The intercom system was still on-Rourke could hear it humming. But beyond that and the engine vibration noise as the aircraft climbed into the higher, thinner air-the lights of Atlanta vanishing in the distance below-all was silent.
Then he heard a scream. The woman sitting across the aisle screamed again, grasping at her throat with both hands. Rourke ripped open his seat belt, pushed rudely past the man in the seat beside him.
Other passengers started screaming. In the aisle now, Rourke shouted, “Quiet down! This woman is having a heart attack-what’s your excuse?”
He bent over her and loosened the tight pearl choker at her throat. The old woman was starting to gag. Forcing her mouth open, Rourke reached two fingers inside and got her tongue back up out of her throat. A stewardess was at his elbow. “Are you a doctor?” she said.
“I trained as one. See if there’s another doctor aboard. Hurry!”
As Rourke started to bend toward the old woman to give her resuscitation, he stopped. The fluttering of the pulse at her neck had stopped. She was no longer breathing, and her eyes were fixed and staring. Leaning over her Rourke hammered his fists down over her chest. He could hear the stewardess’s voice behind him, “What are you doing?”
Without looking at her, Rourke rasped, “I’m trying to get her heart started again.”
He kept at it for several seconds-and nothing happened. “Stewardess!” he shouted.
“Yes, sir. There wasn’t another doctor aboard. Can I help?”
Rourke glanced at the young woman over his shoulder. “Yeah. Find me a hair dryer and something to plug it into-hurry.”
“A hair dryer?”
“Yeah,” he rasped. “A hair dryer, electric razor-something like that.”
In a moment, the stewardess was back beside him, a gun-shaped hair dryer in her hands.
Snatching the appliance, Rourke ripped out the cord, then using a small pocket knife, split the cord and stripped away the insulation, exposing an inch of wire. “Plug this in when I tell you to-but don’t touch these ends or let them drag against anything.”
Putting both hands on the neck of the older woman’s dress, he ripped the garment down the front. “Okay-plug it in,” he said. Then, turning to the stewardess, he took the electrical cord and gingerly touched both exposed ends together until they sparked.
“Now,” he whispered, “don’t let anybody touch her.” He touched both ends to the woman’s chest. Her body bounced half off the seat. Leaning forward, he listened for her heart. Taking the electrical cord again, he touched the ends once more to the woman’s still chest. Her body lurched up, then back down into the seat.
“She’s breathing!” the stewardess cried.
Rourke wrapped the electrical cord around his fingers and yanked it from the socket. “Try to make her comfortable,” he said, leaning down and listening to the woman’s heart, then holding her wrist for the pulse. “Keep her mouth clear. Have one of the passengers watch her to make sure her chest is rising and failing. And you better go tell the captain to set us down as soon as he can. This lady here needs a hospital.”
“I can give her oxygen.”
“Save that for when she needs it-she’s breathing okay for the moment,” Rourke said.
He pushed his way through the passengers who had crowded around them and walked toward the center cabin bathroom and let himself inside. He stared at his face in the mirror a moment, catching himself against the small sink there for support as the plane suddenly lurched downward.
***
The president and Thurston Potter raced across the White House lawn toward the special short take-off and landing plane which the president had ridden only once before during a Civil Defense exercise. It was called the “Doomsday Plane,” and aside from the president and his advisor there was room for only the pilot and a copilot and one more passenger-the Air Force sergeant who accompanied the president everywhere he went. A small black rectangular case was in the sergeant’s hand, and, as always, handcuffed to his wrist. Inside the case was a small radio telephone unit; its battery was charged once a day and the leads checked at least that often. Using the communications device, the president could give the coded verbal attack order for a massive nuclear launch.
The president-his advisors had told him the Soviets had undertaken their own massive launch-had not used the box yet.
When they were all aboard the Doomsday Plane, Potter shouted, “Are you going to use the box, Mr. President?”
The president strapped himself in. The Air Force sergeant was beside him. The plane had already started to lift off The president shouted over the engine noise, “Not yet! There’s still a chance. Not yet.” As the plane angled upward and cleared the White House grounds and the tops of the buildings, there was a sudden shudder and the plane raced forward. “We’ll be at the mountain in less than ten minutes,” the president shouted. “I’ve got a call going out to the Soviet premier.”
“But, sir, none of us wants this. But some of their submarine based missiles could be reentering the atmosphere by now,” Potter pleaded. The president held up his right hand for silence. Above the engine noise he heard a low whistling sound. The engine noise of the aircraft suddenly intensified. “We’re speeding up,” the president said, half to himself.
The whistling sound, despite the engine noise, grew louder. The pilot’s voice was coming over the speaker from the radio set on the fuselage beside the president. The president, the Air Force sergeant, and Thurston Potter stared at it. “This is Major Hornsbey, Mr. President. My radar just picked up a missile-a big one, it looks like-coming out of the east on a trajectory with the center of Washington.”
The president tapped the Air Force sergeant beside him on the shoulder. “Harry, give me the box now.”
Afterward, as the president handed the communicator back to the sergeant, who replaced it in the box, he said, “Gentlemen, I think it would be proper for us all to take a moment for silent prayer.” Only the drone of the engine filled the small cabin for several moments. Then, the sergeant and Potter looked over at the president. Potter opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. The president was saying, in a barely audible whisper, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
***
Sarah Rourke, Michael, and Ann, carried bottles of water down into the cellar. Ann was crying. She didn’t like the cellar. Sarah sat down in the corner on the floor between two inside walls, Michael on one side, Ann on the other. The transistor radio, tuned to the Civil Defense station, was on the floor under her raised knees. She leaned forward and pulled the hide-a-bed mattress that Michael had dragged down the stairs for her closer to them.
“Now,” she said quietly, the voice of the Civil Defense announcer droning on from the radio. “I’m not going to say this is a game, children. This is very serious. We’re going to pull the blanket up over our heads, then the mattress. That’s in case some damage should be done to the house. But we’re almost seventy miles from Atlanta, and I don’t think the damage will go this far. Now, remember, keep under the blanket and the mattress. There might be a very bright light that could burn us, but it will go away after a few seconds. That’s what the radio announcer said. There might be a very strong wind-that’s why we’re down here in the cellar-just in case some of the windows get blown in. And there may be a really loud noise, so when I put my arms around you, I want each of you to put your hands over your ears and keep your mouths open. Okay?”
“We’ll be all right, Mama,” Michael said, putting his arm around her neck. “I’ll take care of you and Annie.”
“I know you will, Michael,” she whispered. “Now-give me a hand with the blanket and the mattress.”
With Michael’s help, Sarah pulled the blanket up over their heads, then awkwardly reached around and hauled the mattress over them. She turned on the flashlight and let it rest between her legs beside the radio. Sarah’s left arm was around Ann, and she drew Michael toward her, then put her right arm around him. She circled them with her arms and put her hands over her own ears. All of them had their heads down. She could hear that the radio was still playing, but she could not make out what the announcer was saying.
Very suddenly, she felt the ground underneath them tremble. She held the children more tightly, looking into the dim light cast by her flashlight to make sure their ears were protected. She had to force Annie’s hands up over her ears.
There was a rumbling, and even with her hands over her ears it seemed to grow steadily louder. She drew the children’s heads down into her lap and bent her body over them. Michael began to squirm.