get him up into the craft.”
“Thanks,” said Johnson.
As he waited, he stared up at the hole in the side of the craft and said, “What the hell…?”
The chief followed his gaze and said, “Yeah. It’s, like, blown in. One of the guys said he thought it could be a meteor strike. You know? Or a piece of satellite. But the two holes are in the sides — horizontal. The other one is blown out — and a lot bigger-like something went in this side and out the other. Maybe a missile. What do you think?”
“Jesus Christ…” It suddenly hit him. A missile. A runaway missile. A fucking runaway military missile. Or a drone. Something that operated at 60,000 feet and didn’t explode when it hit the Straton. Some military fuckup of the first order, like all those stories about TWA Flight 800. But this one had actually happened. A missile. That had to be it. And he’d been worried about structural failure or a bomb smuggled aboard through lax Trans-United security. And all the time it wasn’t their fault. “Jesus H. Christ. What a fuckup.”
“What’s that?”
Johnson glanced at the fire chief. “Wish me luck.”
“Right.”
Two firemen helped Ed Johnson into a bunker coat, showed him the fireproof gloves and flashlight hanging from Velcro straps on the coat, and fitted him with a Scott Air-Pak. Johnson let the mask hang on his chest. He said, “Let me have one of those axes.”
One of the firemen shrugged and handed Johnson a steel-cut ax. The fireman said, “Be careful with that. It’s sharp as a razor.”
Good. “Thanks.”
A hydraulic lift raised Ed Johnson up to the rear catering-service door, that had been opened by the rescue workers.
Johnson stepped from the sunlight into the cavernous Straton 797, lit now by battery-powered lights. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dimness.
After half a minute he could see, but he could not comprehend. “Oh, my God…”
Slowly, he made his way up the left aisle, past rescue workers, past dead and injured passengers strapped in their seats or lying on the floor.
He came to the holes in the fuselage and examined the swath of wreckage from left to right. He had no doubt that something had passed through the Straton, something that could be called an Act of God, or an Act of Nature, or an Act of Man-but not an act of Trans-United negligence. The irony of the situation struck him, and he would have laughed at himself or cursed his take-charge personality, but he could philosophize later, when he was on vacation or in jail. Right now, he needed to get into the cockpit and to the data-link printout tray.
He moved forward in his cumbersome bunker coat. The farther he got from the holes, the worse the smoke was. He strapped on his oxygen mask and drove on.
It was darker toward the front of the aircraft, so he took his flashlight and turned the beam toward where the spiral staircase should be.
The beam of light picked out the galley and toilet cubicles and also illuminated figures moving around toward the front of the aircraft-but he couldn’t see the staircase.
He moved up the aisle, past the rescue workers who were clearing the aisles of the dead and putting them in seats. Johnson noticed that the rescue people were also strapping the injured onto stretchers and backboards, as much to protect them from internal injuries as to keep them from wandering around like the living dead. “Jesus Christ, what a mess, what a mess…” Total decompression at 60,000 feet. Let the Straton Aircraft Corporation bright boys explain that to the news media.
Ed Johnson got to the place where the spiral staircase should have been, but it wasn’t there. It was, in fact, lying on its side in the aisle ahead, looking like some giant corkscrew. “Damn…” But then it occurred to him that this was better.
Johnson stopped a passing rescue worker and spoke loudly through his oxygen mask, identifying himself as a National Transportation Safety Board investigator and asked, “Are any of your people in the dome?” He pointed the flashlight up at the circular opening in the ceiling.
The rescue worker looked up at the opening. He said, “No, sir… I don’t think so.” He called out to the people around him, “Hey, do we have anyone up in the dome yet?”
A woman called back, “No. There was that chute deployed there. Everyone up there either got out or is probably dead.” She added, “If we have unconscious people up there, they’ll have to wait. We have our hands full here.”
The rescue worker near Johnson said, “We’ve got about two or three hundred dead and injured here, but I’ll get some people up to the dome-”
“No. You’ve really got your hands full here. Just give me a boost up there, and I’ll look around.”
“Okay.” The man called out for help, and two men appeared who made a cradle by joining hands with the third. “Step up.”
Ed Johnson shouldered the fire ax and stepped onto the three men’s hands and arms, steadying himself on one of their shoulders with his free hand.
One of the men said, “Check first for bleeding, then breathing, then-”
“I’m trained in CPR. Lift!”
The men lifted in unison, and Johnson felt himself lifted-propelled, actually-up and into the opening. He grabbed at the upright newel post that still stood on the floor, and swung himself up into the first-class lounge.
He remained on the floor and looked and listened, the sounds of his own breathing into the oxygen mask filling his ears. The lounge was completely dark, its windows thick with foam. He heard someone moaning nearby and smelled the same evil odors he’d smelled below. God
… He breathed deeply and stayed motionless awhile and listened.
He oriented himself without turning on the flashlight and began crawling toward the cockpit, dragging the ax with him.
The carpet-which Johnson knew was royal blue and cost too much-was wet with different liquids, all of which felt disgusting. He stopped, wiped his hands on his coat, and pulled on the fireproof gloves. He renewed his resolve and crawled on.
Johnson knew the layout of the lounge, and with only one detour to get around a body, he came to the cockpit door, which he discovered was open.
Johnson shouldered the steel-cut ax and made his way in a crouch through the opening and into the cockpit.
He stopped, kneeling on one knee, and looked around. The windshields were covered with foam, but light came through the small emergency door. The smoke here was very light, and what little remained was being suctioned out the open escape hatch. Johnson rose up a bit and peered out the door, spotting the sloping yellow chute. He turned back to the cockpit, but his eyes took a minute to readjust to the darkness. When they did, he spotted a man lying on the floor at the base of the copilot’s seat. The man was dead or unconscious. Johnson glanced all around the cockpit, but there was no one else there, dead or alive.
Still in a slight crouch to stay beneath the curls of smoke on the ceiling, he made his way toward the observer’s station, then snapped on the flashlight and scanned the beam until he saw what he was looking for-the data-link printer. The beam rested on the tray and illuminated a page of white paper. Thank God.
Johnson stood, pulled off his gloves and his oxygen mask, and went to the printer, where he retrieved six sheets of paper from the collecting tray. Mission accomplished. He scanned the papers with his flashlight, then turned them over. “What the hell?”
A voice from behind him answered, “Blank printer paper from the machine.”
Johnson swung around and pointed his flashlight toward the voice. The dead man was sitting up now, his back to the copilot’s seat. Johnson’s heart literally skipped a beat, then he got himself under control.
Neither man spoke for a few seconds, then Johnson said, “Berry?”
“That’s right. And who are you?”
“None of your fucking business.”
“I’d like to know the name of the man who tried to kill me.”
