Night Over Water - Ken Follett [120]
And then what would happen to Carol-Ann?
Tom Luther was nothing if not a careful planner, and he must have considered the possibility that the Clipper would be delayed. He had to have some way of contacting his cronies to confirm or alter the time of the rendezvous.
But if the plane turned back, Carol-Ann would remain in the hands of the kidnappers for at least another twenty-four hours.
Eddie had sat in the forward compartment, fidgeting restlessly and looking out of the window at nothing at all, for most of his off-duty shift. He had not even tried to sleep, knowing it would be hopeless. Images of Carol-Ann had tormented him constantly: Carol-Ann in tears, or tied up, or bruised; Carol-Ann frightened, pleading, hysterical, desperate. Every five minutes he wanted to put his fist through the fuselage, and he had fought constantly against the impulse to run up the stairs and ask his replacement, Mickey Finn, about the fuel consumption.
It was because he was so distracted that he had allowed himself to needle Tom Luther in the dining room. His behavior had been very dumb. A piece of real bad luck had put them at the same table. Afterward, the navigator, Jack Ashford, had lectured Eddie, and he realized how stupid he had been. Now Jack knew something was going on between Eddie and Luther. Eddie had refused to enlighten Jack further, and Jack had accepted that—for now. Eddie had mentally vowed to be more careful. If Captain Baker should even suspect that his engineer was being blackmailed, he would abort the flight, and then Eddie would be powerless to help Carol-Ann. Now he had that to worry about as well.
Eddie’s attitude to Tom Luther had been forgotten, during the second dinner sitting, in the excitement of the near-fight between Mervyn Lovesey and Lord Oxenford. Eddie had not witnessed it—he had been in the forward compartment, worrying—but the stewards had told him all about it soon afterward. To Eddie, Oxenford seemed a brute who needed to be brought down a peg or two, and that was what Captain Baker had done. Eddie felt sorry for the boy, Percy, being raised by such a father.
The third sitting would be coming to an end in a few minutes, and then things would start to go quiet on the passenger deck. The older ones would go to bed. The majority would sit for a couple of hours, riding the bumps, too excited or nervous to feel sleepy; then, one by one, they would succumb to nature’s timetable and retire to bed. A few diehards would start a card game in the main lounge, and they would continue drinking, but it would be the quiet, steady kind of all-night drinking that rarely led to trouble.
Eddie anxiously plotted the plane’s fuel consumption on the chart they called “the Howgozit Curve.” The red line that showed actual consumption was consistently above the pencil line of his forecast. That was almost inevitable, since he had faked his forecast. But the difference was greater than he had expected, because of the weather.
, He got more worried as he worked out the plane’s effective range with the remaining fuel. When he made the calculations on the basis of three engines—which he was obliged to do by the safety rules—he found that there was not enough fuel to take them to Newfoundland.
He should have told the captain immediately, but he did not.
The shortfall was very small: with four engines there would be enough fuel. Furthermore, the situation might change in the next couple of hours. The wind might be lighter than forecast, so the plane would use less fuel than anticipated, and there would be more left for the rest of the journey. And finally, if worse came to worst, they could change their route and fly through the heart of the storm, thereby shortening the distance. The passenger would just have