Nelson DeMille - Mayday

They both looked at it for a long time, but the needle lay lifeless in the center of its scale. Berry saw too that the distance-to-go readout was blank.

“I thought I saw it move.” She tried to sound emphatic. “I was sure I did.”

“Nothing.” He straightened up in his chair. “Keep an eye on it.”

“Right.”

Berry settled back again. Everything on the instrument panel remained unchanged. Dead voice radios. Dead navigation radios. Amber autopilot-disengage light on. Heading of 131 degrees. Airspeed of 340 knots. Altitude of 900 feet. The only change was the fuel gauge, which had sunk below the one-eighth mark. Even if they spotted land now, it was going to be very close.

Berry looked up at the horizon. Nothing. The long, uneventful three-and-a-half-hour portion of the flight had raised their hopes, but now with land supposed to be in sight, the tension was beginning to show. He tried to calm the mounting uneasiness within him.

Sharon pointed to the horizon. “What’s that?”

Berry sat up and peered out the window. For the last half hour, every patch of low sea fog had become California, every hazy discoloration on the horizon had been San Francisco. Their imaginations and their hopes kept creating solid land out of each vapor, only to see it melt away as they approached. He stared at the low hazy line on the horizon and saw it move, then drift away as an ocean breeze caught it. “Nothing. More fog.”

“It might be the fog of San Francisco.”

“It might-What?”

“The San Francisco fog.” She looked at her watch. “It’s just past six. That’s nearly always the time that the fog rolls in during the summer.”

Berry looked at her. “Why the hell didn’t you remind me? Damn! What am I supposed to do if the airport is covered with fog?”

“Well… you can make an instrument landing, can’t you?”

Berry resisted the temptation to remind her of his meager qualifications. “No. A full instrument landing is out of the question.” He had no business in the Straton’s captain’s seat. There were more instruments in the Straton’s cockpit than there were combined in the last ten planes he had flown. “Damn, I should have headed north or south to another airport.”

Crandall reminded him, “Since we don’t know where we are, we may already be north or south of San Francisco.” She tapped her finger against the fuel gauge. “We’ll be lucky if we even see the coast. I wouldn’t worry about the San Francisco fog yet.”

Berry looked down at the gauge. One-sixteenth. “Yes. You’re right.”

“Maybe we can put it down near the beach,” she said as she stole a glance at him. “Can we do that?”

“I suppose. If we get that far, and if I see that the coastline is covered with fog, I’ll ditch it.” Berry knew that a ditching into heavy fog would be suicide. “I’d like to try for the airport, but we would have to consider the people on the ground…”

“Then don’t try it. Whatever you want to do is all right. Just take it easy. You’ll do the best you can when the time comes.”

“Right.” His nerves were becoming raw, and he hoped he had something left in him when the time came to put the plane down. From the first time he stepped into the cockpit and saw the disabled crew, he knew that, barring any midair catastrophe, he would have to put the Straton down eventually. That time-as the fuel gauges told him-was nearly here.

“It’s not always foggy.”

“What? Oh, right.”

“And when it is, the fog usually comes in slowly. We may be able to beat it. And sometimes it doesn’t get as far as the airport.”

“Good.” He noticed that no one offered to bet a dinner on it.

The Straton continued on its southeasterly flight path, the sinking sun casting the airliner’s shadow onto the smooth ocean in front of its port wing. Berry scanned the horizon for land, and watched for other aircraft or ships that might recognize that the airliner was in trouble. But they were alone.

“John! It moved again!”

He looked quickly down at the copilot’s panel. “It’s not moving.”

She stared at the navigation radio bearing indicator, but the needle was dead. “It did. There’s no question this time. I saw it. Damn it, I saw it.”

“Okay, okay.” Berry watched the needle carefully. He’d heard stories of desperate pilots who had wanted to see runway lights or encouraging indications from their instruments so badly that they hallucinated into existence whatever they needed.

“I saw it move.”

“Okay. Let’s watch it.”

They stared at it for a full minute. Berry picked up the radio chart and rechecked the frequency. The navigation radio in front of Crandall was unquestionably tuned to the San Francisco station. Berry turned and looked back at its indicator. “Still dead,” he said in a whisper, as if his voice would scare away the signal.

She said nothing.

As they both watched, the needle finally gave a small, barely perceptible bounce.

Sharon Crandall jumped in her seat. “Did you see it?”

Berry’s face broke into a wide smile. “I saw it. You bet I saw it.”

The needle began to bounce more vigorously as the navigation radio received the signal more strongly. The electronic pathway to San Francisco suddenly opened to them.

As the small needle quivered with the electronic impulse of San Francisco Airport’s directional beam, John Berry knew how all the lost and lonely aviators, seamen, and explorers felt when they laid eyes on the object of their search. “We’re heading home. Not much farther to go now.”

“John, we’re going to make it. I know it.”

“Our odds have certainly improved. Turn that dial. That one-until the needle centers.”

She did as he said.

“Okay?”

“Yes. Now read me the number that shows on the display.”

“One-three-nine.”

“Okay.” Berry faced the wheel and began steering the Straton through a shallow right turn until the compass heading of 131 degrees swung to the new heading of 139 degrees, then leveled out.

Sharon looked back at Linda Farley, who had maintained her usual silence. “We have San Francisco on the radio.”

“I don’t hear anything.”

She smiled. “No. It’s a… navigation radio. Like a compass. We know where the airport is now.”

“Do they know where we are?”

Berry spoke. “Not yet. But they’ll see us on radar soon.”

Linda Farley leaned forward in her seat and asked, “Are you going to land the airplane, Mr. Berry?”

Berry nodded. “Yes, I am.” He paused. “But we might still have to land in the water. You remember what Sharon told you about landing in the water?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Berry set his navigation radio from Salinas to San Francisco. “I’ll read it from here on. Look for land.” He adjusted the dials and watched as the distance-to-go meter began cycling into place. He looked at the readout and smiled. “San Francisco Airport dead ahead-ninety-three miles.”

“Ninety-three miles,” she repeated. “How much longer?”

“About fifteen minutes. What time is it?”

“Eight minutes past six.”

Berry nodded. “Well, we’ll be on the ground no later than six-thirty.”

“Oh, dear God, I can’t believe it.” Her voice became choked. “Oh, John-oh, God, I can’t believe it.” She put her face down into her hands and her body began to shake. “We’re almost home.”

“Yes,” Berry answered absently. He had let his eyes drift toward the fuel gauges. The needles were almost on the empty marks. He had gotten good at translating the graduations on the fuel gauges into flight time. By six-thirty, he said to himself, we’ll be out of fuel.