Hostage by Clare Mackintosh
NINETEEN
9 HOURS FROM SYDNEY | MINA
The following instructions will save your daughter’s life.
An hour from now, you will ask one of the pilots to leave the flight deck. You may use whatever reason you wish, but you will not raise the alarm in any way. The bathroom adjacent to the flight deck will already be occupied. When the flight deck contains one pilot only, you will request access and allow the occupant of the bathroom to enter the flight deck. Then, you will close the door.
That is all I will ask you to do, Mina, and if you do it, your daughter will live.
Don’t, and she will die.
The letter drops from my fingers, my knees collapsing me onto the loo. Toiletries rattle on the shelf above the sink, and I’m no longer sure if the roaring in my ears is the plane or my own pulse, thrumming without pause between beats.
This is a hijack attempt. There is no other explanation. Someone wants to take control of this plane, and if I let them, everyone on this plane is likely to die. If I don’t…
I can’t even allow myself to think the words. It can’t happen. She’s five years old; she has her whole life ahead of her. She’s done nothing to deserve this.
And the people on this plane have?
There are courses they send us on, to deal with threats on an aircraft. There are code words. Self-defense techniques. Restraint systems. We’re taught to be vigilant, to identify potential terrorists from their mannerisms, their appearance, their behavior.
It all seems so easy, in the classroom. Breaking for lunch, conversation spilling into the corridor: Can you imagine having to actually deal with that? Filling up a salad tray, buying a Diet Coke, asking who’s around on the weekend: It’s Ladies’ Night at the Prince Albert. I remember the role-play scenarios we did, the negotiating we practiced. Comply, but don’t surrender is what we’re told to do. If only it were that simple.
I never thought it would be like this.
I imagined a loaded gun, a knife to a colleague’s throat. I imagined shouts, threats, religious fanatics in pursuit of martyrdom. Us against them. Fast-moving, quick-thinking. I watched Hollywood films with men who pulled guns on glossy-lipped flight attendants, and I wondered how I’d cope, how I’d feel. I imagined the terror, the panic, the loss of control.
I never imagined it would feel so lonely.
Carmel raps on the door. “You okay, Mina?”
“I’m fine. Just coming.” The words sound as false as they feel. I flush the loo and run the tap, staring at myself in the mirror, unable to reconcile the way I look with the way I feel. I am the same person I was at the start of this flight, and yet so far removed. I think of that awful day in September 2001, when the world watched the twin towers fall, watched thousands of people in New York City die before our very eyes.
If one person could have stopped all that, they would have done so in a heartbeat.
I would have done.
And yet.
If you do it, your daughter will live. Don’t, and she will die.
I’m glad it’s so late. If Sophia were still at school or playing with friends, there would be a million ways someone could get to her. But it’s almost ten p.m. at home, and she’ll be tucked up in bed, her dad downstairs watching Netflix. For all Adam’s faults, he’s a good father. He’d put his own life on the line before letting anything happen to Sophia. She’ll be safe with him.
“Is it the letter?” Carmel says as I emerge. Her face is screwed up in concern.
“Letter?” The effort of feigning lightness almost breaks me. “Oh, no, that was someone complaining about the Wi-Fi—like writing a letter is going to fix it! No, I think I’ve got some sort of tummy bug, actually. I really had to dash for the loo just then.”
Erik looks revolted. He backs away, leaving us alone, which is at least one problem solved. Carmel seems to have taken my excuse at face value.
“Poor you. My mum always says flat Coke’s good for dicky tummies. Shall I get you some?”
“Thanks.”
She beams, pleased to be able to help, and I watch as she rifles in the lockers for what she needs. She’s barely into her twenties, newly loved-up with the boyfriend who works in the City. Not a bad bone in her body.
“I’m sorry, Carmel.” My eyes blur, and I blink away the tears that are forming.
She turns to me, perplexed. “Don’t be silly. You can’t help being poorly.” She stirs my drink vigorously, the bubbles rising to the surface and popping. “This’ll help.”
I take it, sipping and telling her it’s great, it’s definitely working, thank goodness. I’m sure I’ll be fine now, and she rolls her eyes at another call bell and says, No rest for the wicked.
No rest for the wicked.
I look through the curtain into the business-class cabin. Paul Talbot looks at me hopefully. His wife has nodded off watching a film; baby Lachlan is quiet at last, wide awake in his father’s arms. I walk the few steps toward them, pasting a smile on my face.
“I don’t suppose you’d take him for a sec while I use the loo?” Paul says. “Every time I put him down, he starts crying.”
I stare at them for a second, unable to compute that life is continuing as normal, that nobody knows I hold their lives in my hands. Lachlan opens his mouth—the gummy wind-not-grin of the newborn baby—and liquid guilt seeps through my body. Sophia has her whole life ahead of her. But so does this baby.
