He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate.
There had to be a way out of this.
There had to be.
'Flight GXR1689, this is Miami International. Do you read me? Over.'
The hijacker stared at the radio. His lip curled. For a brief moment he thought about answering the call, but he quickly decided not to.
'Flight GXR1689, this is Miami International. Do you read me? Over.'
He stared resolutely at the instruments in front of him. Inwardly, he cursed. He had hoped to be able to get closer to the target before they contacted him. Now the alert would have been raised. There was a good chance that the military would be called in, and that before long he'd have US attack planes flying alongside him. The moment he started going off course, and if they couldn't identify the nature of the threat, they'd shoot him down. But maybe, just maybe, if he increased his airspeed and headed straight for the refinery now, he'd have a chance.
Decision made. He altered the throttle setting and reduced the drag on the wings. He watched in satisfaction as the instruments before him showed a substantial increase in velocity, and then he manoeuvred the control stick to head towards the coordinates he wanted.
Not long now, he told himself calmly.
Just hold your nerve and it won't be long now.
Ben opened his eyes suddenly. There had been a lurch in the aircraft's movements, as though they had suddenly increased their speed. Angelo had clearly noticed it too: his face had gone from pale to ghostly white.
Further up the aisle, the voices of the group of people standing around Brad's body had grown louder. Ben stood up. 'Let's find out what's happening,' he said. 'See if anyone else has any bright ideas.' They stepped hurriedly into the aisle.
Two passengers, both men, were arguing. They were both tall and broad-shouldered, with bulging stomachs and American accents, though one was a good deal older than the other. They were both sweating profusely. 'He must have been in the hold,' the older man said. 'He must have been. How else could he get into the cockpit?'
'He can't have been,' the other one replied. 'The hold's depressurized. Takeoff would have killed him.'
'Not necessarily,' Ben interrupted, remembering something he'd learned at school. 'Aircraft holds are often pressurized. The only problem would have been the cold. It'll be freezing down there.'
The two men looked at him and blinked, as if surprised that someone as young as Ben might know more than them. 'Whatever, kid,' the younger man said dismissively. 'Bottom line is we're done for. This nutcase is taking the plane down, and we're going with him.'
The group fell silent. Some of them nodded their heads in agreement.
'So that's it, is it?' Ben demanded. 'We just sit here and let it happen?'
'None of us want to, son,' the older of the two men told him. 'But it doesn't look to us like we've got a whole load of options. Try and break through to the cockpit and we get shot; go through the hold and we freeze to death, and if we don't we still get shot.'
Ben looked at them each in turn, amazed that they seemed to have given up so quickly. 'But — we've got to do something,' he announced. 'If we're all going to die anyway, surely anything's worth a try.' He realized he was shouting slightly. 'Come on — better for one of us to get shot than for all of us to burn to death in some oil refinery!'
'Look, son,' the older man continued. 'You're scared, and that's OK. But unless you've got any better ideas, the best thing we can all do is keep calm.'
Better ideas? Ben took a deep breath and looked around. Everyone's eyes seemed to be on him now, and he sensed that they were all waiting for him to come up with something. As he looked around, his eyes fell on the damaged corpse of Angelo's bodyguard, lying motionless in a pool of his own blood.
The man had asked for better ideas, and Ben realized that he was talking to him again in a somewhat hysterical voice. 'So have you, son? Have you?'
Ben looked up at him and a whisper of a smile played across his lips.
'Actually,' he said quietly, stepping forward towards Brad's body, 'I have.'
Chapter Five
Everyone went quiet, waiting for Ben to explain.
'Look,' he said, slightly breathlessly. 'The hijacker is obviously worried that we'll be able to break the door in if we try. That's why he shot Brad. So it's obvious, isn't it? Either we do break the door down, or we get him to open it himself.'
'But he's got a gun,' one of the group said, as though speaking to someone of below normal intelligence.
'Yeah, but Brad's got a bulletproof vest.'
'And that did him a lot of good,' the older man said, not hiding the scorn in his voice. 'Look, kid, if you haven't got anything sensible to add—' 'Wait,' Ben said impatiently. 'Think about it. If we barge the door again and the hijacker opens up to shoot, what part of the body is he going to go for?'
The group looked at each other, like a bunch of children in a classroom who weren't sure they knew the answer to a teacher's question. The voice that finally replied came from behind Ben.
'The head,' it said, clearly and confidently.
Ben spun round and he sensed everyone else in the group looking at this newcomer. The man standing behind them was tall and well tanned with dark, slicked-back hair. He looked South American maybe, and his accent was American too.
'Exactly,' Ben replied. 'So we need to remove the bulletproof vest and whoever barges the door has to hold it in front of their face.'
Another silence. A long one.
'You're mad,' a woman said, and there was a murmur of agreement.
Ben felt himself getting angry. 'Well, has anyone got any better ideas? Or shall we just sit around and wait to be blown up?'
More silence. And then the older man spoke. 'It's got to be worth a try,' he murmured.
'Yeah,' someone else agreed. 'It's not like we've got many options.'
'I think it's a very good idea,' the newcomer said firmly. He stepped forward and offered Ben his hand. 'My name's Danny.'
Ben shook his hand briefly. 'I'm Ben.'
'So who's going to perform this act of bravery then, Ben?'
None of the older people answered, but that was OK. Ben had it all worked out. 'It makes sense for the smallest person to do it,' he said. 'That way the bulletproof vest will cover more of their body when they hold it up.' He looked around. He was quite a bit smaller than all the other adults. 'I'll do it,' he said firmly.
'And what happens,' Danny asked, 'if we overcome the hijacker? Does anyone here know how to fly a plane?'
Again, silence.
'Well, actually,' Ben said quietly, 'I kind of do. I mean, not a real plane like this, but I've flown a microlight before. I reckon I can keep it steady at least, and if we can get radio contact with Miami, maybe they can talk me through it, guide us down.' He glanced at everyone. They were all looking at him expectantly. 'Come on,' Ben said brusquely. 'We need to roll Brad's body over, unstrap the vest.'
It was Danny who bent down to help him. The bodyguard was quite a weight, and they really had to put their back into turning him over. As they did so, Ben tried not to look at the messed-up remains of his head. Danny ripped Brad's shirt open. Sure enough, beneath the torn material was a thick black bulletproof vest. The buckles were tight — they hurt Ben's fingers as he grappled with them — but a minute or so later they had undone the vest and rolled Brad back over. Ben moved his arms out so that they could take it off more easily.
When he stood up, he had the bulletproof vest in his hands. He was just holding it up in front of his body when he heard Angelo speak.
'Ben,' the Italian boy said firmly. 'Dammelo. Give it to me.'