Falling(75)



Through the purple cabin lighting, Tink could see the passengers in their oxygen masks pressed up against the windows watching her. A man near the front of the plane pushed his glasses up as they slid down on the yellow cup. A few rows back an elderly woman laid her hand against the window, a crumpled tissue pressed against her palm. In the row right behind her, Tink could see only the top of an oxygen mask as the small child who sat there struggled to see up and out the window.

The civilian aspect of war was always the hardest to reconcile. A war zone should be a place for soldiers and no one else. Too many nights she’d woken in a sweat, the eyes of that little girl or that old man haunting her sleep.

But this wasn’t a war zone. This was just a plane full of innocents, trying to get to their destination. She was the one who had no place here. For the first time in her career, she felt hesitant.

As the last row of the plane passed, she saw a piece of paper pressed to a window with two words scrawled on it in large letters.

“Help Us.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE


THEO STOOD APART FROM THE group looking down at his phone. He called carrie over.

The family and the camera crew were all huddled around the news van, glued to the coverage on the screens inside. Some of the neighbors had come out, offering water and snacks, but no one had the stomach for anything. So they all just stood around, numb with helplessness, watching what was happening back east.

Carrie followed Theo away from the van. He kept his voice low.

“Four-one-six is starting to veer off-course.”

Carrie stared at him blankly. “How do—”

“Rousseau’s texting me updates. Washington was a decoy. The real target is Yankee Stadium.”

Carrie turned her head, looking at nothing, as though she didn’t understand the words he had said. Theo’s phone vibrated.

He read the message twice before closing his eyes with a sigh. He didn’t want to tell her what it said and he couldn’t stand the sight of Carrie waiting to hear it.

“Theo, please,” he heard her say after a moment. “It can’t get much worse, can it?”

He kept his eyes shut as he told her that one of the F-16s had tried to get a visual—and the cockpit appeared to be empty. According to the fighter pilot, no one was flying the plane.

Carrie didn’t say anything. Theo heard her start to cry.

“Mom?” Scott said. Theo opened his eyes to see the little boy approaching, his sister cradled in his arms.

The sight of the two of them nearly destroyed Theo. Carrie had her back to the children and she wiped her eyes hastily before turning to face them. With a small smile that looked painful, she brushed the hair out of the boy’s eyes and took the baby from his arms. Taking her son’s hand, they walked back to the news van together.



* * *



The beacon on the radar moved further and further from the airport, heading straight toward the Bronx. The only sound in the tower was the occasional attempt to gain contact with the cockpit. But the transmissions had become rote, without hope—no one expected to hear anything from 416.

Lieutenant General Sullivan pushed a button and spoke clearly.

“Sir? We’re running out of time. We need a decision, Mr. President.”



* * *



The lights seemed brighter. The grass greener. The air colder. The noise more crisp. To Bobby, everything at Yankee Stadium felt amplified.

He and the other players on the field bent at the ready, slapping into their gloves. They spat on the field while the batter tapped his bat on the inside of each shoe. The batter let out a heavy exhale before stepping into the box and grinding his feet as he settled in.

The pitch—fastball, outside.

The batter hacked at the ball, dropping to a knee as he fouled it off. Bobby knew how bad the man wanted it, because he knew how bad he wanted it. This was no longer just the World Series. This was something else entirely. The batter stepped out of the box, pulling his jersey up off a shoulder, lifting his helmet a couple times.

All around the park, fans continued to flee, jostling each other to get closer to the exits. Parents held their children to their chests. Couples gripped each other’s hands. The exits remained clogged, the staircases filled.

A high-pitched scream came from the upper decks to his left. Bobby looked over to find a woman tumbling down the stairs, her body picking up speed in its uncontrolled free fall. Bobby held his breath as he watched her approach the rail at the bottom of the section, a baseball game suddenly the least important thing in the world, but then he saw a large man brace himself and catch her at the very last moment, stopping her from falling a hundred feet to the stands below.

In the lower decks of the stadium, crowding into the rows around home plate and trickling down the baselines, Dodger blue bled into Yankee pinstripe. As the players had returned to their positions on the field, many of the fans had followed suit. It wasn’t discussed and it wasn’t planned. It was a collective understanding.

They yelled and jeered with each pitch, they ribbed each other and turned their caps inside out. A big guy trotted down from the abandoned concessions with a half dozen looted beer cans clutched against his chest. His buddy heralded him as the hero he was and they promptly distributed the wealth within their section, a sloppy cheer following.

A tiny section of the electronic scoreboard was reserved for the game’s stats and the rest of the massive screen projected what was going on outside of their new utopia. Carrie Hoffman pleading to the president. Rescue teams flanking JFK’s runways. Reporters pointing up into the night sky. Passengers wearing oxygen masks. And a roving camera inside the stadium showing the remaining faces of those lucky enough to attend game seven of the World Series.

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