Nelson DeMille - Mayday

Metz wiped the perspiration from his face with a handkerchief. “God, I didn’t know it was going to be this complicated.”

“Ignorance, Mr. Metz, is bliss. And if you are so ignorant that you think we can yell ‘Game’s over’ and go home and forget what we tried to do, then I have news for you. As soon as I sent that bullshit message, we were committed. Because if he gets back, we may be able to lie about the phony break in communications, but we can’t lie about that phony vector.”

Metz lowered himself into a chair. “If they get back… if they do land… we can say they misunderstood. They were suffering from lack of oxygen…”

Johnson stopped at a page and began reading, then looked up. “Right. If they do get back and survive the landing, we can say that. Maybe we can make everyone believe that an amateur pilot who was smart enough to land a supersonic jetliner is too stupid to accurately recall the messages we sent a short while before. Besides, there are still three normal people in that cockpit with functioning brains. But the biggest factor of all might well become the printouts. Wayne, do you see the printouts that are coming from our data-link?” Johnson asked.

“Yes.” Metz had forgotten about them, and what their existence implied. “We’ve got to get rid of those.”

“Good thought, Sherlock. But before we do, take a guess where the corresponding printouts are. Go ahead. One guess.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Right. Data-links sure act funny sometimes, but they don’t get brain damaged, and don’t babble on with conveniently murderous messages. What we’ve sent to that cockpit is more than enough to have us indicted for attempted murder. If the printer in the cockpit is turned on-and it usually is, as a backup-then they’ll have all the physical evidence they’ll need.”

Metz slumped forward in his chair. “Good God! Why didn’t you tell me all this?”

“Why? Because you have no real balls. You were all for this as long as you thought I could come up with a simple technical solution to the problem of putting the Straton in the ocean. If you knew all the problems involved, you would have run off to your group therapy or wherever it is that screw-up insurance whiz kids go.”

Metz stood slowly. “It’s more than our careers now. If…”

“Right. It’s our lives against theirs. If they land, we go up for twenty to life. That might affect our promotions.” Johnson looked back at the book, then glanced up at the data-link. He turned to Metz. “Instead of standing there with your finger up your ass, go over to the link and very coolly remove the printouts of the last messages.”

Metz walked over to the machine. His hands were shaking and perspiration ran from his face. He looked up into the dispatch office. Occasionally a man would glance up at him.

Johnson stood and walked toward the door. “Go on, Wayne. One quick motion, from the printer to your pocket.” Johnson put his hand on the doorknob to attract the attention of anyone outside who was watching them. “Go.”

Metz ripped the messages off and stuffed them in his trouser pocket.

Johnson pretended to change his mind and walked away from the door. He sat back down at the counter. “Very good. In case of imminent capture, eat them.”

Metz walked up to Johnson. “I don’t like your sense of humor.”

Johnson shrugged. “I’m not sure I like your lack of one. First sign of mental disease-lack of humor. Inability to see the funny side of things. Humor keeps you alert and opened to all possibilities.”

Metz felt he was losing control of the situation. He felt he had unleashed forces that were now beyond his control. Everything in this room, including Johnson, seemed so alien. He could manipulate people and he could also manipulate, through them, their technology, their factories, their machines. But he couldn’t manipulate the machines themselves. The human factor was really not so unpredictable as the technical factors-the computers and the engines that ran when they should have stopped, stopped when they should have run. “I have a feeling that the Straton will land unless we bring it down.”

Johnson smiled. “I think you’ve finally arrived at the truth. There is nothing radically wrong with that aircraft or its pilot. If his nerve holds, he’ll bring it down on some runway, somewhere, and in some sort of condition that will allow him or some of the others in the cockpit, or the flight recorder, to survive.”

“We can’t let that happen.”

“No, we can’t.” Johnson tapped his finger on the pilot’s manual. “In this book is something that will finish him-quickly. And I think I’m onto what it is.”

The early afternoon sun reflected brilliantly off the tranquil sea that surrounded the USS Chester W. Nimitz. The aircraft carrier plodded steadily along its course. A moderate breeze, generated by the ship’s eighteen knots of forward speed, swept across its empty flight deck from bow to stern. Belowdecks, the afternoon’s activities were routine.

Commander James Sloan and retired Rear Admiral Randolf Hennings sat quietly in Room E-334 on the 0–2 level of the conning tower. Neither of them had spoken for several minutes; each was lost in his own thoughts. For Sloan, the problem was clear and the solution was obvious. For Hennings, the situation was far more complex. Sloan’s face was set in a rigid, uncompromising expression. Hennings’s face betrayed his inner struggle.

Sloan finally spoke. “The situation has not changed. Our only mistake was waiting for the Straton to go down by itself. But there’s no sense continuing this argument. Try to think of it as a tactical war problem.”

Hennings was fatigued and his head ached. “Stop giving me those war analogies, Commander. That doesn’t work anymore.” After Matos’s report that the Straton had made a turn, Hennings thought that Sloan would see that they couldn’t proceed with the destruction of the aircraft. Hennings was almost relieved at the prospect of confessing to Captain Diehl what they had done. But Sloan, as Hennings should have known, had not given up so easily. To Sloan there was little difference between shooting down an aircraft that they first believed to be filled with corpses, and shooting down an aircraft that showed signs of life. “And stop telling me nothing has changed. Everything is changed now.”

“Yes, and for the worse. Let me point out again, Admiral, that I don’t want to go to jail. I have my whole life in front of me. You may get VIP treatment in Portsmouth-a cottage of your own, or whatever they do with admirals, but I… Which reminds me, you’ll be the first American admiral to be court-martialed in this century, won’t you? Or maybe with your retired status, you’ll suffer the indignity of a civilian trial.”

Hennings tried to remember-to understand the sequence of small compromises that had brought him so far down that he had to listen to this from a man like Sloan. He was either getting senile or there was a flaw in his moral fiber that he had not been made aware of. Certainly James Sloan wasn’t that sharp. “You think a lot of yourself, don’t you?” he said. “But if you were as shrewd as you think you are, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“I don’t mind sticking my neck out if I can gain by it. What I do mind is your getting in my way. This would have all been resolved long ago if you hadn’t procrastinated, and if we hadn’t listened to Matos’s bullshit about fatigue cracks and damage.”

Hennings nodded. That was certainly true. For the last hour, Sloan had explained to him why Peter Matos should destroy the Straton. For the last hour, Hennings had advised waiting for some word from Matos that the Straton had gone down by itself. Matos’s reports had confirmed that the Straton was damaged but still flying, straight and steady, except for one deliberate but unexplainable course change from a 120-degree heading to a 131-degree heading. Also, Matos reported people falling or jumping from the airliner. None of this was comprehensible. “Why did they change course? Why are people falling from a steady aircraft? There was obviously no fire. They can’t be jumping. That makes no sense. What the hell is going on up there?”