Falling by T.J. Newman

CHAPTER THREE

BILL RIFLED THROUGH HIS SHOULDERbag looking for headphones. Fumbling the metal end into the tiny hole on the front of the computer, it took him two tries to secure one of the little white buds in his left ear; the side Ben couldn’t see. His trembling fingers struggled to connect the call, the cursor confused under his frantic touch. Managing to click the green button, he watched the live video feed of his own face slide into the lower left-hand corner as it connected.

The man who appeared on the screen was gaunt with bushy brows and thick dark hair. His skin was light tan and his lips were pressed into a thin line. Bill guessed the man was in his midthirties—and he was vaguely recognizable, but Bill couldn’t place why. The man smiled and straight, white teeth appeared.

Strapped to the man’s body was another explosive suicide vest.

“Captain Hoffman. Good afternoon.”

Bill remained silent. ATC squawked a direction.

“Coastal four-one-six, roger, Denver center,” Ben replied, leaning forward to change the plane’s altitude. “Climbing to three-seven-oh.” Twisting a knob on the center dash until the numbers on the altimeter read 37,000, he pulled on the knob to confirm the command and the plane slowly lifted in response. Scanning the horizon for a few moments, he stifled a yawn, turning back to his phone.

The intruder smirked from the computer as Elise’s frantic wailing could be heard in the background. “You’re not alone. Of course. So how about this. When you have something to say, send an email. I’ll respond out loud. Also, in the front of your messenger bag is a privacy shield for your computer. Go get it.”

Messenger bag.

The bag he had set next to the cable guy’s equipment that morning.

Him.

Jaw clenched, Bill searched his bag. That’s how he got in the house and that’s how he got something onto the plane. He’d left the room when Bill came in the kitchen, that was when he put it in his bag. What was his name? Carrie had said it at one point. Bill couldn’t remember if he introduced himself or not.

Finding a thin, translucent sheet, Bill clipped it onto the front of the screen. He began to type, dizzy with the uncertainty of what else he didn’t know. A ping echoed on the other side. Bill followed the intruder’s eyes as they read his email:

Where is my family?

“They’re fine,” the intruder responded. “Now…”

Bill ignored him, typing as fast as he could.

May I see my family? Please.

“Please! So polite. But no. Let’s talk man to man for a minute.”

Until I see my family, we have nothing to discuss.

The man read the email with an eye roll. “Your stubbornness is annoying.”

Leaning, he beckoned to the kitchen. In his hand, Bill could see what was clearly a detonator. Wireless, with a fitted plastic safety over the red button on top, it was hardly a crude, handmade device.

Carrie and the children appeared on-screen and Bill almost choked. The black hoods had been removed but both his wife and son were gagged and their hands were bound. Elise had stopped crying and Carrie struggled to hold the baby on her hip as her motherly grace was made awkward by the ties and explosive vest. The man brought a chair from the kitchen table over to the desk, motioning for Carrie and the baby to sit. He retook his seat beside her while Scott stood at his mother’s side.

“Now,” the man said, placing his elbows on the desk with a lean into the camera. “You’re a smart man, Captain Hoffman. Or, can I call you Bill?”

Bill stared at the screen.

The intruder smiled. “You see, Bill, you probably already get the obvious. Here’s the rest. You will crash your plane or I will kill your family.”

Carrie’s gag muffled a horrified sound that was something between a moan and a gasp.

“If you tell anyone,” he continued, “your family dies. If you send anyone to the house, your family dies.” Switching the detonator to his other hand, he reiterated, “It’s simple. Crash your plane, or I kill your family. The choice is yours.”

A cold and hollow ache pooled at the base of Bill’s spine. He had prayed the ransom would be money, but he knew it wouldn’t be that easy. The moment he had seen the picture, he knew his cockpit had been breached. He knew on some level that the plane itself was in jeopardy. Bill couldn’t feel his hands as they moved over the keyboard.

I’m not going to crash this plane and you’re not going to kill my family.

“Wrong,” the man said after reading Bill’s email. “One of those things will happen. You choose which.”

Let me repeat myself, son. I’m not going to crash this plane and you’re not going to kill my family. Period.

The face on the screen bristled at the intended disrespect. “My name is Saman Khani. Call me Sam. I’d have introduced myself this morning, but you couldn’t give a shit about the cable tech.”

“Chicago center to Coastal four-one-six, reports of light to moderate turbulence from Delta two-oh-four-four heavy thirty miles ahead, just northwest of your heading.”

Bill jumped at the ATC intrusion, surprised that the rest of the world appeared to have continued on.

