Twister

Chapter Seven

The plane wobbled dramatically. It felt like a futile gesture, but Ben tugged at the control stick to get them straight.

Fifty metres up. The road appeared in the middle of his sights, but it was touch and go.

Twenty-five metres. The plane was speeding. Too fast. Far too fast.

'Hold on!' Ben shouted. They were about to hit the ground. 'HOLD ON!'

It was only as they touched down that Ben realized he hadn't put the landing wheels down — not that he'd have known how to do it even if he'd remembered. The fuselage crunched horribly against the ground. The noise was deafening, and Ben felt a vicious shock as his body jolted fiercely. The plane bounded into the air, spinning 180 degrees as it did so before coming to land again. Ben's hands flew away from the control stick; everything in front of him became nothing but an awful, dizzy blur. It was out of his control now.

This is it, he thought to himself. We can't possibly survive a crash like this.

As that thought ran through his mind, the plane bounced again. Something flew up to the windscreen: it cracked and shattered. Suddenly the noise doubled before the plane bounced a third time. It was still spinning — any second now, Ben thought, and they would be plunged into the marshland on either side of the road. He closed his eyes, bent over, braced his head in his arms and prepared himself for the worst.

The noise continued to thunder in his ears.

They were going to die. There was no way they could survive this. They'd be crushed or drowned, or both. It was going to happen.

Any moment now. It was going to happen…

But it didn't.

It took a full minute for the aircraft to come to a halt, a full minute for the roaring of the crash landing to stop, replaced by the sound of the high winds howling through the shattered screen. Ben was shaking with fear, his breath coming in short, sharp, desperate bursts. When he dared gradually to look up, his whole body aching from the impact, he couldn't quite believe that he was still alive.

He stayed perfectly still, dumbfounded.

'You OK, Ben?' a voice croaked from beside him.

Ben looked over. Danny's face was drawn and shocked. His nose was bleeding and there was a nasty-looking cut on his forehead. But he looked like he was in one piece. 'Yeah,' Ben replied. 'I think so.' He allowed himself a rueful smile. 'Just as long as they don't make me pay for the damage.'

'I think they're more likely to give you a medal, Ben,' Danny said quietly. 'I don't know how you managed that.'

Me neither, Ben thought to himself. But for the moment he was happy to accept the praise. 'We should go and see how the others are,' he said. 'I reckon everyone was bumped around pretty hard back there — could be some casualties.'

Danny nodded and they both started to unbuckle themselves. Ben had barely stood up, however, before he heard the shouting from the cabin.

'I can smell burning!' someone yelled. 'Quickly! Something's on fire! We have to get off the plane before it blows!'

It was the sparks that had caused it. As the plane had bounced and scraped along the ground, showers of them had erupted on the undercarriage. The final bounce had ripped the metal of the fuselage and as the plane came to a halt, the sparks had showered into the hold. It hadn't taken long for the pallets of luggage to ignite, and only moments later, the whole area was billowing with smoke.

The temperature was rising rapidly. They had very little time before the fuel stores would explode…

The scene in the cabin was now one of utter devastation.

Oxygen masks hung from the ceiling; the overhead luggage compartments were open and their contents spilled all over the floor; several of the small oval windows were smashed in. As Ben stepped out of the cockpit, one of the cabin crew was just opening an emergency exit. The passengers crowded round, all jostling with each other to get out. Some of them were clearly injured: there were quite a few bloodied faces and a couple of the older people were limping. None of them, Ben noticed, paid him any attention, or offered any word of thanks for what he had just done. Not that he was expecting any — he was just glad to be on the ground.

Only one person approached him, and that was Angelo. His eyes were wild and he had a nasty bruise on the side of his face. Apart from that, he was remarkably unscathed.

'Where's the burning coming from?' Ben demanded immediately.

'Nobody knows,' Angelo replied.

'We need to get out quickly. If the fuel store ignites it won't matter if we're on the ground or not. This thing will go off like a firework.' Ben's voice was urgent, hurried. He looked around. 'They should open some more emergency exits, get everyone off the plane quicker.'

'They've tried,' Angelo told him. 'The opening levers were all damaged in the crash. That's the only exit that works.'

As he spoke, Ben saw an inflatable ramp being extended down to the ground. The cabin crew were doing their best to stay calm themselves, but any chance they had of keeping the other passengers composed was long gone. They were hurling themselves out of the plane, scrambling for the exit and shouting at each other. It wasn't a pretty sight. But it did appear that — against all odds — there had been no deaths or serious injuries. Everyone was getting out. The only casualties were those who had been shot: the two pilots and Brad.

Ben sniffed. The burning smell was definitely getting stronger. There were only about ten passengers plus the cabin crew left on the plane now, so he, Angelo and Danny moved down to the exit as smoke began to billow up into the passenger area. The cabin crew were on the inflatable ramp as they approached and they threw themselves down as the trio prepared to exit.

The wind outside was screaming now, and Ben felt the force of it against his body even inside the plane. He was just about to slide down the ramp when he remembered something. 'The hijacker!' he barked over the noise. 'Where is he?'

Danny pointed further down the plane. 'Back there,' he shouted. 'Tied to one of the cabin crew's seats.'

Ben looked at him in amazement. 'We can't just leave him there. We've got to get him off.'

'But—' Angelo stuttered. 'But, Ben, he was trying to kill us all.'

Ben stood up. 'I don't care.' He was having to yell above the noise of the wind and a sudden gust that came in through the exit nearly knocked him down. 'If we leave him to die in here,' he yelled, 'we're as bad as he is!'

With that, he ran down the aisle of the plane. 'Ben!' Angelo shouted after him, but he ignored his friend.

