Coppename must have wondered what was going on, but he did not question her.
“And call me as soon as he shows.”
“Yes, sir.”
A red light on the control panel ceased blinking. The belly hatch had just been closed. The radar had picked up the No. 1 helicopter, heading downward for the top of the tower.
A voice suddenly came over the radio.
“Firebrass here.”
“We read you loud and clear,” the radio operator said.
“Fine. You’re coming in L and C, too. I’m going to land about a hundred meters from the dome. Our radar’s working A-OK and so we shouldn’t have any problems. I expect that the wall will block off most of the wind when we land.
“Jill? You there?”
“Here, Captain.”
“What did you do about Thorn?”
Jill told him, and Firebrass said, “That’s what I would’ve done. I’ll ask him why he was so hot to go with us when I get back. If … if I don’t get back, for any reason, you question him. But keep him under guard until this tower business is finished.”
Jill ordered Aukuso to tie in the radio with the general address system. There was no reason that everybody should not listen in.
“I’m coming down now. The wind is weaker now. Jill, I. . .”
Cyrano said, “The belly hatch is opening!”.
He pointed at a blinking red light on the panel.
“Mon Dieu!”
He pointed out through the windscreen.
That was not necessary. Everybody in the control room was looking at the fiery ball suddenly born in the dark-grey ness.
Jill moaned.
Aukuso said loudly, “Captain! Come in, Captain!”
There was no answer.
58
The intercom was ringing.
Moving slowly, as if the air was cotton candy, Jill pushed the switch to ON.
Szentes said, “Sir, Thorn just stole the other chopper! But I think I got the son of a bitch! I emptied my pistol at him!”
Cyrano said, “He’s on the scope!”
“Szentes, what happened?”
She fought to get out of the thick element in which she was drowning. She had to shed this numbness, to recover quickness of analysis and decision.
“Officer Thorn left the hangar bay as the captain ordered. But he came back as soon as the chopper left, and he had a pistol with him. He made us get into the supply compartment, and he shot off the intercom unit. Then he locked us in. He forgot that arms are stored there, too. Or maybe he thought he’d be gone before we could get out.
“Anyway, we shot off the lock, and we rushed out. By then he was in the chopper and lifting it off the landing platform. I shot at him just as the chopper was going down out of the bay. The others shot, too.
“Sir, what’s going on?”
“I’ll notify the crew just as soon as I know myself,” Jill said.
“Sir?”
“Yes.”
“It was a funny thing. Thorn was weeping all the time he forced us into the supply room, even when he said he’d shoot us if we tried to stop him.”
“Out,” Jill said, and switched the intercom off.
The infrared equipment operator said, ‘ “The fire’s still burning, sir.”
The radar operator, pale under his dark pigmentation, said, “That fire is the helicopter, sir. It’s on the landing deck of the tower.”
She looked into the fog. She could see nothing except the swirling clouds.
“I’ve got the other chopper.,” the radarman said. “It’s headed down. Toward the base of the tower.”
A moment later, he added, “The chopper is on the surface of the sea.”
“Aukuso, call Thorn.”
The gluey feeling was receding now. She still felt confused, but now she was becoming capable of finding some order in the chaos.
After a minute, Aukuso said, “He doesn’t answer.”
According to the radar, the amphibious helicopter was now floating on the sea 30 meters from the tower.
“Keep trying, Aukuso.”
Firebrass was probably dead. She was the captain now, her ambition achieved.
“God! I didn’t want it this way!”
Dully, she called Coppename and told him to come to the control room to take over the duties of the first mate. Alexandras would.be the aft first officer.
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