Mission Hindenburg

by C. Alexander London

  But which one of them was due for a fall?

  The image from the Internet of the burning hull of the Hindenburg smashing into the ground flashed in his mind.

  That was the problem with having a brain that never let go of anything he saw. He couldn’t get rid of the horrible stuff.

  One of the many digital displays in the corridor showed their altitude: 52,000 feet and climbing. They weren’t breaking any world records yet and they weren’t even technically at the edge of space, but they were higher than any airplane Dan had ever been on.

  Great puffs of white cloud rolled over the oceans and continents below him. As the minutes stretched out, Dan saw the dark blue of the horizon and the long curve of the earth itself. Looking sideways again, he saw the black of space beyond the horizon. He was much higher than the other airships now.

  He looked back at the display. 56,000 feet. They were climbing at about 4,000 feet per minute. That seemed really fast to him … winningly fast.

  Focus on the job at hand, Dan told himself. The Outcast is going to blow up the winning airship and kill everyone on board. It’s up to me to try to stop it. I gotta stop enjoying the view and investigate.

  But how the heck was he supposed to investigate when he knew so little about the actual workings of an airship? Space was cool, but it wasn’t like Dan was an engineer.

  “It’s a waste of brilliant technology,” someone said, strolling down the gangway. “All this just so some teenage stuntman can set a world record?”

  Dan ducked back behind the storage locker and hoped whoever was coming didn’t look down at him. There was nowhere else to hide.

  “That’s the nature of sponsorship,” a woman’s voice said. “Someone has to pay for all this technology, and energy drinks are the fastest-growing soft drink segment in the world market. They couldn’t resist the publicity.”

  “But the ship itself won’t be breaking any records,” the man complained. “Where’s the glory for us? All the other airships are actually in this thing to win it!”

  “If we hit twenty-five miles above sea level, it will be the highest-ever-recorded skydive and the first time a teenager has broken the speed of sound without the aid of an engine,” the woman said. “That will sell far more energy drinks than winning some aeronautics prize.”

  “I just can’t imagine actually jumping from that high up or falling that fast down,” the man said. “Who would be crazy enough?”

  “You haven’t met him?” the woman laughed. “The Flying Falconi! He’s a teenage circus performer. They made him a child-size space suit and everything. He got into skydiving to get off his mother’s alpaca farm in New Mexico.”

  “Alpaca?” the man asked.

  “Yes,” the woman said. “A well-bred alpaca can fetch its breeder over $10,000 at auction and …”

  Her voice trailed off as the engineers rounded a corner. Dan let out a breath.

  So this airship wasn’t in the competition to win it. They were in it for a big stunt.

  He pulled out his phone to text the others that his ship probably wasn’t going to be the Outcast’s target, but of course there’d be no signal this high up.

  He hoped nothing went wrong on the other airships. The odds had just gone up that Amy’s ship would be the one to fall out of the sky, and if the Outcast decided to detonate early for some reason, Dan wouldn’t even know about it until it was too late.

  Dan made his way along the corridor, staring down at his feet to the earth below him. He tried jumping but was disappointed that it felt like it always did. Gravity at this height was still ninety percent of what it was on the surface. You didn’t get into zero gravity until you were actually in space, but still, he’d hoped this altitude would at least make dunking a basketball a possibility.

  Now, that’s a great idea for a new extreme sport, subspace basketball. He wondered if he could suggest it to the Gas Flight Xtreme people.

  When he reached the corner of the hall, Dan peeked around and saw the main passenger area. It was a round room with the ceiling painted to look like stars. The floor was transparent just like in the hallway, but this was not a space filled with equipment and storage lockers. This was a room for VIPs. There were comfy couches all around the edge of the room, facing out toward the sky so that people could sit and watch the earth below, and in the center of the room, looking like they were floating in open air, a rock band was setting up.

  If the Outcast blew up this airship, it wouldn’t cripple the spaceflight industry so much as the sugary drink industry.

