Mayday

by Nelson DeMille

  * * *

  John Berry sat strapped into the captain’s seat of the Straton. The midday sun poured through the cockpit windows, bathing him in bright sunlight. He pressed the talk button on the hand microphone again and spoke loudly. “Do you read me? Does anyone read?” Beads of perspiration dotted his forehead, and his mouth felt dry.

  With his right hand, he made careful adjustments on the audio panel. “Mayday. Do you read Mayday? Any station. Do you read Mayday?” He sat back and listened. Listened for the familiar crackle, the squelch-break that was the electronic equivalent of a man clearing his throat before he spoke. But there was only the persistent, unbroken hum of the speakers.

  Berry slumped into the seat. He was confused. If there was one thing he knew from his years of flying, it was how to work a radio. It seemed simple enough even in the Straton. The airliner’s radios did not seem much different from all the other sets that he had operated. Yet there must be something different about them, some small esoteric task that had to be performed before the radios would transmit. Butwhat ? Andwhy ? Why should these radios be different? “Damn it.” Berry wondered how in God’s name he could ever fly the aircraft if he couldn’t even work the radios.

  The urge to talk to someone had become overwhelming. It had gone beyond the simple necessity to report the disaster and ask for assistance. It had become an overpowering need to hear a human voice just for the sake of hearing it. But as each minute of silence passed, Berry was losing hope and was becoming alternately frantic and despondent. His hand shook so badly now that he stopped trying to transmit and sat back and tried to calm himself. He glanced at the instruments. Everything looked good, but after his failure with the radios, he was beginning to doubt his ability to read even standard gauges. And the majority of the Straton’s instrumentation was standard enough to be familiar. But the markings—the altitudes, speeds, fuel reserves, engine temperatures—were incredibly amplified. He tried to imagine he was in the Skymaster and tried to reduce the problems and the instrument panels to manageable proportions.

  He looked at the fuel reserves. Less than half full. What this meant in flying time at the present speed and altitude, he didn’t know. But he’d figure it out soon enough as the needles drifted leftward and the minutes passed. He stared at the control wheels as they moved slightly—inward, outward, left, right. The rudder pedals made small movements. The flight was steady.

  Something odd caught his eye and he looked down near his left knee. He stared at the open protective cover and read the words above it.AUTOPILOT MASTER SWITCH . He stared at the toggle, which was pointing toON . He understood. The Captain had either lost his nerve or lost consciousness before he could complete his last mission. Berry nodded. It sort of made sense. But for Berry, there was no such easy way out. Not yet. He reached down and snapped back the protective cover.

  He found he was building up a healthy anger toward fate and toward death, if for no other reason than to tell his wife what he really thought about her. Unfinished business. He reached down and grabbed the microphone. “Mayday! Mayday, you sons-of-bitches! Answer Mayday!”

  He began changing the frequency he was using, alternating between the frequencies left on the radios. When he transmitted, he knew he should keep to the universally understood words. He could save the explanations for when he made contact. “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” He waited for a reply, but again there was none.

  Out of desperation he began to randomly turn the dials and transmit on every channel and on each of the four radios in the cockpit. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.”

  He switched back to the original frequency. “This is Trans-United Flight …” What was the flight number? What difference did it make? He tried to remember his boarding pass but couldn’t. “This is the Tokyo-bound Trans-United Airlines Straton 797. Mayday. Do you read Mayday? Trans-United Operations, this is the Tokyo-bound Straton 797, we have an emergency. Do you read?” He waited. Nothing.

  He could see that the radio’s transmission lights blinked whenever he pressed the microphone button. He could tell from the sidetone in the cockpit speakers that the radios were operating. But for some reason they were not putting out. He suspected that something—the antenna perhaps—had been damaged. He had hoped that someone in the cockpit had been able to put out a distress signal, but he was fairly certain now that they hadn’t. The fault in transmitting was not his—he’d known that, really. The radios were all set by the pilots to transmit. They simply weren’t sending. That’s all there was to it. No distress call had been sent and none ever would be sent.

