Cost of Life

by Joshua Corin

  “What actions? They were taken hostage along with everyone else!”

  “Yes, but have they resisted, and in resisting have they created an environment of risk? If so, then you are liable. Or have they not resisted, and in not resisting have they created an environment of risk? If so, then you are liable.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “Furthermore, Mr. Buttle, we need to look at the incident itself. Did the negligent actions of your employees allow the present circumstance to occur?”

  “I don’t think I like your tone there, chief.” Buttle’s face shrank into a feline scowl. His nose wrinkled up and his lips curled down. His eyes narrowed into knife-slits. “Because if you’re saying that this is happening because a bunch of yahoos were able to exploit a security hole in my company, if you’re implying that maybe they selected my company and employees and my plane because we were the easiest target…”

  “Mr. Buttle, I assure you that the argument you just presented is a determination that will be made in the near future.”

  “Everything—and I mean everything—on my aircraft is up to code and that sure as hell includes the conduct of my employees. Do you have any idea how rigorously this industry is regulated? Have you ever been on the receiving end of a conversation with a son of a bitch from the FAA? I’m going to need a little more than smoke and mirrors, boys.”

  Gradgrey looked to Glass for help.

  “We’re talking about the pilot,” said Mr. Glass. “We’re talking about Larry Walder.”

  Buttle refilled his plate. “What about Walder?”

  “You said you’re having a press conference here at one P.M.? What remarks has your publicist prepared?”

  “She’s working on them now, but I’d imagine they include the words prayers and full cooperation. Why?”

  “Whatever she has you saying, you’re going to need to add this statement.”

  Glass nodded to Gradgrey, who reached into the inner pocket of his suit and handed the client a folded sheet of paper. Buttle wiped his fingers on a napkin and took the paper, unfolded it, and read its typed words.

  He looked up at his attorneys.

  He handed the paper back and spoke:

  “No.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Glass. “You need to establish your legal position. And you need to do so with both clarity and expediency. This statement accomplishes both of these goals.”

  “Look, I may be a lot of things, but I’ll own up to all of them, and the reason I can get away with acting the way I do is because I’m loyal. I’m an honorable man. The newspapers call me names? I don’t give a shit and neither do my employees because they know I’ve got their back. I am not about to throw one of my captains under the bus just to save my own skin.”

  “He is complicit.”

  “We don’t know that for sure. We don’t know anything for sure. All you’re basing that on is rumor and innuendo.”

  “We know Captain Walder was on the scene this morning during the murder of an Atlanta police officer. We know that for sure. We’ve got anecdotal evidence from the passengers that the cockpit was not breached during flight. We’ve got both anecdotal and photographic evidence from the passengers that the copilot is dead. We’ve got both anecdotal and photographic evidence from the passengers that Captain Walder remains unharmed. Your employee is complicit in this criminal action. Now, you can maintain your loyalty and stand by your man or in one hour you can clearly and publicly denounce his conduct.”

  “Be grateful that you run a discount airline. Be grateful there are no millionaires about your airplane. Be grateful, Mr. Buttle, this will be the gravest of your worries. And make no mistake. What we are proposing isn’t about saving your own skin. What we are proposing is about securing the future of your company.”

  Buttle swallowed down a steaming spoonful of peach cobbler. His wife wiped the corners of his mouth with his napkin. Then he walked to the door, opened it, and motioned for his attorneys to exit the premises.

  “But leave the statement,” he said.

  Once the two men had departed, Buttle took the piece of paper on which the statement had been typed and brought it with him when he went to sit beside his wife. Together they stared out at the people on the floor who were staring at their smartphones and tablets. The hour of twelve had come. The terrorists’ website was active.

  Chapter 32

  “Well,” asked Jim, “what’s it look like?”

  He couldn’t see for himself because he was behind the wheel of his government-issued black sedan and attempting to traverse highway traffic. On a normal day, this wouldn’t be a problem, but on this abnormal day, at this abnormal hour, every driver but him seemed to have only one eye on the road. Had it even occurred to any of them to maybe pull over to the side of the road if they were going to browse the Internet while piloting two tons of steel? Of course not. But then it never did on a normal day either.

  Xana sat in the passenger seat. Xana had his MacBook on her lap and was slowly scrolling down the page. She had joined him on this excursion because he’d insisted she join him. After her earlier shenanigans, he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight. He told her their destination was Philips Arena, so he could deliver a press conference, and that was true—they would eventually arrive at Philips—but they had a stop to make on the way and this Jim kept to himself.

  Soon, though, he would have to take the exit and she would figure it out. In the meantime, though…

  “It’s a pretty website,” she said.

  “Wonderful. What’s it say?”

  “There’s a horizontal bar near the top with clickable letters on it. A through C, D through F, G through J, et cetera. Underneath there’s a label that reads SORTED BY LAST NAME. Oh, that’s helpful. And below that it shows all the major credit cards they’ll accept. And PayPal. Fancy.”

  “Wonderful.”

