PULAU MATI (3 page)

Alan unlatched the secure flight deck door and went into a bathroom
reserved for crew.  When done he stepped out, accepted a cup of coffee from a flight attendant and went back to the flight deck but took the spare seat next to the observer to drink his coffee.  Perhaps showing Bayani that he trusted him to command the aircraft would have a calming effect on the man. He turned to the observer and asked, “Have you flown this aeroplane?”

The observer glanced up from his magazine.  “Short hops.”

“Is this not the most magnificent machinery you have ever flown?”

The observer
did not look up this time.  “Perhaps.”

Alan gave up.  He
had his eyes down and was blowing on his coffee when blasts of flame came from the front of the airplane and then he was viewing the cockpit as if it had tilted to vertical and he was pressed against what had been the floor.  He soon understood he was lying on the floor and bleeding profusely rather than the airplane having tipped onto its side.

Chapter II    Hijack
ed

A series of
half remembered noises stirred Gray before weightlessness brought him fully awake.  The aircraft stabilized but the engine note, which had been barely detectable before, diminished further.  The cabin lights were still dimmed but he could make out two of the flight attendants up front gripping a handhold.  One was speaking loudly into the intercom.  Other passengers were stirring and bringing up their seat backs. The movements of the flight attendant with the intercom were now looking urgent.  She switched to another language.  After a moment, pressing the intercom to her breast, she turned to the other flight attendant and shook her head.  The other flight attendant turned up the lights and stepped over to the three well dressed men Gray had suspected were airline management and whispered something into one of the men’s ear.

The man rose and took the intercom from the
flight attendant.  He spoke in English and then a second language as he stared toward the door to the flight deck.  His physical movements showing frustration, he jammed the intercom into its bracket and stepped to what Gray had thought the flight deck door but obviously was not because it opened easily and the man went through it and then Gray heard banging like someone pounding on a door with their fist.

Gray
had the sensation that the plane was quickly loosing altitude.  He could not confirm they were in a nose down attitude by looking out the window into the darkness but the way the man and the two flight attendants were standing revealed the deck was tilted forward.  The other two men rose and joined the first.  Apparently the intercom buzzed or flashed because all five of those standing turned toward it and a flight attendant reached for it only to be brushed aside by one of the men.  The man yelled something into the intercom and then listened a moment and grimaced.  His part of the conversation was limited and, by the way he glared at the intercom, it ended before he was ready.  After he hung up the three men talked animatedly for a minute or two until one went back to a seat and plopped into it.  One of the men paced and the older man that remained standing bowed his head and leaned forward, supporting himself with a straight arm against the paneling.  A flight attendant consoled another that was crying.  The two missing flight attendants appeared and after talking with the others began crying.

Melanie was still asleep.  Gray glanced back at
Anna who looked as if she had just awakened.  After motioning for her to come forward, he climbed over Melanie and took the second seat from the aisle in the center section.  Wild eyed, Anna slid into the seat to his right.

“What is going on?” she whispered.

Grey replied in a low voice.  “I was awakened by some noises and then a feeling like the aircraft had banked and nosed over.  I’m sure we are descending and it appeared the flight attendants were out of contact with the flight deck for awhile.  And now that they have heard from the pilots, they don’t like what they are hearing.”

“What do you think it means?”

“Trouble.  And I think the crying and the men’s reactions confirm that.  I’m just not sure what kind of trouble but what I would guess I best not say.”

The young woman
gazed at him a moment and then put a hand on his shoulder and leaned very close, her lips to his ear.  “Hijack?” she asked as softly as possible.

“
I’m thinking it a possibility.  They are going to have to tell us pretty soon.”  He pulled out his cell phone, turned it on and brought up the compass function.  They were headed due south.  He checked the time, put away his phone and opened up one of the flight magazines to the route map.  The maps were likely not to scale but far better than a guess.  After some rough calculation he said, “We’ve been in the air about three and a half hours so we are probably over the eastern end of the Indian Ocean.  But we are heading due south, for northern Australia, instead of eastern Australia as we should.”

