was blind. What if they left him behind and the guy decided to go on a rampage? What if, in the course of that rampage, he decided to trash the cockpit?
So what? You're not going anyplace. The tanks are almost dry.
Still, he didn't like the idea, and not just because the 767 was a multimillion-dollar piece of equipment, either. Perhaps what he felt was a vague echo of what he had seen in Dinah's face as she looked up from the slide. Things here seemed wrong, even wronger than they looked... and that was scary, because he didn't know how things could be wronger than that. The plane, however, was right. Even with its fuel tanks all but empty, it was a world he knew and understood.
"Your turn, friend," he said as civilly as he could.
"You know I'm going to report you for this, don't you?" Craig Toomy asked in a queerly gentle voice. "You know I plan to sue this entire airline for thirty million dollars, and that I plan to name you a primary respondent?"
"That's your privilege, Mr - "
"Toomy. Craig Toomy."
"Mr Toomy," Brian agreed. He hesitated. "Mr Toomy, are you aware of what has happened to us?"
Craig looked out the open doorway for a moment - looked at the deserted tarmac and the wide, slightly polarized terminal windows on the second level, where no happy friends and relatives stood waiting to embrace arriving passengers, where no impatient travellers waited for their flights to be called.
Of course he knew. It was the langoliers. The langoliers had come for all the foolish, lazy people, just as his father had always said they would.
In that same gentle voice, Craig said: "In the Bond Department of the Desert Sun Banking Corporation, I am known as The Wheelhorse. Did you know that?" He paused for a moment, apparently waiting for Brian to make some response. When Brian didn't, Craig continued. "Of course you didn't. No more than you know how important this meeting at the Prudential Center in Boston is. No more than you care. But let me tell you something, Captain: the economic fate of nations may hinge upon the results of that meeting - that meeting from which I will be absent when the roll is taken."
"Mr Toomy, all that's very interesting, but I really don't have time."
"Time!" Craig screamed at him suddenly. "What in the hell do you know about time? Ask me! Ask me! I know about time! I know all about time! Time is short, sir! Time is very fucking short!"
Hell with it, I'm going to push the crazy son of a bitch, Brian thought, but before he could, Craig Toomy turned and leaped. He did a perfect seat-drop, holding his briefcase to his chest as he did so, and Brian was crazily reminded of that old Hertz ad on TV, the one where O.J. Simpson went flying through airports in a suit and a tie.
"Time is short as hell!" Craig shouted as he slid down, briefcase over his chest like a shield, pantslegs pulling up to reveal his knee-high dress-for-success black nylon socks.
Brian muttered: "Jesus, what a fucking weirdo." He paused at the head of the slide, looked around once more at the comforting, known world of his aircraft... and jumped.
8
Ten people stood in two small groups beneath the giant wing of the 767 with the red-and-blue eagle on the nose. In one group were Brian, Nick, the bald man, Bethany Simms, Albert Kaussner, Robert Jenkins, Dinah, Laurel, and Don Gaffney. Standing slightly apart from them and constituting his own group was Craig Toomy, a.k.a. The Wheelhorse. Craig bent and shook out the creases of his pants with fussy concentration, using his left hand to do it. The right hand was tightly locked around the handle of his briefcase. Then he simply stood and looked around with wide, disinterested eyes.
"What now, Captain?" Nick asked briskly.
"You tell me. Us."
Nick looked at him for a moment, one eyebrow slightly raised, as if to ask Brian if he really meant it. Brian inclined his head half an inch. It was enough.
"Well, inside the terminal will do for a start, I reckon," Nick said. "What would be the quickest way to get there? Any idea?"
Brian nodded toward a line of baggage trains parked beneath the overhang of the main terminal. "I'd guess the quickest way in without a jetway would be the luggage conveyor."
"All right; let's hike on over, ladies and gentlemen, shall we?"