  No radios equaled no chance of flying the plane home. He almost felt a measure of relief. The responsibility of flying and landing this huge machine was not a prospect he’d looked forward to. But hedid want to live. He put the microphone down and stared at the clear skies around him. His problems on the ground were in their proper perspective now. He could and would change a lot of things if he ever got back to New York. But everyone facing death must make that observation. One more chance. But more often than not, nothing changed if you were lucky enough to get a second chance. Still, he didn’t want tolie down and die. That’s what he’d been doing for the last ten years. He had to think it all out. Later.

  John Berry turned and looked back through the open cockpit door into the lounge. He could see Linda Farley sitting in a club chair, weeping quietly.

  Berry slid out of the captain’s seat and walked back into the lounge. The Captain and the copilot lay near the piano where he and the girl had dragged them, covered with blankets. The body of the flight engineer lay against the far bulkhead, his face and torso covered with a lap blanket.

  Berry watched the flight attendant whose name tag said Terri. She was sitting on a small sofa, speaking incoherently to herself. Her face was smeared with blood and saliva. She seemed calm, but he’d have to watch her carefully for signs of violence. He’d have to keep her away from the cockpit, where she could do real harm.

  Berry noticed that the old lady had stopped babbling to her dead husband and was now crouched behind a club chair peering over the top and making odd clucking sounds. Blood and drool covered her face also. Her husband’s body was still slumped over the cocktail table, but it seemed to have shifted. Berry wondered if rigor mortis was setting in already.

  The five passengers on the horseshoe-shaped couch were still unconscious. One, a pretty young woman, was making odd sounds that came from her throat, and Berry wondered if that was what was called the death rattle.

  The lounge smelled of feces, urine, and vomit. Berry closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against his temples. His head still ached from the oxygen loss, and he was becoming queasy.

  He opened his eyes and surveyed the scene again. He’d thought that the confusion of these people might improve, might be reversible. But he was fairly certain now that it wasn’t. His world was divided neatly and irrevocably, with no fuzzy lines, between Us and Them. And there were a lot more of Them.

  Berry walked over to the girl and put his hand on her shoulder. His daughter had been this girl’s age when her remoteness and alienation had begun. But that was on the earth. Here, an adult enjoyed all the old prerogatives. “You’re going to have to calm down and start helping me.”

  Linda Farley wiped her eyes and nodded.

  Berry walked to the bar and found a can of Coca-Cola and opened it. He rummaged through the debris under the bar and extracted a miniature bottle of liquor. Johnny Walker Red. He opened it and drained off the ounce and a half, then carried the cola to the girl. “Here.”

  She took it and drank. “Thank you.”

  Berry knelt down beside McVary and pushed his eyelids back. Partly dilated. Breathing regular, but shallow. He looked up at the girl. “Did he move at all?”

  Linda nodded. “He opened his eyes once. He said something, too, but I couldn’t understand it.” She pointed to Stuart. “That one never moved.”

  Berry turned to Stuart. The blood and vomit o
n his face were dry and crusty. Berry pushed back the eyelids. The pupils were fully dilated. The Captain’s skin was clammy and his breathing was irregular. The man was dying.

  Berry rose and looked down again at McVary. If the copilot regained consciousness, and if he was at all coherent, they might have a chance. The plane was flyable. All it needed was someone to fly it. Berry thought he could do it if someone talked him through it. Someone on the radio, if he could get it working, or this copilot. Without help, he’d have to wait out the hours in full consciousness of his impending death. He almost envied the others.

  “Listen!”

  Berry shot a glance at the girl, then steadied his breathing and listened.

  “The stairs,” she whispered.

  Berry nodded. “Be quiet.” The circular metal stairway that led down to the first-class cabin had apparently been loosened, and Berry remembered it creaking when he’d used it. It was creaking now.

  Berry heard the footsteps on the stairs clearly now. They were coming slowly, hesitantly. He thought there was only one person, but he couldn’t be certain.

