Danielle Steel - Wings

“Want to go back?” she asked calmly, keeping her eyes on her instruments.

“I'm not sure yet,” he answered, still puzzled.

He played with one of the engines for a while, listening, fixing, adjusting, and after another hundred miles out, he reassured her that everything was in control. She nodded and kept a close eye on the instruments, she wanted to be sure she agreed with him.

Cassie left nothing to chance, which was why she was so good. Billy appeared to be a lot more casual than she was, but he was also extraordinarily careful. And he had an uncanny sixth sense about flying, which was why she loved flying with him. They were a perfect team.

She changed her course slightly after that, to avoid some heavy clouds ahead, and what looked like rough weather. And it was early afternoon when he looked out at the autumn sky, and then at her compass. “Are you sure we're heading right? It feels off to me.”

‘Trust your compass,” she said, sounding like an instructor, as she smiled at him. It was the one instrument she always trusted and the only reliable information they had, since both the sextant and the direction finder had broken in the storm.

‘Trust your eyes… your nose… your guts… and then your compass.” He was right, as it turned out. With a brisk wind they were slightly off course, but not enough to worry them, and then as she checked the instruments again, she looked up and saw smoke in their number-two engine and thin streams of fuel running back across the number one.

“Shit,” she muttered and pointed it out to him as she cut the power to the number-two engine and feathered the prop. They were already a long way from Howland. “We'd better go back.” They'd been in the air for two hours, and were already out of radio contact.

“Anything closer than that?” He checked the map, and saw a small island. “What's this?”

“I'm not sure.” She looked at it. “It looks like bird shit.”

“Very funny. Give me a reading, where are we?” She read the compass off to him, while he looked out at the engine. He wasn't pleased with what he saw, or the knowledge that they were carrying (our hundred gallons of fuel near the engine.

They flew on for a few more minutes and decided to try for the island they'd seen on the map. But Cassie was worried about putting the North Star down there. If the island was too small, the plane too large, they wouldn't make it. They agreed to land on the beach if they had to. They were out of radio range. Billy checked the engine again, but the news wasn't good. Then he put the headphones on and tried sending distress signals to any ships that might be near them.

But as they looked out the window, they both saw that the engine was burning.

“Happy birthday, Cass. And that's not a cake.”

“Shit.”

“Precisely. How far are we from Bird Shit Island?”

“Maybe another fifty miles, give or take a few.”

“Wonderful. Just what we need, another fifteen minutes with four hundred gallons of fuel in our armpits. Oh goody.”

“Go sing to yourself or something,” she said calmly.

“You have the worst ideas,” he said while flipping some levers, and checking the other engine. “No wonder you can't get a decent job.” They were joking, but they were not amused. The North Star was in trouble.

Ten minutes later the island came into view, and they checked it out No flatland. Nothing but trees, and what looked like a small mountain.

“How well can you swim?” he asked conversationally, handing her a life jacket as a matter of routine. He already knew that she was an excellent swimmer. “Looks like we're going to the beach, eh, ducky?”

“Maybe so, cowboy… maybe so…” She was concentrating on holding the plane. It was starting to pull very badly. And the other engine had begun to smoke too. “What do you suppose is happening?” They were both puzzled by what was going on, but they wouldn't know what till they reached the ground. And that was going to be soon now. At first Billy had thought the fuel lines were clogged, but that wasn't it. Something was defective.

‘Too much lighter fluid maybe?”

“Well, don't light up a Lucky now,” she warned him, prepared to land. She circled the island twice, made a pass at the beach once, and took off again, with both engines burning. She knew she needed to dump fuel, but there just wasn't time now.

“You want to try for New York?” he asked calmly, watching her maneuver the heavy plane over the tiny island.

“I think maybe Tokyo,” she answered, never taking her eyes off what she was doing. “Tachikawa is going to pay a fortune for the test flight.”

“Great idea. Let's try it. Who needs Desmond Williams?”

“Okay, here we go again,” Cassie said, concentrating on every detail. “Christ, that beach is short dammit…” And the engines were hot and flaming.

“I hate to say this, my dear,” Billy said calmly, putting on his own life jacket, “but if you don't get your ass down there soon, we are going to make a very embarrassing explosion on this island. It might make a very bad impression on the natives.”

“I'm working on it,” she said through her teeth.

“Want some help?”

“From a kid like you? Hell, no.” She came in as low as she could, and used all her strength on the stick; she was almost down, and had just overshot the beach when they hit the water. The plane came to a stop, and sank slowly into three feet of water, as she cut the switches, hoping it wouldn't explode but there was no guarantee now.

“Nice landing, now let's go. Fast.” He grabbed her to push her from the plane, before she could take anything. Instinctively, she reached for their emergency kit, while he struggled to get the door open. Both engines were on fire, and you could feel the heat in the cockpit. He had the door open by then, and shouted to her. “Co!” He pushed her out and clear of the plane almost before she knew what had hit her. He had the log and a small knapsack in his hand that she knew held their money, and that was it. They waded through the water as fast as they could and headed for the beach at a dead run. They ran another fifty feet down to the end of it, and just as they reached it, there was an enormous explosion. They turned and watched as the entire plane was outlined in flames, and pieces of it flew into the trees and farther into the water. There was a huge tunnel of fire towering above it, from their fuel, and it burned for hours as they watched it in shocked fascination.

