"I beard," Demerest growled. "The damn runway's been blocked for hours, and all that's in the way is a stuck Mexican jet." He folded a Lincoln approach chart and clipped it to his control yoke, then exclaimed angrily, "Obstruction heU! We'U give 'ern fifty more minutes to pry it loose."
As Demerest thumbed his mike button to inform air route control, Second Officer Cy Jordan-white-faced and shaken-returned to the flight deck.

11

In the main terminal of Lincoln International, Lawyer Freemantle was puzzled.
It was most peculiar, he thought, that no one in authority had yet objected to the big, increasingly noisy demonstration of Meadowood residents who, at this moment, were monopolizing a large segment of the central concourse. Earlier this evening, when EUiott Freemantle had asked the Negro police lieutenant for permission to hold a public censure meeting, he had been firmly refused. Yet here they were, with a curious crowd of spectators -and not a policeman in sight!
Freemantle thought again: it didn't make sense.
Yet what had happened was incredibly simple.
After the interview with the airport general manager, Bakersfeld, the delegation, led by Elliott Freemantle, had returned from the administrative mezzanine to the main concourse. There, the TV crews, whom Freemantle had talked with on the way in, had set up their equipment.