- •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.
I'm glad we had our ration With love and passion.
Keith pocketed both. Someone else could clear the other things out. There was nothing he wanted to remind him of this place---ever.
He stopped.
He stood there, realizing that without intending to, he had come to a new decision. He wasn't sure of everything the decision involved, or how it might seem tomorrow, or even if he could live with it beyond then. If he couldn't live with it, there was still an escape clause; a way out---the drugstore pillbox in his pocket.
For tonight, the main thing was: he was not going to the O'Hagan Inn. He was going home.
But there was one thing he knew: If there was to be a future, it must be removed from aviation. As others who had quit air traffic control before him had discovered, that could prove the hardest thing of all.
And even if that much could be overcome---face it now, Keith told himself---there would be times when he would be reminded of the past. Reminded of Lincoln International; of Leesburg; of what had happened at both places. Whatever else you escaped, if you had a whole mind, there was no escaping memory. The memory of the Redfern family who had died... of little Valerie Redfern... would never leave him.
Yet memory could adapt---couldn't it?---to time, to circumstance, to the reality of living here and now. The Redferns were dead. The Bible said: Let the dead bury their dead. What had happened, was done.
Keith wondered if... from now on... he could remember the Redferns with sadness, but do his best to make the living---Natalie, his own children---his first concern.
He wasn't sure if it would work. He wasn't sure if he had the moral or the physical strength. It had been a long time since he was sure of anything. But he could try.
He took the tower elevator down.
Outside, on his way to the FAA parking lot, Keith stopped. On sudden impulse, knowing he might regret it later, he took the pillbox from his pocket and emptied its contents into the snow.
18
FROM HIS CAR, which he bad parked on the nearby taxiway after quitting runway three zero, Mel Bakersfeld could see that the pilots of Trans America Flight Two were wasting no time in taxiing to the terminal. The aircraft's lights, now halfway across the airfield, were still visible, moving fast. On his radio, switched to ground control, Mel could hear other flights being halted at taxiway and runway intersections to let the damaged airliner pass. The injured were still aboard. Flight Two had been instructed to head directly for gate forty-seven where medical help, ambulances, and company staff were waiting.
Mel watched the aircraft's lights diminish, and merge with the galaxy of terminal lights beyond.
Airport emergency vehicles, which had not after all been required, were dispersing from the runway area.
Tanya and the Tribune reporter, Tomlinson, were both on their way back to the terminal. They were driving with Joe Patroni, who had handed over the Aéreo-Mexican 707 for someone else to taxi to the hangars.
Tanya wanted to be at gate forty-seven for the disembarking of passengers from Flight Two. It was likely she would be needed.
Before leaving, she had asked Mel quietly, "Are you still coming home?"
"If it isn't too late," he said, "I'd like to."
He watched while Tanya pushed a strand of red hair back from her face. She had looked at him with her direct, clear eyes and smiled. "It's not too late."
They agreed to meet at the main terminal entrance in three quarters of an hour.
Tomlinson's purpose was to interview Joe Patroni, and after that the crew of Trans America Flight Two. The crew---and Patroni, no doubt---would be heroes within a few hours. The dramatic story of the flight's peril and survival, Mel suspected, would eclipse his own pronouncements on the more mundane subject of the airport's problems and deficiencies.
Though not entirely, perhaps. Tomlinson, to whom Mel had entrusted his opinions, was a thoughtful, intelligent reporter who might decide to link present dramatics with the equally serious long-term view.
The Aéreo-Mexican 707, Mel saw, was now being moved away. The airplane appeared undamaged, but would undoubtedly be washed down and inspected thoroughly before resuming its interrupted flight to Acapulco.
The assortment of service vehicles which had stayed with the aircraft during its ordeal by mud were following.
There was no reason for Mel not to go himself. He would---in a moment or two; but for the second time tonight he found the airfield's loneliness, its closeness to the elemental part of aviation, a stimulus to thought.
It was here, a few hours ago, Mel remembered, that he had had an instinct, a premonition, of events moving toward some disastrous end. Well, in a way they had. The disaster had happened, though through good fortune it had been neither complete, nor had the airport's facilities---or lack of them---been directly responsible.
But the disaster could have involved the airport; and the airport in turn might have caused complete catastrophe---through inadequacies which Mel had foreseen and had argued, vainly, to correct.
For Lincoln International was obsolescent.
Obsolescent, Mel knew, despite its good management, and gleaming glass and chrome; despite its air traffic density, its record-breaking passenger volume, its Niagara of air freight, its expectations of even more of everything, and its boastful title, "Aviation Crossroads of the World."
The airport was obsolescent because---as had happened so often in the short six decades of modern aviation history---air progress had eclipsed prediction. Once more, expert prognosticators had been wrong, the visionary dreamers right.
And what was true here was true elsewhere.
Nationwide, worldwide, the story was the same. Much was talked about aviation's growth, its needs, coming developments in the air which would provide the lowest cost transportation of people and goods in human history, the chance these gave the nations of the world to know each other better, in peace, and to trade more freely. Yet little on the ground---in relation to the problem's size---had been done.
Well, one voice alone would not change everything, but each voice which spoke with knowledge and conviction was a help. It had come to Mel within the past few hours---he was not sure why or how---that he intended to continue speaking out the way he had tonight, the way he hadn't for so long.
Tomorrow---or rather, later today---he would begin by summoning, for Monday morning, an emergency special meeting of the Board of Airport Commissioners. When the Board met, he would urge an immediate commitment to build a new runway paralleling three zero.
The experience of tonight had strencqhened, as nothing else could, the arguments for increasing runway capacity which Mel had presented long ago. But this time, he determined, he would make a fight of it---with plain, blunt words, warning of catastrophe if public safety were given lip service only, while vital operational needs were ignored or shelved. He would see to it that press and public opinion were marshaled on his side---the kind of pressure which downtown politicians understood.
After new runways, other projects, so far only talked about or hoped for, must be pressed on; among them---an entirely new terminal and runway complex; more imaginative ground flow of people and freight; smaller, satellite fields for the vertical and short takeoff aircraft which were coming soon.
Either Lincoln International was in the jet age, or it wasn't; if it was, it must keep pace far better than it had.
It was not, Mel thought, as if airports were an indulgence or some civic luxury. Almost all were self-sustaining, generating wealth and high employment.
Not all the battles for ground-air progress would be won; they never were. But some of them could be, and some of what was said and done here---because of Mel's stature in airport management----could spill over into national, even international, arenas.
If it did, so much the better! The English poet John Donne, Mel remembered, had once written:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
. No airport was an island either; those which called themselves International should employ the kind of thinking to justify their name. Perhaps, working with others, Mel could help to show them how.
People who hadn't heard from Mel Bakersfeld for a while might quickly learn that he was still around.
And intensive work, a resumption of more of his old industry-wide interests, might help with personal problems by keeping his mind occupied. Mel hoped so, anyway. The thought was an abrupt reminder that sometime soon---perhaps tomorrow---he would have to call Cindy and arrange to move out his clothes and personal belongings. It would be an unhappy process which he hoped the girls, Roberta and Libby, would not be around to see. To begin with, Mel supposed, he would move into a hotel until he had time to arrange an apartment of his own.
But more than ever be knew that Cindy's and his own decision for divorce bad been inevitable. Both of them had known it; tonight they merely resolved to remove a facade behind which nothing existed any more. Neither for themselves nor for the children could anything have been gained by more delay.