Pandora's Clock

by Nance, John J. ;

  Where on earth is Lee? She reached for the cellular phone in her oversized handbag, then replaced it quickly as she saw Lancaster hurrying toward her down the long concourse.

  Fifteen minutes later, alone in the cockpit of Flight 66, Captain James Holland began his preflight procedures with his mind on the phone call he’d just finished.

  He’d finally reached the doctor back in New York.

  “There was a shadow on your sonogram,” the physician had said, “and at first I thought you should come in for another one, but I didn’t mean to create a crisis.”

  “I … wasn’t sure, Doctor. I’m in Germany, on a trip, and Crew Scheduling got hold of me over here saying you’d called. Frankly, it’s scared me to death.”

  “I’m sorry, Captain.”

  “You say there’s a shadow? As in tumor?”

  He had been spring-loaded to the worst-case scenario: prostate cancer. He’d all but diagnosed himself out of fear, figuring he’d need surgery. But what happened after surgery? Would he be a sexual cripple? He’d heard terrible stories about the effects, and he couldn’t imagine life without sex, without being able to satisfy a woman. The fact that he’d been all but celibate since Sandra had left was immaterial.

  That was temporary.

  This could be for life!

  “Captain, I’m happy to report it was a mistake. You’re perfectly okay!” the doctor was saying. “I went back in and looked at the sonogram tape again, and realized I’d misidentified it.”

  “I’m okay?” Holland asked.

  “Completely. I’m truly sorry to have worried you.”

  “I don’t need another one?”

  “Not for at least a year. Stop worrying, and have a Merry Christmas!”

  Holland had breathed a long sigh of relief and thanked the doctor. He smiled to himself now as he adjusted the rudder pedals and ran his hand down the center console, checking switch positions. With the exception of having to deal with Robb, he felt like a prisoner with a pardon—back from the dead.

  I should grab the next pretty woman I see! he thought with a chuckle, feeling himself relax a bit.

  As he put the radar into the test mode, he reached a long-postponed decision. He would start dating again. He was tired of being alone. For that matter, he was tired of sleeping alone.

  One story below at door 2L, a small man with thinning hair and a battered briefcase left the line of passengers filtering in the door and leaned against the wall of the jetway, breathing hard. A tall redheaded flight attendant materialized at his side, holding his arm and inquiring urgently what was wrong.

  Professor Ernest Helms looked up at Brenda Hopkins for a second before speaking.

  “I’m … okay. Thank you. I … just felt very weak all of a sudden.”

  “What’s your seat number, sir? I’ll help you in.”

  “… don’t want to expose you to a … cold …”

  She had taken his arm firmly, he realized, and his feet were obeying. He felt her take his briefcase as well.

  Brenda winked at the senior flight attendant as she guided the man through the door and gently turned him to the right toward his seat. He was sweating profusely, though it was cool in the cabin and cold outside. She could feel a rapid pulse in his arm as well. Probably the flu. It would be a good idea, she told herself, to wash her hands as soon as she strapped him in.

  At the same moment, on the snowy ramp some forty feet below, Dick Robb stuck his hands in the pockets of his overcoat and stood for a minute lost in the sight of the magnificent Boeing 747, its gleaming aluminum skin reflecting the filtered sunlight trying to break through the snow clouds above Frankfurt. Quantum had purchased four of the whales—as pilots called the 747s—for a total of over seven hundred million dollars, with interiors designed for three hundred sixty-five passengers in three classes. The big bird stood there like a mirage, he thought—an impossibly huge machine capable of lifting more than three quarters of a million pounds of metal and people and fuel with little more than a tug from his wrist at the appropriate moment.

  And he was in charge! At age 32, with no military flying background, it was, nevertheless, his name that appeared on the dispatch release.

  A baggage tug came roaring by, pushing a bow wave of slush. He stepped back quickly.

