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Chapter 3
He woke to see the stewardess in front of him, the plane was in the air, and appeared to be levelled out, it was all just a memory of his last Christmas with Claire, he now remembered where he was and what had caused him to pass out in the first place, he looked from side to side to confirm that he hadn’t imagined his neighbours on the plane. He hadn’t been imagining things at all. He set himself ready to start on the barrage of questions that he had for both women, and was about to start as a man, dressed in jeans and t-shirt, knocked into him as he rushed past. He definitely didn’t look like he belonged in first class, and in fact went straight to the door of the cockpit. Meanwhile from the corner of his eye in the other gangway strolled another man, again in jeans and t-shirt but as he turned to look at him the man took something out of his pocket. It was some kind of handgun, he looked towards the cockpit, and the other man was already in the cockpit with a handgun of his own. What was already a strange and disturbing day was about to get a lot worse, the fucking plane had just been hijacked.
The surprising thing was that faced with what could possibly be a life-threatening situation he didn't black out or faint. Considering his rather fragile state of mind today, with the memories of Claire and seeing the woman who had been forever ahead of him, and was actually sat next to him now, and the strange beautiful woman who knew him, and was sat just across the aisle from him, he was feeling in a state of mental awareness.
The man in the aisle to his right was the kind of person for whom the phrase non-descript was made for. In normal light blue denim jeans, and a Fred Perry polo shirt, he was neither exceptionally tall, nor short. He was of medium build, and as he looked around the cabin there were no distinctive features on his face, his hair was brown and short. In fact he was the kind of person that you would walk past and not give a second glance to, he could be any one of a hundred similar men that you would walk past every day and not know whether you'd seen them before.
The man who had entered the cockpit was virtually the same. Again he had light blue denim jeans on, and a polo shirt, his hair was short, but was slightly darker than his compadre, he was of medium build and height, and had the same kind of non descript features, again totally unremarkable.
He thought about this for a moment, and considered whether this was a deliberate tactic. After all they would be the kind of people that wouldn't arouse suspicion, they looked like everyday people, and you really wouldn't look at them twice in normal circumstances. These however weren't normal circumstances and everyone was looking at them more than once, in fact virtually everyone was looking at them and they weren't drawing admiring glances.
From a couple of rows in front of him a woman screamed, at first he felt surprised that it had taken so long, but in reality it probably had been less than 30 seconds. This was quickly followed by further screams from back in the standard class cabin, which suggested that there were more hijackers back there, and he briefly wondered if they were all as non descript as the two up here. The screaming went on for what seemed to be an age, but he was sure in reality was only about 20 seconds, before the pilot's voice came somewhat shakily over the plane's speaker system.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, as you may have noticed there are several gentleman walking around the plane in jeans and polo shirts carrying guns. They insist that no harm will come to anyone on board as long as their requests are followed. They would however like to point out that they will shoot any passenger or member of crew that tries in any way to interfere with them. Furthermore they request that there is a level of peace and quiet on board. It is with regret that I inform you that the destination of the aircraft is no longer Philadelphia, but has been altered to Nyuk. All passengers with serious medical ailments will be allowed to leave upon landing, but the rest will remain. Please try to remain calm while we continue with our flight."
Nyuk! Why on earth would anyone in their right mind, or for that matter out of their mind want to hijack a plane and insist that it lands in Greenland? He couldn't believe it, he knew that in hijack situations some strange locations were requested but this would surely take the biscuit, cake and the rest of the confectionery section. He had serious doubts that Greenland even had an airport capable of landing a plane of this size, and he had visions of them skating off miles into the middle of frozen wastes like a kid trying to stop at the bottom of a hill after a toboggan ride. With this vision he laughed, he thought it was to himself, but the turning of heads, and staring eyes that looked upon him suggested that it had been out loud.
The hijacker in the aisle to his right turned and pointed his gun at him. "What do you find so funny?" the hijacker asked with a perfect English country gentleman accent.