“Asleep over there, old man?” Ben laughed, flipping through his display until it showed the weather radar. “Coastal four-one-six, roger that, Chicago center,” he said into his hand mic. “We’re calm for now but will maintain as advised. We’ll let you know if we need to find smoother air.”

“I, uh… I think that cell was supposed to weaken around this time,” Bill said in an attempt at normalcy. “It’s supposed to shift. North…” he trailed off with a point at the radar.

“Yup,” Ben said as Bill turned back to his computer. “Hey, you mind if we call the back for a break?”

“Huh?” Bill said.

Ben cocked his head. “Okay if I pee? Jesus, you okay?”

“Oh. Sure. I’m fine,” he said, glancing at his laptop. “Actually, can you hold on just a minute? I’m right in the middle of something.”

“Sure. I’ll use a bottle if it gets desperate.”

Sam’s laugh filled Bill’s earbud. “It’s like a weird ‘bring your family to work’ day,” he said, Carrie flinching as he laid a hand on her shoulder. An email arrived and Sam opened it, reading aloud: “ ‘I think my first officer would take issue with me crashing the plane…’ Yeah. I think he will. That’s why you’re going to have to kill him first.”

It hit like a sucker punch.

Ben and he had only flown together a couple times, but he liked the kid. He was a solid pilot. Smart, able to fill in the blanks. His confidence bordered on cockiness, but in the way that was actually an asset in the cockpit. They had sparred about sports teams. Bill had been surprised to learn he was a vegetarian. The young man wasn’t married, but surely he had family and friends who enjoyed his easy humor. A girlfriend? Maybe he was dating one of the flight attendants.

Bill was supposed to kill him. Kill him first. Get him out of the way so he could then kill everyone else on board. Nausea simmered in his gut.

Dismissing Bill’s typing, Sam said, “I’m sure you’re wondering how you kill him?”

Bill’s fingers paused.

“I mean, ultimately, the same way you kill everyone else. You crash the plane. But he could actually try to stop you. So in your bag—in the bottom of the big pocket—there’s a bottle full of white powder. On your last bathroom break before you land, just put the powder in his coffee or tea or whatever. A couple sips, you’ll be flying solo.”

What’s the white powder?

Sam read the email, deliberately ignoring the question.

“Oh!” he said, and raised his finger. “And next pocket back, you’ll find a metal cylinder. After your FO is dead—but before you crash, obviously”—he smiled—“shake the can, reach behind you, open the cockpit door. Twist the can open, throw it into the cabin. Shut the door, crash the plane, the end.”

Bill blinked numbly at the screen before typing.

What’s in the canister?

“You ask so many questions but none of them matter,” Sam said, and laughed. “I’m not going to tell you what the white powder is for the first officer. And I’m not going to tell you what’s in the canister for the cabin. See, we haven’t even gotten to the good part yet because you never ask an interesting question. Like, for example, you could ask: ‘Sam, what do you want me to crash the plane into?’ ”

I won’t ask that. I’m not crashing the plane.

“Oh! So that’s your choice?” Sam said, lifting the detonator up. “You choose the plane?”

Carrie clutched Elise tighter. The back of Bill’s neck prickled.

I haven’t chosen anything.

Sam hummed, reading the email. “Well, in this scenario, if you don’t make a choice, you will continue on as planned. Which means landing the plane at JFK. Which is a choice. So…” He adjusted the vest, switching the detonator to the other hand. “If that’s what you—”

Bill began typing furiously.

Fine. What do you want me to crash the plane into?

Sam read the email, a smile spreading across his face. Crossing his arms on the table, he leaned into the camera. “I’m not telling you.”

Watching the man rock back with laughter, Bill could feel his fingernails almost pierce the skin inside his clenched fists.

“God, this is fun,” Sam said. “Look, for now, just keep flying your original flight path. We don’t want to raise suspicions, after all. No one except us is to know what’s going on—remember? I’ll give you more details when you need them. For now, don’t worry about what the target is. Just know at some point the plane will be deviating from its path.”

Bill typed as fast as his fingers could.

This isn’t like driving a car. I can’t change course without creating other problems. Especially if you don’t want anyone to know what’s happening. I don’t have time to explain the aeronautical navigational specifics. Just trust me. I need to know where we’re going.

The captain watched the intruder read the email, praying the man wasn’t also a pilot. What he wrote wasn’t exactly a lie—but it definitely wasn’t fully true. If this guy was a pilot, he’d call bullshit.

Sam blinked a few times, his brow knitting momentarily before he looked into the camera and cleared his throat, clearly stalling.

“I won’t give you the target, but I’ll give you the area,” Sam said finally.

