Equal Time Point Page 17

  During moments of lucidness during the day, Pam had been given Tylenol with the worst tasting water she had ever had. Evidently there was art as well as science in making fresh water. Now it was dark once again, and after rationing an energy bar apiece, everyone settled in for sleep. The sea was black, and so was the sky. With no moon or stars visible, the darkness was total. They saved the flashlight to be used only in an emergency or to signal rescue personnel.

  Pam slept and dreamed the horrible nightmare once more. The airplane was crashing through the water again and seemed to turn sideways to the direction they were traveling, and people were screaming. She knew the dream well by now and wasn’t as frightened as before, but this time it ended differently. There was a tremendous bump and a loud squeal. Pam awoke to the little girl squealing and a bright light in her eyes. Totally confused between nightmare and reality, she tried to scream, but nothing came out. Then she realized it must be a dream because the voice of her best friend Nancy was shouting, “It’s Pam! It’s Pam in the raft!” Ignoring her painful ankle, Nancy shouted, “Somebody help me get over there!” The raft rocked back and forth, and then Nancy had her arms around Pam and cried as she asked questions but gave no opportunity to answer.

  Incredibly, the two rafts had collided in the darkness. They could just as easily have passed within a few feet of each other without anyone realizing they were there. Nancy eventually ran out of breath, and Pam was allowed to ask questions of her own. “Nancy, how did you get here?”

  “I was in the raft with Britt. We escaped from the forward doors.”

  “You only launched one raft?”

  “No, Robby launched with passengers in the other one. Our raft has forty people and we hooked up with Tony and Mary. They have eighteen, including themselves, in their raft. Now we have three rafts and sixty-seven survivors.”

  “What happened to Robby?”

  “We haven’t seen him, so I don’t know. Tony launched from the wing and says Candace got out with the other raft, but they haven’t been seen either.”

  There was an air of excitement and optimism for a short while, and then fatigue and reality returned. Now the little flotilla of tired, hungry, and thirsty survivors trained along in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, with no more chance of being rescued than before.

  Nancy said, “Pam, you have a huge lump on the back of your head. Does it hurt?”

  “I’m used to it, and it’s not nearly as swollen as my bladder.”

  “That I can help you with. We’ve been using one of the bailing buckets. Britt, pass the bucket over here.”

  Nancy arranged the canopy for privacy, and the ladies' lounge was open for business. Pam, as well as the little girl and the other two ladies, took full advantage.

  It was almost midnight when Captain William Maxwell walked onto the bridge of the Karuk. The overhead lights were covered with red lenses, and the soft glow preserved the crew’s night vision, enabling them to scan the sea outside the windows. The only other illumination came from the compass light and the green sweep of the radar scope probing the fog and darkness ahead. The radar antenna, high on the ship’s mast, had been rotating since leaving Norfolk, but had not painted a target in days. Captain Maxwell had elected to retire to his cabin after dinner and sleep until approaching the search area. Now he was rested and prepared for duty. The mid-watch was beginning once again and Lieutenant Strickland greeted the captain.

  “Good evening, sir. Did you rest well?”

  “As well as expected, lieutenant. What’s the situation?”

  “We will enter the grid in about ten minutes, sir.”

  “Where’s the Portuguese Navy?”

  “They’re several hours out and will begin their search at the extreme eastern portion of the grid. The Spaniards and British are coming out too, but they’re not due until late in the day.”

  “Good, I want to wrap this up before any of those glory hogs get involved.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I have command of the bridge, Lieutenant.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Lieutenant Strickland announced, loud enough for everyone on the bridge to hear, “The captain has the con.”

  Maxwell ordered, “Helmsman, come left to new course three six zero.”

  “New course steady three six zero. Aye, sir.”

  “All ahead slow.”

  “Make turns for all ahead slow. Aye, sir.”