  Holland would be nearly forty-five feet above the ramp in the cockpit by now. He was a competent pilot, Robb had decided grudgingly, but obviously from another generation and slowing down.

  Of course, I’m hard to keep up with. I’m Dick Robb, hardass check captain.

  Robb smiled to himself. He liked having a scary reputation. It brought respect, and being in the training department kept him from having to fly as a line captain, where there lurked the day-to-day danger that his lack of experience might lead to a serious mistake. He loved finding ways to one-up line captains, especially the older ones with thousands of hours of experience. Old pelicans like Holland were okay, but only marginally so when they relied too much on their experience, and he enjoyed cutting them down a notch. After all, he had his reputation to maintain. It pleased him no end to know the line pilots called him the “Bustmaster.” He’d earned the name.

  Technically, of course, he had to let Holland give the commands and make the decisions on what was, after all, a training ride—a passenger-carrying trip used to complete a line captain’s qualifications for a new type of aircraft he hadn’t commanded before. But until he signed the last line in James Holland’s training folder and ended the check ride by declaring Holland fit to serve as captain by himself on the 747-400, Captain Richard Robb would remain legally the captain in charge—the “master” of the aircraft.

  Robb smiled to himself. It was confusing for the flight attendants to have two captains aboard, but a necessary evil. A captain had to be evaluated performing as a captain before he could be released to fly the public around in a new airplane, and the only way to do that was actually to put him in the left seat under the watchful eye of a check captain.

  But who was really calling the shots was always a problem.

  Robb looked at his watch and realized he’d been daydreaming. There would be twenty minutes of cockpit setups to go through before pushback, and five hours ahead in which he could grill Holland and make him sweat before signing him off as fully qualified. Such power was a real turn-on, as was the act of controlling a beast as huge as the 747.

  The roaring whine of four powerful engines caught his attention, and Dick Robb paused at the foot of the stairway, entranced by the sight of another 747 rumbling down the runway and lifting its mammoth bulk into the air.

  Better than sex! he thought.

  The intricate choreography of a major airline departure reached a crescendo just before 4:30 P.M., when the last of the package-laden passengers were ushered aboard by gate agents wearing Santa hats and large smiles. The flight attendants were in the holiday mood as well. Heading home on a wintry afternoon, most of them were senior enough to have Christmas off. Husbands, boyfriends, family, warm fires, and Christmas trees beckoned across the Atlantic.

  With the doors closed, and the deicing completed and checked by the first officer-check captain, Flight 66 rumbled toward the end of Frankfurt’s southern east-west runway and lifted majestically into the darkening sky.

  TWO

  ABOARD FLIGHT 66—FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22—5:10 P.M. (1610Z)

  As the English coastline passed beneath the nose of Quantum’s westbound Flight 66, the flight attendant call chime began ringing in the cockpit—not once, but five times in rapid succession.

  There was no procedure for such a signal.

  James Holland toggled the interphone as he glanced at Dick Robb, who seemed equally alarmed.

  “Flight deck,” Holland said.

  A tense feminine voice flooded his ear.

  “Captain, this is Linda at door two B. I think we’ve got a heart attack back here!”

  “Okay, how bad is it?”

  “He’s an older man. Br
enda’s started CPR. He got sick right after liftoff, but suddenly he just keeled over in his seat. We gave him oxygen, but he’s almost stopped breathing.”

  “Have you checked to see if there’s a doctor aboard?”

  “We did, yes. A Swiss doctor responded, and he said we’ve got to get this man to a hospital fast or we’ll lose him.”

  “Okay, Linda. Keep us informed.”

  Dick Robb had nodded and was already calling the air traffic controller, anticipating Holland’s decision.

  “London Center, Quantum Sixty-six. We have a medical emergency aboard and need immediate vectors for an emergency landing at …” Robb glanced at Holland and raised an eyebrow, aware he’d jumped the gun—and equally aware Holland wouldn’t protest. What choice did they have?

