3
Life After Death
Cody and Victor had but seconds to live. The aircraft was plunging toward the ocean at nearly 500 knots. They could see the individual waves in the intermittent moonlight. They closed their eyes and braced for impact.
Suddenly, they were thrown to the floor as the aircraft inexplicably pulled itself out of the dive and leveled off just above the water.
“What happened?” Victor panted, out of breath. “So is this what life after death is like?”
“I have no idea what happened or why, but we need to get these pilots out of their seats and somehow get control of this plane and point it toward land.”
“Roger that,” Victor said, his voice shaking. He cleared his throat. “Maybe there’s a doctor on board. I mean . . . these two pilots . . .”
“Forget it,” Cody said. “Pilot and copilot both dead. There’s no pulse.”
“We need to get the people calmed down,” Victor pointed out. “We gotta see who on board can help. People are injured back there.”
“Yeah, it’s chaos. Help me move these guys.” Cody pulled the pilot from the seat.
After they had placed the pilot and copilot in the floor of the passenger compartment, Victor addressed the passengers.
“Okay, okay, please listen! Okay, vale, vale, por favor escucha!”
Most of the passengers stopped to listen. Some were in tears. Victor explained that an unknown malfunction had caused the explosion, and that Cody was a trained pilot and was in two-way communications with Venezuelan flight controllers. He spoke in English and followed up with Spanish. He appealed to the passengers to remain calm and help the injured.
Meanwhile, Cody had his hands full. When Victor returned to the cockpit, Cody gave him an earful of bad news.
“I can’t get anything back online. Every system is out of my control. We‘re headed out to sea and there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t turn the plane or control the engine thrust. Even my cell phone is useless. No service.”
“So what are our options?”
“Okay,” Cody began. “First of all, I’ve never flown this type aircraft. I need the flight manual to figure out the systems. I’m not sure how much the explosion damaged the navigation components and avionics. We have no communications, no nav, no com. What’s even scarier is that someone else seems to be controlling this aircraft.”
“You mean like remote control?”
“Exactly. A moment ago, while you were talking to the passengers, the aircraft banked left and picked up a three-hundred-forty-degree heading. It has followed that course without the slightest deviation ever since. Whoever did this knew exactly what systems to take out with that explosion to keep anyone from regaining control or calling for help.”
“Hmmm.” Victor scratched his head. “Could it be someone on board? Someone using an electronic device?”
“Anything’s possible.”
“Look,” Victor said. “I picked up the passenger manifest. Everyone on this list is either injured or out of their mind, except for one — the tall guy at the back. He seems relatively undisturbed.”
“Is he Venezuelan?”
“Lemme look. It says his name’s Joseph Parker, African American, age eighty-one. He’s smiling, calm as ice water. Makes me suspicious.”
“You should go question him. And show everyone how to put on the life preservers and tell ‘em to remove their shoes.”
After Victor left, Cody heard a voice behind him. “Would someone tell me what’s going on? I mean . . . I was supposed to be somewhere. I knew I shouldn’t have ridden on this cheap airline. This cheap plane!”
Cody looked back. “Hello, Ms. Casper. You might show some respect. You’re practically standing on the dead bodies of two crewmen.”
“Do you even know who I am? I have a movie to make. I demand you get me there! Why are cell phones and holocoms not working? And what happened to your face? Did she beat you up last night?”
“I’m only gonna give you one chance to make yourself useful, Diamond. Get in here, sit down, and fasten your seatbelt. Now!”
“Who do you think you are? Who in hell do you think you are!”
“I’m not anybody in Hell, Diamond. But . . . I’m somebody in Heaven.”
“I’m speechless.”
“You don’t need to make a speech. Either get in here and sit down, or go back to your seat.”
Diamond hesitated, then moved forward and sat down in the copilot seat.. “Okay, I’m here. Now what?”
“Fasten your seatbelt.”
She coupled her seatbelt. “I’d rather ride up here anyway. Everybody back there either threw up or soiled their pants. Can you imagine the smell?”
“I need to find the flight manual. It should be in the bulkhead behind your chair. Can you swivel around and look for it?”
“So . . . so what does it look like? Oh, wait. I think I found it.”
