Total War

Chapter Twenty-three

Rourke stood up and turned toward Mrs. Richards who was kneeling on the cockpit floor beside the captain. "You were right." Mrs. Richards looked at him. Rourke went on. "The captain is dead." He glanced across to the other side of the narrow cockpit-the copilot had died twenty minutes earlier. "Looks like it's up to us now," Rourke said quietly.

Mandy Richards bit her lip and nodded.

Rourke patted her on the shoulder. "From what I've been able to tell, we've got about two hours of flying time left-less, since we'll need some fuel to get her down, and we'll have to get down to a lower altitude before we can do that."

Suddenly, Rourke held his fingers to his lips, signaling silence. The speaker for the radio was the focus of his attention. He heard a voice coming from it. Ever since he had gone forward to the cockpit and begun trying to decipher the controls, the radio-on every band he'd tried-had been nothing but static. Ionization, he'd believed was the cause. But now there was a voice.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Richards," Rourke said, moving forward and dropping into the captain's chair, then putting the headset on and working the radio controls. "This is Canamerican 747 Flight 601-reading you with some heavy static. Do you read me? Over."

He waited a moment, then the static broke and the voice came back. "This is Buck Anderson-ham operator out of Tombstone, Arizona, Captain. Over."

Rourke smiled. "I'm no captain kid-just a fella flyin' the plane. Captain and copilot bought it with flash burns. Is it possible for you to relay our signal and get us some professional help-maybe from Tucson?"

"There is no Tucson," the voice came back. Then there was a long pause.

"Buck," Rourke said, "you still reading me? Over."

"I'm still reading you. But there is no-no Tucson. Everything to the west has either gone into the sea like California did or been flooded. We're on an island out here now."

"Yeah," Rourke cut in, "yeah, I knew your area-was there for Helidorado Days."

"But the water," the boy's voice went on, "it may be rising-not sure if it's stopped. Everyone is dead-I'm sick-the bombs that hit Tucson and Phoenix just wiped them out. As far down as Bensen." There was a little restaurant in Benson that Rourke had liked. It had made the best pizza he'd found in Arizona. "What's your source for the West Coast thing?" Rourke asked. "Over."

"Ham operator-a girl I knew. We were on when the bombs started failing and she kept on. Somehow I was still getting her. Then she started describing it-horrible."

"Tell me," Rourke said, his voice low. "Over."

"Oh. Mother of God-the buildings started shaking, the ground-from where she was she could see the ground starting to open, and then she went off. After that, I picked up another commercial flight. Told me they were watching from the air-huge cracks in the ground-lava coming up, and then suddenly it all slipped away and there was a giant wall of water. I lost the transmission after that. The pilot said the turbulence was getting bad and cut off, kind of funny."

"Any word on Flagstaff, Buck?" Rourke asked. "Over."

"No-nothing since a Civil Defense broadcast over an hour ago-the whole area around Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon had an eight-or nine-point earthquake, and there were bombs still failing."

Rourke just shook his head. "Kid," he said, "you gonna make it?"

"I don't think so-I'm starting to throw up blood-vision is already blurry. I think its radiation sickness."

"It is, Buck," Rourke said.

"That's what I thought."

"I'm sorry," Rourke said.

"I wish I could help you get your plane down. But I can't. Maybe you're better off just crashing-it's hell down here. The air is bad, the water's rising now-I can tell, and-" The voice cut off.

"Buck?" Rourke said.

The boy's voice cut back in. "My generator handle pulled out-sorry."

"Anything on New Mexico? Over."

"Can't make out-" Then there was static.

"Did he die?" It was Mrs. Richards, sitting now in the copilot's chair beside Rourke.

"No, Mrs. Richards-we just got into different air space and out of his frequency. No, he didn't die-yet."

"Maybe the boy was right," Mrs. Richards said. Rourke looked at the woman.

"Now, as long as we're alive," he said, "we've got a chance. Once we give up and lie down, that's it."

"My husband was in California," Mrs. Richards said.

"I have a wife and two children back in Georgia," Rourke replied.

"But they could still be alive. I know my husband is dead. Maybe that boy was just a liar," she started. "A liar-he was just lying because he didn't know-it couldn't have just fallen into-"

"I don't think he was lying, Mrs. Richards," Rourke said, quietly.

"Do you think my husband could have survived?" she asked softly.

"Honest?" Rourke queried.

"Yes," she said.

"No-I don't. Even if he was on the right side of the fault line, the tidal wave would have gotten him. I had, I guess, a friend in San Diego-told me once that if the San Andreas fault ever went, he'd be okay. His office and his house were on the continental side. I didn't have the heart to remind him about the tidal wave. See, when those mountains slipped off and all the land on the other side, the impact and the added mass, as well as the slipping motion itself-all that figured in to create a tsunami and then flood the lowland. I don't know where the new coastline will wind up."

"Why should I live?" she moaned. "There's nothing left. Nothing to live for. Why live now?" She said it like a chant.

Rourke looked at Mrs. Richards, then slowly said, "That's a question you're going to have to answer for yourself, ma'am. And I hope you can. Now, lets try to fly this plane, and get everyone down, huh?"

He kept watching her. She did not seem hysterical or beside herself, but her eyes filled with tears. Finally, she turned to him, whispering, "Maybe you just said it-we got all those people back there, haven't we?"

"Yes-we have," Rourke said slowly. "And all they've got right now is us."

"What will it be like-on the ground. If we make it, I mean?"

"Well, your guess is as good as mine. But I don't see humanity coming to a screeching halt, if that's what you mean. Maybe civilization, but humanity will find a way of going on. It always has, always will. Now," he said, turning and facing the control panel, "like the man said, let's see if this mother'll fly. You got charge of the instruction book."

Rourke put his hands on the controls, killed the auto pilot switch, and throttled back to get the feel. Suddenly, the plane shuddered.

"Mr. Rourke!" Mrs. Richards shouted.

"That wasn't me, lady. That was the explosion down there." Already, he was hauling back on the controls and throttling forward. "Hit that seatbelt sign, Mrs. Richards, and get on the PA and tell everyone to settle in. I gotta climb before that blast cooks us"'

Mrs. Richards picked up the microphone for the PA, then asked, "Was that another missile that hit?"

"No-we were over an oil refinery, is my guess. It just blew." Almost as the words left his mouth, the plane shuddered, and he locked his fists tighter on the controls. "Hit that seatbelt sign, huh!"