- •Part one
- •Instinctively, Mel did. It was three quarters of an hour since he had left Danny Farrow at the Snow Control Desk. Getting up from the table, he told Tanya, "Don't go away. I have to make a call."
- •In the elevator going up, he remembered another good thing. The flight to Rome would be an easy one.
- •Vernon Demerest did too. On several occasions Anson Harris had heard Demerest speak disdainfully of the company's shirts and point to the superior quality of his own.
- •In a second echelon, farther to the right, were two more plows, a second Snowblast.
- •It was done; on the radar screen, blips were changing direction.
- •It was also the last day of his life.
- •It would be simpler if Mel didn't. Keith felt unequal to the effort, even though they had been as close as brothers could be all their lives. Mel's presence might be complicating.
- •I won't be home for a few days. I'm going away. I expect to have some good news soon which will surprise you.
- •In two strides the lieutenant was beside him. "You heard me! Right now!"
- •It was said so casually that at first the words failed to register. He reacted blankly. "You're what?"
- •In return for all this, the airline asked three assurances from the stewardess---hence the Three-Point Pregnancy Program.
- •It was the reason that Keith Bakersfeld had decided on suicide tonight.
- •It was the only time Natalie had hinted at the possibility of their marriage breaking up. It was also the first time Keith considered suicide.
- •It took a dozen rings, then several minutes more of waiting, before the Avis manager's voice came on the line. "Ken Kingsley here."
- •Vernon Demerest seemed not to notice. "Now, madam and gentlemen, we come to the most significant, the vital point."
- •Vernon Demerest flushed. He was accustomed to command, not to being questioned. His temper, never far below the surface, flashed. "Madam, are you normally stupid or just being deliberately obtuse?"
- •In the spectator section, Captain Demerest shot to his feet. "Great God!---how many disasters do we need to have?"
- •In the corridor outside, Vernon Demerest was waiting for Mel.
- •It had not always been that way.
- •It occurred to Cindy that perhaps she could manage both.
- •Vernon Demerest grinned. "I guess your manuals are okay, Anson. I've changed my mind; I won't inspect them."
- •It was Gwen Meighen who met the three pilots as they came aboard the aircraft. She asked, "Did you hear?"
- •Inez could see the drugstore clock. By now, it was nearly five past ten.
- •Inez began, "Isn't there any way..."
- •Ignoring the snow, which swirled about him like a scene from South with Scott, Patroni considered, alculating the possibilities of success.
- •Ingram grunted. "They're aboard. The goddarn captain and first officer."
- •It was the opening Demerest had been waiting for. He said carefully, "It needn't be shattering. What's more, we don't have to be parents unless we choose to be."
- •It was Guerrero, appearing hurried and nervous, whom Captain Vernon Demerest had seen arrive there, carrying his small attaché case which contained the dynamite bomb.
- •Vernon Demerest, who had just copied their complicated route clearance, received by radio---a task normally performed by the absent First Officer---nodded. "Damn right! I would too."
- •Is there something else; that you've never told?"
- •It was Keith's turn to nod. "I'm going to."
- •Instead of telephoning the Snow Control Desk, Mel walked down one floor of the control tower and went in. Danny Farrow was still presiding over the busy snow clearance command console.
- •In the taxi, Cindy opened her eyes and mused.
- •It was over now. Both knew it. Only details remained to be attended to.
- •It was Lieutenant Ordway. He entered, closing the door behind him. When he saw Cindy, he said, "Oh, excuse me, Mrs. Bakersfeld."
- •It was Mel's turn to see the reporters' pencils racing with his words.
- •In the cockpit, the pilots completed their checklist.
- •It was what Joe Patroni had feared.
- •It was when the agent had gone and Inez realized that despite the press of people around her in the terminal, she was utterly alone, that she began to cry.
- •Issued a policy. Are you people
- •Inez nodded slowly.
- •Inez shook her head. "Only, that... If you knew how to handle them... They were safe."
- •Inez whispered, "They were gone!"
- •Vernon Demerest regarded her searchingly. "I don't have to tell you that this is important. If you've any doubt, go back and make sure."
- •Ignoring him, Gwen gave Mrs. Quonsett a shove which sent her staggering. "You heard me! Sit down and be quiet."
- •In the unlikely event... And... Government regulations require that we inform you.
- •In the drill for explosive decompression one rule was fundamental: the crew took care of themselves first. Vernon Demerest observed the rule; so did Anson Harris and Cy Jordan.
- •Vernon Demerest was clambering over the smashed flight deck door and other debris outside. Hurrying in, he slid into his seat on the right side.
- •It was this effect which d. O. Guerrero had not allowed for. He had blundered and miscalculated from the beginning. He bungled the explosion, too.
- •It was then that Lieutenant Ordway and Mel Bakersfeld came down together from the administrative mezzanine.
