The Ghost Pattern

…9

Lila entered the first-class lavatory and looked at her image in the mirror. Her dilated pupils and frozen lips expressed the terror she felt. What was going on? Where the hell were they going? She swallowed a sob. They’ll find out soon enough. Oh, God…

She sprinkled a little water on a paper towel and patted her burning forehead with it, then wiped the back of her neck. Klapov was many things, a fuck-fest enthusiast and an incorrigible, selfish bastard, but he was not terrorist material. Or, at least, so she had thought he wasn’t. Some judge of character she was… Captain Gibson was dead, at the hands of a terrorist. Her opinion of Klapov, especially her ability to see who the man really was, had miserably failed. Again.

Klapov was a terrorist, by all evidence. And for terrorist attacks in midflight, there were procedures. If only she knew who the air marshal was on this flight. But no, the schmucks had to play it all undercover, refusing to identify themselves to the flight crews.

She needed to think fast and decide the amount of risk she was willing to take. She didn’t know where Klapov was taking them, how much flight time they still had left, or what his plan was. This was probably a hijacking, for money or political reasons, like freeing some other terrorist.

Then another thought froze the blood in her veins. There could be other terrorists on the plane, among the passengers, maybe even the flight attendants. No one hijacks a 747 by themselves. It never happens. The anti-hijacking training for civil aviation aircraft crews taught them to assume they don’t know who all the players are, and to behave normally. That was going to be hard.

But first, she had to follow procedure and communicate the hijacking to ground control. She opened the hidden panel behind the paper-towel dispenser and retrieved the emergency satellite phone. She dialed and waited, but nothing happened. The phone was dead. Of course… the copilot knew their procedures, and knew where everything was. All in-flight phones were controlled from the cockpit, so there wasn’t any point trying any of those.

Maybe she could borrow Darrell Maldonado’s sat phone? What if he was one of them? She couldn’t risk it.

She wiped the back of her head once more, then came out of the lavatory and looked at the passengers. They were starting to fidget. No one was reading or dozing anymore. They were all talking, pointing at the windows, looking at their phones, and trying to connect to the Internet. They were becoming restless, and that was putting their lives in danger.

The man in 9C raised his voice, showing his phone’s screen to the surrounding passengers.

“Hey, guys, listen, this plane is heading northwest. See?” He pointed at the compass showing on his phone. “We should be heading east, that’s where we’re supposed to be going. That’s where America is. East.”

Lila’s stomach churned. Oh, my God! He needs to shut up, she thought. There were more than four hundred people on this flight, and panic was the last thing they needed. Whether they knew it or not, they were all going wherever it was that Klapov was taking them. There was nothing they could do about it. Per procedure, she was mandated to preserve the passengers’ safety, even if that meant going along with whatever was happening to them.

She approached 9C immediately and placed her hand gently on his arm.

“Sir? Can you please take your seat? We are entering an area of high turbulence and we need you to be seated, with your seatbelt fastened.”

He gave her an all-knowing look, then replied caustically, “Yeah, right.” But he sat down nevertheless, and fastened his seatbelt begrudgingly.

Lila took the PA microphone in her hand, and took in a deep breath before making her announcement.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are continuing our small detour to avoid an area of high turbulence and bad weather. Please remain seated with your seatbelts fastened. We have sufficient fuel, the delay will be minimal, and the captain will make every effort to recover any lost time. Please remain in your seats with your seatbelts fastened until the captain has turned off the fasten seatbelt sign.”

She moved toward the cabin, and someone grabbed her arm. It was 4B. It was one of her first-class passengers, but his name eluded her.

“Miss? Are we going back to Tokyo?”

“No, we’re avoiding a nasty storm, that’s all there is.”

She heard a familiar chime and turned back to go to the cockpit. The terrorist was calling for her. En route, she locked eyes with Darrell Maldonado, whose eyes fiercely bore into hers in an angry glare. She ignored him and entered the cockpit.

“Ah, you’ve finally made it,” Klapov greeted her with poison in his voice.

“What do you want?”

“Prep them for a rough landing, but don’t tell them we’re going to land.”

“And how exactly would you like me to do that?” Lila blurted.

“Don’t know, don’t care. Just prove your worth and don’t make me do your work for you,” he said, touching his gun again as a reminder.

She started to turn, hesitated a little, then asked, “What’s going to happen to us once we land?”

“Don’t really care, sweetheart. This is where I get my money and my ticked to retirement in a nice, sunny place on a remote beach somewhere.”

She knew it was pointless, but the anger rising in her throat suffocated her. “You despicable, rat-ass bastard! You make me sick!”

He smiled crookedly and said casually, as if they were chatting at some party, “Whatever, baby, I really don’t give a crap, you know?”

She managed to exit the cockpit and grabbed the PA handset, aware she looked pale. She was struggling to keep her voice from trembling.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has instructed me to prepare you for rough weather.”

The passengers reacted to her announcement and their voice levels picked up. Some passengers looked terrified, while others were staring out the windows in disbelief, not understanding how the perfectly blue sky could mean bad weather. A couple of women were sobbing quietly. She raised her voice to cover the commotion.

“Please stow all carryon items you might have taken from the overhead bins. At this time, stow all your personal computers and devices. Remove your glasses and high-heel shoes, and tighten your seatbelts, making sure they are snug around your hips. Please remain calm. This will be over soon, I promise.”

Yeah, some promise she was making. Based on what?

“This is total bullshit,” she heard Maldonado’s irritating voice. “There’s no damn storm over the Pacific, I just checked.” He was holding up his satellite phone demonstratively.

He was not a terrorist, she dared to assume, thinking a terrorist would not agitate things. That wouldn’t make sense. Praying she was right at least about that asshole, she took her chances and asked in a whispered voice, “Mr. Maldonado, could I possibly borrow your phone for just one minute? I really need to make a call; it’s urgent, and ours is broken.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Maldonado replied. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Why the hell would I do that? You wanna take my phone away, is that it? Jesus Christ, you people are incredible!”

Lila’s head hung, and a rebel tear of frustration formed at the corner of her eye. From the seat in front of Maldonado’s, the vaguely familiar Ms. Bernard looked at her encouragingly. In her eyes, Lila saw compassion, courage, and determination at the same time. Adeline Bernard understood what was going on.