  The big wooden spokes of the wheel spun to the left, and the ship began to turn as the engine order telegraph rang. The handle was moved to all ahead slow. The bells were answered immediately, and the steady throb and vibration throughout the little ship decreased to a low murmur as the relative wind created by the ship’s speed became just a whisper of five miles per hour.

  “Lieutenant, tell the bow watch to keep a sharp eye. I don’t want to run over anybody. In fact, place a double watch on the bow and have them rotate every thirty minutes.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  The ship’s crew had been ordered to modified battle stations and all watches, including the engine room, were plugged into the ship’s intercom system. The captain’s orders were passed along via the headsets the bow watch was wearing.

  “Let’s have both search lights now and order a continuous sixty-degree sweep.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Everyone’s night vision was totally ruined as the bright lights on either side of the bridge reflected off the fog and water, but it was too dark to see anything without them.

  “Radio, are those air dales still up there?”

  Brian Davis answered, “Yes, sir. They left two Orions orbiting above the clouds, but they’re not actively searching until first light.”

  “Tell them where we are and that our mast is almost a hundred feet high. I don’t want to meet them the hard way.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The Karuk entered the grid and slowly worked north and then south across the area in a methodical search pattern. There was little wind to contend with and only a small, predictable current flowing west to east. They began the search a few miles west of where Todd Gray had photographed the object in the water and worked their way to the east.

  After an hour with absolutely no results, Captain Maxwell climbed into the high-mounted captain’s command chair and ordered coffee. After another fruitless hour, he propped his feet up and issued a few superfluous orders that everyone recognized as, “The captain’s on the bridge” nonsense. When his eyes closed and did not flutter for fifteen minutes, the crew relaxed. However, you never really knew with captains. In the present circumstance, if he was asleep, everyone was happy about it; if he was faking it, everyone was happy to allow him to continue.

  The question was answered when the enlisted man wearing the bridge headset said, “Bow lookout reports object in the water at one o’clock and fifty yards.”

  The captain sat up and ordered, “All stop, steady as you go, helmsman.”

  He stood up, wide awake, and lifted the binoculars hanging around his neck. He searched the water as the ship slowed and said, “Standby the starboard small boats.”

  The enlisted man repeated the order through the intercom, and the captain walked out the open hatch onto the flying bridge. The searchlight operator was tracking the object, and, as it drifted by the starboard side, a deckhand snagged it with a boat hook and lifted it aboard. It appeared to be an aluminum container of some sort.

  “Have that brought to the bridge,” the captain growled.

  The crewman on the headset passed the order, and they watched as the deckhand climbed the starboard stairs. He placed the container on the metal deck, and, in the floodlights, they read the words stamped on the aluminum: Tri Continent Airlines. The deckhand tripped the latch on the container and opened it up to find the interior divided into slots, and a tray with breakfast food in each one.

  The captain ordered, “I want a three hundred and sixty-degree sweep with the searchlights. Alert all look
outs.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  After a thorough search, nothing else was spotted. The captain went back to his chair and ordered, “All ahead slow, steady on course one-eight-zero.”

  “All ahead slow and steady one-eight-zero. Aye, sir.”

  “Radio, get a message off to fleet. Flotsam recovered, identified as Tri Continent Airlines property. Give them the lat-long coordinates.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  No one wondered if he was asleep when he closed his eyes again.

  An hour later they repeated the drill and recovered a suitcase with a Tri Continent bag tag and a Madrid destination code. A bumper sticker on the bag announced, “The handicapped have rights too.”

  The handicapped man propped his elbows on the side of Charlie’s raft and tried to keep his sleepy eyes open. He had another thirty minutes of lookout duty before he would be relieved, and he knew sleep would come easy when he would finally lie down. He slowly moved his head back and forth, scanning like Charlie had taught him. He had learned that the human eye has a blind spot directly in front of it when focusing in low light or at night. By scanning back and forth, the peripheral vision allows the eye to detect objects which would not be seen looking straight on. He didn’t fully understand Charlie’s technical explanation involving cones, rods, and retinas, but he was secretly pleased that at least it was a handicap that everyone suffered and not just him. The constant moving back and forth caused his neck to chafe on the rubber life jacket, and the combination of raw skin and salt water was more irritating than his physical therapist, who he would like to torture in a similar fashion.

