hear my life’s work torn apart. I couldn’t let it end that way.
There would be no trial, no lawyers, no photograph in the paper for me. There would be no handcuffs, no arrest.
I had never believed in the existence of fate, but it seemed I was at the mercy of fortune. A different ending awaited me, and I embraced it.
I was ready.
FORTY-SIX
90 MINUTES FROM SYDNEY | MINA
“She’s dead.” Derek takes his fingers from Missouri’s neck.
“Are you sure?”
He nods.
I killed her.
I feel a crushing sense of despair at the bloodshed, at the lengths to which we’ve been driven. Beneath it, keeping its distance, as though it knows it shouldn’t be there, is an eerie calmness. For eleven years, I have carried my guilt rather than shouldered it, and now culpability slips over my shoulders like a second skin. I killed her. There is no disputing it.
This time.
Rowan and Derek drag Missouri from the first officer’s seat with a thud and out of the flight deck. For a moment, I’m alone, the space simultaneously cavernous and claustrophobic. Sunlight paints the sky a thousand shades of gold, and it should be beautiful, it should be incredible.
Here, let me show you…
My body begins to shake, tremors juddering my joints and rattling my teeth. The vast array of instrument panels shrinks before my eyes, until all I can see is the artificial horizon and I’m remembering how I kept my eyes on that line till I couldn’t bear it anymore, till I had to close them—
“Mina!”
I spin around, my mouth open in a cry that dies away when I realize it’s Derek and Rowan. On the floor in the galley, I see Missouri’s body, and I feel a wave of resentment that she won’t face trial, won’t spend the rest of her life in jail. Anger concentrates my mind. Panic is still rising, threatening to engulf me, but I can’t let it win. I have to focus on what matters: on getting home.
“Someone needs to check on the relief crew.” I think of the pilots’ bunks above us—Ben’s and Louis’s lifeless bodies—and fear grips me as I imagine what lies in the crew’s bunks at the other end of the plane.
“What are we going to do?” Derek’s looking at me as though I have all the answers, when I don’t have a single one.
“What’s happening back there?”
“The economy crew is keeping the hijackers the other side of the bar, but I don’t know how long they can hold them. Without Missouri, the rest don’t know what to do. They’re turning on one another.”
“And Cesca?”
“Hanging on. Your colleague’s with her. Erik, is it?” Rowan looks at the instruments in front of the pilots’ seats. “Have you told anyone what’s happened?”
I shake my head numbly. I haven’t moved from this spot, my feet rooted to the floor.
“Erik’s spoken to the rest of the crew,” Derek says. “There’s no one with any flying experience.”
“They’ll attempt a talk-down,” I say. My voice is cracked, as though it hasn’t been used. “Ground control will try to take us through each step, with the aim of getting us safely down.”
“The aim?” Derek looks at me. I don’t say anything. I don’t know how many talk-downs have been attempted and how many have succeeded. I do know that staying in the air is the easy part; landing requires a skilled pilot.
Rowan squeezes past me, sliding into the right-hand seat. “Is this the radio?”
“You’re not seriously going to try and fly this plane?” Derek says.
“Someone has to.”
“Someone who knows what they’re doing! Mina, you must know—”
Rowan turns to look at him. “Don’t you think she’s been through enough? It’s not fair to put this on her as well.”
“You can fly a plane, though, can’t you?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “I heard you talking to Cesca. You trained to be a pilot.”
“I started training! I was in the classroom for weeks and then… I’ve flown light aircraft, that’s all, Cessnas, Pipers…”
“It can’t be that different—”
“It’s completely different!” I gesture at the switches that cover every surface of the flight deck, light-years away from the two dozen controls that sit on the small instrument panel in the cockpit of a light aircraft. Derek’s frowning, his anxiety heaping pressure on me, because I know he’s right. I know I need to get in that seat but…
Here, let me show you.
“She’s having some kind of panic attack.” I hear Rowan’s voice, calm and reassuring. “Get her back into the cabin and sitting down. Make her