Berry swung the extinguisher, but nothing stood around him any longer. He dropped to one knee, picked up a body and pushed it out the door, then pushed and pulled the rest of the limp or writhing forms into the lounge. He laid them in an open space made by the crowd, which stood in a semicircle watching curiously, fearfully, but without any hate or anger that he could detect. McVary, he noticed, was among them.
Berry grabbed the edge of the door and drew it toward him as he stepped back into the cockpit. He turned and looked around, trying to focus his eyes.
Sharon Crandall was standing in front of him. She had kicked off her shoes and was peeling off her panty hose. She pushed by him without a word and tied the feet of the hose around the small broken latch, then pulled on them.
Berry grabbed the top of the panty hose and stretched them out. He looked around quickly for something to fasten it to.
Fingers and hands curled around the edge of the door, trying to pull it open. Berry pulled harder on the hose, drawing the door tight against the probing fingers. He found a cross brace on the left sidewall. He looped the panty hose around the brace and pulled them so tightly that they thinned out, resembling a long rope running between the door and the cross brace. He knotted it quickly, then leaned back heavily against the pilot’s chair, his whole body shaking. An involuntary laugh rose in his throat.
Sharon fell into his arms and they held on to each other, her body trembling against his, both of them trying to keep from crying and laughing.
Linda Farley moved toward them tentatively, then rushed to them, circling their waists with her arms.
Berry looked up at the door. There was less than an inch of opening around the jamb, and no fingers probing at the edges. He saw blood splattered on the door’s blue-green paint. He pressed Sharon closer to him. “Oh, God, Sharon, good thinking… God, we…”
Crandall shook her head quickly and wiped her tears. “How stupid of me not to think of it sooner.”
“Me too,” Berry said. It was an indication of his state of mind, he thought, that his initial resourcefulness was failing him. He wondered if he hadn’t misjudged San Francisco’s intentions.
He stepped away from Sharon and Linda, then looked down at his hands. He was covered with blood, and he could see pieces of teeth, gums, and flesh on his arms and hands. The gray carpet near the door was soaked with blood. As the shock wore off, he felt his stomach heave, and his body began to tremble again. He stumbled up to the pilot’s chair and sat there trying to get control of himself.
Linda sat in the extra pilot’s chair, slumped over the small desk on the sidewall, her face buried in her arms. Sharon stood behind the girl and stroked her hair.
After a full minute, Berry looked up at the data-link screen and stared at the new message that was waiting there to be read.
TO FLIGHT 52: EXECUTE TURN AS INSTRUCTED. SATELLITE SETS NOT CRITICAL FOR FINDING HAWAII- BUT WILL BEGIN NAV OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS EN ROUTE TO HAWAII. UNDERSTAND 3 REMAINING IN COCKPIT. ACKNOWLEDGE. SAN FRANCISCO HQ.
It seemed to Berry that the tone of the last few data-link messages had changed, as though someone new was sending them. But, of course, he knew that it was he, the receiver, who was reading them in a different state of mind.
Sharon stepped over the panty hose at her feet and leaned over Berry’s chair. She looked down at the message. She had decided that if she was going to trust him, she would trust him completely, with no reservations, no hesitation. “What are you going to do?”
Berry kept staring at the new message. It seemed to be patently wrong. If only he could speak to them on the radio, hear their voices instead of reading words displayed on a cathode-ray tube. He remembered his near panic when he had no communication, and knew he ought to be thankful for even this.
Berry thought a minute, then shook his head. “They say they know where we are, but what if they’re wrong? Then the new heading is wrong. A few degrees at this distance from Hawaii would put us hundreds of miles off course. And what if this damned data-link malfunctions before we reach Hawaii? They won’t be able to send us any course corrections. What if the satellite navigation system doesn’t work, or if I can’t work it?” He thought of something he’d read once. The least reliable component of a modern airplane is its pilot. In this case that was he, John Berry. He looked at the control panels in front of him. “We’d run out of fuel somewhere in the Pacific. I’d have to try to land in the ocean. It would be a race between the rescue craft and… the sharks.”
Sharon put her hands on his shoulders, then leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “John, Linda is…”
“Sorry.”
She turned her face and kissed him on the cheek, then straightened up quickly. She looked down at the panty hose and followed it with her eyes to the door handle. It was taut and secure. No hands poked around the small crack in the door. Suddenly, she felt optimistic again. She looked over at Linda. “All right,” she said, trying to put a light tone in her voice. “Linda, Hawaii or California?”
The girl picked up her head from the desk. “I want to go home.”
Sharon smiled. “California it is, then. John, tell them we’re coming home.”
Berry felt the tears collect in his eyes and wiped them quickly. He reached out to the console and typed a short, succinct message.
Mayday
12
Edward Johnson stared down at the message that had just come from Flight 52.
TO SAN FRANCISCO: WE DO NOT WANT TO TURN. HAWAII IS TOO SMALL A TARGET. WILL MAINTAIN CURRENT HEADING OF 120 DEGREES. ADVISE US OF EXACT COURSE AND DISTANCE/TIME TO SAN FRANCISCO AS SOON AS YOUR COMPUTATIONS ARE AVAILABLE. BERRY.
“Shit.” Johnson took out a cigar and bit the end off. “Smart-ass son-of-a-bitch.” He looked at the cigar for a moment, then threw it on the floor.
Metz looked at Johnson. He hadn’t liked this idea of heading the Straton toward Hawaii, and he was half relieved that it hadn’t worked. “You have to do something, Ed. You have to give him instructions that will put him down so we can get the hell out of here before-”
“Shut up, Metz. I know what I have to do.” There was some question in his mind about whether or not Berry was onto his game. “I can’t push him. He’s too savvy.”
“What are you going to answer?”
“What choice do I have? I’m going to give him the information he asked for.”
“Christ, now we’re helping him.”
“I have to get him off our backs for a while.” Johnson walked to the Pacific chart. He picked up a ruler from the counter and took some crude measurements. “They won’t be any better off with this new heading. Maybe a little worse off. But I can’t make it too absurd. Berry is…”
“I know. Sharp.”
“I was going to say he may be suspicious.”
Metz walked to the data-link machine and slapped his hand on it. “Don’t let this guy spook you. He’s some weekend pilot sitting in the biggest, most complicated aircraft ever built-which, incidentally, has two rather large holes in it, and is crammed full of the living dead. Christ. John Wayne couldn’t buck those odds.” He paused, then said softly, “All Berry needs is a little nudge in the wrong direction and he’ll fall.”
Johnson ignored him and sat down at the data-link. He typed.
TO FLIGHT 52: WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU BUT WILL DEFER TO YOUR JUDGMENT IN THIS MATTER. PLEASE FOLLOW OUR TECHNICAL INSTRUCTIONS TO THE LETTER. IN COMPLIANCE WITH YOUR REQUEST, ACCURATE HEADING TO SAN FRANCISCO IS 131 DEGREES. DISTANCE IS 1950 MILES. ESTIMATED TIME EN ROUTE IS FIVE HOURS AND TEN MINUTES AT CURRENT SPEED. AM ARRANGING FOR MILITARY INTERCEPT. PROBABLY INTERCEPT YOU WITHIN TWO HOURS. SAN FRANCISCO HQ.
Metz glanced up at the wall clock. It read 2:02.
