Читать книгу Troop 402 - Donald Ph.D. Ladew - Страница 3

Late in the afternoon the sky turned dark and a cold mist covered the airport. The air was filled with moisture and bad electricity. There was a feeling of violence withheld.

The sheets of water on the tarmac in front of the aviation terminal were rippled by occasional gusts of wind. The airport lights had been turned on against the premature darkness.

Occasionally an aircraft maintenance man in yellow oil skins appeared in the lights and then disappeared.

Planes landed sporadically but few took off. Boise, Idaho wasn't an international gateway.

Placer Airways Flight 402, a twin-engine turboprop commuter plane, sat alone in front of the furthest wing of the terminal. With its tan and white stripes it looked out of place near its flashier cousins parked in front of the main terminal.

The pilots of those giants referred to Placer as ‘Placid Airways’. The employees of Placer didn't mind. Placid was good. Management was sane and the company had been profitable since it started up six years before. If they wanted flashy, they could work for American or Delta, live in Los Angeles, eat smog and measure life against the latest fad.

In Boise, you live near the mountains and breathe air so pure it tastes like candy.

Flight 402 was on the milk run from Chicago. Its final destination was Seattle, Washington, weather permitting. It had already stopped at Minneapolis-St. Paul, Rapid City S. Dakota, and Missoula, Montana.

The flight arrived in Boise two and half hours earlier with ten passengers. Now, as the plane prepared to leave on the next leg, the ten passengers were probably at home having a decent meal, watching Dan Rather going on about the blood-mean miseries of the world.

The plane should have fueled, picked up three passengers and left on the last leg of the trip, all of which would have taken about forty minutes.

Captain Peter Duckhorn, a middle-aged, slightly balding man with a much loathed paunch stared at the latest weather data on a computer display. He looked at his first officer impatiently.

"Doesn't look too bad to the west, Neil. The wind ought to push this mess east."

First Officer, ‘Neil’ Neilsen, turned away from a plotting table covered with navigation charts and walked over to the display.

"Maybe...it's this unstable air mass sitting out here off the coast and these storms here in northern Oregon that bother me. This is the funny season. You get bad storms up here, come out of nowhere. I don't believe anything I see from meteorology any more. Since we began ruining the atmosphere the weather is all screwed up."

Nielsen was tall, thin and slightly stooped. He had a long mournful face that made him look older than thirty five. Captain Duckhorn figured it was all the worry Nielsen carried around.

"Jesus, Neil, you'd worry if we had a hundred thousand foot ceiling all the way to Fiji."

"Nooo, the Hawaiian Islands maybe, not Fiji." Nielsen didn't smile. He was dryer than dust even on a rainy night.

"We could give it another hour, see what happens."

"I don't think so," Duckhorn said. "No, if we do that I'd rather cancel and try again in the morning. If we stay we have to put the passengers up at the Airtel. It’s a toss up, Neil. I want to keep the schedule."

Nielsen pulled a manifest from his flight case. "We've only got three passengers, hardly seems worth the effort." He took a package of Tums from his pocket and put two in his mouth.

"What's the matter Neil, anxiety getting the better of you?"

"No, I had burrito's and beans for supper. Things are rumbling and grumbling down there."

The Captain gave him a dirty look. "You better put a zipper on it or you'll be flying strapped to the toilet. Let's get the show on the road. Call Sherry, have her inform the passengers. I'll file the flight plan."

Inside the terminal, in the wing opposite where FLT 402 was parked, a ticket agent for Placer called across the waiting area.

"Boarding FLT 402. Passengers for Placer FLT 402 to Seattle, we're ready to board."

Outside in the rain, Miss Sherry Willis, the Flight attendant towed a two wheeled luggage carrier with one hand and held a rain coat over her head with the other as she ran for the plane.

Miss Willis was naturally cheerful. With her looks and intelligence, she could easily have gotten a job with United or TWA, but she'd seen the rest of the country. Quite sensibly she didn't want to live anywhere else.

On the ramp the plane handlers had the door open and a set of portable stairs up against the side of the plane. She hurried to get out of the rain. She'd had her hair done that morning and didn’t want to loose what took an hour and sixty dollars at the beauty shop to achieve.

