Skyjacked, page 7
But would there be a from now on?
Would she get another chance to do it, to really live, the way Cassie did?
Or was she soon to follow Cassie?
She forced herself to look at the corpse, to see the face, to focus on Cassie’s mouth, still partly open.
Appuh …
Not Appaloosa horse. No way.
Tony was looking out one of the right-side windows. Emily checked the sky. The sun was just about gone.
“She’ll land it soon,” Tony said.
“Crash-land it into the ocean?” Jay said.
“If crashing was the plan, she’d have hit Seattle. That was her chance to do maximum damage. We’re heading south-southwest by the look of the dusk. I suspect she’ll angle back toward land, probably aim for a touchdown somewhere near the coast, at one of the bigger airports where whoever is helping her can blend in with the crowd—maybe San Fran or LA. This will be over in a couple of hours. We just have to hang in until then.” He sat back into the recliner, staring at Cassie. “It doesn’t make sense, poisoning Cass. Hey, she was allergic to peanuts. Did you all maybe eat some candy and then touch something she ate?”
“I saw her react to peanuts once,” Brandon said. “She didn’t know there was peanut oil in the new salad dressing at this place we used to go to. The reaction was nothing like this. It had to be a poisoning.”
“Why poison Cassie and not the rest of us?” Tim said.
“She was the only one besides Tony who might have been able to land the plane if we were successful in raiding the cockpit,” Brandon said.
“But how would Sofia know that?” Emily said. “I knew Nick. I know him. He just wouldn’t do anything to hurt Cassie—or anybody. He volunteers in a soup kitchen.”
“Wake up, Em,” Tim said. “He was doing that to make himself seem like a good guy, the kind who’d never be part of a hijacking.”
“Easy, Tim,” Emily said. “Now is not the time to lose it.”
“Then when is a good time?” Tim said. “I’m just sick of you trusting people you don’t really know.” He was looking at Jay.
Jay?
No way was he in on this.
No way.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Jay said.
“Like what?” Tim said.
“Guys,” Emily said.
“I think we might want to consider another attempt,” Reeva said.
Emily wasn’t the only one who snap-turned toward Reeva.
“Attempt on the cockpit?” Tim said.
Reeva nodded. “We need to act fast, as in now.”
JAY
8:14 p.m. PT
In the B550
“Reeva, you were dead set against attacking the cockpit not too long ago,” Tim said. He looked even more panicked now, Jay thought.
“Tony’s right,” Reeva said. “She’s angling back toward land. Look.”
Jay looked out the left-side windows and saw distant lights, clumps of silver and streaks of dim gold, highways and towns along the coast—and then thickening streaks leading inland to shimmering silver, clearly a city.
“That’s gotta be Portland,” Tony said.
“She’s going to crash the plane,” Reeva said.
“How do you know?” Em said. “Why are you suddenly changing your mind like this?”
“My gut.”
“That’s not good enough, Reeva,” Brandon said. His eyes ticked from Reeva to Tony and then back to Reeva.
Jay felt a step behind. Something was happening here, between Reeva and Tony. They were staring at each other.
“If we attempt another shot at the cockpit, she’ll hit us with the foam,” Tim said. “No way I’m being the front guy again, taking the brunt of it. In fact, you guys can count me out. I’m with Tony: This’ll be over in an hour, two tops. Let her land the plane.”
“Or fly it into a baseball stadium,” Reeva said. “You’re not going to have to get close to the door this time, Tim. I’m going to shoot out the lock, like Brandon suggested earlier.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait,” Emily said. “You want the gun now?”
Jay watched Emily’s eyes narrow the way Cassie’s had whenever Reeva was around.
Had Cassie been right? Could Reeva be working with Sofia after all?
“I’ll be the first through the door,” Reeva said. “If Sofia so much as shows her face, I’ll shoot her, center of mass, done. And then Tony can take over the controls.”
“Reeva, you’re the one who said Sofia would know all the protocols about the gun,” Emily said.
