Final Call, page 13
She no longer knew whether it was the alcohol that caused it or the alcohol that cured it. It certainly stopped the anxiety while she was drinking, but did it make it worse in the morning? Did it fuel the beast that lived inside her, the beast that seemed to hate her, seemed to think she was responsible for everything bad in the world, told her that no one liked her, she was awful at her job, she’d be found out eventually and everyone would laugh at her humiliation, saying to each other I knew it would happen sooner or later, she’s been on borrowed time for years. Did the alcohol make that voice louder?
She had no idea. It was so long since she had tried to live without it that she couldn’t remember what it was like.
All she knew was that, for a blissful few hours, the voice in her head and the coil in her stomach were gone.
But now they were there, despite the vodka. Because this time it was real.
You’re going to die. This plane is going down and you’re going to die. And you’ll die a drunk. So much for your plans to get clean. You should have done it sooner, but you’re too weak.
Her mouth was dry. The coil in her stomach became a sharp pain, her heart racing. She wanted now, more than ever, another drink.
But there was no more.
She felt dizzy with panic. For a moment she found herself wishing for the plane to crash, so this could all be over. If she couldn’t have a drink, she’d rather be dead.
She caught herself, held that thought in her mind.
If she couldn’t have a drink, she’d rather be dead.
Was that who she had become? Had she sunk so far?
For a moment she thought that this was it, the catalyst for change, the point at which the curtain lifted and she saw the path forward, and she was sure she’d never drink again. And then the thirst came back.
She opened her bag. Perhaps there was something in there. She knew there wasn’t, but perhaps there was. Perhaps a miracle had occurred.
Was this really what God used His miracles for? Conjuring alcohol out of thin air for aging drunks? She let out a strangled laugh.
Jeff Ramos stared at her.
‘What the fuck did the pilot just say?’
He was half-standing, his elbows on the seat in front of him.
‘Did she say what I think she said?’ He looked around the plane. ‘Did she?’
‘She did,’ Jill Stearns said. ‘Unless I misheard.’
‘She said she’s going to crash this thing unless one of us confesses to a murder?’
‘I know.’ Jill’s voice was soft. ‘I know.’
‘Then whoever did it better fucking confess,’ Jeff said.
There was a long silence.
‘Nobody did it,’ Jill said. ‘No one here is a murderer.’
‘She can hear you,’ Kevin Anderson said. He was wincing, his shattered wrist resting on his thigh. ‘Remember that.’
‘She needs to know,’ Jill said. ‘This has gone far enough.’
‘So we tell her that and we all die?’ Ramos said. ‘Is that the plan? Because if it is, count me out. I don’t like that plan at all.’
‘What’s the alternative, Jeff?’ Jill said.
He looked around the plane, his eyes narrowed.
‘Let’s deal with the elephant in the room, shall we?’ He sniffed. ‘She’s not done this on a whim. If she just wanted to kill some evil big food executives, there’s an easier way. She’s done this for a reason. And one of you knows what it is.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Jill said. ‘I think she’s mistaken, and we need to let her know.’
‘What if she isn’t?’ Jeff said. ‘What if she’s right, and one of you is a murderer? That one of you needs to own up right now.’ He stared at Jill. ‘What if it’s you?’
‘What if it’s you?’ Jill said. ‘You seem very certain she’s right. I think she believes it to be the case, but she’s mistaken. People ascribe all kinds of things to companies like ours. That doesn’t mean they’re right.’
There was a cough. Mary Jo was holding up a piece of paper. She put a finger to her lips and passed it to Jeff Ramos. He read it and passed it on to Chip. Chip added something, then handed it to Marcia.
Someone say they did it. Someone say they did it, and then we land and get off the plane.
Underneath, in red ink, were the words Chip had added:
Who? And how do you answer when she says what did you do?
Marcia took her pen from her bag. She unclipped the top and hovered it over the paper, then began to write.
I’ll do it. And I’ll think of something. Marcia
Kevin Anderson
It was agonizing. He had never felt pain like it. At first it had been a sharp, knife-like pain that was, in retrospect, quite bearable. It was the kind of pain he recognized: a kick or stamp on the football field, the flaring pain from a punch. This was of a different order, yes, but it was that kind of pain.
Now, though, it was as though it had occupied his entire body. With every beat of his heart his wrist pulsed in pain. It was as though his blood was having to force its way through damaged and broken pathways, tearing them apart anew each time it did so. His own body was in rebellion against him.
Even if they did make it back, there’d be no bedroom reunion with Katie tonight. He needed this thing fucking fixed before he tried anything that energetic, although he was looking forward to telling her how he did it.
Tried to smash the door down. Someone had to do something. The rest of them just sat there like sheep. At least I tried.
So they knew what this was about now, at least. He felt strangely calm. He wasn’t scared of dying. He wondered whether it was his wrist taking his mind off it. At least he’d be done with the pain.
