by Tom Clancy
“Well, you are in for the thrill of your life!” the stewardess assured him.
Thanks a lot! Ryan nearly choked at the outrage, and remembered that he couldn’t strangle her with one hand. Then he laughed. There wasn’t anything else to do.
He had to duck to avoid crunching his head at the door. It was tiny inside; the cabin was only eight or nine feet across. He looked forward quickly and saw the flight crew in impossibly tight quarters—getting into the pilot’s left seat must have been like putting on a boot, it seemed so cramped. Another attendant was hanging up coats. He had to wait until she saw him, and walked sideways, his plaster-encased arm leading the way into the passenger cabin.
“Right here,” his personal guide said.
Jack got into the right-side window seat in the front row. Cathy and Sally were already in their seats on the other side. Jack’s cast stuck well over seat 1-C. No one could have sat there. It was just as well that British Airways wasn’t charging the difference between this and their L-1011 tickets; there would have been an extra seat charge. He immediately tried to snap on his seat belt and found that it wasn’t easy with only one hand. The stewardess was ready for this, and handled it for him.
“You are quite comfortable?”
“Yes,” Jack lied. I am quite terrified.
“Excellent. Here is your Concorde information kit.” She pointed toward a gray vinyl folder. “Would you like a magazine?”
“No, thank you, I have a book in my pocket.”
“Fine. I’ll be back after we take off, but if you need anything, please ring.”
Jack pulled the seat belt tighter as he looked forward and left at the airplane’s door. It was still open. He could still escape. But he knew he wouldn’t do that. He leaned back. The seat was gray, too, a little on the narrow side but comfortable. His placement in the front row gave him all the legroom he needed. The airplane’s inside wall—or whatever they called it—was off-white, and he had a window to look out of. Not a very large one, about the size of two paperback books, but better than no window at all. He looked around. The flight was about three-quarters full. These were seasoned travelers, and wealthy ones. Business types mostly, Jack figured, many were reading their copies of the Financial Times. And none of them were afraid of flying. You could tell from their impassive faces. It never occurred to Jack that his face was set exactly the same.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Nigel Higgins welcoming you aboard British Airways Flight 189, Concorde Service to Washington, D.C., and Miami, Florida. We’ll begin taxiing in approximately five minutes. Weather at our first stop, Washington’s Dulles International Airport, is excellent, clear, with a temperature of fifty-six degrees. We will be in the air a total of three hours and twenty-five minutes. Please observe that the no-smoking sign is lighted, and we ask that while you are seated you keep your seat belts fastened. Thank you,” the clipped voice concluded.
The door had been closed during the speech, Ryan noted sourly. A clever distraction, as their only escape route was eliminated. He leaned back and closed his eyes, resigning himself to fate. One nice thing about being up front was that no one could see him except Cathy—Sally had the window seat—and his wife understood, or at least pretended to. Soon the cabin crew was demonstrating how to put on and inflate life jackets stowed under the seats. Jack watched without interest. Concorde’s perfect safety record meant that no one had the first idea on how to ditch one safely, and his position near the nose, so far from the delta-shaped wing, ensured that if they hit the water he’d be in the part of the fuselage that broke off and sank like a cement block. Not that this would matter. The impact itself would surely be fatal.
Asshole, if this bird was dangerous, they would have lost one by now.
The whine of the jet turbines came next, triggering the acid glands in Jack’s stomach. He closed his eyes again. You can’t run away. He commanded himself to control his breathing and relax. That was strangely easy. Jack had never been a white-knuckled flier. He was more likely to be limp.
Some unseen tractor-cart started pushing the aircraft backward. Ryan looked out of the window and watched the scenery move slowly forward. Heathrow was quite a complex. Aircraft from a dozen airlines were visible, mainly sitting at the terminal buildings like ships at a dock. Wish we could take a ship home, he thought, forgetting that he’d been one seasick Marine on Guam, years ago. The Concorde stopped for a few seconds, then began moving under its own power. Ryan didn’t know why the landing gear was so high, but this factor imparted an odd sort of movement as they taxied. The captain came on the intercom again and said something about taking off on afterburners, but Ryan didn’t catch it, instead watching a Pan Am 747 lift off. The Concorde was certainly prettier, Ryan thought. It reminded him of the models of fighter planes he’d assembled as a kid. We’re going first class.
