Altitude (Power Reads Book 1)

by Dean Crawford

  The rest of the passengers remained silent, none of them able to argue with the lank–haired man’s logic. Even Chloe could admit to herself that she was sore at Becca and the pilots for keeping her out of the loop for so long, even though she knew that it was being done for the good of everyone on board. Passengers, crowds more so, could be unpredictable and dangerous even, especially in the confined spaces of the passenger cabin where even a hint of violence could quickly drag others into a potentially lethal confrontation. She had seen evidence of that herself, when a drunk football hooligan had somehow got aboard a European short haul flight and started abusing the stewardesses. Other passengers had gotten involved, and before she had known it there had been a four–man brawl right there in Row Seventeen. The plane had been forced to divert and land at Frankfurt, much to the chagrin of everybody else aboard.

  ‘They keep information to themselves to protect us,’ Chloe said to nobody in particular. ‘We just need to trust them to get us all home safely.’

  ‘That’s the problem, isn’t it?’ the lank–haired man pointed out. ‘I don’t trust them now because I know that they’ve lied to us.’

  ‘Well, you don’t have much of a choice now, do you?’ Chloe shot back. ‘Because you’re not able to fly the plane.’

  The lank–haired man looked as though he was about to stand and confront her, the two burly passengers likewise making to stand up to intercept him. Chloe felt a wave of panic and regret as she realised that she had provoked the very same response that she had hoped to avert.

  ‘Okay, that’s enough,’ she said as she stood behind the trolley and used it to block the aisle. ‘This isn’t going to help anyone.’

  The two muscular men hesitated, their arms bulging and their eyes fixed upon the scrawny man behind Chloe, who was displaying the first hints of true panic as he registered the physical size of the two men staring him down.

  ‘Get back in your seats, all of you,’ Chloe insisted.

  The three men didn’t move, and Chloe was about to make a dash for the cockpit intercom system to call for help when the cockpit door opened and Becca stepped out.

  ***

  XIX

  Becca heard the cockpit door lock behind her in the same instant that she saw Chloe confronting the two big men blocking the aisle, the lank–haired passenger who had caused so much disruption earlier cowering behind the stewardess. They all turned to look at her, Chloe’s expression one of anxiety and relief, and Becca sensed that she had inadvertently prevented another uprising as she had exited the cockpit.

  ‘Get back in your seat,’ she snapped at the lank–haired man, pointing at his seat as she glared at him.

  The man hesitated as though uncertain whether he wanted to be seen to obey her in front of the other passengers, but then he slunk back into his seat as Chloe turned to the two bigger guys on the other side of her trolley.

  ‘Why don’t you both sit back down too, and see what she has to say?’

  The two passengers cast dark glances at the lank–haired man as they turned and re–took their seats. Chloe moved the trolley out of the way and hurried down the aisle, leaving Becca to stand before the expectant ranks of passengers. For a brief instant Becca felt as though Chloe was abandoning her to face the music, and she regretted being so harsh with her only minutes before, but there was no time now to patch up what had happened as over one hundred pairs of eyes were locked onto hers.

  She knew damned well that she could not afford to lie to the passengers, and yet neither could she afford to tell them the true depth of their predicament. Captain Reed’s assertion that she should tell as much of the truth as possible had worked once before but had then blown up in her face with the unexpected revelations detected on cell phones and other connected devices.

  ‘We’re waiting.’

  The lank haired man was sitting with his arms folded, staring at her with one raised eyebrow. Becca resisted the urge to yank one of the fire extinguishers off the wall beside where she stood and ram it into his face. Instead, she unhooked a microphone and activated the public address system.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I have spoken to the pilots and they have informed me that it is their intention to remain aloft for as long as is possible before making a final descent into Keflavik. This is because the gases in the air over the airport will take time to clear.’

  There was a disaffected rumbling from the crowd that leaped back and forth like a live current between them. Whispers chased here and there, too soft for Becca to hear precisely what they were saying, and then the lank–haired man spoke out again.

  ‘And if the gases don’t clear up?’ he demanded.

  The cabin fell silent and Becca took a deep breath as she replied.

  ‘Then the airplane will divert to a secondary field, the inconvenience of which I apologise for in advance.’

  There were more rumblings and whispers as a voice called out from Row Eighteen.

  ‘How come they haven’t diverted already then?’

  More rumblings and whispers, getting stronger by the moment.

  ‘Why would they shut down an engine to save fuel if there’s somewhere else to go?’

  ‘Why take the risk that we get so short of fuel that we can’t go anywhere else?’

  ‘Why didn’t the pilots tell us that when they had the chance?’

  The protests rose in volume and intensity as Becca replied, trying not to shout but to let the broadcast system amplify her voice all on its own.

  ‘There is more to a diversion than just changing course,’ Becca said, clutching at whatever ideas fluttered into her mind. ‘They have to calculate a multiude of variables in order to decide which way to go.’

  ‘So, there’s more than one option then?’

  ‘How come we haven’t been consulted about these other options?’

  ‘What other options? Iceland is an island!

  ‘I believe that there is another airport called Akureryi in the north of the country that the pilots may try to divert to,’ Becca tried again.

