Sole Survivor

wasn't able to reach Laceroth first.”
        “They're not your ideal public servants. Maxine Wulce is the Chairman. An attorney, young and politically ambitious, looking out for number one, a real piece of work. Wouldn't give you two cents for her.”
        “Vice Chairman?”
        “Hunter Parkman. Pure political patronage. He's old money, so he doesn't need the job, but he likes being a presidential appointee and talking crash lore at parties. Give you fifteen cents for him.”
        Although he had continued to study the woods at the foot of the meadow, Joe had seen no further movement among those trees.
        Far to the east, a vein of lightning pulsed briefly through the dark muscle of the storm.
        He counted the seconds between the silver flash and the rumble of thunder, translating time to distance, and ascertained that the rain was five or six miles from them.
        Barbara said, “I've given you only a Xerox of the transcript I wrote down that night. I've hidden the original away. God knows why, since I'll never use it.”
        Joe was torn between a rage to know and a fear of knowing. He sensed that in the exchanges between Captain Blane and First Officer Santorelli, he would discover new dimensions to the terror that his wife and daughters had endured.
        Finally, Joe focused his attention on the first page, and Barbara watched over his shoulder as he followed the text with one finger to allow her to see where he was reading.
        
         Sounds of First Officer Santorelli returning to his seat from the lavatory. His initial comments are captured by the overhead cockpit microphone before he puts on his headset with the boom mike.
        SANTORELLI: Get to L.A. (unintelligible), I'm going to chow down on so much (unintelligible), hummus, tabbouleh, lebne with string cheese, big plateful of kibby till I bust. There's this Armenian place, it's the best. You like Middle East food?
         Three seconds of silence.
        SANTORELLI: Roy? Somethin' up?
         Two seconds of silence.
        SANTORELLI: What's this? What're we… Roy, you off the auto pilot?
        BLANE: One of their names is Dr. Louis Blom.
        SANTORELLI: What?
        BLANE: One of their names is Dr. Keith Ramlock.
        SANTORELLI: (with audible concern) What's this on the McDoo? You been in the FMC, Roy?
        When Joe inquired, Barbara said, “The 747-400s use digitised avionics. The instrument panel is dominated by six of the largest cathode-ray tubes made, for the display of data. And the McDoo means MCDU, the multi-function control and display unit. There's one beside each pilot's seat, and they're interconnected, so anything one pilot enters is updated on the other's unit. They control the Honeywell/Sperry FMC, the flight management computer. The pilots input the flight plan and the load sheet through the MCDU keyboards, and all enroute flight-plan changes are also actuated with the McDoos.”
        “So Santorelli comes back from the john and sees that Blane has made changes to the flight plan. Is that unusual?”
        “Depends on weather, turbulence, unexpected traffic, holding patterns because of airport problems at the destination…But at this point in a coast-to-coast flight-little past the midpoint-in pretty good weather, with everything apparently ticking along routinely?”
        Barbara nodded. “Yeah, Santorelli would wonder why they were making flight-plan changes under the circumstances. But I think the concern in his voice results more from Blane's unresponsiveness and from something unusual he saw on the McDoo, some plan change that didn't make sense.”
        “Which would be?”
        “As I said earlier, they were seven degrees off course.”
        “Santorelli wouldn't have felt that happening when he was in the lavatory?”
        “It started soon after he was off the flight deck, and it was a gradual, really gentle bank. He might have sensed something, but there's no reason he would have realized the change was so big.”
        “Who are these doctors-Blom and Ramlock?”
        “I don't have a clue. But read on. It gets weirder.”
        BLANE: They're doing bad things to me.
        SANTORELLI: Captain, what's wrong here?
        BLANE: They're mean to me.
        SANTORELLI: Hey, are you with me here?
        BLANE: Make them stop.
        Barbara said, “Blane's voice changes there. It's sort of odd all the way through