“I was wrong. I had to be. If she had known that both Tony and I are needed to open the gun safe, she wouldn’t have given us Tony. She can’t know there’s a gun on board.”
“Wait, why did she put Tony out here with us, then?” Tim said.
“She was afraid he’d wake up eventually, and then he’s kicking and screaming, trying to free himself while she’s trying to fly the plane,” Emily said.
“Then why didn’t she just kill him?” Tim said. “It’s because she wants him alive. She wants all of us alive, because this is a ransom thing, guys.”
“Then why’d she kill Cassie?” Emily said.
“We don’t know for sure that she did!”
“C’mon, Tim,” Emily said. “You really think Cass died because you ate a Reese’s and then touched the microwave handle, and then she touched the microwave handle?”
“Don’t look at me that way,” Tim said.
“What way?”
“Like I’m an idiot.”
“Tim, easy,” Brandon said, but Tim cut him off.
“If Sofia did poison Cassie somehow, some crazy way that none of us can figure out, then Cass’s death was a mistake. She wanted her incapable of flying the plane maybe, but she wanted her alive.”
“Reeva, we can’t storm the cockpit,” Tony said. “The spyhole camera—Sofia will see you take the gun out of the safe. She’ll dump the plane into a dive and only pull out of it if you back off.”
“We’ll cover the camera,” Reeva said.
“Then she’ll definitely dump the plane,” Tim said. “Please, you guys, just let the psycho land the plane and get her money and get gone. It’s the only way we survive this.”
Reeva pointed out a left-side window. “We’re angling toward that patch of lights. The longer we debate this, the less time we have to take over the cockpit and the flight controls. We have to decide.”
Getting near a city was definitely making Reeva very nervous. Was there some sort of military protocol she wasn’t telling them about, like a runaway plane approaching a city gets shot down when it’s ten miles out, or maybe twenty?
Reeva was right—they were running out of time and had to decide—but Tony had made a good point. Sofia would see the gun come out of the safe. Tim was right too. If they tried to block the camera, Sofia would have to assume they were going to raid the cockpit.
Everyone looked to Tony. He was staring at the cockpit door, then he looked out the window, to the growing city lights. “I still think that if she wanted to crash the plane, she would have done it by now.”
“Tony, if you won’t help me get the gun out of the safe, then I’ll storm the cockpit myself with the battering ram,” Reeva said. “Even if I can talk some of you into helping me, we’ll still need two or three runs at the door, if Sofia doesn’t hit us with the foam. By the time we hit that door hard enough to knock it down, Sofia will have had a half minute or more to put the plane into a free fall. With the gun, I can shoot out the lock from a distance. She won’t be able to spray the foam, because the second I see that door open—whether she opens it or I shoot it open—I’ll shoot her, if she doesn’t come out with her hands up. With the gun, we’ll breach the cockpit in seconds. That won’t be enough time for her to put the plane into an unrecoverable dive. Time to choose, gang. Battering ram or gun. Either way, I’m taking a shot at that cockpit door.” Reeva got behind the refrigerator and started to push it toward the door.
Jay was torn. His instinct was to help Reeva, but at the same time this nasty image was forefront in his mind: the plane in a dead-drop nosedive. In the end, Tony saved him from having to decide.
“Zero, seven, one, six,” Tony said. “That’s my code for the gun safe.”
Tim cursed and stomped, Emily seemed relieved, and Brandon could have gone either way.
For his own part, Jay felt wobbly. The idea of having another go at the cockpit did not thrill him, but then he wasn’t too happy about the alternative, hoping that Sofia was rational enough to want a ransom deal instead of a suicide crash.
The strangest reaction of all was Reeva’s. She was glaring at Tony. She went to the coat closet, which opened onto the passenger aisle. Reeva opened the door so that it blocked the view of the pinhole camera.
The plane seemed to dip a little—or was Jay imagining it?
Jay couldn’t see the gun-safe keypad from where he was in the aisle, but the motion of Reeva’s arm told him she tapped it four times. That had to be her code, because she asked Tony for confirmation of his. “Zero, seven, one, six?”
