Four Past Midnight

'I am praying, sir,' the Brit said, 'that the pilot's cap I noticed in one of the first-class seats belongs to you.'

Brian was standing in front of the locked door, head down, thinking furiously. When the Brit spoke up behind him, he jerked in surprise and whirled on his heels.

'Didn't mean to Put Your wind up,' the Brit said mildly. 'I'm Nick Hopewell.' He stuck out his hand.

Brian shook it. As he did so, performing his half of the ancient ritual, it occurred to him that this must be a dream. The scary flight from Tokyo and finding out that Anne was dead had brought it on.

Part of his mind knew this was not so, just as part of his mind had known the little girl's scream had had nothing to do with the deserted first-class section, but he seized on this idea just as he had seized on that one. It helped, so why not? Everything else was nuts - so nutty that even attempting to think about it made his mind feel sick and feverish. Besides, there was really no time to think, simply no time, and he found that this was also something of relief.

'Brian Engle,' he said. 'I'm pleased to meet you, although the circumstances are -' He, shrugged helplessly. What were the circumstances, exactly? He could not think of an adjective which would adequately describe them.

'Bit bizarre, aren't they?' Hopewell agreed. 'Best not to think of them right now, I suppose. Does the crew answer?'

'No,' Brian said, and abruptly struck his fist against the door in frustration.

'Easy, easy,' Hopewell soothed.-' Tell me about the cap, Mr Engle. You have no idea what satisfaction and relief it would give me to address you as Captain Engle.'

Brian grinned in spite of himself. 'I am Captain Engle,' he said, 'but under the circumstances, I guess you can call me Brian.'

Nick Hopewell seized Brian's left hand and kissed it heartily. 'I believe I'll call you Savior instead,' he said. 'Do you mind awfully?'

Brian threw his head back and began to laugh. Nick joined him. They were standing there in front of the locked door in the nearly empty plane, laughing wildly, when the man in the red shirt and the man in the crew-necked jersey arrived, looking at them as if they had both gone crazy.

3

Albert Kaussner held the hair in his right hand for several moments, looking at it thoughtfully. It was black and glossy in the overhead lights, a right proper pelt, and he wasn't at all surprised it had scared the hell out of the little girl. It would have scared Albert, too, if he hadn't been able to see it.

He tossed the wig back into the seat, glanced at the purse lying in the next seat, then looked more closely at what was lying next to the purse. It was a plain gold wedding ring. He picked it up, examined it, then put it back where it had been. He began walking slowly toward the back of the airplane. In less than a minute, Albert was so struck with wonder that he had forgotten all about who was flying the plane, or how the hell they were going to get down from here if it was the automatic pilot.

Flight 29's passengers were gone, but they had left a fabulous - and sometimes perplexing - treasure trove behind. Albert found jewelry on almost every seat: wedding rings, mostly, but there were also diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. There were earrings, most of them five-and-dime stuff but some which looked pretty expensive to Albert's eye. His mom had a few good pieces, and some of this stuff made her best jewelry look like rummage-sale buys. There were studs, necklaces, cufflinks, ID bracelets. And watches, watches, watches. From Timex to Rolex, there seemed to be at least two hundred of them, lying on seats, lying on the floor between seats, lying in the aisles. They twinkled in the lights.

There were at least sixty pairs of spectacles. Wire-rimmed, horn-rimmed., gold-rimmed. There were prim glasses, punky glasses, and glasses with rhinestones set in the bows. There were Ray-Bans, Polaroids, and Foster Grants.

There were belt buckles and service pins and piles of pocket-change. No bills, but easily four hundred dollars in quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. There were wallets - not as many wallets as purses, but still a good dozen of them, from fine leather to plastic. There were pocket knives. There were at least a dozen hand-held calculators.

And odder things as well. He picked up a flesh-colored plastic cylinder and examined it for almost thirty seconds before deciding it really was a dildo and putting it down again in a hurry. There was a small gold spoon on a fine gold chain. There were bright speckles of metal here and there on the seats and on the floor, mostly silver but some gold. He picked up a couple of these to verify the judgment of his own wondering mind: some were dental caps, but most were fillings from human teeth. And, in one of the back rows, he picked up two tiny steel rods. He looked at these for several moments before realizing they were surgical pins, and that they belonged not on the floor of a nearly deserted airliner but in some passenger's knee or shoulder.

He discovered one more passenger, a young bearded man who was sprawled over two seats in the very last row, snoring loudly and smelling like a brewery.

Two seats away, he found a gadget that looked like a pacemaker implant.

Albert stood at the rear of the plane and looked forward along the large, empty tube of the fuselage.

