Falling(39)

“And you had them all turn on their TVs? And turn to the news?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Did it go okay? Were they receptive?”

Daddy stared at her, deadpan.

Reaching the galley, Kellie passed between them, tossing her nearly empty bag on top of his.

“Okay, these people do not like us,” she said, her eyes wide. “Holy shit are they angry.”

Daddy nodded in agreement. “He needs to finish whatever it is that he’s doing—now—because we need to give these people some information.”

The flight attendants looked across the galley to Rick Ryan, who continued to swipe and tap on his phone.

Jo said, “As soon as he’s finished—and thank you, Mr. Ryan, for assisting—we’ll go. In the meantime, let’s talk specials.” She handed Daddy the manifest and Kellie looked over his shoulder. “Miraculously, we don’t have too many. Two infants and one wheelchair. Thank god no unaccompanied minors. You do have a language in eighteen delta, though. Last name Gonzales, so I’m assuming Spanish? Do either of you speak Spanish?”

Kellie shook her head.

“Un poquito,” Daddy said, poring over the list. “That’ll be a fun briefing.”

“Kellie, while Daddy’s doing his briefs, break down your galley. We need it final-descent secure, now. There won’t be time later.”

She nodded.

“Gimme just a minute,” Rick Ryan said. “I’m almost done.”

The crew waited. They each had a thousand things to do to get the passengers ready for whatever was coming, but they couldn’t do any of it yet. Hurry up and wait. Even in a crisis, the unofficial motto of aviation held true.

“Do you remember,” Daddy broke the silence, “way back in the day, what they taught us to do if the plane was hijacked?”

Jo smiled. The memory seemed quaint. “Talk to them. Appeal to their emotions. Level with them. Give them what they want. Basically? Do whatever you gotta do to get the plane down safe.”

Back then, the tactic was to gain the hijackers’ empathy, so the company had instructed the flight attendants to keep pictures of their children or family on them at all times. Jo had the boys’ baby pictures tucked in with her badge and she remembered Big Daddy kept a picture of his cat. He’d told her his plan was to distract the terrorists with his pussy.

“Then 9/11 happened,” Daddy said, his voice trailing off. “And everything changed.” He leaned back against Jo’s jump seat. The cockpit was right there and he ran the backs of his fingers up the door. “We used to have something to work with, you know? The bad guys made sense, the world made sense. There were motives and demands. But now…” He shook his head.

“Cool, cool, cool,” Rick Ryan said, ending the moment. “It’s done. I’d say wait a couple minutes, then you’re on.”

Jo took out her phone and opened the message thread with her nephew.



* * *



Theo’s pocket vibrated and he strained against the seat belt to fish out his phone. Opening the message, he felt his brow furrow.

“What?” Liu asked.

“She says: ‘Watch the news.’?”

Liu pulled up CNB’s website on her tablet. Waiting for it to load, she leaned over the partition. “How far out are we?”

“Approximately six minutes, ma’am,” the driver replied.

A sea of red covered the device. “What the…” Liu muttered to herself.

The network was in full breaking-news mode, massive fonts and capital letters demanding the world’s attention. The news anchor’s eyes darted up and down from his notes to the camera, the pace of what was occurring too fast for a teleprompter. Liu turned up the volume.

“…information is coming in as we speak. So far, all we know for sure is that some form of hijacking or terrorist incident is currently unfolding on board a midair Coastal Airways flight from Los Angeles to New York. Celebrity personality Rick Ryan is one of the passengers on board, and he has alerted the media to some sort of upcoming announcement. We are standing by, waiting for that…”

A box graphic of a tweet appeared on-screen:

@RickRyanyaboi

FLIGHT 416 HAS BEEN HIJACKED.

LIVE VIDEO FROM CREW COMING. PRAY FOR US!!!



Tagged to all the major news networks, the FBI, Homeland Security—even the White House—the tweet had already been shared twelve thousand times in less than three minutes.

“…the plane is an Airbus A320, which can carry up to one hundred and fifty passengers, plus a crew component of three flight att—”

The news anchor pressed his earpiece.

“Okay, I’m being told we have live streaming video from the plane. Let’s watch.”

The studio disappeared, replaced by a stuttering feed from the interior of a plane. The screen was filled with the face of a middle-aged woman in a flight attendant’s uniform.

Theo almost gasped. Aunt Jo.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, her voice choppy as the video buffered. “By now you’re aware that we have a situation on our hands.”

Liu looked up at Theo with complete sincerity.

“Is your aunt fucking insane?”