Falling(24)

“So what are you going to say in your announcement?” Kellie said.

“My announcement?” Jo said.

Kellie opened her hands. “What, we’re just going to, like, start dropping masks? And… hope they don’t notice?”

“Well, see, now that’s where we need to plan and come up with something. Because we obviously can’t tell them what’s going on.”

The other two stared. Daddy raised his hand.

“Josephina—quick question. What in the actual fuck?”

“We can’t tell them anything. The terrorist will kill Bill’s family if we do.”

“And that is truly awful, and I’m sorry. But what about these people? We’re just going to let them run blind into an attack while we know damn well it’s on its way?”

Jo shook her head. “It’s not just Bill’s family. There’s a backup, remember? Back here. With us.” The tone of her voice was rising with her anxiety. Taking a breath, she glanced around the curtain to survey the cabin. Two people were waiting for the bathroom in the back. A man stood in the aisle bouncing his baby. Nothing seemed off.

“Look,” she said. “We need to keep this contained. We can’t let anyone know anything is going on.”

“Okay,” Kellie said. “So again. We’re gonna drop the masks and smile and nod? Like it’s totally something we normally do on flights?”

Jo sighed and dropped her head. “I know. I know. Look, I don’t have an answer to everything. The only thing I know for sure is that we need those masks out, and that’s final. We must give these people what they need to survive. Let’s just start there, okay?”

Daddy raised his hands in surrender and Kellie nodded. The engines hummed, far in the back a baby cried, and someone in first class shut an overhead bin. The three flight attendants stared at the floor amid the ambient noise.

With a tiny gasp, Daddy covered his mouth, a glint of Eureka! gleaming in his eyes.

“The FAR!” he said. “How the hell did we forget Federal Aviation Regulation four-point-two-point-seven? It clearly states that in the event of an Oxygen Release System fault in the flight deck, flight attendants are required to manually release all cabin oxygen masks from the PSUs so that in the unlikely event of a decompression, passengers will have access to oxygen.”

Kellie blinked. “I didn’t know that FAR. I mean, if that’s what we’re supposed to do, then obviously—”

“He made that up,” Jo said.

Big Daddy curtsied.

“You want to lie to them?” Kellie said.

“Do it all the time,” Daddy said. “Guess they’re still not teaching that in initial.”

“No, he’s right,” Jo said. “Fooled you, it’ll fool them. I think they’ll go with it. We just need the masks out. Let’s cross that bridge first, then we’ll figure out what to do next after that.”

“Okay, fine. Let’s get this over with,” Kellie said. “But I’m not making the announcement. You guys can do the talking.”

“We’re all doing the talking,” Jo said. “No one’s making an announcement.”

“What?” Daddy said.

“We’re trying to be covert, remember? Bill’s still on the video call and the FO doesn’t know anything’s happening. He can’t know anything’s happening.”

“The pilots can hear our announcements?” Kellie asked.

“Sort of. They can always hear when we’re making an announcement, just not clearly. But if they want to, they can switch the audio and listen in. They just don’t usually. So the less attention we attract, the better. We have to make this seem like a nonevent. Not just for us back here, but for the sake of Bill’s family.”

Jo thought of Carrie. Over the years, enough company picnics and Christmas parties had turned into the families getting together on their own. The women weren’t best friends, but a happy hour here and there kept them in touch. When Scott was born, Jo gave Carrie a bunch of her son’s hand-me-downs and she loved the pictures she got of the baby in her boy’s old favorites.

Shaking the flood of images out of her head, she refocused.

Theo would take care of the family.

Bill would take care of the plane.

They needed to take care of the passengers.





CHAPTER EIGHT


TAPPING HIS PHONE AGAINST his leg, Theo watched the traffic on the 405 part to let their procession through. Three unmarked SUVs and one windowless mobile command center was about as subtle as the FBI could get.

“Lights and sirens off once we exit the freeway,” Liu said to the driver. “Ladies and gentlemen, our suspect has no idea we’re coming. That is our one and only advantage. This is the Hoffman family.”

Liu turned and held up a tablet displaying a photo from social media, and the SWAT team’s combat helmets bobbed up and down. “Mother’s name is Carrie, children are Scott and Elise, ten and ten months respectively. Mom is strapped with a suicide vest. The wireless detonator is held by our suspect, who is also wearing a vest. So what do we know about him? Male, estimated early thirties. He works for a cable company and his full name is something that starts with ‘S’ but he goes by Sam.”