Skid

  He’d been talking about waiting. “We have to be patient. We have to wait for the right time.”

  She’d nodded to that too. She didn’t know what the right time would be, but she kept nodding.

  Then he said, “This is it. I’ve got to go. Remember what I said.”

  Lucy watched it all unfold in front of her. Hank leapt up and said he was the guy that the man with the gun was looking for.

  Lucy nodded, but she didn’t know why. She couldn’t stop.

  Now the bad guy was smiling.

  “So, here you are,” he said. “Didn’t take you much time to make the right choice. Glad you’re thinking with your head on. Hand them over.”

  “Not so fast,” Hank said. “First, you get the pilot to the cockpit.”

  “I’m calling the shots. The guy with the gun calls the shots.”

  Lucy tried to tune out the scene in front of her and remember what Hank told her to say, but her mind was totally blank. All she could focus on was Hank, his hands in the air, his face more serious than she ever imagined it could be.

  She couldn’t believe he was willing to be shot. She wanted to crawl under the seats and hide. Her hands trembled so badly she could barely get her fingers in her mouth to chew.

  “Are you ready?”

  Lucy glanced back. Mrs. Kilpatrick was whispering to her.

  “What?”

  “Are you ready?”

  Lucy shook her head. “I can’t remember what he told me to do.”

  Mrs. Kilpatrick, for once, didn’t look irritated. “He said when he looks at the ceiling, you should jump up and yell.”

  Lucy blinked. Was that what she’d agreed to? “Jump up and yell?”

  “Give me what I want!” The bad guy’s voice boomed through the cabin.

  “Not until you get him to the cockpit,” Hank replied.

  “You’re in no position to play games!”

  “This is no game.”

  Mrs. Kilpatrick whispered again, pulling Lucy’s attention away from Hank. “He said that as soon as the guy looks at you, he’s going to knock him down and get the gun away.”

  “But…but…”

  “He said it has to be the right timing, because he can’t risk the pilot being hurt.”

  “But…”

  Mrs. Kilpatrick reached across the aisle, her fingers beckoning. Lucy took her hand.

  “You can do this,” the old woman said. “You have to do this.”

  “I don’t know if I can.” Lucy began to cry. “What if…?” She couldn’t even say the words. She’d never thought much about death. It was more important to think about life. That’s where the energy was, what caused the world to go around.

  But now that she faced death, she realized it was just as real as life. They were equally real.

  And the man she’d befriended, the one who thought she was gracious and smiled a lot, stared death in the face, willing to give up his life for every stranger on this plane. He was willing to give up his life for her.

  “Remember?” Mrs. Kilpatrick said. “He asked if you trusted him.”

  “What did I say?”

  Mrs. Kilpatrick looked confused. “You nodded.”

  “I nodded. I nodded. That I trusted him?”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Kilpatrick looked at the scene behind Lucy, the one she could barely stand to watch. “I think he’s trustworthy. He seems trustworthy.”

  Nobody had ever held her life in their hands until now, and she couldn’t think of a better person to trust her life with. She looked at Mrs. Kilpatrick. “Okay. I’m not religious. Are you?”

  “Only when it’s convenient,” Mrs. Kilpatrick said, with a plaintive look.

  “Would this qualify?”

  “I think it would.”

  “Then pray, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Lucy watched the two men face off. The bad guy pointed the gun over the pilot’s shoulder. His eyes had a crazed look about them. Hank, on the other hand, looked calm. He inched closer to the man, taking one small step after another.

  Lucy noticed the old guy in the back row with an unconscious woman slumped over in his lap. He fidgeted, his eyes darting back and forth, his hand popping up and down like he wanted to insert himself into some interesting debate on politics.

  She tried to concentrate only on Hank and do exactly what he told her—stand up and yell. She trusted him with her life. How she could trust a stranger with her life, she didn’t know, but something told her he’d die before he let her die. Maybe it was because, as he explained to her earlier, he believed that one Man’s sacrifice saved his life once.