“Correct,” Tony said, his voice shaky.
Tim paced and pulled at his hair.
Brandon was motionless next to Tony.
Jay felt Emily grab his hand for the second time as Reeva keyed in Tony’s code.
The safe door didn’t open.
MICHELLE
11:23 p.m. ET (8:23 p.m. PT)
Coltsville, Virginia, NATIC
The stuff Michelle had compiled on Cassie, Brandon, and Emily was interesting, but none of it seemed useful to the investigation. She was about to look into Tim and especially Jay, the newcomer to the group, when she remembered what Major Serrano had told her not too long ago, that information was important but just as important was knowing how to prioritize it. Yes, everybody on the plane was a potential suspect, but who was more likely to be a hijacker: a kid who had a huge future to look forward to, or an adult with an ax to grind? That’s what had made Michelle shift gears to the chaperone, Reeva Powell, and she’d struck gold. She quickly scanned what she’d found so far:
A simple Google search revealed that Reeva was suing the government, specifically Medicaid. Her mother’s Parkinson’s required round-the-clock care, Reeva stated in her lawsuit, and Medicaid sent health-care aides to the apartment for only eight hours a day. Reeva, working full time, cared for her mom during the nights and paid for private nursing assistance to cover the hours she couldn’t be there.
But now Reeva was broke. Her credit report said she was struggling to keep up with the interest-only payments on a hundred and fifty thousand dollars she owed a sketchy financial services company, basically a loan shark with a website.
Reeva needed help. When she had to work late, she’d been forced to leave her mom alone, and Mrs. Powell fell and hit her head. She was in intensive care for five weeks. Some of the doctors in the hospital didn’t accept Medicaid, and the bills from that one fall were part of the reason Reeva had to take out the high-interest loan.
Reeva Powell was desperate for cash.
Michelle checked the Big Board for any news. The Pacific time zone clock said 8:24 p.m.
TIM
8:24 p.m. PT
In the B550
Tim didn’t like the look on Reeva’s face as she stared at the door of the gun safe. She had lost her trademark calm. “Let’s try it one last time, Tony. Zero, seven, one, six is your code. You’re sure?”
“It’s my birthday, July sixteenth.”
Reeva tried again.
Nope.
“Guys, is the plane dipping?” Tim said, staggering a bit. Or was he just imagining it was dipping, more like dropping?
Tony stepped toward the safe. “Here, Reeva, let me—”
“Stay right there,” Reeva said.
“Reeva,” Tony said, “we’re all on the same side here.”
Reeva glared at him. Something was way wrong.
“Try putting in my code first, then,” Tony said.
“It doesn’t matter which goes first,” Reeva said.
“Then you must have put yours in wrong,” Tony said.
Reeva turned back to the keypad.
Tony whipped his nearly full water bottle at her head. The bottle was plastic but the cap was on tight. It probably weighed three times what a baseball did and hit Reeva in the face. She went down, her hands over her left eye.
Tony rushed the safe and tapped the keypad.
The safe door swung open.
Tony reached in with both hands. One hand came back out with the gun and the other with the ammunition clip.
Wait, what was Tim supposed to do now? Clearly Reeva and Tony were not on the same team. What team was Tim supposed to be on? Which team had the best chance of winning, or at least surviving?
From the floor, Reeva kicked Tony’s knee. His leg buckled, and as he went down, she kidney-punched him. He hit the floor and rolled away just clear of her so she couldn’t grab the gun. He pushed the clip into the gun and pointed it at her. From his knees he said, “Reeva, freeze. I swear I’ll do it.”
But Reeva kept coming at him.
Tony pulled the trigger.
Tim winced, anticipating the sound of the shot.
It didn’t come.
Reeva kicked the gun from Tony’s hand. It landed practically at Tim’s feet. As much as he’d wanted to try it out back at the campsite, he didn’t even want to touch it now. So then why was he bending down to pick it up, reaching for it, the gun an inch from his hand?
Reeva snatched it and clicked something on the side of the gun—the safety. She pointed it at Tony. “It’ll fire this time,” she said.