  At the far end there was a door marked NO ENTRY, which Dan figured led to the cockpit. It had a pretty serious-looking keypad lock and a small peephole for the pilots to peer out from. Dan had almost come up with a story he could use to talk his way in and have a look around when the door opened and a woman came out, locking the door behind her.

  She was a severe-looking older woman with dark hair pulled up into a bun, held in place by sharp metal pins. Dan recognized her immediately.

  Melinda Toth, ruthless Lucian millionaire and close ally of Vikram Kabra and the Outcast.

  His blood froze and he felt his chest tighten.

  Melinda Toth’s eyes scanned the room and Dan ducked back around the corner. Had she seen him?

  Dan peeked back around the corner carefully. Melinda Toth was looking right at him. She pulled one of the needle-sharp pins from her hair and held it concealed in her hand, smiling politely at the other guests as she made a beeline for Dan’s corner.

  Well, change of plans, he thought. This airship was safe, but Dan wasn’t safe on it.

  80,000 feet over Athens (and climbing)

  Dan ran. He raced back the way he’d come, his sneakers squeaking on the glass floor. The hallway curved, and he realized the entire thing was just a big ring that ran around the outside of the gondola, with the main room and the cockpit in the center. If he kept running straight, he’d end up right back where he started, right back with Melinda Toth. For all he knew, she’d turned the other way and was going to cut him off from the front and jab that needle of hers into his neck just for the fun of it.

  He needed to get out of this hallway. There were three doors coming up on his right and he grabbed the handle of the first one. Locked. The second one was locked, too. Just as he reached the third, it swung open and a boy just a little bit older than Dan rushed out, knocking him backward into the opposite wall.

  “Sorry, pal,” the guy said. His face looked pale, his eyes wide with terror, probably not too unlike Dan’s face at the moment. The boy had on a T-shirt with his name stitched across the chest. FALCONI.

  This was the kid who was about to jump from 135,000 feet up in the sky and break a whole bunch of world records.

  “You’re —” Dan wasn’t sure what to call him. Did he use “the Great” instead of a first name?

  He looked right down at Dan on the floor and shook his head. “I’m nobody. I gotta get out of here. This is crazy. 135,000 feet? I’m not doing it. No way. No no no no way. Tell them I quit, okay? Just … I quit!”

  Without another word, the boy ran away in the opposite direction, his socks slipping on the floor as he disappeared around the bend in the hall. He didn’t even offer to help Dan up.

  But, Dan noticed, the door he’d come out of was still open.

  He heard the click, click of Melinda Toth’s heels on the floor coming his way and pushed himself up and dove through the door, slamming it shut behind him. He panted and forced himself to slow his breath, to stay calm.

  He found himself standing in a narrow locker room. There were three open lockers along one wall and two doors along the other. One door was labeled TOILET. The other said AIRLOCK. There was a folding chair in between them.

  The far wall was a window from floor to ceiling that showed the clouds over the curving earth and the void of space beyond.

  Dan turned to lock the door he’d come through, but it had no lock. What kind of locker room didn’t have a lo
ck? It was right there in the name, LOCKer room.

  He considered climbing into one of the lockers to hide, but he’d have no way to escape if Toth found him. He’d be killed, stuffed inside a locker on board an energy drink airship. He had more dignity than that.

  Maybe he could hide in the toilet.

  Anger flared up in him. He had come too far, faced too many dangers, to hide in a toilet.

  He had the sudden urge to step back into that hallway, confront Melinda Toth, and fight. He could overpower her and force her to confess all of the Outcast’s plans.

  But he had to be practical. He wasn’t Hamilton Holt. Dan couldn’t knock anyone out with a single blow, and one jab with that needle of hers could kill him. Lucians were famed for their poisons, and you didn’t get to be as powerful as Melinda Toth without dropping a few bodies along the way.

  Dan grabbed the folding chair and used it to wedge the door closed. He listened carefully.

  Click, click. Click, click. She was getting closer. Click, click. She passed by the door. Click, click.