The plane made a sweeping turn at the end of the runway and stopped, bobbing a little on the nose gear. Here we go.
“Departure positions,” the intercom announced. Somewhere aft the cabin crew strapped into their jump seats. In 1-D, Jack fitted himself into his seat much like a man awaiting electrocution. His eyes were open now, watching out the window.
The engine sounds increased markedly, and Speedbird started to roll. A few seconds later the engine noise appeared to pick up even more, and Ryan was pressed back into the fabric and vinyl chair. Damn, he told himself. The acceleration was impressive, about double anything he’d experienced before. He had no way of measuring it, but an invisible hand was pressing him backward while another pushed at his cast and tried to turn him sideways. The stew had been right. It was a thrill. The grass was racing by his window, then the nose came up sharply. A final bump announced that the main gear was off the ground. Jack listened for its retraction into the airframe, but the sheer power of the takeoff blocked it out. Already they were at least a thousand feet off the ground and rocketing upward at what seemed an impossible angle. He looked over to his wife. Wow, Cathy mouthed at him. Sally had her nose against the plastic inside window.
The angle of climb eased off slightly. Already the cabin attendants were at work, with a drink cart. Jack got himself a glass of champagne. He wasn’t in a celebrating mood, but bubbly wines always affected him fast. Once Cathy had offered to prescribe some Valium for his flying jitters. Ryan had an ingrained reluctance to take drugs. But booze was different, he told himself. He looked out the window. They were still going up. The ride was fairly smooth, no bumps worse than going over the tar strip on a concrete highway.
Jack felt every one, mindful of the fact that he was several thousand feet over—he checked—still the ground.
He fished the paperback out of his pocket and started reading. This was his one sure escape from flying. Jack slouched to his right, his head firmly wedged into the place where the seat and white plastic wall met. He was able to rest his left arm on the aisle seat, and that took the weight off the place on his waist where the cast dug in hard. His right elbow was planted on the armrest, and Ryan made himself a rigid part of the airframe as he concentrated on his book. He’d selected well for the flight, one of Alistair Home’s books on the Franco-German conflicts. He soon found another reason to hate his cast. It was difficult to read and turn pages one-handed. He had to set the book down first to do it.
A brief surge of power announced that first one, then the other pair of afterburners had been activated on the Concorde’s Olympus engines. He felt the new acceleration, and the aircraft began to climb again as she passed through mach-1, and the airliner gave meaning to her call sign prefix: “Speedbird.” Jack looked out the window—they were over water now. He checked his watch: less than three hours to touchdown at Dulles. You can put up with anything for three hours, can’t you?
Like you have a choice. A light caught his eye. How did I miss that before? On the bulkhead a few feet from his head was a digital speed readout. It now read 1024, the last number changing upward rapidly.
Damn! I’m g
oing a thousand miles per hour. What would Robby say about this? I wonder how Robby’s doing.... He found himself mesmerized by the number. Soon it was over 1300. The rate of change dropped off nearly to zero, and the display stopped at 1351. One thousand three hundred fifty-one miles per hour. He did the computation in his head: nearly two thousand feet per second, almost as fast as a bullet, about twenty miles per minute. Damn. He looked out the window again. But why is it still noisy? If we’re going supersonic, how come the sound isn’t all behind us? I’ll ask Robby. He’ll know.
The puffy, white, fair-weather clouds were miles below and sliding by at a perceptible rate nevertheless. The sun glinted off the waves, and they stood out like shiny blue furrows. One of the things that annoyed Jack about himself was the dichotomy between his terror of flying and his fascination with what the world looked like from up here. He pulled himself back to the book and read of a period when a steam locomotive was the leading edge of human technology, traveling at a thirtieth of what he was doing now. This may be terrifying, but at least it gets you from place to place.
