At the front galley, Perry watched impatiently as James tied the remaining flight attendants together. The business-class passengers sat quietly, their eyes wide with fright.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Perry said, watching James out of the corner of his eye. “I want something that’s on this plane, that’s all. I’m not going to hurt anybody. See? I’m just tying them up. I have the pilot, he’s safe and sound. Everything is going to be fine.”
He sounded ridiculous, he knew, saying all this while waving a gun back and forth between them, the pilot, and the ceiling of the plane. He’d drawn the curtains, fairly certain the passengers in economy hadn’t clued in to what was going on.
Then he heard the captain’s voice getting closer. “Stay calm. Stay in your seat. That is an order… I know, I’m handling it. Stay there. Now. Stay in your seat.”
Her voice stopped. He expected her to rip open the curtain, but she didn’t.
“Miles?”
The last of the flight attendants had zip-tied themselves. They stood strung together like popcorn on a string, crowded into one side of the galley.
“Miles! This is your captain. I want you to answer me. Now.”
Perry held his breath. For all she knew, he could be in the cockpit. But a passenger ratted him out. “He’s here! Holding a gun!”
Perry pointed it at the passenger, then at the ceiling, which drew a round of screams. He yanked James backward just as the curtains parted and the captain stepped forward. Her fierce scowl caused him to steady his gun in her direction. She held up her hands as if surrendering, but her expression didn’t change.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“I don’t want to harm anyone. I just want something that is on this airplane.”
“What?”
“That doesn’t matter at the moment. What matters is that I speak with one of the passengers.”
“All right. We can do that. If you’ll just let me into the cockpit—”
“I’m calling the shots.” He swung the gun around, causing more than a few people to pop their hands up too. He tossed the captain two zip ties. “Tie yourself to the leg of that seat.”
“You need me to fly the airplane.”
“I’ve got two other pilots. But not for long, if you don’t do what I say. I don’t want to get crazy here, but I’ve come this far and I’m not stopping now. I’m going to finish what I started.”
The captain picked up the zip ties. “You’re not an ACI.”
“It doesn’t matter what I am. All that matters now is that I get what I want. And I’ll die trying.” For effect, he pointed the gun at the ceiling. He wasn’t sure if he would die trying or not, but a gun could make it look that way.
Several of the passengers turned toward the captain, their eyes desperate and pleading. She glanced at them and then back at Perry. “You think you’re going to just walk off this plane with whatever it is you want?”
“Nobody knows we’re in distress yet. We land, I get off this plane, and by the time James here alerts the authorities, I’ll be on my way out.” It suddenly hit him that people could use cell phones to call the authorities. They probably couldn’t get a signal yet, but it wouldn’t be long. “Get those zip ties on!”
The captain looked at James.
“I can handle it,” James said, “especially if I can get a candy bar.”
The captain looked torn, but finally she complied. Perry inspected the ties from a distance. They looked snug. He turned to James. “I want you to make an announcement that we’ll be coming through collecting wallets and cell phones.”
James looked at him. “What?”
“Now.”
“But how—”
“Do it.”
James grabbed the intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is First Officer James Lawrence. We have a situation onboard at the moment. We need your complete cooperation. We need you to surrender your wallets and cell phones. Please do as we ask.”
“Tell them I have a gun and not to attack me, or I’ll put a hole in this airplane.”
“A man has a gun. Do not attack him, or he’ll shoot a hole in the airplane.”
“Tell them their lives depend on it.”
James paused, his chin quivering. “Your lives depend on it. Stay calm. Do as I tell you.”
Murmuring started. Perry grabbed a beverage cart, shoved the contents onto the floor, and ordered the pilot to push it down the opposite aisle. He waited impatiently for everyone to empty their pockets.
“Don’t try anything! Get them out here! Pass them down the rows!” He thought it impressive that he thought to ask for credit cards too, so they couldn’t use the Airfones. He was better at this than Miles gave him credit for. He scanned the group of first-class passengers, some of them juggling early morning alcoholic beverages while checking their pockets. “If I see anyone using a cell phone, I’ll blow a hole through this ceiling! I swear it!”
They made their way through business class and into the main cabin, where a hundred pairs of terrified eyes locked on them. “Hurry it up! Don’t try anything crazy! I’ve got your pilot and you’re going to need him!”
He watched as passengers passed their items over. Anyone who didn’t have a cell phone he stared down and asked questions.
“The only hero we need here is this pilot! You need him to get on the ground. Do you hear me?” Perry looked through the crowd for the other pilot. He had to be in the back of the plane, but it didn’t hurt to make blanket threats at this point.
Perry swiped the sweat off his brow. He needed to secure James, and then it would be time to find Jaap Van Der Mark.
James eyed him. “Is this a cry for attention?”
“Shut up.” Perry shoved him forward. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 24
Danny stayed in the back. Leendert tried to rouse the agent while Danny listened for the captain’s call.
“I can’t believe this!” GiGi said.
“Just stay calm. Are you okay? Can any of you break loose?”
They all shook their heads. GiGi said, “They’re on too tight.”
“Try using your collective weight to pull on the one attached to the handle. Maybe it’ll snap.”
