Dang! I thought. Did I fall for the oldest trick in the book, or what? He was the sleeper hijacker. They teach you about this in flight attendant training: Never assume the hijackers who reveal themselves are the only terrorists on the plane.
“Oh, my God, just look at me!” Ramona griped from behind me. “Jack, can you finish these two, please? I have to try and salvage all this.” And she stormed back to the front of the plane past both panicked and oblivious passengers, some of whom still tried to intercept her to ask for beverages. She smacked their hands away and continued storming up the aisle.
“My pleasure,” the fake drunk called after her. He said it like it was anything but pleasurable. Then he pushed Flo aside and aimed the gun at me.
Here’s the thing about the D zone cross-aisle of an L-1011 aircraft: There’s an alcove that runs the length of the cross-aisle. Half of it is a coat closet, and the other half houses a remote raft. They call it “remote” because inflatable rafts are usually located in the slide bustles at each exit door. But this one, this raft at the D zone cross-aisle, is not. It’s in the closet, and the inflation handle is easy to find if you’re a third-generation flight attendant (although a fake one for now). So I yanked that inflation handle, and the result was as calamitous as you’d expect in an enclosed area where the inflation of a raft the size of a house had just been deployed.
Boom! went the raft as the CO2 canisters exploded air into its chambers.
Bang! went the air as it popped out of the rubberized canvas when the confines of the cabin proved too tight for the giant raft to expand further.
Aaaaah!! went the screams of the passengers as it finally began to dawn on those in D zone that something was seriously amiss.
When the calamity halfway cleared, I was already up at the mid galley, already inside the elevator, and already descending when I caught sight of Old Cinderblock. He was out of his handcuffs (seriously, there are hundreds of videos on YouTube) and he had a yelping Beefheart by the scruff of the neck as he clomped down the aisle on his big Frankenstein feet toward the first-class cabin. I stopped the elevator car and reversed the toggle switches to re-ascend. Then I threw open the door and ran down the aisle after him.
“Grab that dog!” I implored to the passengers nearby. They all screamed in complete and utter uselessness, except for one person on an aisle seat three rows from the first-class curtain. It was a lady who must have been ninety years old with little tiny arms no bigger than broomsticks. She grabbed her cane from underneath the seat in front of her and whacked Old Cinderblock across the hand like an angry Catholic nun. Cinderblock squawked in pain and released his grip on Beefheart, who hit the ground running toward me and jumped in my arms.
I gathered him gratefully and headed back to the mid galley to descend the elevator. Thankfully the fake drunk was still trying to untangle himself from the big, air-blown boa constrictor of the remote raft and had yet to resume his murderous pursuit. Old Cinderblock must have had more pressing things to deal with, because he didn’t pursue me, either. I entered the elevator and descended, and was overcome with relief to see that Flo had made it there before me.
I burst through the door of the lift and handed Malcolm the dog. He gathered Beefheart in his arms and pressed his face against the wiry fur of the sweet little beast. “Thank you.”
I disabled the lifts by cracking open each door, as the lifts won’t function unless the doors on each end are shut securely. I had to close off access. I didn’t know what other killers with deceptively friendly faces would come flooding in. Luckily, the hatch could only be opened from below.
We barely had time to take a breath before the intercom blared. “Oh, Flo,” Ramona’s voice oozed saccharine, “I have somebody here who wants to talk to you.”
Ash’s nervous voice boomed through the speakers. “Flo, it’s Ash Manning. Been a long time, huh? Yeah… uh, listen, heh heh, funny thing, there’s a guy here with a gun on me, he says he’s gonna shoot unless you come up from down there.”
Flo began walking toward the lift. I grabbed her arm and pleaded, “No! Are you nuts? That’s Ash! Don’t go, Flo, please!”
Even now as I say this, I don’t know why Flo didn’t just let them shoot Ash. That gun was pretty small caliber. It probably would not have killed him. Besides, her days of caring about passengers were supposed to have been long gone. When I helped her study to take her annual qualifications last year, at the part about how to protect passengers in a hijacking, she laughed, “Use them as a human shield.”