  Hank jerked his head upward and stared at the ceiling.

  Lucy grabbed the front of the chair and was about to hoist herself up when a man walked past her and yelled, “I’m Van Der Mark, and I have what you want!”

  Jake kept his hands raised. The crazed guy yanked the pilot back, his gun pointing toward the man who’d crashed and burned with polka-dot woman. Jake couldn’t fathom why someone would volunteer to step in harm’s way, but there was no time to think about that now. He had to show the guy with the gun his duct-taped belly.

  The man swung the gun around and put it to the pilot’s temple. A collective gasp rose from the passengers. “Then show it to me.”

  “No. You release the pilot first.”

  “Not this song and dance again! I don’t know who to believe. Maybe neither of you is who you say you are.”

  Hank looked at Jake. “Let me handle this.”

  “I’m Jaap and you know it,” Jake said. It sounded weird using his birth name.

  “Look, I’ve got what he wants, and I’m willing to give it to him,” said Hank.

  Jake was definitely going to have to show his duct-taped belly and maybe sacrifice an entire circle of body hair if this guy wanted to rip it off him.

  The old man sitting in the back pointed toward Jake. “That’s him!”

  “Would you just shut up?” The crazy guy waved his gun.

  The old man said, “You want the diamonds, right?”

  “How did you know that? That I want diamonds?”

  Behind him, the flight attendant with the fire red lipstick spoke up. “He’s the diamond thief. He stole the diamonds in the first place.”

  Jake stared at the old man. This was the guy who robbed his grandmother?

  “He’s being extradited back to the Netherlands,” explained the flight attendant. The agent, her eyes now open but her mouth still bound, nodded. She looked at Leendert, trying to get him to remove the gag, but he ignored her.

  “He is Idya’s grandson,” the old man insisted. His English was far worse than Idya’s. “I would recognize him anywhere. She displays pictures of him all in the house! He is brought the diamonds back to return. He is your man!”

  Jake lowered his hands. “What are you talking about? What pictures?”

  “It is true,” the old man said. “All over the place. Any picture, big or small, she has a frame on it. You look as if her. As if her!”

  Jake looked at the guy holding the gun. “I’m Ja—”

  “It’s made with a yah,” the old man said, pronouncing it with his Dutch accent. “Yaap. Idya would not approve of you saying your own name wrong.”

  “For now,” Jake said, focusing back on the man with the gun, “you can call me Jake.”

  “All right, Miles,” said the pilot bound to the leg of the chair. “You’ve got what you want.”

  “I want to see the diamonds!”

  Jake sighed and lifted his shirt. Another round of gasps. “The five diamonds are in a pouch underneath the tape.”

  Everyone turned their attention to Miles, who looked unsure and increasingly unsteady. The gun waved back and forth.

  “Okay, look,” Jake said, wincing at the thought of it, “I’ll rip the tape off. Show you the diamonds. Will that satisfy you?”

  Miles nodded, but Hank stepped into the aisle where Miles stood. “Don’t move!” Miles s
aid.

  “It’s time to get this over with,” Hank said.

  “Hank!” the bound pilot said. “What are you doing? Stop! We can’t risk him blowing a hole in the airplane!”

  “I’ll do it!” Miles said, pointing the gun toward the ceiling. “I’ll do it! Don’t take another step toward me!”

  But Hank kept moving forward.

  “Stop! I’ll shoot!”

  “Stop!” the pilot commanded, but Hank kept walking until Miles pointed the gun toward him.

  “I will shoot you!”

  “I have no doubt you’ll try.”

  Hank reached toward him, and Miles fired the gun. Jake squeezed his eyes shut but opened them again when he heard nothing. He saw Hank grab the gun and try to wrestle it away from Miles, and he hurried through the center row to help.

  Hank’s face was red as he clawed at Miles’s arm, trying to reach for the gun. “Get the pilot away! Get him out of the way!”

  Jake stepped between the pilot and the fight just as Hank slammed Miles’s hand against a seatback. The gun dropped to the floor, and with one full punch from Hank, so did Miles.

