Mayday

by Nelson DeMille

  Linda Farley wiped her tears. “Yes, my mother. We were … I tried to find her before. Then everything happened so fast …”

  “Yes, I’m sure she’s all right. Where was she sitting?” As soon as he asked the question he regretted it. But something made him want to know.

  “In the middle. I think near where the hole is.” Her eyes filled with tears again. She understood what that meant.

  John Berry turned away from them and focused on a picture hanging on the far wall near the piano. Dalí’s celebratedThe Persistence of Memory . A bizarre grouping of melted watches, lying across a surreal landscape. If ever a painting fit a room, it was that painting in this room. He turned away and stared down at the white plastic table in front of him.He had been spared any concern beyond his own survival. He was thankful at least for that. If they ever got back, he would be the only one who would not carry any scars of this. In fact, he thought with some guilt, he could come out of it better than he’d gone in. But there were close to three hundred and fifty souls onboard. Souls, he remembered, was the official term. How odd. And most of those souls were dead or dying. It was a hell of a high price to pay for Berry’s personal resurrection. If he survived.

  Berry glanced at Stein. The man wore a numbed expression. He was obviously haunted by the presence of his brain-damaged family, who sat no more than a hundred feet from him. Berry wondered how he, himself, would stand up under a similar strain. For an instant he conjured up the image of Jennifer and his two children.

  He tried to examine his feelings. The thought had crossed his mind to give up and simply wait for the fuel to run out, but he had also thought about trying to fly the airliner, fly it to a landing. He glanced at Stein and the girl. He thought of the others in the cabin of the 797, and the wordeuthanasia came into his mind.

  Berry knew that the pulse of the engines was lulling him into a false security, a lethargy that made it difficult for him to act as long as there appeared to be no immediate danger. But every minute that passed was a minute less flying time. He wondered if there was actually enough fuel left, considering the high fuel consumption at low altitudes, to get him to a body of land. He supposed he could ditch the plane in the ocean. Did the Straton have an emergency signal transmitter in the tail like his Skymaster did? If so, was it working? If it was there and if it worked, a ship might eventually come. But he didn’t know if the three of them could clear the aircraft before it sank. And how about the others? And if some of them did clear the aircraft, how long would they have to float with their life vests in the ocean? He thought of sunstroke, dehydration, storms, and sharks. Clearly they were all as good as dead unless he did something. For some reason, known only to God, he, Linda Farley, and Harold Stein had been given a second chance, an opportunity to save themselves. He suddenly stood. “Okay. First priority. Find others who did not suffer … decompression. Mr. Stein … Harold … you go below into the cabins and make a search.”

  Stein looked at the staircase. The thought of going down there with three hundred dysfunctional and probably dangerous passengers was not comforting. He didn’t move.

  Berry had another idea. “All right. Stay here.” He went into the cockpit and looked around for a moment. Finally, he found what he needed: He grabbed the PA microphone and pressed the button. He heard the squelch-break and took a deep breath. “Hello. This is … the Captain speaking.” His own voice boomed out in the lounge, and he could hear the echoes of his words coming up the stairwell. “If there is anyone in the aircraft who … who …”Damn it . “Who is not affected by decompression, who feels all right, and who can think clearly, please come up to the first-class lounge.” He repeated his message and went back into the lounge.

  Berry and Stein stood at the railing of the staircase and watched and listened. Some of the passengers were shaken out of their lethargy by the voice and were making odd noises—squeals, grunts, groans, and growls. A high piercing laugh came from the far recesses of the cabin and penetrated into the lounge. Stein shuddered and shook his head spasmodically. “Good God.”

  They waited, but no one came.

  Berry turned to Stein and put his hand on his shoulder. “I’m afraid that’s not conclusive. Someone may be trapped or frightened out of his wits. You’ll have to go down.”

  “I don’t want to go downstairs,” Stein said in a small voice.