  He walked quickly around the lounge searching for something to defend himself with. The barstools were fastened to the floor, the scattered bar bottles were miniatures, and the mixers were in small cans with pop tops, which meant no openers were needed. A canister of precut lemons and limes was in the galley. No knife. “Damn it.” He looked over the floor. Almost everything else that was movable had been sucked down the stairwell. He searched desperately for an attaché case, an umbrella, the blind man’s cane, but he knew he would find nothing. The footsteps got louder.

  Linda Farley screamed.

  Berry looked at the stairwell and saw the top of a man’s head. He shouted at the girl, “Get in the cockpit and stay there. Go on!” He then moved quickly past the stairwell and knelt beside the body of Carl Fessler. He pulled the man’s belt off and wrapped it around his right hand, which still ached from the confrontation in the cabin. He let the buckle end swing free.

  Berry stood quickly and moved to the opening in the rail around the stairwell. He looked down and saw a large man looking up at him. “Stop!”

  The man stopped.

  Berry saw that the man’s hands were on the floor a few inches from his ankles. He moved back a step. “Go down!” He raised the belt.

  The man hesitated.

  Berry knew that as long as he stood there he could keep anyone from coming up the stairs. But he couldn’t stand there indefinitely. “Go!”

  The man backed down a few steps. He looked at Berry with an uncomprehending expression. He opened his mouth and made a small sound, then spoke clearly. “Who are you?”

  Berry leaned over and looked at the man’s face. Flecks of vomit covered his chin and white shirt. His eyes looked alive. No blood covered his face, no saliva ran from his mouth. “Who areyou ?” Berry asked.

  “Harold Stein.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “What?”

  “What is your home address?”

  The man took another step down. “Where’s the pilot? I was in the lavatory when …”

  “Answer me, damn it! Tell me your home address!”

  “Chatham Drive, Bronxville.”

  “What day is this?”

  “Tuesday. No, Wednesday. Look, who are you? Good God, man, don’t you realize what’s happened down here? Where is the pilot?”

  Berry felt his chest heave and his eyes almost welled with tears. There were now three of them in that small minority. “You’re all right?”

  “I think so.” Things were becoming more clear to Stein. “The people down here …”

  “I know. Come up. Come up, Mr. Stein.”

  Harold Stein took a hesitant step.

  Berry backed off. He unwound the belt from his hand and stuffed it into his trouser pocket. “Come on. Quickly.” He glanced over his shoulder at the three men and two women sitting on the horseshoe-shaped couch behind him. Some of them were starting to stir. “Hurry.”

  Stein pulled himself up to the lounge deck. “What in the name of God …”

  “Later. You wouldn’t be a pilot by any chance, would you?”

  “No. Of course not. I’m an editor.”

  Berry thought he was beyond disappointment, but his heart sank lower still. He regarded Harold Stein for a moment. Fortyish. Big. Intelligent face. He could be of some help.

  Stein’s eyes were fixed on the cockpit door. “Hey, what the hell happened to thepilot ?”

  Berry jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

  Stein looked more closely at the scene in the lounge. “Oh, no! My God …”

  “Okay, Mr. Stein. Forget that. Let’s talk about survival.”

  “Survival.” Stein nodded. He was taking in about ten percent of what was happening. He’d known they were in very serious trouble, but he thought the pilots were still in control. He looked at the cockpit again and saw the captain’s wheel move. “Who’s … ?”

  “Autopilot.”

  “What happened?”

  Berry shrugged. “Bomb, I guess.” But the two holes didn’t look like bomb damage to him, and he’d heard no explosion before the other noises. “Did you see or hear anything?”

  Stein shook his head.

  The two men stood awkwardly in the middle of the lounge, unsure of what to do next. The overwhelming scope and speed of the disaster had kept them off balance, and they needed the situation to remain static for a few minutes until they got their bearings. Finally, Stein spoke. “Just us two?”

  Berry turned toward the cockpit. “Linda, come on out!”

  The girl ran out of the cockpit and placed herself beside Berry, and under his encircling arm, as though she were being displayed at a family reunion.

  Berry felt her body trembling. He looked down and spoke to her. “This is Mr. Stein. He’s going to help us.”

