by Sandra Ryan
The Airnapped Children
by
Sandra Ryan
© Copyright 2019 by Sandra Ryan - All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
- From a Declaration of Principles which was accepted and approved equally by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations.
In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER ONE
SMOKES AND MIRRORS
Peering into the small mirror, Elizabeth noticed the bags under her eyes evidencing how tired she felt. The simple stay-at-home mom had never been a fan of traveling, much less a nearly five-hour journey that involved boarding airplanes. It was doubly stressful having an infant in tow.
She smoothed the bags with both her index fingers, as if the act would make them go away. Of course, they did not. She made to step out of the restroom, hoping the baby had not noticed her short absence and started to howl in protest like he was wont to do in such situations.
Tap, tap, tap, the faint sounds of her feet came as she walked down the aisle to her second row seat.
“Hey, thanks for keeping an eye on him for me,” she said to the lady on her left. She put on a grateful smile for good measure. A smile which quickly turned into an expression of horror as she picked up her baby from its crib.
“Where is my baby?!” the scream burst from her throat like an entity of its own as she held up the empty blanket which had been deceptively folded up to resemble a sleeping infant.
“Where the hell is my baby!” she yelled again, turning to face her seat mate. She grabbed the puzzled woman by the scruff of her blouse, dropping the useless blanket in the process.
Eyes turned towards the hysterical woman as flight attendants hurried in to find out the source of the squabble.
Her face had taken on a deathly paleness and her hands around the woman’s neck, shook with myriad emotions. She had only one thought and that was to find out where her child who could not have gotten out of the carrier by himself had inexplicably vanished off to. She shook the woman harder, wanting an explanation and failing to listen to the helpless pleas of ignorance the other barely babbled out through the vice grip around her throat.
She was in tears by the time they successfully got her off.
“Please, he is my whole life. Just tell me what happened, tell me what you saw. Who took my baby?”
“We know how distressing this must be for you, but please maintain your calm and we assure you, we will do everything possible to find your missing boy,” a hostess rattled on in that typical sweet, soothing manner of the job. “Here’s a glass of water and a mild sedative to help you relax,” she added, stretching out the items to the distraught woman.
Elizabeth took the cup and the pill, swallowing the later in one swig. She returned the glass, her actions seeming to her like the movements of some other alien personality. She was at a complete loss. This could not be happening. She must have fallen asleep and was now having the worst nightmare in the history of nightmares.
“Please, find him. Find my baby,” she pleaded weakly, the tears falling down her face like unhappy fountains.
The hostess maintained her poise as she reassured Elizabeth of efforts to recover her stray child. “The Captain has been alerted and he’s radioing a report of the incident as we speak. My colleagues are also doing a full sweep of the entire plane to find your son. Please, be assured that we will do all it takes to find your child. There is no way he could have gone missing from a plane in mid-flight.”
Missing boy. Incident. Words used by a stranger to describe her world crumbling to pieces in a blink. No, this was worse than a nightmare. Maybe she was in fact, losing her mind, Elizabeth thought bitterly as the pill took effect, knocking her head back in induced sleep, her face fixed in a worrisome mask of dismay.
***
“We hope you have enjoyed the flight. We are now preparing to land. Please, fasten your seat belts firmly,” the announcement came. “Also, note that because of the incident with the missing baby, all passengers are to remain on board after landing as airport security will be conducting a search of the aircraft and passengers. Thank you for your anticipated compliance,” the sonorous voice ended.
There were murmurs of disapproval. Some passengers did not seem eager to pay for what they believed to be one woman’s carelessness with their time. They had families waiting to receive them and for some, this four-hour flight had not been all the traveling they had done that day. They were tired and offended at the ridiculous idea that someone could have spirited an infant out of a carrier and still managed to remain on the plane. What a joke.
Despite the furor that had gone down between them, the other woman looked down at Elizabeth, still well under the influence. She reached across and fastened the seat belt tightly around her waist, a part of her feeling guilty at the loss of the child. She had indeed volunteered to watch over the baby while his mother took the bathroom break and then, somehow, she had managed to let him get lost. She felt extremely puzzled at the occurrence and she imagined the horror if she herself had to go through something like this. She sighed and said a silent prayer for the baby to be found and for this to be one giant misunderstanding.
The airplane dipped downwards, jerking its passenger forward as it began its descent back to the solidity of earth. In no time, the tires popped out and the runway was in sight. They connected with the tarred runway, bumping as the metal bird careened to a stop.
“Welcome to JFK. Please, do remain seated. Officials will be with you shortly. Once they get here, everyone required to step off the airplane one at a time in an orderly fashion.”
No sooner had the announcement been made than a couple of policemen accompanied by regular airport security turned up at the staircase of the plane. As instructed, passengers began to get off in ones.
Inside the plane, Elizabeth still slept. A hostess approached and tapped her lightly on the shoulders. She remained unresponsive.