The line inside the terminal had three people in it. The first man in the line was short, broad, scruffy and old. He had a day's heavy growth of salt and pepper stubble and wore an old fashioned Borsalino fedora. His accent and pallor placed him two thousand miles to the east. The lines of his face were set in an unhappy cast.

The agent asked for his ticket. He took the passenger's seat card and handed the ticket back.

"Thank you, Mr. Genoa. We're sorry for the delay."

"So, who cares if you're not going where you want," he growled.

"I beg your..." Mr. Genoa had already disappeared through the boarding door into the rain.

The next person in line dwarfed the ticket agent. He had a rugged, good looking face, stood six foot six, weighed two hundred and forty pounds, and was built like Arnold Schwarzenegger. He smiled cheerfully and handed over his ticket.

The ticket agent looked up at the young man with admiration.

"Could I have your autograph, Mr. McChesney? Would you sign it, Mr. America, please?"

"Sure. I hope we get through to Seattle this evening. I miss this competition and I won't be mister anything."

The ticket agent smiled. "I wish you the best of luck, Mr. McChesney."

McChesney turned and walked out onto the tarmac.

There was a third passenger but the agent had to look down this time. He hadn't been visible behind the body builder. The boy looked after McChesney wistfully.

Alvin Stanford Thomas III was eleven. He was short, compact, close-cropped hair behind steel-rimmed glasses. It was hard to tell what kind of man the boy would become except for the jaw and eyes. The jaw was square, determined and the eyes were very blue and very alert.

His father had called earlier to let the airline know that he was traveling alone and had given her son a signed letter to hand to the ticket agent.

"Ticket...your ticket please?"

Al Thomas the III jumped, blushed and dug his ticket, boarding pass and the letter out of an elaborate back pack. He was dressed in a boy scout uniform. When the ticket agent handed his ticket back he shouldered the pack with a grunt and headed for the airplane.

On the ramp Prince T. McChesney looked up at the airplane fearfully. He wasn't a good flyer. Flying made him sick to his stomach and fear made him sweat. He had a motion sickness patch behind his ear and silently prayed it would get him through the two hour flight north to Seattle. He looked around to see if anyone noticed, saw the boy approaching, head bent forward from the load.

McChesney went up the stairs to the cabin cursing planes, Frank and Orville Wright, `The Right Stuff’ and the Space Program, hoping he hadn't left anyone out.

When Alvin got to the top of the stairs he couldn't go any further. McChesney was standing in the door flirting with Miss Willis, the flight attendant with his back to Alvin. Alvin grunted with resentment. From their laughter it looked like they were going to stand there forever.

"Hey..." Alvin spoke quietly.

McChesney went on talking. Alvin spoke louder. "Hey, c'mon, gimme a break!"

Still the body builder didn't move. Alvin leaned forward, ducked his head and banged the aluminum poles of his back pack into McChesney's back.

"Watch it!" McChesney turned angrily. "Watch where you're going." He looked down at Alvin and laughed. "Well, what do you know, it's a dwarf in a boy scout uniform."

To her credit, Miss Willis didn't laugh.

Alvin looked up at McChesney coolly. "Would you mind?"

"Yes, please Mr. McChesney, if you'll take your seat now, it's time to get under way."

She took Alvin's ticket and smiled nicely. "I'm sorry we kept you waiting. That pack looks heavy."

Alvin ducked his head and blushed. He wouldn't have admitted it was heavy if it weighed ten tons. Miss Willis led the way back to the center of the plane.

"May I help you with that? It really does look heavy and awkward in here."

"Thanks," Alvin smiled at her shyly.

She held the pack while he slipped out of the straps. "I don't think this is going to fit in the overhead," she said. "Tell you what, I'll strap it in the seat right next to you, just like another passenger, that way if you need anything you can reach it."

"Thanks, Ma'am, I appreciate it."

"Call me, Sherry. Don't worry, it's the least I can do. We folks from Boise have to stick together. I have to go back and get ready for take-off. Don't forget your seat belt."

"I won't."

