by Daniel Smith
He fired twice, making a terrible boom inside the small room. The barrel flashed, the pistol kicked, and the bullets thumped into the wall on one side of me.
I hadn’t expected our attacker to react so quickly, and my survival instinct took over, making me twist away, releasing the arrow to fall harmlessly to the floor. As I moved, the plane lurched once more, making me lose my footing and bang the back of my head against the wooden table behind me. I slumped to the floor in a daze.
At the same time, the president jumped down from the desk behind the door and swung a heavy fire extinguisher at Hazar’s face. The movement of the plane disrupted him, though, and gave Hazar just enough time to recover from his surprise. He reacted by leaning back and raising his arm so the fire extinguisher skimmed against his forearm and swung into the wall beside him. As soon as the president was overbalanced by the weight of the extinguisher, Hazar stepped in and brought the barrel of his pistol crashing into the president’s head, breaking the skin and drawing blood.
My friend cried out in pain and put his hands to his head as he collapsed to the floor, then Hazar was on him, pinning him down and pressing the pistol under the president’s left ear.
From where I was lying, stunned and bleary-eyed, I saw Hazar grit his teeth and put his left hand around the president’s throat. “At last,” he growled like an animal that had finally caught its prey.
“Please,” the president said.
Hazar glanced over in my direction and I closed my eyes, playing dead.
“Don’t …” The president struggled to even whisper.
I risked opening my eyes a touch, repositioning my head to see what was going on. Hazar was still pinning the president to the floor, with one hand on his throat and the other holding the pistol. He was looking down at him, baring his teeth, his eyes wide in anger.
I took the chance to reach out for my bow, closing my fingers around it and pulling it closer.
Hazar pressed the pistol harder and took a deep breath. “My orders were to take you alive, but now —”
“Orders?” Hazar’s grip was so tight that the president’s words were hoarse. “What … orders? What the hell do you want from me?”
“I don’t have time for this.” Hazar’s voice was deep and savage.
“Tell me,” he insisted.
Hazar sneered and pressed the pistol harder, digging it right into the president’s skin. “It won’t make any difference to you now, but this isn’t how it was supposed to be.”
“Tell me,” the president asked again, trying to move his head away from the pistol.
Hazar took a deep breath and tightened his jaw so the muscles bulged in his cheeks. He glanced across at me, making me close my eyes, then growled and cleared his throat. “You were going to be held captive. Filmed and uploaded on a live web stream, every moment of your imprisonment to be documented.”
“What?”
I opened my eyes just enough to see Hazar lean forward, so his face was a hair’s breadth from the president’s. The wicked smile appearing on his lips told me he was starting to feel like he had won. He had caught his prey.
“After seven days, you would be beheaded,” he said. “The images would horrify the world and everyone would know the War on Terror is not over. The US government would double funding to the Central Intelligence Agency, extraditions could restart, and everyone would turn a blind eye to torture and interrogation. That was the game plan.”
“What … the hell … kind of terrorist are you? I thought you were … some kind of hunter.”
“That’s what that idiot Morris thinks.” Hazar turned his head in my direction, making me close my eyes once more, but he was distracted now. He was enjoying himself. “But I’m much more than that, Mr. President: I’m a ‘fixer.’ I ‘fix’ things. I was going to make you a martyr. Everyone would love you. The United States would have its antiterrorist budget, and there’s a vice-president just waiting in the wings to be sworn in.”
“He knows about this? That’s how you got access to the satellite feeds? He’s in on this?”
“Who do you think planned it all? And what vice-president doesn’t want to be president? The only way for that to happen, though, is for the president to die.”
“You don’t have to do this,” the president said.
“You’d be surprised how many times I’ve heard that. So many people say —”
From somewhere deep in the plane came a long, cavernous groan, like the mourning of some giant beast, and everything heaved. The cabin pitched farther, the tail sinking deeper, making the plane’s nose rise and twist.
I opened my eyes in time to see Hazar thrown sideways off the president, his pistol raised so that the muzzle was pointed at the far wall.
Seeing his chance, the president seemed to awaken like a wild animal. It was as if the past hours of fearing for his life had finally unlocked something inside him, and now it was ready to be unleashed. He let out the most terrifying shout and exploded in a burst of unexpected strength and aggression. He turned and threw himself on Hazar, grabbing his pistol arm in one hand and using the other to rain punches down on the man’s head.
“I am not going to die!” he shouted as he threw his fists at Hazar. “I am not going to die!”
I jumped to my feet and hurried across the debris-littered floor, but the president was doing fine without me. Hazar had lost his grip on the weapon, which went skittering away to be lost among the other clutter, and was trying to protect himself. The president was like a madman, pummeling him with both fists, over and over again until Hazar stopped moving altogether. Only then did the president finally stand and step back to look down at Hazar.
“First it’s my bodyguard and now it’s my vice-president.”
His shoulders were moving up and down as he breathed away his fury, and his face was contorted into a grim expression of anger.
“You got him,” I said.