'What in the fuck is going on here?' he asked in a soft, trembling voice.

4

'I demand to know just what is going on here!' the man in the crew-neck jersey said in a loud voice. He strode into the service area at the head of first class like a corporate raider mounting a hostile takeover.

'Currently? We're just about to break the lock on this door,' Nick Hopewell said, fixing Crew-Neck with a bright gaze. 'The flight crew appears to have abdicated along with everyone else, but we're in luck, just the same. My new acquaintance here is a pilot who just happened to be deadheading, and -'

'Someone around here is a deadhead, all right,' Crew-Neck said, 'and I intend to find out who, believe me.' He pushed past Nick without a glance and stuck his face into Brian's, as aggressive as a ballplayer disputing an umpire's call. 'Do you work for American Pride, friend?'

'Yes,' Brian said, 'but why don't we put that off for now, sir? It's important that -'

'I'll tell you what's important!' Crew-Neck shouted. A fine mist of spit settled on Brian's cheeks and he had to sit on a sudden and amazingly strong impulse to clamp his hands around this twerp's neck and see how far he could twist his head before something inside cracked. 'I've got a meeting at the Prudential Center with representatives of Bankers International at nine o'clock this morning! Promptly at nine o'clock! I booked a seat on this conveyance in good faith, and I have no intention of being late for my appointment! I want to know three things: who authorized an unscheduled stop for this airliner while I was asleep, where that stop was made, and why it was done!'

'Have you ever watched Star Trek?' Nick Hopewell asked suddenly.

Crew-Neck's face, suffused with angry blood, swung around. His expression said that he believed the Englishman was clearly mad. 'What in the hell are you talking about?'

'Marvellous American program,' Nick said. 'Science fiction. Exploring strange new worlds, like the one which apparently exists inside your head. And if you don't shut your gob at once, you bloody idiot, I'll be happy to demonstrate Mr Spock's famous Vulcan sleeper-hold for you.'

'You can't talk to me like that!' Crew-Neck snarled. 'Do you know who I am?'

'Of course,' Nick said. 'You're a bloody-minded little bugger who has mistaken his airline boarding pass for credentials proclaiming him to be the Grand High Poobah of Creation. You're also badly frightened. No harm in that, but you are in the way.'

Crew-Neck's face was now so clogged with blood that Brian began to be afraid his entire head would explode. He had once seen a movie where that happened. He did not want to see it in real life. 'You can't talk to me like that! You're not even an American citizen!'

Nick Hopewell moved so fast that Brian barely saw what was happening. At one moment the man in the crew-neck jersey was yelling into Nick's face while Nick stood at ease beside Brian, his hands on the hips of his pressed jeans. A moment later, Crew-Neck's nose was caught firmly between the first and second fingers of Nick's right hand.

Crew-Neck tried to pull away. Nick's fingers tightened ... and then his hand turned slightly, in the gesture of a man tightening a screw or winding an alarm clock. Crew-Neck bellowed.

'I can break it,' Nick said softly. 'Easiest thing in the world, believe me.'

Crew-Neck tried to jerk backward. His hands beat ineffectually at Nick's arm. Nick twisted again and Crew-Neck bellowed again.

'I don't think you heard me. I can break it. Do you understand? Signify if you have understanding.'

He twisted Crew-Neck's nose a third time.

Crew-Neck did not just bellow this time; he screamed.

'Oh, wow,' the stoned-looking girl said from behind them. 'A nose-hold.'

'I don't have time to discuss your business appointments,' Nick said softly to Crew-Neck. 'Nor do I have time to deal with hysteria masquerading as aggression. We have a nasty, perplexing situation here. You, sir, are clearly not part of the solution, and I have no intention whatever of allowing you to become part of the problem. Therefore, I am going to send you back into the main cabin. This gentleman in the red shirt -'

'Don Gaffney,' the gentleman in the red shirt said. He looked as vastly surprised as Brian felt.

'Thank you,' Nick said. He still held Crew-Neck's nose in that amazing clamp, and Brian could now see a thread of blood lining one of the man's pinched nostrils.

Nick pulled him closer and spoke in a warm, confidential voice.

'Mr Gaffney here will be your escort. Once you arrive in the main cabin, my buggardly friend, you will take a seat with your safety belt fixed firmly around your middle. Later, when the captain here has assured himself we are not going to fly into a mountain, a building, or another plane, we may be able to discuss our current situation at greater length. For the present, however, your input is not necessary. Do you understand all these things I have told you?'

Crew-Neck uttered a pained, outraged bellow.

'If you understand. please favor me with a thumbs-up.'

Crew-Neck raised one thumb. The nail, Brian saw, was neatly manicured.