Mayday (27 page)

Metz shook his head.
There are three hundred brain-damaged people on that aircraft, and they are coming home. Coming home to Beneficial Insurance.
We will be totally liable for the their lives.

H
arold Stein stood, coiled, ready to strike again, but the assault seemed to have lost its momentum. The attackers had drifted
off; like children, thought Stein, after a game of King of the Mountain, or like wild animals or primitive people whose ferocity
subsides as quickly as it begins.

He breathed deeply and wiped the sweat from his face. His arms and legs ached. He peered down into the cabin. The passengers
were apparently occupied with something else now. They were not congregating around the stairway any longer, and their noises
had subsided. But they might mass again for an attack if something stirred them.

He found it hard to believe that he had actually been attacked. But he found it harder to believe that
he
had been so aggressive, had punched and kicked these men, women, children—people he had spoken with a few hours before.

Stein wondered why Barbara Yoshiro had not come back. Perhaps she’d been hurt, or maybe she was still searching for something.
He looked into the cockpit. John Berry was talking to Sharon Crandall, but he couldn’t hear them. They sat, silhouetted against
the bright Pacific sunlight, working, he supposed, on bringing them home. “They’re quieting down,” Stein called out.

Berry turned and called back, “Nice work, Harold. If you need any help, holler.”

“Right.” Stein looked around the lounge. Berry had his hands full just keeping these people out of the cockpit and trying
to fly the aircraft. Stein forced himself not to look at his own trembling hands. He took a deep, measured breath to calm
himself, but it was becoming an increasingly difficult task. The more he thought about their situation, the more frightened
he had become. Stein knew that he had hardly any emotional or physical resources left inside of him.

His mind drifted back across an ocean and a continent to his home in Bronxville. In his mind’s eye he could see its red bricks,
white shutters, and rich green lawns. He could see the red azalea bushes in bloom the way he’d last seen them. Every spring
people would go out of their way to pass his house and admire Miriam’s flowers. Who would tend them now?

He longed for the comfort of the high-backed couch in front of the fireplace where he sat with Miriam most evenings. He pictured
the wide stairway that led to the second floor and the bedrooms. His and Miriam’s on the left. On the right, Susan’s, wallpapered
in pink gingham, the aquarium crammed with tropical fish. Beyond that room was Debbie’s, all navy and white, filled with miniature
toys and the dollhouse he had made for her last birthday.

He began to cry.

He had to act, he decided. He had to do something for them. If he couldn’t bring back their minds, he could, at least, comfort
their bodies, keep them from being savaged by the others.

Without realizing it, he was standing on the circular staircase. He thought briefly of Berry’s admonitions to wait. He thought
of his duty to stand there and guard the gates of hell. Hell. To hell with Berry. To hell with them all. He could not wait.
Not for Berry, not for Barbara Yoshiro, not for anyone.

He glanced back into the cockpit. Berry and Crandall were busy. He looked toward the piano. Linda Farley was sitting on the
floor, half asleep. He glanced down. The stairs were clear. They might not be clear again. He descended quickly into the lower
region of the Straton.

At the base of the stairs, he looked around cautiously. People were lying everywhere. Some were slouched against the walls
of the lavatories and galley. They seemed to be in a resting state, like wild things after a period of frenzy. It wouldn’t
last long, he suspected.

The people around him were whimpering softly or chattering to themselves. Now and then he thought he heard a clear word or
phrase, but he knew he had not. He wanted so desperately to have someone to help him that he was beginning to create human
dialogue out of the animal noises that came from those blood-smeared mouths.

Stein moved cautiously around the lavatories and back toward the area of debris.

Among the sunlit rubble, a golden-colored dog lay sleeping with a meaty bone under its paws. It seemed so incongruous even
beyond the incongruity of the sunlight on the twisted deck. Then he remembered the Seeing-Eye dog.
But who would let a dog have a fresh bone onboard an
. . . Then it struck him. “Oh, dear God.”

He turned quickly away from the dog and saw, a few feet from him, Barbara Yoshiro. She was sitting on the floor with her head
buried between her knees, her long black hair obscuring her face. He moved quickly toward her. She could help him bring his
family up to the lounge. He reached down and shook her shoulder. He spoke softly. “Barbara. Barbara, are you all right?”

The flight attendant picked her head up.

Stein recoiled. The face that stared at him was horribly contorted and smeared with blood. “Barbara . . .” But it was not
Barbara Yoshiro. It was another flight attendant, whom he vaguely recognized. In the sunlight he could see purple blotches
on her cheeks and forehead where blood vessels had burst. The eyes stared at him, red and burning. He stepped back and collided
with someone behind him. “Oh! Oh, no, please no!” He stumbled out of the rubble, knocking into people as he moved.

He looked around wildly for Barbara Yoshiro. He called back in to the dimly lit tourist cabin. “Barbara! Flight attendant!”

Someone yelled back at him. “Burbura! Fitatenant!”

Stein put his hands over his face and slumped back against a seat.
God in Heaven.

Slowly, he took his hands from his face and looked up. His eyes moved reluctantly toward the center row, thirty feet from
where he stood. Only Debbie and Susan were still sitting in their seats. Miriam was gone.

Debbie was trying to stand, but each time she rose, the seat belt pulled her back.

Susan was lying slumped over the seat that had been his, her hands clasped together, thrust out in front of her.

Harold Stein moved toward his daughter, slowly, hesitantly. He stood over their seats and looked down. “Debbie. Debbie, it’s
Papa. Debbie!”

The girl looked up uninterestedly, then resumed her up-and-down movements, patiently, persistently trying to stand. Odd liquid
vowel sounds came from her lips.

Susan was breathing, but was otherwise motionless.

