The incident happened so quickly, it was over before Justine realized it had started.
Before she realized how much danger she was in.
“He’s got a gun!” a passenger shrieked.
A scuffle. Someone got knocked out. And then a man stood up, waving a gun in the air.
Justine wasn’t even sure if she had blinked. What was going on? She was supposed to feel scared. Logic told her it was the opportune time to panic, but she was too stunned to react at all.
“The people of Detroit have failed our kids,” the man began. For a second, Justine thought this was some kind of drill. A false alarm. Something staged.
Then the palpable fear that enveloped the entire cabin told her the danger was terribly real.
“What’s going on?” she whispered to the woman in the aisle seat.
“I think that’s the air marshal.” Meredith gestured toward the man who had been knocked out in the preceding scuffle.
Justine clutched her son, hoping to somehow shield him with her body from the terror in the cabin.
“I think it’s a hijacking,” Meredith whispered.
“But why?” Justine had the feeling her brain should be keeping up, but it simply couldn’t. “Who is he? Why is he doing this?”
“He calls himself General,” Meredith answered. “Says he’s doing this for the kids of Detroit. I really don’t understand it either.”
West was clinging to Justine’s side. She kept his body pressed against hers, hoping she wasn’t suffocating him in her attempts to shield him from the danger surrounding them.
Justine didn’t react when Meredith took her by the hand. Somehow it felt calming to have another woman by her side. The physical touch was comforting.
“I’m going to help you protect your little boy,” Meredith whispered, and Justine felt tears of terror stinging her eyes. Protect her little boy? Did that mean this man might possibly try to hurt her son?
The gun was probably a prop. That was the easiest thing for Justine to believe. A prop so he could get what he wanted, gain some notoriety, and then the air marshals or traffic control or whoever took over in cases like this would find a way to get all the passengers safely on land.
But how? The air marshal was knocked out. Maybe even dead. Who was going to protect them? Who was going to keep any of them safe?
“Mama,” West whined, and Justine tried to shush him.
“Not now, buddy. Just be quiet and still.” The last thing she wanted was for West to make noise, to alert General to his presence. As long as General was focused on his tirade, as long as he kept talking into the cell phone cameras the passengers were pointing at him, he would ignore her son. She was thankful West was in the window seat, hoping that her body was large enough to keep him hidden from sight.
“He’s only four,” Justine whispered, her eyes filling with tears. Did God hear her? Did he see? Her little boy was only four. This wasn’t something a child his age should ever have to endure.
Meredith squeezed her hand once more. “It’s going to be all right,” she whispered, but Justine couldn’t bring herself to believe it could possibly be true.