Flight #116 Is Down Read online

  But now she was awake; that grimy boy touching her sleeve had brought her back to her senses.

  She understood that phrase now: her senses really had abandoned her—thought, smell, vision, touch—but now they were back; Darienne was whole and wholly calm.

  She walked carefully past the debris. She had to focus enough not to stumble, but she managed not actually to discern what lay on the ground. She even shut the noise out of her ears. When she came out of the wooded part, she could see the house clearly. Every light was on. How beautiful the place was against the night sky. It was also immense.

  These people have money, thought Darienne with respect. Serious money. Old intensive-style money.

  She wondered what kind of cars they drove.

  She got up the slippery hill without stumbling and found a back door. A large copper red dog attempted to hand her a saliva-lathered latex toy. She kneed the dog away from her.

  Firemen and ambulance people, policemen in uniforms, who-knew-what in special jackets were pouring through the house and out the back, like a tide. About time, thought Darienne irritably. She surveyed the scene.

  Ugh.

  Blood, mud, melting ice everywhere.

  Antique rugs with a silken sheen were being ignored, and bleeding people were actually lying down on them. Darienne thought blood was the most disgusting thing in the entire world. She could not tolerate the idea of what the human body was like beneath the skin and felt strongly that as long as she kept her own skin flawless, she would never have to think about things like blood.

  Shuddering, Darienne steered her way through the chaos into the kitchen. It was huge; semiremodeled from the days of many servants. Darienne shook her head, thinking of another age. She would have liked to be rich back then.

  Darienne looked for a telephone. There should be one in the kitchen. There was, and it was in use. She waited impatiently for the man using it to finish up. The man appeared to be a doctor, talking of doctor-ly things. “I’m a cardiologist,” he said into the phone, apologizing for choosing such a useless specialty. “I have no trauma experience. Patients are being moved without regard to technique. There’s a danger of explosion and fire, and it seems wiser to shift the victims as fast as possible than to worry about spines and necks. We need stretchers down here.”

  Darienne thrummed her fingers on the counter. Was the doctor a passenger or a neighbor? He wasn’t dressed right to be the owner of this house. She doubted that a mere cardiologist, no matter how successful, could afford this place. Unless he’d inherited it.

  “It’s a 747, and we were full,” said the man, proving himself a passenger. “Several hundred people on board, therefore. There are a surprising number of uninjured; I’m going to guess ten percent are walking away. I’m setting up treatment in the house, which is huge. So we’ll be able to keep patients warm and out of the rain, at least. But that’s going to be pretty much my limit.”

  Darienne looked at her watch. Her wrist was unadorned. She must have lost it during the crash. Well, she would charge the airline for that.

  “I don’t know about landing a helicopter,” said the cardiologist in his helpless voice. “The courtyard’s out. There’s a fountain in the center. The land behind the house slopes too much. There doesn’t seem to be an owner here.”

  No owner here? thought Darienne, looking around with a bit more interest. She would have to check out the rest of the mansion.

  “The local rescue people are arriving,” said the doctor. “I’ll have them call you.” He disconnected.

  Darienne picked up the phone immediately.

  She called the airline to which she was expecting to transfer and requested them to bump up her flight. They wanted to know to which flight she wanted to be moved. Darienne was irritable. She didn’t even know where she was, let alone how long it would take her to drive into the city. For all she knew she was in Pennsylvania, or Ohio, one of those inside states nobody cared about.

  A woman took Darienne’s arm. “We’re setting up triage in the biggest room here. We’re moving the furniture out into that long, thin hall so we can put the wounded flat on the floor. I need you to—”

  “I’m busy,” said Darienne.

  The woman looked at her incredulously. “You’re not hurt,” she said, “you—”

  “I’m busy,” repeated Darienne, making another phone call. She turned her back for emphasis. It was unfortunate that all those people were hurt, but she was not. Darienne regarded this as a sign. She had been spared. She was worth more.

  Saturday: 6:00 P.M.