I swallow. “No problem.” Lachlan curls into the nape of my neck, and my heart squeezes.
It was raining the day Adam and I met Sophia. We arrived at the foster family’s house in a flurry of umbrellas and coats, nerves making me talk too much and Adam too little.
“Sophia’s just through here.”
She was lying on a play mat, an arch of farm animals above her. My daughter, I thought, wondering if I’d ever be able to say that without feeling like a fraud.
“She’s so lovely. Isn’t she lovely, Adam? Hello, Sophia, aren’t you lovely?” I willed Adam to say something, worried our social worker might take his silence as a lack of commitment. But when I looked at her, she was smiling, looking in turn at Adam, who had tears in his eyes.
“She’s perfect,” he said.
Lachlan has the biscuity scent of newborn babies, warm and sleepy. The woman in the seat across the aisle from the Talbots scowls at him—or me. Her long, gray hair is in a ponytail now. If she has children of her own, they’ll be grown up. She’ll have forgotten what it’s like to travel with a baby.
Anxiety grows big as a tennis ball in my throat, each swallow forced around it. Someone on this plane is watching me. Someone wrote that letter; someone knows exactly how I’m feeling right now—and why.
I walk past Alice Davanti, typing furiously on a miniature keyboard, and Lady Barrow, her eyes closed and her fingers tapping to the music playing through her headphones. I scan every passenger, paranoia making every nerve ending tingle: invisible spiders crawling down my spine, along my arms.
Who are you?
Jamie Crawford and his wife are still in the bar. They’ve been joined by a handful of others, including Jason Poke, who is drinking champagne and regaling a small audience with tales from filming.
“…complete sense-of-humor failure and lamped the cameraman!”
Everyone roars with laughter, and Lachlan startles, flinging back his head and crying out.
“The little man’s obviously not a fan, Jason!”
Could this whole thing be a setup? A Poke’s Joke? I look up, searching the ceiling for signs of hidden cameras. Lachlan follows my gaze, and his eyes widen at the scattering of twinkling stars. How many night skies has he seen in his short life? My throat closes, the fear inside me rising and swelling like the tide. No one—not even Jason Poke—makes jokes about terrorism. Not on a plane. Decades ago, maybe, but not now, not after all the terrible things that have happened.
There’s another burst of laughter. The other journalist, Derek Trespass, has a notebook in one hand. Maybe he came into the bar to work or in search of a story. There’s no sign of such dedication now as he tries to shoehorn his own stories into the gaps between Poke’s.
“The deputy PM was the same—no sense of humor at all. I remember an interview back in 2014…”
On the other side, three other passengers have moved on to coffee. They’re picking at the cakes laid out on the bar, Hassan putting out side plates and folded napkins. I hear snatches of their conversation as I carry Lachlan back through to the business-class cabin.
“We’ve been meaning to visit Sydney for years, but the journey always put me off. As soon as I knew we could go nonstop, I booked, didn’t I, love?”
“It makes such a difference, doesn’t it? Mind you, we’re paying a premium for it.”
“First nonstop flight—it’s a privilege. We’ll be all over the papers tomorrow!”
I have a sudden, sharp image of our plane on the news. Dropping from the sky, bursting into flames. Headlines scroll at the foot of the screen. NO SURVIVORS FROM WORLD AIRLINES FLIGHT 79.
I shouldn’t even be here.
Adam and I have always taken time off work in the last full week before Christmas. Last-minute present shopping, a mooch around the German markets. Hot mince pies, a cheeky mulled wine or three. It’s our tradition. Our time together.
“We could still do it.” He had said it casually, but I could see in his eyes how much he wanted me to say yes. It was still summer, the conversation prompted by Adam’s need to book leave. “It might be just what we need. Some time on our own.”
“I’ll think about it.”
The crew lists for the London–Sydney flight came out the next day.
“Sorry,” I told Adam once the swap with Ryan was complete. “I’ve been shafted with the Sydney flight. I’ll be away all that week.”
One tiny lie. And now here I am.
I shouldn’t be here. Not on this flight. Not on any flight.
As I walk back through the cabin, several of the passengers look in my direction. Because I’m holding a baby? Because they want another drink?
Or because they wrote the note?
Not knowing makes me self-conscious, fearful of dropping the baby, my arms suddenly clumsy. I’m still looking at each passenger, but I don’t know what I’m looking for. Someone confident—arrogant? Or someone just as terrified as I am?
The woman in 5G has red eyes. She passes a balled-up tissue from fist to fist.
“Are you okay?” I crouch, getting as close to her level as my knees will let me.