  Dan exhaled with relief, but then, the clicks stopped. Melinda Toth came back. The knob rattled. She pushed the door, but the wedged chair stopped it opening.

  “Dan Cahill?” she said.

  Dan leaned harder on the door.

  “I know you’re in there, Dan,” she said. “Open up. I promise, I won’t hurt you.” She paused. “Well, it won’t hurt for long.”

  She shoved again. The door shook, but the chair held. It wouldn’t hold forever though.

  He glanced back and saw a bright red jumpsuit hanging from a hook in the first locker, a helmet, and a high-tech parachute pack. He looked over at the sign across the room that said AIRLOCK.

  He knew what he had to do.

  The digital display above the lockers gave their altitude: 90,000 feet, which was about 17 miles above the surface of the earth.

  And climbing.

  Dan felt his stomach sink to his sneakers. There were only two ways out of this for Dan: in a body bag or in a parachute.

  55,000 feet over Athens (and climbing)

  On board the Fold N Eat airship, Hamilton Holt felt out of his element. He was dressed to blend into the background as Jonah’s bodyguard — dark slacks and a white shirt. He was used to blending into the background behind Jonah, only making himself noticeable when he saw a threat to his cousin, but Jonah was on a different airship and Ham was on his own, several miles above the Mediterranean Sea.

  Ham had slipped onto the ship easily enough, but before he knew where he was going, he’d been swept into a crowd of men in suits and women in dresses, and now he stood awkwardly in the center of a round lounge, trying to look like he belonged. The lounge floor was covered in dark blue carpeting but had clear discs of glass cut into it like the holes in Swiss cheese so partiers could glance down at the world below.

  One glance through the holes was enough for Hamilton Holt. The earth spinning; the clouds drifting; and the black-and-blue, deep-bruise color of space dizzied him to think about. He didn’t like dangers he couldn’t lift, run, or punch his way out of. Cold sweat trickled down his spine. His strength wouldn’t be much use if the Outcast blew this ship up with him on it.

  “Get it together, Holt,” he whispered to himself, and tried to ignore the feeling in his stomach like a thousand butterflies fighting a cage match to the death.

  A waiter in a tuxedo passed by, serving some kind of meat-stuffed pastry off one of the Fold N Eat trays. Ham didn’t want to stand out. He had to look like he was supposed to be at this fancy party, so he grabbed two of the pastries and shoved them into his mouth.

  Posters and ads all over the room screamed out the slogan of the corporate sponsor: Fold N Eat: The World’s Most Indestructible Airline Snack Tray™ #Unbreakable

  He grabbed one more meat pie before the waiter got away. The butterflies calmed down now that they’d been fed.

  As Ham chewed, he tried to figure out what he was supposed to do. He wished Ian’s instructions had been more specific. How was he supposed to decide if this airship was more likely to go higher than any other, thus making it the Outcast’s target? What if that wasn’t how the Outcast was choosing his target, or what if he’d targeted all of them?

  Ham had no way to know. But, after serving alongside Jonah in country after country, movie premiere after movie premiere, Ham knew how to watch a crowd to look for suspicious activity. He’d spotted the kindly looking grandmother in Paris who was actually trying to steal Jonah’s sunglasses to sell on the Internet, and he’d seen the danger in a group of nine-year-olds in Dubai who were being paid by the paparazzi to report every time Jonah went to the bathroom.

  So Ham wasn’t going to investigate the blimp — er, airship; he was going to investigate the people on board to see if any of them looked suspicious.

  But first, another one of those delicious pastries.

  He grabbed two more and stuffed them into his mouth as he started his security assessment of the passengers. Most of them looked like average business people, junior executives trying not to get caught picking their noses when they thought no one was looking, senior executives not caring if anyone caught them picking their noses, and waiters running to and fro with their indestructible trays serving champagne and appetizers and — what was that? Miniature lamb chops in garlic mint sauce? Yes, please!

  Ham grabbed one with each hand off the tray as the waiter sailed past.

  Just as he finished gnawing the meat off the second chop — and realizing he had no idea what to do with the bones — he caught something from the corner of his eye.

