by Chris Ryan
Another silence. A long one.
'You're mad,' a woman said, and there was a murmur of agreement.
Ben felt himself getting angry. 'Well, has anyone got any better ideas? Or shall we just sit around and wait to be blown up?'
More silence. And then the older man spoke. 'It's got to be worth a try,' he murmured.
'Yeah,' someone else agreed. 'It's not like we've got many options.'
'I think it's a very good idea,' the newcomer said firmly. He stepped forward and offered Ben his hand. 'My name's Danny.'
Ben shook his hand briefly. 'I'm Ben.'
'So who's going to perform this act of bravery then, Ben?'
None of the older people answered, but that was OK. Ben had it all worked out. 'It makes sense for the smallest person to do it,' he said. 'That way the bulletproof vest will cover more of their body when they hold it up.' He looked around. He was quite a bit smaller than all the other adults. 'I'll do it,' he said firmly.
'And what happens,' Danny asked, 'if we overcome the hijacker? Does anyone here know how to fly a plane?'
Again, silence.
'Well, actually,' Ben said quietly, 'I kind of do. I mean, not a real plane like this, but I've flown a microlight before. I reckon I can keep it steady at least, and if we can get radio contact with Miami, maybe they can talk me through it, guide us down.' He glanced at everyone. They were all looking at him expectantly. 'Come on,' Ben said brusquely. 'We need to roll Brad's body over, unstrap the vest.'
It was Danny who bent down to help him. The bodyguard was quite a weight, and they really had to put their back into turning him over. As they did so, Ben tried not to look at the messed-up remains of his head. Danny ripped Brad's shirt open. Sure enough, beneath the torn material was a thick black bulletproof vest. The buckles were tight – they hurt Ben's fingers as he grappled with them – but a minute or so later they had undone the vest and rolled Brad back over. Ben moved his arms out so that they could take it off more easily.
When he stood up, he had the bulletproof vest in his hands. He was just holding it up in front of his body when he heard Angelo speak.
'Ben,' the Italian boy said firmly. 'Dammelo. Give it to me.'
Ben blinked.
'I mean it, Ben. I'm slightly smaller than you, and if this goes according to plan, you don't want to be fighting the hijacker when you should be getting to the controls of the cockpit. And anyway, this should be my job.'
'Why?' a woman's voice asked.
Angelo didn't reply. He just stared meaningfully at Ben, who nodded slowly and handed the vest over to Angelo.
'All right, Angelo,' he said softly. 'If that's what you want.'
The two of them turned to look at the cockpit door. Ben couldn't help noticing that everyone had got out of their way and had retreated to the safety of their seats. Only Danny was standing with them.
Ben took a deep breath. Now was the time. The safety of everyone on the plane was up to them.
The two striker aircraft – Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning IIs – had taken off from Key West Naval Air Station within minutes of the Code Red being raised. They roared from their island base out over the sea before making a sharp turn and heading through the clear sky up towards their target. Each of the aircraft carried easily enough weaponry to take down a civilian plane in mid-air, and both of them were flown by experienced pilots. Pilots who had been in war zones. Pilots who weren't afraid to carry out difficult orders if the chain of command made them.
The two F-35s appeared immediately on Jack Simpson's air-traffic control screen. These military aircraft were a different colour to the civilian planes that filled his screen. They moved faster too. Much faster. It was difficult to estimate these things, but Jack reckoned it wouldn't be more than ten minutes before they caught up with the rogue plane. What happened then would be anyone's guess. He felt his sweat seeping through all the pores of his skin as he tried to keep tabs on all the other air traffic and do his bit to guide them in safely. But it wasn't easy to concentrate when things were going so wrong up there. He wanted to close his eyes and pray for the poor passengers on the plane whose lives were hanging by a thread. But closing his eyes wouldn't have been sensible at all.
'Weird kind of day,' Jack's colleague observed. The guy's voice was tense.
'You can say that again,' Jack replied.
A pause as they both looked at their screens.
'They're calling it Hurricane Jasmine,' Jack's colleague continued.
