The Last Town (Book 6): Surviving the Dead

by Knight, Stephen

  “Argosy, we’re going to make an attempt now. We’ll do our best to splash down as close to you as we possibly can. Looking to do this in three minutes. Over,” said the Gulfstream’s pilot over the VHF.

  Norton picked up the mike. “Roger, Gulfstream. Dive Boat One, you copy that? Over.”

  “Argosy, we got it. We’re launching our boats. You should do the same. Over.”

  “Guys, get out into the water,” Lennon said, speaking into the microphone on his Peltor headset. “Jet’s going to ditch in about three minutes.”

  A moment later, Norton saw the tender racing past the slowly moving Pacific Mariner. There were three Marines aboard it, and they all wore bulky horse-collar life preservers. There were several more in the boat, bouncing around between the seats. The little center console jumped out about fifty meters ahead and to the left of the Argosy’s bow, where it bobbed up and down in the rolling waves. Norton was glad to be aboard the yacht. Sitting in the tender would be murder.

  The Gulfstream made another pass, then banked into a tight one-hundred-eighty-degree turn. The engines picked up a bit as they began generating more thrust. The aircraft flew another circle, and as it came out of the downwind turn, the engines dropped back into idle.

  “What the hell is he doing?” Lennon asked, his voice tight.

  “He’s dumping velocity,” Norton told him. “He has to ditch with the flaps up, otherwise the plane will bury its nose once it touches the water. He has to make just enough airspeed to retain control, but not enough to keep flying.”

  “Thanks for the flying lesson, Orville.”

  “Hey, asshole. You want me to iron palm you again? This time, I might break your sternum.”

  “Yeah, you can try that later. But this time, you’ll get a broken elbow for your trouble.” Lennon leaned forward so he could see the jet more clearly. So did Norton, his hand on the throttles, ready to push them forward to close on the jet once it was down.

  The jet came in nose high, as if it was flaring for a normal landing. Norton felt his guts coil up, knowing that the big Gulfstream’s pilots had lost it. He snatched up the radio handset to warn them, but just before the tail touched the water, the nose dropped. The wings rocked from side to side as the aircrew tried to read the wave patterns; while they didn’t want the tail to strike the water first, burying a wingtip would be just as disastrous. The G650 was in ground effect now, floating on a cushion of air that built up between the wings and the irregular, always moving waves beneath them. To Norton, the giant airplane was barely crawling, and he was sure the stick shakers were going crazy in the cockpit as the stall horns sounded.

  In an explosion of mist, the jet touched down, wings perfectly level. It left a huge rooster tail of water exploding into the air behind it, and for an instant, Norton thought it was probably the most expensive single-run carnival ride ever invented. The Argosy’s bow dipped as she started rolling down the swell she had just crested, and he lost sight of the jet for an instant. When the bow started to rise, he saw the plane was still in motion, literally riding the top of a swell like a huge surfboard. The right wing rose high as the swell broke beneath the jet, and Norton was certain that was it; the left wing would stab into the face of the next swell, and the jet would tumble. But that didn’t come to pass. Even as one of the broad flaps was ripped off the left wing, it stayed just above the surface. The jet’s T-tail was snapping back and forth from all the torqueing moments, then abruptly failed as the vertical stabilizer’s main spar fragmented. Thirty some odd feet of empennage tumbled across the water, disintegrating as it skipped and jumped. Water plowed over the front of the jet as it drove into the back of another swell, slowing rapidly. Bits and pieces of the airplane glittered in the water, and even over the booming sounds of multiple impacts, Norton heard the big Rolls-Royce jet engines winding down, their fuel cut off.

  And then the Gulfstream came to a shuddering halt and began listing to the left.

  “Let’s go!” Lennon shouted, but Norton was already advancing the throttles. The Pacific Mariner’s twin diesels roared in response, and the yacht’s bow rose into the air as it slowly accelerated through the Pacific Ocean, leaving a churn of white foam behind.

