Mayday by Nelson DeMille

Author:Nelson DeMille [DeMille, Nelson]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Action & Adventure, Emergency maneuvers (Aeronautics), Survival after airplane accidents; shipwrecks; etc, Aircraft accidents, General, Thrillers, Fiction, Espionage
ISBN: 9780446604765
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 1998-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

10

* * *

Harold Stein stood, coiled, ready to strike again, but the assault seemed to have lost its momentum. The attackers had drifted off; like children, thought Stein, after a game of King of the Mountain, or like wild animals or primitive people whose ferocity subsides as quickly as it begins.

He breathed deeply and wiped the sweat from his face. His arms and legs ached. He peered down into the cabin. The passengers were apparently occupied with something else now. They were not congregating around the stairway any longer, and their noises had subsided. But they might mass again for an attack if something stirred them.

He found it hard to believe that he had actually been attacked. But he found it harder to believe that he had been so aggressive, had punched and kicked these men, women, children—people he had spoken with a few hours before.

Stein wondered why Barbara Yoshiro had not come back. Perhaps she’d been hurt, or maybe she was still searching for something. He looked into the cockpit. John Berry was talking to Sharon Crandall, but he couldn’t hear them. They sat, silhouetted against the bright Pacific sunlight, working, he supposed, on bringing them home. “They’re quieting down,” Stein called out.

Berry turned and called back, “Nice work, Harold. If you need any help, holler.”

“Right.” Stein looked around the lounge. Berry had his hands full just keeping these people out of the cockpit and trying to fly the aircraft. Stein forced himself not to look at his own trembling hands. He took a deep, measured breath to calm himself, but it was becoming an increasingly difficult task. The more he thought about their situation, the more frightened he had become. Stein knew that he had hardly any emotional or physical resources left inside of him.

His mind drifted back across an ocean and a continent to his home in Bronxville. In his mind’s eye he could see its red bricks, white shutters, and rich green lawns. He could see the red azalea bushes in bloom the way he’d last seen them. Every spring people would go out of their way to pass his house and admire Miriam’s flowers. Who would tend them now?

He longed for the comfort of the high-backed couch in front of the fireplace where he sat with Miriam most evenings. He pictured the wide stairway that led to the second floor and the bedrooms. His and Miriam’s on the left. On the right, Susan’s, wallpapered in pink gingham, the aquarium crammed with tropical fish. Beyond that room was Debbie’s, all navy and white, filled with miniature toys and the dollhouse he had made for her last birthday.

He began to cry.

He had to act, he decided. He had to do something for them. If he couldn’t bring back their minds, he could, at least, comfort their bodies, keep them from being savaged by the others.

Without realizing it, he was standing on the circular staircase. He thought briefly of Berry’s admonitions to wait. He thought of his duty to stand there and guard the gates of hell.

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