Why is she so bloody protective of him?
He squatted a moment longer, looking into Craig Toomy’s ruined face. And when Rudy Warwick spoke from the head of the escalator, he jumped as if it had been the devil himself.
‘Mr Hopewell? Nick? Are you coming?’
‘In a jiffy!’ he called back over his shoulder. He reached toward Toomy’s face again and stopped again, remembering her dark eyes.
We need him.
Abruptly he stood up, leaving Craig Toomy to his tortured struggle for breath. ‘Coming now,’ he called, and ran lightly up the escalator.
CHAPTER 8
Refuelling. Dawn’s Early Light.
The Approach of the Langoliers.
Angel of the Morning. The Time-Keepers
of Eternity. Take-off.
1
Bethany had cast away her almost tasteless cigarette and was halfway up the ladder again when Bob Jenkins shouted: ‘I think they’re coming out!’
She turned and ran back down the stairs. A series of dark blobs was emerging from the luggage bay and crawling along the conveyor belt. Bob and Bethany ran to meet them.
Dinah was strapped to the stretcher. Rudy had one end, Nick the other. They were walking on their knees, and Bethany could hear the bald man breathing in harsh, out-of-breath gasps.
‘Let me help,’ she told him, and Rudy gave up his end of the stretcher willingly.
‘Try not to jiggle her,’ Nick said, swinging his legs off the conveyor belt. ‘Albert, get on Bethany’s end and help us take her up the stairs. We want this thing to stay as level as possible.’
‘How bad is she?’ Bethany asked Albert.
‘Not good,’ he said grimly. ‘Unconscious but still alive. That’s all I know.’
‘Where are Gaffney and Toomy?’ Bob asked as they crossed to the plane. He had to raise his voice slightly to be heard; the crunching sound was louder now, and that shrieking wounded-transmission undertone was becoming a dominant, maddening note.
‘Gaffney’s dead and Toomy might as well be,’ Nick said. ‘Right now there’s no time.’ He halted at the foot of the stairs. ‘Mind you keep your end up, you two.’
They moved the stretcher slowly and carefully up the stairs, Nick walking backward and bent over the forward end, Albert and Bethany holding the stretcher up at forehead level and jostling hips on the narrow stairway at the rear. Bob, Rudy, and Laurel followed behind. Laurel had spoken only once since Albert and Nick had returned, to ask if Toomy was dead. When Nick told her he wasn’t, she had looked at him closely and then nodded her head with relief.
Brian was standing at the cockpit door when Nick reached the top of the ladder and eased his end of the stretcher inside.
‘I want to put her in first class,’ Nick said, ‘with this end of the stretcher raised so her head is up. Can I do that?’
‘No problem. Secure the stretcher by looping a couple of seatbelts through the head-frame. Do you see where?’
‘Yes.’ And to Albert and Bethany: ‘Come on up. You’re doing fine.’
In the cabin lights, the blood smeared on Dinah’s cheeks and chin stood out starkly against her yellow-white skin. Her eyes were closed; her lids were a delicate shade of lavender. Under the belt (in which Nick had punched a new hole, high above the others), the makeshift compress was dark red. Brian could hear her breathing. It sounded like a straw dragging wind at the bottom of an almost empty glass.
‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’ Brian asked in a low voice.
‘Well, it’s her lung and not her heart, and she’s not filling up anywhere near as fast as I was afraid she might
… but it’s bad, yes.’
‘Will she live until we get back?’
‘How in hell should I know?’ Nick shouted at him suddenly. ‘I’m a soldier, not a bloody sawbones!’
The others froze, looking at him with cautious eyes. Laurel felt her skin prickle again.
‘I’m sorry,’ Nick muttered. ‘Time travel plays the very devil with one’s nerves, doesn’t it? I’m very sorry.’
‘No need to apologize,’ Laurel said, and touched his arm. ‘We’re all under strain.’
