Free Runway Zero-Eight by Arthur Hailey, John Castle Page B

Stand by.”
    Spencer wiped the gathering sweat from his forehead and grinned across to Janet. “Want to bet that’s caused a bit of stir in the dovecotes down there?” She shook her head, listening intently to her earphones. In a few seconds the air was alive again, the voice as measured and impersonal as before.
    “Vancouver to Flight 714. Please check with doctor on board for any possibility of either pilot recovering. This is important. Repeat, this is important. Ask him to do everything possible to revive one of them even if he has to leave the sick passengers. Over.”
    Spencer pressed his transmit button. “Vancouver, this is flight 714. Your message is understood, but no go, I’m afraid. The doctor says there is no possibility whatever of pilots recovering to make the landing. He says they are critically ill and may die unless they get hospital treatment soon. Over.”
    There was a slight pause. Then: “Vancouver Control to 714. Your message understood. Will you stand by, please.”
    “Roger, Vancouver,” acknowledged Spencer and switched off again. He said to Janet, “We can only wait now while they think up what to do.”
    His hands played nervously with the control column in front of him, following its movements, trying to gauge its responsiveness as he attempted to call up the old cunning in him, the flying skill that had once earned for him quite a reputation in the squadron: three times home on a wing and a prayer. He smiled to himself as he recalled the war-time phrase. But in the next moment, as he looked blankly at the monstrous assembly of wavering needles and the unfamiliar banks of levers and switches, he felt himself in the grip of an icy despair. What had his flying in common with this? This was like sitting in a submarine, surrounded by the meaningless dials and instruments of science fiction. One wrong or clumsy move might shatter in a second the even tenor of their flight; if it did, who was to say that he could bring the aircraft under control again? All the chances were that he couldn’t. This time there would be no comforting presence of Hurricanes to shepherd him home. He began to curse the head office which had whipped him away from Winnipeg to go trouble-shooting across to Vancouver at a moment’s notice. The prospect of a sales manager’s appointment and the lure of a house on Parkway Heights now seemed absurdly trivial and unimportant. It would be damnable to end like this, not to see Mary again, not to say to her all the things that were still unspoken. As for Bobsie and Kit, the life insurance would not take them very far. He should have done more for those poor kids, the world’s best.
    A movement beside him arrested his thoughts. Janet was kneeling on her seat, looking back to where the still figures of the captain and the first officer lay on the floor.
    “One of those a boy friend of yours?” he asked.
    “No,” said Janet hesitantly, “not really.”
    “Skip it,” said Spencer, a jagged edge to his voice. “I understand. I’m sorry, Janet.” He put a cigarette in his mouth and fumbled for matches. “I don’t suppose this is allowed, is it, but maybe the airline can stretch a point.”
    In the sudden flare of the match she could see, very clearly, the fierce burning anger in his eyes.

SIX
0300—0325
    WITH AN ACCELERATING thunder of engines the last eastbound aircraft to take off from Vancouver that night had gathered speed along the wetly gleaming runway and climbed into the darkness. Its navigation lights, as it made the required circuit of the airport, had been shrouded in a damp clinging mist. Several other aircraft, in process of being towed back from their dispersal points to bays alongside the departure buildings, were beaded with moisture. It was a cold night. Ground staff, moving about their tasks in the yellow arc lights, slapped their gloved hands around themselves to keep warm. None of them spoke more than was necessary. One slowly taxiing aircraft