Hostage by Clare Mackintosh

THIRTY-EIGHT

3 HOURS FROM SYDNEY | MINA

I press my fingers against the note in my pocket. I picture Sophia lying on her stomach in her bedroom, the tip of her tongue poking out as she forms each letter, carefully looping the tail of each y beneath the line, the way I taught her.

For my mummy.

It isn’t the first time Sophia has hidden some of her baking for me—I unpacked in New York last month to find a piece of banana cake wrapped in a napkin and slotted into one of my shoes—but it’s the first time she’s included a note. The letters I leave on her pillow when I go away barely seem to register, and I’ve often wondered if she even looks at them, but maybe she’s learning something from my leaving them. Maybe we’re finally making progress.

I close my eyes for a second, drawing strength from the thought and from the note in my pocket. I murmur silent affirmations, pouring all the energy I have into them, as though commitment alone will make them true. She’s safe. You kept your side of the bargain to keep her safe. Adam won’t let anything happen to her.

Adam’s name brings into sharp relief all the things I love about my husband, all the things I’ve missed since we separated. Before Katya, everything was good. He’d have done anything for me; I’d have done anything for him. That’s how it works when you love someone.

That’s how it works…

I look past Ganges, along the stretch of empty aisle to where Yangtze now stands by the flight-deck door, and the beginnings of a plan flicker around the edges of my mind. I’m fairly certain I know something about the hijackers that even Missouri doesn’t know, and it might just get us into the flight deck. I picture Cesca sliding into the captain’s seat, her now-familiar voice over the PA, telling cabin crew to prepare for landing, and my heart surges with the promise of home.

“I’ve got Wi-Fi!” A cry goes up from somewhere on the other side of the cabin. I stand, clumsy in my haste and heedless of the hijackers, my urge to speak to Adam far stronger than that of self-preservation. I see an arm in the air, a mobile phone triumphantly aloft. “I’ve been trying ever since we took off, and I finally got a connection!”

There’s a surge of activity: passengers scrambling under seats for their bags, unclipping their seat belts to open overhead lockers. Incongruously cheerful tones sound as devices are turned on, their screens lighting up faces. I look at the hijackers to see how they’re taking this news, but Missouri is staring at her own phone screen, her brows knitted together as she taps furiously with two thumbs.

“They switched it back on,” Rowan says.

“Why?”

He shrugs. “To communicate their demands perhaps?” We both look toward the bar. To one side of us, the pregnant woman is FaceTiming her husband. Tears stream down his face as he reaches out and touches the screen.

“I love you so much,” he says.

“I love you too.”

I choke back a sob and turn away, unable to bear the torture of watching someone else’s goodbye. The noise level in the cabin is rising as more people get through to their loved ones. There are messages left on voicemail, declarations of love, requests for forgiveness. If I don’t make it, tell the kids I love them…

Cesca’s sending a text, biting back the tears I can see threatening to break through her controlled facade. My hand itches for my phone, zipped in my bag at the front of the plane, and I wonder how long the network will cope with so many people trying to call home.

My mother phoned me the day before she died. It was less than a year after I’d dropped out of pilot training, and I couldn’t handle another interrogation about trying again, couldn’t deal with her gentle but insistent questions about what had happened that day in the air. I watched her name flash up on my screen, and I let it go to voicemail. I’d call her later or in the morning.

Only I didn’t, and I’ve never forgiven myself for it.

Images flash through my mind. Adam, standing at the altar, turning to see me walk down the aisle. Meeting Sophia. Bringing her home. Playing bath monsters, walking to school, Adam and I each with a hand, swinging her high in the air. My mother wasn’t there to see me marry Adam, never met Sophia, never knew me as a mother myself. I don’t want that for Sophia. I want to be there for her—it’s what I promised her the day we brought her home.

I’ll never leave you. You’ll never be on your own again.

“Here.”

