry took the phone. “Barbara, this is John Berry. How are the passengers?”

There was a short pause, then the voice came back. “I… I don’t know. They seem… better.”

Berry shook his head. They were not better. They never would be. Better meant worse. More animated. More dangerous. “Be very, very careful. See you later.”

“Okay.”

The phone clicked dead.

Berry exchanged glances with Crandall, then looked over his shoulder into the lounge. Stein had taken the news about the data-link connection calmly, almost without interest. He had other things on his mind. “Harold. Linda,” Berry shouted back to them. “Hold on to something. We’re turning. Back to California. Be home in a few hours.”

Stein looked up from his post at the head of the stairs and waved distractedly.

Berry turned and positioned himself carefully in his seat. He reached out and put his hand on the autopilot heading control knob. He had a vague awareness of a shadow passing over the starboard side of the cockpit’s windshield. He glanced at Sharon Crandall, but she seemed unaware of it. He half stood and leaned over her seat and looked out the side windshield. He craned his neck back toward the tail. Nothing. A cloud probably. But he could see no clouds.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He sat down and again placed his hand over the small heading knob. “Okay. We’re heading home.” Slowly, a few degrees at a time, he began turning the knob. The big supersonic craft banked to the right.

For a brief instant, Matos thought that his aircraft was responsible for the apparent movement between them. The action of a missile release would do that. But he had not, he realized, pressed the button hard enough to make contact. His missile-fire light was not on.

The large Straton transport moved rapidly across Matos’s gun sight. He removed his hand from the firing button and raised his eyes from the crosshairs. The Straton was in a shallow bank, moving away from the fighter.

Turbulence, was Matos’s first thought. No. Impossible. There is no turbulence. His own aircraft flew smoothly. Yet the 797 was banking. Instinctively, he banked with it and lined up his gun sights again. The Straton moved at a steady rate. Gracefully. Deliberately. Intentionally.

Matos sat up straight in his seat. His hand came down hard on his radio transmit button. “Homeplate! Homeplate! Navy three-four-seven. The Straton is turning. Banking.” He followed the airliner as it began its slow, wide circle. “It’s going through a north heading. Still turning. Approaching a northeasterly heading. The turn remains steady. The bank angle is approximately thirty degrees and steady. The airspeed and altitude are unchanged.” Matos kept his transmit button locked on so he could not receive, and kept up a continuous report of the airliner’s progress.

As gently as it had begun, the Straton’s bank angle started to lessen. Matos watched as the airliner began to roll to wings-level position. He placed his fighter twenty-five yards astern of the 797.

Matos could see from the rate of the Straton’s turn and the symmetry of its entry and exit that the control inputs were being measured electronically. Only a computer-controlled autopilot could provide that sort of precise motion control. He radioed, “Homeplate, the Straton is still on autopilot.” But he also knew, beyond any doubt, that there was a human hand working that autopilot.