Falling by T.J. Newman
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FORGET THE OXYGEN MASKS, FORGETa chemical attack. If there was a fire on board, the plane would crash regardless.
Jo made her way to the back, ignoring every extended hand and questioning look. An uncontrollable fire was the only thing that turned her cold with fear anymore. Well, until today. That was when it hit her: This was the terrorist’s backup plan.
Her pace quickened.
The illuminated toilet sign outside the lav shone green, meaning the bathroom was unoccupied, or at least unlocked. Scanning the door as she approached, her eyes narrowed in the dim cabin, searching for any sign of smoke escaping through the crack at the base of the door or the ventilation slats directly above that. Nothing. Inhaling deeply through her nose, she braced for a burning smell to assault her—but none came.
Taking those final steps, Jo mentally reviewed the location of the emergency equipment. Primary halon extinguisher and fireproof gloves: under the L2 jump seat, right next to the lav. Secondary extinguisher: under the R2 jump seat, aircraft right.
God help them if they needed more than two.
Reaching the door, Jo leaned slightly toward it, listening. Nothing but silence. She extended her nondominant arm and cautiously placed the back of her left hand on the surface of the door. It was cold. Replacing it nearer to the bottom, she found the same. Confirming a third time up top, the whole surface was cool to the touch.
Getting a visual on whatever was happening on the other side of the door was the last line of defense.
Taking a breath, Jo blinked a few times, steeling herself for the worst.
She twisted the handle and cracked the door open only a sliver in an attempt to introduce as little oxygen as possible. Leaning forward as close as she dared, Jo looked in.
She threw the door open wide. Nothing. Besides some toilet paper on the floor, nothing was amiss. She opened the trash flap, looked inside, smelled deeply, and was about to repeat the steps with the toilet when she heard her name.
Turning, she found Kellie and Big Daddy blocking the passengers’ view of what was going on. Kellie looked annoyed. Shaking a canister, Daddy held it out to Jo as she came out of the lav.
“You’re welcome, please don’t hurt me,” he said.
Jo ripped the can of dry shampoo out of his hand.
“You set off the fire alarm?”
“I think what I actually did was save you two from that angry mob.”
“Daddy, I swe—”
A high-low chime sounded and a red light lit up above their heads. Jo tore the phone off the wall. Her eyes burned holes through Big Daddy but her voice was chirpy as she talked to the pilots.
“False alarm, boys.”
Bill’s scalp tingled with relief as the blood rushed back down his body. When the continuous bleat of the smoke alarm sounded in the cockpit accompanying the flashing red button and SMOKE/LAV/SMOKE panel readings, both pilots assumed an upright position of defense that practically gave them whiplash. Ben’s dinner still covered his feet.
Bill had assumed it was the terrorist’s contingency plan. He’d assumed there was an attack happening in the back. He had actually unbuckled his seat belt as though he was going to abandon his seat and rush into the cabin to help. Ben noticed it and gave Bill a quizzical look, but continued with the checklist and protocol for the emergency. Which was what Bill should have done.
“What set it off?” Bill asked into the mic, clearing his throat in an attempt to cover the tremble in his voice.
“A woman spraying dry shampoo,” Jo told the pilots. Ben rolled his eyes, dropping his head into his hands.
“You can let her know we’re both wide awake up here now.”
“Us too,” Jo said. “Sorry for the scare. You guys need anything?”
Bill looked to Ben, who shook his head. “I think we’re all set. Thanks, Jo. Are, uh, do you guys need anything?”
“Nah, we’re good. Nothing new to report back here,” she said with meaning, her tone indiscernible to anyone but him.
Bill bit his lip. He wanted to scream into the microphone and demand an update from her nephew. There had been no contact from his family since Sam hung up on him, and in the void of information, horrifying possibilities filled his mind.
Bill thanked his lead flight attendant and disconnected the call. He heard himself say to his copilot, “I have control and communications, ECAM actions,” and he saw his hands press the correct buttons on the dash in front of him until the flashing words of alarm disappeared with each procedure, wiping the slate clean. Some hardwired aspect of his conditioning was taking over. He was on autopilot—but still in control.
Barely.
“No more stalling,” Jo said, pulling the two flight attendants deep into the galley, away from the passengers. They’d massaged the truth, told a few fibs, set off a goddamn smoke alarm. Now they needed a real plan.
“The masks are out,” Jo said. “But we’re not going to survive this on cute and clever alone. We need to decide—now—how we’re going to handle this, and what we’re going to tell them.”
“Agreed,” Daddy said. “I say we go with this: the truth.”
“Absolutely not,” Jo said, as a painful image of Scott as a baby in her son’s onesie came to mind.
Daddy clasped his hands under his chin like he was praying. Or perhaps he was keeping himself from slapping her, which is what he looked like he wanted to do.