“I’m sorry but I’m going to have to do this,” she apologized to the inert woman as she reached for a can of water some passenger had left behind. She twisted the cap of and dumped a generous amount of the liquid on Elizabeth’s face.
She jolted upright, a curse word swallowed up as water ran down her nose and into her mouth.
“I’m really sorry, but the plane landed and there was no other way to wake you. The authorities are rounding up all the passengers for the search. I will escort you to the authorities now and I really do hope you find your baby.”
“Thank you,” Elizabeth said weakly as she proceeded to get down and join the others, the hostess right ahead of her.
As they stepped off the final rung, a tall well-built officer approached them.
“Hello, Kyle Burns. I’m with the FBI and we’re here to help find your baby. I believe you are the mother of the missing child?” he asked, looking directly at Elizabeth. She fought for composure, realizing with distress that she would never get used to the term. “Ma’am?” Burns prompted.
Shaking her head clear, she mustered a clear voice and answered. “Yes. I’m Elizabeth Benson, the mother of the missing child.” She choked on the last two words. Saying them herself had burdened her with a new wave of sorrow. Her shoul
ders trembled and she wrapped her arms tightly around a frame that suddenly felt extremely frail.
“Alright, then. Please follow me,” Inspector Burns said, turning around and heading for the rest of the team where they held the rest of the passengers.
Elizabeth nodded her gratitude to the hostess and walked after the policeman. She willed herself to be strong for her baby. He would be found, she thought with stubborn faith. A group of several more security personnel hurried past her and Inspector Burns, some vicious looking dogs lolloping ahead, with their tongues lolling out. He had slowed down to keep pace with her still sluggish steps owing to the effects of the sedative that had not completely worn off.
“They have to do a complete search of the airplane as well. We can’t take any chances,” he explained.
Elizabeth nodded. She felt pleased that they were taking the case seriously. Hope surged through her anew.
Soon, they arrived at a waiting area which had been cordoned off to hold only passengers from Elizabeth’s aircraft.
“Alright everyone, we apologize for the inconveniences this search must be causing you but please, endeavor to comply. Answer any and all questions put to you and do not resist either the search of your person or your belongings,” Burns spoke loudly so all one hundred and thirty-five passengers could hear him. It was a good thing the airplane had not been carrying its full capacity as this would have been at least three times harder and longer. His job was made even easier by the fact that records from the Trinidad airport only had one other couple listed to have been carrying a baby when they boarded. It would take some kind of magic to have a child hidden in their coat pockets, Burns thought bemusedly about the passengers.
Officers spread out and questioned groups of ten to twelve.
I didn’t see anything; I was glued to the screen in front of me with my headphones on, one said.
What kind of mother loses her baby? This is unthinkable, another grimaced, clearly bedazzled by what she thought to be carelessness of the highest order.
Oh, so I have magic and somehow turned an infant to my shoe laces, yeah? Pfft. This is such a joke.
This is so sad. I don’t know how anyone would have the heart to do something this terrible to a woman. Do they have any idea how hard it is to birth a baby? See, this world is such godawful place. My kids are always telling to relax and stop being paranoid but how can I when heartless things like these keep happening? And worse still, the culprit would be right here, feigning ignorance alongside the rest of us. Heavens, I shiver to think about… an elderly woman, rambled on until the officer waved her away.
Dunno. The plane was pretty empty. The closest people to me were like four seats away. Didn’t see noth’n… a Gothic-looking girl rolled her eyes with an aloofness brimming with impatience.
For fuck’s sake, could y’all just let us get the fuck out of here? I don’t see how no motherfucker gon’ steal a baby right on a fucking airplane! Damn, this shit be crazy as hell. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought I’d caught the munchies and was dreaming up some mad psycho shit!
On and on, some yelled. Some shrugged. But no one understood the craziness of a child going missing off a moving plane. One woman seemed concerned though. Elizabeth’s seat mate. She explained everything she knew. From Elizabeth rocking her baby to sleep and then putting him in his carrier, to her legs tapping restlessly as she held down her full bladder, to how they exchanged a laugh when she had asked her if she was okay. She told the police of her offer to keep an eye on the infant while his mother took a quick dash to the bathroom.
“She barely even missed the smoke scare and that had lasted a little over a split second,” the woman narrated.
“Back up a little for me, will you?” the officer in charge of her questioning asked, intently.
“I said, she’d had to take a pee break…”
“No, the part about the smoke,” his brows shot up.
“Yeah, on the plane, there was a smoke just as soon as Elizabeth left. We were a little scared but flight attendants quickly reassured us that the plane had not caught fire like we’d feared. That’s literally everything I know about this,” she finished.
“Thank you, ma’am, you’ve been very helpful,” the officer said, closing off his notepad where he had been taking notes. She was the last of his subjects, so he moved off to join the rest of the team. Here, there were only a handful of people left and his colleagues were presently talking to a middle-aged man.
