Hostage by Clare Mackintosh

TWENTY-SEVEN

7 HOURS FROM SYDNEY | MINA

I waited for the plane to dive, for the bottles to rattle in the racks in the galley as we lurched forward. I braced myself for the screams from the passengers as we plummeted toward the ground.

Nothing happened.

And still nothing is happening.

Through the gap in the curtains, I can see a handful of passengers. Reading, sleeping, watching TV. After she left Finley, Cesca took the opportunity to walk through the plane, chatting quietly to those passengers still awake. No one’s looking at me. No one saw what I did.

I can’t make myself go back into the cabin. I’m rooted to the spot, guilt hammering in my chest, my brain imprinted with the image of Mike’s face when he realized what was happening. He’s a big guy, fit-looking. He’s not going to go down without a fight. A sob erupts from inside me, raw revulsion at what I’ve done, at what must be happening, right now, in the flight deck.

Why isn’t the plane going down? I need it to be over. I cannot take this any longer.

I picture them breaking the news to Sophia, and tears spill across my cheeks. She’s five years old. Will she even remember me? I think of the note I left on her pillow, never thinking it would be the last one I’d leave, the final physical piece connecting us both. I always knew the notes were more important to me than to her, but I wonder now if she’ll keep that hastily drawn heart. If this note, at least, will be special.

Tears stream faster. I cry for the days she will come home from school needing me, for the advice she will want and the cuddles she’s finally begun to let me have. I cry for her first day at secondary school, for her wedding day, for when she has a baby of her own.

But she will be alive, I remind myself fiercely. And she’ll have her daddy. I choke back a sob as I think of Adam—not the man of the last twelve months, who lied and cheated his way out of our marriage, but the man I fell in love with.

The man I still love.

We could still do it, he said—spend the week before Christmas together, buy presents, drink mulled wine. Spend some time together. And I’d said no. I’d arranged it so that I’d be away—so that I’d be on this damned flight—not because I didn’t want to be with him but because I did. Because I still love him, and it would have undone me.

Cesca comes into the galley, half turned as she answers a passenger. Absolutely—on the homestretch now! I try to find enough moisture in my mouth to speak even as I grapple for the words I will use. How can I ever explain what I’ve done? Every second that’s passed since I opened that letter—since I found Sophia’s photo even—I’ve been thinking about Sophia, about what I was being asked to do. But now that I’ve done it, what next? What happens to us now?

“Sweet kid. Wants to know if you’ve untangled his—” She takes one look at me, then pulls the curtain closed. “What’s wrong?”

I can’t speak. Can’t move. I stand with my back to the flight-deck door, hands pressed against the walls either side as though I’m blocking the way, when really, I’m anchoring myself because I don’t feel real. Nothing about this feels real.

Cesca must see something in my expression. Her face hardens, and she moves me forcibly to one side, punching in the code to request access to the flight deck. Will the hijacker even bother to look up at the cameras? Will he see the panic on Cesca’s face as the door fails to open?

Behind me, I’m aware of someone—Erik, I think—coming into the galley.

“For fuck’s sake, Mike.” Cesca taps in the code again, waiting for the click that means he’s released the door lock.

“What has happened?” I hear Erik’s clipped tones, followed by Carmel’s softer ones.

“Is something wrong?”

The four of us cluster around the flight-deck door, and I wonder what we’ll do if a passenger wants to use the bathroom or comes looking for a drink. It will be obvious to them that something is terribly wrong.

“Mike’s not letting me in.” Cesca swears under her breath, her fingers slipping on the keys. Her breathing is rapid and noisy, panic breaking through the surface. A slim wedding ring encircles her fourth finger. “Is he ill, or…Mike!” Her voice is urgent but quiet—he wouldn’t hear even a shout—and I try to speak but my mouth is so dry, nothing comes out. Cesca is trying the code again and again, and Erik is looking at me, and he knows. He knows…

“He’s got kids,” Cesca says. “Why would he…”

“Use the emergency code,” Erik says.

“No!” It’s out before I can stop it. The emergency code works in the opposite way to the standard request code. Instead of the pilot pressing a button to allow access, they have to press one to stop it. But to do that, they have to know it exists. They have to know which button to press.

Everyone stares at me.

“Don’t,” I say quietly.

They think it’s just Mike in there. That he’s ill or that he’s lost his mind. They don’t know we’ve been hijacked. They don’t realize they could all get hurt too.

“It was her.” Erik points an accusatory finger at me.

“I—”

“She did something.”

Everything spins, as though I might pass out. I have to explain. “My—my daughter. I—”

“She has been hiding something since we took off.”

