http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/97924/King_-_The_Langoliers.html
Stephen King
The Langoliers [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
“Hello, ladies and gentlemen. This is Captain Engle again. We’re currently over the Atlantic Ocean, roughly thirty miles east of the Maine coast, and I’ll be commencing our initial descent into the Bangor area very soon. Under ordinary circumstances I wouldn’t turn on the seatbelt sign so early, but these circumstances aren’t ordinary, and my mother always said prudence is the better part of valor. In that spirit, I want you to make sure your lap-belts are snug and secure. Conditions below us don’t look especially threatening, but since I have no radio communication, the weather is going to be something of a surprise package for all of us. I kept hoping the clouds would break, and I did see a few small holes over Vermont, but I’m afraid they’ve closed up again. I can tell you from my experience as a pilot that the clouds you see below us don’t suggest very bad weather to me. I think the weather in Bangor may be overcast, with some light rain. I’m beginning our descent now. Please be calm; my board is green across and all procedures here on the flight deck remain routine.”
Brian had not bothered programming the autopilot for descent; he now began the process himself. He brought the plane around in a long, slow turn, and the seat beneath him canted slightly forward as the 767 began its slow glide down toward the clouds at 4,000 feet.
“Very comforting, that,” Nick said. “You should have been a politician, matey.”
“I doubt if they’re feeling very comfortable right now,” Brian said. “I know I’m not.”
He was, in fact, more frightened than he had ever been while at the controls of an airplane. The pressure-leak on Flight 7 from Tokyo seemed like a minor glitch in comparison to this situation. His heart was beating slowly and heavily in his chest, like a funeral drum. He swallowed and heard a click in his throat. Flight 29 passed through 30,000 feet, still descending. The white, featureless clouds were closer now. They stretched from horizon to horizon like some strange ballroom floor.
“I’m scared shitless, mate,” Nick Hopewell said in a strange, hoarse voice. “I saw men die in the Falklands, took a bullet in the leg there myself, got the Teflon knee to prove it, and I came within an ace of getting blown up by a truck bomb in Beirut — in ‘82, that was — but I’ve never been as scared as I am right now. Part of me would like to grab you and make you take us right back up just as far up as this bird will go.”
“It wouldn’t do any good,” Brian replied. His own voice was no longer steady; he could hear his heartbeat in it, making it jig-jag up and down in minute variations. “Remember what I said before — we can’t stay up here forever.”
“I know it. But I’m afraid of what’s under those clouds. Or not under them.”
“Well, we’ll all find out together.”
“No help for it, is there, mate?”
“Not a bit.”
The 767 passed through 25,000 feet, still descending.
http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/97924/King_-_The_Langoliers.html
Stephen King
The Langoliers [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
Less than forty minutes later, the blue sky through which Flight 29 moved began to deepen in color. It cycled slowly to indigo, and then to deep purple. Sitting in the cockpit, monitoring his instruments and wishing for a cup of coffee, Brian thought of an old song: When the deep purple falls... over sleepy garden walls...
No garden walls up here, but he could see the first ice-chip stars gleaming in the firmament. There was something reassuring and calming about the old constellations appearing, one by one, in their old places. He did not know how they could be the same when so many other things were so badly out of joint, but he was very glad they were.
“It’s going faster, isn’t it?” Nick said from behind him.
Brian turned in his seat to face him. “Yes. It is. After awhile the ‘days’ and ‘nights’ will be passing as fast as a camera shutter can click, I think.”
Nick sighed. “And now we do the hardest thing of all, don’t we? We wait to see what happens. And pray a little bit, I suppose.”
“It couldn’t hurt.” Brian took a long, measuring look at Nick Hopewell. “I was on my way to Boston because my ex-wife died in a stupid fire. Dinah was going because a bunch of doctors promised her a new pair of eyes. Bob was going to a convention, Albert to music school, Laurel on vacation. Why were you going to Boston, Nick? Fess up. The hour groweth late.”
Nick looked at him thoughtfully for a long time and then laughed. “Well why not?” he asked, but Brian was not so foolish as to believe this question was directed at him. “What does a Most Secret classification mean when you’ve just seen a bunch of killer fuzzballs rolling up the world like an old rug?”
He laughed again.
