Runway Zero-Eight by Arthur Hailey, John Castle Read Free Book Online Page B

ambulances, set up a traffic control? Right. We’ll be on again as soon as we’ve got more information.”
    Within five minutes Harry Burdick had arrived, puffing into the room. The local Maple Leaf manager was a portly little man with an abundant supply of body oils; inexhaustible, it seemed, for no one had ever seen him without his face streaked with runnels of perspiration. He stood in the center of the room, his jacket over his arm, gasping for breath after his hurry and swabbing the lunar-scope of his face with a great blue-spotted handkerchief.
    “Where’s the message?” he grunted. He ran his eye quickly over the sheet of paper the radio operator handed to him. “How’s the weather at Calgary?” he asked the controller. “It would be quicker to go in there, wouldn’t it?”
    “No good, I’m afraid. There’s fog right down to the grass everywhere east of the Rockies as far as Manitoba. They’ll have to come through.”
    A clerk called across from his phone, “Passenger agent wants to know when we’ll be resuming east-bound traffic. Says should he keep the passengers downtown or bring ’em out here?”
    Burdick shook a worried head. “Where’s the last position report?” he demanded. A clipboard was passed to him and he scanned it anxiously.
    The controller called back to the clerk, “Tell him to keep them downtown. We don’t want a mob out here. We’ll give him lots of warning when we’re ready.”
    “You say you’ve got medical help coming?” asked Burdick.
    “Yes,” replied the controller. “The city police are working on that. They’ll alert the hospitals and see to the arrangements when we get the plane here.”
    Burdick clicked a fat finger. “Hey! That message now. They say the first officer is down, so presumably the captain passed the message. Is he affected at all? Better ask, Controller. And while you’re about it, I should check whether there’s a doctor on board. You never know. Tell them we’re getting medical advice here in case they need it.”
    The controller nodded and picked up the stand microphone from the radio desk. Before he could begin Burdick called, “Say, suppose the captain does take sick, Controller? Who’s going to—”
    He left the sentence unfinished as the level gaze of the man opposite met his.
    “I’m not supposing anything” said the controller. “I’m praying, that’s all. Let’s hope those poor devils up there are praying too.”
    Exhaling noisily, Burdick dug in his pockets for cigarettes. “Joe,” he said to the switchboard operator, “get me Dr. Davidson, will you? You’ll find his number on the emergency list.”

FOUR
0220—0245
    NEARLY FOUR MILES above the earth, the aircraft held her course.
    In every direction, as far as the eye could see, stretched the undulating carpet of cloud, passing beneath the great machine so slowly as to make it appear almost stationary. It was a cold, empty, utterly lonely world, a world in which the heart-beating throb of the aircraft’s engines came rumbling back from the silver-tinted wastes.
    Far below, that same powerful pulse of engines, in normal weather, would have reverberated through the desolate valleys of the Rocky Mountains. Tonight, muffled by the ground fog, the sound of her passing was not enough to disturb the scattered communities as they slept in their remote farmsteads. Had someone there chanced to hear the aircraft, he may have disregarded it as an event too commonplace to be worthy of thought. Or he may have wished himself up there, flying to some faraway place and enjoying the solicitous attentions of a crew whose primary concern was his safety and comfort. He could not have dreamed that practically everyone in the aircraft would have gladly and gratefully changed places with him.
    Like a monstrous weed, fear was taking root in the minds of most of the passengers. There were some who probably still failed to realize exactly what was going on. But most of them, especially those