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“Good. Are there enough seats down there to reseat these passengers?”

“I think so.”

“Then take them with you.”

Ann nodded. Jordan addressed the onlookers. “Go downstairs with Ann. You’ll be in a better position to stay updated if we need to make announcements to the whole group.”

As Ann herded her charges down the staircase to the main cabin, Jordan crouched by the captain’s side. Ben had already started CPR.

Natalie returned to the upper deck. Like a salmon trying to swim upstream, Natalie pushed her way up the aisle past the passengers. In her arms was a case containing the defibrillator.

Urgently Jordan told her, “He’s still not breathing.”

Ben tore open Brian’s shirt and yanked the man’s under-shirt over his head. Natalie readied the defibrillator. The AED led the flight attendant through the series of verbal prompts, telling her what to do. They gave the captain one
shock. His body arched; spittle leaked from the corner of his mouth.

“Come on, come on, Brian.
Fight!
” Jordan clenched her teeth. Brian’s heart didn’t restart. Natalie raised the paddles.

“The unit says we can try again.”

“Do it!” They were running out of time. Jordan’s stomach clenched. Sweat trickled down her temple. Every second that ticked by stole precious oxygen from the captain’s brain and increased the risk that he’d be permanently damaged by the attack, if not killed outright.

Natalie placed the paddles against Brian’s chest. Her long, curved, red fingernails glittered in the beam of Jordan’s flashlight. Again a shock blew through the captain’s chest.
Come on, come on
, Jordan prayed silently.

Ann herded a man and woman down the aisle. “We’ve got doctors!” she shouted. “Two of them!”

Breathlessly the two doctors introduced themselves: an internist and a pediatrician. Specialists to cover all the bases, Jordan thought. They dropped to their knees and dug through the emergency medical kit supplied by the airline, while Ben and Natalie told them what they had done to try to resuscitate the captain.

Jordan stood, wiping her arm across her forehead. She couldn’t let the captain’s condition distract her from the safety of the rest of the crew and the passengers. The leadership role wasn’t one she desired, or felt comfortable in, but here she was, in charge of almost three hundred passengers plus a crew of eighteen flight attendants.

Courage is accepting the challenge though it’s easier to give up
, her father would have told her.

Easier said than done? She’d find out.

Jordan strode back to the cockpit, where she could be of most use. Outside the forward windows, there were no
stars, no sea. Where was the airplane? Weariness and fear clutched at her.

Think. Think
.

She aimed her flashlight at the instrument panel. What good was high tech without power? Satellite navigation . . . radios . . . emergency signals—all were worthless.

She rubbed her temples. She was in a nearly one-million-pound 747 that had just been swallowed up by something even larger. But what was it? For years now, the fight against terrorism had been ongoing—and mostly successful—since the day of horror when four hijacked airliners were used as weapons against U.S. targets. Was this a hijacking, too? Had United 58 been snatched out of the sky? How had it been done? And who had the technology to pull it off?

Her skin crawled as she pondered the idea of aircraft swallowing other aircraft. She didn’t think anyone had the know-how or equipment to do such a thing. But then back in 2001, on a sunny September morning, no one had thought anyone would use airliners filled with innocents as missiles, either.

A dull throb began behind her eyes. Stress? Or her body’s first reaction to poison seeping into the aircraft, put there by those who’d captured them?

She shook off the thought. Paranoia never did anyone any good. It was time for her to take charge, whether or not she thought herself up to the task. If those who had “taken” them wanted to hurt them or use them in some horrific way, then she had to prevent it somehow, both to save those for whom she was now responsible and to make sure she got back home to her little girl. Her chest thickened, a wrenching of her heart. But she steeled herself against those softer feelings—they’d only weaken her when she needed to be tough, and weakness would sabotage her chance to bring this nightmare to a safe conclusion.

She rummaged through her backpack until she found a photo of Roberta and slipped it into her chest pocket. “Don’t you worry; I’m coming home, kiddo,” she whispered, pressing her hand over her pocket.