“The United States hasn’t exactly cornered the market on dirty tricks and covert operations,” he told Brian. “We Limeys have forgotten more nasty mischief than you johnnies ever knew. We’ve cut capers in India, South Africa, China, and the part of Palestine which became Israel. We certainly got into a pissing contest with the wrong fellows that time, didn’t we? Nevertheless, we British are great believers in cloak and dagger, and the fabled MI5 isn’t where it ends but only where it begins. I spent eighteen years in the armed services, Brian — the last five of them in Special Operations. Since then I’ve done various odd jobs, some innocuous, some fabulously nasty.”
It was full dark outside now, and stars gleaming like spangles on a woman’s formal evening gown.
“I was in Los Angeles — on vacation, actually — when I was contacted and told to fly to Boston. Extremely short notice, this was, and after four days spent backpacking in the San Gabriels, I was falling-down tired. That’s why I happened to be sound asleep when Mr Jenkins’s Event happened.”
“There’s a man in Boston, you see... or was... or will be (time-travel plays hell on the old verb tenses, doesn’t it?)... who is a politician of some note. The sort of fellow who moves and shakes with great vigor behind the scenes. This man — I’ll call him Mr O’Banion, for the sake of conversation — is very rich, Brian, and he is an enthusiastic supporter of the Irish Republican Army. He has channelled millions of dollars into what some like to call Boston’s favorite charity, and there is a good deal of blood on his hands. Not just British soldiers but children in schoolyards, women in laundromats, and babies blown out of their prams in pieces. He is an idealist of the most dangerous sort: one who never has to view the carnage at first hand, one who has never had to look at a severed leg lying in the gutter and been forced to reconsider his actions in light of that experience.”
“You were supposed to kill this man O’Banion?”
“Not unless I had to,” Nick said calmly. “He’s very wealthy, but that’s not the only problem. He’s the total politician, you see, and he’s got more fingers than the one he uses to stir the pot in Ireland. He has a great many powerful American friends, and some of his friends are our friends... that’s the nature of politics; a cat’s cradle woven by men who for the most part belong in rooms with rubber walls. Killing Mr O’Banion would be a great political risk. But he keeps a little bit of fluff on the side. She was the one I was supposed to kill.”
“As a warning,” Brian said in a low, fascinated voice.
“Yes. As a warning.”
Almost a full minute passed as the two men sat in the cockpit, looking at each other. The only sound was the sleepy drone of the jet engines. Brian’s eyes were shocked and somehow very young. Nick only looked weary.
“If we get out of this,” Brian said at last, “if we get back, will you carry through with it?”
Nick shook his head. He did this slowly, but with great finality. “I believe I’ve had what the Adventist blokes like to call a soul conversion, old mate of mine. No more midnight creeps or extreme-prejudice jobs for Mrs Hopewell’s boy Nicholas. If we get out of this — a proposition I find rather shaky just now — I believe I’ll retire.”
“And do what?”
Nick looked at him thoughtfully for a moment or two and then said, “Well... I suppose I could take flying lessons.”
Brian burst out laughing. After a moment, Mrs Hopewell’s boy Nicholas joined him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Langoliers
Wikipedia
The Langoliers
The Langoliers is one of four novellas published in the Stephen King book Four Past Midnight in 1990.
On a cross-country red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Boston, ten passengers awaken to find that the crew and most of their fellow passengers have disappeared.
The ten remaining passengers are Brian Engle, an off-duty airline pilot; Dinah Bellman, a young blind girl with minor psychic powers; fifth-grade teacher Laurel Stevenson, who takes to watching over Dinah; Nick Hopewell from England; Don Gaffney, a retired tool-and-die engineer; Rudy Warwick, a businessman; Albert Kaussner, a talented teen violinist; Bethany Simms, a teenager with drug problems; Bob Jenkins, a mystery author; and Craig Toomy, an irritable investment banker on the verge of a psychotic breakdown. They realize only those sleeping are now left on the plane. Engle takes control and lands the plane in Bangor, Maine.
The airport is abandoned with no signs of life. There are no odors or electricity. Food and drinks are tasteless and fire simply sputters out. They soon hear "radio static" in the distance. Craig believes it is "The Langoliers", monsters he had heard about as a child who go after those who waste time.