She moved to Mr. Genoa, who was just across the aisle taking down a blanket and pillow from the overhead storage. When he was settled she moved away towards the rear of the plane.

Alvin got the aircraft safety data sheet from the pocket in the seat in front and read through it once fast, then again slowly. He stood up and located all the exits. When he thought he had everything memorized he put the sheet back in the seat pocket.

He stood up and looked around again. He saw the body-builder back in the rear of the plane, talking and laughing with Miss Willis.

Alvin frowned, muttered as he sat back down. "The incredible hulk. What a dork." He didn't see Mr. Genoa across the aisle smile for the first time.

Alvin heard a mechanical cough outside his window and turned to watch the big four-bladed propeller kick over slowly then begin turning faster until it was a blur. He watched everything with intense interest. He knew the high pitched whine came from a turbine which drove the engine. Alvin knew lots of things.

Alvin removed two three-foot lengths of rope from his parka pocket and began tying knots. He didn't look at his hands or the rope. He'd practiced so many hours his hands worked as if they were separate from his body, and as he turned, tucked and folded the rope, he watched the rest of the plane.

It wasn't his first time in a plane but it was his first time away from home on his own. He hadn't told Miss Willis he wasn't really from Boise. He lived with his Dad and older brother near Lowman, thirty miles north of Boise. His father was Chief Forest Ranger of the whole Sawtooth Wilderness area.

Alvin thought of his father and it felt good, and it hurt, and it felt a hundred other things. He missed him already and it had only been three hours since he left home.

In the rear, seated by himself, McChesney tried to think calm. The motion sickness medicine worked but it didn't lessen his fear. The fear waited like a cancer, eager to escape and overwhelm him. McChesney hated the fear more than the plane.

There was a jerk, then the plane moved slowly back from the building and turned to face the runways which were becoming less and less visible. All the noises of the airplane were magnified by McChesney's fear.

Each separate bang of the struts over the uneven cement apron, the rumble of the tires, the whine of the engines, were alien and dangerous.

To Alvin Thomas, it was music. This was escape, excitement, adventure, freedom from the overpowering shadow of his older brother, David, who had already been everywhere, done everything.

FLT 402 took off and climbed steadily into the rain and darkness. Meteorology said the ceiling was fifteen thousand feet, so Captain Duckhorn had requested nineteen thousand for the flight. When they reached nineteen thousand they were still in the soup. He turned to First Officer Neilsen, who nodded his head up and down sadly, as if he expected it all along.

As storms go it wasn't bad. Mild turbulence, visibility nearly zero, but no pilot is ever really comfortable flying blind, and despite their understanding of the electronic gadgetry that penetrated the darkness, they preferred to see with their own eyes.

"Neil, call sector control, see if you can get us more altitude." Duckhorn adjusted the weather radar. "Ask for twenty two thousand.

It didn't take long to get clearance and they finally broke free into a clear sky lit by a pale three quarter moon on the rise. To the west the storm clouds were painted by the setting sun in a dazzling display of extraordinary beauty.

In the rear of the plane, Prince T. McChesney saw none of this beauty. The first thing he'd done when he sat down was close the window shade. He sat rigidly, hands clenched in his lap, eyes closed, hating the plane and especially people who pretended to like flying.

He tried every mental trick he could think of but the fear was primal, beyond understanding. He desperately wanted Sherry to sit with him and talk. If they talked maybe he could forget about being thousands of feet above the ground in a frail device that might crash at any moment.

But he couldn't ask. He wanted to, but he couldn't.

As soon as the seat belt sign went off Sherry went forward to check on Alvin and Mr. Genoa. The old Italian was reading a travel guide to the state of Washington.

She knelt effortlessly by his seat. Her movements were neat and graceful. Alvin wondered if they taught her how to do that.

"How are you doing, Mr. Genoa?" She had a genuineness that made the old man feel as if she was really interested.

Genoa was a New Yorker with a finely honed sensitivity to insincerity. Nowhere else, except perhaps Paris, are men and women more uniformly mean spirited, insensitive and ill-mannered.

Tony Genoa was from a country and a generation that understood and appreciated good manners. Living in New York hadn't made him forget.