'Pretty name,' Jack said.
'Not such a pretty storm.'
A voice shouted in the background. 'Listen up, everyone. All Florida airports to be closed to incoming traffic. Hurricane's moving quickly and unpredictably. Divert everything up north to Atlanta or Cincinnati.'
Jack's colleague snorted. 'Wouldn't mind being diverted up north myself. It's looking nasty out there.'
'We're safe here, aren't we?' Jack asked.
'Should be. Hurricane should pass to the west of here. Thing's got a mind of its own, though, so don't take my word for it.'
But Jack wasn't paying attention to him any more. He was staring again at the two striker planes moving inexorably towards the civilian aircraft.
It was just a communications failure, he told himself. Just that. Jack ignored the fact that the plane had changed course and increased its velocity. That was just a blip, surely. Maybe the pilot had been spooked by the approaching hurricane. Jack knew he would be.
But if the aircraft had maintained its original course, it would have landed well before the hurricane hit.
He put all those thoughts from his head. Any second, the radio frequency would burst into life and the military aircraft could pull away.
It was all going to be OK. Surely it was.
The bulletproof vest, opened up and held sideways, covered Angelo's head, his body and the top part of his legs.
'You ready?' Ben asked tersely.
'Ready,' Angelo replied. He was staring straight ahead of him and chewing his lower lip.
'OK,' Ben said. 'Listen carefully. I'm going to stand right behind you. We'll approach the door together and when we're there, you need to start kicking on it. Do it as hard as you can – it's really got to sound like we're trying to break the door down if we're going to persuade the hijacker to do something about it.'
Angelo nodded mutely.
'The plane's going to nosedive again the moment he lets go of the controls,' Ben continued. 'You need to be ready for it. Whatever you do, and whatever happens, you need to keep your head covered, OK?'
'OK.'
'I'll tell you when the door opens. Soon as it does, we charge him. If we get the right element of surprise, we might be able to knock him down before he even fires.'
Angelo turned to Ben and smiled weakly. 'Nothing like being optimistic,' he said.
Ben grinned. 'I find it works for me,' he replied. 'Come on, let's go.'
There was absolute silence in the cabin as Ben and Angelo stepped forward. Ben could sense Angelo's anxiety, which only made the nerves he himself was feeling ten times worse. His hands were shaking and he couldn't get rid of the horrible sensation that he was only moments away from his own death.
'Good luck, Ben,' Angelo murmured.
'You too,' he whispered back. 'OK. Go for it!'
BANG! Angelo kicked the cockpit door with all his strength. He did it once, twice, a third time. The door rattled slightly.
'Keep going!' Ben told him. 'Keep kicking the door!'
Angelo's kicks became regular. As they continued, Ben noticed that his Italian friend had inadvertently lowered the bulletproof vest. The top of his head was peeking out above it. From behind, he yanked Angelo's arms. 'Keep it up,' he hissed. 'Keep the vest up.'
Angelo covered his face again. But as he did, the plane dipped.
Everyone in the cabin screamed again. Everyone, that is, except Ben and Angelo. They were expecting it, and they knew what it meant. 'He's coming!' Ben shouted. They bo
th fell against the cockpit door, which suddenly opened.
It all happened so quickly. Ben heard the sound of the bullets this time as he was close to the suppressed weapon. They thudded into the bulletproof vest, ripping the material but not going any further. As the shots were fired, the two of them fell straight into the cockpit and onto the body of the hijacker. The three of them smashed against the instrument panel, and Ben heard the crunch of broken glass as they did so. The plane started screaming. Through the windscreen of the cockpit, Ben could see the sickening sight of the sea, far below but approaching at a forty-five degree angle.
They were going down.
'I've got him!' Angelo yelled, his voice thick with panic. 'Get the controls, Ben. Get the controls!'