  He thought he saw a flash of some sort off to his right and wondered if a thunderstorm would add to their misery. He focused in that direction and this time definitely saw a glow of some sort. Somehow it didn’t look like lightning, but maybe it was, because it was far away. He listened but did not hear corresponding thunder. He turned to the lookout in the rear of the raft, “Hey Tommy, did you see a flash of lightning off to the right?”

  “Yeah, it looks weird, doesn’t it? It’s like slow-motion lightning.”

  “That’s a good way to describe it. Maybe we should wake Charlie and tell him about it. If it’s going to rain, he probably wants to prepare.”

  Charlie sat up and asked, “Tell Charlie about what?”

  “Oh, we thought you were asleep, Charlie. We saw a few flashes of lightning and wondered what we should do if it rains.”

  “If it rains we want to catch as much fresh water as possible, but warm fronts generally cause clouds and drizzle, not thunderstorms. Where did you see lightning?”

  They pointed to the east, and Charlie watched. After a moment, he saw a faint glow that seemed to slowly flare and then fade to nothing. He continued to watch and saw it once again. The dim flash seemed to have a rhythm to it, and Charlie smiled. “Gentlemen, that is not lightning. What you see is either a lighthouse or a ship sweeping with a searchlight, and I promise you that there are no lighthouses hundreds of miles west of the Azores.”

  “Thank God,” the two men harmonized.

  “Indeed,” said Charlie.

  Their euphoria was short-lived as they watched the light slowly retreat to the south and finally disappear. The ship was moving away from them. Charlie briefly considered using the flare from the survival pack, but with the cloud cover and restricted visibility, he knew it would be wasted. He was buoyed by the fact that someone was searching. He prayed that they would return.

  Shortly before dawn, Todd Gray and his crew aboard Navy Eight arrived back on station along with seven other Orions. As on-scene commander, Todd had assigned grids to each aircraft and carefully separated them to prevent collision concerns. The British had insisted on sending five C-130s out to search, but Todd had successfully lobbied to keep them far to the east and out of the way. From twenty-three thousand feet, the crew of Navy Eight could see a faint glow on the eastern horizon and noticed no tinge of red associated with it. This bode well for improving weather conditions. With all the sophisticated meteorological prognostication processes available to them, they still relied on, “Red sky in morning, sailor take warning. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.”

  Todd keyed his mic and transmitted, “Karuk, Navy Eight.”

  “Navy Eight, Karuk, go ahead.”

  “What are your weather conditions?”

  “It’s dark.”

  Todd answered sarcastically, “Thank you for that editorial. I forecast sunrise soon.”

  He received a sardonic response, “Thank you, sir. We appreciate whatever influence you can bring to bear.”

  “What’s your position, Karuk?”

  The radioman read off the coordinates and Todd copied them.

  “Okay Karuk, keep your ears on. We’ll talk to you soon.”

  Todd turned to his copilot.

  “I don’t know if we can find anything else, but I bet we can find that little tug boat.”

  The copilot smiled and fine-tuned the radar. Todd began descending and entered the clouds. At fifteen hundred feet, the radar painted the Karuk ten miles ahead. Todd continued the descent, and, at five hundred feet, they popped out of the clouds. He leveled at one hundred and fifty feet and approached the target from the rear. He turned off all the exterior lights on the airplane. At five miles they had a visual on the target and could see the red and green running lights on each side, the white light on the fantail, and the red anti-collision light on top of the mast. Todd increased speed to three hundred knots, and at two hundred yards he hit the bright landing lights and lit the ship up like daylight.

