of Denver... but below them he saw only the dark, featureless landscape that marked the beginning of the Great Plains.
"Yes," he said. "Denver's gone."
8
There was a moment of utter silence in the cockpit, and then Nick Hopewell turned to the peanut gallery, currently consisting of Albert, the man in the ratty sport-coat, and the young girl. Nick clapped his hands together briskly, like a kindergarten teacher. He sounded like one, too, when he spoke. "All right, people! Back to your seats. I think we need a little quiet here."
"We are being quiet," the girl objected, and reasonably enough.
"I believe that what the gentleman actually means isn't quiet but a little privacy," the man in the ratty sport-coat said. He spoke in cultured tones, but his soft, worried eyes were fixed on Brian.
"That's exactly what I mean," Nick agreed. "Please?"
"Is he going to be all right?" the man in the ratty sport-coat asked in a low voice. "He looks rather upset."
Nick answered in the same confidential tone. "Yes," he said. "He'll be fine. I'll see to it."
"Come on, children," the man in the ratty sport-coat said. He put one arm around the girl's shoulders, the other around Albert's. "Let's go back and sit down. Our pilot has work to do."
They need not have lowered their voices even temporarily as far as Brian Engle was concerned. He might have been a fish feeding in a stream while a small flock of birds passes overhead. The sound may reach the fish, but he certainly attaches no significance to it. Brian was busy working his way through the radio bands and switching from one navigational touchpoint to another. It was useless. No Denver; no Colorado Springs; no Omaha. All gone.
He could feel sweat trickling down his cheeks like tears, could feel his shirt sticking to his back.
I must smell like a pig, he thought, or a -
Then inspiration struck. He switched to the military-aircraft band, although regulations expressly forbade his doing so. The Strategic Air Command practically owned Omaha. They would not be off the air. They might tell him to get the fuck off their frequency, would probably threaten to report him to the FAA, but Brian would accept all this cheerfully. Perhaps he would be the first to tell them that the city of Denver had apparently gone on vacation.
"Air Force Control, Air Force Control, this is American Pride Flight 29 and we have a problem here, a big problem here, do you read me? Over."
No dog barked there, either.
That was when Brian felt something - something like a bolt - starting to give way deep inside his mind. That was when he felt his entire structure of organized thought begin to slide slowly toward some dark abyss.
9
Nick Hopewell clamped a hand on him then, high up on his shoulder, near the neck. Brian jumped in his seat and almost cried out aloud. He turned his head and found Nick's face less than three inches from his own.
Now he'll grab my nose and start to twist it, Brian thought.
Nick did not grab his nose. He spoke with quiet intensity, his eyes fixed unflinchingly on Brian's. "I see a look in your eyes, my friend... but I didn't need to see your eyes to know it was there. I can hear it in your voice and see it in the way you're sitting in your seat. Now listen to me, and listen well: panic is not allowed."
Brian stared at him, frozen by that blue gaze.
"Do you understand me?"
He spoke with great effort. "They don't let guys do what I do for a living if they panic, Nick."
"I know that," Nick said, "but this is a unique situation. You need to remember, however, that there are a dozen or more people on this plane, and your job is the same as it ever was: to bring them down in one piece."
"You don't need to tell me what my job is!" Brian snapped.
"I'm afraid I did," Nick said, "but you're looking a hundred per cent better now, I'm relieved to say."
Brian was doing more than looking better; he was starting to feel better again. Nick had stuck a pin into the most sensitive place - his sense of responsibility. Just where he meant to stick me, he thought.
"What do you do for a living, Nick?" he asked a trifle shakily.
Nick threw back his head and laughed. "Junior attache, British embassy, old man."