The president looked at me and shook himself, as if to banish the demon that had possessed him. He closed his eyes and let out a long sigh, and when he opened his eyes again he looked normal. Scared and confused, just like the man who had stepped out of the pod last night. “Do … do you think he’s dead?”
I crouched beside Hazar and put my index finger below his nose, feeling the heat of his breath. “No.” I shook my head. “But he’s out cold.”
“Morris would have been proud of me,” he said, rubbing his throat.
“I’m proud of you.”
The radio on Hazar’s belt let out a blast of static, making us both snap our heads around to look at it.
Pssssssshhhhhht!
“Hazar?” Morris’s whispering voice hissed into the suite. “Hazar? What’s going on? Hazar? Hazar? Damn it!” The radio clicked off.
“He heard the shots,” I said. “He knows something’s wrong.”
The president’s eyes widened and he stumbled over to the far wall as the plane groaned and moved again. He steadied himself with one arm, then started lifting blankets and pillows, throwing them aside.
“What are you doing?”
“The gun,” he said. “We need to find it.”
“Forget the gun,” I said, “you need to do something with him. Tie him up, or … something. He’s going to wake up any moment.”
“What about Morris?”
“Leave him to me.” I pulled an arrow from the quiver on my back. “I’m going to hunt him.”
“What? No, Oskari, he’s too dangerous.”
I thought I could see doubt in his eyes, even after everything we’d been through, and a spark of anger and disappointment flared in me. It brought with it all the other feelings I’d had when I was standing up there on the platform, seeing everybody’s faces as I tried to draw the bow.
“Why does nobody ever think I can do it?”
“It’s not that. I just don’t want anything to happen to you, Oskari.” He reached out to stop me, but I was already heading for the door.
I i
magined I was hunting in the forest behind our house at night. Instead of trees and shrubs to block my path, though, there were overturned chairs and piles of papers. Instead of creeping around boulders and moving silently down muddy inclines, I had to navigate bags and broken laptops, and a wet carpeted floor that sloped away toward the tail of the plane.
The bow was in my hand, an arrow nocked against the string.
I was a hunter again. No longer running, no longer afraid.
Morris was my prey.
I concentrated on my breathing, bringing it slow and steady, moving just inches at a time, making no noise at all. I was like the mist as I passed the president’s office and ventured deeper into the darkness.
The blinds remained down, covering the windows, stopping anything but the narrowest beams of light from entering the cabin. Smoke and dust danced in the air.
He was out there. I could hear his breathing, hear the whisper of his shoes on the carpet.
There.
Close.
A few feet away.
The security door that the president had sealed when we came into the plane was now open. We had left it that way when we prepared our trap, encouraging the men to split up, and they had fallen for it. Morris was beyond the door, in the meeting area we had come through.
Shuck!
It took me a moment to realize what the sound was. The shutters. Morris was raising the shutters.
Shuck!
He was trying to take away my advantage of darkness.
Shuck!
Light flooded into the cabin.
“No more hiding in the dark, Mr. President. Time to show yourself.” His quiet voice slipped along the corridor like the murmur of an evil spirit.
I stopped and moved sideways into the medical office, standing still and listening.
Shuck!
“You know I’m going to find you.”
I lifted the bow and drew the string, focusing on what I had to do. It was him or me. I had to do this. My arrow had to fly true.
Shuck!
“Nowhere to hide, Mr. President.”
The string came back and back, as if my strength knew I needed it now more than ever. It came past my shoulder and across my chest. My left hand gripped the bow like a vise, my arm was like solid wood. The string cut into the fingers of my right hand as I drew it farther and farther. It reached the tip of my nose without faltering. Then it was as far back as any man could draw it. The string was against my cheek and the bow was at its most powerful. There was no surge of excitement, though, and my breathing didn’t quicken. I had done it: I had drawn the bow. But this was not a time for celebration; it was a time for hunting.
And hunting is a serious matter.
The sound of shoe leather on the carpet. Out in the corridor this time.
Shuck!
I sidestepped out from the medical office and faced him. One step was all it took, and the bow remained solid in my hand, the string remained at my cheek, the arrow remained in my fingers.
Morris saw me right away. He took a pace toward me, then hesitated and stared in confusion.
So I shot him.
I released the arrow, strong and true, and it flew at him along the corridor as if in slow motion. I saw every vibration of the wooden shaft and every ruffle of the feathered flight. It was a deadly missile, racing to its mark.
It struck him in the chest. A perfect shot.
But it did nothing. It hit Morris right over the heart and bounced away like a stick thrown by a child.
Morris stepped back in alarm, then stopped and glanced down. When he looked up at me, his eyes flashed and his lip curled.
“Well, well,” he said, lowering his pistol slightly. “The small shoes.”
I stared in disbelief. I had hunted and hidden and drawn the bow as far as it would go, and yet Morris was still standing. I had failed.
“You’ve caused me quite a bit of trouble, kid, but now it’s time to let the grown-ups get on with their business.”