Grabbing her hat, flashlight, and the stun gun, she strode through the open cockpit door. As nonlethal weapons went, the Taser packed a punch. But to Jordan it seemed a flimsy weapon against such a monumental dilemma. It was like using a flintlock rifle to shoot a grizzly bear. According to other pilots she’d talked to the gun gave you two shots, but you’d be lucky to have time to load the second after firing off the first. She’d give her eyeteeth to have an air marshal onboard. Unfortunately, assignment of the marshals was random, and this flight had drawn the short straw.

Real short
.

She took three steps and stopped. In the middle of the upper-deck aisle, the knot of people hunched over the captain had lost the intensity that usually characterized those trying to save someone’s life. Jordan’s stomach turned cold. “How is he?”

In answer, Ann drew a blanket over the captain’s inert form.

Jordan crossed herself and hugged her arms to her ribs.

Ben made eye contact with her. “Now what, Captain?”

Captain
, he’d called her. Ben’s use of the title drove home the fact that she was now the commander of this ship. So did the shrouded shape on the floor. Grief for the loss of her flying partner mixed with an odd, loathsome, and entirely too familiar feeling. She’d tried, but she couldn’t save him.
Damn you, Brian
, she cursed the now dead man.
You abandoned me. Left me alone, feet to the fire
.

Grimacing, she pushed her fears into the recesses of her mind and focused on her promise to get herself and everyone else out of this alive. She dropped her arms and squared her shoulders. “Ann, Natalie, Ben—let’s talk.”

They moved away from the two physicians filling out paperwork relating to their treatment of Brian. A futile, time-wasting activity, Jordan thought, considering everything else that was going on, but it would keep the physicians busy for a moment; any semblance of normalcy would go a long way toward maintaining calm among the passengers—for as long as it was possible.

“Okay,” she began in a confidential tone. “We need to get going on some kind of plan. Then, Ben, I’ll need you to pass on the information to the rest of the flight attendants. And keep the passengers calm and in their seats.”

The shadow of Ben’s beard stubble stood out starkly on his pale skin. “Right now they’re too scared to do anything else but sit.”

“That’s going to change shortly, and that’s why I need to speak to them. But not until we put a plan in action.” Jordan took a breath. “We have to assume we were taken—kidnapped. Hijacked.”

“Do we know that for sure—that we were hijacked?” Ann asked. All eyes swerved in her direction. “Well, we don’t really know what happened, do we?” she insisted somewhat defensively.

Jordan directed a scowl toward the dark windows on the right hand side of the airplane. “No. We don’t. But then, where are we? Inside something, is my guess. I saw it; there was a door, or hatch. It opened and we flew inside. Can I explain it? No, I can’t. But it wasn’t voluntary, us coming here. Wherever we are.”

Ann cast a thoughtful and worried glance outside. “I’ve never heard of an aircraft this big being swallowed by something. Our training doesn’t address this.”

“Exactly,” Natalie put in. “That’s why I’m with you,” she told Jordan. “We have to assume the worst.”

Jordan folded her arms over her chest. “And that’s what I’m doing; until we have proof otherwise. Our power is
gone. Our communications, our radios, don’t work. That doesn’t sound friendly to me no matter how you cut it.” She met Ann’s eyes. “But I appreciate the input. Don’t stop feeding me information, gut feelings, anything. Please.” Jordan needed them. More than they knew. “If we’re going to get through this, it’s going to be together.”

Ann’s lips compressed. “I have no argument with that.” The others nodded gravely.

Jordan continued. “It seems to me that our efforts should focus on keeping our captors from boarding the airplane—maybe barricading ourselves inside somehow, until someone decides it’s time to negotiate with us.
If
they plan to negotiate with us. Of course, I’m making the assumption that no one already onboard was involved with what happened.”

Ben nodded. “They’d have acted already, made themselves known.”

“Still, we’d better not take any chances,” Natalie put in.

“Agreed,” Jordan said. Silent, they listened to the sounds floating up the stairs from the main cabin below. The voices were agitated, frightened. But those of the flight crew rang loudly, reassuring everyone as well as calling out orders. She needed to get down there. What she’d say, she could only imagine.

She wrapped up her briefing of the flight attendants. “So. Our goal is to keep us in and whoever took us
out
.”