  Berry bit into his lower lip. He realized that if he allowed it, Harold Stein would soak up time and attention like a sponge. It was an understandable need. But John Berry could not spare the time, or allow himself a normal man’s compassion. “Stein, I don’t give a damn what you want. I don’t want to die. Neither does the girl. What wewant isn’t enough anymore. All that matters is what weneed . I need to know if anyone else on this goddamned airplane can help us. We’ve got to find a doctor, or someone from the crew. Maybe another pilot.”

  Berry glanced toward the cockpit. The sight of the empty flight deck sent a chill down his spine. He shrugged it off and turned back to Stein. “Take this belt. Find other weapons. We may need them. Linda, you stay here in the lounge and look after these people. Especially look after the copilot over there. All right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If anyone acts … funny, let me know. I’ll be in the cockpit. Okay? Linda? Harold?”

  Stein nodded reluctantly. He half believed that his family would recover and almost believed that Berry could fly the aircraft. “I’ll bring my family up here. I’d rather they be up here. They’ll be okay in a little while.”

  Berry shook his head. “They’re fine where they are. Later, when they are more aware, we’ll bring them up.”

  “But—”

  “I have to insist. Please go. I have other things to attend to in the cockpit.”

  Stein glanced back at the empty cockpit. “The radio? Are you going to try to contact … ?”

  “Yes. Go on down below. Let me worry about the cockpit.”

  Harold Stein rose slowly and took the belt and wrapped it around his right hand. “Do you think they’re very … dangerous?”

  Berry glanced around the lounge. “No more than these people.” He paused. He owed Stein more than that. Some lies were necessary. Other were self-serving. “Be careful. I was attacked down there. Different people react differently to oxygen loss. The brain is a complicated … Just be careful. Each flight-attendant station should have a call phone. You may be able to use the phones if you want to speak to me.”

  “All right.”

  Berry turned abruptly and walked quickly back into the cockpit.

  Stein watched as Berry slid into the pilot’s seat. He glanced at the girl, forced a smile, and began descending the staircase.

  * * *

  Berry had an urge to shut down the autopilot and take the wheel. Just for a second to get the feel of the machine. To take his fate into his own hands. He stared at the switch on his control wheel and reached out his hand. Steering the giant aircraft could possibly be within his skills. But if the craft somehow got away from him, he knew that he would never be able to get it back under control. Yet eventually he knew he’d take the wheel when the fuel ran out. At that point, he would have absolutely nothing to lose in trying to belly-land in the ocean. So why not try a practice run now? His hand touched the autopilot disengage switch. No. Later. He took his hand away.

  He thought about going down in the ocean. If nothing else, he should probably make a 180-degree turn and head south before they left the mid-Pacific’s warmer water. He looked up at the autopilot controls mounted on the glare shield that ran between the pilots. One knob was labeledHEADING . Berry put his hand on it, took a deep breath, and turned it to the right.

  The Straton slowly dropped its right wing as its left wing rose and the aircraft went into a bank. The tilting motion made him experience that familiar sensation in the seat of his pants. It would take a very long time to turn 180 degrees at this rate of turn, but he didn’t actually want to turn around yet. Not until he had a fir
m plan of action in mind. It was an old pilot’s creed not to make course changes aimlessly. He glanced at the fuel gauges. He had time. The water beneath them was probably still warm enough for ditching, and would be for a while. Berry was satisfied that the autopilot would respond to its turn control knob. That was all he had the nerve for right now. He turned the knob back slightly and the Straton leveled out. He looked at the magnetic compass and saw that he was on a slightly different heading of 330 degrees. He turned the knob again to put the proper reading under the cursor, and the airplane rolled back to its original heading of 325 degrees.

  He sat back. His hands were trembling and his heart was beating faster. He took a few seconds to calm himself. He considered trying the radios again but decided that they were definitely malfunctioning. Psychologically, it wasn’t good to have another failure with them, and he didn’t want to cultivate a dependence on them.The hell with the radios . If he was going to fly the Straton, he was going to have to do it himself, unless Stein came back with a licensed airline pilot. Berry wasn’t counting too heavily on that.

