Flight 7 Is Missing Read online

  Stokes gazes skyward. There it is! A mother-of-pearl, egg-shaped object coming toward him at an amazing speed out of the northeast sky. It quickly disappears, then reappears on the same path. No noise. No smoke. No vapor trail. Nothing but the unexplained object from God knows where. By this time the engines of at least six other cars nearby have conked out, and their passengers are standing outside peering in amazement at the mystery in the sky.

  Stokes, a missile engineer working on an upper-air classified research project at nearby Holloman Air Force Base, feels a burning sensation on his face and is suddenly warm all over. A severely sunburned Stokes later estimates that the object was flying at Mach 1 or Mach 2 at an altitude of 1,500 to 3,000 feet.

  Military and other government officials publicly dismiss the sightings and ridicule the people who report them. It is standard operating procedure; ridicule is a powerful tool in dissuading citizens from reporting similar events. Officials say flying-saucer reports from coast-to-coast are simply the result of mass hysteria, the byproduct of Russia’s recent launch of the satellite Sputnik. The flying objects that perfectly sane people are seeing in the skies above them simply don’t exist. They laughingly label it Sputnikitis.

  Case closed.

  Meanwhile, United Press International reports that the US Air Force is confidentially warning its radar network to be on alert for strange objects in the sky and instructing Air Force jets to shoot them down if possible. At the same time, the US Coast Guard in New Orleans, reeling from a twenty-seven-minute, carefully documented UFO sighting by one of its own cutters off the Louisiana coast, is alerting ships to be on the lookout for unidentified flying objects.

  Hysteria or not, something strange is happening in the skies over Planet Earth in November 1957, and other strange things are occurring down below.

  * * *

  Thirty-five miles south of San Francisco, in rapidly developing suburban Santa Clara, my parents, Bill and Ronnie Fortenberry, cuddle on the living room floor of our newly built three-bedroom ranch-style house on Loyola Drive in the Junipero Gardens subdivision. For years they had scrimped and saved to make the down payment on a new home, and just eleven months earlier they moved with my two brothers and me from a rental house in nearby San Mateo.

  They listen and sing along as they often do to Ezio Pinza’s rendition of “Some Enchanted Evening” on their new “South Pacific” 33 1⁄3 LP album.

  Some enchanted evening, when you find your true love,

  When you hear her call you across a crowded room,

  … Once you have found her, never let her go.

  (By Rodgers, Hammerstein)

  They had found each other more than a decade earlier, growing up dirt-poor in rural South Carolina, they fell in love and vowed to never let each other go. They love music, especially Rodgers and Hammerstein, and after an exhausting day of yard work, it is time to relax and be together, a rarity given my dad’s recent flying schedule with Pan Am.

  “I’m really going to miss you, Bill. You will be home for Thanksgiving this year, won’t you? Promise me. I won’t even ask about Christmas. You’re never here for Christmas,” she pouts.

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, honey.”

  “Which one? Thanksgiving or Christmas?” she teases, knowing that his Pan Am seniority never seems to be high enough for him to be home at Christmas.

  “It never gets easier, Bill. I miss you so much when you’re on a trip, especially the long ones. Where did you say you were you going this time?”

  “We’re flying a fifty-nine-L pattern on a Stratocruiser.”

  “You know I can’t understand that pilot talk.”

  “Well, first it’s Honolulu, then on to Wake Island. Then we’re off to Tokyo and back to Wake, Honolulu, Los Angeles, and home! Nothing to it. A piece of cake.”

  “It’s not a piece of cake to me. I worry about those Stratocruisers, Bill. They’re so big and fat. I just don’t understand how they even get off the ground. They don’t seem safe to me.”

  Both are keenly aware of the history of Stratocruisers and their safety records. Last year’s successful mid-Pacific ditching and a fatal crash in Oregon not long before that are occasionally on their minds, but they don’t talk about those things.

