scissors, metal nail files. There are weapons enough if you want to find a way.
Carmel and Erik are on the opposite side of the cabin, Carmel twisting a ring on her finger around and around. The petite woman from seat 5J—the blond I saw flirting in the bar—is still standing, and I gesture to Erik to tell her to sit. As he approaches, the woman walks instead toward the galley, adopting a mirror image of Missouri’s position on the opposite side of the cabin. She looks at Missouri and smiles, then gives a curt nod toward the rest of us. “Zambezi,” she says. It takes a moment for me to realize she is introducing herself.
She’s dainty and doll-like, her hands slotting together in front of her like a bride missing her bouquet, and I scan the outline of her body for signs of explosives. She’s wearing a stretchy dress that falls from sharp clavicles to skim a concave stomach. Beneath it, black leggings bag around her knees.
Zambezi. Missouri. They make an unlikely pair. They make unlikely terrorists.
Missouri walks backward into the galley, never taking her eyes off the cabin. The wires from her vest must run into her sleeve, because in her left hand is a small piece of black plastic into which the wires are secured. She picks up the intercom with her right hand and speaks to the entire plane.
“I am wearing enough explosives to end the lives of everyone on this aircraft.”
The only sound is a gentle sobbing, so insistent, it seems to be coming from the very bones of the plane.
“You are all frightened of dying, and yet you waste water desperately needed for crops. You warm the oceans, depleting resources of fish. You drive cars when you can walk, you eat meat when you could grow vegetables, you cut down trees to build houses to contain an out-of-control population. You are killing the planet, and the planet is as afraid as you are right now.”
This? This is what they have hijacked our plane for? What they’ve threatened my family for? The planet is afraid? Anger explodes inside me, and it’s all I can do to keep it there. I had imagined a religious zealot, a fanatic. Not this. This is what insanity looks like. It looks like a gray-haired woman in a green jumper with lines around her eyes and age spots on her hands. I think of the news coverage I’ve seen of environmental protests and how quickly I changed the channel, dismissing them entirely. A bit batty, perhaps, but not actually mad. Not dangerous.
“Want and need are very different,” Missouri says. Her eyes are black beads, her face animated. “None of you needed to take this flight. There are beautiful places in your own country and in countries you can reach by train or by boat. You can work with companies across the world by email, by phone, by video. You do not need to destroy the planet. It is selfish, it is costly, and it has to stop.”
I think of Leah and Paul Talbot, taking baby Lachlan home, and the woman hoping to reach Sydney in time to say farewell to a dying friend. I think of Pat Barrow, escaping her grief. I think of the twenty crew members with mortgages to pay and children to feed. Need is relative.
“How come you’re on a plane now, then?”
An audible gasp passes through the cabin as everyone turns to find the source of the question.
“Doug, don’t!” Ginny grabs at her fiancé, who is gesticulating like a drunk in a Saturday night comedy club.
“The inventor of the light bulb worked by candlelight,” Missouri says, seemingly more amused than irritated by the heckling. “The creator of the motor car traveled by horse and cart. Those of us working toward a better future must use the tools at our disposal in order to discover new ones.”
“Why haven’t we crashed yet? That’s what I want to know.” A hysterical voice comes from a seat on the other side of the cabin, each word higher pitched than the one before. “If we’re going to die, let’s get it over with. I can’t bear this—I can’t bear it!”
“Someone shut her up,” Derek Trespass says. “You heard her—if we cooperate, we won’t get hurt.”
“She’s got a bomb!”
The word sends another flurry of fear around the cabin. As I glance at the doll-like Zambezi, I see a smile play at the corners of her lips. She’s enjoying this.
Missouri holds up a hand,