"I'm alright, Miss. You're very nice...it helps."

"Thanks." Her smile repaid the compliment. "Are you going to Seattle to visit?"

"I wish I were. No, I'm going to live with my eldest son."

"You don't want to do that?"

Genoa laughed harshly. "No, I don't. Don't get me wrong, my son is a fine man, but a doctor in New York," his voice was filled with bitterness, "said I couldn't work anymore. Bum ticker," he tapped his chest.

"That must be hard."

He nodded. "Yeah, I had the nicest little delicatessen in the Bronx...had it for forty five years. Made a nice living, all I ever wanted to do. Sons don't want their father hanging around, getting in the way."

"How does your son feel about it?"

"Oh, well, he's been asking me to come for years, says the shop is...was too much work." He looked down at his worn and gnarled hands. "It wasn't too much work to me!"

She smiled, touched his arm. "I understand, I really do. There's nothing better than having your own thing."

He patted her hand. "I believe you do. Not to worry. It's like Pinochle, you have to play the cards you're dealt."

"I hope it works out for you, Mr. Genoa. Can I get you anything to drink, a snack?"

"No, no, maybe later some fruit."

Sherry pivoted and moved to Alvin's seat. "And what about you, Mr. Eagle Scout?"

He smiled shyly. "I'm not an Eagle Scout yet." His hands kept moving, working the pieces of rope even as he talked.

"Do I call you Alvin, or would you prefer Al?"

"My friends call me, Al."

"Okay, Al. How do you do that?"

Alvin had tied an elaborate knot without looking. "Practice. My father says I have more energy than a squad of marines. I like to keep busy."

"Why are you going to Seattle?"

"I was chosen to be in the `Best Scout In The West’ competition."

"Tell me about the competition."

"Do you really want to know?"

"Sure. My brother was a scout, but I was in high school then and I wasn't really interested." She laughed. "All I cared about was boys, clothes and music."

"Well, they have it every two years. Guys from all over the Western States go, four from each state. They have a whole bunch of tests, you know, woodcrafts, survival, camping, ecology..." he looked down at the rope, "knots and hitches, you know stuff like that."

"Are they all your age?"

"No, I'm the youngest," he was very shy.

"Wow, did you hear that Mr. Genoa?"

Across the aisle, Genoa nodded seriously. "Age and size don't mean much. Getting the job done does."

The flight attendant bell rang three times and a light on the forward bulkhead flashed.

"Have to go, Captain probably wants his coffee."

Her face held no hint of her concern. The three bells meant there was a problem and that she was to go to the flight deck immediately.

Alvin sensed it. He'd been looking out the window since they took off.

"Nice girl," Genoa said.

"Yes sir." Alvin's attention went out to the plane. Engines sounded good, everything seemed normal.

Sherry entered the flight deck and closed the door behind her. Captain Duckhorn and First Officer Neilsen were leaning forward staring at the weather radar.

"Damn, where did it come from?" Duckhorn whispered. There was awe and fear in his voice.

Sherry looked out the window between the two men and froze. She shivered visibly. The sky, from horizon to horizon and as far up as she could see was a boiling, coal-colored mass streaked with massive bolts of lightning. She leaned forward and looked out the side window toward the rear of the plane. It was the same. The plane flew at peace in an empty bowl between Olympian chaos.

Captain Duckhorn turned to Sherry. "We've got problems. This mess goes up forever. No way over the top and it has formed all around us. According to the radar it's solid. No idea where the other side is. Meteorology says it's big and getting bigger. Barometric pressure is falling like a stone. The whole mess is moving north west, fast. We're going to have to find our way through. This hole we're in won't last. You get ready back there...tie up all the loose gear twice. Go over emergency procedures with the passengers.

He reached back and held her arm in a firm grip. "Sherry, I'm depending on you to keep it under control back there. We'll be too busy up here. Do you understand?"

She nodded stiffly, stood up, tried not to look out the front window. "Yes, Captain, don't worry, I'll take care of it."

"Good, girl, I know you'll do it right."

"Captain..." he looked up at her expectantly. "I...well, I just want you to know I have a lot of faith in you and Mr. Neilsen."