  ‘Then why aren’t we heading there now? How come we’re still circling overhead Keflavik and wasting time and fuel?’

  Becca knew that she was in danger now of losing the passengers’ trust completely. The fickle and nervous crowd was quick to seek blame and to support the complaints of their fellow travellers, directing their anger in a “them and us” manner. With each shouted question and demand they became more animated and angry, and she realised that she might as well have been speaking to herself through the microphone. Nobody was listening any more.

  The lank haired man stood up, shouting over the passengers behind him.

  ‘This is what I’ve been trying to tell you! They’ve got no idea of what to do and no idea of where to go! If there was a diversion airport they could use we’d have been there by now. Iceland is closed to all air traffic and we’re up here running out of fuel!’

  The shouts became louder, nobody remembering Becca’s valiant stance of only a half hour before. Instead they were shouting and pointing and the lank haired man moved to the center of the aisle and pointed at the cockpit door behind her.

  ‘We deserve to know what’s going on!’ he shouted.

  Many of the passengers were now nodding their heads and even shouting their agreement with him.

  ‘If we’re in this together then we all deserve to know everything that they know, and have a say in what happens next!’

  Becca saw more passengers yelling their support, while others remained silent in their seats as they watched the commotion ongoing around them. Becca spotted Chloe at the rear of the plane, near the galley, and she could see that she was worried and unwilling to move back toward the cockpit again. She began pushing the re–filled trolley back up the airplane, but as she handed out drinks Becca watched angry passengers push the offered cartons back, demanding to know what the pilots intended to do.

  The lank haired man, emboldened, turned and pointed at Becca


  ‘Open that cockpit door and have the crew come out and explain everything!’

  Becca shook her head.

  ‘The pilots won’t leave the cockpit, for you or for anybody else. The laws around the security of the cockpit are sacrosanct and…’

  ‘They’ll do as they’re damned well told!’ he yelled back at her, his confidence seemingly fuelled by the outrage of the rest of the passengers. ‘We paid to be on this flight! We pay your wages! Are we somehow second–class citizens to you now?’

  ‘That’s not true, we don’t think of our passengers like that and…’

  ‘We’re all just cattle to you!’ the lank haired man cut her off again. ‘We’re cargo! Our lives don’t mean a damned thing!’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Becca protested again.

  The passengers were in a frenzy now, standing at their seats as they fought for space to watch the confrontation ongoing before them. The lank–haired man poked a bony finger into Becca’s chest.

  ‘Prove it then!’ he snapped back at her. ‘What’s my name?!’

  The crowd went quiet as Becca stared at this man, his bony, angular face glowering down at her.

  ‘What’s my name?’ he demanded again.

  ‘We have over one hundred passengers on every flight,’ Becca hissed back, ‘and three to four flights per day. I don’t know what your damned name is!’

  The lank haired man smiled down at her without any sense of warmth.

  ‘But you’ll deceive me, and lie to me, and keep things from me just like you have deceived and lied to every single person on this airplane, people you’ve never met and whose lives are now in the hands of two pilots who haven’t the decency to come out here and tell us what the bloody hell they’re about to do with our lives!’

  Becca sought some way out of the situation, but somehow the knowledge that she was willingly lying to this man, to everyone aboard the flight, overwhelmed her. She shrank back from him a pace as her story fell apart in front of a hundred people just as it was falling apart in her mind.

  ‘I, er, I don’t…’

  The lank haired man grinned malevolently and then he whirled and stormed past her to the cockpit door and repeatedly slammed his fist against it.

  ‘You in there! Open this door immediately and tell us what the hell is going on! We have a right to know the truth!’

  ***

  XX

  Captain Reed was on his feet in an instant as they both heard a man’s voice outside the cockpit door. Jason moved to follow him, standing more in shock and surprise than anything else.

  ‘Open the door! We have a right to know everything!’

  Jason shot the captain a horrified glance, but Reed seemed unconcerned. He didn’t open the door, but instead switched on a small monitor that showed him the passenger cabin on the other side.

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ Reed uttered as the monitor illuminated.

  Jason felt his guts turn to slime as he saw Becca standing not far from the cockpit door, and between them was a man with greasy looking hair and a gaunt face, his eyes wild with righteous indignation. He was looking directly up at the camera, the entire compliment of passengers watching him.

  ‘I know you can hear me!’ he screeched again.

  Jason could see several other passengers on their feet and crowding the aisle. Although it was hard to tell on the small monitor, it looked as though some of them were intending to step in and stop the man, while others were actively encouraging him. Whatever their intentions, nobody was actually stopping him just yet and Becca appeared frozen to the spot and unable to control what happened.

  ‘You can’t go out there,’ Jason said, sensing that the assumed authority of the cabin crew had been shattered. ‘If you give him what he wants he’ll not stop there and the passengers will be out of control and want to take over the flight.’

  Reed knew that the company protocol regarding hostage situations was as strict as Aviation Law: don’t under any circumstances negotiate or allow access to the cockpit. Jason knew that the captain could seal the cockpit door further in order to prevent forced entry by passengers, however the problems they faced now were far worse than on any ordinary flight. Sealing themselves in and ignoring the commotion in the passenger cabin would almost certainly make things worse. He could tell that Reed was thinking the same things.