“We can start by keeping the doors armed,” Ben said.

“Good. Phase one—doors as defense.” Armed doors meant that inflatable escape slides were deployed the instant the hatches were opened. The slides weighed hundreds of pounds and inflated in seconds.

“Ooh, yeah,” Natalie said, her dark eyes glinting. “If anyone comes knocking, we’re going to smash them like a bug.”

“You got that right,” Jordan agreed. “Now, get me an
accounting of what weapons we have onboard. Ask around; add everything you find to the arsenal.” Security measures or no, it was likely that someone had sneaked a usable weapon aboard, even it if was only a nail file.

Ben turned to Natalie and Ann. “Have everyone tie up loose ends, put the carts away, lock up the liquor.”

“Shouldn’t we have the passengers don their life jackets, too?” Ann asked.

Jordan nodded. “There’s still a chance that we might end up in the drink.”

Collectively, they glanced out the dark windows. “When I’m done talking to the passengers,” Jordan continued, “and you’re done with phase one, I want one flight attendant representative from each area of the plane and any military folks onboard to meet in the cockpit to discuss phase two. We have a plane to defend, and we need to figure out exactly how we’re going to do it.”

They regarded each other in silence, crew members tasked with saving aircraft from a situation none of them could grasp.

Jordan spread her hands. “Are we clear on what’s going to happen once we go downstairs?”

“Yes,” they chorused.

“It isn’t whether you win or lose,” Natalie pointed out defiantly, “it’s how you exude attitude.”

“Well, we’re going to win,” Jordan told her, wanting to believe it with all her heart. Grabbing her flashlight, she led the way, descending the staircase from the upper deck of the 747 into the deeper darkness below. The three shaken flight attendants trailed her.

Shaken, indeed
. Jordan bet she looked ten times worse. She’d never forget the sight of that dark hole engulfing the airplane, the feeling of helplessness in her inability to escape it. And the icy nausea as she wondered if those breaths she’d gasped would be the last ones she’d ever take. Oddly,
her life hadn’t flashed before her eyes. Only a powerful desire to remain alive.

At the bottom of the stairwell, she faced a stonily silent group of first- and business-class passengers. Some were tourists, judging by their resort outfits and wilted leis; others were businessmen, dressed in cotton shirts and trousers that looked like they belonged with suits.

Ann handed her a megaphone. All airliners had one or two. They were kept aboard to direct the passengers if the PA was inoperative, as in a case of total power failure—a rare event. When it came to an advanced aircraft’s power supply, there were backups to the backups, which usually handled any emergency.

Not this time.

Jordan walked forward and centered herself in the aft area of the business section that bordered coach. There she could be heard if not seen by those in first and business class as well as the people seated in economy. The passengers’ scrutiny was so intense that she imagined she could feel every eye boring a smoking hole into her uniform. She guessed they’d feel a whole lot better if she were six-feet-three, silver-haired, and possessed of an Oklahoma twang. But instead of the stereotypical airline captain, these people were getting a petite thirty-two-year-old blond, whose freckles and curly hair made her look even younger. But whether they liked it or not, or
she
liked it or not, she’d just stepped into the void left by Brian Wendt’s death.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m Jordan Cady. I started out the day as your first officer. I’m now your captain.”

That elicited more than a few murmurs. She took a breath and spoke over them. “Brian Wendt, the captain, is dead. He suffered a heart attack.”

Passengers met the news with gasps. Some started to cry.

Oops. Too blunt. She needed to soften her approach. “I know you’re concerned, so I’ll try to explain what’s going
on to the best of my knowledge. We never landed. But we’re no longer flying, either.” She cleared her throat. “As far as I know, we were taken involuntarily into something that now holds our entire plane. It could be a hijacking.”

Some screamed. The few who were weeping began to cry louder. She probably was screwing this up. But should one sugarcoat the impossible: being snatched out of the sky?

“Your crew is well trained and in control!” she shouted above the noise. “We’ll get you through this.”

A lanky man with carrot-colored hair and an Irish accent stood on his business-class seat and shook his fist. “What are we going to do in the meantime—sit here like sheep and wait to find out?”