"Thanks, Sherry. It'll be all right. Off you go now."

She moved down through the cabin working from a checklist she had learned years before. She did not feel calm, but she moved calmly. Alvin watched and knew something was wrong. The plane began to buck before she reached the back.

The seat belt sign came on and Sherry began to move faster. At the rear she got on the inter-comm. She had to take several deep breaths before she made the announcement. She sounded warm and relaxed.

"Can I have your attention please. You'll see that the seat belt sign is on. The Captain says a bit of a storm has moved in so fast we can't avoid it. It is Placer Air's policy to ensure your safety, so make certain your seat belts are nice and snug. I'll be around in a moment to answer whatever questions you have."

Tony Genoa had almost fallen asleep when the plane began to shake. Since the doctor, the dream was always the same. He was standing outside his Deli. He knew that a fire was starting inside but he couldn't go in to tell anyone, he couldn’t do anything.

In the rear, Prince McChesney, Mr. America, was terrified. He was going to die. He knew it, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. He was going to die in the most horrible way, in a plane. It would be slow, seeing it coming but never knowing the exact instant. He couldn't remember a time when he wasn't afraid of flying, and in the years since he'd been making movies there was constant flying.

He'd tried everything. The last bit, hypnosis, made him forget the fear for a moment, but only because he was busy throwing up. After it was over he decided that getting put in a trance and throwing up wasn't that good an idea to replace a fear of flying. Maybe it was one of those weird therapies where you replace one problem with another that's worse, like getting hit on the knee with a hammer to forget a headache.

The hypnotist, a tiny Lebanese trained in Moscow, blamed Prince, said he was a bad subject. Thanks a lot, that'll be two hundred bucks.

When Sherry stopped by his seat he was beyond speech, but his relief at having someone near was obvious. She hadn't realized until then that he was terrified. She felt bad for not spotting it earlier. She had been trained to see it and she'd missed it. She knew she'd made the same assumption everyone else did. If a man was big, could lift a half ton, he couldn't possibly be afraid of anything.

Sherry sat next to McChesney and checked his seat belt. Before she could fasten her own the plane sank like an elevator out of control. She had to grab his arm to keep from being thrown out of her seat. After what seemed a long time the plane leveled off.

"Wow! That was something." She quickly buckled herself in. She kept her hand on his arm and gave him a little shake.

"Mr. McChesney," She didn't go on until he looked at her. "You're very afraid aren't you?"

He tried to hide it and couldn't. There was no contempt or misplaced sympathy in her voice.

"Yeah...yeah, I hate flying."

"Has it always been this way?"

"Yes, from the very first time."

The plane was beginning to really bang around, jerking up and down, jogging from side to side.

"I bet you think you're the only one."

"Yeah...no, feels like it, but I know I'm not."

"Would you like me to stay here?"

McChesney looked at her openly grateful. "Yes, but you've got a job to do. I know that...so if you have to go, it's okay." It had been very hard for him to say that.

Normally brash and arrogant, McChesney was completely cowed.

"No, it's okay. I've done all I can do."

The storm closed around the plane suddenly. Their small bowl in the night sky shrank in on itself and disappeared. Alvin tried to see what was going on outside the plane but blackness was total.

His eyes opened in surprise. The area around the plane was lit brighter than day. A fork of lightning with hundreds of branches, some bigger around than a house ripped through the clouds like a precursor to hell. After a short delay the booming of thunder rattled the skin of the aircraft.

Alvin was so excited he couldn't sit still. The plane seemed to be moving entirely at the whim of the storm.

In the cockpit, Duckhorn gritted his teeth and fought the yoke as the plane tried to go its own way. First Officer Neilsen had been calling in their position every few minutes and hoping ground weather could find a hole they could fly out through. It went on like that for an hour.

"What's our ground speed?" Neilsen asked.

Duckhorn shook his head. "Damn, Neil, I'm not sure. We're being pushed north west. It's like sailing. I'm going to have to go with this beast and hope it blows past us. One thing for sure. we're way off course.

"Captain, the computer's acting funny. I can't guarantee the locations I've been transmitting are accurate."

