By the time McCloskey had finished, all of the people in the suite were awake. Female crew members who had been sleeping in the other room were huddled just inside the doorway, eyes wide with shock and faces pale. One of the women suddenly began to sob uncontrollably.
"Captain," I said when McCloskey had finished, "the whole idea is to somehow find a way to get up in the air-high enough and far enough away from the storm so that Garth-my brother here-and I can make contact with certain powerful people we know in Washington; even if the phones there are still out-and we don't know that they are-there should still be lines of military communication that can be used. If we can get through to them, either of the two men will act as quickly as humanly possible to mobilize forces to infiltrate the structure that houses the transmitter, which is somewhere outside Boise, Idaho. But it's going to take time for us to get them the message, and it will take them time to get planes into the air, and then find the place. Time is something we're rapidly running out of."
"Are you sure of your information?" Holloway asked in a firm voice.
"Yes," Garth replied in an equally firm voice. "We all saw the bomb in Manhattan, and there's absolutely no reason to doubt the existence of at least two others-in Detroit, and near Israel.''
I said, "Captain, right now there are men plowing snow in front of the hangar where your Concorde is parked. Not all of the snow-they're trying to plow it down to a level of two or three feet, enough to belly-slide on if that's what has to be done. My thinking is that if there's one plane that's sleek and powerful enough to slice its way up and out of this blizzard, it's the SST-if we can only get it going, and off the ground."
"And you think we might be able to do that by sliding the plane on its belly in the snow?" Holloway asked evenly.
"You're the only man who can answer that."
"It's impossible, Captain," a very thin, tall man standing over in a corner said in a tense voice. "Even if you could gain enough speed to lift off the ground, which is unlikely, the wind shear out there would certainly tip your wings, or even slam you right back into the ground. It would be suicide to even try."
I swallowed hard, licked my cracked lips. "Is that right, Captain?"
Jack Holloway drew back his shoulders and adjusted his boxer shorts. "Frankly," he announced in his clipped British accent, "the odds of us even getting off the ground before we tip over and explode are not at all favorable."
"Captain," I said with a heavy sigh, "naturally, we have no right to-"
"But we must attempt it, of course," Holloway continued as if I hadn't spoken. "After all, the lives of millions of people depend on us, no?"
"Yes," Garth said softly. "You're a good man, Captain."
"Captain Holloway," one of the women in the doorway said, "I'll go."
There was a chorus of murmured assents as every member of the British crew started forward and pressed around us.
Holloway held up his hand, and everyone fell silent. "That won't be necessary, Evelyn," he said in an even voice. "After all, we're not carrying the Queen, are we? None of you will be going on this trip."
"I will be going, sir," the tall, thin man who had described the attempt as impossible said. "Although it's possible for you to pilot the plane alone, that certainly won't increase your odds, will it? I suggest you could use a copilot and navigator."
Holloway's brows knit slightly as he thought about it. Finally he nodded. "Very well, Nigel," he said. "I do believe you're right. Gentlemen, this is Lieutenant Nigel Fickley, my copilot and navigator."
We all exchanged nods. Crew members brought the two men their uniforms, and they began to dress.
"Captain, what's your fuel situation?" I asked. "I understand yours was the last flight in before the airport shut down, so you didn't have time to refuel."
"That's correct," Holloway said as he carefully adjusted his tie and brushed a speck of lint off his jacket. "But we have sufficient fuel to get up-if that's possible-and ride beyond the radius of the storm."
"Do you have enough fuel to get us to Idaho? It's about two thousand miles."
Holloway turned to his slim navigator, who gave a noncommittal shrug of his shoulders. "Perhaps we can scrape up some fuel somewhere in the terminal."
"Captain," Garth said, "I know it's asking a lot when you've already agreed to risk your life, but Mongo and I have to get to Boise, if we can. There's no telling how close a margin the Army and Air Force will be working on by the time we can get our message out and they can get mobilized. The logic of choosing the greatest good for the greatest number of people dictates that they'll just fly in and bomb the biosphere to bits if the time margin is too close. There's at least one innocent in there-a little girl. Mongo and I would like to try to get her out before the bombs fall, if that's what's going to happen."
"Even if the bombs end by falling on you?"
Garth's silence, our answer, was most eloquent.
"Well, then," Holloway said as he slipped on a fur-lined parka and zipped it up, "I guess we'll just have to find fuel, or coax sufficient mileage out of the aircraft, to get you to Idaho. We certainly won't have enough to get back, but I'm sure Her Majesty will understand. Shall we go and see how the plowing is coming along?"
"Just one more thing, Captain," Garth said. "We know you can fly an SST-probably by yourself, if you had to. Can you drive a snowmobile?"
Ah. I thought I had a pretty good idea why my brother had asked the question; I caught his eye, gave a curt nod of approval.
Holloway looked slightly taken aback. "Actually, we don't get that much snow in England."
"I can handle it, Garth," I said as I walked quickly to a desk set against the opposite wall. I opened a drawer, took out a pad and a ballpoint pen.
"You can hardly stand up."
"I believe I can drive a snowmobile," Nigel Fickley announced. "I'm somewhat of a winter sports enthusiast, you might say."
"Hey, wait just a minute," Malachy McCloskey said, seeming slightly bewildered as he looked back and forth between Garth and me. "What the hell's the matter with the chauffeurs you've got? We can fit-"
That was all he managed to say before Garth hit him on the point of the jaw with his fist. It was a pretty good pop-what I estimated to be a half-hour punch.
"The man's scheduled to retire in a few hours," Garth said to a startled Frank Palorino as he caught the unconscious McCloskey and eased him down onto the floor. "He's got children and grandchildren. We could die in the plane-or in Idaho. There's no way he'd stay behind if we gave him the choice, but there's no reason for either of you to come along. Your jurisdiction ends if and when we get in the air, and it's better that the two of you stay here-first, to follow through to make sure they've deactivated that bomb back in Manhattan, and second, to make the necessary calls if we crash and explode. Don't think about it, Frank, because we know you want to come too. But you'd just be excess baggage."
"Here," I said, handing Palorino a slip of paper on which I had written two telephone numbers. "These are direct lines to the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and President Kevin Shannon. I've also written down a code word you use to make sure you get no hassle from anyone who may be answering the phones for them."
Palorino looked at the paper, shook his head. "Valhalla?"
"Tell whoever answers that this is a Valhalla priority."
"This will get me through to the president of the United States?" The policeman seemed stunned.
"Actually, the Director-Mr. Lippitt-is harder to get hold of than Shannon, but that's neither here nor there." I paused, smiled thinly. "Have McCloskey tell them you got the numbers from the famous Fredericksons."
"Let's go, Mongo," Garth said from where he, Holloway, and Fickley were standing by the door. "Schmooze later."