Hostage by Clare Mackintosh
TWENTY-NINE
6 HOURS FROM SYDNEY | MINA
The woman who calls herself Missouri is wearing a hand-knitted jumper in chunky, green wool.
The fear pulsing through my body begins to abate—this is not the terrorist I expected. This is someone’s grandmother. We are a long way from safe, but if the others are like her…
It’s clear that I’m not the only one to have this thought, because those passengers who are standing begin to move toward her as if by some prearranged signal. My mind begins to race, thinking ahead to when we have her on the floor. There are plastic restraint cuffs in the crew lockers, and however many of them there are, there are more of us. All we have to do is—
But then Missouri lifts up her green sweater, and everything changes.
The swell of passengers shrinks back. Beneath the jumper are four plastic bags taped to a wide belt strapped around her chest. The bags are black, the contents pliable enough that the corners of each bend slightly, and two thin wires snake from each one and disappear up beneath her jumper.
“Sit down.” Missouri moves to stand at the front of the cabin, by the entrance to the galley. Slowly, every passenger returns to their seats. The terrified silence is broken only by Lachlan crying and by the anxious voices of the passengers at the back of the plane, oblivious to this latest development. I make out the voice of a flight attendant from economy, assuring someone that everything is under control, and sweat trickles down the small of my back. Everything is far from under control.
There’s a bomb on the plane.
Everyone complains about the security queues. You hear them all moaning as they take off their shoes, see them legging it to their gate because they haven’t left enough time for checks. Do I look like a terrorist? they say, cross when they’re pulled to one side for a search. But terrorists come in all shapes and sizes, and this one wears a green hand-knitted jumper.
“She’s bluffing,” Cesca whispers. We’re in the aisle on the same side as Missouri, a few rows back from where she’s standing. I want her to pull her jumper back down, as though not seeing the explosives will make any difference to the likelihood of her detonating them.
“Maybe. Do you want to risk it?” It’s a rhetorical question. Neither of us is going to risk it. Airport security systems are rigorous, but no system is infallible. A bottle of hair bleach will be confiscated, but a travel-sized shower gel bottle filled with hydrogen peroxide can slip through the net. You can’t bring a knife, but you can bring knitting needles, sewing scissors, metal nail files. There are weapons enough if you want to find a way.
Carmel and Erik are on the opposite side of the cabin, Carmel twisting a ring on her finger around and around. The petite woman from seat 5J—the blond I saw flirting in the bar—is still standing, and I gesture to Erik to tell her to sit. As he approaches, the woman walks instead toward the galley, adopting a mirror image of Missouri’s position on the opposite side of the cabin. She looks at Missouri and smiles, then gives a curt nod toward the rest of us. “Zambezi,” she says. It takes a moment for me to realize she is introducing herself.
She’s dainty and doll-like, her hands slotting together in front of her like a bride missing her bouquet, and I scan the outline of her body for signs of explosives. She’s wearing a stretchy dress that falls from sharp clavicles to skim a concave stomach. Beneath it, black leggings bag around her knees.
Zambezi. Missouri.They make an unlikely pair. They make unlikely terrorists.
Missouri walks backward into the galley, never taking her eyes off the cabin. The wires from her vest must run into her sleeve, because in her left hand is a small piece of black plastic into which the wires are secured. She picks up the intercom with her right hand and speaks to the entire plane.
“I am wearing enough explosives to end the lives of everyone on this aircraft.”
The only sound is a gentle sobbing, so insistent, it seems to be coming from the very bones of the plane.
“You are all frightened of dying, and yet you waste water desperately needed for crops. You warm the oceans, depleting resources of fish. You drive cars when you can walk, you eat meat when you could grow vegetables, you cut down trees to build houses to contain an out-of-control population. You are killing the planet, and the planet is as afraid as you are right now.”
This? This is what they have hijacked our plane for? What they’ve threatened my family for? The planet is afraid? Anger explodes inside me, and it’s all I can do to keep it there. I had imagined a religious zealot, a fanatic. Not this. This is what insanity looks like. It looks like a gray-haired woman in a green jumper with lines around her eyes and age spots on her hands. I think of the news coverage I’ve seen of environmental protests and how quickly I changed the channel, dismissing them entirely. A bit batty, perhaps, but not actually mad. Not dangerous.
“Want and need are very different,” Missouri says. Her eyes are black beads, her face animated. “None of you needed to take this flight. There are beautiful places in your own country and in countries you can reach by train or by boat. You can work with companies across the world by email, by phone, by video. You do not need to destroy the planet. It is selfish, it is costly, and it has to stop.”