  Inside the jet, Hailey crashed into Corbett with almost enough force to knock both men out. Corbett felt a burst of pain in one of his hands as he tried to catch the officer before he slammed into the partition that separated the VIP cabin from the larger main cabin. He was only partially successful. People screamed and children cried as the airplane hit the water and instantly began disintegrating in a roar. The number one engine on Corbett’s side of the aircraft flamed out immediately as it ingested water, and he could actually hear the engine tearing itself apart as the fans broke up. From the lavatory, there was a horrendous cracking sound, and the entire airplane seemed to be wagging from the tail. Then the bizarre gyrations abruptly ceased. Corbett called out to Arthur Norton, but if there was a response, he didn’t hear it. The cabin lights flickered, then failed, and the emergency lights on the floor snapped on. The oxygen mask in the compartment above Corbett’s seat popped open, and the mask swung wildly as the jet slalomed across the wave tops, slapping the headliner and then swinging the other way to smack against the interior sidewall, barely missing Corbett’s head.

  Another reason to adopt the crash position like they told you to do—

  There was a tremendous jolt, and then the jet came to an almost gentle halt. Its frame creaked and groaned, and Corbett could smell sea air coming in from an opening somewhere. He also heard the trickle of water seeping inside the cabin, and the trickle suddenly became a flood.

  “Open the emergency exits!” Corbett shouted, unbuckling his harness and seat belt. His right hand hurt like hell, and he figured it was likely broken. Mike Hailey was in worse shape, lying at his feet in a fetal position, not moving. Beatrice Norton was simultaneously screaming and vomiting, clutching her left side. Suzy Kuruk unfastened her belt and turned to her, torn between trying to render assistance while looking at Hailey lying on the floor a few feet away. Jock Sinclair had struck his head and was bleeding from the temple. He was still alert and moving, looking at Corbett with a shocked gaze. Meredith was already half out of her seat on the divan.

  “Help we with Hailey!” Corbett said to her. From the main cabin, he heard a flurry of activity over screams and cries. As he tried to pull himself from his seat—it had shifted backward because the flooring had torn loose—he saw a bloodied and battered Stillson fumbling with the T-release for one of the emergency exits. He finally pulled it, then yanked the window inward. He angled it and tossed it outside, just as a gout of water poured in through the opening. He ignored the intrusion and moved to the next emergency window exit and opened that one as well.

  “There’s water coming in from the back!” Corbett turned to the rear of the plane and saw Arthur Norton emerging from the lavatory. He was absolutely soaked with seawater.

  “Arthur, help Suzy with your wife!” Corbett said. He reached down and hooked his hands under Hailey’s armpits and tried to haul him to his feet. Hailey moaned, semiconscious. Corbett kept at it, ignoring the excruciating agony in his right hand.

  “Don’t move him!” Sinclair shouted. “He might have a broken neck, or worse!”

  Water started flooding in from the rear, rushing into the VIP cabin from the lavatory. Corbett surmised the baggage door had been ripped away, leaving behind the equivalent of a five-foot hole in the side of the airframe.

  “No time to check him out. We have to get him out of here!” Corbett pulled the man into the main cabin and found all four emergency exits had been removed. Martin Kennedy had already exited the aircraft on the left, and Stillson was slowly egressing on the right.

  “Barry, get him over here!” Danielle shouted. As she spoke, she pushed past him and grabbed onto Hailey, the muscles of her arms and back bulging. Her clothes were already soaked, and Corbett realized he was standing in cold, ankle-deep water. Despite
having only one leg, Danielle heaved Hailey toward one of the open windows. Her father was standing on the other side, and he leaned in, sputtering as a wave crashed over him.

  “Pass him to me!” he shouted. “I can put him in the raft!”

  “You can’t do it by yourself!” Sinclair said. “Wait, let me get out to help!” With that, the British journalist pushed past the clutch of frantic people and stepped through the open emergency exit, joining Martin on the wing. He fell immediately on the slick metal wing, then reappeared a moment later. “Okay!”

  Corbett and Danielle passed Hailey through, and the two men stepped away from the window. Other people started pushing their way out. One woman inflated her life vest too soon, and she got hung up in one of the exits for a few tense seconds, as others behind her screamed for her to get clear.

