Patroni, Mel calculated by his watch, had three minutes left.
"The airplane's still stuck." Tanya was peering intently through the car windshield. "They're using all the engines, but it isn't moving."
It was straining forward, though; that much Mel could see, even through the blowing snow. But Tanya was right. The aircraft wasn't moving.
The snowplows and heavy graders had shifted closer together, their beacons flashing brightly.
"Hold it!" Mel said on radio. "Hold it! Don't commit that flight coming in to runway two five. One way or the other, there'll be a change in three zero status any moment now."
He switched the car radio to Snow Desk frequency, ready to activate the plows.
PART THREE Chapter Fourteen
Ordinarily, after midnight, pressures in air traffic control relented slightly. Tonight they hadn't. Because of the storm, airlines at Lincoln International were continuing to dispatch and receive flights which were hours late. More often than not, their lateness was added to by the general runway and taxiway congestion still prevailing.
Most members of the earlier eight-hour watch in air traffic control had ended their shift at midnight and gone wearily home. Newcomers on duty had taken their place. A few controllers, because of staff shortage and illness of others, had been assigned a spread-over shift which would end at 2 A.M. They included the tower watch chief; Wayne Tevis, the radar supervisor; and Keith Bakersfeld.
Since the emotion-charged session with his brother, which ended abruptly and abortively an hour and a half ago, Keith had sought relief of mind by concentrating intensely on the radar screen in front of him. If he could maintain his concentration, he thought, the remaining time---the last he would ever have to fill---would pass quickly. Keith had continued handling east arrivals, working with a young assistant---a radar handoff man---seated on his left. Wayne Tevis was still supervising, riding his castor-equipped stool around the control room, propelled by his Texan boots, though less energetically, as Tevis's own duty shift neared an end.
In one sense, Keith had succeeded in his concentration; yet in a strange way he bad not. It seemed almost as if his mind had split into two levels, like a duplex, and he was able to be in both at once. On one level he was directing east arrivals traffic---at the moment, without problems. On the other, his thoughts were personal and introspective. It was not a condition which could last, but perhaps, Keith thought, his mind was like a light bulb about to fail and, for its last few minutes, burning brightest.
The personal side of his thoughts was dispassionate now, and calmer than before; perhaps the session with Mel had achieved that, if nothing more. All things seemed ordained and settled. Keith's duty shift would end; he would leave this place; soon after, all waiting and all anguish would be over. He had the conviction that his own life and others' were already severed; he no longer belonged to Natalie or Mel, or Brian and Theo... or they to him. He belonged to the already dead---to the Redfems who had died together in the wreck of their Beech Bonanza; to little Valerie... her family. That was it! Why had he never thought of it that way before; realized that his own death was a debt he owed the Redferns? With continued dispassion, Keith wondered if he were insane; people who chose suicide were said to be, but either way it made no difference. His choice was between torment and peace; and before the light of morning, peace would come. Once more, as it had intermittently in the past few hours, his hand went into his pocket, fingering the key to room 224 of the O'Hagan Inn.
All the while, on the other mental level, and with traces of his old flair, he coped with east arrivals.
Awareness of the crisis with Trans America Flight Two came to Keith gradually.
Lincoln air traffic control had been advised of Flight Two's intention to return there---almost an hour ago, and seconds after Captain Anson Harris's decision was made known. Word had come by "hot line" telephone directly from Chicago Center supervisor to the tower watch chief, after similar notification through Cleveland and Toronto centers. Initially there had been little to do at Lincoln beyond advising the airport management, through the Snow Desk, of the flight's request for runway three zero.
Later, when Flight Two had been taken over from Cleveland, by Chicago Center, more specific preparations were begun.
Wayne Tevis, the radar supervisor, was alerted by the tower chief, who