“Hey, I know you,” the officer exclaimed, as soon as he reached them. “Yeah, I know this guy,” he continued, turning to his colleagues. “Fucking Samuel Clark! Had a run in with him when I busted his ass on a burglary call some couple years ago. And yeah, I remember him well from the trial. He was one helluva cunt.”
“Language, Ken!” the other official snapped at him. She looked tired and clearly unappreciative of his butting into her questioning like that.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, “But I’m just saying we need to keep an extra eye on this one.” He wagged a finger at Clark.
“Well, he insists he didn’t see anything and unless you can somehow prove that he’s hiding the kid somewhere inside his pocket, I’m letting him go just like we did the others.” With that, she handed the man his ID card and waved him away. He walked off, the resentment heavy on him.
A little way off, Elizabeth stood with Burns as he questioned the couple. It turned out that the man was an officer. Burns questioning immediately took on a note of respect for a man of the profession. This was what they did; put their lives on the line for mostly ungrateful or entitled citizens, not steal children off airplanes. But he had to do his job regardless of who was standing before him.
“You swear this is your baby?” he asked, looking pointedly at the two individuals.
“Yes,” the man responded promptly. “This is Heather, my girlfriend. We were just returning from going to show the baby to my mother. She would have flown down but she’s been sick with a terrible case of arthritis and Heather volunteered that we take the baby to her.”
“Well, I’m sorry about your mother, Mr…?”
“Cox. Sheridan Cox,” he replied.
“Yes, I apologize, but we will have to let Mrs. Benson inspect the baby to remove all doubt about him being hers.” Sheridan nodded, even though his girlfriend shifted uneasily.
“It’s okay, babe. A mother would always know her child,” he smiled. Elizabeth wondered if she had really seen the slyness in there but perhaps her brain was overworking. It would be weird if it wasn’t, in this sort of situation.
She stepped forward. Heather extended her arms with the baby in it. Her eyes shifted with a deep sense of concern. Elizabeth bit her lips, embarrassed at having to make another woman go through something like this. Something in her already felt this was a waste of time.
She was not wrong. The baby sleeping in the other woman’s arms looked nothing like hers. It was not only wearing different clothes, it had jet black hair as against her baby’s soft auburn colored hair and an ugly birth mark on its neck.
“I’m sorry. This is stupid,” she blurted out, as she walked briskly away from the harassed couple, tears filling her eyes. She realized this had been her last hope of finding her child here. If they didn’t have him, then who did?
“My apologies again,” Burns said. “Have a safe ride back home.”
“Thank you,” the couple chorused as they turned to leave.
***
Elizabeth sat alone on one of the chairs in the waiting area. She sobbed quietly into her palms, pouring all of her despair into the small, choked sounds. Burns stood respectfully a little way off, waiting for her to finish crying. When it seemed she had finally exhausted her tears but not the grief in her heart, she pulled her face from her palms and looked up, red-eyed. Burns approached then.
“I’m sorry we could not find the baby tonight, but you can rest assured that we are not ending the investigation on this fruitless note. We
will do everything humanly possible to make sure we find him, alright, Mrs. Benson?”
She nodded weakly, her gaze fixed in a faraway place.
“Here, ma’am. Your luggage,” a young airport security person said, drawing her attention to her abandoned purse and the now empty baby carrier. The sight of it threatened the start of fresh water works but she gulped it down, determined not to let these strange people feel sorry for her anymore. She rose.
“Thank you,” she said, retrieving the bag from the blonde young woman. “Mr. Burns, please contact me if you need any information that might help the investigation,” she said with acquired poise.
“Sure thing, ma’am,” Burns replied, but she was already off. Her purse tossed into the stroller as she pushed it in front of her on her way to the exit.
***
“Hey, honey. I called a million times since I saw the news. No one would answer your phone,” a deep, masculine voice filtered through the other end of the phone line.
“I’m sorry. We were held back by authorities conducting a search for…” her voice broke. “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed again. She had spent the better part of the last five minutes apologizing to her husband for losing their only child.
“This isn’t your fault, Liz. I know how much you doted on the boy, you can’t have lost him on purpose. This was the work of some twisted people. Probably a child trafficking syndicate, if I may hazard a guess.”
Elizabeth wondered if she was being too hard on her husband when she thought he sounded a little too calm. It was her baby, but it was his son too and try as hard as she might, she caught no whiff of the dread and dismay she felt in his words. She shook her head as if to clear it. She was thinking a lot of wild thoughts. She knew the man was only being strong for her, for their family. That was what men did. Still…
“Get some sleep, please,” he was saying now. “I’ll be on the next flight out to New York tomorrow.”
“No, stay. Finish your job then you can come back. Hopefully, our little angel would have been returned to us before you get back.” She winced. What if he never came back? Dread washed over her soul in a new wave.