Bill watched Sam take in the array of buttons and knobs that filled the cockpit around him. He’d given enough preflight tours to passengers who knew nothing about flying to know the man was overwhelmed. Sam took a small breath and paused.

“DC.”

Bill’s head drooped. Of course. It made sense. Washington, DC, was close enough to New York that a last-minute deviation would be almost impossible to counter in time. He didn’t need to be told an exact target. It was probably the White House. Maybe the Capitol Building.

“I won’t tell you an exact location just yet,” Sam said. “And I won’t tell you what the mystery powder is either, but I’ll give you a hint. I mean, I do need you alive. So when you twist the canister open before throwing it into the cabin? I’d make sure you’re wearing your oxygen mask.”

A toxic gas, surely. Bill looked out the window at the layers of thin, shifting clouds passing beneath the plane. He envisioned the cabin filling with a similar cloud of… what? He was being asked—no, told—to gas his own plane, his own passengers.

And if I refuse to throw the canister?

Sam read the email, his head tilted to the side while he considered. He looked over to Bill’s family.

“Well, let’s see. I need them alive until the end of the flight. But…” A lock of hair lay across Carrie’s face. Sam tucked it behind her ear. “Maybe I don’t need them all alive? Or in one piece?”

Bill’s knuckles turned white in his grip on the tray table. There was so much he didn’t know, didn’t understand. He wanted to make it stop; he wanted to scream. He could feel the blood rushing to his face. A line of sweat covered his upper lip. He wiped it off with the back of his hand.

“Bill. Relax,” Sam taunted, relishing his visible agitation. “You’re working way too hard to figure out a solution when—spoiler—there isn’t one. So just let that hero shit go. You will make a choice. Your family, or the plane. And if the sacrifice is the plane, throwing the canister is part of the deal. Period.” Sam leaned forward, resting his interlocking fingers on the desk, the detonator clutched in his grip. “And Bill? Just so you know? I’m not an idiot. There is, absolutely, a backup plan right there on board. You will, one way or another, make a choice.”

Bill felt his face go from red to white.

There is a backup on board.

The innocent souls on board.

Which ones weren’t innocent?

Whose eyes watched him and the rest of the crew, reporting back to this maniac? Did they have weapons? A canister full of poison back there already? Would they release it? Would they kill the crew, then rush the cockpit—kill Ben themselves—then force Bill to make his choice? Bill couldn’t keep up with his thoughts as they raced from one sick scenario to another.

What are your demands?

Sam read the email and held his hands open. “What do you mean? I just told you.”

You told me the conditions. But what do you want?

He laughed. “Bill, what are you not getting? I don’t want anything. I don’t want money. I don’t want a prisoner exchange. I don’t want political leverage. This isn’t 1968, man. This is not ‘Take me to Cuba.’ It’s not QAnon looking for kids in a pizzeria or whatever other bullshit your white supremacists believe. And it’s not some crazy seventy-two virgins in paradise jihad shit either. It’s got nothing to do with that.”

He leaned into the screen.

“All I want is to see what a good man—a good American man—does when he’s in a no-win situation. What does a man like you do when he has to choose. A plane full of strangers? Or your family? See, Bill, it really is about the choice. You. Choosing who will survive. That is what I want.”

Bill didn’t move. The man laughed.

“I love how that freaks you out! Knowing I can’t be bought. Or negotiated with. It terrifies you to know I want not a thing in the world except exactly what is happening.”

The men stared at each other. Bill raised his hands to type a question. His hands shook.

Why? Why are you doing this?

Bill hit the delete button until the sentences erased. If this man was going to answer that, Bill knew it would be on his own terms. He typed another question, but deleted it too. His fingers moved frantically. He wanted to understand what he was dealing with so he could figure out how to fix it.

Elise whimpered. He looked up at his daughter.

Bill knew he would get nowhere if he continued on and that he was only wasting time. He needed to get to work.

He typed, this time hitting “Send.”

How did you know I would be working this flight?

“You mean, how did I make sure you would be working this flight?” Sam said. “Turns out your chief pilot Walt O’Malley is quite the little pervert. He had no problem guaranteeing you would work the flight—so long as the pictures of the little boys on his hard drive didn’t become public.”

Bill’s heart burned at the betrayal. His boss, his colleague. His friend. They’d worked together for twenty-three years. This was rotten all the way up to the system chief pilot.

His thoughts slid out of control, nothing to hang on to, nothing to stop them. He was powerless in his own cockpit. Helpless as a man and as protector of his family. Threats at home, and threats on board. He was terrified of the other ways he could discover he had been duped.