  “Let’s go to London Heathrow,” Holland shot back. “Ask for priority handling, and we need paramedics to meet us.”

  Robb repeated the request and took the new clearance as Captain Holland dialed in the course direct to London and began an autopilot descent out of thirty-three thousand feet. Holland reached forward at the same time to type “LON” into the flight management computer and hit the execute button. The big Boeing immediately began a turn to the left to follow the new course as Dick Robb folded his arms and sat back with a look of forced disgust.

  “You’re going to do this solo, then?” Robb asked.

  Holland glanced at him, not comprehending. “What?”

  “The book says that the pilot-not-flying programs the computer. You’re the pilot-flying on this trip. I’m the pilot-not-flying.”

  Holland studied Robb’s face. He was serious, and there wasn’t time for a confrontation, even if he’d wanted one.

  “Sorry, Dick,” Holland said. “You were busy working the radios, and we’ve got an emergency here.” He gestured toward the flight management computer, trying not to look disgusted. “Please give me direct London, and let’s plan the ILS approach.”

  “That’s more like it” was Robb’s singular response.

  One story below the cockpit, in the neutral zone between coach class and business class, a small group of flight attendants and several concerned passengers huddled around the figure of a small man lying prone on the floor. Brenda Hopkins, the redheaded flight attendant with supermodel features who had helped Ernest Helms to his seat, knelt by his head, trying to breathe life into his mouth between impassioned attempts to pump his chest and circulate enough blood to his brain. Her hair had gone wild and her uniform was stained, but with shoes off and stockings ripped, she was oblivious to anything but the battle to save her passenger.

  Breathe into his mouth five times, listen, pump his chest fifteen times. Short, hard, downward strokes. Remember the training!

  Over and over again.

  She had been at it for fifteen minutes, but despite a routine of running and daily workouts, she was tiring.

  The Swiss physician hovered over her, monitoring the rhythm of her efforts but making no attempt to take over until she was ready for relief. His frustration at having no medical tools to help the man was driving him to think frantically of other alternatives.

  Another flight attendant had produced the airplane’s emergency medical kit, but it was impossibly crude and there was no defibrillator, which was the one instrument he really needed.

  As they felt the aircraft turning and descending, there was the spark of a response, a gasp of sorts, and the patient seemed to arch his back slightly as if taking a breath on his own. The doctor put his ear to the man’s chest, verifying a weak, unstable heartbeat, which immediately faltered.

  “We almost had him,” he told Brenda.

  She took a deep breath, wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, and started again. Her mouth closed around the patient’s as she held his bald head and tried not to think about the fact he was sick—with what, she had no idea. She was terrified of AIDS, and bad cases of the flu, and any other malady she might get from direct contact.

  But she had always wanted to be a doctor, and wasn’t this where it began? Her passenger was desperate. She couldn’t worry about the consequences.

  AIR ROUTE TRAFFIC CONTROL CENTER, LONDON

  Two hundred miles to the southwest, the radar target marked QUANTUM 66 had barely steadied on a course direct to London Heathrow when the controller handling that sector notified his supervisor of the emergency. The call triggered a carefully programmed series of steps designed to let airport authorities know that a medical emergency was in progress: Paramedics had to be summoned; customs, immigration, and health authorities had to be notified; and the airline itself had to be called.

  The routine call to the British government’s health service went to a sprawling complex within Heathrow’s terminal buildings, where the deputy assistant inspector for British public health had immediately begun working on the problem. He verified the arrival time and location of the flight and secured the sick passenger’s name from Quantum’s Operations. Now he replaced the telephone receiver, checked the name he’d written on a yellow legal pad, and thought through the procedure. A U.S. airliner from Germany was unexpectedly arriving in the U.K. with a sick passenger. Just a suspected heart attack, of course, but precautions were always appropriate. His task was to guard against someone bringing in a communicable disease to Great Britain, though with the new Chunnel and the constant ferry services to the Continent, his attempts were akin to guarding the only remaining gate in a fence that had been largely removed. At least, he thought, it kept him employed.

