Four Past Midnight

'I believe that what the gentleman actually means isn't quiet but a little privacy,' the man in the ratty sportcoat said. He spoke in cultured tones. but his soft, worried eyes were fixed on Brian.

'That's exactly what I mean,' Nick agreed. 'Please?'

'Is he going to be all right?' the man in the ratty sport-coat asked in a low voice. 'He looks rather upset.'

Nick answered in the same confidential tone. 'Yes,' he said. 'He'll be fine. I'll see to it.'

'Come on, children,' the man in the ratty sport-coat said. He put one arm around the girl's shoulders, the other around Albert's. 'Let's go back and sit down. Our pilot has work to do.'

They need not have lowered their voices even temporarily as far as Brian Engle was concerned. He might have been a fish feeding in a stream while a small flock of birds passes overhead. The sound may reach the fish, but he certainly attaches no significance to it. Brian was busy working his way through the radio bands and switching from one navigational touchpoint to another. It was useless. No Denver; no Colorado Springs; no Omaha. All gone.

He could feel sweat trickling down his cheeks like tears, could feel his shirt sticking to his back.

I must smell like a pig, he thought, or a

Then inspiration struck. He switched to the military-aircraft band, although regulations expressly forbade his doing so. The Strategic Air Command practically owned Omaha. They would not be off the air. They might tell him to get the fuck off their frequency, would probably threaten to report him to the FAA, but Brian would accept all this cheerfully. Perhaps he would be the first to tell them that the city of Denver had apparently gone on vacation.

'Air Force Control, Air Force Control, this is American Pride Flight 29 and we have a problem here, a big problem here, do you read me? Over.'

No dog barked there, either.

That was when Brian felt something - something like a bolt - starting to give way deep inside his mind. That was when he felt his entire structure of organized thought begin to slide slowly toward some dark abyss.

9

Nick Hopewell clamped a hand on him then, high up on his shoulder, near the neck. Brian jumped in his seat and almost cried out aloud. He turned his head and found Nick's face less than three inches from his own.

Now he'll grab my nose and start to twist it, Brian thought.

Nick did not grab his nose. He spoke with quiet intensity, his eyes fixed unflinchingly on Brian's. 'I see a look in your eyes, my friend ... but I didn't need to see your eyes to know it was there. I can hear it in your voice and see it in the way you're sitting in your seat. Now listen to me, and listen well: panic is not allowed.'

Brian stared at him, frozen by that blue gaze.

'Do you understand me?'

He spoke with great effort. 'They don't let guys do what I do for a living if they panic, Nick.'

'I know that,' Nick said, 'but this is a unique situation. You need to remember, however, that there are a dozen or more people on this plane, and your job is the same as it ever was: to bring them down in one piece.'

'You don't need to tell me what my job is!' Brian snapped.

'I'm afraid I did,' Nick said, 'but you're looking a hundred per cent better now, I'm relieved to say.'

Brian was doing more than looking better; he was starting to feel better again. Nick had stuck a pin into the most sensitive place - his sense of responsibility. Just where he meant to stick me, he thought.

'What do you do for a living, Nick?' he asked a trifle shakily.

Nick threw back his head and laughed. 'Junior attache, British embassy, old man.'

'My aunt's hat.'

Nick shrugged. 'Well ... that's what it says on my papers, and I reckon that's good enough. If they said anything else, I suppose it would be Her Majesty's Mechanic. I fix things that need fixing. Right now that means you.'

'Thank you,' Brian said touchily, 'but I'm fixed.'

'All right, then - what do you mean to do? Can you navigate without those ground-beam thingies? Can you avoid other planes?'

'I can navigate just fine with on-board equipment,' Brian said. 'As for other planes -' He pointed at the radar screen. 'This bastard says there aren't any other planes.'

'Could be there are, though,' Nick said softly. 'Could be that radio and radar conditions are snafued, at least for the time being. You mentioned nuclear war, Brian. I think if there had been a nuclear exchange, we'd know. But that doesn't mean there hasn't been some sort of accident. Are you familiar with the phenomenon called the electromagnetic pulse?'

Brian thought briefly of Melanie Trevor. Oh, and we've had reports of the aurora borealis over the Mojave Desert. You might want to stay awake for that.

Could that be it? Some freakish weather phenomenon?

He supposed it was just possible. But, if so, how come he heard no static on the radio? How come there was no wave interference across the radar screen? Why just this dead blankness? And he didn't think the aurora borealis had been responsible for the disappearance of a hundred and fifty to two hundred passengers.

'Well?' Nick asked.

'You're some mechanic, Nick,' Brian said at last, 'but I don't think it's EMP. All on-board equipment - including the directional gear - seems to be working just fine.' He pointed to the digital compass readout. 'If we'd experienced an electromagnetic pulse, that baby would be all over the place. But it's holding dead steady.'

'So. Do you intend to continue on to Boston?'

Do you intend ... ?

And with that, the last of Brian's panic drained away. That's right, he thought. I'm the captain of this ship now . . . and in the end, that's all it comes down to. You should have reminded me of that in the first place, my friend, and saved us both a lot of trouble.

'Logan at dawn, with no idea what's going on in the country below us, or the rest of the world? No way.'

'Then what is our destination? Or do you need time to consider that matter?'

Brian didn't. And now the other things he needed to do began to click into place.

'I know,' he said. 'And I think it's time to talk to the passengers. The few that are left, anyway.'

He picked up the microphone, and that was when the bald man who had been sleeping in the business section poked his head into the cockpit. 'Would one of you gentlemen be so kind as to tell me what's happened to all the service personnel on this craft?' he asked querulously. 'I've had a very nice nap ... but now I'd like my dinner.'

10

Dinah Bellman felt much better. It was good to have other people around her, to feel their comforting presence. She was sitting in a small group with Albert Kaussner, Laurel Stevenson, and the man in the ratty sport-coat, who had introduced himself as Robert Jenkins. He was, he said, the author of more than forty mystery novels, and had been on his way to Boston to address a convention of mystery fans.