- •In front of Mel a broadcast microphone had joined the hand mike he was using. The tv lights were on as he continued.
- •Vernon Demerest's voice came calmly on the cabin p.A. System a few moments later.
- •Vernon Demerest, his face paler than usual, had been steeling himself to copy the doctor's information onto the flight log clipboard. Now, with sudden shock, he stopped.
- •Vernon Demerest reasoned: So far as Gwen was concerned, he might just as well make a decision now.
- •It would also pose the question: just how far would Sarah go?
- •Isn't there?
- •Inside the car the reporter, Tomlinson, whistled softly. Tanya turned toward Mel, her eyes searching his face.
- •It almost did, at the news of Mel's intention.
- •Inside the car, the reporter asked again, "Mr. Bakersfeld, could you name a few of those people---the most imaginative ones about airports and the future?"
- •In smooth succession, engines four, two, and one followed.
- •In the hope of rocking the wheels free, Patroni slackened engine power, then increased it.
- •In the worst way, though, he needed a cigar. Suddenly Joe Patroni remembered---hours ago, Mel Bakersfeld bet him a box of cigars he couldn't get this airplane free tonight.
- •In mel Bakersfeld's car, on the runway, Tanya cried, "He's done it! He's done it!"
- •It was the speed at which they must pass over the airfield boundary, allowing both for weight and the jammed stabilizer.
- •If it does, Demerest thought, at a hundred and fifty knots we've had it...
- •Vernon Demerest clicked his mike button twice---an airman's shorthand "thank you."
- •I'm glad we had our ration With love and passion.
- •It would still take time, though, to adjust.
Vernon Demerest did too. On several occasions Anson Harris had heard Demerest speak disdainfully of the company's shirts and point to the superior quality of his own.
Captain Dernerest motioned to a waitress for coffee, then reassured Harris, "It's all right. I won't report on your wearing a non-reg shirt here. As long as you change it before you come on my flight."
Hold on! Anson Harris told himself. Dear God in heaven, give me strength not to blow, which is probably what the ornery son-of-a-bitch wants. But why? Why? All right. All right, he decided; indignity or not, he would change his unofficial shirt for a regulation one. He would not give Demerest the satisfaction of having a single miniscule check point on which to fault him. It would be difficult to get a company shirt tonight. He would probably have to borrow one---exchange shirts with some other captain or first officer. When he told them why, they would hardly believe him. He hardly believed it himself.
But when Demerest's own check flight came up... the next, and all others from this moment on... let him beware. Anson Harris had good friends among the supervisory pilots. Let Demerest be wearing a regulation shirt; let him hew to regulations in every other trifling way... or else. Then Harris thought glumly: The foxy bastard will remember; he'll make sure he does.
"Hey, Anson!" Demerest seemed amused. "You've bitten off the end of your pipe." And so he had.
Remembering, Vernon Demerest chuckled. Yes, it would be an easy flight tonight---for him.
His thoughts returned to the present as the apartment block elevator stopped at the third floor. He stepped into the carpeted corridor and turned to the left familiarly, heading for the apartment which Gwen Meighen shared with a stewardess of United Air Lines. The other girl, Demerest knew because Gwen had told him, was away on an overnight flight. On the apartment door bell he tapped out their usual signal, his initials in Morse... dit-dit-dit-dah dah-dit-dit... then went in, using the same key which opened the door below.
Gwen was in the shower. He could hear the water running. When he went to her bedroom door, she called out, "Vernon, is that you?" Even competing with the shower, her voice---with its flawless English accent, which he liked so much---sounded mellow and exciting. He thought: Small wonder Gwen had so much success with passengers. He had seen them appear to melt---the men especially---when her natural charm was turned toward them.
He called back, "Yes, honey."
Her filmy underthings were laid out on the bed---panties, sheer nylons; a transparent bra, flesh colored, with a girdle of the same material; a French silk, hand-embroidered slip. Gwen's uniform might be standard, but beneath it she believed in expensive individuality. His senses quickened; he moved his eyes away reluctantly.
"I'm glad you came early," she called again. "I want to have a talk before we leave."
"Sure, we've time."
"You can make tea, if you like."
"Okay."
She had converted him to the English habit of tea at all times of day, though he had scarcely ever drunk tea at all until knowing Gwen. But now he often asked for it at home, a request which puzzled Sarah, particularly when he insisted on it being correctly made---the pot warmed first, as Gwen had taught him, the water still boiling at the instant it touched the tea.
He went to the tiny kitchen, where he knew his way around, and put a kettle of water on the stove. He poured milk into a jug from a carton in the refrigerator, then drank some milk himself before putting the carton back. He would have preferred a Scotch and soda, but, like most pilots, abstained from liquor for twenty-four hours before a flight. Out of habit he checked his watch; it showed a few minutes before 8:00 P.M. At this moment, he realized, the sleek, long-range Boeing 707 jet which he would command on its five-thousand mile flight to Rome, was being readied for him at the airport.