GiGi offered a small smile. “Thanks for the ‘collective.’ But we don’t have enough room to pull.”
The zip ties weren’t particularly thick, but needed something sharp to break through them. And thanks to 9/11, there was nothing like that on the plane. Not even a pair of scissors. James was on the intercom, instructing people to pass over cell phones and wallets. Danny wasn’t sure what that meant, but he hadn’t heard from the captain yet, so he assumed she hadn’t made it to the cockpit.
He patted down the unconscious agent. Surely she had a cell phone. He felt a rectangular lump in her pocket and pulled out a phone. He turned it on, trying to muffle the power-up jingle it played, and hoped the FBI gave its agents international calling plans.
All five bars came up, indicating she had full power, but there was no signal.
“I don’t think so.”
Danny looked up at the voice. Miles Smilt pointed a gun at him while nudging James along with a beverage cart full of phones and wallets.
“You’re going to be a problem, aren’t you?”
Danny dropped the phone but kept a fearless expression. “What do you want? What is all this?”
“I’ll do the talking. You shut up. I only need one pilot to get us on the ground.”
Danny looked at James. He was pale and sweaty, looking like a zombie as people handed him stacks of wallets and phones. A hint of acknowledgment flashed through his eyes as he glanced at Danny, but then he concentrated on the phones and wallets.
“Fine,” Danny said. “Use me, then. I’ll get you on the ground.”
Miles smirked. “I’ve got other plans for you.”
“Look at him. He’s a mess. He can barely pilot a beverage cart. You’re talking about landing a 767, a har
d thing to do on a sunny day with prime conditions.”
James’s head shot up, and his attention fixed on Danny. “I’m fine. Fine. I am.” He stuttered through an attempt at another sentence.
Miles seemed to consider him for a moment. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m fine. I have a gun… I mean you have a gun… It’s looking…pointing at me. That’s all. I could use some chocolate.”
Miles nodded toward Danny. “I don’t trust you.”
“All that matters is getting this plane on the ground. Where’s the captain?”
“Tied up at the moment.” Miles smiled.
“If you tie me up, you’ve got one pilot left, and I don’t think he’s going to be able to pull this off.” Danny looked at James, hoping he would sense that a transition in pilots could give them a window to do something. What, he didn’t know, but even putting some hesitation into this guy might help.
“Shut up.”
“Listen to me. If you tie me up, I’m stuck back here. If something happens to James, there’s nobody to fly this airplane.”
“Then I guess nothing better happen to James.”
James pushed his sweaty hair to the side. “I’m perfectly capable of flying the airplane.”
Danny sighed. This wasn’t a personal insult. Why couldn’t he play along? Maybe he thought if he was flying the airplane he was the least likely to get killed.
Suddenly Miles pointed the gun at the young man who’d helped move the body earlier. Hank sat next to Mrs. Kilpatrick, who clung to him like a brooch to a blouse. Another woman, young and in bright red polka dots, sat across the aisle.
Hank kept his cool, slowly raising his hands. “What?”
“Stand up.” He stood. Miles threw him three ties and nodded toward Danny. “Tie one around his wrist, then tie him to the leg of this chair.”
“You’re making a mistake,” Danny said. “You need two pilots!”
“James here seems to disagree.”
“I…I didn’t… I mean, it’s better to have two.” James looked at Danny, who tried to convey an entire litany of ego-boosting exhortation through an eye blink while also hinting that James could dig a little deeper here and help out. “You should have two. It’s…it is better.”
“Hmm. Two against one. I don’t think so.” Miles waved the gun at Hank. “Do it. Now.”
Hank slid through the center aisle to where Danny stood. “Give me your wrist.”
“Try to do it loose,” Danny muttered under his breath.
“Don’t try anything,” Miles said. “I’m watching.”
“Where did he get the gun?” Hank whispered.
“I don’t know,” Danny said.
“It’s the FBI agent’s,” GiGi whispered. “He said so.”
Hank glanced at the agent. She was starting to come to but had yet to open her eyes. “Are you sure?”
“It makes sense,” Danny said. “I don’t see how else he could get a weapon onboard. It was in the cockpit.”
Hank locked eyes with Danny. “Okay. Then you’re going to have to trust me.”
Danny watched as Hank pulled a zip tie through the one he’d put on his wrist, then anchored him to the leg. He didn’t know what Hank meant or why he said it, but for some reason he trusted him more than anyone at the moment.
“Now,” Miles said to James. “Get me over to that intercom.”
The small guy with the pencil-thin mustache waved his gun then and moved to the back of the plane. Jake tried not to engage. So far he hadn’t said a thing about diamonds, and Jake reassured himself that he was probably just a crazed maniac.
Then he wondered if he should try swallowing the diamonds or hiding them under his seat. However, that would take a lot of work. They were duct-taped to his belly. More importantly, to his belly hair. That thought had crossed his mind as he wrapped himself in duct tape, but he figured it was a painful problem he could solve in the future.
Right now he needed to lay low and assume this wasn’t about him.
Blimp-My-Ride Eddie was beside him, talking a mile a minute. “I mean, I think we need to take this guy, you know? I mean, just take him down.”