I look ’round. Rowan is holding out his phone. I reach for it, even as politeness makes me say, “I couldn’t—you must want to—”

“You first. Call your husband. Your daughter.”

“Thank you.” I swallow hard.

Adam’s mobile is switched off, and I hang up and call the landline. I imagine Adam stirring, wondering who on earth is calling at this time of the night. I picture him stumbling downstairs, glancing through the open door of Sophia’s bedroom to make sure it hasn’t woken her.

You’ve reached the Holbrook family. Sorry we’re not here to—I hang up. Press redial. Where are they? I did everything the hijackers wanted me to do. I did it for Sophia, to keep her safe. Where is she?

You’ve reached the Holbrook family. Sorry we’re not here to take your call. Leave a message, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

“Adam? If you’re there, pick up. Adam!” I told myself I wouldn’t cry, but I’m powerless against the sob that rushes up and drowns my words. “The plane’s been hijacked. They said they’d hurt Sophia if I didn’t—oh God, Adam, if you’re there, if nothing’s happened, go somewhere safe, please. They say they’re going to let the plane run out of fuel, and—” I’m speaking so fast, the words are tumbling over one another, and I jab at the phone to end the call, angry with myself for losing it.

Rowan puts a hand on my shoulder. “Breathe.”

Behind Rowan, Alice is typing feverishly on her phone’s keypad. I breathe. “Can I call back?”

“Of course.”

…Leave a message, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

“Adam? If I don’t make it, tell Sophia I love her. Tell her she’s brave and beautiful and clever and that I’m in awe of her every single day. Tell her I did everything I could to keep her safe. I promised I’d never leave her, and I need her to know that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I broke my promise. She’s going to do so much in her life, and although she won’t be able to see me, I’ll still be there, watching out for her. I love her so much. And—I love you too.” I swallow, then speak louder, each word fiercer than the last. “But you won’t need to tell her that. Because I’m coming home, Adam. I’m coming home.”

I wait for a moment, imagining the answerphone playing in the empty kitchen. And then I hang up, and I take a deep breath. I’m coming home.

“Are you okay?”

I nod mutely at Rowan. How can I be okay? How can any of us be okay?

“What happens when the fuel runs out?” Derek says quietly. We’re sitting in a tight circle—me, Cesca, Rowan, Derek, and Alice—squashed into the aisle between the seated passengers. Alice is still typing on her phone. Around us, snatches of farewell calls fill the air with fear and grief. I think of the six hijackers I’ve counted and wonder how many have yet to make themselves known. Derek is, if it’s possible, even more disheveled than earlier, his shirt rumpled and his glasses at a slight angle, as though they’ve been knocked.

Cesca hesitates. “We’ll crash,” she says eventually.

“But what happens?” Derek persists. “How will it feel?”

I shiver.

“Don’t.” Alice screws her eyes shut.

“The engines will stop. One, then the other, within minutes—maybe seconds—of each other. The plane will become a glider.”

“We won’t just drop out of the sky, then?” Derek says.

Alice winces again. Her eyes are still fixed on her screen, fingers moving faster than I can follow. A memory surfaces, and my pulse quickens, the buzzing in my ears taking me back to training school, back in the hot, cramped cockpit of a Cessna 150. I let out a breath, counting to ten and digging my nails into the flesh of my palms until I’m back in control. Cesca’s still talking.

“A Boeing 777 has a glide ratio of, I don’t know…maybe seventeen to one? So for every seventeen thousand feet we travel, we’ll lose around a thousand in altitude.”

“How high are we?”

“Around thirty-five thousand,” I say quietly. There’s silence as we all try to do the math.

“It’s not an exact science. The glide ratio’s dependent on weather conditions, altitude, weight…” Cesca trails off.

“But eventually,” Derek says. “Eventually, we’ll crash.”

He speaks matter-of-factly. As if he doesn’t care. As if, I realize, he wants it to happen.

