He had no idea if Albuquerque had been hit directly, but there had been a firestorm. Perhaps from natural gas? He could see that there were few houses standing; the ground was burned black. Some emergency vehicles were moving on the ground below him. But there was no sign, no huge crater, to indicate that a direct hit had been made on the city.
He found the markers for the airport-a few were still standing. He started to follow them in. “This is Canamerican 747 Flight 601,” Rourke droned into the radio. “Calling Albuquerque tower. Do you read me? Over.”
He had set the radio to the right frequency for hailing the facility, but there was nothing to answer him but static. Both fists locked on the controls, Rourke whispered, “All right, Mrs. Richards, I’m going to overfly the airport, and we’ll see how it looks. After that, I’ll have just enough fuel left to set this thing down there or on the desert. So lets make it a good look.”
Rourke throttled back on the monster-sized jet engines. The noise roared in his ears as he squinted against the brightness of the sun and scanned the ground. He hauled up on the flaps, and the airport loomed up ahead.
The field-from one end to the other-was a mass of debris. What looked like dozens of planes had been burned on the ground.
“What happened?” Mrs. Richards asked. “A missile?”
“No, I don’t think so. I think some kind of accident. Probably somebody like us tried to come in and misjudged the runway. Yeah, see over there?” Rourke pointed far on the starboard side of the plane. “Looks like something rammed a fuel truck and they didn’t get the fire in time. Firestorm of some kind is what it looks like all over the city. So the city shouldn’t be hot with radioactivity.”
There was the recognizable framework of a huge tank truck, black and gutted, amid the wreckage of a large commercial jet.
“We’re not going to land here,” Rourke said. He throttled forward and got the nose up, banking as gently as he could to get south of what had been the city. The ruins vanished from beneath them; the ground turned into scrub brush and sand. Rourke throttled down again and slowly played the instruments to get the plane’s altitude down. “I don’t know exactly how low or how slow I can get this thing and still be able to keep air speed. And if I lose engine power, this thing will fall like a rock. Hit that seat-belt light and get on the PA. Tell the stewardess to get everyone into a crash position.”
Rourke scanned the ground. Silently, he prayed that he could have some idea what he was doing. As far as landing went, there was no similarity between the 747 and military fighter aircraft he had flown before. Bringing this down was like playing Russian roulette with all chambers full.
He squinted against the morning sunlight, watching the altimeter, the fuel gauge and the other instruments. He heard Mrs. Richards alert the passengers for a possible crash.
By the time Mrs. Richards had finished the announcement, Rourke was banking the plane gently, having climbed in order to accomplish the maneuver. “I picked out our landing field, Mrs. Richards,” he commented. “Nice, flat stretch about five miles long with no trees to speak of, back about twenty-five miles. I’m going around for a try. We can only do it once. I’m letting us run out of fuel to minimize the risk of fire. One other thing I want you to do. Alert the stewardesses that as soon as we get down on the ground, I want everyone out of here as quickly as possible and as far away from the plane as they can. And I want you in a crash position right by the escape chute in the main cabin. You’ve done great.”
“Won’t you need me to help?”
“Well,” Rourke began, “I don’t believe two of us can land this thing any better than one. And you’ve got a cool head. That’s going to be needed if anyone’s going to survive after we land. Chances are good the cockpit will get the heaviest impact.”
“You mean you’ll be killed, and if I don’t stay with you, I’ll have a better chance of staying alive.”
“Yeah, pretty much. Goes back to what we talked about last night. That you opt for life. Anything else is irrational, Mrs. Richards. You don’t strike me as an irrational person. And I’d bet that your husband wasn’t the kind of guy who’d want you to give up on life.”
Rourke brought the plane into another banking maneuver to line up for his final approach. He glanced at Mrs. Richards. She said, “Are you a psychiatrist too, Mr. Rourke?”
“Only the bargain-basement kind,” Rourke said, smiling broadly.
“That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile.” She rose and started back toward the forward passenger cabin, then turned to him and said, “I hope you make it-and that your wife and children made it too.” She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek.
Quietly, Rourke said, “Thank you, Mrs. Richards.”
As soon as Rourke heard the cockpit cabin door close, he settled himself back in the captain’s seat and tightened the lap and shoulder restraints. He fished in the breast pocket of his jacket for his sunglasses to fight the glare from the sand below him. Slowly, he throttled back, stepping down the 747’s altitude. The plane was close to the ground now. It raced away beneath the nose of the big jet; it was as if the air speed were a hundred times faster than the readout on the instrument panel. He dropped the landing gear, and the green light indicating that it was locked in place flashed on. He throttled back more. The starboard engines nearly stalled, but he held the speed, skimming less than five hundred feet above the scrub-dotted desert floor.
The 747’s nose started to drop, and he brought it up.
The starboard engines almost stalled again, and the altimeter needle started dropping. He punched the PA button and talked into the small microphone attached to the radio headset. “This is Rourke-brace yourselves for impact!”
He tried bringing the nose up, throttled back almost all the way, and let the engines nearly die as the landing gear touched ground, bounced away, and touched again. He throttled forward slightly, using the engine compression to slow the plane as it raced, skipping on the landing gear, across the desert floor. His mike was still open, and he rasped, “We’re down but not stopped. Stay in the crash position!”
The plane wasn’t slowing as much as he wanted. Rourke stared ahead. The ground dropped off less than a mile away, and he didn’t know what was beyond it. He worked the starboard flaps, and the plane started to turn. Mentally, he made the choice. He cut the engines and decided to burn out the brakes. He brought the flaps on both wings all the way up. The plane was starting to slow down, but in front of him was a stand of tall pines. “We’re gonna hit,” he rasped into the microphone which was inches from his lips. His face was drawn into a tight mask, his lips pulled back, his shoulders set. The brakes held for a moment, then, suddenly the plane lurched, and there was no more pressure.
Rourke could see beyond the stand of pines now. A rock face rose up from the desert floor. Already, the nose of the cockpit was cutting into the trees. He threw his arms up in front of his face and doubled forward. He couldn’t see, but the sound was like a thousand chain saws, the pines crashing down on the plane.
The plane lurched and suddenly came to a complete stop. He looked up. The windshields were cracked, shattered, but still holding up. Trees were all around him-pine branches virtually covered the front of the fuselage. He sat for a moment, breathing heavily. Then he fumbled for the microphone.
“This is Rourke. We’re down. Now get the hell out of the plane, but don’t panic. Everything seems fine.” He tossed the headset down, then tore open the seat and shoulder belts and pushed out of the captain’s seat.
When he had thrown open the door, he stopped. The portside of the forward cabin’s fuselage was almost completely ripped away. A large tree jutted into the cabin, like a can opener. People were screaming, and he knew that others were trapped in the wreckage. As he started back to help them, something on the floor caught his eye. He looked at it for a moment, then turned away and leaned against the bulkhead. It was the severed head of Mrs. Richards.
Chapter Twenty-six
“We’ll be together soon,” was all the president could say as his wife and children left his office in the Mt. Lincoln complex. He had tried to tell his wife, without letting his children know. But he couldn’t find the words. Bobby’s face and his wife’s were the last faces he saw, as his family turned down the corridor. Bobby was still holding the spaceship. The president turned to Paul Dorian who was standing in the corridor.