Jake shook his head. “He’s got a gun. He could blow ten holes in the airplane before we even got to him. Besides, I’m not sure there’s even a pilot in the cockpit. One passed us. I saw another one go to the back a while ago, and he hasn’t come back since. And everyone says the captain is up in first class, chained to something.”
Eddie’s chest inflated. “I can fly this plane. I know I can. I can fly an airship, for crying out loud. This thing would be a breeze.”
Jake wanted to argue that a breeze was more likely to help a blimp than a 767, but there was no need to make Eddie feel small. He already felt small, it seemed, which was why he boasted about ridiculous talents, like being able to fly a 767.
“I think we need to just lay low. Let’s not draw attention to ourselves. The crew knows what they’re doing. Flight attendants are trained to handle things like this.”
“It had to be an inside job,” Eddie said.
“What are you talking about?”
“How else do you get three pilots out of a cockpit?”
Jake considered this. He didn’t want to be an unwilling costar in The Dutch Job.
The intercom clicked on. “Attention! Everyone sit down and shut up! I have the pilot, and we’re all going to land safely if you do what I say. I want one thing on this airplane. Jaap Van Der Mark, stand up.”
Miles stood a few feet away with his gun pointed at James and his other hand holding the intercom phone. “Jaap Van Der Mark! You can save the lives of every person on this plane by showing yourself. You know what I want! Stand up and walk to the back of the aircraft with your hands up.”
“You’re killing me.”
Danny looked up to see GiGi with her free hand on her hip, looking Miles up and down.
“GiGi, shut up,” he said.
“Listen to him,” Miles agreed.
GiGi ignored them. “It’s just that you’ve gone to all this trouble, and it’s ridiculously unplanned. I mean, any woman in her right mind would have this very well thought out.”
“I’ve got the entire crew tied up except the one I need,” Miles said. “That’s not well thought out?”
“And what, exactly, do you plan to do once you’re on the ground? Elude the bazillion police officers waiting for you? Ask for a getaway 767 that James here can fly—who, incidentally, is probably going to need a case of Snickers.”
“GiGi…” Danny tried to catch her eyes, but she deliberately looked away.
“As a matter of fact,” Miles said, “the ground doesn’t know anything is wrong. Some air-traffic controllers may be trying to contact us, but as soon as I get James back in the cockpit, he’s going to radio in that everything is fine. We’ll land, I’ll deboard, and by the time you can alert the authorities, I’ll be on my way.”
Leendert’s hand suddenly popped up. “I…I can help.”
“Shut up, old man,” Miles said. His voice blared through the cabin. “Jaap Van Der Mark! I know you’re on this airplane! I’m not taking this pilot to the cockpit until you give me what I want.”
“I help.” Leendert gestured with shaky hands.
“Shut up!” Miles yelled. Leendert cowered in his seat.
Danny suddenly put it together. The man Leendert said wanted to kill him was Van Der Mark. The old man had said something about him looking like the woman he’d stolen the diamonds from. Maybe this guy had brought the diamonds onboard.
Danny had taken him to midcabin earlier.
Hank stood up. “I’m who you’re looking for.”
Chapter 25
Jake had always wondered what he would do in a life-threatening situation. He’d once been at a friend’s house when he was eight, and his buddy’s dad cut off his hand with an electric saw. The mother flipped out and couldn’t do anything, but Jake’s friend ran to the neighbors to get hel
p.
He’d never been in a situation that rivaled that. He’d not been in a serious car accident or even seen one. He’d never been near someone who had a heart attack or started choking on a piece of food. His bandmate passed out drunk once and dry heaved for the next twenty-four hours. That was the most he’d experienced, and all he could offer was a couple of wet washrags.
This, though…this rested on his shoulders. It didn’t hit him hard, like a slap in the face. It felt more like a distant memory pulled forward by a sight or a smell. He knew what he had taped to his belly might be the key to delivering everyone home safely, but he was having a hard time winding his mind around it.
Maybe it was because Eddie couldn’t stop talking.
“Eddie, can I ask you a question?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Do you have a grandmother?”
“Two of them, one on each side. Both still alive and kicking.”
“Which is your favorite?”
“Grandma Mildred.”
“What is the most valuable thing she owns?”
Eddie thought for a moment and then smiled. “I would say it’s her 1952 Cadillac, but she would say it’s me.”
Jake couldn’t help the emotion that washed over him.
“You okay?” Eddie asked.
Jake pictured Grandma Mildred listening with complete fascination as Eddie droned on about life as a blimp pilot.
“I think my grandmother would say the same thing.” Jake stood.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m a Van Der Mark. Jaap Van Der Mark.”
Lucy had never chewed or bitten a fingernail in her entire life, or at least since the age of thirteen when she was allowed to start having manicures. But the bright red polish she’d dared to wear for the trip was now cracked and peeling, with bits falling to the floor—and she suspected some bits stuck to the corners of her mouth.
Hank had told her something, something to do, but she couldn’t remember what it was. He’d been very specific. “Do you understand me, Lucy?”
She’d nodded but now she’d forgotten everything. Every single thing.
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