  Stein forced a distracted smile. His eyes were still darting around the lounge.

  “I’m John Berry.” He extended his hand.

  Stein took it.

  Berry looked down at the girl. “This is Linda Farley.”

  It was surreal, yet comforting, to go through the amenities. That was all they had left. Behave normally, in a civilized manner, and rational thought and action would follow. Berry said, “Let’s sit down.” He’d developed a proprietary attitude about the lounge and cockpit. He indicated an empty horseshoe-shaped sofa with a cocktail table opposite the cockpit door. “Do you need a drink, Mr. Stein?”

  “Harold. Yes, please,”

  Berry went to the bar and found two Canadian Clubs and another cola. He carried them to the table and sat. He broke open the seal on his bottle and drank. Around him was a scene that had badly shaken him only ten minutes earlier, but like any survivor of a disaster, his mind was blocking out the destruction, the dead, and the dying, which was now irrelevant, and he was focusing on the problems he had inherited.

  Harold Stein drank the liquor and let his eyes wander around the lounge. The two men in uniform lay beside the piano in the far corner to the left of the stairwell. One moved, the other didn’t. A third uniformed man lay against the rear wall of the lounge, his face and torso covered with a blanket. The bar in the opposite corner was in a shambles. Directly in front of him was another horseshoe-shaped couch. Three men and two women sat strapped into it. Their bodies moved spasmodically from time to time; every change of position presented Stein with a new tableau, each more grotesque than the last.

  Stein turned away and focused on a grouping of the club chairs along the left wall. A man wearing dark glasses sat in a frozen position, his hands apparently reaching for a hanging oxygen mask. An old man opposite him lay across the cocktail table, apparently dead also. An old woman, the most animated of anyone, was hiding behind the old man’s chair, occasionally peeking out and whimpering. A young flight attendant, also conscious, was weeping by herself, curled up on the floor near the cocktail table. Clothes and sundry lounge parap
hernalia were strewn over the plush blue carpet. “This is monstrous.”

  “Let’s stay calm. This,” Berry waved his arm, “doesn’t concern us … unless they become … unmanageable.”

  “Yes, all right.” He seemed to be considering. “Maybe we ought to … help these people … get below.”

  Berry nodded. “Yes. They’re an unsettling influence, but I’m not sure if that’s the right thing to do with them. I … Anyway, it wouldn’t be an easy job. Let it lie for now.”

  “All right.”

  Berry leaned forward. “Where were you when the … air let go?” Berry had begun to look for answers. If he could figure out what happened, he might be able to figure out what to do next.

  “I told you. I was in the lavatory.”

  The girl put down her cola. “Me, too, Mr. Berry.”

  “Okay,” said Berry. “That’s it. I was in the lavatory, too. The lavatories held more of their pressure. Did either of you black out?”

  They both nodded.

  “Okay. But we’re all right now. The people who didn’t put their masks on are dead. Those who did are either dead or brain damaged.”

  Stein leaned forward and spoke softly. “Brain damaged?”

  “Yes. Of course. That’s what it looks like, doesn’t it?”

  “Well … yes. I … my wife … two kids …” Stein put his hands to his face.

  Somehow Berry hadn’t thought of the possibility that Stein was not traveling alone. Berry had traveled alone for so many years that it had accustomed him to think only of himself. Even at home, he seemed to think mostly in ones. Everything had happened so quickly that his thoughts had never gotten to the obvious, even concerning Linda Farley. She most of all would certainly have been with someone. “I’m sorry, Harold. I didn’t realize …” He could see that he was losing Stein, and the girl was going with him. “Listen, I’m a pilot and I have experience with these things, and the effects of … of oxygen deprivation are temporary. I didn’t mean brain damage—that was the wrong word. I think I can land this thing, and when everyone gets the proper medical attention, well, they’ll be all right. Now, you’ve got to help me so I can bring us all home. Okay?” He turned to the girl, who was crying again. “Were you with anyone, Linda? Come on. Take a deep breath and speak to me.”