  “Well, one of these days I’ll take you and the boys to Honolulu on a Strat and you can see for yourself. Now, there’s an idea. How about Christmas in Honolulu this year? Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  “The boys really would like that.”

  “And how about you?”

  “It would be nice once we got there, but you know how I am about flying, and flying in a Stratocruiser just scares me to death.’’

  “Don’t worry about it now, honey. We can talk about it when I get home. Right now, let’s not talk about Stratocruisers, Honolulu, Christmas, or anything else. I don’t leave for three more days anyway, so why don’t we just listen to the music and relax?”

  Daddy rolls over on the floor and teasingly pulls my mother into his arms.

  He is the happiest man on earth.

  My father’s journey from a miserable childhood to becoming the happiest man on earth was not an easy one.

  William Holland Fortenberry was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, a small textile mill town, on January 29, 1922. His mother, the former Lillie Mae Hembree, was barely sixteen years old and totally unprepared for either marriage or parenthood. His father, Thomas Jefferson Fortenberry, was nearly twice as old as his mother, and was a noncombat veteran of World War I. An hourly waged textile-mill worker and a part-time tenant farmer, he had nothing in common with his young wife. They were an unlikely couple, and their marriage lasted less than six tumultuous years.

  Daddy and his only sibling, younger brother Raymond, were abandoned by their parents during the Great Depression when the boys were six and four years old respectively, and my father was taken in by a farm family in nearby Campobello, who raised him until he went to a local junior college. He and Raymond didn’t see each other for another twelve years.

  Daddy was an able-bodied male in a family of two girls, and he spent hours in the sizzling hot summer sun plowing the red clay dirt behind an old mule, studying at night, and planning for a career as a Methodist minister. He preached a few sermons at small churches here and there, but his eyes were always on the skies.

  After non-combat Navy service in World War II, he worked as a carpenter, obtained his pilot’s license, and operated his own small construction company in Miami—a place he always loved. He called Miami the Garden of Eden, and it was in Miami that he got his big break. Not long after he and my mother married, he joined Pan American World Airways as a flight navigator, and an exciting new world opened for them both.

  He was a compassionate man with deep faith and a special place in his heart for others, especially those less fortunate, perhaps because of his own childhood. I remember that my brother Jerry and I were riding our bikes one day in a plum orchard along Saratoga Creek near our house in Santa Clara when we came upon a homeless Spanish-speaking family with several very small, very dirty children with sad, hollow eyes, and dressed in tattered clothing.

  We tried to talk with them, but their English-language skills were poor, and our Spanish-speaking abilities were nonexistent. We did, however, realize that they were desperately in need of help, so we raced our bikes back home and told Daddy. Without hesitation, he asked my mother to empty the cupboard, and we all went back to the orchard and gave them a helping hand. It felt like Thanksgiving Day for everyone. The homeless family was joyously grateful, and our family was reminded of just how fortunate we were. It was a life lesson I never forgot.

  My father was a well-rounded man who read the classics, studied philosophy, inhaled world history, treasured German waltzes, and had a wonderful sense of humor. He was full of love for all people, places, and things and truly had a romance with the skies. He was passionate about photography and developed his own prints and slides in his garage darkroom. He loved
the outdoors, primitive camping, and especially landing a feisty rainbow trout on one of his special lures as he fished in a cold, rushing mountain stream.

  Most of all, he loved his family.

  THE CONDADO BEACH HOTEL

  San Juan, Puerto Rico

  Tuesday, October 5, 1954

  “Dear Mom & Boys:

  “I’m back in San Juan. I spent Saturday night in the air, Sunday night here, and Monday night at Antigua, British West Indies. Tonight, we start the long flight to Rio and Sao Paulo. It has been pretty easy until now, but from now until I come home, I will practically live on the airplane—the Pan American kind.

  “I went swimming yesterday and today and got just a little bit sunburned. It sure is nice here now. I hope I can have time here on my return to get some avocados. They are really nice now, big, fat, golden yellow jobs.