“At the moment,” Cesca says, “the plane’s still on autopilot. Anyone could be in that flight deck, and you wouldn’t know the difference. But landings are different. The plane needs to be configured for landing or ditching—”

“Ditching?”

“Landing in the water,” I say.

“—and the nose needs to be kept up for as long as possible. If we go into a death dive—” Cesca stops abruptly, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. “Well, that’s going to be hard to come back from.”

There’s a long silence.

“People do survive plane crashes, though, don’t they?” Alice looks at me, her fingers still poised above her keypad. “Those safety briefings you do, that we all ignore—that’s what we’ll have to do, right?” Her head nods furiously as though she’s answering her own question.

“The ones in seats maybe,” Derek says. Alice looks around the cabin, where the economy passengers all have their seat belts on. Several of them are leaning into one another, twisting as far as their restraints will allow, hands clasped above their heads. “The rest of us will be thrown around like rag dolls. We’ll be dead before we hit the ground.”

I glance up at the pregnant woman. Silent tears spill over her lower lashes.

Cesca glares at Derek. “Do you want to start a mass panic?”

“Alice has a point,” I say. “Depending on how and where we land, we stand a chance of surviving this, but if we’re not in seats, the injury potential is significantly higher.”

“So we need seats.” Alice’s voice has gone up a notch. She kneels up, head swiveling like a meerkat on lookout. “I read somewhere the back of the plane is the safest place to be, so that’s something.”

“The plane’s full,” I say.

“But we paid more!” She looks at us all in turn, seemingly oblivious to our incredulous faces. “We paid more for our seats. So if they won’t let us back into business class, it stands to reason that—”

“No.” Rowan holds up a hand, palm raised toward Alice as though he can physically stop her from saying anything else. “Just stop.” She glares at him, then resumes typing. I’m just wondering who she’s saying goodbye to when she stops, stares at her screen for a moment, then presses a final key.

“There,” she says with a long exhalation. “Filed.”

Derek stares at her. “You have got to be kidding me.” He looks at the rest of us, who aren’t following. “She’s written it up for the paper.”

“Let’s face it,” Alice says. “You’d have done the same if you’d thought of it. I bet it’s never been done before. A hostage’s account of a hijacking while it’s actually happening.”

There’s a stunned silence. I wonder how long it will be before Alice’s article goes online. Might Adam read it?

“We could ask for the life jackets from business class,” Derek says. “That would be something at least.”

Cesca and I exchange glances but say nothing. We’re a little over two hours from Sydney—well over northern Australia now. If we crash now, life jackets are going to be about as much use as a spoon in a knife fight.

“Sure,” I say. There are already flashes of yellow in the seats around us. I see Alice eye up the life jacket nearest to her, worn by an ashen-faced teenager, and I picture the journalist ripping it off him, the cost of her ticket justification for increasing her own chances of survival.

“I’ll go,” Rowan says.

“No.” Cesca and I speak at once, fueled by the same feelings of duty, responsibility.

“This is my job,” I say simply, getting unsteadily to my feet, my hands raised in surrender. And my fault.

Slowly, I walk the few feet from the third row to where Ganges is standing. He’s sweating profusely now, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“I’d like to get the life jackets from business class,” I say.

“No one leaves this section of the plane.”

“It will help keep the passengers calm.” He wavers but shakes his head, clear in the instruction Missouri has given him. I change tack. “Who’s at home, waiting for you? Are you married?”

“I live with my parents.” He stops abruptly, as if he spoke by mistake. A muscle spasms by his left eye.

“They must be proud.”

Angry red spots appear, high on Ganges’s cheekbones. “They will be. They’ll be proud that I’m standing up for what I believe in.”

“By sentencing hundreds of people to death?”

“No one’s going to die!”

“They already have.” I think of Carmel, the life draining out of her in seconds. No one else, I think. No one else can die.

“That was—” Ganges flounders. “That was an accident. If you cooperate, no one will get hurt. The government will agree to our requests, and Amazon will land the plane safely.”