Where do I even begin? I taste salt on my lips and realize I’m crying again. Perhaps I never stopped. I hear everyone’s voices as though we’re on a long-distance call: the briefest of delays between receiving the sound and understanding it.

“She was in the bathroom for a long time. Too long,” Erik says.

Sophia, I tell myself. I did it for Sophia.

“She got a note. From a passenger.” Carmel flushes slightly, avoiding my eyes as she tells Cesca. All three of them surround me, and I wish it would happen now, I wish the plane would dive and the inevitable would happen and it would all be over.

Will the investigation uncover how they accessed the flight deck? Will people know the impossible position in which I found myself? I think of the headlines, the photos they’ll dredge from somewhere to show the face of the woman who betrayed everyone. Will Adam hide them from Sophia? Will he tell her that I did it for her, to keep her alive, keep her safe? Will she understand that I loved her so much, I would have done anything to protect her? That I died to save her?

“Mina!” Cesca shakes me hard by the shoulder. “If you’re withholding information, I order you to tell me this instant.”

I open my mouth, but as I do so, the intercom crackles. Everyone freezes.

Ladies and gentlemen, this flight is under new management. My name is Amazon, and I am now your pilot. Only full cooperation will ensure your safety.

The stunned silence is broken by a terrified scream ringing out from somewhere near the back of the plane. It triggers a huge swell of noise, like a dam bursting, as passengers scramble across seats and down the aisles.

“Tell them to sit down,” Cesca says, and Carmel rushes to comply, but half the passengers are crowding around the galley already, snatching open the curtains and demanding to know what’s going on. Is this some kind of joke? Are we being hijacked? Is this a terrorist attack? At the end of the seven business-class rows, framed in the doorway to the bar, Hassan stands with a cloth hanging from one hand, the glass he was drying in the other. Behind him, on the opposite side of the bar, the crew in economy is fighting to keep control. All around, there are people crying and clutching one another, hysteria rising like a tidal force.

Erik and Carmel take an aisle each, and I hear the undercurrent of fear in their voices as they tell people to please take your seats and try not to panic. The passengers already in their seats are gripping their armrests. Some have assumed the brace position. Several are praying.

I find my voice. “The hijacker is a man who was sitting in seat 7G.”

Cesca drags me out of view, pushing me against the lockers. Her fingers handcuff my arms either side of me, the metal doors hard against my wrist bones. “How do you know that?”

I take a breath. Release it in a sob. “Because I let him into the flight deck.”

“You’re working with him?”

“No!”

“I don’t believe you.”

“He threatened my daughter. He knew things about her. He knew her school. He had a photograph of her—taken this morning. He had something from her bag. He said if I didn’t do it, she’d be killed. What else could I do?” My voice rises, ending with a plea that would be heard in the cabin were it not for the noise already being made there.

“You could have called it in!” Specks of wetness hit my face as Cesca screams at me. “You’ve put everyone’s lives in danger!”

“He said if we cooperate—”

“And you believe him?” Cesca gives a harsh laugh. “I can’t decide if you’re dangerous or just stupid, Mina.”

“My daughter’s name is Sophia.” I drop my voice.

“I don’t c—”

“She’s five years old. Just started school. She’s really bright, and she remembers everything. She’s incredible.” I’m speaking so fast, there’s no space between words, and I’m not seeing Cesca; I’m seeing Sophia’s crazy curly hair and her big, brown eyes. I’m feeling her soft hand in mine, the weight of her embrace in my arms. “She was born to a woman who didn’t care whether she lived or died, and she was given to us because we did care.” Tears choke my words, but I carry on regardless, and I feel Cesca’s grip on my wrists slacken a little. “And I swore I’d keep her safe, no matter what.”

Cesca lets my hands fall, but she doesn’t move. My wrists throb.

“Do you have children?”

There’s a long pause, then Cesca nods. “Three.”

“Wouldn’t you have done the same?”

She doesn’t answer. She takes a step back, shaking herself into action. “We need to calm everyone down. Panic isn’t going to help anyone. We’ll go through the cabin, speaking to everyone individually, okay?”

I nod.

“We tell them we’ll be doing everything we can to ensure their safety; that yes, the flight deck has been breached, but that we will be attempting to communicate with the hijacker in order to regain control of the plane. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“And, Mina?” Cesca lifts her chin, her eyes drilling into me. “Stay where I can see you.”

Beds have been changed back into seats, headsets dangling from abandoned films. Blankets and pillows litter the floor as passengers cluster in small groups, panic written on their faces. Finley has crawled onto his mother’s lap, his face buried in her neck.

