“Right-”
It was Dr. Emmett’s turn to interrupt, and she said, “We’re taking everyone who got out of that plane and who might get out of that plane to Hangar 14, where a field hospital is being set up.” She added, “The field morgue is in Hangar 13. Please excuse me.” She turned and walked quickly away.
Johnson took Metz’s arm and steered him toward the aircraft.
Metz asked, “Where are we going?”
“To the Straton, Wayne.”
“What if it explodes?”
“Then we don’t have to face charges of attempted murder. We’ll be dead.”
Metz broke free of Johnson and said, “Hold on. If it explodes, the evidence goes with it. I’m waiting here.”
“Wayne, don’t be reactive. Be proactive.”
“Don’t give me that management-seminar shit. I came this far with you, but no further. If you want to get closer to that… that fucking aluminum death tube filled with gasoline-”
“Kerosene.”
“-and brain-damaged people, go right ahead.” He added, “I’ll stay here near the ambulances and see if our friends get this far.”
Johnson looked at Metz and asked him, “And if you happen to see them, what will you do?”
Metz didn’t reply.
“Will you kill them?”
He shook his head.
Johnson reminded Metz, “Wayne, if that guy Berry lives, you and I will spend at least ten, probably twenty years in a state or federal prison. I have better ways to spend my golden years than walking around an exercise yard in blue denims.”
Metz seemed to stare off into space for a long time, then said, “I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Johnson laughed unpleasantly. “I figured you’d say that.” He turned to Metz, then said, “Okay, partner, you can stay here and watch the store. But if I don’t get to Berry and Crandall, and if I don’t get my hands on those data-link printouts, then you can be certain that you’ll be in the cell next to mine.” Johnson turned and walked toward the Straton.
Wayne Metz watched him go, then turned suddenly and ran toward an ambulance. He shouted to the attendants, who were about to close the doors, “Wait! I need a ride!” He brushed past them and jumped into the back of the ambulance.
The attendants shrugged and closed the doors.
Wayne Metz found himself crammed among three stretchers on which were three people. The first thing he realized was that there was a smell of vomit, feces, and urine coming from them. “Oh… ah… ah…” He covered his face with his handkerchief.
The ambulance suddenly took off at high speed, and Wayne Metz stumbled into a stretcher that held a middle-aged man whose face was smeared and crusty with things Wayne Metz didn’t want to think about. Metz’s stomach heaved, and he made a retching sound. One of the patients let out a howl and another began to grunt.
Metz backed up to the doors and called out to the two men in front, “Stop! Let me out!”
The driver called back to him, “Next stop, Hangar 14. Pipe down.”
Metz would have opened the doors and jumped, but the ambulance was going very fast.
As the vehicle streaked toward Hangar 14, the three patients on board began screaming and babbling, then one of them howled again.
Metz felt a chill run down his spine, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. “Oh… God… get me out of here…”
“You jumped on board,” said the attendant in the passenger seat. “Now, keep quiet.”
“Oh…” Metz forced himself to look at the faces of the three people strapped into the stretchers. “Oh, my God…” The term “continuing liability” suddenly struck home.
He realized he was out of a job, but that didn’t seem so important anymore compared to spending a decade or two in the penitentiary.
Metz turned and looked out the rear window of the ambulance and focused on the retreating Straton. He said a quiet prayer. “God, let the Straton explode, killing everyone on board, especially Berry and Crandall, and anyone else who has the mental capacity to testify against me, and please, God, let the data-link printouts burn, and let Ed Johnson go up in smoke, too. Thank you, God.”
But as he watched the Straton, nothing happened. It smoked, but didn’t blow. “Please, God.”
The patients were babbling, the ambulance reeked, and Wayne Metz’s heart was racing. He had never in his life been so miserable. He began sobbing and choking.
The attendant had climbed out of his seat and come up behind Metz. “Here. Take these. Tranquilizers. Take the edge off. Make you feel good. Here.”
Metz swallowed the two pills whole. “Oh… get me out of here…”
“Sit down.”
Wayne pounded on the doors of the ambulance. “Stop!”
One of the patients shouted, “Stob!”
The attendant said to Metz, “Sit down, pal, before you fall down.”
Suddenly, Metz felt light-headed and his knees felt rubbery. “Oh… what… what was…?”
The attendant said, “Did I say tranquilizers? I meant sedative. I always get them confused.”
“But… I…”
“You cause trouble, you get a Mickey Finn. Lie down.” The attendant helped him to the floor.
“But… I’m not… a… I wasn’t… I’m not… a passenger.”
“I don’t care who you are. You’re in my ambulance, and you’re causing trouble. Now you’re out like a light.”
Metz felt his bladder release, and everything went dark.
Ed Johnson surveyed the scene at the port side of the Straton. The fire chief had declared the aircraft safe from combustion, and rescue workers wearing fire suits and oxygen masks were being lifted on hydraulic platforms into the body of the dead beast.
Johnson saw the main guy with the gold trim and went up to him. “Chief, I’m Ed Johnson, VP of Trans-United. This is my plane.”
“Oh, hey, sorry.”
“Yeah.” He asked, “Anyone alive in there?”
The chief nodded. “Yeah. The rescue workers are reporting on their radios that they have dozens-maybe hundreds in there.” He added, “We’re strapping them into scoop stretchers-immobilizing them-you know? Then we’ll begin to start taking them out.”
Johnson nodded. His mind was working on his own problem.
The chief thought a moment, then said, “These people… They don’t seem right, according to what I’m hearing on the radio… I mean, nobody tried to get out…”
“They’re brain damaged.”
“Jeez.”
“Right. Hey, can you get me in there?”
“Well…”
“It’s my aircraft, Chief. I have to be on it.”
“It could still catch fire,” said the chief, though the possibility had greatly diminished. He added, “Toxic smoke and fumes.”
“I don’t care. I have to be in there with my passengers and crew.” Ed Johnson gave the chief a man-to-man stare, not entirely phony, but partly recalled from the old days before all the politics and compromises. He added, “This is my aircraft, Chief.”
The fire chief called out to one of his men and said, “Get this man a bunker coat, gloves, and an air pack, and
