Falling by T.J. Newman
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
WHEN BIG DADDY ENTERED FIRSTclass, Jo gasped.
“I know. It’s gonna be one hell of a tan line,” Daddy said.
Outside of his mask, his whole face was red and swollen and covered in blisters. The palms of his hands were wrapped in gauze from the first-aid kit and the whites of his eyes were painted red.
Josip stood next to Jo wearing a spare portable oxygen bottle like the rest of the crew. Big Daddy looked the man up and down.
“He’s with us,” Jo said.
Daddy glanced back at Dave, still slumped over unconscious. “Yeah, no shit,” he said. “But why’s he up here?”
“Because he’s blocking for me,” Jo said.
“I’m sorry?”
“We figured out the mole. It’s Ben. And he’s got a gun.”
Daddy blinked at her.
They’d both been in aviation their entire adult lives and they both knew the only thing you could always count on was that your crew had your back. Crew was family. And family didn’t turn on its own.
Big Daddy clutched the sides of the bulkhead to steady himself, searching the floor as if the explanation was stretched out before him.
“Daddy, we don’t have time for—”
Bending forward at the waist, he yelled out a string of obscenities. When he stood upright again, he locked his bloodshot eyes on Jo.
“I’m fine,” Big Daddy said with a depth to his voice Jo had never heard before. “What’s the plan?”
She laid it out quickly and plainly. Daddy was to sit in Jo’s jump seat and lead the evacuation from the front once the plane was on the ground. Josip was going to block, and Jo was going to enter the cockpit via keypad entry.
Daddy stared at her. “And do what? Ben has a gun! Jo, we didn’t even discuss keypad entry as an option. Because it’s not an option. You know they’ll override—”
“I know!” Jo clenched her fists at her sides. “But I have to try. I have to get up there. To help Bill. Or stop Ben. Or…” Jo slapped her jump seat. “Dammit, Daddy, sit down.”
Daddy picked up the phone and called the back while strapping himself into the jump seat. As he explained the situation to Kellie, Jo closed and secured a galley carrier. In her hand was a long, hard tube of red plastic with a bulbous end.
Daddy raised his eyebrows and covered the speaker of the phone with his hand. “Ben’s got a gun and you’re arming yourself with the ice mallet?”
“You got a machete I don’t know about?”
Josip remained silent next to Jo, laboring to breathe. The two of them had taken the brunt of the poison up front in the first attack and, while they looked nothing like Daddy, the poison’s effects were showing.
Jo placed a hand on his bicep. “Mr. Guruli. It’s time. Stand here with your back to me. Face the passengers. Stop anyone who tries to get past you by any means necessary. The only people in this cabin who we trust are the flight attendants.” She squeezed his arm.
Josip nodded and assumed his position. Crossing his arms, he widened his stance, standing up to his full height. He was a mountainous form, rooted and impenetrable. Standing between the two immovable forces, Josip and the door, claustrophobia trickled over Jo.
She took a deep breath, focusing on the vertical display of numbers to the left of the lav. Closing her eyes, she reviewed what was about to happen.
She would enter the secret six-digit numerical code—and then wait. In the cockpit, an alarm would sound, alerting the pilots that someone was trying to force an entry. The pilots would then have forty-five seconds to override the keypad entry attempt. If they did that, the door would remain locked and wouldn’t unseal until arrival. If they didn’t override her attempt, a green light would appear on the keypad panel and Jo would have a five-second window to open the door. After five seconds, the door would lock again.
The three flight attendants hadn’t even considered using the keypad as an option. Mainly because they didn’t know Ben was a threat, but also because it was incredibly easy for the pilots to thwart if they wanted to. The whole purpose of the keypad entry was for the unlikely event of a dual pilot incapacitation, an instance where both pilots were unconscious. There was almost no chance that it would work.
Now it was the only option they had.
Jo opened her eyes and raised a hand to the keypad but something kept her from punching the buttons. Her finger wavered over the set of numbers in a maddening hesitation.
On the other side of the door was a landscape of betrayal and violence. Ben had a gun. There was no way to know what might have already happened in there. No way to know what she was going to encounter. And she was about to barge into it blindly. Armed with a plastic ice mallet.
“Jo?”
She looked down to Big Daddy, seated in the jump seat right beside her.
“It’s okay to be scared.”
She nodded and began entering the code.