Harold Stein knew in that instant that there was neither hope nor salvation for his family or for anyone on this ship. And
now he knew what he had to do.

He turned and ran down the aisle, pushing aside the staggering people in his way.

He found Miriam wandering aimlessly near the rear galley. “Miriam! Miriam!”

She did not respond.

He was done with calling their names, done with pretending that anyone was who they had been a few hours before. This wandering
wraith standing before him was not his wife.

He took her arm and led her back to the four adjoining seats that had held him and his family.

Stein unbuckled the two girls’ belts. He put Susan over his shoulder and pulled Debbie to her feet and led her into the aisle.
Alternating with his free hand between his wife and daughter, he maneuvered them both into the area of the rubble.

The two holes that had caused this immense grief were hardly more than a dozen feet away. The wind howled through those open
wounds and the noise filled his ears and made it difficult to think clearly. He hesitated, then headed for the larger hole.

Sweating and out of breath, he laid down the burden that was his daughter, then forced Debbie and Miriam to sit. Several cables
whipped over their heads, and occasionally one would lash Miriam or the girls, causing them to cry out. A cable whipped across
Stein’s face and opened a gash on his forehead.

He bent over Susan, and despite his resolve not to speak to any of them, he whispered in her ear. “Sue, honey, Papa’s here
with you. It’s going to be all right now.” He turned and looked down at Debbie. She looked at him, and for a moment he thought
he saw a spark of life in those dead eyes, but then it was gone. Debbie was their firstborn, and her birth after so many childless
years had been the single most joyous event in their lives. He bent forward and kissed her on the forehead.

There was no doubt in his mind that he had been spared the fate of the others for the specific purpose of allowing him to
do his duty toward his family. He felt sorry for those who had to go on suffering. He felt sorry for Berry and Sharon Crandall
and Linda Farley and Barbara Yoshiro. They had to suffer more than the others and would go on suffering until the aircraft
crashed, or worse, landed. He honestly pitied them all, but felt no more responsibility toward any of them. The gates of hell
were unguarded, and it was just as well. It might hasten the end for everyone. He, Harold Stein, had been given an unheard-of
opportunity to escape from hell and escort his family to a place of eternal rest, and he was not going to shrink from that
responsibility.

He wrapped his arms around his daughters’ waists, and with no further thought lifted them toward the hole. He watched as they
left his hands, one at a time, and sailed away in the slipstream, end over end, through the sunlit blue sky. Each of his daughters
disappeared from his view for a moment behind the tail of the craft, then he saw them again, briefly carried by the Pacific
wind down toward the sea before he could see them no more.

Without a moment’s pause, Stein turned and lifted his wife to a standing position. He walked her toward the hole. She seemed
to come along willingly. Perhaps she understood. He doubted it, but perhaps their love— that silent communication that had
developed between them—was stronger. . . . Stein forced himself to stop thinking. He looked at the hole, but he could barely
see it through the tears in his eyes. He looked back at Miriam’s face. Two lines of dried blood ran from her tear ducts down
her cheeks. He pulled her face to his chest. “Miriam, Miriam. I know you don’t understand, but . . . ” His voice trailed off
into a series of spasmodic sobs.

He stepped closer to the hole. He could feel the force of the slipstream as it pressed against his body. “Miriam, I love you.
I’ve loved you all.” He was going to say, “God, forgive me,” but he was certain that this was what God had intended for him
to do.

With his arms wrapped tightly around his wife, Harold Stein stepped out of the aircraft and away from the nightmare of Flight
52.

Lieutenant Peter Matos fidgeted in the seat of his F-18 fighter. A hundred yards ahead, the Trans-United Straton flew a steady
course. Matos forced himself to glance at his panel clock. Its luminescent numbers seemed to jump out at him. He was amazed
to see that it had been more than an hour since the Straton had turned toward California. To Matos, it seemed no more than
a few minutes. He shook his head in disbelief. During all that time, all he remembered was receiving a few transmissions from
Commander Sloan and doing some calculations with his navigation equipment. But other than those brief duties, he could not
account for the missing minutes.

Peter, snap out of it. Do something. Right now.
Matos felt as if he were in a trance, hypnotized by the enormous and unchanging Pacific. He sucked hard on his oxygen mask
to clear his head.
Check the flight instruments,
he said to himself. Matos knew that he should get himself back into his normal pilot’s routine. It was the best way to get
his thoughts back on the right track. The gauge readings were familiar and friendly. Starting on the panel’s left side, he
saw that the oil pressure was normal, the engine temperatures were normal, the fuel . . .

Matos stopped. His brief moment of reverie ended abruptly.
Jesus Christ.
The F-18’s fuel situation was not yet critical, but Matos could see that it soon would be. Even though he had taken off on
this mission with the maximum fuel the aircraft could carry, he would, without any question, have to do something very soon.

Matos bit into his lower lip while his mind wrestled with the alternatives. But he knew what he had to do first. He read the
hurriedly punched coordinates into his computer. He read the results. “Shit.” He had very little extra fuel left. The luxury
of waiting out the Straton was coming to an end.

What would happen next? Matos agonized over his choices. Should he defy Commander Sloan? He had never defied an order before,
and the idea was unnerving. Bucking James Sloan—and the United States Navy, for that matter—was too drastic a course to consider.
It was outside the range of his thoughts, just as the
Nimitz
would soon be outside the range of his fuel.

Matos glanced at the Straton. It was flying evenly and steadily. Too steadily. He knew damn well that he had exaggerated those
last damage reports he had sent to Sloan.
Fatigue cracks have developed along the cabin wall. The wing spar may be damaged. It can’t fly much longer. It will overstress
soon.
None of that was exactly false, but it wasn’t true either. There were some cracks and signs of stress, but . . .