  He looked at the computer terminal and toyed with the idea of checking with his German counterparts by E-mail. Couldn’t hurt, he decided, but should he use the computer? No, the phone would be more discreet.

  He lifted the receiver and punched in the numbers for the Ministry of Health in Frankfurt, pleased that an English-speaking member of their staff answered. Just a routine check, he told the German. A suspected coronary case, and the man could easily be dead on arrival—no indication of anything viral or infectious—but as a precaution, did they by any chance have a medical case history on the man or any infectious health alerts?

  “Did he originate in Germany, or is he German?” the man in Frankfurt asked.

  “Ah, I think he boarded in Frankfurt. He’s an American male. The name I have is Helms. Ernest Helms, age unknown.”

  The silence went on for so long that the British health officer suspected a disconnect. Suddenly, however, the German was back, his voice now tinged with tension. “You are certain the name is Helms? Ernest Helms?”

  “Yes. I just checked with the airline. Why?”

  The German ignored the question. “Please give me your number. I will call you back.”

  “Is there a difficulty?”

  “I must check on something. Please give me your number.”

  The British health officer passed on the number and replaced the receiver, thoroughly puzzled.

  BONN, GERMANY

  Within ten minutes, in an obscure office deep within the federal government complex in Bonn, a middle-level official named Horst Zeitner hung up his phone and sat down hard in his desk chair. Feeling stunned, he stared blankly at the modest wall adorned with several diplomas. All his efforts to contain what had happened in Bavaria were coming apart.

  No, he corrected himself, had come apart! Worst possible case! There was a fresh cup of coffee on the desk and a young brunette assistant sitting on the couch waiting for instructions, but he ignored both. For many hours he had pressed a dangerous and discreet search for a particularly dangerous individual within Germany. At great risk to his job he had exceeded his authority by asking the national police to watch the highways leading to the major airports. The search had centered on Stuttgart after a computer reservation for the man had been found on an early evening flight to the States. He had told them all that it was an urgent matter of national security, and then—with all possible avenues of escape sealed at Stuttgart—Zeitner had sat back and waited, nervous but
confident that the man named Professor Ernest Helms could not get away.

  But he had! Ernest Helms had decided to catch an earlier flight and gone to Frankfurt instead! His rental car had just been found there, and the other airline had accepted his ticket.

  Zeitner was furious with himself. He had never thought of another airport, and he should have done so. There was nothing left to do, he realized, but inform his minister—something he should have done many hours ago. There was no longer any chance of keeping his search quiet, but the U.K. must not be involved. If a major flu epidemic erupted there killing hundreds of people because the German government had failed to warn the British, there would be a diplomatic firestorm hot enough to incinerate his career. It was a German problem, and Germany would have to contain it by some sort of strict quarantine within their own borders.

  Helms, in other words, could not be allowed to land in Great Britain dead or alive. He—and the other passengers—must be returned to Frankfurt.

  Zeitner sighed and quickly reached for the phone, feeling a cold ball of fear in his stomach. Time was obviously running out, and he was losing control.

  Zeitner dialed the number hurriedly with shaking hands. His minister would have to warn the Brits immediately.

  At the same moment, in the forward coach section of Quantum 66, the exhausted flight attendant and the Swiss doctor decided there was renewed hope for Ernest Helms. A heartbeat—weak and unstable, but at least detectable—had returned. Maybe he’d make it after all!

  But only, cautioned the doctor, if they delivered him to a properly equipped coronary care unit within the next few minutes.

  The doctor had spelled Brenda Hopkins’ CPR efforts several times, but Brenda had carried the brunt of the battle, and she now sat in a disheveled mess on the floor. With Helms’s head in her lap, she gently placed her left hand on his bare chest as she closed her eyes for a second and tried to will his heart to keep beating.