Chapter 5
Fujian Province
UNDER THE BLANKET, Sarafina’s hand was poking Ahmed’s leg faster than a woodpecker digging through bark.
“I know, I know,” Ahmed whispered.
I could feel their fear. Drugging the guards was one thing. But drugging the pilots...
“You have to do something!” Sarafina said.
“Not yet.” Ahmed shifted beneath the blanket, and I could tell he was getting ready to charge out of his chair.
“What the heck’s going on?” Timmy whispered, twisting around just enough to be heard.
“Don’t move,” Ahmed ordered under his breath. “You’ll distract them.”
The crew door closed and the guard with the headset grabbed a mug for himself. He was filling it when the first guard swayed to one side, rubbing his eyes and saying something to his partner. The guy punched him gently in the shoulder as if to say he should buckle up. Then the guard with the headset turned in our direction. Sarafina and I both flinched and the man looked at us hard. I saw hate in his eyes.
He still hadn’t taken a sip from his mug.
The guard behind him swayed again, this time setting down his cup of tea to brace himself against the wall.
If the first guard turns around and notices...
My mind whirled.
What would Dad do?
“Hey, jackass!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “We’re thirsty, too.”
Ahmed and Sarafina gawked at me. I hardly ever shouted and the bad word felt strange coming out of my mouth.
The guard stormed forward. “What did you call me?”
I cowered just enough to keep him from slapping me like he had my sister, but the guard behind him collapsed to the floor so I had to keep his attention on me. “You’re mean!” I said, doing my best to act like a kid my mom and I saw throwing a tantrum at the mall. “I’m thirsty and I want some tea.” I scowled at him and tried stomping my feet, but my legs were too short to reach the ground so all I managed was to paddle my legs under the blanket.
He seemed amused, and I used that unguarded moment to throw my mind toward his and fill it with feelings of thirst.
He leered at me, and I felt like a mouse trapped by a cat. But he raised the cup to his lips and slurped, his gaze locked on mine. I frowned and he tipped the mug further, taking in several swallows. Finally, he smacked his lips and flipped the mug upside down. One last drop fell to the floor.
“After we land, I am going to personally teach you some manners,” he said.
“You’ll not touch my brother,” Ahmed said.
The man’s expression went cold as he stepped forward and backhanded Ahmed across the face. Ahmed’s head snapped to one side. But instead of backing down, he sat up straighter and jutted out his jaw, his defiant expression daring the man to hit him again. The guard’s face flushed. He cocked his arm to strike but his movements had slowed. The first guard had collapsed in less than a minute and he’d only taken a few sips. This man had consumed an entire mug.
The swing came but Ahmed dodged it, throwing off the blanket as he used the man’s momentum to push him to one side. The guard stumbled but kept his footing. He spun around too fast and blinked rapidly as he struggled to maintain his balance. There was a brief look of shock when he realized Ahmed was standing before him with no wrist cuffs. The guard’s hands were halfway to his holstered pistol when Ahmed let out a sharp kiai and planted a front kick in the man’s solar plexus, sending the guard flying to the deck. His eyes rolled and he was out.
“Quickly!” Ahmed said, grabbing the man’s pistol.
Sarafina and I jumped to our feet and used her barrette to free Timmy. “We drugged the tea,” Sarafina told him. “But the pilots may have drunk some, too!”
“Oh, crap,” Timmy said. We raced toward where Ahmed waited at the foot of the ladder leading to the flight deck. He handed Timmy the second guard’s pistol. “Do you know how to use this?” he asked.
“Kind of,” Timmy said. “This is the safety, right?” He clicked a button on the side and the magazine dropped to the floor.
Ahmed sighed. He took the pistol from Timmy and set it next to the coffee pot. “Better just leave it alone.” He placed a hand on the stepladder leading to the flight deck. “There’s only room for one of us up there anyway.”
The engine noise shifted, and I had the impression the plane had started a slight turn.
“Oh, no,” Sarafina hissed.
Ahmed tucked the pistol in his belt and put his foot on the first rung.
“Wait,” Timmy said. “Whatever you do, don’t shoot up the instruments. I may not know much about guns but I think I can fly this plane.”
