Night Over Water - Ken Follett [143]
Harry moved against her, and she felt his stiffening penis. “Don’t go yet,” he said.
She sighed happily. “All right, not yet,” she said, and she began to kiss him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Eddie Deakin had himself under rigid control, but he was a boiling kettle with the lid jammed on, a volcano waiting to blow. He sweated constantly, his guts ached and he could hardly sit still. He was managing to do his job, but only just.
He was due to go off duty at two a.m., British time. As the end of his shift approached, he faked one more set of fuel figures. Earlier he had understated the plane’s consumption, to give the impression that there was just enough fuel to complete the journey so that the captain would not turn back. Now he overstated, to compensate, so when his replacement, Mickey Finn, came on duty and read the fuel gauges there would be no discrepancy. The Howgozit Curve would show fuel consumption fluctuating wildly, and Mickey would wonder why; but Eddie would say it was due to the stormy weather. Anyway, Mickey was the least of his worries. His deep anxiety, the one that held his heart in the cold grip of fear, was that the plane would run out of fuel before it reached Newfoundland.
The aircraft did not have the regulation minimum. The regulations left a safety margin, of course; but safety margins were there for a reason. This flight no longer had an extra reserve of fuel for emergencies such as engine failure. If something went wrong, the plane would plunge into the stormy Atlantic Ocean. It could not splash down safely in mid-ocean: it would sink within a few minutes. There would be no survivors.
Mickey came up to the flight cabin a few minutes before two, looking fresh and young and eager. “We’re running very low,” Eddie said right away. “I’ve told the captain.”
Mickey nodded noncommittally and picked up the flashlight. His first duty on taking over was to make a visual inspection of all four engines.
Eddie left him to it and went down to the passenger deck. The first officer, Johnny Dott, the navigator, Jack Ashford, and the radio operator, Ben Thompson, followed him down the stairs as their replacements arrived. Jack went to the galley to make a sandwich. The thought of food nauseated Eddie. He got a cup of coffee and went to sit in number 1 compartment.
When he was not working he had nothing to take his mind off the thought of Carol-Ann in the hands of her kidnappers.
It was just after nine p.m. in Maine now. It would be dark. Carol-Ann would be weary and dispirited at best. She tended to fall asleep much earlier since she got pregnant. Would they give her somewhere to lie down? She would not sleep tonight, but perhaps she could rest her body. Eddie just hoped that the thought of bedtime did not put ideas into the heads of the hoodlums who were guarding her....
Before his coffee was cold, the storm hit in earnest.
The ride had been bumpy for several hours, but now it became really rough. It was like being on a ship in a storm. The huge aircraft was like a boat on the waves, rising slowly, then dropping fast, hitting the trough with a thump and climbing again, rolling and tossing from side to side as the winds caught it. Eddie sat on a bunk and braced himself with his feet on the comer post. The passengers began to wake up, ring for stewards and rush to the bathroom. The stewards, Nicky and Davy, who had been dozing in number 1 compartment with the off-duty crew, buttoned their collars and put on their jackets, then hurried off to answer the bells.
After a while Eddie went to the galley for more coffee. As he got there, the door of the men’s room opened and Tom Luther came out, looking pale and sweaty. Eddie stared at him contemptuously. He felt an urge to take the man by the throat, but he fought it down.
“Is this normal?” Luther said in a scared voice.
Eddie felt not a shred of sympathy. “No, this is not normal,” he replied. “We ought to fly around the storm, but we don’t have enough fuel.”
“Why not?”
“We’re running