"I know, I know...don't worry about it. You just help me keep this thing in the air."

He slammed the steering column hard left and worked the flaps in both directions as the plane, trapped in a howling current of air tried to flip over on its back. For a moment the plane rolled up to ninety degrees shuddering like a killed thing before it slowly came back to level. The brief moment of level flight was replaced with a frightening ride upward, the altimeter needles winding up so fast they were a blur.

Duckhorn's ears popped and they roared through thirty thousand feet as if outer space were their final destination. In the passenger's cabin it was much worse. There was nothing they could do.

Tony Genoa had been through two wars, and before that he'd survived the streets of New York, but this took a different kind of courage.

The noise of thunder was continuous and deafening. He had to shout to get Alvin's attention.

"You okay, Mr. Eagle Scout?"

"Yes, sir." his eyes went wide as another lightning strike smashed the sky apart right next to the plane. "This is great. Do you have your pillow handy in case we crash?"

Alvin's question wasn't exactly what Tony wanted to think about, but the boy was incapable of not thinking about safety.

Tony laughed out loud. "Jesus, boy, what a thought, yeah, all right."

The plane seemed to bend as it was caught in a twisting knot of air and the metal skin popped with a series of gunshot-like cracks.

"I'm ready if you are, I'm no boy scout but I'll get by."

"Be Prepared, that's our motto."

"I know. What's your name?"

"Alvin Stanford Thomas."

"Good name. I'm Anthony Genoa. Call me Tony."

"Like the town in Italy," Alvin had to shout.

"Yeah, that's the one. You know a lot don't you, Alvin?"

Alvin laughed. "Not much. My father says no one's as smart as they think they are."

Tony's answer was cut off as the plane careened downward so fast the boy and the old man had to hold on. Even Alvin was frightened. It seemed like their downward plunge would go on forever.

Captain Duckhorn had the yoke pulled back to the stops and the engines at full power. He had to fly out of it. It was cool in the cabin but both he and Neilsen were sweating.

In the rear, McChesney was beyond thought, unable to communicate, unable to move. He was unaware that his whole body exuded an acrid stench of fear. His breath came in gasps separated by long moments when he didn't breathe at all. Sherry was fighting her own battle with fear and barely noticed McChesney's problems.

Again Captain Duckhorn brought the plane level, engines screaming with effort. It was another ten minutes before he gained back half the altitude lost during the last sickening dive.

What both men feared but did not express was the mountains to the west. The farther west and north they went the more danger there was from mountains. In the beginning they had turned north toward western Washington in the hope the storm would disperse over the flat farm lands of the Columbia River valley.

What neither man knew was that the navigation system had been off for the last hour. Their actual location was a hundred miles north and west of where they thought they were. Each man prayed for a break, any kind of break in the storm, but their prayers weren't answered. Instead the storm was increasing in intensity.

At fifteen thousand feet, near the edge of a boiling thunderhead, twenty miles across and forty thousand feet high, Flight 402 received it's first great lightning strike. Initially it hit the top of the aircraft at the wing root then snaked around the aft section of the plane. The intensity and size was such that the normal systems designed to bleed away excess electrostatic energy from the surface of the plane were overwhelmed and a tongue of intense static electricity found its way into the delicate electronic equipment bay burning and melting as it went. That it did not destroy the plane's electrical equipment utterly was a matter of chance.

However in one brief instant, both the primary and secondary navigation and communication systems were ruined. The barometric altitude indicator still functioned but that did nothing to tell them where they were.

In the cockpit Neilsen was pale with fear. He was not a man to curse but this was too much. The shear violence punched through his natural reticence.

"Damn...we're in trouble deep, Captain."

It was a measure of his fear that he did not call Duckhorn by his first name. Every instrument on the panel except those monitoring the engines was disabled. Needles, dials, digital readouts wandered about erratically, producing no usable information.

"Stay with me, First Officer. Take a walk aft, check the equipment bays. We've had three fire bottles go off in the aft electronics bay. The panel says there's no fire, but...do it, Neil. I want an eyes on. Move careful and get back as soon as you can, I'm going to need your help."

"Yes, Captain."