“You’re a pilot?”
“Not exactly. But I’ve flown every plane in the Flight Simulator X gold edition.”
It was better than nothing but it didn’t give me much comfort.
“Praise Allah for even the smallest of blessings,” Ahmed said, exhaling deeply. His face darkened and I realized he was readying himself to do whatever was necessary to hijack the plane, even if it meant killing the pilots. He clambered up the ladder and my heart was in my throat.
With the pistol in one hand and the door lever in the other, he looked down at us and whispered, “Allahu Akbar.” Then he turned back and his hand twitched on the door lever. But it didn’t move. He tried again, the muscles of his forearm straining. Finally, he shouldered the door as hard as he could.
It wouldn’t budge.
“Get back,” he shouted as he aimed the pistol at the latch.
Timmy herded us behind the pallets. We crouched down, and a moment later I heard three quick shots. I flinched at each blast. After a moment, four more shots rang out.
“Damn it!” Ahmed shouted. He climbed back down the ladder and we ran forward to meet him. The air smelled of gunpowder, and I flashed back to the room in the underground facility on the island where Sarafina and I had been taken to force Dad to try to connect with the grid of pyramids. He’d been strapped in a chair with his head linked to a computer. Mom, Lacey, and Ahmed had arrived just in time to save us, and Ahmed had used a gun to shoot a man. It was the first time I’d ever heard or smelled a gunshot. There’d been so much blood...
“It’s no use,” Ahmed said. “The door is reinforced. We can’t get in. And there was no reaction from inside the cockpit. They’ve gotta be unconscious.”
“Then who’s flying the plane?” Sarafina said, grabbing the ladder rail as if that could help if the plane dropped from the sky.
“They must have realized they were going to pass out so they put the plane on autopilot.” He glanced out the exit door window. “We’re probably flying a racetrack pattern, like when a plane has to hold for a while because a thunderstorm is crossing the airport.” He rubbed his chin. “Assuming we’re close to our destination, we probably have about a two-hour reserve of fuel.”
“What happens when the tank is empty?” Sarafina said.
She realized right away that wasn’t the smartest question. Her face went white and Ahmed put an arm around her.
Timmy said, “We’ll figure something out. The point is, we have a couple hours to do so.” He moved to an LCD panel beside the guards’ chairs and began scrolling the screen. “I’ll bet I can pull up our position from the loadmaster’s screen.” He hesitated on one page and I saw we were flying at 140 knots at an altitude of 12,000 feet. He nodded and moved to a menu page.
While he was absorbed in the task, Ahmed and Sarafina started searching compartments. I walked to the back of the plane and grabbed my backpack. Everything was still inside, including the mini. Its leather case was the size and shape of a softball. I picked it up and it sent a tingle up my arm. After a moment, my senses felt sharper. The smells that had tangled together into a single odor before were now separated. I smelled rust, grease, oil, and fuel. I smelled the sweat on the guards’ clothing, the leftover tea, and the chemicals from the bathroom. It was
the same with my hearing and my vision. I felt stronger and I liked it.
The mini’s case was rigid so I suspected the inside was lined with metal, and I imagined a felt-lined mold around the small pyramid. There was a seam around the middle. I tried to twist the two halves apart but they were stuck solid, locked somehow. Knowing how big a secret the mini was for my dad, I didn’t try to force it. It might be booby-trapped. I’d heard Mom talk about how it had killed my dad after he started using it all the time. His heart had failed and the government had performed an emergency transplant to save him. That’s why I’d taken the mini. I didn’t want him to die again.
I tossed it up in the air once or twice, enjoying the surge I felt each time I caught it.
“Hey, we found a parachute,” Ahmed yelled. He and Sarafina had opened a compartment near the back of the plane. Timmy ran over to check it out. I stuffed the mini in my pack and slung it over my shoulders as I joined them.
“That’s not for people,” Timmy said, lifting the edge of the dusty, oversized pack. “They’re for cargo pallets.”
