Hostage by Clare Mackintosh

THIRTY-THREE

5 HOURS FROM SYDNEY | MINA

The screams have given way to a silence laden with fear and disbelief. Derek Trespass has made all the passengers move away from Carmel, across to the left-hand side of the cabin, roaring, “Show some respect!” when nobody responded. Erik, Cesca, and the man in the gray sweatshirt are on the floor in the aisle with me, Carmel lying between us.

“It is slowing down,” Erik says. The spurts of blood that have covered us all are less regular, less forceful. The man with the glasses is still pressing around the wound in Carmel’s neck, blood bubbling up around his fingers. The corkscrew is from the bar, a simple metal twist with a wooden handle. It seems barbaric to leave it sticking out of her, but the hole it would leave would make the blood loss even worse.

The decision is academic.

“It isn’t slowing,” Cesca says grimly. “It’s stopping.”

We watch Carmel’s life ebb out of her, the convulsions slowing as her organs fail and she loses consciousness. Her eyes roll back in their sockets, the skin around them clammy and tinged with blue. Her rescuer takes his hands from her throat and slumps back on his heels. He pulls off his glasses, rubbing sweat and blood across his brow, his face racked with horror.

I touch his arm, and he flinches, still locked in the nightmare we’ve just lived.

“You did everything you could.”

“I could have held the wound firmer maybe, or—”

“You did everything you could.” My voice breaks on the last word.

“Stupid girl.” Like the rest of us, Missouri is splattered with Carmel’s blood, but unlike us, her face is impassive.

I stare at her. “How could you?”

“That’s what happens when you ignore instructions.”

“She did nothing wrong, and you killed her!”

“It wasn’t—”

I scramble to my feet, sickened by the excuses. “You’re a monster.”

“Shut up, Mina, for God’s sake!” Erik snaps.

I round on him. “You’re a fine one to talk! Carmel was trying to stop you. This is all—” I break off, my conscience refusing to allow the remaining words. It isn’t all Erik’s fault. It’s all mine. He knows it, and I know it.

The bearded man is still staring at Carmel.

“What’s your name?” I say gently.

He looks at me blankly for a second, then shakes himself. “Rowan. We should move her. We can’t leave her on the floor like this. It’s not right.” He blinks rapidly, then wipes his glasses ineffectually on his sweatshirt before putting them back on.

Cesca looks toward the door that leads to the pilots’ rest area. “Could we—”

“We’ll put her in a seat,” I say quickly. Ben and Louis are safer where they are—half the cabin crew too. Why risk them getting hurt when there might still be a chance we can land safely? The pilots still have another hour to go before they’re due downstairs, but I suddenly realize that the relief cabin crew were due on shift an hour ago. Where are they? No sound travels between the cabin and the bunks, but could one of them have come down for a drink? Opened the door, just a crack, and seen what’s going on? I imagine them retreating, closing the door, making a plan.

Cesca’s quick to follow my train of thought. “Yes, let’s do that.”

“She can go in my seat,” Rowan says. He points to where a film plays silently on the screen. “Somehow, I don’t think I’m going to be watching the end.”

Cesca presses the button to slide it into a bed, and between us all, we move Carmel from the floor. I tuck a blanket around her, choking back my tears.

I’m so sorry, Carmel, so sorry.

If I could turn back time, what would I do? Knowing how much blood would be spilled, would I have opened that door? I stand with my hand resting on Carmel’s still warm body, and for one horrific moment, I force myself to see Sophia lying here instead, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that I would do the same again.

Any parent would.

The atmosphere in the cabin has changed. Passengers huddle in terrified groups, no longer in their own seats but crammed on the opposite side, where Derek has herded them. I catch a glimpse through the bar. A figure stands on the far side, guarding the rear cabin, just as Missouri and Zambezi have resumed their aisle positions at the front of business class. The coordination makes me shiver. These people must have spent months planning this—how can we hope to overcome them? The noise from economy has subsided, and I hope the crew is cooperating. I hope they realize what might happen if they don’t. I wipe my hands on my skirt, leaving dark streaks of blood across the fabric.

I make my way across the cabin. I have to know Sophia’s safe, that all this hasn’t been for nothing. Missouri raises her hand as I approach, the plastic trigger visible in her fist. Panic flutters in my throat, but I keep walking. I have to know.

When I’m close enough to speak without being overheard, I stop, open palms raised to show I’m not a threat.

“Where is my daughter?”

Nothing.

“You promised she’d be safe if I did what you wanted. Please—” It sticks in my craw, but I say it again. “Please, is she okay? Has anyone hurt her?” I fight to stop myself from crying, not wanting to show any more weakness than I have to. Missouri still isn’t answering, her face barely registering she’s heard, and anger swells inside me. “You promised. I did exactly what you asked!”

“How rude of me.” A cruel smile spreads across Missouri’s face, and she raises her voice, her words ringing out into the cabin. “I never thanked you for making our hijack possible.”

“What?” The sharp voice comes from Jason Poke.

“Mina here was most helpful. We couldn’t have taken control of the plane without her assistance.”

“You’re one of them?”

“No, I—”

“I knew it!” Jamie Crawford says. “Didn’t I say, Caz, there was something off about her? You fucking bitch. Where are you from anyway? You’re not English.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” Derek Trespass says.

“She looks like a Muslim, that’s what, and since we’re in the middle of a fucking terrorist attack, I’d say that’s pretty fucking relevant, wouldn’t you?”

