descending rapidly toward LA, and at any moment they might wander into someone else's airspace while the someone else was still there.
Someone else had been sharing his airspace just before he passed out... who?
He fumbled, and it came. Nick, of course. Nick Hopewell. Nick was gone. He hadn't been such a bad penny after all, it seemed. But he must have done his job, or Brian wouldn't be awake now.
He got on the radio, fast.
"LAX ground control, this is American Pride Flight - " He stopped. What flight were they? He couldn't remember. The fog was in the way.
"Twenty-nine, aren't we?" a dazed, unsteady voice said from behind him.
"Thank you, Laurel." Brian didn't turn around. "Now go back and belt up. I may have to make this plane do some tricks."
He spoke into his mike again.
"American Pride Flight 29, repeat, two-niner. Mayday, ground control, I am declaring an emergency here. Please clear everything in front of me, I am coming in on heading 85 and I have no fuel. Get a foam truck out and - "
"Oh, quit it," Laurel said dully from behind him. "Just quit it."
Brian wheeled around them, ignoring the fresh bolt of pain through his head and the fresh spray of blood which flew from his nose. "Sit down, goddammit!" he snarled. "We're coming in unannounced into heavy traffic. If you don't want to break your neck - "
"There's no heavy traffic down there," Laurel said in the same dull voice. "No heavy traffic, no foam trucks. Nick died for nothing, and I'll never get a chance to deliver his message. Look for yourself."
Brian did. And, although they were now over the outlying suburbs of Los Angeles, he saw nothing but darkness.
There was no one down there, it seemed.
No one at all.
Behind him, Laurel Stevenson burst into harsh, raging sobs of terror and frustration.
31
A long white passenger jet cruised slowly above the ground sixteen miles cast of Los Angeles International Airport. 767 was printed on its tail in large, proud numerals. Along the fuselage, the words AMERICAN PRIDE were written in letters which had been raked backward to indicate speed. On both sides of the nose was a large red eagle, its wings spangled with blue stars. Like the airliner it decorated, the eagle appeared to be coming in for a landing.
The plane printed no shadow on the deserted grid of streets as it passed above them; dawn was still an hour away. Below it, no car moved, no streetlight glowed. Below it, all was silent and moveless. Ahead of it, no runway lights gleamed.
The plane's belly slid open. The undercarriage dropped down and spread out. The landing gear locked in place.
American Pride Flight 29 slipped down the chute toward LA. It banked slightly to the right as it came; Brian was now able to correct his course visually, and he did so. They passed over a cluster of airport motels, and for a moment Brian could see the monument that stood near the center of the terminal complex, a graceful tripod with curved legs and a restaurant in its center. They passed over a short strip of dead grass and then concrete runway was unrolling thirty feet below the plane.
There was no time to baby the 767 in this time; Brian's fuel indicators read zeros across and the bird was about to turn into a bitch. He brought it in hard, like a sled filled with bricks. There was a thud that rattled his teeth and started his nose bleeding again. His chest harness locked. Laurel, who was in the co-pilots seat, cried out.
Then he had the flaps up and was applying reverse thrusters at full. The plane began to slow. They were doing a little over a hundred miles an hour when two of the thrusters cut out and the red ENGINE SHUTDOWN lights flashed on. He grabbed for the intercom switch.
"Hang on! We're going in hard! Hang on!"
Thrusters two and four kept running a few moments longer, and then they were gone, too. Flight 29 rushed down the runway in ghastly silence, with only the flaps to slow her now. Brian watched helplessly as the concrete ran away beneath the plane and the crisscross tangle of taxiways loomed. And there, dead ahead, sat the carcass of a Pacific Airways commuter jet.
The 767 was still doing at least sixty-five. Brian horsed it to the right, leaning into the dead steering yoke with every ounce of his strength. The plane responded soupily, and he skated