PULAU MATI

by John L. Evans

  Four days after their meeting, Dawoud called Haatim and told him a crate was to arrive for him at the Sorong airport. While the parts were en route, Samir contacted Ikrimah in Kuala Lumpur and picked his brain on what he would need to know to refuel the 797.

  Kamil also spoke with Ikrimah and through conversations and transmitted schematics the pilot learned most of what he would need to know about starting the engines and other pilot controlled functions of the 797. Ikrimah and Kamil would be connected by satellite phone during his take off from the island. Dawoud instructed Ikrimah to plan how they could deactivate all types of automatic transmitters that might give away the aircraft’s flight path or its location should it crash on approach to the island.

  Four days before Bayani Isagani was to depart Kuala Lumpur, the Zaafir arrived at pulau harapan carrying Haatim along with Fadi, Kamil, Dawoud’s second in command, Labeeb, Samir, and fifteen of Dawoud’s best soldiers. Dawoud was near Manila handling safekeeping of Bayani’s family and delivering instructions to him.

  Haatim and his crew used the four days to lay the anti-shipping mines around the approach to the island and the channel between the two islands. Each morning Haatim led the men in especially long and fervent prayer before they started. Laying the mines from the fantail of the Zaafir was not just tedious but extremely perilous. Fadi had to determine the depth of the water where each mine was placed, allow for current and then set anchor length and fuse the mine. If a single mine detonated on the Zaafir, the ship and everyone aboard would be vaporized.

  Alan Devanwood had begged Bayani to apply a tourniquet to his left arm where a bullet had nicked an artery. The co-pilot complied with the request, however Alan was also shot in the chest and was bleeding internally but there was nothing to be done about that. It was a miracle he was still conscious although he had gone away once. Both he and the observer lay on the floor. Alan had moved himself so he could watch Bayani fly the airplane and had heard what the co-pilot had said about Abu Sayyaf kidnapping his family and demanding he land the plane. That meant the passengers and crew would become hostages and Abu Sayyaf was not known for turning hostages over alive and they dragged out negotiations as though time had no meaning. And any place they would have Bayani land this airplane was likely very remote and certainly without medical facilities to deal with his chest wound. His only chance at living, and very likely the only chance for the rest of the crew and passengers was to overpower Bayani and fly the airplane to the nearest city with an airport capable of handling the 797.

  Bayani had frisked him before applying the tourniquet but he had not frisked the observer who when shot had slid out of the seat and onto his back. While Bayani was busy studying the displays, Alan had run his hand over the observer’s zipped up jacket on the off chance the man was carrying a firearm. Alan coughed and moved about as though suffering, which he was, but he wanted Bayani to be used to him moving so he would not turn around frequently and check on him. He could feel nothing under the man’s left arm or the right. Only when he slid his hand under the man did his hopes rise but he needed to pull the man’s jacket up in order to clear the pistol. He groaned and rolled up with his back to Bayani and facing the observer to cover what his right hand was doing. He dropped his head against the body like he was in agony. Then he heard Bayani telling someone on the intercom he was less than fifteen minutes from landing. It was time Alan gathered his strength or it would simply be too late.

  Allan pulled the pistol free, saw it was a Glock and felt behind the port for the extractor to determine if there was a cartridge in the chamber. For a moment his blood starved brain failed to remember whether it was a raised or flush extractor that indicated a loaded chamber. With the pistol tucked out of sight between his body and the observer’s, he pulled back the slide enough one handed to visually verify a round in the chamber. The rounds they were required to use in the firearms they carried aboard were loaded with frangible bullets and although they were less likely to pierce the skin of the airplane, that was not the biggest hazard, damage to the avionics or controls systems which were all electrical in this aircraft was the major hazard. Alan tried to move so he had a clear shot at Bayani’s vitals but he was weaker than he had believed. It took him two attempts just to struggle to one knee and the co-pilot turned and saw the Glock.