He didn’t think so, though. He just wasn’t scared of death. So what if he died? A brief moment of pain – not as bad as what he was experiencing anyway – and then nothing. He never got scared, really. He got angry when he didn’t get what he wanted, but he was never scared. Whatever happened to him he could deal with, and he didn’t really care what happened to other people. If Katie was unavailable to him because she was doing something else, that would be annoying; if she died, he’d simply move on. Likewise if she got fat, or ugly. She’d no longer be of use to him, so why would he waste his time on her?
He’d understood early in his life that other people were just objects to him. He couldn’t imagine them thinking things or feeling things or having any kind of interior life. They were simply there, and as long as they were of interest or use to him he’d keep them around. When they weren’t, he’d get rid of them.
Why other people didn’t do the same, he couldn’t fathom. He had college friends who hated their wives, who complained they never got laid, pulled out of weekends away with the boys because they’d get too much grief from their better half. Why not just do it anyway? Or divorce them and find someone else? It was easy enough; if you were a half-decent man in your forties, you could have your pick of the lonely divorcees and desperate women who had never married and were faced with ever-dwindling options.
So why not? Was it fear of upsetting the wife? But you hated her, so why did that matter? Or damaging the kids? So what? Loads of kids had parents who divorced. They’d get over it.
The main question, though, was simple. If you wanted a divorce, why would you care what anyone else thought?
The note the nurse had written was making its way around again. Jill handed it to him.
I’ll do it. And I’ll think of something. Marcia
Marcia. She’d been hot, once. When he’d joined the company twenty-two years back, he’d tried flirting with her. They didn’t have the word back then, but she was a MILF. And there was something slightly desperate about her, a vulnerability that he found irresistible.
It hadn’t worked though. The one that got away. He’d still do it. For someone in her early sixties she was doing OK. So if the opportunity arose, why not? It didn’t hurt anyone.
So she was going to confess. It was worth a try. She should be careful, though. It was possible that the pilot would land this thing, then let the rest of them off and keep Marcia onboard. Maybe take off again just to throw her out, or maybe she had a gun and bang! Bye bye, Marcia.
He could picture the scene.
No! I was just saying it to get you to land! It wasn’t me!
Not a position he’d want to be in. He could have written his warning down, but then she might not have gone through with it, and at the moment it was their best chance. So fuck that. Let her try. If it went wrong for her and the rest of them were fine, that was a price worth paying.
He looked around the cabin and nodded, then gave Marcia a thumbs up. Thanks, he mouthed. She gave a bashful smile.
He pushed the note toward Chip. He was sitting silently, his palms on his thighs, his gaze fixed on them.
‘Here,’ he whispered. ‘Take it.’
Chip waved it away. He started to shake his head, his mouth opening and closing silently. His eyes were scrunched up and his hands were clenching into fists, then relaxing, then clenching again.
The shaking of his head sped up, and Kevin saw that he had tears running down his face.
He reached around the seat and took the note. Chip didn’t seem to notice.
Well, well, Chip had lost it. It was never the ones you think. He’d have had Chip down as cool under fire, not this gibberish wreck.
Except maybe that wasn’t what it was. Chip had turned gray.
‘Chip?’ he said. ‘You OK?’
Varun Miller
It was working. He was amazed to find that it was working.
There was an antenna somewhere that connected the plane to a satellite network, and then to a router, which broadcast a network. The network was still there, but the router wasn’t connected to anything.
His supposition that the router was not physically disconnected from the satellite, that it was just a configuration within the router itself, in which case it could be switched back on, if he could gain access to it, was right.
And he had hacked into it. Not to any of the plane’s systems – they were presumably on a separate network so that passengers couldn’t get into them – but into the router itself.
Which meant he could switch on the network.
If he could work out how. The problem was he couldn’t. He could hardly announce what he was doing and ask for help, not that he thought any of them would know any more than him. Jeff Ramos might have an idea – he was Chief Technology Officer, so he knew some of this stuff, although he was in the position more for leadership, and long service, than any real tech savvy – but that was it.
So he had come a long way, but not far enough.
And then he saw it. He saw how it could be done.
He typed a few commands and there it was. It was on.
At least partially. The issue was that there were two bands, a broadband and a narrowband, and all he could reactivate was the narrowband. Whether that was by design or as a result of his lack of skills was another question.
He was, however slowly, connected to the internet.
Which meant many things, but most importantly that he could call for help.
He closed all the applications so that they didn’t use up any bandwidth, then opened Google Maps to find out where they were. By zooming out he could estimate how many miles – about one hundred and fifty – they were off the coast, and which town they were east of.
He closed the window, opened his email and typed a message to his assistant, Sharon.
Plane hijacked. Send help. Acknowledge receipt.
He added the location, and pressed send.
A minute passed, then another. He couldn’t understand why she hadn’t responded. Sharon would still be working, and she would definitely have seen the email; the message was in the subject field. Plane hijacked.
If it had gone through, that was. Perhaps there’d been some failure of the system, or the connection had been lost.
Shit.
He was so close. Ari and Susheela were there, within his reach, tantalizingly close. Yet so far. And the pilot had made herself clear. She was going to kill them all. Varun didn’t doubt for a second that she was serious. She wouldn’t have gone to these lengths if she wasn’t.