  There was a nervous man with a bushy mustache holding a briefcase so tightly it made his knuckles white. He was the only person in the room with a briefcase, and he was the only person not talking to anyone. Ham pivoted slightly toward him to get a better view. The man was skulking close to a locked door that read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY in four different languages, and he kept checking his watch. Sweat beaded on the guy’s forehead. Ham noticed a slight twitch of the man’s eye toward a woman in a navy blue suit.

  Ham moved his gaze to the woman as she laughed at some joke a portly Fold N Eat salesman had just made. Without so much as a crack in her smile, she gave the nervous little man a nod across the room. The man made his move, sliding through the marked door and vanishing into the bowels of the ship.

  This was it! He must be the saboteur!

  The man looked so shaky Ham could probably take him out with both hands tied behind his back. Ham rushed forward, knocking elegantly dressed people from his path, crashing through the party like a battering ram, and burst through the door.

  The nervous man with the mustache glanced over his shoulder in surprise and Ham caught him in a few strides, tackling him beside a large catering rack of plastic trays loaded with stuffed mushroom caps ready to be served.

  “Oooof!” said the man. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m —” That’s when Ham realized he had no idea what he was doing. He was supposed to identify the saboteur, not tackle him. If this man was stopping the ship from reaching the Karman Line, they could scratch the ship off their list.

  But if he was planting a bomb to blow it up, then Hamilton Holt could end all this and save the day! For once.

  He snatched the man’s briefcase and held it up as he drove his knee into the man’s back.

  “What is this?” Ham demanded. “Who do you work for?”

  “Fold N Eat!” the man cried out. “I work for Fold N Eat!”

  “And what’s in this case? Is it a bomb?”

  “A bomb?” the man cried out. “Who would bring a bomb onto a ship like this? Are you crazy? I design snack trays!”

  “We’ll see about that,” said Ham. With all his strength, he pried the two sides of the case apart, snapping the lock and pulling the case open.

  Inside, he saw neat rows of white squares arranged in two rows, five per row. It reminded him of the bomb from the blimp in Los Angele
s.

  Plastic explosives.

  His heart pounded, but he knew what he had to do.

  Ham snatched a Fold N Eat tray from the rack, dumping the mushroom caps on the floor. Then he raised the tray over his head. The man flinched like he was about to be struck, but Ham slammed it into the window beside them with all his might.

  A spiderweb of cracks formed. He hit it again and the web grew. The trays really were indestructible. The window not so much.

  “What are you doing?” the man shouted from the floor.

  “Saving your stupid life!” Ham yelled, and brought the indestructible tray down on the reinforced glass two more times until it shattered.

  There was a roar of air, an alarm sounded, and Hamilton Holt threw the briefcase out into the upper atmosphere. Ham felt the whole airship tilt. His ears burst with the pressure change, oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling all along the hallway, and he realized he hadn’t quite thought through the consequences of opening a window at 55,000 feet in the air.

  “My samples!” the nervous man yelled as the airship began making an emergency descent.

  A steel door slammed shut over the shattered viewing window, stopping the rush of air out of the ship, and it began to right itself, the pressure inside returning to normal.

  Ham, however, hit the floor headfirst.

  Five hulking security guards tackled him and held him pinned in place, just as he’d held the man with the mustache moments earlier.

  “Why did you throw my samples out the window?” the man demanded.

  “Your … samples?” Ham choked out.

  “The new Fold N Eat plastic!” The man threw his arms into the air. “I was to unveil the samples at this party! Now they’re gone and our ship is damaged! Who are you, boy? Did Stow N Snack send you? Seat N Eat Industries? Tell me! Who sent you?”

  “Who sent me?” Ham was confused.

  “Yes! You! An industrial saboteur!” the man cried out. “Keep him in custody until we can turn him over to the authorities,” the man ordered the security guards. “We will find out who has taken us out of the competition, and we will make sure they pay through the nose! You do not cross the largest snack tray manufacturer in the world and get away with it!”