They had become formal, as though the rigid protocol of the flight deck could provide an added degree of safety and control in a environment that was rapidly descending into madness.

It took Neilsen five minutes to reach the rear of the plane. During the trip he fell to his knees twice, and once, near the rear of the plane was thrown upward to strike his shoulder on the overhead storage compartments.

The aft equipment bays were a charred ruin compounded by the effects of the fire bottle residue. Black boxes were scorched and wire cables melted into distorted lumps of melted metal. He examined everything quickly. He didn't need more time. There was nothing he could do. He closed the panels and headed forward.

Neilsen stopped at Sherry's seat and knelt at her side holding onto the arm of her seat. She didn't even notice him until he touched her arm. She jerked with fear.

"Easy, Sherry. Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'll be alright. Did the lightning..." she glanced toward McChesney. He was in another world. Sherry shook her head negatively.

Neilsen leaned forward and whispered in her ear. "We're in trouble. You be ready. You've trained for this, remember that. You can do it.”

"All right."

Neilsen didn't stop at Alvin or Tony's seat. They both looked at him and waved their hands indicating they were okay. When he reached the door to the cockpit, a vicious gust hit the plane like a fist and he was thrown head first into the metal door. He felt his nose crunch and a sharp pain over his right eye. Neilsen landed flat on his back in the aisle. He struggled to his feet using the arms of the nearest seat. His eyes watered and his face felt wet. When he examined his face with his hands they came away covered with blood.

"Damn...that hurts."

He pulled out a handkerchief and tried to staunch the flow. In the cockpit it was difficult to get into his seat without being thrown onto the Captain.

"Good Lord, what happened to you?"

"Got tossed into the door. It hurts."

"You gonna be alright?"

"...Sure...could be a lot worse."

"Okay, get on the controls with me." Captain Duckhorn's face was set in a determined grimace.

"Any idea where we are, Captain?"

"Not really." He grunted with effort as the plane skidded sideways then roared forward as though released from a sling-shot. "North...a long way north. I wouldn't be surprised if we're over the Canadian border."

"West too?"

It wasn't a question either one wanted to ask.

"Probably."

Prolonged danger can sap the strength of the strongest man or woman and the three passengers and flight attendant, Miss Willis, had the added burden of doing nothing, of being at the mercy of others. It didn't matter that none of them knew how to fly, in circumstances like this any activity would have been better than waiting.

Except for the rare individual, danger, raw and violent, will turn a man or woman inward and what they find there will either sustain them or haunt them the rest of their lives. Most people live their lives without ever being put to the test. Others spend their whole lives seeking opportunities to discover what circumstance had forced the people of Flight 402 to endure.

Prince McChesney was not a cowardly man. He was trapped by a situation that amplified the one thing he feared most. That fear had taken him beyond the ability to resist, to fight back. Emotionally he was numb. If he could have gotten sick it would have been better than the state of terror that held him beyond the ability to act.

The lightning strikes were continuous around the airplane and the night sky alternately displayed scenes of incredible beauty and pictures like something from an old testament hell.

Forward on the flight deck, Duckhorn and First Officer Neilsen were too busy for the kind of fear that occupied their passengers.

"Something's not right, Neil, do you feel it?" The control column was jerking so hard it took the two of them to hold it.

"Yesss...rudder? No...I don't know...feels like the rudder."

"Oh, Lord, here we go again!" Captain Duckhorn had to shout to be heard over the thunder and the roar of engines strained to the limit.

Captain Duckhorn tried to make a joke. "We're on an elevator to hell."

Even though they were holding the plane level, the backup altimeter was unwinding too fast to read. They were being driven toward the ground by an inexorable pressure.

Together the two men eased the yoke forward putting the plane into a dive. After a few minutes they pulled back on the yoke hoping to use their momentum to pull them out of the down-draft. Both men were watching the altimeter when a dark mass became visible through the windshield. The altimeter had slowed enough so that each man saw it pass nine thousand feet.

They broke through the bottom of the clouds five hundred feet from a rising wall of trees. There was no time to pull away.

"We're going in, Neil! Hang on, sorry...I should have list..."