Which made it all the more imperative that Sharon get the email.
He waited another minute, then another.
And then it flashed up in the corner of his screen. An incoming email.
What? Are you serious? No – I know you are. I’ll call the authorities. Hang in there, Varun!
He had done it.
He had got a message out. Help was on the way.
He typed another message.
Thank God. Tell them to hurry. And tell Susheela and Ari I love them.
Chip Markham
He was going to throw up all over himself. The nausea was overwhelming and he had a cold sweat all over his body. He had written on Marcia’ s note and, as he handed it over, had started to feel very ill.
He had never felt anything like this before. It had pervaded every cell of his body. All he could think was I’m going to die. This is it. This is the end.
And then he thought of Matthew and Otis and Esme – how they were going to have Christmas together. He had ordered a turkey. He had no idea how to cook one, but from the recipes he’d read it seemed easy enough, a matter simply of putting it in the oven for a few hours, but in case it was a disaster he had some backup steaks. Even he could cook a steak.
He’d been planning to tell Matthew and Esme to take it easy, have a break, while he played with Otis and assembled all the presents. Pass them a glass of champagne – he had a case of vintage Laurent-Perrier – and let them relax. He’d been planning to make it perfect, low-key and classy, a warm, happy family Christmas.
He had been waiting for one for years. Decades.
And it was going to be the first of many. He had messed this up the first time around and he wasn’t going to mess it up again. He didn’t care if Matthew wasn’t the son he had imagined; he shouldn’t have bothered imagining anything and just enjoyed what he had, but he had been too stupid and arrogant to let himself.
Well, he was going to make up for his mistakes.
Except now he was going to die – either of whatever was causing this excruciating pain or when the plane crashed – and none of that would happen. He would die without having fixed the biggest mistake he had ever made. He would die a failure. Rich, successful, yes: but no less a failure for that.
It was that which paralyzed him. The realization his life had been a waste. He had been given the chance to redeem it but that had been snatched away from him.
And all they had to stop it was Marcia Fournier pretending she’d done whatever this crazy bitch thought had happened. It wouldn’t work. All it would do was waste time and fuel and bring the end nearer.
He knew now there was no chance of it working, because there was something bigger than some nutjob hijacking a plane going on. Jeff had said it: she was doing this for a reason.
Chip agreed, but he was surprised how quickly Jeff had reached the conclusion. He had seen it clearly and early, and he was unusually unperturbed.
Did he know something? Or was it that he stood to gain something from this? Maybe cause a crisis and ride to the rescue?
It all made sudden sense. That was it. He had to tell the others. He started to speak, but all that came out was a gurgle.
He clenched his fists, fighting to control his breathing. His heart was beating too fast; it felt like it was jumping, banging into the walls of his chest.
It felt wrong. His hand was tingling, then it felt cold and numb.
He started to sweat, beads forming on his forehead. It was hard to inhale, iron bands encircling his chest.
He leaned forward, his vision dimming, darkening.
And fading, slowly, to black.
Jill Stearns
There was a strange, troubling sound coming from Chip. She looked at him, saw the pale froth on his lips.
‘Shit,’ she said. ‘Chip? Are you OK?’
He looked anything but OK. He was pale, his temples wet with sweat.
And he was leaning forward, his eyes closing, his right hand raised to his chest.
It was obvious what was going on. He was having a heart attack.
‘Mary Jo,’ she said. ‘Chip’s in trouble.’
Mary Jo gave her a long, piercing look, then unclipped her seat belt and stood up.
‘I’m not going to do anything,’ she said. ‘I’m talking to you. The pilot. So keep the plane level. There’s a medical emergency.’
‘Heart attack?’ Jill said.
‘Maybe,’ Mary Jo replied. ‘I’ll take a look.’
She knelt by the man and took his wrist in her hand. It was the second wrist she’d held in the last ten minutes.
‘His pulse is faint and irregular, but he has one,’ she said. She beckoned to Jill. ‘We need to lift him so his knees are close to his chest. Put his back to the window and we can put his feet on the seat, facing the aisle.’
They maneuvered him into the position Mary Jo wanted. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow.
‘Stay with him,’ Mary Jo said. She went to her seat and opened her backpack. She took out a small medical kit and dug around. She pulled out a pill packet, then grabbed some of the paper towels Marcia had brought for Kevin.
She opened a bottle of water and poured some on the paper towels. She handed one to Jill. ‘See if you can bring him round. Put this on his forehead.’ She passed the water bottle to her. ‘And if you can, get him to take a sip.’
Jill pressed the paper towel to his brow. His eyes fluttered open. She lifted the water bottle to his lips.
‘Have a sip.’
She tilted it up and he drank a little. Mary Jo unwrapped the pill packet and took out two small, round, white tablets.
‘Aspirin,’ she said. ‘It’ll thin the blood. Make things a bit easier.’ She pressed them to his mouth and he parted his lips. Jill lifted the bottle and he swallowed them with some more water.