  The pilot on the floor said, “Get him secured! Zip-tie his hands behind him! He’s got those things in his pocket.”

  Miles moaned, barely conscious as Jake felt in his pockets. A handful of zip ties fell out. Jake grabbed two and secured Miles’s hands behind his back.

  A small stretch of silence was followed by a round of relieved sighs.

  “Get the gun secured,” the bound pilot ordered.

  “It won’t go off. It’s not loaded,” Hank said.

  “How did you know that?” Jake asked.

  “I’ve been around law enforcement some,” said Hank. “And one thing I know for sure is that a law-enforcement officer would never, ever hand over his or her gun loaded. They’re very safety conscious.”

  They all looked at the FBI agent, who could only nod in agreement.

  The bound pilot said, “James, get over here.”

  Jake stepped aside to make room for James to move through.

  “James, are you okay? Can you fly this plane?”

  James looked down at him. “Danny, you worry more than my mother.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No, I’m not hurt. I’m fine. I was just getting ready to put my elbow into Miles’s rib cage when this guy went for the gun. I was trying to time it right so I wouldn’t get myself shot, you know, because I have to fly the airplane.”

  “You look pale. Do you need some water? some juice?”

  “Danny, relax. Let me handle this, okay?” The pilot took a deep, albeit shaky breath and said, “Okay. I need to get to the cockpit.”

  A moan drew their attention to the back. At first Jake thought it was the FBI agent. Then he thought maybe he was moaning out of pure relief that he wasn’t dead.

  The realization dawned a moment later, Jake thought, for all of them.

  The dead woman under the blanket sat up.

  Chapter 26

  Before Danny could comprehend what he saw, what they all saw, a loud thump caused him to jump. James lay beside him, unconscious.

  Screams filled their end of the cabin: the familiar, high-pitched sound of Mrs. Kilpatrick and then the girl in polka dots.

  He couldn’t believe it. The dead woman he’d carried to the back of the plane and covered with a blanket was sitting up and asking for coffee.

  “Mama!” Mrs. Kilpatrick cried. “Mama! You’re alive!”

  “What?” Hetty asked. “I can’t hear with all the commotion.” As fast as an old woman could rush to an even older woman, Mrs. Kilpatrick made her way to Hetty. “We thought you were dead!”

  “What?”

  “Dead, Ma! Dead!”

  “Fed? No, they haven’t fed me. Did I miss it during my nap?”

  “But…but we didn’t find a pulse.”

  “A what?”

  “Your pulse!”

  “No, the doctors never can find that thing. Why?”

  Danny shook off his shock and concentrated on James. “James!” He slapped James’s cheeks with his free hand. “James! Wake up! Help me get him awake, Hank. Get some ice water.”

  James moaned. Hank hurried over with cups of water and poured them on the pilot’s head. James’s eyes flew open, and he struggled to sit up. “What happened?”

  “You fainted.”

  James blinked. “I don’t faint.”

  “You just did.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” James stood up, water dripping off of him. He looked down at Danny. “Why am I wet?”

  “You fainted.”

  James growled. “Look, it’s probably the low blood sugar. I need some orange juice or a candy bar or…” His eyes wandered to his left, grew big, and his mouth opened wide at the sight of Hetty.

  “James…no, no, no, look away. Just look away! Don’t look at…”

  Thump. James fell again, this time hitting his head hard against the corner of the seat before collapsing to the floor.

  A passenger screamed. “We have no pilots! We have no pilots!”

  Chaos erupted as people scrambled out of their seats.

  Danny looked at GiGi. “GiGi, can you get on the intercom? Can you reach it?” She nodded. “Tell everyone to get in their seats!”

  “Folks, we need your full cooperation. We’re working on getting the pilot back into the cockpit…”

  She continued to address the cabin as Danny got the attention of whatever his name was. “You. Jake?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I need you to go to the front of the plane. Tell me where the captain is and what state she’s in. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah.” Jake rushed off. Danny continued slapping James, who came in and out of consciousness. The FBI agent was in no condition to help, since she was zip-tied to Leendert.