  “Keep calm!” Corbett thundered, even though the water was up to his knees now. He looked around the cabin and saw Lennon’s wife standing near one of the exits with her two children. They were all battered, and one of the kids was shrieking in fear. Corbett splashed over to her, and she looked at him with dull eyes. There was a large lump forming on her forehead.

  “Mary, step out of the exit,” he told her firmly. “Step out and let me pass the kids out to you.”

  “All right,” she said softly. The plane was starting to list to the rear now, and Corbett knew for certain the baggage compartment was taking on gallons of water every second. She did as he told her, moving slowly but purposefully.

  “It’ll be slick out there! Be careful!” he said.

  She didn’t fall, but someone grabbed her from behind. Then a full-faced man with several days of razor stubble appeared. Another man loomed right behind him, his blue eyes as icy as the water, as if climbing onto a sinking business jet was just another day at the office. Corbett didn’t recognize either of them at all.

  “Reese and Bates, LAPD,” the first man said by way of introduction. “Pass me the kids, old timer. Then you might want to consider following, because this fancy jet is about to become a submarine.”

  It took less than five minutes to get everyone off the jet before it went under. The copilot went down with the wreck; he was unconscious in his seat, and his harness release had jammed. By the time they’d discovered him, the water in the forward part of the cabin was chest high, and no one could cut him free before the Gulfstream slipped beneath the surface. One of Corbett’s security officers, a middle-aged former Marine NCO named Holgan, had died during the ditching. Norton was told he was already reanimated by the time Lennon’s people and the cops had pushed into the jet to make a final sweep. One of the cops had popped him in the face right away.

  There were several injuries, including Norton’s mother. She’d broken some ribs during the ditching and was in substantial pain. One of the security team members on the Argosy wasn’t actually a former Marine, he was a Navy corpsman. The man was able to treat Beatrice Norton to a degree, but she needed a doctor. Injuries to others included several concussions and additional broken bones. The security man Stillson actually had a fractured pelvis, and one of the children had a broken arm. Corbett had a busted hand, and it was swelling up nicely despite being iced. That hadn’t helped improve the old man’s mood.

  Due to his mother’s injuries, Norton sacrificed the master stateroom to his parents. That was the place where the ride would be the most comfortable, and the corpsman told Norton that she needed to be in a place where she wouldn’t have to move around. That made surrendering the stateroom easy enough.

  There was some relief that Danielle was all right. She’d made it out of the airplane, and had even managed to bring along her prosthesis for good measure. Norton was a little less pleased to discover the Bookers and the Sinclairs had come along for the ride, but the boat was big and there was always the chance he wouldn’t be seeing much of them.

  The cops had been a little put out to discover that a high-ranking government official wasn’t on the airplane after all. Just the same, they invited Norton and the others to make for Santa Rosa Island, where they said several settlements had been stood up aside from their own. Corbett firmly declined the offer, but did ask for radio frequencies where the cops could be contacted later. That was puzzling, and it raised suspicion among the cops. Why would Corbett want to know that?

  The old man refused to answer, but promised to make it up to the cops for their assistance in saving the people on the sinking Gulfstream. When pressed further about how he would manage that, Corbett stuck to his guns and kept mum.

  After spending some time with his family, Lennon joined Norton in the boat’s pilothouse. He handed him a laminated piece of paper. Norton took it and examined it. Neatly printed on the encased paper was:

  32.511639 -130.589518

  Norton looked at the grizzled former Marine officer. “Coordinates?”

  Lennon nodded. “Can you get us there?”

  Norton turned to the electronic chart plotter and typed in the variables. “Dude, that’s out in the Pacific. Like, five hundred miles out into the Pacific.”

  “Can you get us there,” Lennon asked again.

  Norton considered it. “Not any time soon. That’s a long haul. We’ll have to travel at reduced planing speed, maybe even just displacement speed. It’s going to take a couple of days. And we’ll need to set up watches.”

  “We can do that,” Lennon said.

  “Any of your guys have real blue water experience? Because the last thing we want to do is pop the hull by driving into a whale.”

