The QE2 Is Missing

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The wide-winged bulk of the United States Navy Hawk-eye plane broke out of the low-hanging cloud, barely a hundred feet above the surging waves of the Pacific Ocean. Tropical rain lashed the glass in front of the pilots, rain so heavy that the wipers had almost no effect on it. The ocean swells were gigantic, reaching up higher and higher towards the early-warning aircraft as though about to engulf it. The copilot’s knuckles were white where he gripped the edges of his seat.

“Christ, Lieutenant,” he said. “You’re going to have us swimming in that stuff in a minute. Those clouds go right down to the deck — I swear the waves are breaking against the bottom of the clouds. And there’s nothing to see, nothing at all.”

Lieutenant Leroy Palmer nodded reluctantly. The visibility was almost zero, what with the lashing rain and flying scud torn from the waves. There was a real danger that a sudden gust might put them down in the drink. He pulled slowly back on the wheel and the big turboprop plane lifted back up into the clouds. He felt the same relief as Corker the copilot did, though he tried not to show it.

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