“That might have been true yesterday,” I heard myself say.
“What’s that?”
I swallowed hard and felt my anger returning. “I said, ‘That might have been true yesterday.’ But today is my birthday.”
I reached over my shoulder and drew the last arrow from the quiver.
Morris watched me, the grin still in place. “So? Why should I care?”
I nocked the arrow and lifted the bow. “Because today is the day I become a man.”
“Seriously?” He shook his head. “A bow and arrow against Kevlar? Jesus, you probably don’t even know what that is, do you?” He tapped his chest with his left hand. “Bullet. Proof. Vest. Idiot.”
I began to draw the string back.
“I’m glad you became a man today,” Morris said, starting to raise his weapon. “Because it means I won’t be killing a …”
The grin was gone in an instant. His eyes widened and his cheeks changed color.
“… a …” His body hitched as if he’d been punched.
“… a …” He put his hand up to his chest and made a strange gagging noise as he fell to his knees.
“… a … kid.”
Morris knelt in front of me, swaying from side to side, then his whole body tensed as if he’d been electrocuted. He keeled over to the left, releasing his weapon and sliding back against the wall.
I was still standing there, bow drawn, when the president came half running, half sliding down the sloping corridor behind me. He bumped into me, making me drop the arrow, which slipped away and disappeared among the debris that had piled against the far wall.
“Oskari, are you all right?” He stopped beside me and put his hand on my arm, encouraging me to lower the bow. “My God, Oskari, you’ve got some guts. You just faced down Morris, a member of the president’s security detail. Those guys are seriously badass, and he was the best of them.”
“I … what … ? Did I kill him?” I didn’t understand what had happened.
“He was already dead,” the president told me. “Bullet fragment near his heart, remember? All this excitement must have moved it and —”
“Did I kill him?” I asked again as I turned to stare at him.
His face softened. “No, Oskari. He was already dead. Trust me.”
The plane gave a long groan beneath us, louder than we’d heard before, and lurched for the last time before it began sliding back into the lake.
The sound of gushing water filled the cabin and we looked along the length of the corridor to see the lake rushing up through the plane to meet us. Air Force One was about to slip away from the shallows and disappear into the depths of the lake.
“We’re sinking!” the president yelled. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
“What about Hazar?” I shouted as we hurried back toward the president’s office. “Did you tie him?”
“Yes.”
“He’ll drown.”
“Nothing we can do about that now,” he replied. “No time. Got to save ourselves.” He stopped by the exit and grabbed the red lever. “You’re more important, Oskari. Hazar will have to take his chances.” He twisted the lever and swung the door out, letting in a blast of cold air that reeked of aviation fuel.
There was something else, too — the sound of the helicopter hovering overhead. I had forgotten all about it because we hadn’t been able to hear it inside the sealed aircraft, but now it made me hesitate. Hazar’s men were still up there, waiting for their boss.
“Jump!” the president shouted.
I looked down at the surface of the lake.
“Now!” He shoved me out.
Bow in hand, I hit the water and went under as the president splashed down beside me. We surfaced together to take a gulp of stinking air and swam away from the plane, heading toward the shore.
The helicopter continued to hover overhead, waiting hopelessly for Hazar to complete his mission.
“We have to go under,” I said. “They’ll s
ee us.”
The president nodded, and we took a deep breath before diving down and swimming as far as we could before resurfacing for air. When we had gotten a few yards away, I came up for breath and looked back to see the plane slowly disappearing beneath the lake. The tail that had once been standing proud, emblazoned with the US flag, was now gone, and the scorched area at the rear of the plane had sunk out of sight, too. It was like the lake was eating Air Force One.
I ducked back under and watched through the murky gloom as the massive bulk of the aircraft slipped backward, like a dying beast. The water seemed to boil as bubbles rushed around it, escaping from the air pockets that had saved our lives. The lights continued to flicker and blink, flashing red and green and yellow. Many were almost out of sight now, though, unable to pierce the darkness into which they were falling. A few more minutes and the plane would be at the bottom of the lake, taking Morris and Hazar with it.
When I resurfaced again, the president was looking back at his plane, too. Everything behind the wings was gone now; all that remained in view was the front part of the aircraft, where his office and suite were located, and the communications center and flight deck above.
The helicopter continued to hover overhead, casting ripples across the lake.
“Come on,” I said, shivering. “We can’t let them see us.”
The president watched for a moment longer, then dived under and followed me as we swam for the shore, passing beneath the countless dead fish flashing silver on the waves above.
The water was greasy with fuel, and each time we came up for breath the stink of it hurt my nostrils and made me light-headed. As we came closer to the shore, though, it lessened, gradually washing off our skin and clothing each time we went under.
I couldn’t believe we had beaten Hazar and Morris — but I also couldn’t help thinking about Hazar tied up in the president’s suite, panicking as the plane dragged him down to his death. There was something else, too: the constant presence of the men in the helicopter. All it would take was for one of them to look across the water and see us making our escape.