“Not really.” Her voice is hard. Bitter. People who hijack planes are out of their minds, aren’t they? Unhinged. Radicalized. This woman could be either of those things.
“Would you like to tell me about it?” It’s all I can do to keep my own voice under control, but I know I have to stay calm.
The woman stares at the baby in my arms. “You think you have all the time in the world when you’re young.”
I hold my breath.
“Then you realize the clock’s speeding up, and you haven’t done half the things you meant to, half the things that matter.”
I put a hand on the woman’s forearm, and she turns to look at me.
“She’s dying.” She has pale eyes, the color of a winter sea, and she stares unblinking at me, tears unchecked. “My best friend. My sister, I used to call her, although we got on far better than any sisters I knew. She moved to Sydney twenty years ago to marry some idiot with a surfboard, and I promised faithfully I’d visit, only life got in the way.” Her eyes fill with tears. “And now death’s getting in the way.”
“You’re going to spend Christmas with her?”
“Assuming she hangs on that long,” the woman says quietly.
“I’m sure she will,” I reply, because I don’t know what else to say and because this woman has nothing to do with the note I received. All this woman wants to do is reach Sydney in time to say goodbye.
On the other side of the aisle, one row back, is a man who looks Middle Eastern, his dark skin highlighted by a fine sheen. My nerves start to prickle, instinct and prejudice working hand in hand.
“Is everything okay?” I force myself to smile. He’s shaking, and I mentally tick off the warning signs. Nervous appearance; erratic behavior; traveling alone.
“Is the plane alright?”
“The plane is fine,” I say carefully. “Everything is fine.”
“I don’t like flying. I took a Valium, but it’s not helping.”
“Everything’s fine,” I repeat. “Planes nowadays are very safe. Very secure. It’s impossible for anything to go wrong.”
“That’s not true. There are crashes all the time. You see them on the news.”
“This plane, though”—my voice trembles—“this plane is safe.” I leave, forcing myself to walk slowly, the way I’d normally move through the cabin. I don’t want to be holding Lachlan any more. I don’t want such a physical reminder of the innocent lives on this plane. I hand him back to Paul Talbot.
Airlines run safety maneuvers all the time. Fire alarms, ditching drills, tests of standard operating procedures. They will have done dozens for this route alone, dotting every i, crossing every t. Could this be another of Dindar’s tests? An elaborate PR stunt, designed to demonstrate how safe the flight is?
I know the SOP inside out.
The first step is to inform the flight deck of what’s happened. My daughter’s safety won’t influence the pilots, I know that. It sounds callous, but I understand it. If someone’s held hostage this side of the flight-deck door, they’re not allowed to open it—not if it’s a passenger, not if it’s a crew member. Even if their own family was on board and they looked on the camera and saw a hijacker standing there, a blade to the throat of someone they love, they’re forbidden to open that door. Sophia might be in danger, but it won’t make a difference to Cesca and Mike. There are too many lives at stake.
The cockpit door clicks open, and I step inside. There’s nothing but blackness through the vast windscreen, and I have a sudden feeling of falling, of tumbling down Alice’s rabbit hole, spinning out of control…
“Hey”—Mike glances at my name badge, well used to traveling with strangers—“Mina, how’s it going back there?”
For that second, everything is still okay. I want to make it last, to draw out the moment before all our lives change. They’ll notify air traffic control as soon as they know. There’s a silent code to tap in. 7500. Hijack in progress.
What happens then is out of our control. An emergency landing at the nearest airport or an escort from fighter jets away from highly populated towns. In a volatile airspace, there’s even the risk of being shot down: a controlled explosion seen as a favorable option to letting a plane crash.
I swallow hard. That’s not my call to make. My job is to keep the passengers safe, not the plane. My job is to tell Cesca and Mike that we have a hijacker on board.
“All good,” I say. “Except…” My pulse thrums, and I finish my sentence in a rush. “There’s a young boy in business who’s desperate to meet one of you. A real aviation geek. Any chance you could pop through?”
In 2015, the copilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 locked his captain out of the flight deck and flew the Airbus A320 into the Alps. Everyone on board was killed. The response from airlines was mixed: half immediately instigated policies stating that pilots could never be alone; the other half made no such change, instead looking at how they could preempt the mental health issues that had surely led to such a tragedy.
World Airlines made no policy change.
“His mum’s a bit of a cow,” I add. “She’s knocked herself out and left the kid to fend for himself the whole flight.”
“I can’t stand parents like that,” Mike says. “It’s not a bloody crèche.”
“I’ll go.” Cesca stands, stretching. “I need a pee anyway.”
I don’t thank her. I can’t speak. My mouth is desert dry, my lips sticking to my teeth, and as I walk out of the flight deck with Cesca close behind, bile burns my throat.
I’m a mother.
I have no choice.