Against the Clock

by Charlie Moore

  The plane beneath her climbed fifteen degrees, then she felt it free itself of the runway below and push higher into the sky. The pressure of its angle and steep climb pressed her against the cold metal fuselage with such force she found it hard to breath.

  There was nothing for her do to but focus on her breathing, on her body staying as one with the main body of the plane, and wait until its aggressive climb was over.

  21:42:12

  Detective Leeds frowned, an expression etched into his face for many years already. He didn't recognize the patient transferred into the bay, but then again, he didn't expect to.

  He wasn't ashamed to admit that he was still shaken from seeing Shirin Reyes and instinctively knowing that whatever he was sucked into involved her.

  It was with a feeling of true and total dread that he acknowledged the truth to himself. He didn't have any choice.

  The patient had arrived only a few minutes earlier. The nursing staff had fussed over him, increased his pain medication, and hooked him up to several monitoring devices. He didn't particularly understand what they were doing. Didn't really care.

  He told the head nurse he needed to question the patient, and was told without compromise he would have to wait. In a way, he was thankful for it. Delaying the inevitable.

  21:42:29

  Shirin lay flattened against the round curve of the upper fuselage. The force of acceleration and drag tempted the stability of the electro-osmotic plates and the strappings to her wrists, but still they held.

  The wind shear assaulted her, whipping and pulling at the fabric of her Wingsuit. She pressed her helmet hard against the metal of the plane's canopy, focusing her mind and body to hold on.

  Shirin's arms were extended to full stretch, fixed to the plane via the electro-osmotic suction plates. She braced her left arm, prepared herself, tensed her muscles, and pushed the release button with her thumb.

  The pressure on her arm was almost overwhelming, but she was ready for it. All her weight, all the pressure, now battled against her one adhesive plate on her right hand. She waited for it to fail, for her body to be flung from the plane's back, but the plate held firm.

  With only one hand securing her, her body started bouncing up and down against the fuselage as the force of air surrounded her, whipped against her.

  She struggled to move her left hand back up to chest height. The muscles in her arm ached against the burn, but slowly she fought the resistance as her hand reached up under her chin. She gripped the emergency release cord of the Wingsuit she had modified into its design and tugged down hard against it.

  Instantly the webbed suit stripped from her body and disappeared behind her. She was left in her skin-tight insulated wetsuit-like bodysuit. She felt the resistance against her halve, and quickly she was able to re-stabilize herself against the fuselage.

  Hugging her streamlined body as closely as possible to the hard surface of the plane, Shirin held on.

  Not waiting for the plane to level out, she started to move.

  21:42:37

  Barratt smiled. He didn't know why. He felt dizzy. Drunk.

  He didn't know what the nurse had injected into his IV line, but his pain was gone. And in its place, a wave-like sensation of happiness rolled over him. It was a drug, he understood. But at the same time, he didn't care.

  He knew he hated it, knew it compromised him, but he didn't care. He smiled. He even laughed.

  He tried to shake it off, but that just made him laugh more.

  He closed his eyes, tried to focus his mind, tried to rationalize. It was just a chemical reaction. It would pass.

  Lost in a haze, something nagged at him. The detective…Hahaha he looks funny!

  21:42:56

  Ben walked out of the Recovery ward looking serious. Robyn didn't like it. Something was wrong.

  "What happened?" she asked.

  "He's been transferred to ICU."

  "What does that mean?" she asked, scared of the answer that might come back.

  "I'm not sure," Ben said. "The operation went well…"

  "That's good. Right?"

  "I don't know," he mumbled. "His recovery nurse, Wendy, she's a friend of mine. She told me he was very lucky, and doing well…"

  "So what's the problem? That's good!"

  "But that doesn't explain why he's been transferred to ICU."

  Robyn tried to keep up with her brother as he walked off.

  "Ben! What's going on?" she demanded as she caught up to him.

  "I don't know, but we're about to find out!"

  21:44:19

  Five thousand feet into the sky and rising, Shirin disengaged the magnetic plate, slid her arm backward, re-engaged the plate, let herself slide toward the rear. She was getting closer to the T-tail. It was slow progress.

  With her arm pressed firmly against her side with each maneuver, the hard handles of the silenced pistols strapped around her ribs bruised the undersides of her arms, and the stiff armbands of the emergency parachute chafed her shoulders. But knowing her weapons and her parachute were still firmly fixed to her was comforting.

  She was directly over the rear emergency access door. The easiest part was over.

  21:44:27

  Detective Leeds cracked open the sliding door slightly and peered into the secured ICU bay. The male patient was sleeping. He looked pale but comfortable. Leeds glanced back at the nurses' station; no one was watching him.

  He slipped into the bay, silently closed the sliding door, and stood there a moment. The sleeping patient didn't stir; the nursing staff didn't come to investigate.

  From the pocket of his loose jacket, he withdrew a syringe and inspected its contents. It was clear. He could see an air bubble formed in its viscous liquid. It didn't bother him. Air bubble or not, when the contents of the vial hit the patient's bloodstream, death would be inevitable.