“They’re environmental activists, not jihadis, you idiot.”

“Semtex is Semtex, mate, wherever you’re from, and I’m telling you: she’s a fucking terrorist.” He jabs a finger toward me, and I jerk back despite the rows of seats between us.

It isn’t the first time I’ve been viewed with suspicion. I was flying back from Dubai, tensions high after a bomb scare in Qatar the previous week. We’d been delayed taking off, and a group of lads were already borderline pissed. Two hours later, they were well oiled. I heard them egging each other on, each taunt more outrageous each time I passed.

“Allahu akbar!”

“What’s the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist.”

“Come over here, sweetheart. I’ve got something in my pants that’ll go off if you touch it.”

They arrested them at Heathrow for offenses under the Terrorism Act. I made myself look them in the eye as they were walked off the plane, even though my knees were trembling so much, I had to lean against the wall.

“It was a fucking joke!” one of them hissed as he passed.

There were enough indignant passengers, with enough mobile phone footage, for their solicitors to persuade them to enter a guilty plea, and I was spared the anxiety of giving evidence at court. I told the boss I was fine, but the incident rattled me for months afterward, and the hatred in the footballer’s eyes now sends me straight back to it.

“What about you?” Crawford turns on the Middle Eastern passenger from 6J, whose eyes instantly widen in fear. “Are you one of them too?”

“Jamie!” Caroline’s horrified tone is echoed in the gasps from several of the passengers around me. “Don’t be so racist.”

The man from 6J drops his head in his hands. I feel a stab of shame at having distrusted his claim to be a nervous flyer. Whatever disasters he anticipated can’t possibly have been as bad as the reality.

“You can hardly blame us.” Crawford is on a roll. He’s looking around for support, and I’m grateful to see that he finds little. Most people are avoiding his eyes, looking at the floor. “It’s always you lot, isn’t it?”

“‘You lot’?” says Derek Trespass. “You need to watch what you’re saying.”

“I don’t care whether you’re Muslim or Hindu or Jehovah’s bloody Witnesses,” says the woman on her way to spend Christmas with her dying friend. “But if she”—she points at me—“helped them, then she’s one of them, pure and simple.”

“They threatened my daughter,” I explain, trying to hold it together. “They said she’d be hurt if I didn’t do what they said.”

“And what about my child?” Leah Talbot screams across the cabin. Everyone turns to look at her. Tears course down her face as she carries on, the words broken by choking sobs. “Do you know how long I waited to be a mother? Eleven years. Eleven years of miscarriages, of fertility treatment, of being told we weren’t right for adoption.” She snatches Lachlan from Paul and brandishes him in front of her. “Doesn’t his life matter? What makes him less important than your daughter?”

Paul reaches for her, wrapping his son and his wife in his arms as Leah collapses into cries that rack her whole body. I’m trembling, remembering how desperately I wanted a child, how the pain in my womb each month was echoed in my heart.

“They are all important!” Lady Barrow is on her feet, and despite her diminutive stature, she is a commanding presence. “All our children. Whatever this young girl did, any number of you would have done too, if it had been your child at stake.” In any other situation, I might have laughed at being called a young girl, but I’m silent as Pat shouts down the self-righteous roar her statement has provoked. “Stop it! All of you, stop it! I for one don’t want to spend the remaining hours of”—she falters for a second, at the last moment changing my life to—“this journey fighting.”

The cabin falls silent. Throughout all this, Missouri has watched with a small smile on her face. She’s enjoying this, I realize with a wave of revulsion. Maybe she even planned it, wanted to see us turning on one another instead of on them.

“The man in there.” Alice Davanti points toward the flight deck as she addresses Missouri. “Is he a trained pilot?”

“Do you think we would jeopardize our own mission? He knows how to fly the plane.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

Fear crosses the cabin like fire, a murmuring that grows in volume, hysteria building into worst-case scenarios.

“Amazon is a skillful pilot; he will take us to our destination without mishap, as long as you comply with our instructions. If you don’t…” Missouri looks pointedly toward Carmel’s body, and everyone swallows their fear.

Several TV screens are still playing, headsets trailing uselessly across empty seats. I watch Zac Efron mouth angry words at an equally angry and silent woman. Slowly, small groups of passengers form again, comforting one another or exchanging fevered whispers. As the focus of attention shifts away from Missouri, away from me, I ask her once more, hating the begging tone I hear in my voice.

“Please just tell me she’s okay.”

Missouri sighs, as though I’m an irritant. “It’s not my department.”

“But you promised!” You promised. As though it were an ice cream, a new bike. I should never have believed them; they’re criminals, terrorists. My hands curl into fists, and Cesca touches my arm, as though she can sense what I might do.

“May we hand ’round some water?” she asks Missouri. “It might help to calm down the passengers.”

Missouri considers this for a moment. “Fine. But quickly. And don’t try anything.” Raising her voice, she sends Erik and Rowan across to the other side of the cabin, leaving the aisle clear as she walks toward the middle of the plane.

Cesca releases my arm. “She’ll be okay,” she says softly, and even though she can’t possibly know that, it steadies me enough to take a step back. My breathing stabilizes, and I blink away the lingering tears.

I have to stay calm. I have to focus.

I’ve done all I can to save my daughter; now we have to save ourselves.

I promised Sophia I’d always come back to her.

Somehow, I have to find a way to keep that promise.