  Heidi’s flashlight illuminated an oddly shaped open cardboard box. A lifesize baby doll was lying in it, clad in one of those knit one-piece suits. As she stepped over the box, the baby talked softly. Heidi stopped, legs straddling the cardboard, and stared down.

  The baby was alive.

  A woman in a military uniform said to her, “Papoose.”

  Heidi would have believed anything by now—Indian tribes, navy officers.

  “Carry the baby up to the house, papoose box and all,” said the woman. Heidi obeyed, resting the flashlight in the box with the baby. As the flashlight tipped, she saw that the military officer was wearing a name tag: Betsey!

  “I’m one of the flight attendants,” mumbled the woman. Some of her hair was no longer attached to her head. Blood streamed down that side of her face and onto her shoulder. Heidi could not bear to look at it. “You come up to the house, too,” said Heidi, wanting to clutch her own head in pain. “I’ll get a towel or something.” She wanted to press the scalp back down, stop it from looking so horrible.

  “Later,” said Betsey thickly. “Work to do. Flashlight,” she added, taking Heidi’s. Betsey stumbled over the debris toward the largest portion of the plane, the immense center, from which a rubber slide now extended. A small man crouched nervously at the top. So far up! Heidi was afraid of the height, and she was the one on the ground.

  But they had to get out.

  The fire in the torn wing actually roared. She had heard this description but had not known it would be true: like cars lined up to start a road race, motors roaring.

  The flight attendant rallied, with what core of strength Heidi could not imagine, and began shouting encouragement. “Come on, it’s fine, I’m here, slide on down, good work, keep moving!” The little man shot down toward her, and she caught him like a toddler on a water slide and set him upright. “Next!” called Betsey, like a cheerleader. “Get a rhythm here! I’m catching! We’re doing good! Next! Come on! Next!”

  They catapulted down. The slant was not for the faint at heart, and surely anybody who had just been through a plane crash was now faint at heart. In fact, she was amazed that the survivors hadn’t followed up their crash with cardiac arrests.

  Betsey turned, saw Heidi staring, and bellowed, like a trumpet in war, “Get that baby up to the house! Then come back down for more!”

  Heidi rushed. The flight attendant had that kind of presence: I order, you obey.

  She passed people sobbing, moaning, calling out in several languages. Saying, Help me. I’m over here. Help me. Please help me.

  I can never move them all, thought Heidi.

  Despair made her sob right along with them.

  When she looked back over her shoulder, the extent of the carnage overwhelmed her.

  We can never do all this! she thought.

  The boy Patrick was suddenly next to her. He was carrying one end of a stretcher, and the person carrying the other end was a fireman. In uniform. The fireman wore an ugly yellow canvas-rubber sort of coat, the back of which read,

  HARRIS

  NEARING RIVER

  VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT

  Help had come.

  Help was here.

  The 911 call had worked.

  She had done the right thing after all.

  “But we can’t move everybody!” cried Heidi. Her pathetic thread of a voice drowned in the racket around them.

  �
��It’s like saving the world, honey,” said the fireman, as he and Patrick passed her. “Nobody can save the world. But you can make up your mind to save one person. Now don’t let your mind think on the size of this. Cripples you. Take that baby up and come down for another.”

  Saturday: 6:10 P.M.

  Her quiet house, home to so few people, so rarely there, was as full as if her mother were hosting a New Year’s Eve gala.

  She could not believe the number of human beings surging through her house.

  It seemed hours ago that she had stood here alone, weeping and paralyzed. There was chaos inside the house, and yet it was orderly and it was not frightening. People were calmly doing their jobs, seeing a need, answering it. Somebody took the papoose box out of her arms.

  Like a sleepwalker, Heidi passed through the Hall, crossed the Gallery, and stepped out her own front door. A maelstrom of lights, strobes, bullhorns, and flashers had turned the quiet courtyard into a fireworks celebration. Fire trucks were arriving. Ambulances were already here. Cars had poured into the courtyard. A row of pickup trucks had parked up against the low stone wall and trained their headlights to illuminate the crash site.