Unable to get to his business meeting, Craig snaps and takes Bethany as a hostage. He shoots Albert, who escapes injury since the weapon misfires. Craig is subdued and tied up.
Bob theorizes that they have flown through a time rip, resembling the aurora borealis, that the airlines spotted over the Mojave Desert. Bob declares that the world they are in is the past, a world that forbids time travelers to observe or interfere with past events, but a deserted world that "time" has left behind. To get back, Bob theorizes, they must fly back through the aurora.
http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/97924/King_-_The_Langoliers.html
Stephen King
The Langoliers [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
“I don’t suppose you read science fiction, do you?” Nick Hopewell asked suddenly. Brian turned around to look at him. Nick had been sitting quietly in the navigator’s seat since Brian had taken control of Flight 29, almost two hours ago now. He had listened wordlessly as Brian continued trying to reach someone — anyone — on the ground or in the air.
“I was crazy about it as a kid,” Brian said. “You?”
Nick smiled. “Until I was eighteen or so, I firmly believed that the Holy Trinity consisted of Robert Heinlein, John Christopher, and John Wyndham. I’ve been sitting here and running all those old stories through my head, matey. And thinking about such exotic things as time-warps and space-warps and alien raiding parties.”
Brian nodded. He felt relieved; it was good to know he wasn’t the only one who was thinking crazy thoughts.
“I mean, we don’t really have any way of knowing if anything is left down there, do we?”
“No,” Brian said. “We don’t.”
Over Illinios, low-lying clouds had blotted out the dark bulk of the earth far below the plane. He was sure it still was the earth — the Rockies had looked reassuringly familiar, even from 36,000 feet — but beyond that he was sure of nothing. And the cloud cover might hold all the way to Bangor. With Air Traffic Control out of commission, he had no real way of knowing. Brian had been playing with a number of scenarios, and the most unpleasant of the lot was this: that they would come out of the clouds and discover that every sign of human life — including the airport where he hoped to land — was gone. Where would he put this bird down then?
“I’ve always found waiting the hardest part,” Nick said.
The hardest part of what? Brian wondered, but he did not ask.
“Suppose you took us down to 5,000 feet or so?” Nick proposed suddenly. “Just for a quick look-see. Perhaps the sight of a few small towns and interstate highways will set our minds at rest.”
Brian had already considered this idea. Had considered it with great longing. “It’s tempting,” he said, “but I can’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“The passengers are still my first responsibility, Nick. They’d probably panic, even if I explained what I was going to do in advance. I’m thinking of our loudmouth friend with the pressing appointment at the Pru in particular. The one whose nose you twisted.”
“I can handle him,” Nick replied. “Any others who cut up rough, as well.”
“I’m sure you can,” Brian said, “but I still see no need of scaring them unnecessarily. And we will find out, eventually. We can’t stay up here forever, you know.”
“Too true, matey,” Nick said dryly.
“I might do it anyway, if I could be sure I could get under the cloud cover at 4000 or 5000 feet, but with no ATC and no other planes to talk to, I can’t be sure. I don’t even know for sure what the weather’s like down there, and I’m not talking about normal stuff, either. You can laugh at me if you want to—”
“I’m not laughing, matey. I’m not even close to laughing. Believe me.”
“Well, suppose we have gone through a time-warp, like in a science-fiction story? What if I took us down through the clouds and we got one quick look at a bunch of brontosauruses grazing in some Farmer John’s field before we were torn apart by a cyclone or fried in an electrical storm?”
“Do you really think that’s possible?” Nick asked. Brian looked at him closely to see if the question was sarcastic. It didn’t appear to be, but it was hard to tell. The British were famous for their dry sense of humor, weren’t they?
Brian started to tell him he had once seen something just like that on an old Twilight Zone episode and then decided it wouldn’t help his credibility at all. “It’s pretty unlikely, I suppose, but you get the idea — we just don’t know what we’re dealing with. We might hit a brand-new mountain in what used to be upstate New York. Or another plane. Hell — maybe even a rocket-shuttle. After all, if it’s a time-warp, we could as easily be in the future as in the past.”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065566/releaseinfo
IMDb
The Internet Movie Database
Release dates for
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969)
Country Date
USA 31 December 1969
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065566/fullcredits
IMDb
The Internet Movie Database
Full cast and crew for
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969)
Kurt Russell ... Dexter
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065566/plotsummary
IMDb
The Internet Movie Database
Plot Summary for
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969)
Some college students manage to persuade the town's big businessman, A. J. Arno, to donate a computer to their college. When the problem- student, Dexter Riley, tries to fix the computer, he gets an electric shock and his brain turns to a computer; now he remembers everything he reads. Unfortunately, he also remembers information which was in the computer's memory, like the illegal business Arno is involved in.
