Final Approach by John J. Nance Read Free Book Online

panels to peer beneath, pulling at other debris and struggling to identify the bodies of those who hadn’t made it, making sure he did not recognize them. Someone was working on a victim to his right, kneeling and giving CPR to a small form on the concrete. With his heart in his throat, Mark pushed close enough to see, realizing the size was close to Aaron’s. But it was a little girl in a blue dress—and she was not responding.
    Twenty yards or so ahead of him, Mark saw part of the torn sidewall of the 737’s fuselage, a 15-foot-square section sitting like a gently curved, broken shell on top of a mass of debris, and still containing an unbroken row of windows. As he moved toward it, the top of a seat row could be seen under the end closest to him, the garish light of the fire behind him reflecting off various angles of metal and glass. He knelt beside the exposed armrest, finding the little tag, struggling to see the numbers. The light was flickering all around him, but it wasn’t quite enough. He had to let his eyes focus, fighting the growing panic, staring at what seemed to be an eight … no, a one and … what? A three? Mark cupped his hands, trying to reflect more light onto the tag, and in a quick flash recognized the tiny numbers as a one and a three. Row 13. The row behind his family.
    Mark Weiss began moving with increased urgency around the side of the panel, trying unsuccessfully to lift the heavy-gauge aluminum, slicing his hands in the process and not caring, kneeling, dashing to another location and peering under, yelling for help and pushing hard to move it.
    Finally the panel yielded a few inches as he shoved, exposing something beneath the edge as a fireman appeared from nowhere with a powerful flashlight. Mark grabbed the light from his hand and dropped to the panel’s surface again, peering beneath, seeing several human forms in a jumble of material. He reached underneath, finding a hand and arm, feeling in vain for a pulse and realizing he could pull whoever it was closer to the edge by pulling gently on the arm—her arm. It was a woman; her polished fingernails shone in the light for a moment as Mark positioned himself to haul her out. Gently but steadily he pulled, feeling the form begin to move, tugging as carefully as he could, and realizing the hand was limp. He dropped again, shining the light beneath the panel’s edge, trying to see her face and realizing that he had been avoiding a look at the ring he had felt on one of her lifeless fingers.
    With an emptiness as large as the galaxy, he shone the light on a diamond wedding ring, a small solitaire set on a platinum band, encircling the finger on which he had placed it so many happy years ago.
    Jean had tried to follow Pete and keep him safe. He was too distraught, but the big man had waded into the debris, trying to save his passengers, finding body after body amidst the few survivors and the rescuers who were increasing in number by the minute. Jean had let him go, moving into the wreckage on her own and taking charge of another area, hardly noticing the intense pain of her dislocated shoulder, working with one of the flight attendants to comfort people and move them away from the flames. From somewhere a bloodied Barbara Shubert appeared, her shredded uniform evidence of her brush with death in the forward jump seat. Jean hugged her for an instant before resuming her frantic efforts in what was becoming a massively confused situation on top of a Dantesque nightmare. The initial quiet had given way to a cacophony of sounds and sirens, screams and moans, yelled orders and blaring two-way radios, accompanied by the background rumble of flames and crackling metal.
    With the searing heat of the central wreckage of his airplane behind him, Pete kept moving, holding injured people until he could attract the attention of a fireman, giving orders, tenderly placing limp hands on quiet chests when it was too late, and