Hostage by Clare Mackintosh

TEN

PASSENGER 6J

My name is Ali Fazil, and I wish I’d never set foot on this flight.

The crew members are running down the aisles. There’s panic in the air—people shouting and calling for help, standing up in their seats to see what has happened.

It makes me feel better, to be honest, to know I’m not the only one panicking.

All that time I’ve had to sit here, heart pounding and palms sweaty, watching everyone around me ignore the danger we’re in. There must be intelligent people among them, people who read articles, people who know the facts. Why aren’t they as scared as I am?

I know what you’re thinking: you’re wondering why I’d get on a twenty-hour flight when I feel the way I do about flying. But some jobs require you to get on a plane. You’re not given a choice.

I can just imagine emailing the boss to say,Actually, I’m a really nervous flyer, and the thought of being in the air for all that time is stopping me from sleeping…

Never mind flying: he’d have given me my marching orders.

My sister told me I should quit, said it wasn’t healthy to be at someone’s beck and call like that, but she doesn’t know enough to understand. There’s a hierarchy, of course, like any organization, but we all pull together. We’re like family.

I’ve tried to get over it. I’ve had hypnotherapy. Reflexology. CBT. Ironic for a psychologist, right? It doesn’t matter what I do: the facts always win.

Do you know how many people have died in plane crashes since 1970? 83,772. Wouldn’t that make you panic? Think twice about stepping on board?

The reasons are many. Sometimes it’s as simple as running out of fuel. It happens to car drivers all the time, doesn’t it? No one intentionally runs out of petrol, but something happens—you have to make a diversion, or you get stuck in traffic—and suddenly you’re crawling to a standstill, fuel light flashing. It’s a pain—you might be stuck on the hard shoulder for hours or have to walk for miles to fill a jerry can with enough to get you to the petrol station—but you’re not going to die from running out of fuel.

Unless you’re in a plane.

Because planes do run out of fuel, you know. They get diverted, or bad weather stops them landing, or someone’s miscalculated, and you know it’s the pilots who work out how much fuel they need, not some machine? Did you know that? Think about how many times you’ve got a calculation wrong, because you’re tired or you’ve had an argument with your partner or a million other reasons. All they have to do is get that wrong and…

There’s no coasting onto the hard shoulder on a plane. No hazard lights and grinding to a halt. There’s no walking to the petrol station. There’s just three hundred tons of metal falling out of the sky.

And us. Lemmings, plummeting to our deaths.

Sometimes it’s a shattered windscreen—the pilot sucked right out of his seat. It could be fire: some idiot smoking in the toilets then chucking the butt in with the hand towels. Smoke slowly engulfing us till we don’t know if we’d rather choke to death or burn.

And sometimes, of course, sometimes it’s deliberate.

Everyone just sits there, eating and drinking and pretending it’s totally normal to be suspended in the air, that there’s absolutely no chance of falling out of the sky. No one reads the safety card; no one watches the briefing video.

I did, of course.

I made sure I knew where the exits are. The second I got on, I counted the rows of seats so that if the lights go out, I can feel my way to a door. I checked that my life jacket was under my seat, and if it were possible, I’d pull down my oxygen mask to make sure it’s working.

I want to be ready.

More than 95 percent of people survive plane crashes, although that includes accidents that take place on the runway, so it’s not a statistic you can trust. I doubt 95 percent of people survive a Boeing 777 plummeting into the sea or crashing into a mountain. I doubt 95 percent of people survive a fire when they’re locked in a plane.

Everyone’s standing up now, so I stand up too, and my throat grips tight. There’s a man on the floor. They’ve called for a doctor, and she’s leaning over him, but he isn’t moving, and his face…

I turn away. I count the rows to the exit again; I check again for my life jacket, take out the safety information card, and turn it over and over. I wish I’d listened to my sister.

I thought we’d go simultaneously—one terrifying but mercifully brief explosion sending pieces of plane and bits of body across thousands of meters—but maybe I was wrong. Maybe we’ll go one by one.

Maybe this man is just the first.