  ‘The passengers are already out of control,’ he observed.

  ‘We can’t go out there,’ Jason insisted. ‘The law won’t allow it.’

  The European Aviation Safety Agency’s regulations only required a single pilot to be in the cockpit at a time. However, in the aftermath of tragedies involving pilots who had deliberately flown serviceable aircraft into terrain as a means of committing suicide many airlines adopted new policies requiring two members of staff to be inside the cockpit at all times; a qualified pilot and a member of the cabin crew. The Federal Aviation Authority had enacted even stricter laws requiring two qualified pilots to be aboard at all times.

  ‘The law doesn’t have guidelines for a situation like ours,’ Reed pointed out, ‘and strictly speaking EASA laws overrule Phoenix Air.’

  ‘We can’t just submit to this one guy’s demands.’

  ‘We can’t leave Becca and Chloe out there either. If we ignore this guy the rest of them will see it as a tacit admission that he’s right and we’re hiding from them.’

  ‘Damned right we are,’ Jason agreed. ‘There’s a reason the passengers don’t fly the plane, it’s called two years of intensive training!’

  ‘This isn’t about the training,’ Reed replied. ‘This is about security. If we don’t control this guy, he’s going to control either us or the passengers around him.’

  Jason bit his lip furtively as he watched the enraged man on the camera hammer his fist against the doors once more.

  ‘Why will you not tell us the truth?!’ the man yelled. ‘What are you hiding from us?’

  ‘Don’t do it,’ Jason cautioned.

  ‘The longer we’re silent, the stronger his case becomes!’ Captain Reed shot back in a harsh whisper. ‘We can’t just hide in here and hope they’ll all sit down like good little passengers and behave, while we fly the airplane straight into the ocean because we’re out of fuel or the engines fail due to the ash cloud.’

  ‘They don’t know that’s going to happen and neither do we.’

  ‘No, but it’s a possibility and that’s the fuel to his fire,’ Reed countered. ‘The only way to get those passengers under control is to take that fuel away from him and a public address won’t cut it now. If everything he’s saying is crushed then he has nowhere to go. Besides, what do you think they’re going to do anyway? Even if they rioted, stormed the cockpit and took control of the airplane, what the hell could they possibly do with it? They’re not pilots, Jason. The first thing they’d have to do is hand control back to us again anyway.’

  ‘And maybe dictate what we do as a result of getting in here in the first place!’

  ‘They’re not getting in here,’ Reed insisted as he donned his jacket and pilot’s cap. ‘I’m going out there. If it goes south, as a last resort you can seal the cockpit from the inside with the lock toggle and take us in to Keflavik.’

  The “lock toggle” was a means of securing the cockpit entirely for thirty minutes regardless of any inputs into the entrance keypad on the other side of the door, and was designed to allow an airplane under threat of hijack to land before the would–be intruders could access the cockpit.

  Reed’s hand rested on the door handle as if to say to Jason that come what may, he was heading out into the passenger cabin and there was nothing that Jason could do about it. Jason sighed and stood ready.

  ‘Are you coming out here or do we have to go in there?!’ the lank haired man yelled.

  Captain Reed called back to the other side of the door.

  ‘Get clear of the door. I’m coming out!’

  He turned to Jason and whispered softly. ‘Lock this aft
er me, no matter what happens, understood?’

  Jason nodded.

  Reed took a breath and then unlocked and unlatched the cockpit door and stepped briskly out into the forward passenger cabin. The door slammed shut behind him and Jason locked it in place, then turned to the monitor and watched as Reed moved to confront the enraged passenger.

  *

  Captain Reed saw the lank–haired man back up as he walked out of the cockpit and closed the door behind him. He heard Jason lock the door from the other side. Satisfied that the cockpit was safe from intruders he walked without fear into plain view of the entire passenger cabin.

  ‘About time,’ the lank–haired man said loudly enough to be heard by the passengers as he glanced behind him for their support. ‘All rise, the captain has deigned us important enough to talk to!’

  Captain Reed glanced at Becca, who rolled her eyes briefly. Two rows back, Chloe gestured with a brief jerking motion of a concealed hollowed fist, indicating precisely what she thought of the man. Reed looked him up and down for a moment.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘My name isn’t important here,’ came the belligerent reply. ‘All that’s important is that you…’

  ‘Your name,’ the captain repeated quietly, not needing to elevate his voice and letting his uniform convey his authority.

  ‘Grant, and I speak for all of us when I demand that you tell us precisely what is happening here!’

  Captain Reed slipped his hands into his pockets and let his gaze move slowly across the passengers, as though he was not the least bit concerned about the threat to his authority.

  ‘Really? You couldn’t find anyone better to speak for you?’ he asked them.

  One of the thick–set men near the front pointed at Grant.

  ‘Nobody asked him to speak for us, he just won’t shut up.’

  ‘So I’ve noticed,’ Reed agreed.

  Grant’s pompous tone became shrill, his gaze snapping back and forth between the passengers and the captain.