  Xana clicked on the A–C link. A new page loaded up, but instead of simply listing names, each name had a button beside it to initiate the donation process along with a profile picture, the age of the passenger, occupation, cell phone number, and even an assortment of likes and dislikes. She shared her findings with Jim.

  “Hmm,” he replied. “How long do you think they’ve had access to the passenger manifest?”

  “I don’t know, but that combined with easily accessible online data and you’ve got yourself a dating website. Wait. This is odd.”

  “What?”

  “There’s no space to indicate how much ransom has been donated to any of the hostages. No column, nothing.”

  Jim sighed. “It’s a silent auction. They’re hiding the numbers. If nobody knows what they need to spend to keep their loved ones safe, they’ll be more inclined to compete and overbid.”

  “How do you know?”

  As he relayed the conversation he’d had a short time ago with the prim leader of the hijackers, he couldn’t help but swallow in, every so often, the look of curious intelligence in Xana’s eyes as she processed the news—but her bottomless eyes were only one part of the whole, and heaven help him, Jim loved every part. He even loved her wanton disregard for authority—or at least loved it because it was, like her eyes, an integral part of the whole. He loved her so much that he sweat. He loved her so much that he daren’t ever, ever tell her, not because he feared rejection but because he feared the revelation would cause her to alter her behavior around him, maybe even censor herself for his benefit, and that would be so very un-Xana-like of her that he wouldn’t be able to stand it.

  “But what’s the endgame?”

  “Hmm?”

  She motioned to the laptop screen. “These men were most likely political prisoners. Why were they released? How were they released? This scheme is going to soak up a shit-ton of money. Is the FSIN in on it? That’s the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service. They run The Oprichnina. Fun fact: For about five centuries, the Russian penal system had the most prisoners per capita of any country on the planet. Now they
are in third. China is number two. And we’re number one.”

  “We do like to be number one. So who runs the FSIN?”

  “It’s an appointment position. The director of the FSIN serves at the pleasure of the Russian president.”

  “So there’s a lot of turnover.”

  “But what you’re suggesting doesn’t make any sense. If the FSIN director or even the premier comes up with this scheme to extort a billion dollars, they’re not going to release a bunch of political prisoners to do it. Wait—why are we getting off here? I thought we were heading to Philips Arena. This is the exit to the airport.”

  “Can’t get nothing by you,” said Jim.

  He eased his foot off the gas as they approached a roadblock manned by a baby-faced platoon of the Georgia National Guard.

  “Jim, please tell me we’re here so I can reinterview the Chechen.”

  He lowered his window and handed his ID to the soldier, who stepped away from examining Jim’s government plates and brought the ID to his slightly older supervisor.

  “Please tell me that your judgment is not so fucked up that during a hostage situation, you are detouring here to force me to apologize to a redneck asshole cop.”

  “You are in fact going to apologize to the redneck asshole cop and you’re going to do it right now and here’s why—”

  “Not a chance.” She crossed her arms and turned away. “Nope.”

  “What are you, five years old?”

  Xana huffed and shrugged.

  “Listen,” said Jim. “You think I want to be here right now? You think I wouldn’t rather be doing something productive?”

  “I was trying to do something productive and he was the one who interfered. If anyone should be raked over the coals, it’s him. I’ll bet the chip on his shoulder would make excellent kindling.”

  “You know who you are? You’re the girl who gets neck-deep in quicksand and then complains about the weather.”

  “I was doing my job!”

  “Your job was to translate what the suspect had to say!”

  “Oh bullshit. You and I both know that the FBI keeps a list of potential translators broken down by language and location for scenarios exactly like this one. You picked me because of what I bring to the table.”

  “That’s not why I picked you…”

  “Then why?”

  The National Guardsman returned with Jim’s ID and waved them through. He proceeded past the roadblock and followed the signs to the North Terminal. It was eerie not having to deal with any of the usual knucklehead traffic on any of these outlying roads.

  “Well?” asked Xana. “Are you going to answer me?”

  “Jesus Christ. Don’t you ever get tired of being so petulant? Don’t you ever, just, wind down for a little bit?”

  “Oh sure. Pass me a drink and I’ll wind down plenty, although I’ve got to warn you, Officer, that might violate my probation…”

  Jim pulled up to the curb in front of the North Terminal and parked behind an army-green Humvee.

  He did not turn off the ignition.

  He dared not look at his passenger.

  The answer to her question bounced around his brain like a cueball. Of course he knew why he’d picked her for this assignment. Her expertise and experience were unparalleled—but that was only half the argument. All these years, he’d sought to value her solely on her work and not on some misbegotten feelings and desires he might harbor—ever more foolish because she was a lesbian and therefore feelings and desire impossible to be requited—not that he would ever broach the subject with her—although if there were any time to do so, well, she was practically begging him for an answer, wasn’t she?

  OK.

  Decision made.

  He was going to do the right thing.

  He was going to lie.

  “I sent you here this morning,” he answered, “because I felt guilty about letting you go. End of story. Was that satisfactory enough?”

  Xana opened her mouth to speak, but he waved her off.

