Nelson DeMille - Mayday

“Might as well. I’ve run out of things to do already.”

Sharon closed her eyes. “Tell me about… your home.”

Berry would have preferred to talk about something else. He settled back and tried to think of what to say. As he did, the autopilot disengage light flickered again, and the autopilot switch popped to OFF. Berry grabbed the flight controls. “Oh, for God’s sake.”

“Autopilot?”

“Yes.” Now he knew that he couldn’t trust it anymore. The autopilot had undoubtedly been damaged during their wild descent. He had no choice but to hand-fly the Straton for the rest of the flight. As Berry concentrated on retrimming the manual flight controls, he could hear from behind him the persistent scraping against the door and the dissonant pounding on the piano. It was beginning to get on his nerves. Then he heard the data-link alerting bell.

“John. They’re sending another message.”

Berry looked at the screen. It was a repeat of the message they had sent a few minutes before. The bastards were still sending out bait, on the chance that Berry had somehow managed to keep the Straton from falling into the Pacific. “Screw them,” he said. He was, without a doubt, taking it personally.

Jack Miller walked alone through the long empty corridor outside the dispatch office. Edward Johnson had taken his detailed report and told him to go home, again denying him entry to the communications room. Jack Miller knew that his days at Trans-United were nearly over.

He heard footsteps coming quickly up the stairs at the end of the corridor. He stopped.

The figure of Chief Pilot Kevin Fitzgerald-tall, muscular, tanned, wearing faded jeans and T-shirt-appeared suddenly from the stairwell. He came quickly toward Miller, who stepped aside and exchanged nods with the man. Miller cleared his throat. “Captain Fitzgerald…”

The chief pilot moved quickly past him and turned his head back as he kept walking toward the door at the end of the corridor. “What is it, Jack?”

“Everyone is in the administration building. Executive conference room, sir.”

“Damn!” He turned and headed back. “Nothing happening here?”

“No, sir. Communications with 52 has been lost.”

Fitzgerald kept walking, retracing his steps to the stairs. “Screwed up, Jack. It’s all been screwed up. No one knows what the hell is going on.”

“Yes, sir,” he called to the retreating figure.

Fitzgerald disappeared down the stairs.

Jack Miller stood alone in the corridor for a few seconds. He considered for a moment, hesitated, then broke into a run down the corridor and took the steps down, three and four at a time.

In the parking lot, he saw Fitzgerald get into a foreign sports car. He ran to it.

Fitzgerald started the engine and looked at him. “What is it, Jack?”

Miller found he couldn’t speak.

“I’m in a hurry. Is it important?” Fitzgerald looked up at him. He put a softer tone in his voice. “What’s up?” He turned off his engine.

Miller stepped up closer to the window. “Captain, I have to speak to you.”

Fitzgerald had handled men long enough, and he knew Jack Miller well enough to know that he was about to hear something important and disturbing. “Get in the car. We can talk while I drive.”

“No, sir. I think you’d better stay here.”

Fitzgerald swung the door open and climbed out of the car. “Shoot.”

“Well…”

“Forget all the modifiers, Jack. Give it to me straight and quickly.”

“I think… I’m sure something here smells.”

Fitzgerald nodded. “Go on.”

Jack Miller began his story.

With the door closed, the Trans-United communications room had become hotter. Fumes from the color-reproduction machine lay heavily in the stagnant air. Edward Johnson sat with his sleeves rolled up and his tie loose.

Wayne Metz kept mopping the perspiration from his face with a damp handkerchief. He nodded in satisfaction. “I think that’s it, Ed.”

Johnson nodded slowly. He felt badly-there was no doubt about it-but he also felt that the weight of the world-the weight of the Straton-was lifted from his shoulders. He was annoyed that Metz was having trouble concealing his glee. The man didn’t understand flying, didn’t understand airlines or the people who worked for them. He only understood liabilities and how to eliminate them. Johnson reached out and pressed the data-link’s repeat button and held it down.

The message printed.

TO FLIGHT 52: DO YOU READ? ACKNOWLEDGE. SAN FRANCISCO HQ.

The message printed again and again as he held his finger on the repeat button. A long stream of printouts began to collect in the link’s receiving basket. Johnson looked at his watch. “That should be enough to show one every three minutes for the last hour.” He released the repeat button, then typed a final message.

TO FLIGHT 52: IF YOU READ, TRANSMIT MAYDAY OR ANY COMBINATION OF LETTERS OR NUMBERS. SAN FRANCISCO HQ.

They both waited in silence.

Metz looked at the clock. Two-thirty. He cleared his throat. “That’s it.”

“I suppose.” Johnson thought for a moment. There was no possibility that a weekend pilot could have survived after a flame out of all four engines. At 11,000 feet, he would have had less than five minutes until impact. That was enough time to reignite the engines if he knew how, but Berry had neither the skill nor the knowledge to keep the Straton under control. Five minutes. He was momentarily overwhelmed by the thought of the huge Straton falling 11,000 feet into the Pacific. His mind conjured up a vivid picture of the scene in the cockpit as Berry and the others fell toward the sea. By then, they probably knew for certain that someone had murdered them-if they had time to think about it. “My God, Wayne. It’s really over.” His knees were shaking, and he hoped Metz did not notice.

Metz glanced around the room. “Did we forget anything?”

Johnson looked at him. “If we did, you wouldn’t know what the hell it was anyway.”

“Okay,” said Metz, “none of this is pleasant. Don’t take it out on me. I’m only trying to see if we left a loose end hanging around. Loose ends can become nooses. We’ve come too far to-”

“Do you have the printouts?”

“Yes.” He pointed to the sports jacket hanging over a chair.

“Put the jacket on.” Johnson took his own jacket and threw it over his shoulder. He walked toward the door. For an instant he wished he were back on the loading ramp, throwing around luggage in the bright sunlight with the other men, talking about women and sports, untouched by the years of compromise, untroubled by the corporate casualties he had engineered, and unhaunted by the specter of the Straton that he knew he would see every day of his life.

Johnson was aware of someone staring at him through the glass door. He looked up and saw Kevin Fitzgerald’s form filling the doorway. The doorknob rotated.

Instantly, Metz could see the antagonism between these two men, and he could see also the change in Johnson’s demeanor. He suddenly felt frightened again.

Johnson turned to Metz as he hurried to the door. “It’s Fitzgerald. Follow my lead. Don’t volunteer anything.” Johnson quickly unlocked the door. “How are you, Kevin?”

Fitzgerald stared at the door latch for a long second, then looked up. “What’s the latest?” He walked into the communications room, and looked around.

“You’ve been briefed at the conference room?”

“No, I was beeped at the beach. I called in and got the message. No one mentioned the conference room, and I came here, naturally.”

“Right.” Had he forgotten to station someone in the parking lot? No, he had told Miller to do it. That bastard. Damn. Johnson knew he was lucky that Fitzgerald hadn’t arrived earlier. “This whole thing has been fucked up from the beginning. ATC mostly, although our people have stepped on their dicks a couple of times, too.”