  “Yes, Mister Norton. We have blue water experience,” Lennon replied. “Do we have enough fuel for the trip?”

  “Yes, so long as we don’t firewall the throttles and go for broke. When do you want to leave?”

  “Right away,” Lennon said.

  “Damn, guy. What are we going out there for, anyway?”

  Lennon turned and looked over at Corbett, who was seated at the dining settee at the rear of the pilothouse. Corbett looked like hell, and Norton knew why. Victor had fallen, and as much as Norton hated to hear the news, he knew it was about ten times worse for Corbett.

  “Just get us there, Norton,” Corbett said tiredly. His hand had been taped up, but he had refused anything for the pain aside from Tylenol, even though his fingers were starting to turn blue from the swelling. “Just get us there, and see for yourself.”

  Norton shrugged and dropped the waypoint on the chart plotter. “Will do. Is everyone ready? Tender’s been secured, right?”

  “It has,” Lennon said.

  “And everyone’s aboard who needs to be?”

  “Yes, Norton. We’re all here.”

  “What about my camera?”

  Corbett snorted from the settee. “It’s at the bottom of the ocean.”

  Norton clucked his tongue. “Expensive loss for me, old man.”

  “Try losing a Gulfstream G650, Norton.” Corbett sighed, and slowly eased himself back in the cushions. “Or an entire town.”

  Norton thought about telling Corbett he knew all about that, but turned back to the instruments instead. He set the power for sixteen knots, which was the yacht’s displacement speed. The big Pacific Mariner came around almost due west and got underway, leaving a wake of foam as it sailed away from the California coastline.

  Three hours later, after the sun had set and the boat cruised across the Pacific in total darkness, one of the Marines relieved Norton at the helm. Before leaving the pilothouse, Norton educated him on how to operate the forward-looking infrared and read the instruments. The Argosy was steaming ahead on autopilot, and it was programmed to maintain a constant bearing on their target. The yacht was illuminated, not because Norton wanted to advertise its presence but because it helped reduce the risk of a nighttime collision with another vessel. And there was other traffic out there, as the radar display revealed. Channels nine and sixteen on the VHF were quiet, as were all the higher band frequencies he monitored. It took an hour to walk the man through
everything, even though all he had to do was sit in the helm chair and monitor the instruments. The seas were mounting and travel was getting a little snotty, but so far, everything was going as well as could be expected.

  Norton spent thirty minutes with his parents, ensuring they were as comfortable as they could be under the circumstances. He ensured they were fed and had ample water. His mother was still in severe pain, but there was nothing that could be done for her beyond the simple medications the Navy corpsman had available. Norton regretted his inability to ease his mother’s suffering, but it was how things had to be. He gathered up some fresh clothes, then ducked into the master head and took a quick shower. The hot water felt good, but he made a note to switch on the water maker later. He wanted to replace whatever had been used.

  He walked around the yacht, checking everything out. He had to wear some foul weather gear due to the wind and the spray, and standing on the bow was a bit dicey despite the rough texture of the surface that allowed for some extra grip. The Argosy was a bit dirty and becoming more salt-encrusted by the hour, but she was fine. He picked his way to the rear and entered the crew area. He had given Danielle and her father access, and even though it wasn’t as lushly appointed as the rest of the yacht and definitely a lot noisier, they would have the area to themselves. There were more than thirty-five people aboard now, and space was at a premium. He was glad he’d had full stores already in place, because running out of provisions five hundred miles from anywhere would be a tough spot to be in.

  He slipped on his earmuffs and checked out the engine room. Despite the pounding diesels, the temperature wasn’t extreme. Fuel was clear, oil viscosity was as indicated, and all systems were functioning properly. The fresh water tanks were still quite full, and the wastewater tanks were not. He checked the black water system to ensure the sewage was being properly processed. Having an issue with that would not be fun.

  Even though the Pacific Mariner wasn’t technically an expedition yacht, it had the capability to perform that mission if required. And as of now, it was required. Norton passed some time in the engine room going over equipment manuals, refamiliarizing himself with some of the processes and procedures he might need to enact in the event of an emergency.