He gave her a tired smile and touched her hair. ‘You’re a sweetheart, Laurel, and no mistake. Come on –
let’s strap her in and see what we can do about getting the hell out of here.’
2
Five minutes later Dinah’s stretcher had been secured in an inclined position to a pair of first-class seats, her head up, her feet down. The rest of the passengers were gathered in a tight little knot around Brian in the first-class serving area.
‘We need to refuel the plane,’ Brian said. ‘I’m going to start the other engine now and pull over as close as I can to that 727-400 at the jetway.’ He pointed to the Delta plane, which was just a gray lump in the dark.
‘Because our aircraft sits higher, I’ll be able to lay our right wing right over the Delta’s left wing. While I do that, four of you are going to bring over a hose cart – there’s one sitting by the other jetway. I saw it before it got dark.’
‘Maybe we better wake Sleeping Beauty at the back of the plane and get him to lend a hand,’ Bob said.
Brian thought it over briefly and then shook his head. ‘The last thing we need right now is another scared, disoriented passenger on our hands – and one with a killer hangover to boot. And we won’t need him – two strong men can push a hose cart in a pinch. I’ve seen it done. Just check the transmission lever to make sure it’s in neutral. It wants to end up directly beneath the overlapping wings. Got it?’
They all nodded. Brian looked them over and decided that Rudy and Bethany were still too blown from wrestling the stretcher to be of much help. ‘Nick, Bob, and Albert. You push. Laurel, you steer. Okay?’
They nodded.
‘Go on and do it, then. Bethany? Mr Warwick? Go down with them. Pull the ladder away from the plane, and when I’ve got the plane repositioned, place it next to the overlapping wings. The wings, not the door.
Got it?’
They nodded. Looking around at them, Brian saw that their eyes looked clear and bright for the first time since they had landed. Of course, he thought. They have something to do now. And so do I, thank God.
3
As they approached the hose cart sitting off to the left of the unoccupied jetway, Laurel realized she could actually see it. ‘My God,’ she said. ‘It’s coming daylight again already. How long has it been since it got dark?’
‘Less than forty minutes, by my watch,’ Bob said, ‘but I have a feeling that my watch doesn’t keep very accurate time when we’re outside the plane. I’ve also got a feeling time doesn’t matter much here, anyway.’
‘What’s going to happen to Mr Toomy?’ Laurel asked.
They had reached the cart. It was a small vehicle with a tank on the back, an open-air cab, and thick black hoses coiled on either side. Nick put an arm around her waist and turned her toward him. For a moment she had the crazy idea that he meant to kiss her, and she felt her heart speed up.
‘I don’t know what’s going to happen to him,’ he said. ‘All I know is that when the chips were down, I chose to do what Dinah wanted. I left him lying unconscious on the floor. All right?’
‘No,’ she said in a slightly unsteady voice, ‘but I guess it will have to do.’
He smiled a little, nodded, and gave her waist a brief squeeze. ‘Would you like to go to dinner with me when and if we make it back to LA?’
‘Yes,’ she said at once. ‘That would be something to look forward to.’
He nodded again. ‘For me, too. But unless we can get this airplane refuelled, we’re not going anywhere.’ He looked at the open cab of the hose cart. ‘Can you find neutral, do you think?’
Laurel eyed the stick-shift jutting up from the floor of the cab. ‘I’m afraid I only drive an automatic.’
‘I’ll do it.’ Albert jumped into the cab, depressed the clutch, then peered at the diagram on the knob of the shift lever. Behind him, the 767’s second engine whined into life and both engines began to throb harder as Brian powered up. The noise was very loud, but Laurel found she didn’t mind at all. It blotted out that other sound, at least temporarily. And she kept wanting to look at Nick. Had he actually invited her out to dinner? Already it seemed hard to believe.
Albert changed gears, then waggled the shift lever. ‘Got it,’ he said, and jumped down – ‘Up you go, Laurel.
Once we get it rolling, you’ll have to hang a hard right and bring it around in a circle.’