Ben looked around him. There was someone else in the cockpit and in the confusion he realized it was Danny. The man was helping Angelo restrain the hijacker, whose arms were flailing and who was shouting out in a foreign language Ben didn't recognize. Just to his right was the control stick, vibrating and juddering. It took all Ben's strength to fight against the G-force of the plane, but he just managed to get his fingertips round the stick and push himself into the pilot's seat. With all his might he pulled on the control stick, straining his muscles against the force that was urging the plane downwards.
Behind him, shrieks of terror came from the cabin. 'The controls, Ben!' Danny was still shouting. 'Get them!'
'I'm trying, all right!' Ben yelled back, but he wasn't sure if anyone would have heard him over the earsplitting sound of the engines. He gritted his teeth and pulled the control stick as hard as he could. 'I'm . . . trying . . .' he roared.
And gradually, almost imperceptibly, the plane started to straighten.
Sweat was dripping down Ben's face as the horizon line started to level. Beside him there was scuffling and he glanced over momentarily to see the hijacker on the floor. He was a small man, but stocky, and with an angry red scar down one side of his face. His eyes were filled with fury. Danny had taken the man's gun and was holding it over him while Angelo got to his feet.
Ben snapped his attention back to the plane. He scanned the instrument panel and it was only then, to his horror, that he saw the full extent of the damage they had inflicted as they fell upon it. Half the instruments were smashed in, the dials broken. And even if the control panel had been in perfect working order, Ben realized that this was going to be a lot more difficult than flying a microlight. This was a whole different kettle of fish.
'Are you OK, Ben?'
It was Danny who was speaking. From the corner of his eye, Ben saw the hijacker being removed from the cockpit by a couple of other passengers.
'Er, kind of,' Ben answered. 'Look, I don't really know what I'm doing here. I need to try and get the radio working. I need to try and—' As he was speaking, something flashed across the front of the plane. A deafening roar filled his ears. 'What was that? ' he shouted.
'I don't know,' Danny replied. 'It looked like a—'
This time it was Danny's turn to be interrupted. The roar filled their ears again, and the cockpit was momentarily cast into shadow as another object shot past their field of vision.
It was only then that the radio sprang into life.
'Flight GXR1689, this is the Department of Homeland Security. Pilot, identify yourself. I repeat, pilot identify yourself. Two F-35 Lightning IIs have entered your airspace with instructions to destroy your aircraft if you do not identify yourself. I repeat, you will be taken out in the next thirty seconds if you do not identify yourself.'
Ben stared at the radio in frozen horror.
'Answer it, Ben!' Angelo shouted, and that was all it took to snap Ben out of it. He grabbed the radio handset and started to yell a response.
'Don't fire!' he shouted. 'Don't fire! We've been hijacked but we've taken back the plane. The pilots are dead. You've got to help me land this thing!'
But even as he spoke, Ben's eyes widened in horror. From either side of the cockpit window he could see the noses of the two F-35s. They were unbelievably close – close enough for Ben to see the pilots with their sunglasses and military helmets – and they really didn't look like they were going away.
Chapter Six
'Pilot, identify yourself.'
The voice at the other end sounded completely unmoved by Ben's outburst.
'My name's Ben Tracey,' he screamed. 'I'm a passenger on the plane. At least I was until about a minute ago. You've got to believe me – I'm not a hijacker. Please! Tell them to pull away! They're too close – I don't know if I can keep this thing straight! If they don't, we could all be history!'
Radio silence. The fighter planes didn't move from their positions.
'We've taken control of the plane!' he screamed.
'They don't need to be there!'
Still silence.
'Listen to me! I'm not a hijacker! I'm just trying to keep this plane in the air, OK?' Terror exploded from his voice.
And then, suddenly, as suddenly as they had arrived, the fighter planes curved off and disappeared. Ben felt a moment of relief, but it didn't last long because the radio suddenly crackled into life again. 'Flight GXR1689, this is Miami International, do you read me?'
The voice sounded urgent.
'Yeah,' Ben replied through gritted teeth. 'I read you. Where have those two planes gone?'
'Back to base. There's nothing they can do to help you now.'
'Right. Well, thanks for getting them off my back.' Like they were there to help me in the first place, he thought to himself.
