I owe it to him to put this right. I have to find a way of turning this around. I can’t see Missouri, but the blond woman—Zambezi—is watching me, dividing her gaze between Cesca and me and the passengers in the cabin. She can’t be more than five foot five and slim with it, but she stands like a boxer, and there’s not a flicker of nervousness about her face. Rather, she sports a small smile, as though she’s saying, Come on, then. Show me what you’re made of.
The long-legged man from 2D gets up and stretches, as though he’s just going for a stroll instead of hijacking a plane. He walks into the galley and leans against the flight-deck door, taking in the scene. He nods at the blond woman.
“Yangtze.” The corners of his mouth twitch as he looks her up and down. “A woman, huh?”
“No shit.”
The reply is terse, and I glance at Cesca, trying to make sense of their conversation, but she’s as confused as I am. I try to see whether the tall man has explosives. He’s wearing a T-shirt, and there are no wires, no bulges around his chest. He sees me looking and raises a suggestive eyebrow. I turn away before he can see the revulsion on my face.
“No glass.” Zambezi gestures to where Cesca is filling a tray with the goblets we use for business-class passengers. Wordlessly, Cesca replaces them in the locker and finds a stack of paper cups. I open cupboards with deliberate slowness, my hands pulling out water bottles and bags of pretzels while I mentally go through every area of the galley to find something we could use as a weapon. Food and drink, an oven, a coffee maker, the chiller cupboards…nothing I can easily take and use.
If I could break a glass, I might secrete a shard somewhere, but how can I do that with the pair of them watching us? There are port glasses in the cupboard—narrow stems that would snap easily and quietly. Would it be obvious if I dropped one in the pocket of my jacket? I slip a hand in to remove the pair of cotton gloves Dindar likes us to wear when we’re serving food.
“Get a move on.”
My fingers are still sticky with Carmel’s blood. They close around the note I found with Sophia’s flapjack. I want to take it out, but I can’t bear the thought of the hijackers snatching it from me, this fragile link between me and my daughter.
For my mummy.
In my pocket, I press the note between my hand and my hip, remembering the weight of her as a toddler as I carried her from the car, half asleep. Legs dangling either side, her head flopping on my chest. I let out a slow breath.
I’m coming back for you, Sophia.
I repeat it to myself as I walk with Cesca through the cabin, pouring water under the watchful eyes of the hijackers. I’m coming back for you. Every iteration makes me feel more like it’s possible, more like I’m strong enough to survive this.
“Are you okay?” It’s Rowan, the passenger who helped with Carmel. He’s taken off his blood-soaked sweatshirt and put on a near-identical one in a slightly darker shade of gray. “They let me get it out of my hand luggage.” He looks at my spattered uniform. “Would you like something? I always have a few spare bits in case my luggage goes AWOL.”
“Thanks. I’m okay.” Having Carmel’s blood on my clothes feels like a penance I deserve and a reminder of what’s already been lost.
“I don’t think the others have explosives.” Cesca speaks in a low voice, her eyes fixed on the cabin. “I can’t see anything in their hands.”
The hijackers are roaming up and down the aisles, shouting at passengers to keep their hands where they can be seen. I scan each of them in turn, watching the way they throw their arms about. Impossible to say if they’re wearing anything under their clothes, but she’s right: they’re not holding detonators.
Could we overpower Missouri and get it out of her hand before she has the chance to set it off? My pulse quickens, sweat breaking out across my forehead. The chances of success are tiny, and if we fail… I think about all the times Adam has tackled violent criminals, telling me about it afterward as though it were nothing. Just fists, just needles, just knives. Quietly courageous.