Final Call, page 10
It had been a while, but it was worth a try.
And it was the only plan he had.
Kevin Anderson
All this was a waste of time. Chip, the nurse they’d shipped in for the photo opportunity, Stearns begging: nothing they said to the pilot was going to change things. It was time for some direct action.
He unclipped his seat belt and stood up, his hands on the tops of the seats on either side of him.
‘Kevin,’ Jill said. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Sorting this out.’
Saying it like that – like something Clint Eastwood would have said – made him see that the only mistake he’d made was not to do this immediately. He was buoyed by the words, by the low, tough growl he’d said them in.
‘It’s probably best to sit down,’ Jill said. ‘We don’t want to do anything that will make this worse.’
‘It won’t make it worse.’
He made his way down the aisle, walking his hands from seat back to seat back. As he reached Jill she stepped partly into the aisle.
‘I’m serious, Kevin,’ she said. ‘We need to be cautious.’
‘Fuck cautious,’ he said.
She held his gaze for a long time. For a moment he thought she was going to stay in his way – and then he would have had to somehow push past her, because he wasn’t going back to his seat – but she stepped aside.
He walked past her. On his left was the main cabin door. In front of him was the cockpit door.
He rapped on it, hard.
‘Open up,’ he said.
There was no reply.
He rapped again. ‘Open. Now.’
He grabbed the handle and tried to turn it; it was locked and wouldn’t move. He turned to the cabin. Six faces looked at him, half-skeptical, half-expectant.
Maybe he’s the hero, they were thinking. Maybe he’s going to save us.
‘There’s a metal bottle in my bag,’ he said. ‘Pass it up.’
Miller leaned over and opened his bag. He took out a bottle. It was matte silver, and heavy looking. ‘This one?’
Kevin nodded and held out his hands. Miller threw it and he snatched it from the air. It was full of water; he unscrewed the cap and took a sip. It was a very cool move.
He tapped the base of it on the door handle. It rang out with a metallic tang. He tapped it again, readying himself. This was the moment. This was when he would smash this thing open.
He tapped it again to find his range, then slammed it down as hard as he could.
The clang was deafening in the small space and someone let out a yelp. The impact shuddered through his arm and shoulder, leaving him dizzy for a second.
The handle lowered about a quarter of an inch, which was something.
‘It’s coming,’ he said. ‘It’s working.’
He hit it again, the impact jarring, then again, then a third time. It did not move any further. He lifted the bottle above his head then brought it down with all the force he could muster.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘It’s stuck.’
He grabbed the handle and pulled, trying to rattle the door, then kicked it in frustration. He shoved his shoulder against it, seeing if it would move.
He was starting to look a bit foolish. More than a bit, but it wasn’t over yet. Maybe if he hit it hard enough he could open it. He was a big man, a former football player, who still weighed two hundred and twenty pounds, most of it muscle. He kept fit – it was mainly money that kept Katie interested, but that wasn’t all.
He took a step back, then launched himself toward the door.
He braced himself for a painful impact on his shoulder, for the door to spring open, or at the least to buckle so he could force something in between the door and the frame and lever it open.
But he hit nothing.
Instead, the plane lurched savagely down and to the left and he went flying to the right, his feet off the ground, his body momentarily weightless. And then he slammed into the galley cupboard, knocking the door open and sending packets of nuts and pretzels in every direction.
As he found his bearings, the plane lurched up and in the opposite direction and he flew across the cabin. He put a hand out to steady himself. It snapped into the wall, his full weight on it. He heard a loud crack and saw his wrist bend at an unnatural angle and had time to think that’s not right before the pain bloomed and he realized it was broken, badly broken.
The plane leveled out and he sank to his knees, clutching his wrist. He looked down and saw the flash of bone protruding through his skin. It was shockingly white, like pristine freshly fallen snow.
And then the pain came. Oh, God, the pain.
He screamed. He felt faint, his vision swimming, and he slumped to the floor, his back to the wall.
He was breathing heavily. He fought to control it. He looked up at his colleagues; they were pale, frozen in their seats. Jill was gripping the armrests, her knuckles white.
She relaxed her grip and stared at him, a half-smile on her lips.
‘That went well,’ she said.
He bit back the pain. ‘Fuck you,’ he muttered. For a second the pleasure of saying it muted the pain, but then it came roaring back, and he let out a high-pitched squeal.
There was a hand on his shoulder. It was the nurse. Her expression was a mixture of pity and disgust.
‘Let me take a look.’
He looked up at her, his vision blurred by tears. He wondered if he would vomit; that was all they needed in this enclosed space.
Mary Jo turned to Marcia. ‘Are there towels in the bathroom?’
‘I think so.’
‘If there are any, would you grab some?’
Marcia nodded and jumped up. She came back with a handful of paper towels and one neatly folded cloth towel, a gold emblem on it. Mary Jo took them and went over to Kevin. She crouched next to him.
‘Put your legs flat on the floor.’
