Barrett had hauled the last cable in less than an hour before, and the plane was airborne within minutes of shutting the door. Al Hibbet had watched with a sad expression as the plane took off. He had wanted to join the mission, but Austin said they needed to leave someone with an intimate knowledge of the mission behind. Just in case.
The humming increased in loudness. Karla acknowledged the congratulations that followed, then stretched out on some empty seats and promptly fell asleep. Austin removed the screwdriver from Karla's fingers and tucked it on the seat beside her.
"Thanks," Barrett said. "Now, if you'll excuse me." Following Karla's example, he yawned and crawled onto the next row of sets where he, too, stretched out and immediately fell asleep.
Austin made a note of the longitude and latitude at the position on his computer, then went up to the cockpit to give the plane's navigator the coordinates. He asked how long before they would be on-site and was told it would be approximately two hours. Austin looked out the cockpit window at the layer of cottony clouds that stretched out as far as the eye could see.
The crew was made up entirely of volunteers who were fully aware that they were flying on a dangerous mission. While the navigator laid out a flight plan, Austin and Zavala returned to the passenger cabin.
"From what you said in the cockpit, we'll arrive on target about the same time as the ship," Zavala said.
"It's an even tighter squeeze. We'll be in the same neighborhood. When we get there, we'll have to launch a search pattern. I don't know how long it will take to find the transmitter ship."
"Any delay could be fatal. That low cloud cover won't help."
"I've been thinking about that. The Trouts reported that they saw a lot of electrical activity in the sky minutes before their boat was sucked into the whirlpool."
"That's right. And Al said there were celestial fireworks when the U.S. and the Soviets were fooling around with electromagnetic warfare based on the Kovacs Theorems."
"Then there's every reason to think that we'll see the same phenomenon when Margrave and Gant gear up their zapper. I think we should be looking at the sky rather than the sea. The clouds might actually help us find the ship."
"Brilliant! I'll alert the crew to look for fireworks."
Austin reluctantly awakened Karla and Barrett. He gave them a few minutes to rub the sleep out of their eyes. As the plane sped toward the South Atlantic Anomaly, he brought them up to date on the situation. They agreed to split up when the time came, with Karla on one side of the plane, Barrett on the other. Austin would alternate back and forth and serve as liaison with Zavala, who would keep watch from the cockpit.
Zavala's voice came over the speakers. He said the plane would pass over the outer limits of the search area in fifteen minutes. Austin could feel the growing tension in the cabin. The atmosphere grew even tenser when Zavala announced that they were in the hot zone. They took up their positions at the aircraft's windows. Ten minutes passed, then twenty. Austin moved back and forth across the wide cabin, offering encouragement. It was hard to believe that a vast ocean lay below the thick layer of clouds.
Austin had suggested that the plane fly a series of parallel runs back and for
th across the search area. It was the same lawn mower pattern Austin would have used to search for a lost ship and would cover many square miles in a comparatively short time. They finished one run, then made another and were on their third when Austin began to wonder if he had made a mistake. He was checking his watch every few seconds.
The plane had turned to make another run when Karla called out, "I see something. Around three o'clock."
Austin and Barrett scrambled across the cabin to the other side of the plane and peered through the windows. The sun was low in the sky and its slanting rays had created blue shadows in the cloud cover.
But off to the right, the sky pulsated with a golden-white radiance that was similar to the glow a thunderstorm would produce in the clouds. Austin grabbed a microphone connected to the cockpit. Zavala replied over the speakers that he had seen the glow in the clouds as well.
The plane banked into a turn and, like a moth attracted to a flame, began its long glide toward the light that bubbled in the distance like a giant witch's cauldron.
42
With time short, it had been necessary to opt for simplicity in setting up the control panel in the spacious cargo section. The console was a flat board that rested on supports raising it to waist level. The layout was deliberately uncomplicated, consisting of a main switch that controlled the flow of power to all the dynamos. Various dials and gauges kept tabs on different parts of the operating system.
Zavala's voice came over the speakers. "We're going into the clouds."
Austin felt a prickling on his scalp and his hair stood on end, not because of fear, but from the sudden electrical charge that saturated the air. Karla's long blond tresses were standing on end like the hair on the Bride of Frankenstein. She reached up and patted her hair down, with limited success. With his shaved scalp, Barrett had no such problem, although the spider tattoo had goose bumps.
The electrical show was only beginning. Every surface of the cargo section began to glow an electrical blue like the Saint Elmo's fire that sailors used to see dancing in the rigging of their sailing ships. The plane's interior lights blinked on and off, as if a child were playing with the switch. Then the lights went out completely.
Stroboscopic flashes from outside lit up the rows of windows and illuminated the bewildered faces in the cargo section like dancers in a disco. The plane seemed to be in the midst of a lightning storm. But there was no thunder, only the muted roar of the jet engines. The relative silence heightened the eeriness of the scene.
The intercom must have operated on a separate system, because Zavala's voice crackled over the speakers. His message was brief and to the point:
"We've lost the cockpit instruments."
A second later, he relayed a message that was even more terrifying. "Oh hell, the controls are gone too."
Austin knew that a plane the size of a 747 wouldn't go into an instantaneous dive, but it wasn't built to soar on the updrafts like a glider. Once the aircraft discovered it was on its own, it would lapse into a tumble that would rip its wings off. He put his arm protectively around Karla's shoulders.