  She looked down at her watch.

  Half an hour since the plane came down, thought Heidi. I usually can’t even get dressed that fast. And here in half an hour, I’ve saved lives, passed out coats, met rescuers.

  Relief had barely lit Heidi’s face when it vanished. The ambulances were ready to leave … but the lane was too narrow. There was no exit. As the cars and trucks of rescue workers poured up the driveway to Dove House, they then filled the lane.

  What good is rescue if we have gridlock? thought Heidi. She stepped out into the courtyard, into the dizzying array of whirling blue and red and yellow and white lights, the men shouting, the women looking grim, the trucks unable to move. “Who’s in charge?” she said.

  “My dad is, actually,” said Patrick. He did have a grin of relief and joy on his face, and it didn’t vanish when he saw the traffic problems. The sight of his father steering a bunch of volunteers in a specific direction gave Patrick as much relief as Teddie would have had if her Mommy had arrived. Patrick said “Dad” in almost the same voice as Teddie would have, too. His father put an arm on his son’s shoulder for just a moment.

  “This is Heidi; she lives here,” said Patrick. “She can tell you anything. Heidi, my dad, Mr. Farquhar.”

  Immediately she was surrounded by big demanding men. They wore firefighting gear, packs for emergency breathing strapped to their backs, big boots, helmets with thick plastic visors, immense gloves. “Is there another entrance? Another driveway? A neighbor close enough so we can come in through their driveway?”

  “No. The woods are full of ravines. You can’t cross them.”

  “Is there anywhere to land Life Star?”

  “What’s Life Star?”

  “Hospital helicopter.”

  Heidi said, “What kind of landing space does that need?”

  They told her.

  She nodded. “Way out past where the wing caught fire is a pretty flat field. Six acres. When we had horses, we kept them there. It was mowed this fall to keep trees from growing.”

  “Great. Now. Is there any way around these stone walls in this courtyard? We’ve got to get this place opened up.”

  Heidi shook her head. Builders in New England, since building had begun in New England, were fond of stone walls, and many masons had worked many years around Dove House.

  The man’s jaw tightened.

  Heidi hung her head, thinking. We should have dismantled those stone walls years ago.

  She should have known that one day this would come up. It seemed to be her own fault for not planning ahead. The self-loathing that had crippled Heidi at boarding school weakened her again. She couldn’t even meet their eyes. If the rescue effort failed, it would be because of her stone walls.

  “Are your parents home?” asked another man sharply. She had a feeling he wanted to shake her.

  They know I’m useless, thought Heidi. And I am. “They’re out of town,” she said. She was apologizing. It was wrong of her to have parents who were out of town.

  The host of trucks, cars, ambulances, fire trucks, and rescue vehicles were stuck as if in a turnpike accident. They couldn’t turn around any more than you could on a six-lane highway. As far as you could see, vehicles had stopped where they were blocked. Would-be rescuers were abandoning them, heading on foot for the crash site, thus doubling the problem: no drivers to move the vehicles if they ever did open up a path.

  They’re jerks! Heidi thought suddenly. It’s their own fault! They should know better than to wreck their own exit.

  She thought of the papoose baby, the little girl whose bone had stuck up out of her leg, the bleeding flight attendant soldiering on at the base of the broken plane. Heidi’s brain started working again. “There are two possibilities. We can knock down the whole wall here, where the arch is—”

  “No,” said Mr. Farquhar. “We’d need a bulldozer, which we don’t have.”

  “Then the hedge has to go.” She led him beyond the courtyard, where a long row of ancient holly, beautiful beyond compare, was a vicious sentry. Her mother raided the hedge every December, filling the house, the local museum, and all the town’s churches with green boughs and red berries.

  “This is where the holly for St. Anne’s comes from?” asked Mr. Farquhar.

  Heidi shrugged. “Yes, but it’s only holly. Chainsaw through the bottom of each trunk. Toss them into the ravine. From there you can drive down this hill,” she pointed, “and taking care not to drive into the reflecting pool, you’ll be at the bottom between the two parts of the plane crash.”