  21:44:33

  Ben walked into the ICU ward like he belonged there. The nurses' station was unmanned. He walked to the rear of the station, Robyn close behind him. In the alcove, out of sight from the main floor of the ICU ward, the bed allocation board was fixed to the wall.

  He scanned down the board looking for the alias Barratt was using. He couldn't find it.

  "Excuse me! Can I help you?" demanded a voice behind him.

  Ben whipped around. He hadn't heard anyone coming up behind him. Robyn squealed slightly in shock.

  Ignoring the nurse's aggressive tone, Ben said, "I'm from Recovery. The patient, Mr. Jones, was just transferred here, but the surgeon wanted us to make an addition to the clinical notes." He talked over his shoulder, indifferently, while continuing to scan the board.

  21:45:09

  Detective Leeds popped the cap off the syringe and moved toward the still patient. There were so many IV lines running into him, he didn't know which one to inject the lethal concoction into. Looking at the bags of fluid hanging from the IV pole, he chose the bag that indicated "normal saline."

  He traced down the tubing from the bag and found the access port closest to the patient. It was very near the patient's right hand.

  21:45:16

  The cranky nurse squared off against Ben and Robyn. "And why does it take two of you?" she asked, itching for a confrontation.

  "Witness," Ben said plainly. He didn't have time for this, he thought to himself. Inter-department rivalries were not as common as the gossip and rumor mill suggested, but this one was clear.

  "Witness?" she scoffed.

  "Yes," he said firmly, stepping closer, nose to nose. "A witness of the Head of Surgery's instruction, and the direct, aggressive obstruction to patient safety demonstrated by you!"

  Stepping back as though slapped, the angry nurse looked between them, unsure, clearly worried. Ben felt it and moved on it, not wanting to lose the momentum of their interaction.

  "What bed did Mr. Jones get transferred to?" he demanded.

  Looking less angry and more concerned, the nurse pointed to Bay 12, the
enclosed room. "That's strange," she mumbled to herself.

  "Strange?"

  "There was a detective waiting to question him, but he's not there anymore."

  21:45:34

  Shirin inched down the side of the fuselage, following the vertical outline of the emergency exit door. Arms burning from the effort, she locked them straight and let the strapping around her wrists take her weight and drag for a half a minute.

  With her body pushed up to the horizontal, she focused on her breathing, focused on what was next, and gave her muscles the chance to quickly recover.

  21:46:02

  Detective Leeds held the IV line access port in a pinching grip between his thumb and forefinger of his left hand and carefully brought the needle closer to the access port.

  He was very mindful not to accidently jab his finger with the point of the needle. It was simple to do that, he understood, especially with the built-up nerves and adrenalin of killing a man while he slept.

  The sharp tip of the syringe needle touched the rubber seal of the access point, and Leeds straightened the syringe to keep the needle from skewing out the side as he advanced it in.

  He glanced up to see the patient's face. Undisturbed.

  Slowly, carefully, he advanced the needle into the cannula access port. He pushed it in up to its hilt. Done. And he hadn't pricked himself.

  Leeds adjusted his grip on the syringe, placing his thumb on the plunger, and looked once more at the face of the man he was about to murder.

  The man's eyes lurched open suddenly. Leeds saw movement from under the blankets at the man's waist, saw two puffs of black come from the white linen, felt two hard punch-like whacks against his chest, then the sounds of silenced gunfire registered in his mind, and like a sunrise in reverse, he was aware of rays of light fading to black.

  21:46:12

  Ben pulled the sliding door open, just enough to fit through. He stood frozen at the door, unsure of what he was seeing.

  He saw the man in a suit leaning over the patient, about to inject something into the patient's cannula port, then heard two loud, coughing sounds, then two red mist puffs coming from the man's chest.

  Time seemed to stop as the man stood there, staring in disbelief at his chest, then slowly sank to the floor.

  Ben moved his eyes to the patient. He was holding a gun with a long silencer attached at its barrel. It was pointing straight at him.

  Robyn burst into the bay, shoving Ben to the side.

  "Barratt!" she said urgently.

  21:46:37

  Barratt recognized her voice before he saw her, his eyes and gun still focused on the man at the door.

  "Barratt!" she said again. "He's my brother!"

  Barratt held his aim firm on the young man but looked at Robyn. Her face was scared and worried, but in it, he felt something more, something he felt, too. He couldn't understand it, but it made him feel warm inside, warm and safe.

  He lowered the pistol, exhausted.

  "Robyn…" he said before closing his eyes and letting his mind swim off.

  21:48:42

  The wind lashed at Shirin as she straightened her body to the vertical. She'd made it. She was next to the rear emergency access door. To her left was the last passenger view window. From her angle, she could see inside the plane.

  She knew if she could see in, they could see out. It added to the need for her to move quickly.

  She fixed the magnetic plate from her right hand at waist height and latched it to her utility belt. She let the belt take her weight, then released the magnetic plate on her left hand, moved it closer to the other one, and looped it into the rigging of her belt.

  Perched against the side of the plane, pivoting from her waist, Shirin balanced herself with her knees and the toes of her boots. The emergency release panel for the door was at shoulder height.

