ready to act. They had several weapons hidden on their bodies and could draw and shoot in seconds if need be.
Trigger set up the ladder and climbed a few rungs. He reached down and took the box Lefty was holding for him, then stepped up the rest of the way to the opening of the plane.
“I’m Gillian Romano, and that’s Andrea Vilmer,” the woman said as she reached for the box.
Trigger nodded. He approved of her doing what she could to share the names of the people still inside. She reached for the heavy box and the hijacker next to her backed farther into the plane, so Trigger couldn’t get a good view of his face.
Frustrated that Gillian and Andrea had to do the heavy lifting of the boxes, Trigger could only watch as they and the other women nearby struggled to move the boxes from the hatch into the bowels of the plane.
“Thank you, Janet. Maybe there’s something sweet in there for your daughter, Renee,” Gillian said as she handed another box to a woman behind her. “This one’s heavy, Alice,” she cautioned as another box was handed to another woman. “Maybe Leyton and Reed will help move the boxes to the back for the men. I know Charles will appreciate getting the water, with his cough and all.”
With each box she handed off, Gillian recited names. Maria, Camile, Rebecca, Mateo, Alejandro, Muhammad…she’d done an amazing job of remembering the names of the other hostages on the plane.
Trigger was impressed. Intentional or not, she was doing her best to not only humanize the other captives, but to let him know who was still alive inside the plane. He wished he could reassure her. Tell her that he understood what she was doing, that she was so strong and he admired her. But he couldn’t. All he could do was keep handing her the damn boxes filled with food and water.
He wasn’t ready for Lefty to hand him the last box. It hadn’t taken enough time. He hadn’t been able to see enough of the inside of the plane…and he definitely hadn’t had enough time with Gillian.
“This is the last one,” Gillian told the man in the shadows as she handed it off to someone behind her. “You said if they delivered the supplies within two hours, you’d let ten people go.”
Trigger wanted to tell her not to antagonize the hijacker, but he had to keep his mouth shut. It wouldn’t be hard for the man with the rifle to realize he wasn’t a native Spanish speaker and that something was up. He had a part to play, just as Gillian did. But that didn’t mean he liked it.
Refusing to budge from the ladder, he stilled, waiting to see what would happen next.
The man gestured to someone inside the plane and before Trigger knew what was happening, a man in his mid-thirties was standing at the opening of the plane, looking down at him.
“Be careful,” Gillian was saying. “Don’t fall as you go down the ladder.”
With no choice, Trigger had to back down the ladder as the first hostage made his way off the plane.
As each person arrived at the bottom of the ladder, Lefty and Grover pointed them back toward the terminal. Each one took off as if the hounds of hell were at their feet, and Trigger couldn’t blame them. It was obvious they were relieved to be away from the plane and from the hijackers.
But something was bothering him about the civilians who’d been chosen to be set free. Typically in hijackings, the freed were often women, children, or the infirm. Only two of the hostages set free were women, the others all men. Healthy, relatively young men.
People who might be able to put up a struggle and possibly overcome the hijackers.
Trigger understood the thought process behind letting the young, healthy, and strong free, and it pissed him off. Looking up at the hatch, he saw Gillian once again come to the edge. For a second, he wanted to encourage her to scramble down the ladder. To get the hell out of there. But somehow he knew, even if it was the right thing to do—which it wasn’t—she wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t bail and leave the others behind.
For just a moment, their eyes met. Her brows came down, she licked her lips, and he saw her mouth his name in question.
He nodded once—then a black-clad arm reached around Gillian’s chest and almost took her off her