  “You boys be good and above all take care of yourselves. You have a wonderful life ahead of you. I hope you will learn to love this great green earth of ours as much as your father does. Just flying over it and seeing it, I sometimes almost laugh out loud with joy. Only a great omnipotent God could have ever thought of such a perfectly wonderful world for man. I don’t think man was ever cast from the Garden of Eden; we are still in it.

  “Yes, you boys have it pretty nice. The closest love your old dad ever knew before your mother came along was that of my devoted dog, June. The only security I ever had was my own stubborn youth and faith in my personal abilities. There are, of course, many things that you might need that we can’t give you, but your mother’s love and your Dad’s devotion are the greatest assets you can ever have in this world—until your own dear wives come along.

  “Your mother is to me the greatest thing on earth, the base on which all my hilarious happiness is built. She has enabled me to have just about everything I have ever wanted. Now it is time for her to have some of the things she wants, if I can get them for her.

  “If all else should go, while I have you, I’ll be happy and able to make it. I love you boys, and I love you, too, Mom. Your old Dad is the happiest, most contented soul on earth because of you.

  “Love, Dad

  “See you Saturday.”

  Wednesday, November 6, 1957

  After another night of restlessness and self-pity, Gene Crosthwaite almost welcomes the morning California sun.

  Almost.

  The nights since Julia’s death are becoming increasingly harder to bear, and he begins to curse the darkness when he locks his bedroom door at night. The nighttime loneliness deepens his depression; only daybreak seems to ease his suffering. But now he is beginning to hate even the sunlight. All that means is another day. Another day without Julia. Another day with Tania.

  Another day. Dammit. Another day.

  Why did Julia have to die? He almost shuts out of his memory the arguments they had had after his release from the TB sanatorium in Redwood City. Sure, he was drinking a lot of liquor. Yes, he had gained weight. More than fifty pounds, to be exact. But what the hell did she expect? He had been locked up in that damn place for six months. Still, he wasn’t any different otherwise. So why did Julia keep telling him he had changed?

  “You’re different, Gene. Something’s wrong. I don’t know what it is, but you’ve changed.”

  “You’ve changed. You’ve changed. You’ve changed,” that’s all he seemed to hear. Even Tania sometimes got into the act.

  Bullshit. He wasn’t any different, and he was tired of hearing otherwise. Just because he didn’t want to go out for dinner, did that mean he had changed? Just because he didn’t want to take Julia dancing or to parties, did that mean he had changed? He never did like to dance anyway. She knew that. Besides, she always seemed to prefer other men to him at parties, and he couldn’t help it that he had been impotent since his hospitalization. Did she have to pester him all the time about it? It made him wonder what she had been up to all those months he had been confined to the sanatorium.

  Tania was even worse. Whenever she and Julia got into a rare disagreement, Gene would step in and try to help Julia out. But it never worked. Instead of helping Julia, he found both of them teaming up against him. Everybody and everything these days seems to be teaming up against him. His stepdaughter. Pan American. Even that damn TB and those drugs he still needs to take.

  “You’ve changed! You’ve changed! Why do you have to be so angry all the time?” they would chant, and Gene would get pissed off again.

  Everything was Tania’s fault. Always had been. Always would be. She wouldn’t listen to anybody, and always wanted to do as she damn well pleased. She really thought she was something special with that strawberry blond hair, slim ballet figure, and sneaky smile that he was convinced hid something. If only he could figure out what it was.

  Julia wasn’t perfect, but he had loved her. Oh, how he had loved his beautiful little Russian. And now, all he has is her daughter, Tania, a teenager he can’t control.

  But that will end soon.

  Very soon.

  Gene goes back to work in his basement workshop.

  “Now, where did I put that goddamn blasting powder?”

  William Harrison Payne parks his banged-up sedan outside the Pan American World Airways terminal at San Francisco International Airport and kicks a badly worn left front white sidewall tire, reminding himself that nearly all of them need to be recapped or replaced. He shakes his slightly balding head at the predicament and walks briskly inside to the ticket counter.