  Unlike the middle emergency door, the rear door was electronically controlled to slide up into the framework of the fuselage.

  The access panel, which activated the internal motor for the emergency door, was built into the design of the fuselage, locked in the closed position by default.

  Shirin pushed down on the release portal and pulled back on the access lever. It took all her strength, but the lever moved upward, opening the internal mechanism for operating the emergency door.

  The change to aerodynamics caused by the lever sticking out from the fuselage caused a loud whistling sound. She wasn't sure if the passengers inside the plane heard it, but she knew that by opening the latch, she triggered an emergency alert notification in the cockpit, warning the pilots.

  It would be only a minute before they alerted the security team inside the plane.

  Inside the recess, a simple switch labeled "open" sat beneath another safety lock. She quickly pressed the safety lock in as far as it could go and flipped the "open" switch.

  The powerful internal motor whined. The rear door instantly popped as its seal disengaged, retracting upward into the bulkhead of the doorframe.

  A frantic rush of air and debris were sucked out of the plane, flying past her and disappearing into the night sky. Shirin waited a moment for the initial depressurization of the plane to settle, then loosened the strapping holding her to the magnetic plates. She continued to add slack to the line until she could reach the internal structure of the open door, then pulled herself inside the plane.

  She disconnected the line from her harness, pulled one of her Berettas, and stormed into the main cabin.

  chapter 11

  "falling is easy. anyone can do it. it's the landing you have to worry about."

  the book of seekay

  21:49:18

  Smith tapped at the earpiece secured around his ear. He was patched through to the cockpit, responding to their alert. The intermittent connection made it difficult to understand what they were saying.

  Impatient, he exited his seat, made his way to the cockpit door, and smacked on it twice, hard. It was opened quickly. Instantly he knew something was wrong.

  The pilot and co-pilot briskly adjusted knobs and switches, speaking rapidly between themselves. A red light flashed on the side of the cockpit and an alarm sounded in the background.

  "What's happening?" he demanded.

  "We're not sure," the pilot responded. "Must be an electrical malfunction, but all other systems seem online, without fault."

  "What is malfunctioning?" Smith asked, wanting a straight answer.

  "The rear emergency door engage lever has been activated."

  Smith instinctively looked back toward the rear of the plane. He couldn't see the inside of the rear door from where he was, but his mind started balancing the consequences and possible causes.

  "How could that happen?"

  "It's impossible. It must be an electrical malfunction!" the co-pilot reiterated.

  "And if it's not a malfunction? How do you activate the lever?" Smith pressed.

  "You'd have to pull it up manually―from outside!" the pilot said.

  Smith shook his head. Shirin? But how?

  He turned from the cockpit and yelled out to one of the security team seated near the rear door.

  "Frank! Look out the window! Can you see anything near the rear door on the outside?

  The agent couldn't believe what Smith was asking of him.

  Smith repeated his instruction with greater force and started down the aisle, pulling his service pistol from its holster.

  Like a bell tolling throughout the confined space of the plane, the pulled weapon put every member in the security team suddenly on alert, and the politicians were stunned into an unusual quiet.

  "Check the window! Now!" he shouted, moving faster down the narrow corridor between the business class seats.

  Frank turned in his seat to pivot his head around and look toward the rear door from the side window. He had to press his head into the window alcove with his face smashed against the glass.

  His mouth dropped open. "What the f―?"<
br />
  Swoosh!

  Air was instantly sucked out of the cabin.

  Emergency oxygen masks dropped from the bulkheads. Lights flashed, debris flew through the air. Smith was knocked from his feet as the plane lurched down a few feet. The whole cabin was hit with an overwhelming chaotic shock.

  From the confusion a dark-clad figure emerged from the rear door alcove, gun extended, moving into the cabin quickly.

  Smith looked up from the floor, reaching for his pistol, which had fallen from his grip as he'd fought to shield his fall. The intruder was wearing a helmet with a tinted facemask. He couldn't see who it was, but he knew without doubt it was Shirin Reyes.

  21:49:30

  Shirin moved forward, unchallenged in the confusion. She found Director Zelig quickly, four rows ahead of her to the right. He was busy trying to strap himself into his seat, the man beside him fawning over him.

  Ahead of her a man was on the floor, reaching for a gun in the middle of the aisle. She didn't hesitate. Gave no warning. She fired twice, catching him on the back of the shoulder blade and the upper ribs. He stopped moving. She moved faster, stepping over the still body.

  Two rows from Zelig, Shirin sensed the danger before she saw it. She ducked low, pivoted backward, extended her gun and fired five times as the first wave of bullets screamed over her. Four security agents at the rear of the plane fell.

  Without slowing, she lunged forward, ducked the attack of another agent, buried the muzzle into his chest, fired, and moved past him before he even stumbled.

  Two more agents in the forward rows turned, reached for their weapons but stumbled back, each of them slammed in the chest with 9mm rounds.

  Out of bullets, Shirin dropped her Beretta where she stood, reached for the second pistol by her side and withdrew it mid-stride.

  She reached Zelig's row. The agent beside him tried to fend her off while reaching into the folds of his jacket. A double tap to the chest and he fell, still, back into his seat.