Chapter 3 - The Passenger in 14C
For nine years, I had worked very hard to make sure two worlds never touched.
Norah belonged to one.
Everything else belonged to the other.
Someone had just put both worlds on the same airplane.
“Who is he?” I asked.
Jillian answered through the interphone.
“Male. Maybe fifty. Seat 14C. He won't give me his name.”
“Is he armed?”
“I don't know.”
“Don't approach him again.”
Rachel looked at me.
“You want to explain?”
“No.”
“That isn't optional anymore.”
She was right.
I kept one hand on the controls.
“My business creates enemies.”
“What kind of business?”
“The kind you don't want explained while we're over the Atlantic.”
Rachel stared at me.
Then Captain Ellis gave a weak laugh.
“I knew there was something wrong with the hoodie.”
Nobody laughed with him.
Another warning flickered.
Rachel turned back to her instruments.
“We need somewhere to land.”
I studied our position.
Going back wasn't simple. Continuing wasn't either.
“Nearest suitable diversion?”
Rachel pulled up the available information.
Before she could answer, the cockpit lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then several displays went black.
“Damn it.”
The aircraft rolled left.
I corrected immediately.
Rachel began calling out information from the surviving instruments.
Training took over.
Not the training people imagined from movies.
There was no dramatic shouting.
No heroic speech.
Flying an injured aircraft was mostly discipline.
Small corrections.
Cross-checking.
Refusing panic.
Trusting what you could verify.
“Altitude stable.”
“Heading?”
“Drifting two degrees.”
“Correcting.”
Captain Ellis struggled to stay conscious.
I glanced at the teddy bear wedged beside my seat.
Norah.
I imagined her sitting alone.
That nearly broke my concentration.
Nearly.
Then Rachel said, “Warren.”
I looked.
The system that had failed came back.
All by itself.
That was worse.
Rachel understood immediately.
“Somebody has access.”
“Yes.”
“From where?”
“I don't know.”
A modern passenger aircraft was not something a random person could simply control with a laptop from seat 14C.
Whatever was happening had been prepared before takeoff.
Maintenance.
Software.
Hardware.
Someone had touched this airplane.
Someone with access.
The interphone rang.
Jillian again.
“Warren?”
“Go.”
“The passenger in 14C has disappeared.”
I turned.
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“He isn't in his seat.”
“Lavatory?”
“Checked.”
“Other cabin?”
“We're searching.”
“Don't.”
“What?”
“Stop searching. Lock down the cabin. Nobody moves.”
Rachel looked at me.
“You think he's headed here?”
“No.”
I thought he wanted us looking for him.
Which meant he wanted attention away from something else.
“Jillian, where's Norah?”
A pause.
Too long.
“Jillian.”
“She's not in 8B.”
My heart stopped.
The cockpit vanished around me.
For one impossible second, all I could see was Norah at six months old sleeping against my wife's chest.
Norah taking her first steps.
Norah standing beside her mother's grave.
Norah asking whether airplanes were scary.
Rachel grabbed my forearm.
“Warren.”
I looked at her.
“Fly the airplane.”
Three words.
The cruelest three words anyone could have said.
Because she was right.
If I left, I might save Norah.
If I left and the aircraft failed, I could kill Norah along with everyone else.
I forced myself to breathe.
“Jillian.”
“Yes?”
“Find my daughter.”
“We will.”
“Don't announce her name. Don't tell passengers why you're searching.”
“Understood.”
“And Jillian?”
“Yes?”
“If anyone touches her—”
I stopped.
The old Warren almost finished the sentence.
The father didn't.
“Just find her.”
The line disconnected.
Minutes became unbearable.
Rachel handled communications while I concentrated on maintaining stable flight.
Then Jillian called again.
“We found her.”
My lungs finally worked.
“Where?”
“Galley.”
“Alone?”
“No.”
My grip tightened.
“Who is with her?”
“The older woman you helped at O'Hare.”
I remembered her.
Small.
Gray-haired.
Vietnamese.
Maybe seventy.
“What happened?”
“Norah says the woman came to get her because someone told her you asked for the teddy bear.”
I looked beside me.
The teddy bear was still there.
“Did Norah go with her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Jillian hesitated.
“Because the woman knew your real name.”
Silence filled the cockpit.
Rachel turned slowly.
“What real name?”
I didn't answer.
My public name was Warren Hayes.
My daughter knew me as Warren Hayes.
Federal databases knew me as Warren Hayes.
Only a very small circle knew the name I had used before I disappeared from military life.
A name buried after an operation that officially never happened.
“Bring the woman forward,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Five minutes later, Jillian knocked using the emergency protocol.
Rachel opened the door only after confirming the cabin behind her was secured.
The older woman stepped inside.
She looked nothing like a threat.
Then she saw me sitting at the controls.
Her expression hardened.
“Captain Vale.”
I hadn't heard that name spoken aloud in nine years.
Rachel stared at me.
The woman continued in perfect English.
“I wondered how long it would take you.”
“Who are you?”
“Lan Tran.”
“What do you want?”
“To keep your daughter alive.”
My blood turned cold.
“Explain.”
She looked toward the instrument panel.
“You aren't the target.”
“Then who is?”
She shook her head.
“Wrong question.”
I stood halfway before remembering the controls.
“Lady, I'm running out of patience.”
“And we're running out of time.”
She reached slowly into her jacket.
Rachel moved instantly.
“Hands where I can see them.”
Lan stopped.
“Inside my pocket is a flash drive.”
“For what?”
“The passenger manifest you were never supposed to see.”
I nodded.
Rachel retrieved it.
Lan looked directly at me.
“There are two people on this aircraft who don't exist.”
“Seat 14C?”
“One.”
“And the other?”
Her eyes moved toward the locked cockpit door.
“No.”
Then toward the rear of the airplane.
“Your daughter isn't in danger because she's Warren Hayes's child.”
A chill went through me.
“She is in danger because of who her mother was.”
I couldn't breathe.
Norah's mother, Evelyn, had been dead for five years.
Cancer.
At least that was what every doctor, every report, every miserable night beside her hospital bed had told me.
Lan whispered:
“Evelyn discovered what happened to your squadron nine years ago.”
My hands went still.
“What are you talking about?”
“She didn't die before she could expose it.”
May you like
Lan's next sentence shattered the last certainty I had left.
“She was killed because she did.”