  * * *

  Stein stood at the base of the stairs, peering into the dim, cavernous cabin. He’d felt the aircraft tilt and thought it would crash. Then it leveled off. Berry was flying it. He relaxed a bit and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darker shadows around him.

  In the center of the first-class cabin, a few feet from the stairs, was the enclosed area that held the two lavatories. He stepped to the side of the wall and looked back into the tourist section. With the section dividers gone, he could see how huge the Straton was. Row upon row of seats, like a movie theater. Shafts of sunlight cut though the windows, and he could see dust motes in them. A larger shaft of sunlight lay across the wide body from hole to hole, and the air rushing past the holes created an odd noise. He noticed a mild and pleasant breeze in the cabin that helped to dissipate the smell of sick people and sewage. The pressure and airflow had leveled out into a state of near equilibrium.

  As if they had also reached an internal equilibrium, most of the passengers sat motionless. Their initial bursts of energy had been spent, and they sat with their eyes shut and their faces slack and pasty white, many of them smeared with blood and vomit. A dozen or so people were still making noises, and from the back of the aircraft somewhere came a terrible laugh. A few men and women continued to move aimlessly up and down the aisles, in a sort of trance. It was a cross between an insane asylum and a slaughterhouse.How , thought Stein, who was a religious man,could God permit this to happen? Why did God give man the ability to reach this high into the heavens and then desert them all like this? And why was he spared? Was he spared?

  He searched the faces of the people closest to him. None of them offered even the slightest promise of normality. He took a breath and stepped a few feet up the aisle. He forced himself to look at the four center-row seats where his family sat. The two girls, Debbie and Susan, were smiling at him with blood-covered mouths. His wife seemed not to notice him at all. He called her name. “Miriam. Miriam!” She didn’t look up, but a lot of other people did.

  Stein realized that the noise had made them active. He remained motionless, then glanced back at his wife and daughters. Tears came to his eyes. He stepped back and leaned against the bulkhead of the lavatory. He thought he was going to pass out, and he took several deep breaths. His mind cleared and he stood up straight. He knew there was no way he would walk the length of the aircraft. He’d just wait five minutes and go back. He’d lead his family up the stairs, too.

  A peculiar sensation, a mild vibration, began to inch into his awareness. He turned and laid a hand against the bulkhead. The vibration was coming from inside the enclosure, and it was getting stronger. It was the rhythmic hum of a slow-turning electric motor. He remembered that there was a galley elevator adjacent to the lavatories. He quickly went around to the galley opening on the other side of the enclosure. He looked in at a small metal door. The motor stopped. He took a step back as the handle rotated. The door opened.

  Stein stood face-to-face with two women. Flight attendants. One tall brunette, the other Oriental. They were huddled close together in the small elevator. He could see pure terror on their faces. Their eyes were red and watery, and traces of smeared vomit clung to their blue jackets? “Are you all right?” Stein asked. “Can you … understand me?”

  “Who are you?” asked the brunette flight attendant. “What happened? Is everything okay?”

  Stein took a deep breath to get his voice under control and replied, “There’s been an accident. Holes in the airplane. We lost pressure. A few of us were trapped in the lavatories. The lavatory doors held the air pressure,” Stein said, remembering Berry’s words. “I guess where you were held its air pressure, too.”

  The brunette flight attendant said, “We were in the lower galley.”

  The Oriental girl asked, “Did a door open?”

  “No. A bomb.”

  “Oh, God!”

  Sharon Crandall stepped out of the elevator and brushed by Stein. She turned and looked down the length of the cabins. “Oh my God, oh no! Barbara! Barbara!”

  Barbara Yoshiro came quickly out of the elevator and stood behind Crandall. She screamed, a long primal scream that died in her throat as she blacked out and collapsed into Stein’s arms.