With an angry grunt, Ahmed slammed the lid closed and moved on to the next compartment. Sarafina slumped onto the web seating, her face buried in her hands. I went to sit beside her but she waved me away with a sniffle. She started to rock gently and I knew she was using her love of music to help her cope. I went to the exit window to look outside, but I was too short to see anything except the moon. I climbed onto the railing next to the door and leaned over to look at the ground. The moon shone through scattered clouds, but all I could make out was the silhouette of the rolling horizon. I couldn’t tell if the shadows were hills or mountains. Either way, they looked dark and scary.
The wing dipped and I realized we were making another turn in our holding pattern. The horizon rose, the shadows moving across the window as the plane banked into a turn.
“I’ve got something,” Timmy said, and Ahmed and Sarafina rushed over to join him. But an uneasy feeling made me stay put, and I kept my eyes on the sweeping view.
Timmy said, “It looks like we’re about a hundred and fifty miles from our destination.”
The wings leveled. I jumped off the rail and ran to the others. “We’re lower,” I said.
“Can’t be,” Timmy said. “The autopilot should hold our altitude—”
He saw the expression on my face. We hustled back to the LCD and brought up the page I’d seen earlier.
Airspeed: 140 knots
Altitude: 9,700 feet
“No, no, no,” Timmy said, his fingers dancing on the touch screen to bring up the plot map. “The valley ground level is 1,875 feet, but the highest peak beneath us is 4,500 feet.” He closed his eyes as he ran through the numbers. “We dropped from 12,000 to 9,700 feet. Time elapsed was about—”
“We’re going to crash in 4 minutes and 15 seconds,” I said. “That’s if we hit the highest peak. But if we make it to the valley, we’ll crash in 6 minutes, 24 seconds.”
Timmy gulped, and his eyes darted this way and that, settling on something in the rear of the plane. He grabbed me by my backpack’s shoulder strap and started running. “This way,” he shouted. Ahmed and Sarafina raced to keep up. We gathered beside the pallet closest to the rear door.
“Now listen up good,” Timmy said. “Because I don’t have time to explain this twice, and each one of us has gotta move superfast if we want to live. First off, did you find any life vests?”
“What—?” Ahmed said.
“No time,” Timmy yelled. “Life vests, life vests!”
Sarafina’s face was white. “But—?”
“The plane is descending,” I said. “It. Is. Going. To. Crash.”
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Timmy scrunched his shoulders and held up his hands. “Well?”
“I saw life vests in the front,” Sarafina said breathlessly.
“Get as many as you can. Alex, you help her.”
I ran after her and heard Timmy say to Ahmed, “Help me with this chute pack.”
We returned with two dozen inflatable life vests. Timmy and Ahmed were cinching the parachute pack to the top of the five-foot-tall pile of cargo on the first pallet. When they were finished, Timmy snapped open a pouch on the top of the pack and pulled out what looked like a smaller chute pack connected to a thick line. He left it on top of the pile.
“Inflate the vests and lay them out here,” Timmy said, pointing to the eighteen-inch space between the cargo and the edge of the pallet, made narrow by the series of webbed straps that held the cargo in place. “Divide them evenly on each side.”
A part of me knew what was about to happen but I refused to think about it. I pulled the red tab and the first vest inflated in an instant. I laid it down in the space. Sarafina did the same, setting hers next to mine. Her eyes were as big as saucers. As we worked, my internal clock kept track of the countdown to the mountain peak altitude.
Two minutes, 50 seconds...
“Did you find any spare straps?” Timmy asked Ahmed.
“Only a bunch of seat belts for the web seats.”
“Get ’em. I’ll finish with the chute.”
Ahmed hurried off. Timmy finished what he was doing and moved to a control panel by the rear ramp. He made several entries on a screen there, and each time he hit the Enter key he grumbled. When Ahmed returned with the belts, Timmy pounded his fist on the wall and came back to the pallet. By then, Sarafina and I had finished laying out the vests.
“Do you have anything warm to wear in there?” Timmy asked, pointing to my backpack.
“My hoodie.”
“Put it on. You guys, too.”
Ahmed and Sarafina grabbed their packs. Ahmed had a hoodie like mine and my sister had a sweater. After dressing, we slipped our packs on over our clothes. In the meantime, Timmy had cinched a harness of some sort around his chest and waist.