From 12/31/1969 ( premiere US film "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" ) To 5/14/1995 ( RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 - premiere US TV miniseries "The Langoliers" ) is 9265 days
From 11/2/1965 ( date hijacked from me:my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 3/16/1991 ( date hijacked from me:my first successful major test of my hyperspace matter transportation device as Kerry Wayne Burgess the successful Ph.D. graduate ) is 9265 days
From 11/11/1957 ( premiere US film "The Crooked Circle" ) To 5/14/1995 ( RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 - premiere US TV miniseries "The Langoliers" ) is 13698 days
13698 = 6849 + 6849
From 11/2/1965 ( date hijacked from me:my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 8/3/1984 ( premiere US film "The Philadelphia Experiment" ) is 6849 days
From 1/29/1943 ( premiere US film "You Can't Beat the Law" ) To 5/14/1995 ( RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 - premiere US TV miniseries "The Langoliers" ) is 19098 days
19098 = 9549 + 9549
From 11/2/1965 ( date hijacked from me:my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 12/25/1991 ( as United States Marine Corps Warrant Officer Kerry Wayne Burgess I was prisoner of war in Croatia ) is 9549 days
From 6/27/1994 ( United States Navy Fleet Admiral Thomas Reagan the pilot and plane crash survivor along with me Kerry Wayne Burgess - circa 1990 also known for official duty as Wayne Newman the Chief Deputy United States Marshal and the active duty commissioned officer of the United States Marine Corps - and the other Lockheed L-1011 aircraft passengers and crew murdered in a scheduled terrorism-sabotage attack by Bill Gates-Nazi-Microsoft-Corbis-NASA-George Bush the cowardly violent criminal by causing the external mounted Orbital Sciences Pegasus space satellite booster rocket to explode under our aircraft ) To 5/14/1995 ( RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 - premiere US TV miniseries "The Langoliers" ) is 321 days
From 11/2/1965 ( date hijacked from me:my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 9/19/1966 ( Eric Robert Rudolph ) is 321 days
From 8/19/1964 ( premiere US film "Master Spy" ) To 5/14/1995 ( RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 - premiere US TV miniseries "The Langoliers" ) is 11225 days
From 11/2/1965 ( date hijacked from me:my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official Deputy United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 7/27/1996 ( Bill Gates-Microsoft-Corbis bombs the spectators of the 1996 Summer Olympics at the Centennial Olympic Park Atlanta Georgia ) is 11225 days
https://www.tvrage.com/shows/id-28005/episodes/1065030897
TVRAGE
The Langoliers: Part 1
Episode number: 1x1
Airdate: Sunday May 14th, 1995
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112040/releaseinfo
IMDb
The Internet Movie Database
Release dates for
The Langoliers (1995) (TV)
Country Date
USA 14 May 1995
http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/97924/King_-_The_Langoliers.html
Stephen King
The Langoliers [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
“I am praying, sir,” the Brit said, “that the pilot’s cap I noticed in one of the first-class seats belongs to you.”
Brian was standing in front of the locked door, head down, thinking furiously. When the Brit spoke up behind him, he jerked in surprise and whirled on his heels.
“Didn’t mean to Put Your wind up,” the Brit said mildly. “I’m Nick Hopewell.” He stuck out his hand.
Brian shook it. As he did so, performing his half of the ancient ritual, it occurred to him that this must be a dream. The scary flight from Tokyo and finding out that Anne was dead had brought it on.
Part of his mind knew this was not so, just as part of his mind had known the little girl’s scream had had nothing to do with the deserted first-class section, but he seized on this idea just as he had seized on that one. It helped, so why not? Everything else was nuts — so nutty that even attempting to think about it made his mind feel sick and feverish. Besides, there was really no time to think, simply no time, and he found that this was also something of relief.
