Swinging the knife with his right hand, the hijacker unfurled a seat belt extender with his left, whipping the heavy buckle with great effect to strike any passengers that tried to stop him. Quinn had seen a liu xing chui or dragon’s fist used in demonstrations by Shaolin monks before. A metal weight on the end of a chain, they could burst a skull like a melon in the hands of a skilled user — which this guy apparently was.
Another passenger tried to intervene as the hijacker went by. This one was a young African American. His bearing and the way he moved made Quinn think he might be a soldier. It didn’t matter. The hijacker flicked the heavy buckle behind him, dropping the young man like a sack of sand with a deft pop to the temple.
Passengers fell like wheat before a sickle to the speed and precision of his weapons.
Quinn jumped into the aisle. The brakes on the cart had activated when the hijacker let go, causing it to stop directly behind Quinn’s seat, blocking any chance of escape. Quinn shoved it backwards with his hip, giving himself a few extra feet of room to maneuver.
Popeye’s mouth hung open. He looked like he wanted to crawl out the wall of the airplane when Quinn yanked up the seat cushion and slid it over his left arm, holding it in front of himself like a shield. The two fighters advanced on each other quickly, Quinn’s club crashing off the hijacker’s blade while the metal seat belt buckle pummeled the seat cushion shield, searching for an opening to Quinn’s skull.
Rather than taking a defensive posture, Quinn attacked through his opponent, driving him backwards. Seemingly startled by Quinn’s ferocity, the man retreated in the aisle. The soft foam of the seat cushion disrupted his timing with the makeshift dragon’s fist. Focused on the moment of battle, he lost sight of Carly until she appeared behind the hijacker, directly in his path. Quinn kept up his assault, yelling for her to get out of the way.
The hijacker feinted with the knife, hoping to draw out the club. Instead, Quinn countered with the seat cushion shield deflecting the weapons long enough to chop downward with the metal club, smashing the bones in the hijacker’s wrist and causing him to drop the seat belt extension. His wrist was badly injured, but he still had the blade.
He must have sensed Carly coming up behind him because he spun, grabbing her with the injured wrist and bringing the blade up toward her throat.
Fighting in the confined space of the aisle made any sort of strategy but direct assault nearly impossible. Over the years, Quinn had made every partner he’d ever worked with promise to come in with guns blazing if he or his family were ever taken hostage. He’d made a pact to do the same, not waiting for negotiators or SWAT teams and lengthy standoffs. Quinn had seen too many times to ignore that a lightning-fast counterattack on the heels of the first assault almost always beat prolonged peace talks. He could wait for the guy to get set with the knife to Carly’s throat and then play a little game of standoff while both men postured and Carly fought a meltdown. Or, he could go all Samson on this guy and take his metal jawbone of an ass and beat the man’s hip and thigh before he had a chance to settle.
He chose the latter — but before he could move, the sharp clap of an explosion shook the aircraft, causing it to shudder as if they’d hit another set of turbulence.
Quinn felt as if a sumo wrestler had jumped on his chest as the air was sucked out of his lungs. He exhaled instinctively, knowing there was a danger of an embolism if he held his breath. Books, napkins, and bits of clothing flew by on a great, sucking gust of wind that rushed forward in an explosive decompression. The air chilled in an instant. A thick vapor formed in the cabin, like the space in the top of a soda bottle when the lid is twisted half open. Plastic oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling, dangling like yellow ornaments amid an immediate heavy fog.
A half a breath later, the plane began to dive.
Quinn’s stomach rose up with a chorus of screams from terrified passengers. He had no idea if the pilots would be able to regain control, but decided to continue fighting until they hit the ground. He didn’t know their altitude, but guessed he had less than a minute before he blacked out from lack of oxygen. He’d performed well during hypoxia drills during pilot aptitude tests at the Academy, but naming face cards was a far cry from facing an armed hijacker.
One moment, Quinn found himself trapped in the aisle; the next he found himself in a zero-G environment, floating above the seats as his body fell at the same rate as the airplane. Kicking off the seat back beside him, he crashed into Carly, surprising the hijacker. The blade fell away as he flailed out, trying to grab something, anything to stabilize the falling sensation. Quinn peeled Carly aside and rained down blows with the tray table arm, knocking the man’s jaw out of place and breaking his other arm.
The hijacker suddenly shoved Carly on top of a row of panicked Russians and lowered his hands to his sides. A resigned smile spread across his face. The bomb had gone off. His job was done. Quinn finished him with a blow to the temple.
Frantic cries of passengers mixed with the scream of rushing wind as the cabin pressure equalized through the hole torn somewhere up front by the bomb. The fog began to clear almost as soon as it had formed, revealing the scenes of panic and terror among the passengers.
The Airbus began to rumble louder, engines groaning as the pilot picked up the nose, arresting the dive. Quinn fell in the next instant as if dropped from invisible fingers, on top of a dazed Carly.
His face against hers, Quinn pushed himself upright, searching for a free oxygen mask. With all the air flowing out of the plane there seemed to be none left to breathe. They were still extremely high where the air was thin and cold. Quinn knew he would need oxygen in a matter of seconds. No amount of physical training could keep him from passing out if he couldn’t breathe.
Behind him, above the fray of wind and terrified passengers, he heard Mattie scream.
Chapter 64
Captain Rob took a long pull from his full-face oxygen mask once he regained control of the airplane. First Officer McBott did the same.
The concussion from the bomb had knocked out flight control, sending the plane into a nosedive until Szymanski had been able to wrestle her back into submission. There were redundant automatic systems, but the bomb had damaged those as well.
Every claxon, buzzer, and bell on the console had activated at once. A computerized voice, affectionately known as “Bitchin’ Betty,” warned of a pressurization failure in the hull.
“No shit,” the captain muttered, and pushed the button to silence that little slice of noise.
Both men had their hands on the controls. Above even checking on the safety of the passengers in the back, their first priority was to make sure they didn’t fall out of the sky. No amount of knowledge or radioing for help would do anyone any good if they stopped flying the airplane.
Aviate, navigate — then communicate. It was a pilot’s mantra during an emergency.
“All engines are showing good,” McBott said, running down the various systems to make certain they were functional.