'Nothing to do with me, son. You must have been pretty convincing. How are you guys doing up there?'
'Oh,' Ben replied edgily, 'you know. Probably could be better.'
'How much experience you had flying a plane, son?'
Ben took a deep breath. 'Just a microlight,' he replied. 'Oh, and a few goes on a computer flight simulator.'
There was an ominous pause. 'That's it?' the voice asked.
''Fraid so.'
'And there's no one else on board with any flying experience?'
'Not as far as I know. I'm afraid you're stuck with me. Sorry.'
Another pause. 'What's your name?'
'Ben.'
'OK, Ben. Everything's going to be all right and you're going to do just fine as long as you follow my instructions carefully. Do you think you can do that?'
'Why don't we just get on with it?' Ben replied impatiently.
'Good idea, Ben. Now listen to me. You know about the hurricane?'
'I think someone might have mentioned it, yeah.'
'You need to stay calm, Ben. I don't want you to panic, but when your plane lost control just now, you changed direction. You're heading straight towards it. You've lost a lot of altitude, so you're going to start experiencing the headwinds very soon. You need to turn the plane back on course. Do you copy?'
Ben realized he was breathing heavily. His stomach had twisted into a knot at what he heard. 'Yeah, I copy. What do I need to do?'
'Can you see the instruments in front of you?' the voice asked.
'Some of them,' Ben replied. 'A lot got damaged when we attacked the hijacker.'
'Is there anything that looks like a compass?'
Ben quickly scanned the instruments in front of him. 'Nothing,' he replied curtly.
'OK,' the voice replied. 'You need to pan to the east.
That'll take you out of the way. You're currently heading—'
There was a sudden burst of white noise. Ben blinked. The radio was crackling and whatever the guy at the other end was trying to tell him was lost in the interference.
'Hello!' Ben shouted. 'Hello! Do you copy?'
But there was nothing other than an ugly-sounding hiss.
It was at precisely that moment that the winds started to hit. The whole plane shuddered with a level of turbulence Ben had never felt before. Vaguely, in the background, he heard people in the cabin shouting, but he tried to put that from his mind
as he felt himself juddering in his seat. He gripped the control stick firmly and shouted into the radio. 'Do you read me? Do you read me? I need to know which way to turn!'
There was no reply.
The shaking was getting worse now. Ben knew he had to steer the plane away, but he couldn't tell which direction he needed to go in. A mistake now and it could be an end to everything.
'What's going on?' a voice yelled behind him.
Ben realized it was Angelo, but there was no time to reply. 'Hold on!' he shouted. He felt all his muscles clenching as he started to pull the aircraft into a turn.
They were at an angle now, and the plane was juddering worse than ever. From the corner of his eye, Ben realized that Angelo had been thrown to the floor. There was nothing he could do about it though. He just had to hold his nerve – and the control stick. As the plane was at an angle, he saw the ocean down below from the side of the cockpit window. It made his blood freeze, made him feel like he had left his stomach a mile back. Without any instruments in front of him, he could only guess how long he should keep this turning circle going, so after a few moments, he straightened up, fervently hoping that he had redirected the plane to safety. Safety of a kind at least.
The winds were still buffeting the aircraft, however. Angelo shouted something behind him, but Ben didn't even hear what it was. All his concentration was taken up now by flying the plane, and by wondering if he had made the correct manoeuvre. It still felt like they were being flung around in the air. Maybe they were still heading straight for the hurricane. Maybe he should turn the plane round again. As that thought crossed his mind, though, he nodded his head to himself. If he kept turning, he'd get nowhere: he'd just have to trust his first instinct. He'd just have to keep to his current direction.
Danny staggered into the cockpit, doing his best to stay upright despite the shaking of the plane. 'We've tied the hijacker up,' he announced. 'What's going on in here?'
'Radio's down,' Ben said tersely. 'Something to do with the weather, I suppose. I'm trying to avoid the hurricane.'
'Er, Ben,' Angelo butted in. 'I don't want to interfere or anything, but it still feels quite windy out there.'
