6.

December 5, 2011, 04:50 EST.
Onboard the Proteus, 11 nautical miles off Long Island.

"Check your screen again," shouted the captain. "If they were there a second ago, they must be still there, they can't have disappeared."
"Confirming," replied the radio operator. "No further signal. They've gone."
"My God. A crash?"
Once again, an ethereal voice filled the bridge. This time the pilot seemed calmer.
"Look how beautiful it is. What a beautiful place to land…."
And that was it.
"Where did that come from?" asked Kathy.
No one replied. Budmera finally broke the silence.
"They were flying at low speed for modern fighters. But not for aircraft built in 1940."
The captain shook his head with insistence.
"To finish once and for all with this story, sir, let me give you the logical explanation for the story of Flight 19 and the Bermuda Triangle. Like all sailors I've heard all the legends, especially that of Flight 19. Remember it was 1945, well before GPS, and the pilots flew by their compasses. They had to know what their speed was and the elapsed time before each change in heading. I remember reading that Flight 19 was commanded by a lieutenant who, according to his conversation with flight control, didn't have his watch on him. His compass seemed to be not working properly and he was, of course, over an ocean without any way point. Under the circumstances it's pretty easy to deviate far from your route, especially if you're flying for hours on end with major changes in heading. I'd say it was the lack of a watch coupled with a bad compass which led to Flight 19 crashing into the sea once their fuel had run out. Today, that's the accepted explanation of this so-called mystery."
Budmera didn't seem convinced.
"And all those ships that disappeared?"
"The Sargasso Sea is a hub of maritime and air transport. There are so many ships and planes passing through that statistically there are more accidents. On top of that, there is a very deep ocean trench, which is why the wreckages aren't found. They sink into this unfathomable abyss. Believe me, sir, I'm a sailor and I know about these things. There is no curse of the Bermuda Triangle."
The radio officer turned round: "I've got radio contact, Captain, I'll put it over the loudspeakers."
"Sssssss… Coast Guard aircraft speaking: major radio interference in the storm area, are you receiving, Proteus? Warning, there are two ships in distress six miles north of your position."
"This is the Proteus, receiving you loud and clear."
Now the radar operator spoke up: "Captain, I have a signal for the Coast Guard aircraft. It's almost the same location as those five signals I lost."
"Well, it's all making sense after all," said Haisselbak as he looked up at Budmera. "And the underwater beacons, anything to report?"
"Nothing. No signal at all. They were triggered by the storm then went silent as it passed."
An idea suddenly struck Kathy. She leaned over to the radio operator and asked him to radio the Coast Guard plane and ask if they had a flight number.
"Affirmative. This is Coast Guard Flight 19."
Kathy burst out laughing. The Proteus radioed to ask if it could do anything to help the ships in distress, but the reply was negative, the situation was more-or-less under control.
Despite everything, Budmera remained skeptical.
"Flight 19…" he repeated to himself.
"It's all over," said the captain. "The radio interference caused by the storm split up the Coast Guard radar echo into five separate ones. Your beacons were set off by the interference as well, and the storm brought with it radio transmissions from distant aircraft or ships. Even Fort Lauderdale isn't that far off in radio terms – which explains the strange mix of transmissions. It's quite possible, and even fairly common in these types of storms. Mr. Budmera, I'm sorry that it wasn't the Bermuda Triangle, but you have to face facts. All that's happened was just one huge coincidence."
Budmera breathed in slowly then turned round: he'd noticed the bewildered look on the face of one of the crew at a computer screen. The man had been tapping away on his keyboard and hadn't said a word over the past few minutes. Budmera came up to him.
"Everything OK?"
The man bit his lower lip.
"I dunno. It's… strange."
"What's strange?"
"Well, I… I thought I saw something on the seabed. For a second, I thought I saw five new planes, on top of the four already there…. And then all of a sudden, it looked like there were… maybe ten more! They had strange shapes, too. Sort of futuristic. I've just checked again, and there's nothing unusual there, I don't know. The machine doesn't lie. I… I must have been dreaming."
Budmera placed an avuncular hand on the man's shoulder. A flicker of a smile crossed his lips. For Captain Haisselbak, all these transmissions were a patchwork of radio signals coming from all over the place. If he wanted to believe that, then so be it. Nonetheless, a phrase resonated in Budmera's mind. A few words that could easily come from somewhere south, from some plane about to land. A pilot's remark as the illuminated runway comes into view, or as he flies over a city lit up like a Christmas tree. But for Budmera, these words had another meaning. They were almost a homage: "Look how beautiful it is. What a beautiful place to land…."
For the briefest of moments, the past had joined the present, and the future too it seemed. In the blink of an eye, the boundaries of dream and reality had blurred.
Behind, the captain sighed, and mouthed the words to himself: "electro-magnetic interference."
"Well, case solved," he said out loud. "The storm is blowing itself out, and we can return to port."
Faced with the inquiring expression on his boss's face, he felt obliged to add: "These phenomena aren't as strange as they seem, they're quite common in storms of this type. The circumstances led you to believe the impossible for a moment. I'm sorry, sir…."
Budmera nodded. And then winked at Kathy.

Two days later, Kathy was sitting comfortably in her seat. The aircraft would be taking off shortly. Vacation at last!
She closed her eyes and thought of the imposing figure of Arnold Budmera and their final conversation on the waterfront in Brooklyn.
"You really did believe, didn't you? That it might be Flight 19 from 1945."
He'd turned his face away from the cold wind.
"Do you always speak of the past in the past tense?" he'd answered. "I believe that even time might its own its echoes. You just have to find the valleys and spaces where they resonate…."
Kathy had given him an amused look, and Budmera added a few more words.
"Whether the impossible really happened isn't what's important. Mysteries don't play much of a role in my life. I love aircraft, and in their own way, I think they returned that love last night."
Kathy smiled.
He had his explanation, she had hers, and that was just how it should be.
Before leaving, she'd hesitated and then said: "Can I ask you one more question, sir?"
"Of course."
"Why did you point all your airplanes to the west?"
Now it was Budmera's turn to break out into a smile.
"Towards the setting sun, Kathy. In memory of Icarus, the man who flew too close to the sun. So that every evening, my planes can admire the sunset and remember what they are…."
And with that, Budmera had disappeared into the gray dawn light.

***

"Calling flight control, this is an emergency. We seem to be off course, we cannot see the land, I repeat, we cannot see the land."
"What is your position?"
"We cannot be sure of where we are. We seem to be lost."
"Try to head west."
"We can't find west. Everything is wrong. We can't be sure of any direction. Everything looks strange, even the ocean."

Final transmission from Flight 19 received by flight control at Fort Lauderdale, December 5, 1945, 15:50, before the planes disappeared somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle.