“Thirty seconds!”
Johnson looked at the clock. Twelve after six.
A TV technician shouted from across the room. “We’re ready, Mr. Johnson.”
Johnson nodded. He turned and faced the cameras squarely as the last of the bright lights were turned on.
Metz stepped even farther back from Johnson. Out of nervous habit, he felt inside his sports jacket for the data-link messages, as a man feels for his wallet, and his heart jumped when his fingers found nothing. Then he remembered, with some embarrassment, that he and Johnson had stopped on the access road between the Trans-United hangar and the administration building to burn them. They were no more than a pile of ashes now. But, still, his fingers went deeper into his inside pocket. He had the sudden, irrational fear that he had somehow left one of them in his pocket, and that the TV camera would suddenly swing around and zero in on it like an X-ray zeroing in on a suspicious spot. His fingers felt the line at the bottom of his pocket. He patted his other pockets quickly. He saw Johnson giving him an annoyed look. Calm down. Almost over.
A young woman with a clipboard called out, “Mr. Johnson, watch for the red light.”
Johnson glowered at the production assistant. “I know that.”
“Right. Begin with your prepared statement, then we’ll go into the Q and A from the newspeople.”
“Fine.” It seemed to Johnson that the newsmen-or newspeople, as they called themselves-were literally licking their lips over the assignment to cover the first air crash of a supersonic transport. If the bastards only knew the story they almost had.
The camera’s red light came on.
“You’re on.”
Johnson cleared his throat and put on an expression that was appropriate to the gravity of the first sentence he could speak. “Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to announce that Trans-United Flight 52 has apparently crashed at sea. The flight, a Straton 797 supersonic airliner, left San Francisco International Airport this morning at eight-thirty A.M., on a nonstop flight to Tokyo. Onboard the aircraft were 302 passengers and a crew of fourteen. Approximately midway across the Pacific, there was an in-flight emergency, the exact nature of which is unknown but apparently involved the hull-the fuselage…” Fuck Abbot. “… and cabin pressure was lost. The aircraft turned around and headed back to San Francisco.” Johnson paused and took a breath. “What you may have heard concerning a passenger piloting the aircraft is true.”
There was an excited murmur in the room, and Johnson could see pencils moving and cameras clicking away at him. He continued, “Because of a malfunction in their voice radios, we established contact with them via data- link-a computer screen for typed messages. The last message was received from Flight 52 at approximately one P.M., San Francisco time. Since then-”
A wall telephone rang loudly in the back of the quiet room.
Johnson glanced up at it with unconcealed annoyance, and saw Kevin Fitzgerald pick it up. He glanced at the production assistant who was motioning him to continue. “Since then, an extensive search-and-rescue operation has been mounted by military and civilian authorities…” Johnson saw that Fitzgerald was speaking excitedly into the telephone, and something inside him signaled a warning. “Flight 52 had… still has not been found as of this moment… and if they were still flying… their fuel would probably have been consumed by now…” Fitzgerald had motioned for the president and the chairman of the board. What the fuck is going on back there? “And is still… that is… we have many of the relatives and friends of the passengers here at the terminal… in our lounge…” Fitzgerald was speaking into the phone and relaying a message to the people around him. There was a stir in the back of the room. “And the chief pilot, Captain Kevin Fitzgerald… has been with the passengers… the passengers’ relatives… constantly… until now. The search will continue until-”
“Wait!” Fitzgerald held the phone in his hand and was signaling to Johnson.
Johnson dropped his cigar on the floor and stared at Fitzgerald.
Everyone turned toward the back of the room.
“It’s the control tower,” said Fitzgerald. “The radar room.”
The production assistant barked an order and the camera turned toward Fitzgerald. Technicians ran across the room with hand microphones and the electrical crew swung several of the white lights around. The shadow of Kevin Fitzgerald holding the telephone in his outstretched hand rose up on the stark wall behind him. “The control tower says,” shouted Fitzgerald over the rising noise, “that they have a large unidentified aircraft on their radarscope. The aircraft is headed directly toward San Francisco Airport. It is now sixty-two miles west of here, flying at a low altitude, and at an airspeed of three hundred and forty knots. They believe the aircraft may be…” He glanced up at Johnson, then finished the sentence with the words that were already on everyone’s lips: “… the Straton.”
The room exploded with sound. Some reporters rushed up to Fitzgerald, and others grabbed the phones on the long conference table. The Straton executives had already positioned themselves at the door in the rear of the room. They disappeared into the corridor and headed for a small VIP conference room across the hall.
Wayne Metz pushed through the crowd and grabbed Johnson by the shoulder. “ How? How can this be possible? Johnson?”
Edward Johnson looked at Metz as if he hadn’t understood the question.
“Johnson, damn it! Can it be true?”
Johnson was in a daze. A few reporters, unable to get to Fitzgerald, crowded around Johnson. Questions bombarded him from all sides. He pushed through the reporters and broke out into the corridor, half walking, half running toward the staircase.
Wayne Metz came up behind him, breathless. “Johnson! Is it true? Is it true?”
Johnson turned and spoke distractedly as he bounded down the stairs. “How the hell do I know?”
Metz followed. “Where are you going?”
“To the damn ramp, Metz. At the speed that aircraft is traveling, it’ll be here in less than ten minutes.”
Metz followed him to the lower level, down a long corridor that led to a satellite terminal, then to a door that led to the aircraft parking ramp. Johnson put his identification card into an electronic scanner, and the door opened. The two of them walked outside, onto the airport ramp. “Can it be the Straton? Tell me. Please.”
Edward Johnson ignored Wayne Metz and looked up into the setting sun, shielding his eyes with his hands as he moved. He tried to think clearly, but his mind was unable to absorb all the ramifications of what had happened. Stunned with a terror he had never before known, he ran across the parking ramp. He felt that the Straton was sweeping down on him as he ran, like a winged nightmare from hell, a dead thing that came back from a watery grave. He thought he saw a small dot coming out of the sun, but realized it was too soon yet to see it. Please God. Not the goddamn Straton.
18
Sharon Crandall looked at the distance-to-go meter. “Twenty-three miles.”
Berry held the wheel tightly in his hands. He stared at the fuel gauges. They were within a needle’s width of empty; two low-fuel warning lights glowed a brilliant red, probably for the first time since the aircraft was built.
“John, do we have enough fuel to reach the airport?”
The time for thin assurances was ended. They could flame out before he drew his next breath. “I can’t tell. Fuel gauges aren’t accurate when they’re that low.” He saw the electronic needle nudge against the empty mark. Technically, they were already out, but feasibly the engines could run for as long as ten more minutes. There was no way to tell until that first sickening sensation of power loss, which he remembered from when he had put faith in the data-link instructions and almost landed in the sea. He felt the muscles in his stomach and buttocks tightening.
“Twenty-two miles. Still on course.” She paused. “We’re going to make it, you know.”
Berry glanced at her and smiled. “What time is it? Exactly.”
“Six-twenty-one.”
Berry looked down at the unbroken top of the low white fog that stretched out in all directions. Some of the