But underneath all the cigarettes, the Bloody Marys, the rebellion, and the cragginess, she was still a flight attendant. She had seen it all, survived, and come out stronger on the other side. So maybe way down under that giant hair bun there was something similar to my real father, who, instead of stepping off the plane to save himself, stepped further inside to try to save others. One step is all it takes.
Excuse me… sometimes when I talk about my real dad, for some reason out of the blue I might start crying, and I sincerely hate it when that happens. Crying is of no use to anyone. And Flo was hardly any help, either, because sometimes she’d cry, too. Because not only was she the one who introduced my mother to my father, but she also introduced my mother to my stepfather as well.
“So there you go, kid,” she’d say, waving the chain-smoke from the galley area. “I am responsible for both the best thing and the worst thing that ever happened to your mother.”
Today I tried to keep my grip on Flo’s arm, dig in my heels, and force her to stay with me in the tentative safety of the lower galley. But she was strong for a five-feet-nothing, ninety-five-pound firecracker. I couldn’t keep her there, or convince her to stay.
“No matter what we think of him,” Flo said, “he doesn’t deserve to die at the hands of those animals.”
“Oh, Flo,” I cried. “We see that differently.”
Malcolm put his arm around my shoulders, and Flo ascended the lift. We could see her through the window of the lift door as she disappeared to the upper galley. I could hear the lift door above us open and slam against the PA panel, and the scuffling of footsteps. Then the intercom buzzed to life again, and I heard Ramona’s slightly Southern-accented voice, twice as menacing now in its treacly friendliness.
“April, sweetheart,” she trilled. “You and your friends are gonna have to come up from below. C’mon now.”
I settled my roiling fear and anger as best I could, and spoke into the speaker. “Ramona, sweetheart, I would rather drive a railroad spike through my eye.”
“I was afraid you’d be that way, darlin’, so I hate to say we need to take drastic measures. I have your friend Flo here—” Her words made my face burn. “—and my friend Jack here has a gun to her head. I’m gonna count to twenty, and you and your friends—including the dog, now, don’t forget him—better come up from down there and stop fussin’ with us, or it just breaks my heart to say that your friendship with Flo here is gonna come to an end real quick.”
I said nothing. My hands balled into fists. Ramona knew I wouldn’t lift a finger to save Ash Manning, so she got Flo up there to use as leverage instead. I looked at Malcolm frantically, and his expression reflected mine. Officer Ned lay still with his eyes closed, and I wasn’t sure he was even conscious.
“I’m gonna start countin’ now,” Ramona sing-songed. “One… two… three… four… five… six… seven… eight… nine… ten… eleven… Okay, hey, how ’bout I let Flo have a chance to beg for her life? C’mon on over here, Flo. Here, tell April how Jack’s got a gun to your head. Go on, tell her.”
I heard Flo’s raspy cough, then she said, “Yep, kid. There’s a gun to my head, again.” I began to turn in circles, looking for something, anything, I could think of to use to help gain control of the situation.
“Tell her he’s got the barrel cocked,” Ramona urged.
“Yep, he’s got the barrel cocked.”
“Now beg for your life, Flo. C’mon, do it.”
BANG! The sound of the gunshot was so loud through the speaker that I grabbed my head as though I’d been shot myself. “No!” I screamed. “Flo, no! Flo!”
The speaker was silent but for the cries of the nearby passengers. Then I heard—and I swear I felt it, too—the small thud of Flo’s body as it crumpled to the galley floor above my head. I crumpled to the floor myself, too stunned to even cry. Someone was crying, though, softly. I turned to see both Malcolm and Officer Ned weeping into the palms of their hands.
CHAPTER 12
After the screams of the passengers died down, the aircraft fell eerily quiet, and not only did Ramona and the fake drunk stop making demands, but I didn’t hear any hijackers trying to bust their way through the hatch to force their way down. They must have thought they were able to regroup and plan their next move. They must have thought we didn’t have anywhere to go.