He looked at the hijacker and said "It's been one of those days, there's only so much freaky shit that can happen to an individual in the course of a single morning, before he needs a release, and the though of going sliding across Greenland's frozen wastes in a massive metal tube just seemed funny."
The hijacker eyed him suspiciously and put his gun down, and then walked to the cockpit to talk to his compadre. They both spoke and turned towards him and pointed. Great he thought, just what he needed, he had already attracted the attention of the hijackers.
The hijacker came back down the plane towards him, looking directly at him all the time he as doing so. When the hijacker got level with him, he drew his gun and pointed it at him.
“On your feet”
He got up as slowly as he dared to. Once fully upright the hijacker’s arm reached out and grabbed him firmly by the upper arm and led him out into the aisle. He was then walked up the aisle to the cockpit, where he was left face to face with what seemed to be the head honcho of the hijackers.
“Good morning, I believe that you expressed to my colleague that you find something about this situation to be amusing. Whatever the reason may be for your amusement is not really a concern of mine. What is of concern is that if you manage to find something in this situation amusing, then it would suggest that you are either scared stupid, which it would seem from your response to my colleague you are not, or, you are not afraid. It is this second possibility that somewhat worries me. People who are not afraid are capable of doing unexpected things. When running a precision operation such as the one that I am currently undertaking, I don’t like the unexpected, in fact the unexpected makes me decidedly nervous, and when I get nervous, I tend to make rash decisions. Rash decisions can cause lives, and much as I wish the passengers on this plane no harm, as after all they are only victims of circumstance, I will not so much as bat an eyelid if I have to kill any of them.”
“Therefore in order to prevent the unexpected, and to keep myself from getting nervous, you are going to be secured in that seat there” he said gesturing to the seat at the front of the first class area on the left hand side.
“From there I shall be able to keep an eye on you, and being secured you won’t be able to get up to any mischief, and therefore you cannot be of any danger to yourself, or to the rest of the passengers. To begin with I have no intention of gagging you, however if you start shouting your mouth off, then you will be gagged.”
There was a pause then he continued “Have I made myself clear?”
“Perfectly” came the reply.
With this the sidekick moved the existing passenger out of the seat that had been indicated by the head honcho, and he was pushed into the seat. As if by magic, large amounts of rope appeared. God only knows where it had come from, but no sooner was he in the seat, then there it was. The sidekick proceeded to go about securing him into the seat. Within a couple of minutes he found each of his forearms secured to the seat’s armrests, he found further rope around his chest and upper arms securing his upper body to the back of the seat. His thighs were also bound to the base of the seat. He could move enough so that he wouldn’t seize up, but there wasn’t anywhere near enough slack for him to consider trying to work loose. There again he really wasn’t in the frame of mind to try and escape.
He silently cursed his misfortune at his predicament, and thought immediately to the bright side, at least he wasn’t dead. It was just another of those strange situations which he just seemed to manage to get caught up in. He looked across at the head honcho, who had his back to him, as he leant through the door of the cockpit, he then glanced at the sidekick, and felt that there was something missing. He sat and thought about it for a few moments until it struck him. Neither of the men was carrying any form of communications device. It had been some time since the pilot’s announcement and he had not seen or heard any form of message between the first and standard class. Were they that organised that they didn’t need to communicate? He thought about it some more, before giving up on it, it wasn’t really his concern, all he had to worry about was staying quiet, and therefore hopefully staying alive.
It was true what the head honcho had said, he didn’t feel afraid, but he didn’t know why. There was no one waiting for him, and apart from his clients, and a few associates no one would really miss him, but there were some things he wanted to find out before he died. He desperately wanted to talk to the two women who now sat a few rows behind him, as he felt sure each of them had something that he needed to know. Much as he wanted to talk to them it wasn’t going to happen in the near future, so he cleared the thought from his mind. He closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep, at least while asleep he couldn’t do anything stupid.