  Sharon Crandall put her hands over her face and took a series of short breaths. She turned quickly toward Stein. “The pilots.The pilots! ”

  “Dead. Well … unconscious. But there’s a passenger who’s a pilot. Come on. We have to get out of here.”

  “What’s happened to thesepeople? ”

  “Brain damage. … Oxygen loss. They might get violent. Come on!”

  A dozen passengers began walking up the aisles toward them. A few more passengers near them tried to stand, but their seat belts held them down. But through trial and error, or because of some vague recollection, some people were beginning to unfasten their belts and stand up. A few of them moved into the aisles. A tall man stood up right next to Stein.

  Stein was becoming frightened. “Go ahead! Go first!”

  Sharon Crandall nodded and moved quickly up the stairway. Stein dragged Barbara Yoshiro toward the stairway. A male passenger suddenly stood in his seat and stepped into the open area in front of the staircase. With his free hand, Stein straight-armed him and the man spun away, wobbling like a malfunctioning gyroscope.

  Stein, dragging the unconscious flight attendant, took the stairs slowly. Someone was behind him. A hand grabbed his ankle. He kicked loose and moved faster up the spiral stairs, almost knocking Crandall over as he reached the top. He laid Barbara Yoshiro on the carpet and slumped over the rail. A half-dozen grotesque faces stared up at him. He thought he saw the top of his wife’s head, but he couldn’t be sure. His breathing was heavy and his heart raced wildly in his chest. “Get away. Go away!”

  Sharon Crandall looked around the lounge. “Oh my God!”

  Stein stood by the staircase and wrapped the belt around his hand. “I’ll stay here. Go into the cockpit.”

  Berry looked over his shoulder into the lounge. “Come in here!”

  But Sharon Crandall’s attention was focused on the flight attendant sitting on the carpet with her legs spread out. “Terri!” She ran over to the girl and knelt beside her. “Are you okay? Terri?”

  Terri O’Neil opened her eyes wide and looked toward where the sound had come from. It was an involuntary response to the auditory stimulus. Her rational mind had been erased by the thin air at 62,000 feet. The sight of Sharon Crandall’s face meant nothing to her. The memory of the hundreds of hours they had flown together had evaporated from her brain like water from a boiling kettle.

  “Terri!” Sharon shook her friend’s arm.

  “Forget it!” yelled Berry. “Come in here!”

  Sharon glanced into the cockpit and saw a man sitting in the captain’s seat. His voice was vaguely familiar. But she was too shocked to think clearly. She ignored Be
rry and moved back past the stairwell over to the sprawled bodies of Stuart and McVary beside the piano. She shook the pilot’s shoulders. “Captain Stuart!”

  Stein watched as a man in the main cabin mounted the spiral staircase. Another man, then a woman, followed. Soon a line of people were walking clumsily up the circular steps. “Go down! Down!”

  “Aaahh!”

  Stein braced himself on the rail and brought his foot down on the head of the first man.

  The man fell to his knees and toppled back, sending the whole line stumbling and falling backward.

  Linda Farley knelt beside Sharon Crandall. “They’re very sick. I tried to help them.”

  Sharon glanced at the girl blankly, then looked at Harold Stein by the rail and the unconscious body of Barbara Yoshiro. She walked to the bar and recovered a first-aid box. She carried a vial of ammonium carbonate to Barbara Yoshiro, broke it, and held it under the girl’s nose. “Easy, now.”

  Barbara Yoshiro made a gasping sound, then opened her eyes. Crandall helped her sit up.

  The two flight attendants held onto each other, Sharon Crandall comforting Barbara Yoshiro as she began sobbing. “Easy now, Barbara. We’re going to be all right.”

  Stein looked down at them. “Go into the cockpit and see if you can lend a hand there. Okay?”

  Crandall helped Yoshiro to her feet and steadied her as they walked toward the cockpit. “Don’t mind these people. Come on. Into the cockpit.”

  Berry glanced quickly over his shoulder. “Do either of you know anything about the cockpit?”