At the front of the cabin, Leah Talbot holds baby Lachlan, silent sobs darkening the comforter she’s wrapped around him. I crouch by their seats, scrabbling for words.

“It’ll be okay,” I hear myself saying, and I despise myself for the lie.

Leah looks at me, her mouth twisting as she tries to talk. “Ten years, I’ve been trying for a baby.” She rocks back and forward, bent over her baby.

Paul reaches for her. “Leah, don’t.”

“We can’t—we weren’t able to…” She’s crying, her words punctuated by painful gulps. “Paul’s sister carried Lachlan for us. We’ve been staying with them. Since the birth.”

“Leah…” Her husband is close to tears too, but she keeps talking.

“When we checked in for this flight, all three of us, I thought I was going to burst with happiness. We were finally a family. I finally got to bring a baby home.”

“It’ll be okay,” I say again, trying to make it sound true. “We’re doing everything we can to get the plane back under control.”

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” Leah says. She collapses against Paul, letting him rub her back and try for soothing words that are no match for the horror of the situation in which they find themselves, and as I walk away, something changes inside me.

We cannot let this happen.

Every single person on this plane has a reason to be here: someone they’re going to see, someone who will cry for them if our plane never arrives. Every passenger has a story. A life to live. I did the only thing I could do, to keep my daughter safe, but now we have to fight.

I wipe my face and make myself mentally step away from what I’ve done. What matters now is how I deal with it. What matters is getting home to Sophia. Getting everyone else home. The man from seat 7G didn’t crash the plane the second I let him into the flight deck, which means they must be planning to take us somewhere else before—

I don’t let the thought finish. If they’re taking us somewhere else, we have time on our side.

Alice Davanti is writing. She looks up as I approach but returns to her notebook before I’ve finished, her pen moving frantically across the page.

“Are you…working?” It seems extraordinary, but it is an extraordinary situation.

“A letter,” she says curtly. “To my mother.”

I catch a glimpse of the first line—I’m so sorry—before I leave her to speak to the next passenger and the next. They are, variously, frightened, confused, and angry. Some are all three. Derek Trespass, the balding journalist, is in the aisle, speaking with the eloping couple, who have reached a level of insobriety that is cushioning them from reality.

“Jusht open the door and drag ’im out!” Doug is saying. “I’ll do it myself!”

“Don’t hurt yourself, baby.” His fiancée grabs his arm. Mascara streaks her cheeks.

“It’s bloody tempting,” Trespass says. “At least we’d be doing something.”

“I understand your concerns, but we really do need everyone to stay calm. Please return to your seats—”

“Stay calm?” Doug says. “We’re being hijacked for Godshshake!”

Only a handful of passengers are sitting down, containing their fear, and craning their necks toward the door to the flight deck. What’s happening in there? Is Mike dead? I think of what Cesca said—he’s got kids—and feel sick to the stomach.

An older woman at the front of the plane stands up and claps her hands, the way a primary school teacher does. “Excuse me!” Her voice is shrill, but there’s an authority about it, and slowly everyone turns to look at her. “Panicking is unnecessary and unhelpful.” It’s the woman with the long, salt-and-pepper hair, who decanted her belongings into pockets rather than put her bag in a locker.

There’s a murmur of discontent from somewhere, but for the most part, the cabin is quiet. People need a voice of reason in a crisis, and they are often more ready to trust one of their own than the people in charge. This woman could be helpful. I try to retrieve her name from my memory, but there’s nothing there.

“No one will get hurt, as long as you cooperate.”

I start to make a plan. There will be other passengers like this woman—authoritative, confident. They can help us keep everyone calm, while we—

My brain catches up with what I’ve just heard.

You. Not we.

“The plane is now under our control.” The woman is in her sixties. She looks like a teacher, a social worker, a nurse, not a terrorist. She holds up a hand as a man two rows back makes a move toward her. “We have weapons, and we will not hesitate to use them.”

Slowly, the man sinks into an empty seat.

“My name is Missouri,” she says. “But I am not alone.” She looks around the cabin, and one by one, we do the same. My gaze falls on each passenger in turn. Jason Poke, the Talbots, Finley and his mother. Lady Barrow. The nervous flyer. The petite blond who cried as we took off.

“My friends and allies sit among you,” Missouri says. A small smile plays across her lips. “Try anything, and we will know.”

My pulse thrums. I had thought I was doing the bidding of one hijacker—of the man with the sharp-angled face now in charge of our plane. But there are more. We don’t know how many. We don’t know where they’re sitting.

We can’t trust anyone.