Tony put up his hands.
“Back up,” Reeva said. He did, on his knees. Reeva swung the gun toward Tim.
“Whoa,” Tim said. “Whoa! Why me?”
“Because you’re standing too close to me. Back up. Everybody stay absolutely still until I give you direction to move.”
“Cassie was right,” Emily said, though she stayed absolutely still, Tim noticed. “You were in on this all along.”
Reeva ignored her. “Tony, get onto the floor, facedown. Put your hands behind your back. Brandon, Jay, I need you to tie him up, hands very, very tight. Use Brandon’s belt.”
“Don’t do it, Brand,” Emily said.
“Brandon, cuff Tony, or I will have to shoot him. He’s the one. He’s working with Sofia.”
“That’s not possible,” Tim said.
“And why not?” Reeva said.
“Because …” Tim couldn’t think of anything other than he didn’t want Tony to be in on this. If Tony was rotten, then where did that leave the Hartwell crew in terms of their chances of making it off the plane alive?
“I was thinking the same thing about you, Reeva,” Tony said. “And even if you’re not in on this deal, you’re going to get us killed, trying to get into that cockpit.”
“Tony, stop talking, or I really will have to shoot you.” Reeva turned to the others. “Gang, think. Tim, when the cockpit door opened and the fire extinguisher blasted you, did you actually see Sofia? Because I didn’t.”
She was right. The person holding the extinguisher had been a silhouette with the sunset coming into the cockpit. It could have been Tony. But …
“But then how did he end up on the floor?” Tim said.
“He blinded everybody and filled the hallway with a cloud of powder,” Reeva said. “He tossed the extinguisher back into the cockpit and dropped to the floor. Then he let the door slam behind him. Sofia stayed by the flight controls to drop the plane, in case the cockpit breach was successful.”
Everything Reeva was saying made sense, and on top of that she looked sensible in her nice clean suit while the rest of them were a wild mess with all the powder on their clothes, in their hair. Wait, Reeva was the only person on the plane who hadn’t been hit with the powder …
It was happening too fast. Tim was woozy with too many thoughts swirling in his brain, or maybe because the plane was turning again, though he couldn’t be sure of even that much. Maybe the turning, dipping—the whole hijacking—was in his mind. “Please let this be a bad dream,” he heard himself whisper.
Reeva looked at him with disgust. “Tim, wake up. Brandon, Emily, Jay, be logical.”
“But if Tony really was the one who sprayed us, how did he handcuff himself with the earbud wire?” Tim said. “It was like three seconds from the time the fire extinguisher blasted us, and then Tony was on the floor, hands tied behind his back.”
“They weren’t,” Reeva said, “not tightly anyway. I thought that was strange, that Sofia hadn’t done a better job restraining him. The wire was loose enough for Tony to get his hands in there, fast. It was an act. Brandon, Jay, for the last time, cuff him.”
“I’m not resisting,” Tony said, “but we have to back away from the cockpit door.” And he really didn’t seem to be resisting Brandon and Jay as they clamped their hands on his wrists. They didn’t seem eager to cuff him, but they didn’t look too sure about letting go of him either. Tony nodded toward the cockpit. “She sees what’s going on here. She sees the gun. We’re beginning to lose altitude. Can’t you feel it?”
Tim followed Tony’s eyes to the cockpit. The coatroom door had swung shut in the scuffle, and Tim could see the emergency light over the cockpit entrance, where the pinhole camera was.
“Guys, everybody back up,” Tim said. “We have to show Sofia we’re not going to rush the cockpit with the gun. Seriously, Tony’s right, the plane keeps dipping.”
“It’s been flying like this the whole time,” Reeva said, “side to side, up and down. You’re only noticing it now because he’s calling your attention to it. It’ll level off.”
“Just the same,” Tony said, “it can’t hurt to retreat a little, right?”
“Please, Reeva,” Tim said. “Backing up can’t hurt.”
“You all first,” Reeva said.
Tim backed up so fast he tripped into one of the recliners.
