Hijacked

    The plane was still sitting on the tarmac, right where it had been for the last 6 hours. The man with the gun sat in one of the flight attendant’s seats between the cockpit and the main cabin. He turned sideways and stretched out so his legs blocked the aisle and he could see the entire length of the plane.
    I sat next to him the whole flight. Three hours in the front row of first class. He had been quiet, but polite. He even slept most of the way. How do you sleep before doing something like this? As soon as the plane landed, he stood up. I have no idea how he got a gun through security. When one of the flight attendants told him to sit down, he shot him. Then he made the other flight attendant open the cockpit door. There was another gunshot. He came out with one arm around the flight attendant’s shoulders, the other arm holding the gun to her head. Yelling, he asked if there was an air marshal on board. When no one stood up, he finally let the poor flight attendant go, pushing her into his old seat next to me. When she calmed down, she told me that he had shot the co-pilot and made the pilot sit on the floor behind the seats.

    The gunman stared to his left, into the cockpit as he had off and on through this whole thing. I risked another look at him. He looked normal enough, even handsome, but the gun in his hand resting in his lap made him a monster. The monster was wounded, his pant-leg stained with blood. A kid at the back of the plane had started to have an asthma attack and his inhaler ran out. I feared the guy would just shoot the kid, or the mom when she asked for help, but surprisingly, he showed genuine concern. He let the pilot call for help, saying that two ground crew members could come and take the kid for treatment. I was nervous when the door opened and the two men in coveralls and fluorescent vests climbed a ladder. They didn’t know what they were walking into. I was happy to be surprised when one of the workers led the mom and her son down the ladder quickly and quietly. The other worker turned to go down the ladder when, suddenly, gunfire exploded in my ears. One shot from the man in the fluorescent vest who must have been a security guard or police officer in disguise, and three shots from the gunman. The officer’s body dragged the ladder off the side of the plane. The gunman closed the door again and we were left inside with the acrid smell of blood and gunpowder. Though he was hobbling, the man seemed fairly unconcerned about the wound in his leg. He just let the blood drip on the floor. Maybe he’d been planning to die all along and didn’t really care how it happened.

    He turned from the cockpit and caught me looking at him. His eyes met mine, and instead of looking away, I stared right into him. He didn’t say anything, though for some reason, I felt he might let me. “Why are you doing this?” I asked. He just blinked. “You haven’t made any demands. You’ve killed people who’ve gotten in your way so obviously you have some reason.” My heart was pounding as I waited for the gun to point my way.
    He drew a long breath and let it out slowly. “I do have a reason.” He nodded his head toward the cockpit. “He knows it. Don’t you, Uncle Evan.” The pilot didn’t answer. “I can’t hear you!” the gunman yelled.
    A quavering voice said, “I think so, yes.”
    “You think so?” The gunman stood up, limping to the cockpit door. “He was your nephew, my little brother. He trusted you!”
    “I know.”
    “Oh, that you know for sure? That’s how you got him, wasn’t it? You built his trust, and then you broke it.”
    The pilot started sobbing. I didn’t ask for clarification. I, too, thought I knew what this was all about now. The gunman raised his weapon, pointing toward the floor of the cockpit. His face twisted, showing real emotion for the first time during this whole thing.
    “This is for David.”
    I winced when a massive cracking sound rang through the plane. I had been anticipating the gunshot but this was different, bigger and yet somehow less explosive. A fist sized hole punched into the wall behind the gunman, a bullet hole from a high powered weapon. The gunman crumpled, an even bigger hole in his chest. He gasped and spluttered, almost drowning out the sound of people working from the outside to try and open the plane door. I found myself rising and standing over the man who had been my fellow passenger. The gun was no longer in his hand. He looked less like a monster and more like a sad story. He stopped breathing at all.
    I opened the door of the plane.