  Alan fired into Bayani’s chest but before he collapsed the co-pilot drew his gun and shot Alan in the stomach. Nearly blind with pain, Alan lunged and kept Bayani from falling into the controls but that was very nearly the last of his strength. Too weak to pull Bayani from the pilot’s seat to keep him from slumping back into the controls, Alan cinched the dead man’s seat belt tight and reclined the seat back. Consciousness fading, he struggled into the co-pilot’s seat. There was no option of flying the airplane to an airport now. His hold on consciousness could not last more than a few minutes.

  He pulled the throttles, trimmed the airplane into a shallow climb to bleed off speed and waited but there was little time. He dropped the flaps, perhaps prematurely but they held and the airplane slowed dramatically and then he saw, far ahead in the haze of distance, the island where he guessed Bayani was supposed to land. Out the right hand wind screen was another island. He refused to give the terrorists even the satisfaction of knowing what happened to the airplane so he banked to the right toward the other island but swooned and inadvertently pitched the plane down, nearly contacting the water with a wing but jerked it level in time.

  The airplane carried rafts but if he could land near enough the other island it would give the survivors a far greater chance. His vision was failing but he had to be smooth and level at impact and then keep the airplane level after the skip. Briefly he thought perhaps he should have unlocked the door and asked for assistance but it was too late now. Only seconds of life remained for him. He was perfect on the first contact with the water but he had no more strength to even sit up and collapsed onto the control wheel.

  Gray heard a muffled yell from the flight deck followed by two muffled gun shots. For a breath holding moment nothing changed, then the engine noise abruptly ceased and the aircraft nosed up slightly.

  “Strap yourself in!” Gray hollered and reached for his own seat belt. The whine of flaps coming down filled the cabin. The aircraft pitched forward as if it were diving into the water but came back to level flight and then banked slightly. Gray looked out the window. The right wing tip was so close to the water his heart skipped a beat. The plane was slowing rapidly. This was not an approach even to a sea level strip. A small island lay at about the two o’clock position and the airplane was slowing as it turned toward it. Whoever was flying the aircraft was struggling. The island disappeared to the front and the aircraft leveled and dropped lower.

  “Everyone brace themselves!” Gray hollered. “We are going to hit the water!” Through the gap in the paneling between the sections he saw people scurrying for seats.

  Chapter III The Island

  The first impact slammed Gray against the seat belt. He guessed the engines had been ripped from the wings but he did not want to turn his head to verify it for fear his neck would be in a vulnerable position on the next hit. The plane was level and slower and he hoped the next impact would be less brutal. He hoped for one more clean touch down and recovery which he believed would bring down the speed enough that the plane might stay intact but it was wishful thinking. The left wing suddenly dropped. A powerful force jerked Gray forward and then another slammed him so violently sideways he was stunned to near unconsciousness. Through a numbing haze he registered a horrendous cacophony of screams and tearing and was then crushed by a force that ripped his hands from their grip on the arm rests and threatened to tear his arms from his shoulders. He had held his breath at the beginning of the last series of impacts but the blast of water from behind forced most of it out. The thought to reach under the seat for a flotation device never entered his mind. His sequence of thoughts was simple and linear, unlatch the seat belt, reach for Anna, she w
as not there, push toward the light. He thrashed in a dark cloud of bubbles and then a hand grasped his shirt and yanked him upward. His lungs were bursting and he kicked to rise faster. His head popped above the surface. He tried to suck in a lungful of air but choked and coughed explosively instead. Gasping and choking was his entire world until he got his first deep breath. Confused but treading water instinctively, he recognized Anna holding a seat cushion against her chest and supporting him with her other hand. Seat cushions were popping up all around them and he grabbed one for himself.

  “Anna, are you okay?”

  Between coughs she answered, “I think so. You?”

  He had to think about it to answer. “I guess. I haven’t lost any limbs. How did you, we, get out of the plane?”

  “I think the airplane broke up.”

  A head came to the surface. It was the Latin looking man Gray had seen earlier. The man coughed, glanced past Gray and started swimming by him without saying a word.