“You first,” Timmy said, guiding me toward the vests on one side of the pallet. “Wedge yourself between the vests and the straps.”
My heart was racing but I moved into place and lay on my side. Timmy helped to reposition the vests around me like bubble wrap around a fragile vase. Then he grabbed one of the seat belts and wove it through a pallet slat and around my waist. “Give me a hand,” he said to Ahmed. My brother tightened another one around my thighs while Timmy cinched a third over my chest. I felt like wrapped sausage. My legs were quivering and I wanted to pee.
“You’re next,” Timmy said to Sarafina, motioning to her spot.
“Please no, please no,” Sarafina mumbled, lying down on the edge nearest the back door. Her head was close to mine and we locked eyes as Timmy finished wrapping her up. Her lips made a tight line and I could tell she was doing everything possible to keep from crying.
One minute, 15 seconds...
“Ahmed, get behind the pallet,” Timmy said, moving to the panel that controlled the rear doors. He made an entry and suddenly a top section of the slanted rear ramp opened inward to lie flat against the ceiling. The rush of cold air made my ears pop. A moment later, the bottom ramp swung down until it was level with the floor, and the roar of the motors and the rushing wind filled the space.
Timmy released two clamps at the front of the pallet and got behind it to help Ahmed push it onto the ramp.
The pallet rolled to a stop, and I heard Sarafina’s frightened voice over the wind. “W-what’s happening?”
The sky behind her was foreboding. “Keep your eyes closed,” I yelled.
“Slide into your spot,” Timmy ordered to Ahmed. “Quickly!”
“This will work!” Ahmed shouted from the opposite side of the pallet, where Timmy was helping him strap in.
A moment later, Timmy hooked a safety line to the harness he’d put on earlier. It was connected somewhere behind me. He reached over Sarafina, grabbed the small chute pack from the top of the pallet, and moved carefully to the end of the ramp. He was so close to the edge that it made my knees feel
watery. He hooked the pack on a hook suspended above the ramp and it looked like the wind wanted to suck it outside. A thick bungee cord connected it to the main parachute pack on top of the pallet.
“This is going to happen very fast,” Timmy yelled over the noise. He walked out of sight behind me and reappeared by the control panel. After he entered a command on the screen, his finger hovered over the Enter key.
“I wish this thing had a timer!” Timmy shouted, with a wide-eyed stare toward the trailing edge of the pallet where a row of life vests waited for him. And that’s when I realized he hadn’t set up any seat belts for himself.
I shouted, “But—!”
“Close your eyes and hang on tight!” Timmy yelled. His eyes met mine and his face was grim. He nodded, and I suddenly understood the sacrifice he was making. I gripped the straps tight but there was no way I was going to close my eyes. I nodded back, memorizing the features of his face.
Fifteen seconds.
He tapped the display.
There was a tug. The inside of the plane vanished, a rush of wind whipped across my face, and my stomach felt like I was on the first drop of a rollercoaster. Sarafina’s scream pierced the wind.
The pallet tilted sharply and one of my life vests came loose and spun out of sight. We swung in the opposite direction and the moonlit shadows of a mountain peak rushed by beneath us. Then there was a swoosh overhead and a lurch pressed me into the pallet. I looked up to see that three parachutes had blossomed above us. The pallet settled into a gentle seesaw.
“Yahoo!” Ahmed yelled.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” Sarafina chanted.
I was relieved, too, but when I looked toward my feet and saw that Timmy wasn’t strapped beside us, my stomach went hollow. The sound of the airplane disappeared as I said a silent prayer for him. That’s when I felt the pallet jiggle.
“Who’s doing that?” Sarafina cried out. “Stop it!”
“It’s not me,” Ahmed said. “Alex, are you okay?”
The jiggling became more persistent. It felt like something was tugging at the bottom of the pallet. I shifted my shoulders around, peeked over the side, and my heart leaped.
“It’s Uncle Timmy!” I yelled. He was climbing up the tether attached to his harness.
“Stay where you are,” he shouted. Finally, he pulled himself onto the pallet like a drowning man into a lifeboat. “Dudes,” he said breathlessly, “I can’t believe that worked!”
A moment later, tree limbs snapped, branches lashed across us, and everything went black.