  “Never mind. I already know. You’re never satisfied.”

  He got out of the car.

  “Well, are you coming or not?”

  She got out of the car.

  They passed through the automatic doors and into the air-chilled terminal. This main atrium was crowded with passengers unable to do much other than eat, drink, and talk. Jim suspected the scene here was replicated in every corridor of every concourse at the airport—and replicated at every airport in the country. How many tens of thousands at this moment were stranded? Everyone appeared to be on their best behavior, but how long would their sympathy for the hostages keep their impatience in check?

  He and Xana took the elevator to the third floor.

  “Say something,” he said. “I know you want to. You always want to.”

  “What do you want me to say? And in what language would you like me to say it?”

  He smiled and glanced over at her.

  Her face was a glacier.

  His smile fled.

  “For what it’s worth, Xana, I am sorry it has to be this way. But you understand why, don’t you?”

  “Sure. If I don’t persuade Dundee not to file charges against me, my probation gets revoked and I go to prison. I get it, Jim. I do. I just assumed you had my back. I was wrong. End of story. How was that? Was that satisfactory enough?”

  Chapter 33

  At least Nell’s nose had stopped bleeding. At least there was that.

  Frank Brown had given her his handkerchief. Once upon a time, it had been white. Nell’s blood had painted it red and then, as her blood dried, a dark burgundy. The leader of the terrorists had conked her pretty hard.

  And then he’d shot her husband, Travis, as if he were a sick horse, shot him right in front of his children. He had his men remove the body, but a splash of his blood remained on his headrest. First red, then a dark burgundy.

  The bullet hole stared out like an empty eye socket.

  Travis’s pigtailed daughter, Zelda, was cradling Baby Amy in her arms. Some of Nell’s blood initially had spattered on the baby’s forehead and cheeks, but a few swipes from the back of the complimentary airline magazine cleaned her right off. Now, mercifully, she was asleep.

  At least there was that.

  Nell raised her hand. One of the guards, the ugly fellow with the beard, approached. She asked if she could use the restroom to clean herself up. He waved her past and she skittered down the aisle toward the front.

  Frank checked his phone. In the hour since he’d turned it back on, he’d left three messages for Catalina-Luisa Hierra Perez. She was probably at her internship. She probably didn’t even know what had happened to his flight. Otherwise he would have received a series of messages from her, right?

  He loosened his necktie. He exhaled.

  All around him, people were on their phones. In every aisle, in almost every seat, men and women and even some of the children were in communication with their loved ones. Other than his Spanish princess, Frank had no loved ones. He had acquaintances at work, but he never socialized with them outside the office. He never socialized, period. And he was OK with that. He was an introvert. Refusing to accept the truth of that fact was as fruitless as refusing to accept the truth of the Big Bang.

  But it would have been nice to have someone to call him.

  He held no illusions. He would be in the Bottom Five. Even if Catalina-Luisa Hierra Perez uploaded every penny of her savings to keep his head off the chopping block, she was still only a graduate student. How many pennies would that really be? And he had no way of uploading even one penny of his savings. His bank was closed. It was a federal holiday. And with the real threat of identity theft—compounded, he would be the first to admit, by his neuroses—he didn’t dare trust debit cards or credit cards. He was likely the only person on this plane who had paid for his airfare with cash.

  But at least no one would miss him.

  No one except her.<
br />
  He checked his phone again.

  Behind him, the snoring walrus was talking up a small storm, but not to anyone in particular. He had decided to document this whole affair for the Internet. He stood in his seat and panned across the cabin with his phone’s camera.

  “Like the newly arrived at the black-water banks of the River Styx,” he intoned, “we wait, but impatiently. We are ready to be driven forward. There is comfort in being the sheep, even with the slaughterhouse on the horizon.”

  His name was Horatio Wygant. Frank knew this because he had introduced each of his now seven short videos with: “I am Horatio Wygant, coming to you live—for now—from Flight Eight Sixteen.” After the third video, in which Horatio Wygant compared their situation to Auschwitz, Frank was ready to turn around and throttle him. What ticked Frank off the most was the fact that Horatio Wygant’s videos would probably earn him thousands of dollars in bidding. It was brilliant, in a revolting, narcissistic sort of way. When all this was through, when the media began their next-day retrospectives, Horatio Wygant would be one of the stars.

  And Frank would be one of the faces in the RIP montage.

  “Would Plato recognize this ship of fools? Yes, I say. Yes, he would.”

  Frank prepared his hands for choking the life out of Horatio Wygant.

  And then his phone rang.

  His hands relaxed. His entire body relaxed.

  He brought the phone to his ear and pressed TALK.

  “Mi amor.”

  Chapter 34

  Once their videoconference with the secretary of state was finished and everyone but Barrett Coleman left to take on their appointed assignments, he keyed up the hijackers’ website and projected it onto the large oblong screen. Madeline soon returned, laptop in tow. Hers was, by all appearances, identical to his. They sat side by side and shared information and, at precisely 12:15 P.M., witnessed the website on the big screen refresh and its top third be replaced by a black rectangle.