“Joleen,” he said with a clenched jaw. “Walk me through how this plays out in your head. Because one hundred and forty-four people blindsided by an attack from the cockpit does not end well in the movie I’m watching. I’m seeing an angry mob. I’m seeing the mob turn on us. I’m seeing them take things into their own hands. I’m seeing them try to storm the flight deck.”
Jo pointed to the front of the plane at the locked, Kevlar-reinforced, bulletproof cockpit door.
“You know no one breaks that down,” Jo said.
“You and I know that,” Daddy said, “but they don’t and they’ll try anyway. If we keep these people in the dark and something attacks them, there’s literally no chance it ends well for any of us.”
“But there’s a backup on board. If they know we know—”
“If they know we know?” Daddy repeated, his voice rising. “Jo. The plane is filled with masks. We’re refusing to answer questions. There’s a viral picture all over the internet. I think the cat’s out of the bag.”
“But Bill’s family—”
Daddy slapped the galley counter and the women jumped. “And what the fuck do you think we’re flying here? Cargo? There are people on this plane, Jo. And every single one of them is someone’s family too. You don’t get to say their lives aren’t as important as Bill’s family.”
Jo’s lip trembled in the stunned silence that followed Daddy’s outburst. She knew he was right. She’d known it the whole time. That was the little nudge of dread in her gut. She knew it would come to this, it had to. But it made her responsible. If they told the passengers the truth, it felt as though she was making the choice for Bill. Like she was choosing the plane over his family. The weight of the betrayal to not only Bill, but to Carrie and the children, was crushing. She would live the rest of her life knowing their deaths were on her. Jo struggled to breathe against the choking lump in her throat.
“Jo, think about it. Bill told you,” Daddy said. “He told us. He wasn’t supposed to do that either, but he knew he had to. He knew we had to know. It was a risk, a calculated risk. Just like telling the passengers will be. But we have to. There’s no other way. It’s Bill’s duty to take care of the airframe. It’s our duty to take care of the passengers.”
Bill’s command floated around in her head: This is your cabin.
“This is our cabin,” she said softly.
Daddy nodded.
No one said anything for a few moments and in the silence Jo knew they’d reached an unspoken agreement.
Jo buried her face in her hands for a few breaths. She took one final inhale.
“They don’t need to know about DC.”
Daddy put a hand on her shoulder and gave a little squeeze. “Agreed.”
“And am I wrong,” Kellie said, finally contributing, “or should we also not tell them that the oxygen only lasts for twelve minutes?”
Jo and Big Daddy both nodded vigorously.
“I say we don’t tell them anything that is totally out of their control,” said Daddy. “Nothing about DC and nothing about the oxygen running out.”
Something connected in Jo’s mind. “That is the truth, Daddy. That’s exactly it. What you just said about things being out of their control. That’s what they need to know. They need to know there is literally nothing they can do.”
The hum of the engines accentuated her point, a steady, incessant reminder of where exactly they all were, and what exactly the situation was. When the passengers boarded the plane, they placed their lives directly into Bill’s hands. And once the plane was airborne it became a choice they couldn’t go back on. Bill would decide what happens to the plane. That’s what they agreed to. So now the only thing the passengers could do was trust that the captain would uphold his end of the bargain and land the plane in one piece.
“What, they’ll want to storm the cockpit?” said Jo. “Even if they could, to what end? No one else can fly the plane.”
She waited for a retort.
“To take down the terrorist? Guess what. He’s not here!” Jo wiped her mouth, the full realization of how little they controlled sinking in. “Our best chance of surviving this is to trust Bill. The passengers need to understand that. Hell, the whole world needs to understand that. Because you’re right, Daddy. This isn’t just us anymore. Thanks to that picture on the internet, it’s not just the terrorist and whoever the hell his backup is who know what’s going on. The whole world does. So everyone needs to understand that trusting Bill is the only way this plane makes it out alive.”
Big Daddy and Kellie nodded in agreement. They were all on the same page. They knew what they were going to say.
But one problem still lingered: How?
They couldn’t make a PA. But the plane was too big for them to just stand in the middle and yell. If they went row by row, the confusion and misinformation that would spread by that kind of disorganized communication would stoke a sense of panic. If they had any hope of a unified passenger response to the situation, it would only come as a result of an articulate, streamlined message. But Jo had no idea how they could accomplish that.
Kellie made a strange squeaking noise with a little gasp. When she didn’t say anything else, Big Daddy snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Grasshopper. Do you have something to say?”
Kellie studied the floor. Looking up to Daddy, her face opened into a sort of bewildered and childlike surprise. She smiled broadly. “Actually, yes. Guys, I know exactly how we can tell them.”