  Suddenly a passenger appeared, shoving another passenger in front of him. “Hey! This guy is a pilot!”

  Danny sat up a little taller, trying to look at him across the middle row of seats. “You’re a pilot?”

  “Well, um, I’m a…yeah, I mean…I’m a…”

  “I was sitting right in front of him,” the other passenger said. “I heard him say he could land a 767!”

  “Is that true?” Danny asked.

  “Well, uh…it’s…uh…”

  “Can you or can’t you?”

  “You’re our only hope!” the passenger said.

  “What’s your name?” Danny asked.

  “Eddie.”

  “What kind of airplanes do you fly?”

  “I…an airshi…a blimp.”

  Danny blinked. “A blimp?”

  “Yes. A blimp.”

  The only thing it had in common with a plane was the ability to lift off the ground.

  “We’ve been asking everyone,” the passenger said. “Nobody is a pilot except this guy.”

  Danny looked at Eddie. “Can you do this? I can talk you through.”

  “I…prefer helium.”

  “You’re our best chance.”

  The man pressed his lips together, looking determined but also like he could burst into tears. “Okay.”

  Jake returned. “The captain is okay but in your same predicament. She’s tied to a chair. They’re trying everything to get her loose, but there’s nothing sharp onboard to cut the zip tie, and they can’t get the chair unbolted.”

  “Everything on this plane is bolted securely, and we’ll be lucky to find something sharp enough to cut through plastic.” Danny looked at Eddie. “Okay, Eddie, go tell the captain you’re going to the cockpit. She’ll talk you through what you need to do. Okay?”

  Eddie headed toward the cockpit. Then Danny called Hank over.

  “Listen, I need your help.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I need you to go up there with Eddie and do your thing.”

  “My thing?”

  “That calm thing. That thing you do with your eyes. Keep him c
alm, assure him he can do it. Help him get the instructions from the captain right. Just keep him calm and focused.”

  “Okay.”

  “Tell the captain I’m working on getting James conscious, but it doesn’t look promising. Tell her she’s going to have to talk Eddie through this.”

  “Okay.” Hank turned to the girl in polka dots. “Lucy, come with me. I need your help.”

  They disappeared up the aisle, and Danny nudged James. He was out cold, a huge purple lump on his forehead. Miles remained slumped in the corner of the galley, his face bloody, his hands tied behind his back, and one eye swollen shut.

  Danny tugged at the zip tie. He kicked the tray table with his knee but couldn’t get it loose.

  Then something occurred to him. No. That’s stupid. That’s ridiculous. That’s…

  It was a stretch, but at this point he was betting everything on a nervous, helium-dependent pilot, so he really had nothing to lose.

  “Jake, I need you to find a woman named Anna Sue. She’s the one who had the pig. Do you know what she looks like?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bring her to me.”

  “Okay.”

  Jake rushed off, and Danny turned to GiGi. “GiGi, can you reach some jelly?”

  “You want orange juice to go with that?”

  “GiGi, focus. Can you?”

  “Yeah, we can reach the jelly.”

  “Get me as much as you can.”

  Lucy followed Hank closely. Adrenaline shot through her body, but for Hank, she kept her cool and tried not to think about the fact that the airplane was flying without pilots.

  Hank made his way through the thick crowd of passengers trying to help the captain and stooped next to her.

  The captain said, “I already met Eddie.”

  “I was sent to help Eddie, and Lucy is going to help us both by delivering your instructions.”

  The captain glanced toward the cockpit, where alarms sounded.

  “What’s that?” Hank asked.

  “It means we’re getting too close to another aircraft. We’ll have to hope the air-traffic controllers are doing their jobs. First things first—we need to contact the tower.”

  Hank looked up at Lucy. “I’m going to help Eddie get situated. Then we’ll be ready. Lucy, you’ll convey the instructions to us, okay?”