  “Right in the jet fuel,” said another man. “I love driving over spilled jet fuel.”

  Mr. Farquhar studied the scene. “Can we get back up?” he said.

  “It’s pretty icy.” Heidi brightened. “But you know what? We have a mountain of wood chips behind the barn. For mulching the gardens. Probably two or three dump-truck loads. You could move that over the slope to get traction.”

  Mr. Farquhar did not look happy about the prospect of moving two or three dump-truck loads of wood chips, one shovel at a time.

  She said, “Or you could drive straight through the barn. If the plane had landed a few hundred feet uphill, it would have taken the barn down anyway. I bet if you got a big enough truck, revved that motor, and just kept going, you could bring the barn right down and—”

  “I’ll do it!” said Patrick eagerly.

  Patrick’s father laughed. “I like you, kid,” he said to Heidi. “But we’ll leave your barn standing.”

  Patrick was vastly disappointed. Heidi almost laughed herself to see the intensity of his expression. He had a nice face. She liked how it mirrored his father’s. She liked a guy who wanted to drive a truck through a barn.

  Mr. Farquhar, however, yelled for chainsaws and went after the holly.

  In a moment, Patrick was gone, everybody in the courtyard was busy again, and Heidi again thought, But where’s Tally-Ho?

  Saturday: 6:18 P.M.

  The ambulance crew had no way of knowing whether they would end up on an estate or in a trailer park. This part of New England was resistant to zoning; pockets of rural slum were not far from estates of famous actors, retired diplomats, and millionaire chairmen of boards.

  Wealth divided Laura’s mind. It was wonderful to look at; to gawk at; to think—so this is how they live. It was so nice to have around: stately white clapboard country mansions and magnificent stretches of green lawn.

  But the same people often refused to pay their annual ambulance fee.

  The same people often gave the worst tips to teenagers waiting table at local restaurants and were rude to teenagers who mowed their lawns.

  She knew from the cute little bridge that this was estate country. And when she leapt out of the ambulance to take the first stretcher—it turned out to be the
fifth stretcher, actually; other crews had beaten them to it—she recognized Dove House.

  The girl who lived here was in Laura’s gym class. Laura had plenty of friends; she didn’t need another; she had never spoken to Heidi Landseth. Heidi wouldn’t stay in public school anyway; she belonged at Miss Porter’s or Ethel Walker or one of the other hoity-toity prep schools in Connecticut.

  Laura and her crew ran toward the plane crash but never even rounded the side of the house; never even saw the downed plane at the bottom of the hill; the first wounded victim was carried up to them by two walking wounded passengers.

  The man was burned. Laura had never seen burns before. Never smelled them. The stench coated her tongue, invaded her gut. She was going to get sick, she knew it. The woman carrying the other end of the stretcher said sharply to Laura, “Breathe through your mouth.” Laura steeled herself not to get sick, not to faint.

  He also had a sucking chest wound. Every time he breathed it sounded as if he were underwater. They fitted a cervical collar around his neck, they put MAST trousers on his legs to prevent shock, they sealed the open chest wound, and gave him oxygen. The senior crew member started an IV. Laura was not trained for that.

  The ambulance could take two victims, although Laura had never been in an ambulance with both stretchers filled. Now she saw how hard the ride to the hospital was going to be. The crew would hunch over, doing what little they could to stabilize their two badly hurt patients. She was proud of herself; she had not gotten sick; she was doing the right things in the right order.

  Now it was up to the driver.

  But the driver did nothing.

  They went nowhere.

  The exit was blocked.

  Saturday: 6:22 P.M.

  Patrick had finished his training a year and a half before. They had had a textbook just like any other textbook: chapters with questions at the end, plenty of photographs with captions, some graphs, an index. Although there were frequent update training sessions, he had not looked at the textbook once since then. But he could see the page for high-impact accidents as if somebody were holding it open before him. The color photographs had made him gag when he first saw the book.