Jack Du Brul - Charon's landing

Deferring to his ministerial status, she led him to the flight deck. The crew sat in their starched white shirts, black ties, and trousers and looked suitably impressive even in their impotent positions. The captain, a silver-haired man with deeply tanned skin and calm eyes, twisted to see who had intruded on his sanctum sanctorum. When he saw Khalid in the ill-fitting clothes with barely healed scars on his face and hands, he tightened his hold of the aircraft’s control yoke.

“Captain Darson,” the stewardess said formally, “this is Minister Khuddari, that passenger that was brought aboard at the last moment.”

Darson continued to scrutinize Khalid from behind a veil of suspicion. “Yes, Minister, what can I do for you?”

“The attack at the airport was meant to delay me reaching home, Captain. There are no other explosives and no terrorist plot. A rival of mine is trying to overthrow my government, and I’m the only person aware of his intentions. By closing the airport and stalling this flight, he may succeed in wresting control from our legitimate leader.” It was a struggle for Khalid to speak clearly. His mind was beginning to swim again, his vision to blur.

“Am I to assume that you wish to leave the aircraft?”

“Yes, sir, and if that’s not possible, then at least allow me to make a call and send a warning.”

“I understand your situation, sir, but you must understand mine. I am under strict orders not to use my radios until the authorities determine that there are no more bombs in the airport or on any of the planes. Despite what you say, the government is taking this threat seriously, considering what happened last night at the British Museum.”

“Captain, I was the target of that attack. It was me they were trying to kill, don’t you understand? This” — he waved his arm toward the view through the cockpit windshield — “this whole elaborate plot is intended to delay only one person, myself.”

“I’m sorry, but my hands are tied. The antiterrorist police should have everything checked out in another few hours. They’re being careful in case the terrorists really do have the airport grounds under surveillance. I’ll make sure you are taken off the plane as soon as we’re vetted. I’m sorry, but that is the best I can do.”

“That’s not good enough,” Khalid yelled. The copilot stood quickly and began moving toward him, a grim expression on his face. His intentions were clear, and Khalid allowed himself to be shepherded from the cockpit, realizing that he had nothing more to gain.

The stewardess led him back to his seat. Khalid sat, his mind working furiously, not only against this dilemma but also the pain that threatened to overwhelm him again. He had to get off the Boeing, contact Colonel Bigelow, and have him warn the Crown Prince. Nothing else mattered.

Slumped over, with his head cradled between his hands, he felt the first waves of defeat washing over him. Despite his own Herculean endurance, his sacrifices and stamina, Rufti was going to win. He had little option other than sit here in the first-class section and wait until his country was destroyed by a power-crazed maniac.

Like hell. Khalid was in motion before he was fully aware of what he was doing.

The main cabin door of the aircraft was only a couple yards away. Lurching drunkenly, Khalid made his way toward it, tripping over his startled neighbor but ignoring her protests. From the corner of his eye, he saw a stewardess a quarter way down the aircraft’s length turn to look at him, but she didn’t register alarm until she saw his hand reach for the pressure door handle. She shouted a warning, dropped a bundle of blankets onto the lap of a coach-class passenger, and started running forward.

Another attendant, the only steward on the aircraft, ducked his model-handsome face around a bulkhead, his eyes going wide when he saw the ragged passenger heaving at the handle.

With what little strength he had remaining, Khalid pulled on the door handle until finally the seal broke. The door, as perfectly balanced as Boeing engineers could make it, pivoted easily, folding back on itself and leaving a wide aperture beckoning to freedom. Frightened passengers began screaming, several of them leaping from their seats and running toward the tail of the aircraft, fearing that Khalid was part of the terrorist threat. Some people watched in horrified awe as Khalid braced himself for the drop to the tarmac.

The steward lunged to grab onto Khalid’s clothing in a vain attempt to stop him, but he fell short by a few inches, his outstretched hand grasping empty air. He had to clutch at the door frame to keep from tumbling after Khalid.

For a brief instant, as Khalid dropped the ten and a half feet to the taxiway, his mind and body felt as one again, both of them seemingly weightless, adrift in a sensationless void. And then he hit the ground, his legs folding completely, his head smacking against the asphalt like a heavy melon. He kept his body loose, never once thinking to tense for the impact.

Lying on the taxiway, he could hear the shouted protests from the crew of the aircraft. It meant nothing. He was free. He could call Bigelow, end this charade, and hopefully restabilize the Middle East. As he tried to stand, he realized he couldn’t move. His legs lay quietly as his mind screamed orders for them to get moving, to lift him up and carry him away. In a sickening rush, he remembered hearing a dry cracking sound when he hit the ground, almost like a piece of timber snapping in a high wind. He was certain he’d broken his back on impact. The belly of the Boeing 767 curled above him like the abdomen of a pregnant whale, a solid swell reaching almost to the ground. He struggled to roll under the hull’s curvature, but he simply couldn’t move.

A tanker truck, its drumlike sides emblazoned with the logo of a septic company, pulled up to the 767, stopping under the sewer outlet of the big Boeing. With practiced competence, three men leaped from the truck and hooked a heavy rubber hose to the plane’s underbelly, while secretly four other men dodged from under the diesel truck and raced to Khalid. After one look, it was clear to these members of the SAS, Special Air Squadron, Britain’s most elite fighting force, that moving Khalid could kill him. However, they were under specific orders to check every aircraft on the apron for anything suspicious and report back to the terminal.

Every second the airport was shut down cost tens of thousands of pounds, and the quicker they could secure the area, the quicker that debt meter would stop spinning. Two men grasped Khalid under the shoulders and dragged him back to the septic truck they were using as cover. They had orders to vet four other aircraft before returning to the terminal, but with Khalid as a possible suspect, the non-com in charge decided to return to base immediately.

Fourteen minutes later, a near-dead Khalid Khuddari was dumped into a spartan office within the terminal, two commandos taking up position just inside the office door. Another ten minutes passed before Geoff Wilberforce strode into the room, his heavy eyelids hanging so low they almost obscured his eyes. His face, florid in the best of situations, was livid, red blotches raised on his throat, cheeks, and forehead. In twenty-eight years of airport management, he was facing the worst day of his life, and he was looking for someone to blame. Rightly or wrongly, it didn’t matter. He was not taking the fall for this situation.

“Hey?” Wilberforce said, slapping Khalid on the cheek as he lay on a steel desk in the abandoned office. “Wake up now or forever hold your peace.”

His body pummeled far beyond human endurance, his mind stretched so tautly it resonated with internal tension, Khalid ratcheted open his eyes and craned his head to regard Wilberforce. His expression was dulled and lifeless, arranged like a mask by the pain, yet he still managed to capture Wilberforce with the power of his eyes, obsidian-sharp and focused.