  Captain Maxwell was sitting in his captain’s chair with his feet up and his eyes closed. When the Orion roared past, vibrating the windows and lighting up the bridge, he didn’t move a muscle. When everyone else recovered from their shock, he uttered one word without opening his eyes: “Juveniles.”

  Todd said, “That ought to wake them up.”

  The copilot said, “Aye aye, sir.”

  With the ceiling and visibility improving, Todd was optimistic about the day’s search and reported the weather to Rota and his other airplanes. He ordered two of the Orion’s four engines shut down to save fuel and extend their search time, then waited for sunrise before settling into the grid pattern.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Phil James tossed and turned most of the night. He knew that he was missing a piece of the puzzle and that the missing piece was within reach. He just couldn’t quite put his hands on it. Since he couldn’t sleep anyway, he decided to go into work early. With no traffic to hinder him, he arrived in record time. He walked down the corridor of the headquarters building, carrying his briefcase and aircraft manuals. When he approached the room that Tri Con had set aside for the crew families, he was surprised to see it half full of people already. Evidently they couldn’t sleep either. He was even more surprised to see Colt Adams perched on the hostess’ desk, talking to her. When Colt saw the ground school instructor, he stepped into the hallway and greeted him.

  “Hey Phil, are you working on this?”

  “Yeah, I’m on the Tech Ops investigation. Are you involved too?”

  “Not officially. I’m here to support Pattie Wells and the other families. Come on in and have some coffee. I want you to meet Pattie.”

  Phil set his books down on a table and poured a cup of coffee, then followed Colt over to a table where two ladies were seated.

  Colt said, “Pattie, I want you to meet Phil James. Phil is one of our ground school instructors and is working on the investigation.”

  Phil said, “Good morning, Mrs. Wells, I’m glad to meet you. Charlie is a friend and a great pilot, as you know. I hope Tri Con is taking care of everything for you.”

  “Nice to meet you, Phil. Charlie has spoken of you. Thank you for the work you’re doing.”

  “I wish I could do more, and if I can be of help to you, I hope you’ll allow me.”

  “Thank you again. Do you know Melissa Jen
ner?”

  Phil turned to Melissa.

  “We haven’t met, Mrs. Jenner, but I know Robby well, and my offer extends to you also.”

  “Thank you, sir. I appreciate that, and I’m sure Robby will too.”

  Colt walked Phil out and asked, “What have you found so far?”

  “Not much, but if you have a few minutes I’d like to go over it with you. Maybe you’ll see something that I’m missing.”

  “Let me make sure everything is taken care of here and let Pattie know where I’ll be.”

  “Good. The Tech Ops room is at the end of the hall on the left. I’ll wait for you there.”

  Phil laid out all his material and booted up the laptop while he waited for Colt. He sat there looking out the window, watching airplanes take off and tried to find the clue he needed. A few minutes later, he was taking notes as Colt told him about his conversations with the search crews the day before. Colt said, “I doubt if any of that will help you, but I’d be interested to hear what you have discovered.”

  Phil went through his findings and why he thought it had to be the dump valves.

  “I agree with you. But how could that happen?”

  “That’s the big question; I feel like I’m missing something, but I don’t know what.”

  “Who else is on the team?”

  “Several mechanics and engineers from Tri Con, Gene Clark from the FAA, and an FBI guy named Ed White.”

  “What’s the FBI doing here?”

  “He says just a support role, but you and I know what the FBI’s interest in aviation is.”

  “True. As long as he doesn’t get in the way, I guess there’s no harm. Look, Phil, I don’t know this technical data like you do, but sometimes the simple things are what get overlooked. Are you sure there were no logbook write-ups or verbal squawks?”

  “Absolutely. There has been no fuel system squawks in months. Jake even talked to the crews that flew the last ten flights, and they didn’t recall anything unusual. There was only one verbal that we know of, and it had nothing to do with fuel.”