Dinner arrived a few minutes later. Ryan found that the champagne had given him an appetite. Jack was rarely hungry on an airplane, but much to his surprise he was now. The menu carried on the annoying, and baffling, English habit of advertising their food in French, as if language had any effect on taste. Jack soon found that the taste needed no amplification. Salmon gave way to a surprisingly good steak—something the Brits have trouble with—a decent salad, strawberries and cream for dessert, and a small plate of cheese. A good port replaced the champagne, and Ryan found that forty minutes had slipped by. Less than two hours to home.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. We are now cruising at fifty-three thousand feet, with a ground speed of thirteen hundred fifty-five miles per hour. As we burn off fuel, the aircraft will float up to a peak altitude of roughly fifty-nine thousand feet. The outside air temperature is sixty degrees below zero Celsius, and the aircraft skin temperature is about one hundred degrees Celsius, this caused by friction as we pass through the air. One side effect of this is that the aircraft expands, becoming roughly eleven inches longer in midnight—”
Metal fatigue! Ryan thought bleakly. Did you have to tell me that? He touched the window. It felt warm, and he realized that one could boil water on the outside aluminum skin. He wondered what effect that had on the airframe. Back to the 19th century, he commanded himself again. Across the aisle his daughter was asleep, and Cathy was immersed in a magazine.
The next time Jack checked his watch there was less than an hour to go. The captain said something about Halifax, Nova Scotia, to his right. Jack looked but saw only a vague dark line on the northern horizon. North America—we’re getting there. That was good news. As always, his tension and the airliner seat conspired to make his back stiff, and the cast didn’t help at all. He felt a need to stand up and walk a few steps, but that was something he tried not to do on airplanes. The steward refilled his port glass, and Jack noticed that the angle of the sun through the window had not changed since London. They were staying even, the aircraft keeping up with the earth’s rotation as it sped west. They would arrive at Dulles at about noon, the pilot informed them. Jack looked at his watch again: forty minutes. He stretched his legs and went back to the book.
The next disturbance was when the cabin crew handed out customs and immigration forms. As he tucked his book away, Jack watched his wife go to work listing all the clothes she’d bought. Sally was still asleep, curled up with an almost angelic peace on her face. They made landfall a minute later somewhere over the coast of New Jersey, heading west into Pennsylvania before turning south again. The aircraft was lower now. He’d missed the transonic deceleration, but the cumulus clouds were much closer than they’d been over the ocean. Okay, Captain Higgins, let’s get this bird back on the ground in one solid piece. He found a silver luggage tag that he was evidently supposed to keep. In fact, he decided to keep the whole package, complete with a certificate that identified him as a Concorde passenger—or veteran, he thought wryly. I survived the British Airways Concorde.
Dumbass, if you’d flown the 747 back home, you’d still be over the ocean.
They were low enough to see roads now. The majority of aircraft accidents came at landing, but Ryan didn’t see it that way. They were nearly home. His fear was nearly at an end. That was good news as he looked out the window at the Potomac. Finally the Concorde took a large nose-high angle again, coming in awfully fast, Jack thought, as she dropped gently toward the ground. A second later he saw the airport perimeter fence. The heavy bumps on the airliner’s main gear followed at once. They were down. They were safe. Anything that happened now was a vehicle accident, not an aircraft one, he told himself. Ryan felt safe in cars, mainly because he was in control. He remembered that Cathy would have to drive today, however.
The seat belt sign came off a moment after the aircraft stopped, and the forward door was opened. Home. Ryan stood and stretched. It was good to be stationary. Cathy had their daughter in her lap, running a brush through her hair as Sally rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
“Okay, Jack?”
“Are we home already?” Sally asked.
Her father assured her that they were. He walked forward. The stewardess who’d led him aboard asked if he’d enjoyed the ride, and Jack replied, truthfully, that he had. Now that it’s over. He found a seat in the mobile lounge, and his family joined him.
