vapor rose up and obscured his windshield. “Damn it, if we’re twenty-two miles from the airport, we can’t be more than ten miles from the Golden Gate Bridge. We would be able to see the bridge or the city by now if it weren’t for this fog.”
“We’ll see it soon.”
“We’re going to have to see something soon. We’re less than five minutes’ flight time to the airport-and we’ll be coming up to congested airspace. Linda, keep watching for other airplanes.”
“Okay.”
He turned to Sharon. “I hope to God they’ve spotted us on radar and kept everyone away from us.”
“I’m sure they have.” A calm had come over her, brought on in part by the presence of the fluffy white blanket of vapor beneath them, in part by fatigue, and the feeling that it would be all over, one way or the other, in less than five minutes.
Linda Farley called out. “Look! What’s that?”
Berry and Crandall turned back to her, then followed her outstretched arm.
Berry peered hard out of the Straton’s left-side window. Off the wingtip, he saw a ghostly gray mass rising through the layer of fog. A mountain. Its peak was at least 1,500 feet higher than the Straton. “I see it. Sharon, look.”
“Yes, I see it.”
“Do you recognize it?”
“I don’t know. Wait… I can’t tell.” She leaned closer toward Berry. “Yes, It’s Mount Tamalpais. In Marin County.”
“Okay. Give me the charts.” He looked at the navigation chart and studied it. “That’s north of the Golden Gate Bridge?”
“Yes. The bridge should be ahead. A little to the left.”
“Okay.” He looked over his shoulder and forced a smile. “Linda, you win the champagne… the prize. We’ll get you something nice when we land.”
She nodded.
He turned to the front and began a shallow turn to the left. “I’m going to try to steer directly over the bridge. We have to stay over the bay.” He knew he was too low to try to cut across either San Francisco or mountainous Marin County. At 900 feet he was below the summit of at least three of San Francisco’s famous peaks, and below the tops of a few of its newer skyscrapers. The Golden Gate Inlet to the bay was just that-a gate into the harbor, the same for an aircraft at 900 feet as for a sailing ship. “Sharon, Linda, look for the bridge-we may be able to see its towers.”
“I’m looking,” said Crandall.
Berry continued the left turn toward a course of due east, trying to find the inlet to the bay, trying to feel his way across the top of the fog. It occurred to him that one of the arguments that must have been used against bringing the Straton home was that he would be endangering the city, but Berry had no intention of endangering anyone on the ground. He’d keep the flight over the water no matter what the cost to him or the others. “Sharon, if we don’t see the inlet very soon, I’m going to put it down in the ocean. We can’t risk hitting a hill or a building.”
“Can’t you climb higher?”
“That takes too much fuel and too many miles. We don’t have either.” He looked down at the fog. He could see a few breaks in it now, and caught a glimpse of the water. He could see that the fog went all the way to the water’s surface. A blind landing in the sea would mean almost certain disaster. He consoled himself with the knowledge that this close to the coast, they might recover the bodies. He thought he felt a sinking sensation in the seat of his pants, as if the airliner were suddenly decelerating. “Did you feel that?”
“What?”
He sat motionless for several seconds. “Nothing.” Damn it. There it is again. Was he imagining it? From this altitude, his glide time after a flame out would be less than thirty seconds, and there would be no restarting of the engines this time. And a thirty-second powerless glide on this heading might put him into the bridge, or into the city, but not into the bay beyond the city. “I’m going to put it in the water. We can’t keep heading this way.”
“Wait, John. Please. Just a bit longer.”
“Damn it, Sharon. I might be heading into a mountain or into a building. We have no right to fly over the city. I’ll put it in the ocean while I know we’re still over it. They’ve seen us on radar. They know where we are.”
She looked at him and said very definitely, “No. Keep going. I know the inlet is straight ahead.”
He looked at her. There was something in her voice and her manner that made him think she had some information from a source not displayed on the instrument panel. “Sharon…” He saw a picture of the Straton plunging down through the fog, the fog parting, the city of San Francisco rising up through his windshield, and the nose of the huge airliner pointed into the streets below. He shook his head quickly to clear the image from his mind. He said softly, “I’ve got to put it down right now.”
“ No. ” She turned away from him and stared out the windshield as though the argument was over.
He realized that he’d known her for less than seven hours, yet he felt he knew her as well, certainly, as he knew Jennifer. Sharon Crandall had given him her complete and unquestioned trust, but now she was withdrawing it in favor of her own instincts, and he saw that she meant it. It was his turn to show the same perfect trust, though as a technical person he mistrusted instincts and always went with the odds and the gauges. “Okay. A little longer,” he said.
The Straton flew on. Hovered above the blinding fog, a sense of unreality filled the cockpit. For Berry, Flight 52 had ceased to be a real flight long ago, and the fog only added the final dimension to that feeling.
Sharon Crandall stared placidly out at the rolling fog, an odd smile on her face. She raised her arm and pointed out the front windshield.
Berry looked out to where she was pointing. A glint of red caught his eye, and he sat forward. It disappeared, then reappeared again. Directly in front of the Straton, about seven miles in the distance, the twin towers of the Golden Gate Bridge rose majestically through the solid blanket of white.
Sharon Crandall’s eyes nearly filled with tears. “Oh, God, yes! Yes!”
Berry felt a constriction in his throat as he stared out at the faraway reddish towers.
As she always did when she made the announcements from a returning overseas flight, she said, “Welcome home.”
Berry nodded. “Yes, welcome home.” He watched the bridge towers grow quickly in his windshield as the Straton approached at six miles a minute.
“Look,” said Crandall. “Look beyond the bridge.”
Berry looked out toward the bay. As if the Golden Gate were a wall, the bank of fog ended abruptly at the bridge. The entire bay, as far as he could see to Berkeley and Oakland on the opposite shore, was clear.
“I told you we could beat the fog, John.” Crandall laughed. “Look to the right.”
Berry glanced out the right windshield. Indistinct angular forms rose out of the fog-the shape of a city. Golden sunlight glinted from the tops of the Bank of America Building and Transamerica Pyramid, like El Dorado, thought Berry, but this was no spectral city, and a sense of reality began to return to him. The buildings grew rapidly as the Straton hurled toward them at 340 knots. Berry steered the Straton to the left, away from the city, and lined its nose up between the bridge towers, like a helmsman navigating the approaches to the bay.
The airliner passed through the inlet and sailed over the Golden Gate Bridge, the twin towers barely a hundred feet below the aircraft. Berry spotted Alcatraz Island coming up below him. He banked the Straton to the right and followed the curve of the bay, south toward the airport, which he knew was less than three minutes’ flight time away. Even if they flamed out now, he thought, he’d be able to avoid the populated areas. “Okay,” he said matter-of-factly, “we’re approaching the airport. Sharon, get ready to begin the landing procedure we practiced.”
“I’m ready.”
Berry felt that there was, between them, that bond that instantly develops between pilot and copilot, helmsman and navigator, observer and gunner; the knowledge that two must work as a perfect team, become nearly one, if they are to beat the long odds against survival.
The skies were clear, and out of the right-side window, the city of San Francisco lay among the hills of the peninsula. Flight 52 was a sudden intruder on the city’s hectic rush hour. Along Fisherman’s Wharf, cars stopped