“So long, North Star,“ Billy said, as the last of it disappeared into the water. All that was left was a shell of what had been. All those men and all that work, all those months and hours and calculation, ended in a moment. They had covered eleven thousand miles of their trip. And it was over. They were alive. They had survived it. That was all that mattered. “And here we are,” Billy said conversationally, as he handed her a piece of candy from the knapsack, “on Bird Shit Island. Have a great vacation.” She looked at him and laughed; she was too tired and too upset to cry, or scream. All she could hope was that someone would figure out that they were gone when they failed to reach Honolulu, and send the troops out looking. She knew all the efforts they'd made to find Earhart four years before. But she also knew how much outcry there had been at the expense. But if nothing else than for the publicity involved, and to recover the plane, she knew that Desmond would stop at nothing to find them. He'd call Roosevelt himself if he had to. He'd play heavily on the fact that she was America's sweetheart and people loved her. They would have to find her.

“Well, Miss O'Malley, what do you say we call room service and order a drink?” They had been there for four hours by then, watching their plane disintegrate along with their hope of leaving. Now they had to be rescued. “It wouldn't have been a real record-breaking trip, if this hadn't happened,” he said confidently. He was sure that they would be rescued within a day or so, and it would be exciting in the telling.

“Desmond will think I did this as revenge,” she grinned. There was a funny side to it too. But barely. If they let themselves, they could have gotten seriously worried. She wondered if it had been like this for Noonan and Earhart, or if it had been more dramatic or quicker. Maybe they had died on impact. Or maybe they were still sitting on an island like this one. It was an intriguing thought, but unlikely. And not very hopeful.

“I kind of figured you did this as revenge too,” Billy commented casually. “I can't say I blame you. I wish you'd have done it a little closer to Tahiti. The waitress was great-looking.”

“So has been every girl since LA” She was feeling less cheerful than he, but she was grateful for his sense of humor.

“Not here. Definitely not here.” The island was totally deserted.

They went on a reconnaissance mission then, and found a small stream, and a lot of bushes with berries. As desert islands went, it seemed fairly comfortable, with everything they needed. There were some fruits which they didn't recognize, but when they tried them that night they found they were delicious. It was strange being here, but it didn't seem so terrible, as long as they weren't stuck here forever. The prospect of that was more than a little frightening, but Cass wouldn't let herself think of it, as they lay side by side in a cave they found that night.

They were both awake for a long time, and finally, she decided to ask the question. “Billy?”

“Yeah?”

“What if they don't find us?”

“They will.”

“What if they don't?”

‘They have to.”

“Why?” Her eyes were huge in the darkness and he was holding her hand very gently. “Why do they have to find us?”

“Because Desmond will want to sue you for the plane. He's not going to let you get away with this.” He grinned in the dark and she laughed.

“Oh shut up.”

“See what I mean… not to worry.” But he rolled over and held her close to him, and he didn't tell her he was scared too. He had never been so frightened in his life, and there was nothing he could do for her but hold her.

Desmond was called in the middle of the night, exactly twenty-two hours after they had left their last destination. The local authorities were absolutely sure by then that the North Star had disappeared, and probably gone down in the Pacific Ocean. But there had been no sign, no signal. And no one had any idea what had happened.

“Damn.” He called everyone in to help. They had an emergency plan to implement. The Navy was called, the foreign authorities, the Pentagon. The flight of the North Star had made world news, and now everyone who had ever heard of her, and some who hadn't, wanted to find her.

There was an aircraft carrier in the vicinity of where she was believed to have gone down, and they dispatched forty-one planes, and called in two destroyers. It was not unlike the search that had gone on four years before, and they were better trained, and better equipped now. They made every conceivable effort, and deployed every man possible. The President called Desmond himself, and then the O'Malleys in Illinois. They were in a state of shock when they heard. They couldn't believe they might lose Cassie. And Oona was particularly afraid for Pat's heart, but he seemed to be taking it fairly calmly. He was desperately afraid for his daughter, but he had a lot of confidence in the armed forces. He only wished that Nick were there to help them.

The search went on for days, in an area that covered hundreds of miles, and all the while Billy and Cass were trying to keep each other's spirits up and eating berries. Cassie had gotten a case of raging dysentery, and Billy had badly scraped his leg swimming over some coral the morning after they crashed. But other than that, they were in pretty good shape. They had whatever fruit they found around them, and enough water. But no sign of anyone coming to rescue them. No plane. No ship. Nothing had even come close. Because Cassie had changed course slightly before they crashed, and because of the winds that had pushed them still further off course before that, the search was being conducted some five hundred miles in the wrong direction. Their radio had gone dead just before they went down and then been destroyed in the explosion, so they had no way of giving anyone their location. And there had been no ship in the vicinity at the time, to hear them. They weren't even sure where they were now. But they had no way to tell anyone even if they had known it.

In LA Desmond was doing everything he could to keep the search going. But the press was beginning to question the shocking expense of the search, and began to turn on Desmond. They played up the futility of looking for them, and the likelihood that they'd been killed in the crash or would be dead by now anyway. The search went on at full steam for fourteen days, and then occasional sweeps were made for another week. The search was then called off entirely two days after that, one month to the day of the date they had left Los Angeles. It was over.