Falling(38)

“Then what do you want?” Bill pleaded. “I don’t understand what you want. I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

Ben looked out the window in front of him, considering the question, the hand holding the gun drooping slightly.

“Where we come from, our people have a saying. ‘No friend but the mountains.’ It means our fate is one of betrayal and abandonment. That we only have each other. No one else cares. We can only count on ourselves.”

Ben looked to Sam, his eyes misting above a forlorn smile.

“We tried not to believe that,” the first officer continued. “We wanted so badly to believe it could be different, it would be different. We bought into hope. Into the American Dream. Freedom, hope, belonging—that’s all we wanted. For ourselves and for our families. And tell me—why is that wrong? To want that kind of life? Why shouldn’t our lives have that kind of dignity? Why don’t we deserve it? We played by your rules, we did what you wanted, we were everything you asked us to be. And you betrayed us! You ask me how I could betray this profession—well, how could you betray millions of people who only want a decent life of their own?”

Bill tried to think of a good response, but came up empty. He didn’t really grasp what Ben was talking about. Finally he said, “What does any of that have to do with my family or the passengers on this plane?”

Ben spread his arms wide and laughed.

“Keep going. Keep reacting exactly as we knew you would. Because that’s exactly it! That’s exactly why we’re doing this! You people never think it has something to do with you. All around the world, shit happens. And you just carry on. Because it doesn’t have to do with you. You never get involved unless you’re forced to. So?” He motioned around the cockpit. “Here we are. You’re finally being forced to face the truth.”

“What truth?”

“The truth that people are only as good as the world lets them be. You’re not inherently good and I’m not inherently bad. We’re just working through the cards life dealt us. So putting you in this position, dealing you these cards—what does a good guy do now? It’s not about the crash, Bill. It’s about the choice. It’s about good people seeing they’re no different from bad people.” He looked from Bill to Carrie. “You’ve just always had the luxury of choosing to be good.”

Bill’s face flushed. He didn’t fully understand what Ben was talking about, but he recognized the anguish he saw burning in his copilot’s eyes. It was the same hot rage that coursed through Bill’s body every time he looked at his helpless, captive family.

“But what about people who have no choice?” Bill said. “The passengers on this plane, the people in Washington, DC. How do their innocent deaths prove your point?”

“What about the innocent deaths of my people?” Ben spat back. “Why are their lives of less worth, why are their deaths less tragic? No one cares when they die horrible deaths. It’s time your people shared the same meaningless ending. I want America to mourn in the way we’ve had to mourn for our whole lives.”

“An eye for an eye isn’t justice,” said Bill.

“Neither is inaction. Nothing will change if nothing changes.”

“But nothing will change if you do this either. America won’t bow to a vigilante terrorist.”

“We never wanted you to bow! We just wanted to be seen!”

Ben panted in the silence that followed his outburst, the gun trembling in his hand. Bill faced forward in his chair. Ben turned his head away to look out the window. Sad attempts at a physical de-escalation in the cramped space.

Bill dropped his hands to his side, defeated. He didn’t know what to do. Everything felt hopeless. He stared at his family, mentally removing them from this madness, trying to remember how simple their lives seemed as recently as last night.

Bill had grilled hamburgers. They had eaten with the TV on, volume low, watching the game. Scott spilled his milk at one point. Elise had cried and so Carrie ate her sweet potato fries standing up, bouncing her until she stopped. Bill remembered thinking he needed to take out the trash when he threw the milk-soaked paper towels in the bin. He had forgotten to do that before he left this morning.

A distant noise was beeping in his earpiece. Bill barely noticed it, lost in the blissful memory of normalcy. But the faint, irregular sounds eventually pulled Bill away from his reverie. All at once something clicked in his mind as he strained to listen, trying not to breathe.

But now there was only silence. His mind was playing tricks on him.

He looked over to Ben, who showed no sign of having heard anything unusual. If there were any sounds, they would come through the backup frequency, which was only audible in Bill’s earpiece. Ben was in his own world anyway. He was inspecting the gun, his thumb running over the handle.

Suddenly, there it was. Bill’s eyes widened. There was a noise.

It wasn’t his imagination. Someone had heard him and they were talking back.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN


“ALL SET?” JO SAID.

Big Daddy tossed an almost-empty bag of cheap plastic Coastal Airways headphones on the forward galley countertop with a thwack.

“All set,” he said.

“Every passenger?”

“Every single one.”