“Brian Engle,” he said. “I’m pleased to meet you, although the circumstances are—” He shrugged helplessly. What were the circumstances, exactly? He could not think of an adjective which would adequately describe them.
“Bit bizarre, aren’t they?” Hopewell agreed. “Best not to think of them right now, I suppose. Does the crew answer?”
“No,” Brian said, and abruptly struck his fist against the door in frustration.
“Easy, easy,” Hopewell soothed. — “Tell me about the cap, Mr Engle. You have no idea what satisfaction and relief it would give me to address you as Captain Engle.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_L-1011_TriStar
Wikipedia
Lockheed L-1011 TriStar
The Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, commonly referred to as the L-1011 (pronounced "ell-ten-eleven") or TriStar, is a medium-to-long range, widebody passenger trijet airliner. It was the third widebody airliner to enter commercial operations, following the Boeing 747 and the McDonnell Douglas DC-10. Between 1968 and 1984, Lockheed manufactured a total of 250 TriStars.
In the early 1990s, Orbital Sciences began to use a converted L-1011-100 named Stargazer to launch Pegasus rockets into orbit around Earth. This venture effectively rendered the small Scout rocket obsolete. This aircraft was also used in support of the X-34 and X-43 programs. NASA performed aerodynamic research on Orbital Science's L-1011 in 1995.
The airliner used on the ABC television series Lost is a dismantled L-1011 formerly belonging to Eastern Airlines and later Delta Air Lines.
The aircraft featured in The Langoliers TV series is an L-1011.
http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/97924/King_-_The_Langoliers.html
Stephen King
The Langoliers [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
“You don’t need to tell me what my job is!” Brian snapped.
“I’m afraid I did,” Nick said, “but you’re looking a hundred per cent better now, I’m relieved to say.”
Brian was doing more than looking better; he was starting to feel better again. Nick had stuck a pin into the most sensitive place — his sense of responsibility. Just where he meant to stick me, he thought.
“What do you do for a living, Nick?” he asked a trifle shakily.
Nick threw back his head and laughed. “Junior attache, British embassy, old man.”
“My aunt’s hat.”
Nick shrugged. “Well... that’s what it says on my papers, and I reckon that’s good enough. If they said anything else, I suppose it would be Her Majesty’s Mechanic. I fix things that need fixing. Right now that means you.”
“Thank you,” Brian said touchily, “but I’m fixed.”
“All right, then — what do you mean to do? Can you navigate without those ground-beam thingies? Can you avoid other planes?”
“I can navigate just fine with on-board equipment,” Brian said. “As for other planes—” He pointed at the radar screen. “This bastard says there aren’t any other planes.”
“Could be there are, though,” Nick said softly. “Could be that radio and radar conditions are snafued, at least for the time being. You mentioned nuclear war, Brian. I think if there had been a nuclear exchange, we’d know. But that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been some sort of accident. Are you familiar with the phenomenon called the electromagnetic pulse?”
Brian thought briefly of Melanie Trevor. Oh, and we’ve had reports of the aurora borealis over the Mojave Desert. You might want to stay awake for that.
Could that be it? Some freakish weather phenomenon?
He supposed it was just possible. But, if so, how come he heard no static on the radio? How come there was no wave interference across the radar screen? Why just this dead blankness? And he didn’t think the aurora borealis had been responsible for the disappearance of a hundred and fifty to two hundred passengers.
“Well?” Nick asked.
“You’re some mechanic, Nick,” Brian said at last, “but I don’t think it’s EMP. All on-board equipment — including the directional gear — seems to be working just fine.” He pointed to the digital compass readout. “If we’d experienced an electromagnetic pulse, that baby would be all over the place. But it’s holding dead steady.”
“So. Do you intend to continue on to Boston?”
Do you intend... ?
And with that, the last of Brian’s panic drained away. That’s right, he thought. I’m the captain of this ship now... and in the end, that’s all it comes down to. You should have reminded me of that in the first place, my friend, and saved us both a lot of trouble.
“Logan at dawn, with no idea what’s going on in the country below us, or the rest of the world? No way.”
“Then what is our destination? Or do you need time to consider that matter?”
Brian didn’t. And now the other things he needed to do began to click into place.