And normally, they would have been right.
I felt Malcolm’s hand on my shoulder. “What did she mean by ‘Mac, season two, episode….”
“Episode five,” I said softly.
“What was that about?”
I didn’t answer him. I wiped away the wetness on my cheeks (I must have cried after all) and forced myself to address the task at hand. “Does your cell phone work up here?” I asked Malcolm.
“No, believe me, I tried,” he said, doing his best to stiffen his upper lip.
Many people think cell phone use isn’t possible from an aircraft at cruising altitude. They’re only half right. Some work, most don’t. It’s just a matter of seeing which ones do. I remembered the imposter Brighton McPherson’s phone, which thankfully Officer Ned had tucked back into the pocket of Beefheart’s vest. I grabbed it, dialed 911 and got an operator somewhere in Arkansas.
“I’m on WorldAir flight 1021 and we’re being hijacked!” I screamed into the phone.
“What’s your name?” the operator asked me.
“April Mae Manning.”
“What’s the address of the emergency?”
“I just told you. I’m on an aircraft! We’re being hijacked! They’ve killed three people!”
“I can’t dispatch the police unless you give me an address,” she said curtly. I hung up.
Next I dialed the WorldAir reservation desk, only to be sent to some computer-automated echo chamber. “Representative!” I yelled into the phone. “Representative!… Representa… dang it!” I hung up. “Malcolm, who should I call?”
“Who knows phone numbers? I just click a name on the contact list.”
Then Officer Ned—thank God he wasn’t dead—reached up and weakly motioned for me to give him the phone. I handed it to him.
“I swear to God, you kids, you don’t know any phone numbers?” He winced as he punched in a number. The painkillers were starting to work, I could tell.
“Who are you calling?” I asked.
“The Georgia Bureau of Investigation,” he said. Someone must have answered, because he raised his finger to silence me. “Representative!” he croaked into the phone. “Representative!… Representa… oh, forget it!” He hung up, handed the phone back to me, and rested his head back onto the bundle of blankets I’d made him for a pillow.
No time to be frustrated. I dialed 800-444-4444, the number of the old MCI telecommunications technical support line. It was a number so simple it defied forgetfulness. An automated operator answered with, “Welcome to MCI. Our system indicates you are calling from 404-828-8805. If this is the number you are calling about, press one.” I hung up.
“Malcolm, write this down: 4-0-4-8-2-8-8-8-0-5,” I directed, “it’s the number for this phone.” Then I dashed over to the pile of useful items collected from the crew bags, grabbed the curling iron and banged it against the counter until the half that was the metal tube broke off. I yanked the heating coil out of it and popped the plastic cap off the top, which left me with a hollow metal tube. Then I opened the packet of spaghetti and inserted a handful of the dry pasta sticks into the tube.
“Can you hand me that P02 bottle, Malcolm?”
“What is a P02 bottle?”
“Sorry, it’s the oxygen bottle in the bracket to the left of the jumpseat, the one with the rubber yellow mask.”
He handed it to me. I tore the rubber mask from the plastic tubing, then inserted the open end of the tubing into one end of the metal pipe filled with spaghetti. I sealed the connection with the masking tape.
“What is that?” Malcolm asked.
“It’s a makeshift lance,” I said.
“Are you serious? Like the kind bank robbers use to bust open safes?” Of course Malcolm knew what a thermic lance was. “Is it gonna work?”
“I hope so. I learned about it on Gizmodo.com. ‘Seven Deadly Weapons You Should Never Ever Make Out of Harmless Household Items.’ My grandfather and I did this once, but this is my first time trying it with an authentic pressurized oxygen tank,” I said. “The dry spaghetti is supposed to serve as a decent facsimile for conductive aluminum rods.”
“So awesome.”
The walls on an aircraft that separate its compartments are made of material that, though strong, is also as thin and lightweight as possible. It’s the perfect material to be strong enough to hold aloft untold tons of cargo, resist impact from blunt blows, and hold up during catastrophic weather conditions. It is not ideal to withstand a blowtorch—or, in this case, a thermic lance, which can kind of be described as a blowtorch, but with laser-like precision.
