Nelson DeMille - Mayday

Sloan wasn’t sure he knew what was going on up there either. The first heading seemed to put the Straton closer to its home base of San Francisco. The new heading might put them on a parallel course to the coast. He looked at Hennings. “The pilot must be lost. His navigation sets are probably malfunctioning. As for the people…” He thought for a moment about that bizarre happening. “I told you they’ve probably suffered brain damage.” He was beginning to imagine for the first time what it must be like for the people onboard the Straton. “The pilots may be brain damaged, too. That’s why they’re changing their headings.” He looked Hennings in the eye. “They may crash into a populated area. Think about that.”

Hennings was through thinking and through arguing. His only argument had been based on his own understanding of the moral and ethical issues involved. Against that thin, apparently weightless argument, Sloan had thrown a dozen expedient reasons for destroying the Straton and the people onboard.

“We’re running out of time.” Sloan said it casually, as if he were late for a tennis match at the officers’ club. “Matos is low on fuel.”

Hennings stepped closer to Sloan. “If I say no?”

Sloan shrugged. “Then I go to Captain Diehl and tell him my side of the story.”

“You don’t bluff well.”

Sloan smiled. “Well, I guess it’s not important for you to concur any longer. You’ve already committed a half-dozen court-martial offenses. Just stay out of my way, and I’ll call Matos and finish it off. The Straton’s obviously not going down on its own.” Sloan picked up the microphone and glanced at Hennings out of the corner of his eye. He started to push the transmit button, then hesitated. It would be much better if the Admiral was in on it. As he pondered his next move, the telephone rang. He put down the microphone and snatched up the receiver. “Commander Sloan,” he said impatiently, then listened for a few seconds. “Yes. Go ahead with the message. Exactly as received.”

“Who is it?” Hennings asked, apprehension in his voice.

Sloan ignored him. “Okay. I understand. Then their request is specifically for a broad-area search, and only within the boundaries you’ve described?”

Hennings was certain that it concerned the Straton, but couldn’t guess in what way.

Sloan was shaking his head. “I’m tied up here-with this special test. Yes, it’s still not finished, but that’s not your business. Have Lieutenant Rowles lay out the initial patterns and assignments. At least eight aircraft each shift. To be launched at one-hour intervals. Begin the search in the northern quadrant, and expand the search southward.” Sloan glanced at the console clock. “Tell Rowles to get the first group off within fifteen minutes.” He hung up and turned to Hennings. “A message came from Air Traffic Control to initiate a search and possible rescue mission.”

“The Straton?”

“Trans-United Flight 52. A supersonic Straton 797 from San Francisco to Tokyo. Unless the Trans-United Stratons are having a bad day, that must be ours.”

“But I thought we would hear any transmissions from them.” He gestured toward the radio-monitoring equipment.

Sloan hesitated. He had to pick and choose what to tell Hennings. “They transmitted on a data-link, a typed-out message that displays on a computer screen. I presume only the Trans-United operations office can receive from them. Anyway, the pilot was apparently dying. Brain damage. He made that turn, then made the course change, then they lost contact. They suspect that he died or blacked out, and that the Straton went down and…”

“Then they don’t know it’s still-”

“No. They don’t. The good news is that one of the data-link messages from the Straton mentioned a bomb. Everyone thinks there was a bomb onboard. Do you see it all now, Admiral? A pilotless aircraft filled with dead and dying, and with enough fuel left to reach California. Even if it weren’t our fault, I’d say we had a duty to bring it down.”

“How soon will your search party be in the area?”

“Soon.” Sloan had been asked to search an area that was hundreds of miles from where he knew the Straton actually was. By the time his aircraft worked their search pattern, the Straton would have flown hundreds of miles farther. “Very soon,” he lied. He looked at Hennings. “You can’t avoid any of the responsibility if I order this aircraft shot down. Silence is acquiescence. You’re no better than I am. But if you want to remain silent and let me do the dirty work…”

Suddenly, Hennings understood Sloan’s insistence on getting his approval for an act that he had the power to accomplish by himself. Sloan was looking for a personal victory over Hennings, and all that Hennings represented. All the old notions of honor, virtue, and integrity. Somehow it would make Sloan feel better to rub Hennings’s face in the muck.

Sloan said, “You had no qualms about serving a commander in chief who was a draft dodger, a notorious liar, and who had nothing but contempt for the military. Or, if you had any such qualms, you sure kept them to yourself, Admiral. We all did. Don’t talk to me about doing the right thing, about standing up for principle. None of us resigned over Vietnam, and none of us spoke out against the draft dodger in the White House. We’re all whores and we’re all compromised. The only thing I believe in is the career of James Sloan.”

Hennings made no reply, no protest.

Neither man spoke for a long time.

Hennings looked around the room known as E-334. Sterile, gray metal, covered with mazes of electrical conduit, the smell of electronics hanging in the airconditioned atmosphere. The world was full of Room E-334s now, on the sea, in the air, underground. Small tight compartments with no human touch. The destiny and the fate of mankind would someday be decided from a room like this one. Hennings was glad he would not be around to see it. He looked at Sloan. This man was the future. He knows how to live in this world. “Yes. Of course. Order Matos to shoot the Straton down.”

Sloan hesitated for a second, then sat down quickly at the radio console.

“Make sure he understands what he is to do and why he is to do it, Commander.”

Sloan glanced back at Hennings. “Yes. All right. I know what to do. We had him at this point once before.” But he knew Matos could go either way. “Navy three-four-seven, this is Homeplate. Do you read?” Sloan looked again at Hennings. “You wanted me to be honest with him, and I will.”

The radio crackled, and Matos’s voice, strained and perhaps even frightened, came through the scrambler and filled the room. “Roger, Homeplate. Go ahead.”

Sloan heard the edginess in the young man’s voice. That was a good beginning. “Peter, this is Commander Sloan. I asked you a question before, and now I want the answer. Why have you been ordered to keep out of sight of the cockpit?”

There was a long silence in the room, then the radio came alive with Matos’s voice. “I was to keep out of sight of the cockpit because there might be a pilot in there. If he was able to get his radios working, and if he saw me, he might understand what happened to his aircraft and radio the message. Or he might tell someone when he landed.”

“Yes. And we have new information from ATC. They think it was a bomb onboard. Go on. What else, Peter?”

“The accident was our… my fault. I have a chance to cover it up by shooting the Straton down.”

“For the good of the Navy, for the good of national security, for our own good.”

“Yes.”

“The test we were conducting is in violation of an international treaty. It is illegal. Do you understand?”