Closing his eyes, Bill thought he might be sick. With a deep breath, he stretched his hands wide and then clenched his fists, repeating that motion while narrowing his mind’s eye to the image of the blood coursing through his hands. Gradually, his pulse slowed.

Why did you choose me?

Sam paused after reading the email, turning his gaze to the camera that connected them. “You arrogant prick. You think this is personal? You’re just a means.”

It will feel personal to the 149 innocent souls on this aircraft you want to kill.

“Well, of course it will. Death always feels personal, Bill. It feels damn fucking personal. But you know what the crazy thing about death is? It’s not personal. Everyone dies. No one escapes it. It’s the only fair thing in the world. Sometimes you’re young, sometimes you’re old, sometimes you deserve it, sometimes you don’t. But what the fuck is that, anyway? Death doesn’t just happen to ‘bad’ people, death doesn’t give a shit.” He shook his head, muttering to himself. “Fucking innocent souls…”

His gaze settled on Scott. “Look at your son, Bill.”

Bill refused. Seconds ticked by.

Sam slammed his fists on the desk. Carrie clutched Elise with a sob.

“Look at your son.”

Scott stared squarely into the camera. Silent tears rolled down his cheeks, his knuckles white in a defiant clench. He was trying, trying so hard, to be brave. The gravity of the man he would grow into perched precariously on the trembling legs of a young boy. Father and son, the man and the one becoming, stared at each other through a small lens.

“Captain Hoffman,” Sam mused softly, “is your son good? Does he deserve this?” Sam shook his head sadly. “You speak of innocence as if it meant something to the world. But we’re all just a means to someone else’s end.”

Sam leaned back, crossing his arms across the explosive suicide vest.

“The choice is yours. I already made mine.”

Bill heard someone close the door to the lav out in the cabin. He thought of Jo and the rest of the crew going about their work. He thought of the passengers who were just trying to get where they needed to go. He envisioned the people in DC; senators and members of Congress discussing legislation while their aides passed them paperwork. Security guards smiling down at schoolchildren on a field trip. Families reading plaques in front of statues and paintings. Just regular people living peaceful lives. He thought of his daughter, Elise, who hadn’t taken her first steps yet. His son, Scott, who just wanted to play.

For the first time, he allowed himself to really look at Carrie.

“I thought you hated cats,” Carrie said.

“I do,” Bill said.

Carrie smiled, watching him massage her purring cat, Wrigley. She extended chopsticks full of pad Thai and Bill leaned over on the couch to accept, a little bit of chicken falling onto her bare legs stretched out across his lap. A black-and-white Humphrey Bogart walked across the TV as Bill popped the chicken into his mouth.

Across the apartment by the door, his company badge lay on the floor next to his unopened suitcase. A pile of black—shoes, socks, pants, belt—lay in a heap facing the wall with red lacy panties on top. Buried under hisuniform jacket, ungraded essays littered the floor, her red pen waiting on the kitchen table until tomorrow sometime after he’d left. Looming in the distance through the window, the Sears Tower seemed to wink its approval. Bill picked up every O’Hare trip he could find. Chicago had become his favorite layover.

“Do you believe in love at first sight?” Carrie asked, watching the movie.

“Yes.”

He’d answered quickly and her face turned pink in return. Audrey Hepburn sipped espresso, talking about the Paris rain. “Oh?” Carrie said, popping another bite in her mouth. “How so?”

He turned, confused. “Well, you.”

She froze mid-bite, swallowing. “Oh?”

“When I first saw you at the barbecue. The moment you walked into the yard. Yes.”

“Yes… what?” she said. Love was a topic they hadn’t discussed.

“Yes, I knew I wanted to sleep with you.”

She punched his arm.

“No,” Bill said, shifting on the couch to face her. Bogart and Hepburn sat side by side, driving down the road. “I mean, yes, but…”

Carrie raised an eyebrow.

“Look, the first time I saw you, I knew I wanted you. I didn’t just want you, though. Ihad to have you. It was… animal.”

“Keep digging.”

“Okay,” he said, and sighed. “Humans are hardwired for one thing, right? Survival. It’s our primary drive. And on a subconscious and instinctual level, we are attracted to, and desire the things, that will serve our survival best. Yes? So when I first saw you, I’m saying my body at a cellular level screamedYES. Voilà. Love at first sight. I’m not saying I was just a guy looking to get laid. I’m saying…” He glanced at the screen, trying to figure out how to translate. “Jesus, Carrie. I’m here petting cats. And picking up shitty Chicago trips. And I’d consider moving here if you wanted me to. But the part that’s weird is that I want to do all that.

