“John, here.” Her voice sounded weak. “We’re over here. In the front.”
“Hold on. Hold on.” Berry looked up, but he couldn’t see more than a few feet through the smoke and the frightened, milling passengers. He turned back to the emergency door. He grabbed the door handle and pulled on it with every bit of strength he could summon. He kept pulling until he thought he would black out.
The door suddenly flew open, followed by a loud explosion as the nitrogen bottle fired into the inflatable emergency chute. Berry drew in a long breath. He grabbed at the figure standing in front of him, but his eyes were burning and he couldn’t see through the clouds of black smoke that billowed out the door.
The passengers began tumbling past him, their residual intelligence directing them toward the sunlight and air. Berry shouted as the stream of passengers fell over him. “Sharon! Linda!”
“John. Here. We’re here. Against the copilot’s chair. Please, we can’t move.”
Berry crawled toward the voice, trying to stay below the smoke. Through his watering eyes he saw a bare leg and grabbed at it. But the people around him were moving like a tidal wave now, like the escaping air that had started this nightmare so many hours before. They pressed against his kneeling figure, and before he realized what had happened he was on the bright yellow escape chute. He grabbed wildly at the sides of the chute, but he could not stop himself from sliding down, headfirst, toward the runway below. Before he hit, he heard himself screaming, “Sharon!”
20
John Berry’s head throbbed and waves of nausea passed over him. In the distance he could hear sirens, brakes screeching, the shouts of rescue workers, bullhorns, radios squawking, and the cries of injured people around him.
He got himself into a sitting position and tried to look around, but his right eye was blurry and he rubbed it; his hand came away with blood. “Damn…”
He glanced at the Straton towering over him. The huge jetliner sat on its belly, but the aircraft was tilted to the right and its nose was pointing back toward the direction from which he’d landed. Incredible, he thought, looking at the size of this thing that he’d brought in. The cockpit had been so small… He suddenly felt a sense of overwhelming awe and pride. “My God…”
Berry thought he’d been unconscious for only a short time since hitting the concrete, because the scene around the Straton was still chaotic with trucks and ambulances rushing toward the aircraft. He looked up at the left wing. Small wisps of smoke were still rising from the areas around the fuel lines, but the flames were out. Several fire trucks were positioned on both sides of the airliner, spraying foam across the wreckage from a safe distance.
Berry took a deep breath. It was strange, he thought, that his body still felt as if it were in the Straton; he still felt the vibrations of the airframe, the pulse and sound of the engines-like a sailor who steps off a ship and walks with a swaying gait. He ran the palms of his hands across the warm concrete, as if to assure himself he had returned to earth.
He took another deep breath to try to clear his head, but there was an acrid smell in the air and his stomach heaved again.
Berry stood unsteadily and looked around the runway. About twenty people were sprawled on the concrete, some unconscious, some moaning, a few crawling. Berry looked for Sharon and Linda-looked for the orange life vests among the injured passengers. But neither Sharon nor Linda was on the ground.
He looked up and saw that the yellow escape chute was still attached to the cockpit emergency door. Berry shouted up at the open door, “Sharon! Linda!”
A figure appeared at the door, and Berry saw that it was the copilot, Dan McVary.
McVary stood at the threshold for a second, then took a step forward, as if he were walking down a flight of stairs. He fell backward and careened quickly down the chute, howling as he accelerated. His feet hit the runway and the sudden deceleration pitched him forward, and he tumbled right into the arms of John Berry.
Both men stared at each other for a few long seconds, and as Berry looked into the eyes of this man who had caused him so much trouble, he realized that anger and hate were totally inappropriate emotions. He said to McVary, “I brought your plane home, buddy. You’re home.”
McVary kept staring at Berry, showing neither comprehension nor aggression. Then he seemed to slacken in Berry’s arms, and a tear rolled down his cheek.
A medic pushing a gurney was racing toward the people at the foot of the chute, and Berry called out to him, “Hey! Take this guy. He’s the copilot. He needs help.”
The medic detoured to Berry, and together they forced McVary onto the gurney. Berry said, “You’d better strap him in.”
The medic nodded, and as he fastened the straps, he asked Berry, “Hey, what’s with these people?”
Berry replied, “Brain… Lack of oxygen. They’re all… They’re not well. Unpredictable.”
The medic nodded. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re not supposed to be moving around. Just lie down here and wait for a stretcher.”
“Okay.”
The medic pushed the gurney down the runway toward a dozen parked ambulances and a few dozen trucks that had been pressed into service to transport dead and injured.
Berry tried to make sense of what was going on around him. It appeared that most of the rescue workers and vehicles were staying a respectable hundred yards or so from the Straton until the firefighters gave assurances that the airliner wasn’t going to blow. There were no ladders or hydraulic platforms at any of the doors or at the holes in the sides of the aircraft. All Berry could see were hoses shooting chemicals at the huge aircraft, nose to tail, top to bottom, wingtip to wingtip. The giant airliner was dripping, glistening, as pools of chemicals collected around the craft. Berry noticed that a fire truck was shooting white foam at the tail, obliterating the Trans-United logo. This, he knew, had less to do with fire fighting than with public relations.
He noticed, too, that a number of medics had braved the risk of explosion and were removing the passengers who had slid down the only deployed chute, which was the one from the cockpit.
Berry looked up at the cockpit emergency door and shouted again, “Sharon! Linda!”
He grabbed the arm of a passing fireman and shouted, “My wife and daughter are in the cockpit! I have to get up there!”
The fireman looked up at the towering dome of the Straton 797, the place where the first-class lounge and cockpit were. The man shook his head. “We don’t have anything on the scene that can reach that high.”
“Then get a goddamned truck and ladder here! Now!”
“Steady, fella. We’re going in through the passenger doors in a minute. We’ll get into the dome and get your family.” He added, “I have to ask you to clear this area. Back where the ambulances are. Go on.”
Berry turned and hurried toward the tail of the aircraft.
He felt dizzy, and guessed he had a slight concussion. He surveyed the area around him, and in the far distance he saw the main terminal and more vehicles headed his way. He spotted a number of vans with antennas and dishes on their roofs, and he knew they were television vans. A line of police cars with rotating lights kept them at bay and kept the growing crowd from getting closer.