  He is a man on a mission and can’t be distracted by simple things today.

  The forty-two-year-old former Navy frogman and demolitions expert is in deep trouble and is being buried alive with debts and howling creditors who want money, and they want it now. A mortgage note on the hunting and fishing lodge he and his wife, Harriet, own in the mountains of remote Scott Bar is nearing foreclosure, and if he doesn’t come up with some big money soon, they will lose not only their real estate, but also their dreams.

  A judge in Siskiyou County recently ordered him to pay the county $450 in fines for damages he caused to a county road, and he’s still fuming about that. Not only does he not have the money, and is unlikely to have it any time soon, but he doesn’t think he owes the county one damn penny. He’s had a long-running feud with both loggers and county officials over the use of that road, and he’s determined to stand his ground. Sure, he may have torn up the road. Yes, he has been forcing people to pay him cash tolls to use it. But dammit, as far he is concerned it’s his road—not the county’s—and he can do damn well as he pleases with it.

  On top of all of that Harriet has been on his ass for weeks now, insisting that they do some inexpensive repairs to the main lodge, but both of them know that their checks drawn on Scott Valley Bank in Fort Jones are bouncing all over Siskiyou County and there is simply no money left to keep the place up. They have recently listed the property for sale with Stout Realty Company in nearby Weed and are asking twice what they paid for it two years earlier.

  He has managed to scrape together enough money for what he intends to do today, but after that, well, that’s why he came here in the first place. That’s the plan he has been working on since he left Harriet and his boys in Scott Bar a few days ago and drove with his baby daughter, Kitti Ruth, to his mother’s house in Stockton. He needs a base to put his plan into action, and Stockton is perfect. He’s always been a mama’s boy, and Mama always seems to understand him when no one else even bothers to try. And Mama can take care of Kitti Ruth until he returns—if he returns.

  As a retired Navy noncommissioned officer, he is entitled to fly standby from San Francisco to Honolulu on a Military Air Transport plane for less than ten bucks, but that is not part of his plan. He must be on a commercial airliner for his plan to work. Nothing else will do.

  Although troubled by his mostly self-imposed financial misfortunes, the hardheaded Payne isn’t going down easy, and he thinks he has come up with a way to reverse his family’s fortun
es. Although he never bothers to share details of it with his wife, his doting mother, or anyone else, it supposedly involves something as simple as an airline flight to Honolulu, where he plans to collect money owed to him by two unknown men for an unknown reason or—or, if they don’t pay, “blow them up.”

  Pan American agent C. H. Huang pleasantly greets the round-faced, no-neck Payne at the ticket counter.

  “Yes, sir. How may I help you this morning?”

  “Honolulu on Friday,” Payne crisply replies as he glances at the static timetable on the wall behind the ticket agent.

  Huang is momentarily taken aback by the cold-talking Payne.

  “Yes, sir, just a moment, please.” Huang checks some papers, makes some notations with his pencil, then smiles and looks Payne in the eyes.

  “Our Flight 7 leaves at 11:31 a.m. Friday. It’s a Stratocruiser, and I know you’ll love it. It’s a magnificent plane. Would that be OK?”

  “Yeah, fine. How long a flight is it?” Payne nervously glances around the ticketing area for something else that is pressing on his mind.

  “About ten hours, sir, but you’ll be very comfortable on the Stratocruiser. It’s a roomy, luxurious plane and even has a downstairs cocktail lounge. You’ll be very pleased. Would you like me to book you in the President section? That’s what we call first class on the Stratocruiser.”

  Payne is growing impatient. He knows full well about the Stratocruiser. He knows about its history, how long the flight is to Honolulu, and how much an economy-class ticket will cost. He knows everything. Just ask him.

  “No. I don’t want first class. Just book me on the lowest fare to Honolulu, will you?”

  “And when will you be returning?”