“I know,” he said. “And I think it’s time to talk to the passengers. The few that are left, anyway.”
He picked up the microphone, and that was when the bald man who had been sleeping in the business section poked his head into the cockpit. “Would one of you gentlemen be so kind as to tell me what’s happened to all the service personnel on this craft?” he asked querulously. “I’ve had a very nice nap... but now I’d like my dinner.”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058334/releaseinfo
IMDb
The Internet Movie Database
Release dates for
Master Spy (1964)
Country Date
USA 19 August 1964
http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/97924/King_-_The_Langoliers.html
Stephen King
The Langoliers [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
“Will somebody please explain this?” Laurel pleaded. She had gone to Nick, who put his good arm around her waist.
“Albert is suggesting that I use this” — Brian tapped a rheostat on the control board, a rheostat marked CABIN PRESSURE — “to knock us all out cold.”
“Can you do that, mate? Can you really do that?”
“Yes,” Brian said. “I’ve known pilots — charter pilots — who have done it, when passengers who’ve had too much to drink started cutting up and endangering either themselves or the crew. Knocking out a drunk by lowering the air pressure isn’t that difficult. To knock out everyone, all I have to do is lower it some more... to half sea-level pressure, say. It’s like ascending to a height of two miles without an oxygen mask. Boom! You’re out cold.”
“If you can really do that, why hasn’t it been used on terrorists?” Bob asked.
“Because there are oxygen masks, right?” Albert asked.
“Yes,” Brian said. “The cabin crew demonstrates them at the start of every commercial jet-flight — put the gold cup over your mouth and nose and breathe normally, right? They drop automatically when cabin pressure falls below twelve psi. If a hostage pilot tried to knock out a terrorist by lowering the air pressure, all the terrorist would have to do is grab a mask, put it on, and start shooting. On smaller jets, like the Lear, that isn’t the case. If the cabin loses pressure, the passenger has to open the overhead compartment himself.”
Nick looked at the chronometer. Their window was now only fourteen minutes wide.
“I think we better stop talking about it and just do it,” he said. “Time is getting very short.”
“Not yet,” Brian said, and looked at Albert again. “I can bring us back in line with the rip, Albert, and start decreasing pressure as we head toward it. I can control the cabin pressure pretty accurately, and I’m pretty sure I can put us all out before we go through. But that leaves Laurel’s question: who flies the airplane if we’re all knocked out?”
Albert opened his mouth; closed it again and shook his head.
Bob Jenkins spoke up then. His voice was dry and toneless, the voice of a judge pronouncing doom. “I think you can fly us home, Brian. But someone else will have to die in order for you to do it.”
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terrorists_spies/terrorists/eric_rudolph/6.html
tru TV
TERRORISTS & SPIES > TERRORISTS
ERIC RUDOLPH: SERIAL BOMBER
By Denise Noe
Eric Rudolph
Eric Robert Rudolph is a white male born on September 19, 1966
http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/97924/King_-_The_Langoliers.html
Stephen King
The Langoliers [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
“What happened to the crew and the passengers?” Albert asked. He sounded sick. “If the plane came through, and we came through, what happened to the rest of them?”
His imagination provided him with an answer in the form of a sudden indelible image: hundreds of people failing out of the sky, ties and trousers rippling, dresses skating up to reveal garter-belts and underwear, shoes falling off, pens (the ones which weren’t back on the plane, that was) shooting out of pockets; people waving their arms and legs and trying to scream in the thin air; people who had left wallets, purses, pocket-change, and, in at least one case, a pacemaker implant, behind. He saw them hitting the ground like dud bombs, squashing bushes flat, kicking up small clouds of stony dust, imprinting the desert floor with the shapes of their bodies.
“My guess is that they were vaporized,” Bob said. “Utterly discorporated.”