I think of Leah and Paul Talbot, taking baby Lachlan home, and the woman hoping to reach Sydney in time to say farewell to a dying friend. I think of Pat Barrow, escaping her grief. I think of the twenty crew members with mortgages to pay and children to feed. Need is relative.
“How come you’re on a plane now, then?”
An audible gasp passes through the cabin as everyone turns to find the source of the question.
“Doug, don’t!” Ginny grabs at her fiancé, who is gesticulating like a drunk in a Saturday night comedy club.
“The inventor of the light bulb worked by candlelight,” Missouri says, seemingly more amused than irritated by the heckling. “The creator of the motor car traveled by horse and cart. Those of us working toward a better future must use the tools at our disposal in order to discover new ones.”
“Why haven’t we crashed yet? That’s what I want to know.” A hysterical voice comes from a seat on the other side of the cabin, each word higher pitched than the one before. “If we’re going to die, let’s get it over with. I can’t bear this—I can’t bear it!”
“Someone shut her up,” Derek Trespass says. “You heard her—if we cooperate, we won’t get hurt.”
“She’s got a bomb!”
The word sends another flurry of fear around the cabin. As I glance at the doll-like Zambezi, I see a smile play at the corners of her lips. She’s enjoying this.
Missouri holds up a hand, and we fall silent. “We have prepared a statement that is scheduled to be released on social media in the next few minutes. Among other things, we ask the government to bring forward their target for zero carbon emissions to 2030 and to issue fines to airlines that cannot demonstrate a commitment toward renewable energy.”
The passenger in 2D—the man with the long legs, who told me to cheer up—is leaning forward, his forearms resting on his knees. Instead of the terrified expression on the other passengers’ faces, 2D is nodding along with Missouri’s speech. I nudge Cesca and jerk my head until she follows my gaze.
Amazon, Missouri, Zambezi, and now the man in 2D. That’s four of them. How many more? Are there any farther back, in economy? A sudden thought strikes me: Are there any among the crew?
“We are taking only a few hundred people hostage,” Missouri is saying. “Our politicians have the whole world’s future in their hands.”
Across the cabin, Erik has moved. When I last looked, he was standing with Carmel, but he’s several rows closer to the galley now than he was before. Zambezi is intent on Missouri’s speech, and Erik in turn has his eyes on Zambezi. As I watch, he moves again—one foot, then the other, so slowly, you might miss it. I hold my breath. What is he doing?
“We will continue to stay airborne until the government agrees to our demands, or—” Missouri pauses. “Until we run out of fuel.”
There is a moment’s silence as our collective imagination pictures the full horror of this threat.
Before anyone can speak, Missouri continues, “I am in no doubt that we will achieve our goal. Intentionally sentencing hundreds of their own citizens to death would be rather an own goal, don’t you think?” She doesn’t seem to expect an answer. “In the meantime, all you have to do is cooperate.”
Erik moves again. Slowly, slowly. Is he number five? I think of how he pulled the curtains around his bunk during our rest period, refusing to play along with the gossip and the games. He said he wanted to sleep, but did he have something to hide?
“And if we don’t?” Derek Trespass calls.
Missouri raises her arm, letting the sleeve of her jumper fall to her elbow. The wires speak for her. Jamie Crawford’s wife starts crying, noisy wails that make everyone look nervously between her and Missouri, in case the burst of emotion might trigger the hijackers to act. There’s a sudden movement toward the galley. It’s Erik, running forward and grabbing Zambezi, twisting her arm behind her back. Screams echo around the cabin, and Carmel runs forward, her voice rising above the noise.
“Erik, no. You’ll get us all killed!”
Everyone’s out of their seats, crying and shouting and pulling in different directions. Missouri crosses the galley and reappears behind Zambezi, grappling with Erik. Carmel’s tugging at his arm, hysterical now, and above it all, baby Lachlan screams at the top of his lungs. I take the shortest route across the cabin, clambering over seats, not knowing what I’ll do when I get there, not knowing who is where and which way they’re pulling, knowing only that someone is going to get hurt if they—
I’ve never seen so much blood.
It spurts in a wide arc above the seats and leaves a crimson slash on the wall. Someone screams and goes on and on, not stopping for breath. The man with the neatly trimmed beard—his glasses spattered with blood—says, “Help me get her on the floor!” His gray sweatshirt is drenched in blood, his hands on a wound that won’t be closed, no matter how hard he presses. Screaming. So much screaming.
Carmel. Twenty-two years old. A head full of accent walls and dusky-pink sofas, of far-flung hotels and a boyfriend who works in the City. Thirty-five thousand feet in the air, her blood pulses through a stranger’s fingers, a corkscrew plunged deep into her neck.