Gray rose and slid by
Anna to the aisle and went to the side of the airline representative who was seated.  He bent close and asked in a low voice, “Are they going to tell the passengers what the trouble is?”

The man
steepled a hand to his forehead and turned away like he could not deal with the problem.  He did nod toward the man leaning against the paneling. Gray rose and approached the man standing.  “Are you going to tell the passengers what the trouble is?”

The man’s jaw clenched and he
eyed Gray a moment.  In an even but heavily accented and gravely voice the man asked, “What do you think has happened?”

Gray
pulled out his phone and showed him the compass.  The man did not comprehend for a moment but then said, “And?”

“We are
rapidly descending and it is hours too early for that and we are heading south, not south east as we should.  That is all I know for a fact.”

“Are you a pilot?” the man asked.

Grey nodded.  “Yes.”

The man paused briefly and said, “Take a seat and a
flight attendant will make the announcement.”  The man turned and motioned to the man who had been pacing and at one of the flight attendants.  Gray went back and sat beside Anna who had moved inboard one seat.

“We
’ll get an announcement in a moment,” he said to her.  The fear on her face prompted him to raise a comforting hand to her shoulder.  She leant toward him and grasped his other hand with both of hers.

The
shaky voice of a flight attendant came over the intercom.  “Passengers, the co-pilot informed us that he has shot the pilot and an observer that was on the flight deck. We are currently descending on a southerly course.  That is all we know at this moment.  We will keep you informed.”

Shrieks and shouts of disbelief erupted from the newly awakened passengers.  Melanie sat up and Gray stepped across the isle and explained what had transpired.  She held a hand over her open mouth and stared wide eyed about the cabin.  She was making a keening sound when Gray rose and walked back into the business section behind first class. 
The lighting in that section was dimmed. He worked his way over to a window on the left side of the aircraft.  A cold blue light showed on the horizon.  A sparse few pin points of light shown from the blackness below the horizon.  Ships or maybe islands he thought and then it dawned on him that the aircraft’s strobes and navigation lights were not on.  If the co-pilot simply wanted to crash the plane, he could have put it into a steep dive and it would be all over by now.  So he wants to fly somewhere under the radar and the lack of lights also means he wants the plane to be invisible to the eye.  They were descending to the south while on radar.  Gray would place a big bet that the aircraft made a turn once it was on the deck and below normal radar.  He rose and went back to first class and the representative he had spoken to earlier who was now standing just in front of the first class seats.

“My name is Grayden
,” he said to the dark eyed man.

“Malik,” the man said extending his right hand.

Gray shook his hand and said, “Malik, I am thinking the plane will make a turn when it has reached near sea level.  I believe the co-pilot is trying to disguise his destination.  Could the flight attendant dim the cabin lights so we can see outside better?”

Malik shrugged and spoke in English to one of the
flight attendants.

Gray was asking another question when the lights
were dimmed to the level where someone could just move around without tripping.  “Do you have any knowledge of the man in the cockpit?”

Malik shook his head.  “Amir,” he said to the man that had been pacing but had finally taken a seat
nearby and was studying the screen of an iPad.  He and Amir briefly conversed in a guttural language and then he turned back to Gray.  “The co-pilot’s name is Isagani and Amir thinks he is Fillipino.”

“Do you have a way into the cockpit?” Gray asked.

Malik now turned to the representative that Gray had first approached and asked him something, starting the question with “Sani,” which Gray assumed was the man’s name.  Sani nodded and Malik said, “We have a code that can unlock the door to the flight deck.  But the man is armed.  What could we do?”

“We will talk about that later.  Could somebody get this Isagani on the intercom and see if he will reveal his intentions?”

Before Malik could reply, the engine note rose to that of full cruise and the aircraft banked.  Gray watched out a right hand window as faint stars in the early dawn sky appeared to fall past the window.  “We are banking to the east,” Gray said.  “We may have some idea of his destination in a moment.”