He heard the shower stop. In the silence he began humming once again. Happily. 0 Sole Mio.
07
THE BLUSTERING, biting wind across the airfield was as strong as ever, and still driving the heavily falling snow before it.
Inside his car, Mel Bakersfeld shivered. He was heading for runway one seven, left, which was being plowed, after leaving runway three zero and the stranded Aéreo-Mexican jet. Was the shivering due to the cold outside, Mel wondered, or to memory, which the scent of trouble a few minutes ago, plus the nagging reminder from the old injury of his foot, had triggered?
The injury had happened sixteen years ago off the coast of Korea when Mel had been a Navy pilot flying fighter missions from the carrier Essex. Through the previous twelve hours (he remembered clearly, even now) he had had a presentiment of trouble coming. It wasn't fear---like others, he had learned to live with that; rather, a conviction that something fateful, possibly final, was moving inexorably toward him. Next day, in a dogfight with a MIG-15, Mel's Navy F9F-5 had been shot down into the sea.
He managed a controlled ditching, but though unhurt himself, his left foot was trapped by a jammed rudder pedal. With the airplane sinking fast---an F9F-5 had the floating characteristics of a brick---Mel used a survival-kit hunting knife to slash desperately, wildly, at his foot and the pedal. Somehow, underwater, his foot came free. In intense pain, half-drowned, he surfaced.
He had spent the next eight hours in the sea before being picked up, unconscious. Later he learned he had severed the ligaments in front of his ankle, so that the foot extended from his leg in an almost straight line.
In time, Navy medics repaired the foot, though Mel had never flown---as a pilot---since then. But at intervals the pain still returned, reminding him that long ago, as on other later occasions, his instinct for trouble had been right. He had the same kind of instinct now.
Handling his car cautiously, being careful to retain his bearinp in the darkness and restricted visibility, Mel was nearing runway one seven, left. This was the runway which, the tower chief had indicated, Air Traffic Control would seek to use when the wind shifted as was forecast to happen soon.
At the moment, on the airfield, two runways were in use: one seven, right, and runway two five.
Lincoln International had five runways altogether. Through the past three days and nights they had represented the front line of the battle between the airport and the storm.
The longest and widest of the five was three zero, the runway now obstructed by Aéreo-Mexican. (With a change of wind and an aircraft approaching from the opposite direction, it could also be runway one two. The figures indicated compass headings of 300 and 120 degrees.) This runway was almost two miles long and as wide as a short city block; an airport joke claimed that one end could not be seen from the other because of the earth's curvature.
Each of the other four runways was half a mile or so shorter, and less wide.
Without ceasing, since the storm began, the miles of runways had been plowed, vacuumed, brushed, and sanded. The motorized equipment---several million dollars' worth of roaring diesels---had stopped only minutes at a time, mainly for refueling or relieving crews. It was work which air travelers never saw at close hand because no aircraft used a fresh-cleared runway until the surface had been inspected and declared safe. Standards were exacting. Half an inch of slush or three inches of powdery snow were maximums allowable for jets. More than that would be sucked into engines and endanger operation.
It was a pity, Mel Bakersfeld reflected, that runway snow teams were not more on public view. The sight was spectacular and stirring. Even now, in storm and darkness, approaching the massed equipment from the rear, the effect was impressive. Giant columns of snow cascaded to the right in arcs of a hundred and fifty feet. The arcs were framed in vehicle searchlights, and shimmered from the added color of some twenty revolving beacons---one on the roof of each vehicle in the group.
Airport men called the group a Conga Line.
It had a head, a tail, a body, and an entourage, and it progressed down a runway with the precision of choreography.
A convoy leader was the head. He was a senior foreman from airport maintenance and drove an airport car---bright yellow, like all other equipment in the Line. The leader set the Conga Line pace, which was usually fast. He had two radios and remained permanently in touch with the Snow Desk and Air Traffic Control. By a system of lights, he could signal drivers following---green for "speed up," amber for "maintain pace," red for "slow down," and flashing red for "stop." He was required to carry in his head a detailed map of the airport, and must know precisely where he was, even on the darkest night, as now.
Behind the convoy leader, its driver, like an orchestra's first violinist, was the number one plow---tonight a mammoth Oshkosh with a big main blade ahead, and a wing blade to the side. To the rear of number one plow, and on its right, was number two. The first plow heaved the snow aside; the second accepted the load from the first and, adding more, heaved both lots farther.
Then came a Snowbiast, in echelon with the plows, six hundred roaring horsepower strong. A Snowblast cost sixty thousand dollars and was the Cadillac of snow clearance. With mighty blowers it engulfed the snow which both plows piled, and hurled it in a herculean arc beyond the runway's edge.