“Next time we go across, that’s how we do it,” Ryan announced quietly.
“Why? Did you like it?” Cathy was surprised.
“You better believe I like it. You only have to be up there half as long.” Jack laughed, mainly at himself. As with every flight he took, being back on the ground alive carried its own thrill. He had survived what was patently an unnatural act, and the exhilaration of being alive, and home, gave him a quiet glow of his own. The stride of passengers off an airplane is always jauntier than the stride on. The lounge pulled away. The Concorde looked very pretty indeed as they drew away from it and turned toward the terminal.
“How much money did you spend on clothes?” Jack asked as the lounge stopped at the arrival gate. His wife just handed him the form. “That much?”
“Well, why not?” Cathy grinned. “I can pay for it out of my money, can’t I?”
“Sure, babe.”
“And that’s three suits for you, too, Jack,” his wife informed him.
“What? How did you—”
“When the tailor set you up for the tux, I had him do three suits. Your arms are the same length, Jack. They’ll fit, as soon as we get that damned cast off you, that is.”
Another nice thing about the Concorde: the airliner carried so few people, compared to a wide-body, that getting the luggage back was a snap. Cathy got a wheeled cart—which Sally insisted on pushing—while Jack retrieved their bags. The last obstacle was customs, where they paid over three hundred dollars’ worth of penance for Cathy’s purchases. Less than thirty minutes after leaving the aircraft, Jack proceeded to his left out the door, helping Sally with the luggage cart.
“Jack!” It was a big man, taller than Jack’s six-one, and broader across the shoulders. He walked badly due to a prosthetic leg that extended above where he had once had a left knee, a gift from a drunken driver. His artificial left foot was a squared-off aluminum band instead of something that looked human. Oliver Wendell Tyler found it easier to walk on. But his hand was completely normal, if rather large. He grabbed Ryan’s and squeezed. “Welcome home, buddy!”
“How’s it goin’, Skip?” Jack disengaged his hand from the grip of a former offensive tackle and mentally counted his fingers. Skip Tyler was a close friend who never fully appreciated his strength.
“Good. Hi, Cathy.” His wife got a kiss. “And how’s Sally?”
“Fine.” She held up her arms, and got herself picked up as desired. Only briefly, though; Sally wriggled free to get back to the luggage cart
.
“What are you doing here?” Jack asked. Oh, Cathy must have called....
“Don’t worry about the car,” Dr. Tyler said. “Jean and I retrieved it for you, and dropped it off home. We decided we’d pick you up in ours—more room. She’s getting it now.”
“Taking a day off, eh?”
“Something like that. Hell, Jack, Billings has been covering your classes for a couple of weeks. Why can’t I take an afternoon off?” A skycap approached them, but Tyler waved him off.
“How’s Jean?” Cathy asked.
“Six more weeks.”
“It’ll be a little longer for us,” Cathy announced.
“Really?” Tyler’s face lit up. “Outstanding!”
It was cool, with a bright autumn sun, as they left the terminal. Jean Tyler was already pulling up with the Tyler family’s full-size Chevy wagon. Dark-haired, tall, and willowy, Jean was pregnant with their third and fourth children. The sonogram had confirmed the twins right before the Ryans had left for England. Her otherwise slender frame would have seemed grotesque with the bulge of the babies except for the glow on her face. Cathy went right to her as she got out of the car and said something. Jack knew what it was immediately—their wives immediately hugged: Me, too. Skip wrenched the tailgate open and tossed the luggage inside like so many sheets of paper.
“I gotta admire your timing, Jack. You made it back almost in time for Christmas break,” Skip observed as everyone got in the car.
“I didn’t exactly plan it that way,” Jack objected.
“How’s the shoulder?”
“Better’n it was, guy.”
“I believe it,” Tyler laughed as he pulled away from the terminal. “I was surprised they got you on the Concorde. How’d you like it?”
“It’s over a lot faster.”
“Yeah, that’s what they say.”
“How are things going at school?”
“Ah, nothing ever changes. You heard about The Game?” Tyler’s head came around.