Malcolm gingerly picked up the bag containing the now-dormant explosive device and placed it on the crew stowage shelf, securing it behind the rubber netting. He and I both donned sunglasses we’d collected from the crew bags, and I put on a pair of oven mitts from a drawer next to the reach-in freezer. Then I carried my contraption as far forward in the galley as I could, aimed it at the wall separating us from the cargo bay, pulled Flo’s cigarette lighter from my pocket, and held it at the tip of the improvised lance.
“Ready?” asked Malcolm.
“Ready.”
“Ready for what?” Officer Ned wailed weakly. “What are you kids doing? Put that thing—”
Malcolm cranked the handle on the tank, which caused the pure oxygen to be released into the metal tube. I waited a few seconds to be sure the oxygen had saturated the interior of the metal tube. Then I flicked Flo’s lighter to life and touched the flame to the tip of the lance.
“Wow!” Malcolm exclaimed. Even Officer Ned looked a little impressed. The improvised thermic lance beamed like a bionic light saber. I touched the beam to the forward wall and began to burn a circle to open a hole big enough for every one of us to fit through, including Officer Ned. “Malcolm, can you please put the rest of the useful items in my backpack and carry it over here?”
I would have thought there’d have been more sparks, but there weren’t, perhaps because the metal material I was torching through wasn’t completely solid, but had a corrugated center. There was smoke, though, which set off the alarm positioned over the sink. The beeping could hardly be heard over the sound of the engines, but I told Malcolm to silence it anyway. When the tank ran out of oxygen, I’d finished burning about four-fifths of the circle, creating a large C-shaped cut in the wall. Malcolm turned the crank of the oxygen tank to the off position, and motioned me aside. Then he kicked the center of the C until it bent outward, perching suspended on its remaining hinge like the lid of a can of spinach in the old Popeye cartoons.
We stood peering through the opening. It revealed a metal catwalk bordered by cargo areas on each side. At the head of the catwalk was a metal shelving grid that housed a collection of blinking electrical boxes, circuits, and panels.
“What is that?” Malcol
m asked.
“That,” I said, “is the aircraft avionics area.”
PART IX
HOW TO THROW A DEAD BODY OFF AN AIRCRAFT
The word “avionics” is a contraction of the phrase “aircraft electronics,” and represents the area of an aircraft that houses the important circuits that manage the aircraft communication system, navigation system, anti-collision system, and multiple other systems. Normally you can find the avionics panel in the cockpit of the aircraft, but with giant, sophisticated jets like the L-1011, the avionics are too large to fit into the cockpit, so they are located in a section of the cargo bay directly below the cockpit. If needed, an L-1011 pilot can access the avionics through a hatch in the floor without having to open the cockpit door.
Malcolm and I walked to the end of the catwalk and studied the cluster of panels closely. I was trying to match it to the memories of the times I helped my airplane-engineer grandfather study for his annual recurrent training. I found the breaker I was looking for and pulled it out.
“What did you just do?” asked Officer Ned, who had emerged directly behind me. He was still missing one boot and hunched over with his arm around the Malcolm’s shoulders, who was doing his best to help support him. Beefheart was sitting on his haunches obediently at their feet, his tail stub wagging.
“I think I just dropped all the oxygen masks in the passenger cabins,” I said. Above us we could hear a wave of muffled hollering coming from the passengers. So I knew I’d done something.
“What do you mean you think you dropped the oxygen masks?” Officer Ned asked.
“Well, I’ll know in a second,” I said. “If the plane is on autopilot like I suspect, this will make the computer think there’s a decompression occurring.”
“What does that accomplish?”
Just then we felt the plane begin a sharp dive. The panic of the passengers above us reached a new decibel, then quickly dimmed to an eerie silence. Malcolm and Officer Ned braced themselves against one of the cargo shelves.
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