“You’ll go to prison.”

“We’ll have saved the planet.”

I shake my head. “How old are you? Twenty-five? Twenty-eight? Your whole life ahead of you, and you’ve been brainwashed into throwing it all away.”

“Climate change is the biggest—”

“—threat to the planet. I get it. But this isn’t the answer.”

“Then what is? Talking? Meetings? Words don’t bring about change; action does. You can be part of the problem if you want, but I’m proud to be part of the solution.”

“Sit down!”

It doesn’t come from Ganges—breathing hard now, as if he’s on the final furlong of a marathon—but from Missouri. She glares at me as I drop to the floor, then barks at Zambezi, “Stay with him.”

Zambezi rolls her eyes but complies. Behind her, Missouri is striding toward the front of the plane. I peer between Ganges’s and Zambezi’s legs and see her knock on the flight-deck door.

It opens, and Missouri disappears.

What’s happening in there?

The man flying the plane—the one calling himself Amazon—knows enough to be able to let Missouri in, but do either of them know how to override the emergency access?

“I hear you used to fly.” Cesca has moved to sit next to me, mirroring my position.

I look at her sharply. “Who told you that?”

“One of the cabin crew, sometime in the autumn. I mentioned I was doing the London–Sydney, and he said he was rostered to do it too but had swapped. Said you were mad for it.” She imitates Ryan’s accent, a small smile on her face.

“Right.” I relax a little. Ryan doesn’t know the whole story, only that I started my training, then dropped out. Trust him to pass on even that tiny bit of gossip. “I had my first lesson in a Piper Warrior. A present from my parents. I cadged a few more in my late teens, mostly in Cessna 150s.”

“He said you started commercial pilot training.” Her expression is curious but not unkind, and I think about telling her everything. I wonder how I’d feel to admit everything after all these years. Confession given to a priest, as death waits in the shadows.

The choice is taken from me by the crackle that precedes an announcement from the flight deck.

“This is your pilot speaking.”

It’s a woman’s voice. Missouri.

“Why is she flying the plane?” Cesca says.

I look up at Ganges, but the confusion on his face tells me he doesn’t know. “Does she know how?”

“I don’t know,” he whispers. I picture him in his parents’ house: his bedroom bearing the memories of school, teenage friendships, music played too loud. Next to him, Zambezi is looking across the plane to the opposite aisle, and I think, Yes, I’m right. I had it right. A plan is slowly taking shape.

Missouri’s voice continues.

“I regret to inform you that the British government will not comply with our demands to impose fines on airlines unable to demonstrate their commitment toward renewable energy.”

I spin around, exchange horrified looks with Cesca and the others. What does this mean?

We don’t have to wait long to find out.

“We remain on course for Sydney,” Missouri says. “There, we will show the government the true impact of their failure to act by flying into the iconic Sydney Opera House.”

Ganges spins around to look at Zambezi, whose horrified face matches those of the other hijackers.

They didn’t know. This wasn’t part of the plan.

My stomach lurches.

A man in a window seat stands up, his phone in his hand. “They’ve scrambled fighter jets! It’s all over Twitter.”

“It’s the Air Force!” someone shouts from across the cabin. “They’ve come to rescue us!” A cheer goes up—defiant, emboldened—and I exchange glances with Cesca, whose face is taut and pale. My stomach twists. With Missouri gone, people are dropping their arms, rubbing stiff muscles.

“What will the jets do?” Derek asks, his sharp eyes catching our concern.

“They could force us to divert to Brisbane,” Cesca says. “Or they might escort us to Sydney airport and stay close till we land.”

Rowan leans in, making a tight quadrant that leaves no room for Alice. “And if Missouri tries to make for the Opera House, like she says?”

“They won’t let us get there.” Cesca pauses. She drops her voice so only the four of us can hear, knowing that we need to keep the cabin calm, that what she’s about to say isn’t something the other passengers should hear.

“They’ll shoot us down.”