were sweating.
In the rear, McChesney was beyond thought, unable to communicate, unable to move. He was unaware that his whole body exuded an acrid stench of fear. His breath came in gasps separated by long moments when he didn't breathe at all. Sherry was fighting her own battle with fear and barely noticed McChesney's problems.
Again Captain Duckhorn brought the plane level, engines screaming with effort. It was another ten minutes before he gained back half the altitude lost during the last sickening dive.
What both men feared but did not express was the mountains to the west. The farther west and north they went the more danger there was from mountains. In the beginning they had turned north toward western Washington in the hope the storm would disperse over the flat farm lands of the Columbia River valley.
What neither man knew was that the navigation system had been off for the last hour. Their actual location was a hundred miles north and west of where they thought they were. Each man prayed for a break, any kind of break in the storm, but their prayers weren't answered. Instead the storm was increasing in intensity.
At fifteen thousand feet, near the edge of a boiling thunderhead, twenty miles across and forty thousand feet high, Flight 402 received it's first great lightning strike. Initially it hit the top of the aircraft at the wing root then snaked around the aft section of the plane. The intensity and size was such that the normal systems designed to bleed away excess electrostatic energy from the surface of the plane were overwhelmed and a tongue of intense static electricity found its way into the delicate electronic equipment bay burning and melting as it went. That it did not destroy the plane's electrical equipment utterly was a matter of chance.
However in one brief instant, both the primary and secondary navigation and communication systems were ruined. The barometric altitude indicator still functioned but that did nothing to tell them where they were.
In the cockpit Neilsen was pale with fear. He was not a man to curse but this was too much. The shear violence punched through his natural reticence.
"Damn...we're in trouble deep, Captain."
It was a measure of his fear that he did not call Duckhorn by his first name. Every instrument on the panel except those monitoring the engines was disabled. Needles, dials, digital readouts wandered about erratically, producing no usable information.
"Stay with me, First Officer. Take a walk aft, check the equipment bays. We've had three fire bottles go off in the aft electronics bay. The panel says there's no fire, but...do it, Neil. I want an eyes on. Move careful and get back as soon as you can, I'm going to need your help."
"Yes, Captain."
They had become formal, as though the rigid protocol of the flight deck could provide an added degree of safety and control in a environment that was rapidly descending into madness.
It took Neilsen five minutes to reach the rear of the plane. During the trip he fell to his knees twice, and once, near the rear of the plane was thrown upward to strike his shoulder on the overhead storage compartments.
The aft equipment bays were a charred ruin compounded by the effects of the fire bottle residue. Black boxes were scorched and wire cables melted into distorted lumps of melted metal. He examined everything quickly. He didn't need more time. There was nothing he could do. He closed the panels and headed forward.
Neilsen stopped at Sherry's seat and knelt at her side holding onto the arm of her seat. She didn't even notice him until he touched her arm. She jerked with fear.
"Easy, Sherry. Are you okay?"
"Yes, I'll be alright. Did the lightning..." she glanced toward McChesney. He was in another world. Sherry shook her head negatively.
Neilsen leaned forward and whispered in her ear. "We're in trouble. You be ready. You've trained for this, remember that. You can do it.”
"All right."
Neilsen didn't stop at Alvin or Tony's seat. They both looked at him and waved their hands indicating they were okay. When he reached the door to the cockpit, a vicious gust hit the plane like a fist and he was thrown head first into the metal door. He felt his nose crunch and a sharp pain over his right eye. Neilsen landed flat on his back in the aisle. He struggled to his feet using the arms of the nearest seat. His eyes watered and his face felt wet. When he examined his face with his hands they came away covered with blood.
"Damn...that hurts."
He pulled out a handkerchief and tried to staunch the flow. In the cockpit it was difficult to get into his seat without being thrown onto the Captain.
"Good Lord, what happened to you?"
"Got tossed into the door. It hurts."
"You gonna be alright?"
"...Sure...could be a lot worse."
"Okay, get on the controls with me." Captain Duckhorn's face was set in a determined grimace.
"Any idea where we are, Captain?"
"Not really." He grunted with effort as the plane skidded sideways then roared forward as though released from a sling-shot. "North...a long way north. I wouldn't be surprised if we're over the Canadian border."
"West too?"
It wasn't a question either one wanted to ask.
"Probably."
Prolonged danger can sap the strength of the strongest man or woman and the three passengers and flight attendant, Miss Willis, had the added burden of doing nothing, of being at the mercy of others. It didn't matter that none of them knew how to fly, in circumstances like this any activity would have been better than waiting.
Except for the rare individual, danger, raw and violent, will turn a man or woman inward and what they find there will either sustain them or haunt them the rest of their lives. Most people live their lives without ever being put to the test. Others spend their whole lives seeking opportunities to discover what circumstance had forced the people of Flight 402 to endure.
Prince McChesney was not a cowardly man. He was trapped by a situation that amplified the one thing he feared most. That fear had taken him beyond the ability to resist, to fight back. Emotionally he was numb. If he could have gotten sick it would have been better than the state of terror that held him beyond the ability to act.
The lightning strikes were continuous around the airplane and the night sky alternately displayed scenes of incredible beauty and pictures like something from an old testament hell.
Forward on the flight deck, Duckhorn and First Officer Neilsen were too busy for the kind of fear that occupied their passengers.
"Something's not right, Neil, do you feel it?" The control column was jerking so hard it took the two of them to hold it.
"Yesss...rudder? No...I don't know...feels like the rudder."
"Oh, Lord, here we go again!" Captain Duckhorn had to shout to be heard over the thunder and the roar of engines strained to the limit.
Captain Duckhorn tried to make a joke. "We're on an elevator to hell."
Even though they were holding the plane level, the backup altimeter was unwinding
