Wings (45 page)

“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.

19

D
esmond 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.

“I know she's out there,” Desmond insisted to everyone, but no one believed him. “She's too well trained. I don't believe it” But experts assumed that something went wrong with the plane. There could have been some unknown, fatal defect. No one questioned her skill, but there was always the element of fate, or good fortune.

Her parents were devastated once they knew the search was being called off without finding Cassie and Billy. It seemed impossible to believe that they had lost yet another child, and so cruelly. Her mother lay awake night after night, wondering if Cassie was alive somewhere and they just hadn't found her. But her father felt it was unlikely.

Cassie and Billy had been lost for six weeks on Thanksgiving Day, and it was a gloomy holiday for everyone that year. They barely celebrated it at all. They just had a quiet dinner in the kitchen.

“I just can't believe she's gone,” her mother sobbed in Megan's arms. It was a terrible time for them.

And for Desmond it was the end of a life's dream. He tormented himself constantly over what must have happened. If only they knew… if only they could find something… but there was no debris, no evidence, no piece of the plane or of their clothing. It led him to hope they were still alive somewhere. And he hounded the Pentagon constantly, but for them, the search was over. They were convinced that the
North Star
had gone down without a trace and they were certain there were no survivors.

Cassie's photograph was everywhere, in magazines, and newspapers. Even six weeks after they disappeared, her identity seemed as alive as ever. The press had been devoted to Cass. And appropriately, Desmond portrayed himself as the grieving widower. He had no Thanksgiving that year. And neither did Nick in England. He had heard about Cassie's disappearance about a week after the plane had disappeared. It was such a major event, it had made headlines in England. He couldn't believe it when he heard the news. He had volunteered for the most dangerous missions, until someone had explained the situation to his commander. They had given him a three-day leave and asked him to take some time off. It was obvious to everyone that something was bothering him and he was just taking too many chances. Nick had argued with them, but they didn't want to hear it. He thought about going home for a few days, but he knew he couldn't face Pat yet, knowing what had happened. What a blind fool he had been. What a coward. He knew he'd never forgive himself for not marrying her, and keeping her from Desmond Williams. It never occurred to him that maybe he couldn't have, or that she had wanted to fly the tour more than anything. It was her decision too, and she was very independent.

But he figured Pat would never forgive him either. If he had married her, it might all have been different.

He had seen a photograph of Desmond coming out of a memorial service for Cassie, with a grim face and carrying a homburg. And he hated Desmond for giving Cassie the opportunity to kill herself, and the plane in which to do it. And he knew better than anyone that Williams had probably pushed her into the tour in the first place, all for his own glory. She had deserved better than either of them. He was more convinced of that now than ever.

And on the island with no name, Cassie served Billy berries and a banana and a handful of water for Thanksgiving. They had been living on the same diet for more than a month, and it only rained occasionally, but they were surviving. Billy had gotten an infection in the leg he'd scraped so badly on the coral reef, and he'd been battling with a fever. She'd had a few aspirin in their emergency kit, but they were long gone now. And she'd had some trouble with a spider bite, but other than sunburn, they were in pretty good shape, except for Billy's frequent fevers.

They had managed to keep track of the days since they'd crashed, and they knew it was Thanksgiving. They talked about turkey and pumpkin pie and going to church, and being with their families and friends. Billy was worried about his father being all alone. And Cassie kept thinking about her parents, and her sisters and their husbands and children, and how much she missed them. She talked about Annabelle and Humphrey, the two children from England. They made her think of Nick again. She thought a lot about him. All the time now.

“What do you suppose they all think has happened to us?” she asked as she shared a banana with Billy, and she noticed he was looking flushed again, and his eyes seemed very intense and a little sunken.

‘That we're dead probably,” he said honestly. Lately, he hadn't been joking as much. All they could do was sit and wait, and think, and eat the same kinds of berries over and over. There was nothing else to eat on the island, and so far they hadn't been able to catch any fish. But they weren't starving.

There was a storm two days after that, and the weather seemed to turn cooler than it had been. She was still wearing her flight suit, but it was torn and not very clean and Billy only had his shorts and a T-shirt. Cassie noticed the morning after the first chill that Billy was shivering even in the sun.

“You okay?” she asked, trying not to look as worried as she felt.

“I'm fine,” he said gamely. “I'll go get some bananas.” He had to scale up a tree to get them, but he couldn't even get off the ground this time; his leg was hugely swollen and oozing pus, and he was limping when he came back with one banana that had fallen.

She didn't know what to do for him anymore. The leg just kept getting worse, and she could tell that his fever was getting higher. She bathed the leg in salt water, but it didn't help at all. She had nothing else to give him. He dozed a lot that afternoon, and when he woke up, his eyes looked even more glazed than they had been. She laid his head on her lap after that, and stroked his forehead, and as the sun went down he began shaking from the chill again, so she lay next to him, and tried to keep him warm from the heat of her body.

‘Thanks, Cass,” he whispered in the dark of their cave that night, and she lay holding him, praying that someone would find them. But it seemed almost impossible now. She wondered if they would be there for years, or just die there. It seemed unlikely they'd leave the island. She knew too well that the search had to have been called off by now. They were presumed dead, just as others had been before them.

His teeth chattered constantly during the night, and the next morning, he was delirious as she bathed his head with cool water. There was a storm that day, and she drank too much of the rainwater herself, and wound up with violent dysentery again. Between the berries and the water and the leaves they ate, she had it all the time now. She could tell from the way her flight suit fit that she had lost a lot of weight since they'd reached the island.

Billy never regained consciousness that day, and that night, she lay holding him, crying softly. She had never felt so alone in her entire life, and to make matters worse she felt she had a fever now too. She wondered if she had caught a tropical disease. Billy had an infection from the coral, but they both were very sick.

In the morning, Billy seemed better again, and a lot more lucid. He sat up, and walked around the cave, and then he looked at her and said he was going swimming. It was chilly outside, but he insisted he was hot, and he suddenly became very argumentative, and very powerful. She couldn't stop him. He waded out into the water where the burned hull of their plane was. Even the storms they'd had hadn't washed it away yet, and it lay there like a reproach, and a reminder of all they had had and lost. For Cassie, it was a final reminder of Desmond.

She watched Billy swimming past the plane, and then back again, and when he came out of the water, she saw that he had torn the other leg, but he didn't seem to feel it. He insisted it was nothing, and she watched him scale up the tree, and eat a banana. He seemed to have unusual energy, but an odd kind of dementia. She could tell that he wasn't himself from the things he said, and the way he looked at her. He was very nervous and very wild-eyed, and by nightfall, he lay shivering in their cave, talking to someone she didn't know about a car, and a candle, and a little boy. She had no idea what he was talking about. And late that night, he looked at her very strangely, and she wondered if he knew her this time.

“Cass?”

“Yes, Billy?” She lay holding him close to her; she could feel his bones, and his whole body shaking.

“I'm tired.”

“That's okay. Sleep,” They had nothing else to do, and it was very dark there.

“Is it okay?”

“It's okay… close your eyes…”

“They are,” he said, but she could see that they were open.

“It's very dark in here. Close your eyes anyway. You'll feel better tomorrow.” Or would they ever feel better, she wondered. She could feel her own fever rising again too, and she was shaking almost as much as he was.

“I love you, Cassie,” he said softly after a little while. He sounded like a child, and she found herself thinking of her nieces and nephews, of how sweet they were and how lucky her sisters were to have them.

“I love you too, Billy,” she said gently.