  Gray turned himself in the water and saw the island. The sun had not yet risen above it and the light was indirect. His eyes adjusted to the shadow and although it is difficult to accurately estimate distances from so low in the water he guessed they were no more than a hundred yards from a gentle surf and a beach of white sand. Another cluster of debris was popping up about two hundred feet away parallel to the beach.

  “Anna, can you make the shore?”

  “Yes,” she coughed.

  They had drifted a ways from where they had come to the surface. He squeezed her hand and kicked back toward the rising debris and bubbles near where they had surfaced. The stink of jet fuel assaulted his nostrils. After kicking a short distance pushing a seat cushion before him, he took his shoes off and struggled out of his pants. A head bobbed up amidst the debris followed by another.

  Lex was the first head and gasped but sunk below the surface while trying to take in air. Gray grabbed under his armpit and pulled him up. The young man coughed out water and sucked air frantically. Gray shoved the seat cushion at him and asked him if he could make it to shore. Lex started kicking for shore without answering.

  The other head belonged to Sani but his eyes were lifeless. Gray took several deep breaths without coughing, closed his eyes to avoid the jet fuel, and dove under water. When he opened his eyes, a great, round blackness loomed before him that turned out to be the open end of the front section of the aircraft. The aircraft must have broken apart between the business class and economy class sections. The top of the front section was less than six feet under the surface. Torn cables flailed like tentacles from the edges of the section and torn ducting and metal and composite beams protruded like great claws among the tentacles. The salt water was buoyant and the remainder of his clothes made it difficult to descend but he reached an intact seat and held on. He worked his way forward by grasping the next seat and the next. The section was tilted 20 degrees nose up preserving an air pocket at the ceiling. He let go of the seat and floated up through the debris that had accumulated in the air pocket. Someone, no, two or more people were splashing and gasping within feet of him but the lighting was so poor he did not recognize anyone until face to face with Melanie.

  “Melanie, Melanie!” he choked out. “The water is shallow out there!” He choked and coughed. When the coughing subsided he said, “Just pull your head under and push out that way!” She did not register his presence in her panic.

  “Melanie, I’ll go with you! Take a deep breath! You’ll be out in seconds!”

  She wasn’t responding. He worked his way behind her, catching some blows from her kicking feet. He took several breaths and grabbed her belt and hair, pulled her under and shoved her toward the opening. She rose through the tentacles of cabling at the edge of the section and he turned and pushed along the ceiling to work his way back into the air pocket. The other person in the air pocket was less frantic but from the rapid breathing still sounded very frightened. When he moved close he recognized one of the flight attendants. Her veil was snagged onto something underwater and she had gotten tangled in it while trying to remove her uniform.

  “Take deep slow breathes and stop kicking so hard,” he said, coughing and trying to follow his own advice. “We are only six feet below the surface and there’s a beach very near. We’ll need to get that veil off. It may catch in the cables. Can you take it off?”

  “Need veil undone. You do that.” She found a hand hold and relaxed.

  Gray slid his hand along the veil under water and found where the attached cap was wedged between broken panels of the interior. The veil was as strong as a rope but by wrapping it around his hand and yanking he pulled it free from where it was sown to the cap. With the end free, the young woman unwound it from her neck and arm and lifted it over her head. In seconds she had her uniform jacket off and had kicked out of the skirt.

  “Now can swim,” she said.

  Gray said, “Good. Just nod when you have a deep breath and I will give you a shove and follow you to make sure you don’t get tangled up.”

  “Okay,” the young woman said, sounding surprisingly confident.

  She inhaled and nodded. She had so little mass Gray was able to shove her well under to clear the cables and jagged edges and then shove her past the open end of the section. When she was clear he pulled himself back into the air pocket. A head floating face down in the water bobbed beside him. He lifted the head. It was Lleyton Parker, the tennis player and he appeared alive but unresponsive. Gray turned Lleyton away from him and bear hugged him twice, as hard as he could. The young man spewed a stream of water from his mouth and coughed but was still limp. Gray squeezed twice more, took breaths of his own and pushed out of the air pocket with Lleyton in front of him.