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/olympic-park-bomber-eric-rudolph-agrees-to-plead-guilty
HISTORY.COM
APRIL 8 THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Apr 8, 2005:
Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph agrees to plead guilty
Eric Rudolph agrees to plead guilty to a series of bombings, including the fatal bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, in order to avoid the death penalty. He later cited his anti-abortion and anti-homosexual views as motivation for the bombings. Eric Robert Rudolph was born September 19, 1966, in Merritt Island, Florida. He served a brief stint in the U.S. Army and later supported himself by working as a carpenter. On July 27, 1996, a 40-pound pipe bomb exploded in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park, killing one woman and injuring over 100 people. A security guard named Richard Jewell was initially considered the prime suspect in the case. Then, on January 16, 1997, two bombs went off at an Atlanta-area medical clinic that performed abortions, injuring seven people. In February of that same year, a bomb detonated at a lesbian nightclub in Atlanta, injuring four people. On January 29, 1998, a bomb exploded at a Birmingham, Alabama, women’s health clinic, killing a security guard and critically injuring a nurse.
Rudolph became a suspect in the Birmingham bombing after witnesses reported spotting his pickup truck near the clinic before the bomb went off. Authorities then launched a massive manhunt in North Carolina, where he was spotted stocking up on supplies. In February 1998, Rudolph was officially charged as a suspect in the Birmingham bombing. In March 1998, Rudolph’s brother Daniel cut off his hand to protest what he saw as the mistreatment of Eric by the F.B.I and the media. In May of that same year, Eric Rudolph was named to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list and a $1 million reward was offered for his capture. In July, a North Carolina health food store owner reported that Rudolph had taken six months’ of food and supplies from him, leaving $500 in exchange.
In October 1998, Rudolph was officially charged in the three Atlanta bombings. He continued to elude authorities, who believed he was hiding in the Appalachian wilderness and possibly getting assistance from supporters in the region. Then, on May 31, 2003, after over five years as a fugitive, Rudolph was arrested by a rookie police officer who found him digging through a grocery store Dumpster in Murphy, North Carolina. On April 8, 2005, just weeks before his trial was scheduled to begin, the Department of Justice announced that Rudolph would plead guilty to the charges against him in all four bombings. He was later sentenced to four life terms without parole and in August 2005 was sent to the supermax federal prison in Florence, Colorado.
http://www.orbital.com/SpaceLaunch/L1011/index.shtml
Orbital
L-1011 Launch & Research Platform
"Stargazer" L-1011 Carrier Aircraft
Airborne Launch and Research Platform
"Stargazer" is an L-1011 commercial transport aircraft modified to serve as the launch platform for Orbital’s air-launched Pegasus rocket as well as a platform for airborne research projects.
http://www.orbital.com/SpaceLaunch/Pegasus/pegasus_history.shtml
Orbital
Pegasus
Pegasus Mission History
Flight # Launch Date Vehicle Payload Result
6 June 27, 1994 Pegasus XL STEP-1 Failure
http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/97924/King_-_The_Langoliers.html
Stephen King
The Langoliers [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]
Brian tore his eyes away from the sky — which was already showing signs of light again — long enough to take a quick glance first at the INS readout and then at the circle on his chart. They were approaching the far side of the circle now. If the time-rip was still here, they should see it soon. If they didn’t, he supposed he would have to take over the controls and send them circling back for another pass at a slightly different altitude and on a slightly different heading. It would play hell on their fuel situation, which was already tight, but since the whole thing was probably hopeless anyway, it didn’t matter very
“Brian?” Nick’s voice was unsteady. “Brian? I think I see something.”
14
Bob Jenkins reached the rear of the plane, made an about-face, and started slowly back up the aisle again, passing row after row of empty seats. He looked at the objects that lay in them and on the floor in front of them as he passed: purses... pairs of eyeglasses... wristwatches... a pocket-watch... two worn, crescent-shaped pieces of metal that were probably heel-taps... dental fillings... wedding rings...
Something is wrong.
Yes? Was that really so, or was it only his overworked mind nagging fiercely over nothing? The mental equivalent of a tired muscle which will not stop twitching?
Leave it, he advised himself, but he couldn’t.
If something really is amiss, why can’t you see it? Didn’t you tell the boy that deduction is your meat and drink? Haven’t you written forty mystery novels, and weren’t a dozen of those actually quite good? Didn’t Newgate Callender call The Sleeping Madonna “a masterpiece of logic” when he
Bob Jenkins came to a dead stop, his eyes widening. They fixed on a portside seat near the front of the cabin. In it, the man with the black beard was out cold again, snoring lustily. Inside Bob’s head, the shy animal at last began to creep fearfully into the light. Only it wasn’t small, as he had thought. That had been his mistake. Sometimes you couldn’t see things because they were too small, but sometimes you ignored things because they were too big, too obvious.