“Carrie, I miss you the second I walk out that door. I fly as fast as I can so I can get to the hotel so I can call you. I mean, the company has to be catchingon to the amount of gas I’m wasting. I love that tiny freckle in your left eye. I love it that you say you have a substance-abuse issue with peanut butter. I love knowing—and god knows why—that you believe Buzz Aldrin should have been the first man on the moon but Neil Armstrong pushed him out of the way at the last second. The fact that you sweat profusely when you’re nervous but not at all when you’re hot? I love that. It’s weird. But I love it.”

She laughed, a tear falling. He wiped it away and licked his finger.

“My body knew. You’re it, Carrie. So, yes. I believe in love at first sight.”

Her chin trembled, desperately clinging to caution.

“I use your pillow,” she said with a laugh, wiping her face with her sleeve. “After you leave, the next night. I sleep with the pillow you use. It’s too fluffy and it hurts my neck. But it smells like you.”

Taking the plate out of her hand, he set it on the coffee table. Lying beside her, his arm wrapped around her waist, he breathed in the smell of her coconut shampoo. He in his boxers, she in her sweatshirt, the two lay silent for a long time listening to the movie playing behind them.

“Bill?”

“Hmmm?”

“I thought you hated cuddling.”

Carrie looked at Bill through the camera lens. A tear slid down her cheek, caught by the gag in her mouth.

You are not going to kill my family. And I am not going to crash this plane.

He pressed “Send” on the email and lowered the screen halfway.

“All right,” Bill said to his copilot, “I’m gonna go out too. Mind if I go first?”

“By all means, age before beauty,” Ben said as Bill pressed a button, a muffled ding ringing on the other side of the door.

“You beat me to it,” came Jo’s voice through the cockpit speaker. “I was just about to call. Break time?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bill said, adjusting his seat backward.

“Okay, ready when you are.” The call clicked as it disconnected.

“You have control?” Bill said.

“I have control,” Ben replied.

Bill’s hands trembled slightly as he unbuckled his harness and stood up. Leaving the cockpit felt like another layer of abandonment. He tried—and failed—to block out the image of his family on the other side of the screen. Bound. Gagged. Helpless. Waiting for him to do something.

Adjusting his uniform, he closed one eye and looked out the door’s peephole to make sure Jo was blocking. There she stood, cross-armed, facing the cabin, her feet firmly planted. If anyone was going to rush the cockpit while the pilots were coming in and out for their bathroom break, they were going to have to make it through her first. All five feet and forty-six years of her. Most flight attendants executed the post–September 11th security procedure with a slight eye roll. If a terrorist really wanted to bust through the open door, one little flight attendant wasn’t going to stop him. But Jo took it seriously. Years ago, the first officer they were flying with jokingly called her his “one-hundred-pound terrorist speed bump.” He found out the long-winded way what a mistake that was. Jo understood that in placing herself in front of that door, she was declaring: over my dead body.

And Bill knew she meant it.

After the door closed behind her she turned on her heels, dropping her smile the instant she saw Bill’s face. When he didn’t speak, she did.

“Well?”

“What?” he replied.

Pursing her lips, she crossed her arms, shifting her weight to one side.

“What?” he repeated, scanning the cabin over her shoulder, his brows pinched.

If you tell anyone, your family dies. If you send anyone to the house, your family dies.

He couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t tell Jo.

But he had to get someone to his family, he had to get someone to the house. He couldn’t orchestrate that from the cockpit, where he was being monitored every second. And there was an unknown threat back here in the cabin with Jo and the crew. How could he not warn them? And the gas. The cabin needed to be ready for an attack if it came to that.

Bill knew he wouldn’t crash the plane—but he might need to pretend he would. Throwing the canister was a part of that. If he refused to throw the gas, Sam would assume his choice was to save the plane. His family would die.

A hollow dread seeped out of his heart, filling his body. Unless someone on the ground could get to his family, he was going to have to gas the cabin. Which meant the crew needed to be ready. They needed to protect the passengers… from him.

“Bill?” Jo’s voice sounded a mile away.

If you tell anyone, your family dies.

Bill looked at the rest of the plane, at the one hundred and forty-four strangers sitting in the passenger seats. One hundred and forty-four potential threats. Rage coursed through his body, intertwining with fear. What else didn’t he know?

Jo’s eyes, full of concern, refused to look away. “Bill?” she said with a little more force.

If you tell anyone, your family dies.

How could he go back up to the cockpit and leave his crew exposed and vulnerable?

Jo placed a gentle hand on his forearm and squeezed. Her warm touch sucked out his breath like an electric shock.

He needed help. His family needed help. He couldn’t do this alone.

“Jo,” he whispered. “We have a situation.”