  When Gray popped out of the water, Anna was beside him. “Did the flight attendant make it?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Can you take this guy to shore?” he asked. He heard her say, “Yes,” and then something else but he had filled his lungs again and was diving under. He made a run seat by seat across the front of the cabin. The water was cloudy, he thought from blood. His eyes were hardly focusing and fatigue was sapping his will. He rose to the air pocket. The air was foul but it took away the need to go to the surface. He fought the urge to cough. Two inert bodies floated among the debris. Despite their condition, he pushed them out of the air pocket. Twenty one passengers and four attendants had been on the plane, so where were the others? For a moment he blanked and found himself entwined in the cables. He pushed out of them and found himself in the air pocket again. The dizzying fog engulfing him told him the air in the pocket was no longer fit to breath. He pulled himself once more toward the opening and everything became soft and blurry.

  When Gray awoke, Anna, clad only in a bra and panties, was on her knees leaning over him. He was lying on the sand of the beach. When he smiled up at her she let out a little cry and bowed her forehead to his chest like she was praying.

  When he sat up and tried to breathe deeply he went into a coughing fit. His throat was raw. When the coughing subsided he made to stand but Anna said, “No, you idiot. You’ve done enough.”

  He stood despite her admonition and counted the people and bodies on the beach. “Twelve! Where is everybody?”

  Anna held onto his arm like he was going to make a run for the water but he had no will to go back in. She said, “The count is fourteen. The airline man, Malik, is down the beach a ways, along with a young man with a bad head injury. We will have to carry Malik. The other man can probably walk but he is resting. Four of the fourteen are dead. We think the others were thrown out. The old Japanese man swam in from over there, pulling his dead wife.” Anna pointed out past where Gray guessed the front section lay. Then she nodded up the beach where an old man wearing black trousers and a white shirt sat in the shade of a palm tree. He was gazing across the beach at the bodies. The Latin looking man was lying back in the sand nearby.

  “How long was I out?” Gray asked.


  Lex came across the beach before Anna could answer. “You were out for a long time, dude. Anna had to drag you in. She saved your ass.”

  Gray reached for the young woman’s shoulder. “Anna, thank you… twice if my memory is intact.”

  Lex was grinning. “Thank you, man! The flight attendant told us you got her and Melanie out! What was your name?”

  “Grayden, call me Gray.”

  “Okay, Gray. Thanks again.”

  “How is Lleyton?” Gray asked.

  Anna shook her head. “He is very bad. A big cut across his side and one across his thigh to the bone.” Anna traced a finger in foot long arcs on her side and thigh to indicate the length and location of the cuts. She turned to where Melanie and the flight attendant who had been in the air pocket were kneeling by the young tennis player. On unsteady legs, Gray trudged across the sand to them.

  Someone had made bandages from the veils and other clothing and bound up the young man’s left leg and his torso but blood was already seeping through the fabric. The tan face Gray had seen on the plane was now grey in color but he was awake and when Gray knelt beside him the young man grinned and said, “Crikey, mate, that second bump was a nasty one, eh what?”

  Gray had to smile at the young man’s spirit. He recalled that Lleyton had played tennis with the same indefatigable spirit. “It was all of that, Lleyton. I think it’s going to be awhile before we can get you professional help. The best thing for you is to rest as hard as you play tennis. We’ll get you up in the shade in a bit and something to drink and maybe eat later.”

  “Aww, Mate, all I need is this lovely sheila and I be oiright,” he said and lifted a hand to Melanie’s cheek. His smile suddenly faded and he gasped from a surge of pain that showed in his face. He recovered but was left panting. “Roland, he about?” he asked.

  Gray looked at the others. Anna shrugged and shook her head. Lex nodded over to the beach where the four bodies were laid out side by side and said, “He’s not one of them.”