The hijacker was just where Danny had said he would be. His seat faced the back of the plane and someone had found a length of rope — enough to tie him very securely. The knots looked big and fiendish, and they kept him firmly in place. The result was that, unlike many of the passengers, he had come through the crash-landing with barely a mark to his body.

It was the first time Ben had had a proper look at the guy, and though he didn't exactly spend a lot of time gazing at his features, he felt as if the hijacker's face would be burned on his memory for the rest of his life. He was a small man, but well built with dark skin and short black hair. Along the left-hand side of his face was a pale scar. But what Ben noticed more than anything else was the look in his eyes. It was a strange mixture of hate and passion. Certainly the man didn't look scared. He held his head up proudly.

Ben didn't say anything to him. He couldn't think of anything to say. Instead, he approached and started trying to untie one of the knots.

His panicked fingers couldn't move fast enough. He picked at the thick rope, a freezing fear passing through his body at the thought that the plane could explode any second. Whoever had tied these knots, however, had known what they were doing. No matter how hard he worked at them, he couldn't even loosen the things. The hijacker remained perfectly still. He stared straight at Ben — an uncomfortable sensation — the look of loathing etched on his face.

'You could at least help me,' Ben hissed urgently as he continued trying to untie the knots. But the hijacker didn't reply. He just sat there, as if waiting for the inevitable, the smoke gradually obscuring his features.

'We've got to get off the plane!' Angelo's urgent voice came from nowhere. Ben spun round to see him standing nearby.

'I thought you'd already gone,' Ben observed curtly.

'Ben, please. It's not safe.'

Ben ignored him and continued trying to undo the ropes. With an impatient sigh, Angelo joined him, both of them crowding round the hijacker as they desperately tried to release him. The arrival of Angelo, however, seemed to have an effect on the tightly bound man. He started to mumble something in a foreign language. Ben didn't understand what he was saying, but he certainly got the gist of it: they were words of absolute hate. The two of them did their best to ignore him.

Above the noise of the wind, Ben and Angelo heard Danny's voice. 'We have to get off now!' he called. 'The burning's getting worse. It could go up any moment!'

Ben's fingers were bleeding from the roughness of the rope, but none of the knots had even budged. He felt Angelo grab him by the arms.

'Ben,' the Italian said firmly. 'We can't undo him. We've got to get off this plane. There's no point all of us dying.'

Ben felt the frustration boiling up in him, but he knew Angelo was right. He looked at the hijacker. 'I tried,' he said quietly.

It was only then that the hijacker spoke in English. 'You think you have beaten me,' he hissed. 'But you haven't. I welcome death, but the arm of my people is longer than you think.' He looked at Angelo. 'You will pay for what you have done,' he spat. 'Believe me, you will pay.'

'I haven't done anything,' Angelo replied. He turned to Ben. 'Come on,' he said. 'Let's get out of here.'

Ben nodded, and without another look at the hijacker, he crawled back up the aisle — following the emergency lights in the floor — with Angelo to the exit.

Danny had left the aircraft just before them and was waiting for them at the bottom of the inflatable ramp. None of the other passengers were in view. His hair was blowing in the heavy wind and he was screaming up at them, although they couldn't hear a word he was saying above the howling gale.

'Jump!' Angelo yelled, and together they slid down the ramp and onto the ground below.

The moment he hit firm ground, Ben took in his surroundings. The plane had come to a halt at right angles to the road and it was only then that he realized how lucky they had been. It was not a wide road — indeed it was more of a mud track — and on either side of it was marshland that seemed to stretch as far as they could see. The wind was whipping the water on either side of them into a dangerous-looking frenzy, and the reeds and other vegetation were being blown all over the place. The air was thick with flying plant debris; the sky was dark and angry.

Almost as though they were one person, Ben, Angelo and Danny ran away from the plane along the road. They were a good thirty metres away when Ben suddenly stopped. 'The others!' he shouted above the sound of the wind. 'Where are they?'

The three of them looked all around.

'The cabin crew must have taken them round the other side of the plane,' Angelo shouted.

'We should try and stick together,' said Ben. 'If anyone sends out a search and rescue party, it'd be much better if we were all in one group.'

It was Danny who stopped him. 'I don't think it's a good idea to go past the plane again,' he shouted. Ben and Angelo turned to look at him. 'Look, Ben,' he continued, 'I'm not saying you did the wrong thing stopping to try and free the hijacker, but we lost a lot of time back there. If something's burning, we'd be idiots to approach the plane again. We need to stay well away, even if it means splitting up from the others.'

Ben hesitated. He knew that what Danny was saying made sense, but at the same time he didn't like losing the safety they would have in numbers.

Suddenly, however, the decision was made for him.

There were two explosions. The first made more noise than anything else — a great thunderclap that shook Ben's body to its very core.

'Run!' he yelled.

It was the second explosion that threw them all to the earth. They had started sprinting away from the plane when it happened, and as the force of it hurled them through the air and onto the ground, they all instinctively covered their heads with their arms. The first thing they felt was the heat. With all the energy of a thousand ovens, it felt for a few grisly seconds as if it was scorching the skin from their bodies. Ben heard Angelo yelling in terror before he started to feel bits of debris raining down on them. He didn't dare look up in case something hit him in the eye, but he knew they had to get out of range of the debris as quickly as possible to avoid being injured.

Danny had obviously had the same thought. 'Get up!' he yelled. 'We need to keep running!'

Ben and Angelo didn't have to be told twice. They pushed themselves to their feet and started sprinting away from the horrific, burning fireball that had exploded only metres behind them.