~     ~     ~
At the rear of the passenger compartment, Victor found Joseph Parker stooping over an injured flight attendant. She had told him how to access the first-aid kit. He was now busy dressing her head wound.
“Mr. Parker? I wonder if I might have a word with you.”
“Certainly, sir. Anything else I can do, just let me know. I almost have this lady fixed up. She’s gonna need a hospital when we land.”
“You seem to know what you’re doing.”
“I was a US Navy corpsman. Served in Afghanistan. Saw plenty of wounds like this. She’ll be okay, but she needs more than I can give her here. I have a message for the young man flying this airplane. That’s Cody Musket’s son, isn’t it?”
Victor made his voice quiet. “How do you know that, sir?”
“I’m from Hondo, Texas. Everybody down there knows the Muskets.”
“Okay, Mr. Parker, but —”
“Please, young man, call me Joe.”
“Okay, uh, Joe. What’s your message for Cody?”
“Tell him I am askin’ Jesus for a miracle, and I know that God will somehow bring good from all that has happened. Tell him not to worry, because Satan will eventually overplay his hand.”
Victor frowned. “I’ll give him the, uh, message. I don’t want to interrupt your good work here.”
Victor left Parker with the flight attendant, determined to keep a close watch on the old man. When he returned to the cockpit, he was surprised to see Diamond Casper sitting next to Cody. She was crying.
“I leveled with Diamond about our situation,” Cody said. “I think she’s taking it well. We located the manual, but it would take me days to figure out all these emergency procedures. Besides, we have no way to restore manual control to the aircraft.”
“How long have we been on the three-forty heading?” Victor asked.
“About thirty minutes.”
Just then, the plane banked to the right and turned to a heading of forty degrees.
“Here we go again,” Cody said. “Somebody is manipulating this whole event. What about the guy you questioned?”
“I just looked back there. He’s still helping the flight attendant with a head injury. He has his hands full. He couldn’t have manipulated the course change.”
“Unless it was all pre-programmed,” Cody said.
“Uh,” Victor breathed heavily. “He said Satan always overplays his hand, and he’s backin’ you with prayers to Jesus, or something like that.”
“Ohhh! That’s good to know,” Diamond snickered. She wiped her face with her shaking hand, determined to not cry again. “God must be punishing me for not ever going to church. I never learned anything about that stuff.” She blotted her eyes with her sleeve. “And now, here we are.”
“Whoever’s doing this is going to a lot of trouble,” Cody said. “This is a remote hijacking. Somehow, this hacker managed to circumvent all the safeguards. Can you think of any reason why someone would use a method like this to abduct you?”
“Me? You think I’m the cause?”
“What about the movie you were gonna film in Venezuela?”
“You mean Land Without Shame? I play the part of a woman brought to shame who rises above it all to bring back law and order. It’s a good part, but I didn’t write it and I’m not that person; not at all. I just wanna live in Malibu and make movies. Acting is my life.”
“So, you’re not a freedom fighter after all?”
“I leave that to others. It isn’t my fault that people can’t provide for themselves. So, what’s your name, anyway?”
“Name’s Cody.”
“Cody what? I mean, what’s your last name?”
“Just . . . just Cody.”
“Well, Cody, just Cody. How in hell . . . I—I mean how can you be so composed? Cuz, like, we’re in a plane you don’t know how to fly, on our way to who knows where! We’re over the ocean in the middle of the night, we don’t know who’s behind this, and at any second we could go into another crash dive!”
She stared into his face. “I mean, my bodyguard — “Crusher” we call him — he’s the bravest man I know, and he’s glued to his seat, flexing his biceps by squeezing the life outta the armrests! How can you be so . . . so together?”
Cody looked into her deep ebony eyes for the first time. “You have a cut above your left eye.”
Cody’s response clearly caught her off guard. Had he not heard a word she had said? Or, perhaps she wasn’t used to men looking directly into her eyes except when acting.
She softened. “So . . . do they really know you in Heaven? I figure everybody knows me. ‘Cept I dunno spit about Heaven.” She blinked back tears. “So, like, is that why? Is that why you’re so freakin’ calm?”