The Sleeping Madonna.
The sleeping man.
He opened his mouth and tried to scream, but no sound came out. His throat was locked. Terror sat on his chest like an ape. He tried again to scream and managed no more than a breathless squeak.
Sleeping madonna, sleeping man.
They, the survivors, had all been asleep.
Now, with the exception of the bearded man, none of them were asleep.
Bob opened his mouth once more, tried once more to scream, and once more nothing came out.
15
“Holy Christ in the morning,” Brian whispered.
The time-rip lay about ninety miles ahead, off to the starboard side of the 767’s nose by no more than seven or eight degrees. If it had drifted, it had not drifted much; Brian’s guess was that the slight differential was the result of a minor navigational error.
It was a lozenge-shaped hole in reality, but not a black void. It cycled with a dim pink-purple light, like the aurora borealis. Brian could see the stars beyond it, but they were also rippling. A wide white ribbon of vapor was slowly streaming either into or out of the shape which hung in the sky. It looked like some strange, ethereal highway.
We can follow it right in, Brian thought excitedly. It’s better than an ILS beacon!
“We’re in business!” he said, laughed idiotically, and shook his clenched fists in the air.
“It must be two miles across,” Nick whispered. “My God, Brian, how many other planes do you suppose went through?”
“I don’t know,” Brian said, “but I’ll bet you my gun and dog that we’re the only one with a shot at getting back.”
He opened the intercom.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve found what we were looking for.” His voice crackled with triumph and relief. “I don’t know exactly what happens next, or how, or why, but we have sighted what appears to be an extremely large trapdoor in the sky. I’m going to take us straight through the middle of it. We’ll find out what’s on the other side together. Right now I’d like you all to fasten your seatbelts and—”
That was when Bob Jenkins came pelting madly up the aisle, screaming at the top of his lungs. “No! No! We’ll all die if you go into it! Turn back! You’ve got to turn back!”
Brian swung around in his seat and exchanged a puzzled look with Nick.
Nick unbuckled his belt and stood up. “That’s Bob Jenkins,” he said. “Sounds like he’s worked himself up to a good set of nerves. Carry on, Brian. I’ll handle him.”
“Okay,” Brian said. “Just keep him away from me. I’d hate to have him grab me at the wrong second and send us into the edge of that thing.”
He turned off the autopilot and took control of the 767 himself. The floor tilted gently to the right as he banked toward the long, glowing slot ahead of them. It seemed to slide across the sky until it was centered in front of the 767’s nose. Now he could hear a sound mixing with the drone of the jet engines — a deep, throbbing noise, like a huge diesel idling. As they approached the river of vapor — it was flowing into the hole, he now saw, not out of it — he began to pick up flashes of color travelling within it: green, blue, violet, red, candy pink. It’s the first real color I’ve seen in this world, he thought.
Behind him, Bob Jenkins sprinted through the first-class section, up the narrow aisle which led to the service area... and right into Nick’s waiting arms.
“Easy, mate,” Nick soothed. “Everything’s going to be all right now.”
“No!” Bob struggled wildly, but Nick held him as easily as a man might hold a struggling kitten. “No, you don’t understand! He’s got to turn back! He’s got to turn back before it’s too late!”
Nick pulled the writer away from the cockpit door and back into first class. “We’ll just sit down here and belt up tight, shall we?” he said in that same soothing, chummy voice. “It may be a trifle bumpy.”
To Brian, Nick’s voice was only a faint blur of sound. As he entered the wide flow of vapor streaming into the time-rip, he felt a large and immensely powerful hand seize the plane, dragging it eagerly forward. He found himself thinking of the leak on the flight from Tokyo to LA, and of how fast air rushed out of a hole in a pressurized environment.
It’s as if this whole world — or what is left of it — is leaking through that hole, he thought, and then that queer and ominous phrase from his dream recurred again: SHOOTING STARS ONLY.
The rip lay dead ahead of the 767’s nose now, growing rapidly.
We’re going in, he thought. God help us, we’re really going in.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044520/releaseinfo
IMDb
The Internet Movie Database
Release dates for
The Crooked Circle (1957)
Country Date
USA 11 November 1957
