Melanie Trevor had told him, on heading 090. An hour or two from now that would change as the plane doglegged further north. Brian took the navigator's chart book, looked at the airspeed indicator, and made a series of rapid calculations. Then he put on the headset.
"Denver Center, this is American Pride Flight 29, over?"
He flicked the toggle... and heard nothing. Nothing at all. No static; no chatter; no ground control, no other planes. He checked the transponder setting: 7700, just as it should be. Then he flicked the toggle back to transmit again. "Denver Center, come in please, this is American Pride Flight 29, repeat, American Pride Heavy, and I have a problem, Denver, I have a problem."
Flicked back the toggle to receive. Listened.
Then Brian did something which made Albert "Ace" Kaussner's heart begin to bump faster with fear: he hit the control panel just below the radio equipment with the heel of his hand. The Boeing 767 was a high-tech, state-of-the-art passenger plane. One did not try to make the equipment on such a plane operate in such a fashion. What the pilot had just done was what you did when the old Philco radio you bought for a buck at the Kiwanis Auction wouldn't play after you got it home.
Brian tried Denver Center again. And got no response. No response at all.
7
To this moment, Brian had been dazed and terribly perplexed. Now he began to feel frightened - really frightened - as well. Up until now there had been no time to be scared. He wished that were still so... but it wasn't. He flicked the radio to the emergency band and tried again. There was no response. This was the equivalent of dialing 911 in Manhattan and getting a recording which said everyone had left for the weekend. When you called for help on the emergency band, you always got a prompt response.
Until now, at least, Brian thought.
He switched to UNICOM, where private pilots obtained landing advisories at small airports. No response. He listened... and heard nothing at all. Which just couldn't be. Private pilots chattered like grackles on a telephone line. The gal in the Piper wanted to know the weather. The guy in the Cessna would just flop back dead in his seat if he couldn't get someone to call his wife and tell her he was bringing home three extra for dinner. The guys in the Lear wanted the girl on the desk at the Arvada Airport to tell their charter passengers that they were going to be fifteen minutes late and to hold their water, they would still make the baseball game in Chicago on time.
But none of that was there. All the grackles had flown, it seemed, and the telephone lines were bare.
He flicked back to the FAA emergency band. "Denver, come in! Come in right now! This is AP Flight 29, you answer me, goddammit!"
Nick touched his shoulder. "Easy, mate."
"The dog won't bark!" Brian said frantically. "That's impossible, but that's what's happening! Christ, what did they do, have a fucking nuclear war?"
"Easy," Nick repeated. "Steady down, Brian, and tell me what you mean, the dog won't bark."
"I mean Denver Control!" Brian said. "That dog! I mean FAA Emergency! That dog! UNICOM, that dog, too! I've never - "
He flicked another switch. "Here," he said, "this is the medium shortwave band. They should be jumping all over each other like frogs on a hot sidewalk, but I can't pick up jack shit."
He flicked another switch, then looked up at Nick and Albert Kaussner, who had crowded in close. "There's no VOR beacon out of Denver," he said.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning I have no radio, I have no Denver navigation beacon, and my board says everything is just peachy keen. Which is crap. Got to be."
A terrible idea began to surface in his mind, coming up like a bloated corpse rising to the top of a river.
"Hey, kid - look out the window. Left side of the plane. Tell me what you see."
Albert Kaussner looked out. He looked out for a long time. "Nothing," he said. "Nothing at all. Just the last of the Rockies and the beginning of the plains."
"No lights?"
"No."
Brian got up on legs which felt weak and watery. He stood looking down for a long time.
At last Nick Hopewell said quietly, "Denver's gone, isn't it?"
Brian knew from the navigator's charts and his on-board navigational equipment that they should now be flying less than fifty miles south