The plane continued to shudder and groan as it bled off speed, turning now as the left wing dug into the water and yanked them sideways.
The impact had damaged the support structure of the second deck and it now canted sideways, threatening to fall and crush the passengers below. Cries rose up from the main deck as the plane slowed and settled into the water, wallowing with the waves. The smell of burning electronics and urine drifted through the air.
Quinn looked up to see Mattie slouching forward against her belt. At first, Quinn thought she was unconscious. He nearly wept when he saw her lift her head. Screams and the sound of rushing water from below filled his ears.
Amazingly, the intercom still functioned and the captain’s voice came across, shaken but still in control, giving the order to evacuate at all available exits.
Quinn was up and running before most passengers had even raised their heads. The Chinese man was up as well, and stepped around the bulkhead to pick up a shaken Mattie.
In the confusion of an evacuation, Natalie focused on opening the emergency door and deploying the inflatable stairs that would act as a life raft.
Foss saw the threat and grabbed for the man as he went by, but her shoulder had been knocked out of its socket in the crash. Along with her broken arm, it was impossible to defend herself against the man’s elbow to her nose as he plowed toward the now open exit with Mattie in his arms.
Whatever the man’s reasoning, he appeared intent on taking Mattie out of the plane with him. Others might think he was trying to help her evacuate, but Quinn could see the hate boiling in the man’s eyes. Over his shoulder like a duffel bag, Mattie kicked and screamed to get away. Her eyes caught Quinn’s as the man shoved his way past the other passengers gathering to evacuate and prepared to jump with the little girl in his arms.
Quinn slammed into him as he hit the slide, wrapping his legs around the man’s waist and grabbing his head like a basketball as they all three bounced and tumbled down the slide toward the water. Whatever the man’s intentions, he was no match for a father with Jericho’s skill set, determined to save the little girl he’d abandoned one too many times. Half falling, half bouncing, Quinn sank both his thumbs into the man’s eyes, ripping and tearing until he scraped bone.
The man screamed in agony, trying desperately to use Mattie as a shield as they hit the raft at the bottom of the slide and plowed over the side, still in a clinch, into the freezing water of the Bering Sea.
Shocked by the sudden onslaught of cold, the Chinese man tried to get away, but Quinn held fast, trapping Mattie between their two bodies. He took a deep breath an instant before they sank beneath the surface. Surrounded by green water, Quinn felt Mattie squirm in his arms. Fearful she’d taken a lungful of water, he pushed away with both thumbs, tearing her from the man’s weakening grasp. Heart in his throat, he kicked toward the surface.
Madonna Foss was leaning over the raft when he came up, her nose dripping blood, but reaching for Mattie with her good arm. Her fingers wrapped around Mattie’s shirt collar and she fell backwards, sloshing into the raft and the other passengers.
Quinn turned immediately, unsure if he’d see another attack. It was pointless. Lin’s husband had surely sucked in a lungful of water when they’d hit the surface.
“He never came up,” Foss shouted, extending her hand again.
“Mattie?” Quinn shouted, feeling his muscles begin to seize from shock and the chill.
“She swallowed some seawater,” Foss said, “but she’ll be fine when we get her warm.” She reached for Quinn, assisted by a large man with the fierce eyebrows of a Cossack.
The raft began to fill as more and more passengers slid down from the groaning plane, crowding around Quinn and his daughter and helping to keep them warm.
Captain Szymanski’s Mayday call was picked up by a passing FedEx 747 and relayed to Flight Following in Anchorage. The emergency locator beacon on the wounded Airbus began to transmit an emergency signal as well as their position as soon as she hit the water.
Two hours after the crash, three fishing boats from St. Paul Island, Alaska, arrived and began to take on the most seriously injured. Aircraft began to overfly the site and other boats arrived a few at a time. Scores of passengers had life-threatening injuries so Quinn and his daughter stayed on the raft and waited their turn. Jericho urged Foss to go on the third boat, but she refused.
A rusted green hulk that was a Russian fishing trawler was the seventh ship to arrive. The name of the vessel was written in Cyrillic so Quinn couldn’t tell what it said, but he recognized Carly the flight attendant riding in a dinghy deployed to ferry passengers from the damaged plane to the ship.
She waved at Quinn when she saw him, then leaned over to say something to the man at the helm of the dinghy. The man, a fisherman in a wool turtleneck and faded yellow foulies, turned the little boat toward their life raft.
His dinghy looked full, so Quinn tried to wave them on.
The driver said something in Russian. Carly shrugged, and then translated for him.
“Not sure what this means but he says your friend from Argentina said you should come with us.”
“Tell him I knew her better in Bolivia,” Quinn said, smiling at Aleksandra Kanatova’s efforts to get him and his daughter to safety. Russian spy ships often masqueraded as fishing trawlers. She must have gotten word to one that was nearby when she’d heard that the plane had turned back toward the US, fearing an incident. When she’d found out the plane had gone down, she’d dispatched it to pick up Quinn.
He passed Mattie across the gunnel to Carly, and then helped Madonna Foss over before cramming himself in among a dozen shivering passengers.
Ten minutes later, Quinn stood along the rail of the Russian ship, beside Carly and Foss. He held Mattie in his arms. All were wrapped in wool blankets given to them by the crew. The ship’s physician was seeing to a man with a compound fracture, but promised to look at Foss’s injuries next.
“You did good out there,” the air marshal said, shaking her head as she looked across the gathering chop at the mangled wreckage. “I didn’t realize what was going on until I saw you go all Hannibal on that dude.”
Quinn looked down at Mattie, who slept against his chest, and shrugged. “Man’s gotta do… Anyway, you know the rest.” He looked over the side of the ship at the Cyrillic writing to change the subject. “What’s the name of this ship?”
“Retvizan,” Carly said. “I heard someone in the crew say it was named for an old warship. Fitting, from the other things I’ve heard them talking about.”
Quinn gave a little shake of his head, but Foss saw it. “Come on,” she said. “I got ears. I know you’re not who you say you are. I don’t care if you’re a Russian spy. I’m just glad to be out of that airplane.”
A Russian crewman brought out a satellite phone, and handed it to Quinn. It was his friend, FSB agent Aleksandra Kanatova.
“Would you look at that.” He heard Carly laugh as he stepped away with the phone. “We’re all missing our shoes…”
Epilogue
Vice President McKeon slammed the receiver down on his desk phone and buried his face in his hands. Winfield Palmer and Virginia Ross had both disappeared. Eighty-seven passengers on Global Flight 105 were dead or missing. Witnesses from the wreckage recalled seeing several men with children, but Quinn was still unaccounted for. McKeon would assume nothing until he had a body to prove the man was dead.