The
aircraft was in a wing high position for at least thirty seconds before it leveled out.  By the steep angle of bank Gray guessed they had turned more than a hundred degrees.  Through the right hand window the sun, still below the horizon, was lighting the sky just off the aircraft’s nose.

Malik smiled at Gray
, nodding.  “Just as you predicted.”  He gave some instructions to Amir and the man went to the intercom and talked into it in a normal tone of voice in English.  Malik settled into a nearby seat with a heavy sigh and Gray squat in the aisle beside him.

After speaking into the intercom
Amir stood in silence for half a minute and then appeared to carry on a conversation with the co-pilot.  He sounded sympathetic at times, pleading and cajoling at others.  When he hung up the intercom he seemed to deflate.  Shaking his head he stepped back to where Gray was squatting in the aisle beside Malik.  A group had formed around them as most of the passengers had moved closer in an effort to learn more about their situation.

Amir
asked Malik a question in the guttural language they had used earlier.  Malik nodded and said, “Go ahead and speak English.  That will save repeating it.”

In English
Amir said, “Bayani Isagani is the co-pilot’s full name.  He says Abu Sayyaf has kidnapped several members of his family, wife, children, mother, sister, and will kill them if he does not deliver the airplane to an island in the Timor Sea.  He says there is some kind of runway there.”

The information brought murmurs and some groans from the passengers
who had overheard.  Amir went on. “Bayani says the pilot is still alive but bleeding badly.  If we will not attack him he will allow us to pull the man out here for first aid.”

“Do you believe him?”
Gray asked, and glanced about.  Many of the passengers had migrated closer to hear the conversation.

Amir spread his arms, palms up.  “He sounded… distressed.  But what difference does it make?  What can we do?”

“The difference,” Gray said as he came to his feet, “is that if it is true, we may be taken hostage and hopefully ransomed.  If it is not true, and he intends to crash the plane into a city or ship or whatever; I strongly suggest we attack him when he opens the door.  We may save hundreds or thousands of lives and some of us may even survive.”

That brought murmurs and grunts that sounded like concurrence.  “I agree with that
bloke!” a voice with an Australian accent hollered over the clamor.

Gray turned
and in the dim light made out Lleyton Parker, one of the Australian tennis players he had recognized when they boarded.  The man had his fist in the air and looked aggressive enough to lead the attack at that moment.  Gray grinned and gave him a thumbs up although Gray was not yet taking a stance on what they should do.

He
turned back to Malik.  “I am not advocating any particular action right now but I think we have to decide soon.  I’m thinking this hijacking was planned and timed so the plane will be flying for a minimum time during daylight before it reaches its destination.  Malik, is it possible the delays for this flight could have been intentional, caused by an accomplice or accomplices at KUA?”

Malik turned to Sani
in the next seat and spoke the guttural language he had used earlier when talking to the other representatives.  When Malik had his answer he said, “The first two delays were suspect but because of a formal write up, we could not countermand them and had to go through the lengthy checks.  The mechanics went through the checks and found nothing wrong.  The last short delay was real but it was soon fixed.”

“So we
may be behind the perpetrators schedule a bit and the co-pilot will have to fly in daylight for a short time.  Hopefully a ship will think a wave hugging airliner odd and report it.”

That brought a few chuckles.
Gray asked, “Malik, is there any way we can disable the plane and force it into the water?”

The dark eyed man turned again to Sani.  When the discussion was over, Malik said, “There is access t
o wiring below the floor but the aircraft’s controls are all electrically actuated.  Without tools, time and a blueprint we might send the aircraft completely out of control.”

Gray
asked Malik, “Can the co-pilot hear us from the cockpit?”

Sani shook his head in answer.  “There is much insulation between the flight deck and the cabin and much white noise from the slipstream.”

Gray spoke loudly to everyone.  “I see three options for us.  Speak up if anyone sees more.  One, we simply remove the wounded pilot and wait for whatever is our fate.  Two, we prepare to attack the co-pilot only if we see the plane is approaching a population center.  And three, we attack the co-pilot when he opens the door.”