He did as he was told, and she took his wrist in her hands, then placed it on top of the towel. Blood seeped across the white cloth.
His wrist was badly damaged. It was bent sharply to the left, a sliver of bone visible just above the top of his thumb.
‘It’s going to need surgery,’ she said. ‘But I’ll see if there’s anything I can do.’
The plane bumped as it went through some mild turbulence. He winced in pain.
‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘This really hurts.’
‘I’ll bet.’
She touched his fingers in turn. ‘Can you feel that?’
‘Yes. I think so.’
‘You think so?’
‘I can. It’s just the pain swamps everything else.’
‘That’s good.’
She studied his wrist. ‘It’s broken. But how badly and where, I can’t say. You’ll need an X-ray, and then an orthopedic surgeon will have to decide how to reset the bones.’
‘Can you do anything?’ he said. ‘Can you fix it?’
She shook her head. ‘Not here. You’ll have to wait to see a surgeon. It’ll hurt but you’ll be OK.’
‘You can’t straighten it out?’
‘No. I can’t do anything. It could easily make it worse.’
‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘The pain’s one thing, but what’s worse is the feeling that it’s wrong, somehow. It’s in the wrong place.’
‘I have some ibuprofen,’ she said. ‘That could help with the swelling, and the pain, at least a little. Is there ice onboard?’
‘In the fridge,’ he said. ‘Opposite me.’
She turned and opened the fridge. It was full of water and soda and fruit juice. At the top was a small freezer compartment. She took out the ice tray and shook the ice cubes into the towel, then wrapped it around them and placed it gently around his wrist.
‘Feels better already,’ he said. ‘It’ll be even better when it goes numb.’
‘That’s the plan.’ She took a bottle of water from the fridge and refilled the tray. ‘Hopefully we land before they freeze, but just in case.’
The Pilot
There was little more than an hour of fuel left. In another twenty – maybe thirty – minutes they’d be too far from land to make it to Portland.
And not long after that, anywhere else.
So things had to start moving.
She did not doubt they understood she was serious now. One of them had tried to break in, hitting the door with some metal object. She was certain that it would hold – these doors were made to withstand assault – but she didn’t like it.
She could have asked him to stop. She could have demanded he stop. But she did not want to give the impression that this was – in any way – a negotiation. That this was a conversation between equals. That she asked for things and they decided whether or not to do them.
No. That was not what this was, and it was important to establish that right away.
It was important because of what would come next.
So she had gone into a steep dive, at the same time veering sharply left. It was a useful physics lesson for him: when you were on a plane traveling at five hundred miles per hour, you too were traveling at five hundred miles per hour. And when the plane suddenly changed course, you carried on in the same direction until something stopped you. Something like the ceiling or wall of the plane you were in.
It sounded like he had hurt himself, at least if the screams were anything to go by.
Good. It would raise the temperature back there. Sharpen their minds.
And they would need that, very soon.
Jeff Ramos
Kevin Anderson. What a fool. Typical of him: full of bluster and empty threats. He had to do something, had to be the big man. He’d been like that since the day he showed up at the company. Cocky, arrogant, full of an inflated sense of his own ability. Well, he was paying the price now.
Good. He deserved it. Ramos hated people like Anderson. He’d met plenty in the military. No interest in personal sacrifice or teamwork; plenty in the grand gesture and playing the hero. It never worked, never met any purpose other than massaging their ego. Fucking asshole. When they got out of this, he’d make it his mission to turn Anderson’s professional life into a daily hell.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘It’s time to make some progress. Remember, she can hear everything. Has anyone got anything to say? Any confessions?’
He looked from face to face. They all shook their heads.
‘What a surprise. Jill, do you mind if I say something to our pilot?’
‘Be my guest.’
‘Ok,’ he said. ‘You made your point. But no one here is going to confess, because no one here has killed anyone. The idea’s ludicrous. So let’s move on. You tell us what you want, and we’ll see if we can get it for you. Cash. Influence. A profile for your cause. Whatever you want. But this has to stop.’
After a long silence, there was a click and then the buzz of the intercom.
‘Is that it?’ the pilot said.
The buzz faded away. Ramos frowned.
‘What do you mean?’ he said.
‘Is that your final answer?’
‘To what?’
‘To my question. Who is it?’
He looked around. Jill shrugged.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Final answer.’
There was a long pause. ‘I see.’
The intercom went dead.
‘You have nothing else to say?’ Ramos asked.
The click came again.
‘I do have something to say.’ The pilot’s voice was lower than before, more serious. ‘I know one of you is guilty of what I say. I gave you a chance to confess. So now I have no choice but to force the issue.’
‘In what way?’ Jill Stearns said.
‘You confess,’ she said. ‘You tell me which one of you did it, and we fly to the nearest airport. Or you don’t.’
‘Or we can’t.’ Stearns said. ‘Don’t forget that. Maybe we can’t.’
The pilot laughed. ‘Maybe. But that makes no difference.’
She paused.
‘One of you confesses, or I bring this plane down, and we all die.’
Barrow, Maine 2018
Elizabeth Carter
He was their only child.
That was the first thing she thought. He was their only child.
Their son, Nathan. Nate. ‘The boy’. Natey. Nate-dog.
They’d wanted more, two minimum, maybe three or four. That had been the plan. She sometimes looked at photos of her and Scott in their twenties – physical photos, taken before everyone had a camera in their pocket – and they looked like different people. Not just younger: different. Full of hope. Unaware of how cruel life could be.
Unaware of how cruel it would be.
For a while she had thought of Nathan as their third child. She had miscarried the first two. She hated the word: miscarried. It suggested she had done something wrong, failed to carry the baby correctly.
She had done nothing wrong; she had done everything right. She had followed all the advice, eaten none of the proscribed foods, taken folic acid, gone to all the check-ups. But she had lost the babies.
She joined a large group of women who had been through the same thing. A quarter of all women have miscarriages. That was what Stella, her best friend had told her. Someone else said it was a third. Either way it was a lot. It happened: it was hard and painful, but it happened.
After the first miscarriage she consoled herself with that, and with the other thing everyone said. Don’t worry. You’ll get pregnant again. It’ll be OK next time.
And she did get pregnant.
It wasn’t OK.
Another miscarriage, this time at eighteen weeks, when she’d started to believe it was going to be OK, she was going to be a mom and Scott was going to be a dad. She held on to some doubts, unwilling to fully commit, but Scott couldn’t help himself. In his mind he was already taking his baby for walks in the park, changing its diaper – they never found out the gender, it was too risky – sitting up at night with it.
He was devastated. The first time he’d been her rock; this time he retreated into himself. She could smell what he feared: it’ll never happen.
She could smell what he thought: there’s something wrong with her.
There wasn’t. She got pregnant again. It was a grim, joyless pregnancy. Neither of them dared to believe. They hardly mentioned it. No nursery was decorated. No baby clothes were bought.
So when Nathan was born it was a bit of a scramble. She had cried, after the birth, on and off, for days. Tears of joy and relief and happiness. Scott was the same: they would look at each other and then at Nathan and the next thing they’d be crying and hugging and thanking the universe for the blessing it had given them.
And then – a year later – she was pregnant again. This time they allowed themselves to enjoy her pregnancy. They found out it was a girl, bought her clothes, picked out her name – a name Elizabeth could never hear without a catch in her chest, a name she would never let pass her lips – and then she had gone into labor.
It was all fine.
Until it wasn’t. Until a doctor rushed in and she was wheeled out into the operating theater positioned usefully by the delivery room. A whirl of activity; no one telling her what was happening, everyone too focused on saving her and the baby to have time to talk to her.
They saved her. For months she wished they hadn’t.
Her daughter was stillborn.
Stillborn. Another word she hated, and not only because of what it meant. The baby wasn’t born still. It was dead.
The baby – her baby – was dead.
The grief was so deep, the pain so intense, she thought she would die from it. It was only Nathan that pulled her through.
It was the last time they tried. She couldn’t go through it again.
The experience changed them. How could it not? They became wary and insular, unwilling to take a risk with their son. They kept him close, made sure he was always watched, never allowed him to be in danger. Every time he got a cold she panicked; every time he got a fever she was sure he would die.
Meningitis. That was her particular fear. But he never got it.
He’d got something else.
After all that, something serious was wrong. The school had called to tell her Nathan had collapsed in class and was on the way to the hospital in an ambulance.
He was her only child. Her only surviving child. He couldn’t be taken from her. What would be left for them? He was their lives, their hope. Everything she had dreamed for him – for them – was fading away: Nathan scoring for the junior high basketball team, playing sax in the band concert, graduating high school, waving goodbye as they left him at a college, hopefully not too far away.
If they lost him, it would be the end of everything.
And she would never forgive who was responsible. She would make it her life’s work to bring them to justice.
And if she couldn’t, she would pursue them to the ends of the earth to get her revenge.
Dr. Williams
The boy – Nathan Carter – presented in exactly the same way as the two girls. A coma, and an inflamed liver. Dr. Williams had no doubt now that it was something environmental – what, he had no idea – but to have three young children arrive on the same day with the same rare set of symptoms was almost impossible to explain any other way.
Which raised a big question: what the hell was it, and how many more victims would there be?
He sat at the desk, studying the notes. There was nothing to indicate what had caused these symptoms. They would need to do some tests to determine that, but he didn’t want to interfere with any of the patients before they were more fully recovered.
The first girl – Cherry – was inching forward, and he hoped she would be able to go home soon enough – maybe the next day. Her parents would need to monitor her, and the hospital would want to see her to check her liver function was returning, but he was confident she would recover.
The other two were in a much more precarious situation. Neither had regained consciousness, and both were still in the ICU. If they followed Cherry’s progress then maybe they’d be OK, but there were no guarantees of that. They could have had a more serious exposure to whatever was causing this, or simply have reacted differently.
