Twenty-Eight Point Three Five

© 2010 Tim Fort

IT had been a dismal day so far. She hadn’t determined yet that today was on the negative side of the Joy-Suffering Continuum, but Vera suspected she was probably accumulating positive karma for a better day. At least that was how she justified her mildly depressed mood. Now that she was finally seated, she was certain that things could only get better.

It had been a fine morning at the start–but then the alarm clock went off. Vera had been up late wandering around Manhattan and had drifted off to sleep around 2AM, so she was still groggy when she roused herself from bed. The front desk of the Anderleigh Plaza Hotel had rung her five minutes later, and the employee making the wake-up call sounded bored and irritated. Then she waited under the leaden skies of Manhattan for over twenty-five minutes before a taxi showed up. It started to sprinkle when she finally got to La Guardia and she feared that there would be a flight delay.

The plane, an Airbus 328, sat on the tarmac for over twenty minutes before finally being cleared for takeoff. EconoJet Flight 64 was only about two-thirds full, but more people had bulky carry-on luggage than usual. On the plus side, the forecast for Chicago, her layover, was for partly-cloudy skies and upper 50s, and for San Francisco, her final destination, the forecast was for sun and an unseasonably warm 68 degrees.

Then the plane finally heaved itself off of the runway and they were on their way. The man in the seat next to her was a balding, middle-aged Hispanic guy with a bushy moustache and dark blue suit. He was clicking away quietly on his laptop computer, the noise of which was soothing to Vera. As soon as the ‘Fasten Seat Belt’ sign went out, the blonde flight attendant announced that they’d be selling alcoholic beverages. It took less than 10 minutes for the attendants to work their way through the coach section of the airliner where Vera was, and she asked the cute Italian-looking flight attendant for a vodka martini. She didn’t drink much, and it wasn’t covered in her expense account, but this time she needed it.

She was feeling mellow after the drink, and for the first time that morning she dared to think she was going to have a good day. Vera leisurely gazed out the window, noting that the cloud cover was slowly getting lighter, and enjoyed her reverie. Then the drinks worked their magic on her kidneys and she felt the need to excuse herself. Finally, with much effort, she roused herself and headed back to the bathroom. There was an older man ahead of her, a gray-haired man with a green sweater who looked ill, who entered the right bathroom as soon as a brunette woman exited. Vera noticed with a hint of Schadenfreude that the brunette was a few pounds heavier than her and felt good about herself. Things were definitely getting brighter. Then a small boy exited the left bathroom and she grabbed the door.

Before she sat down, Vera took a glimpse in the mirror. She saw a 28-year old woman with bright red hair in a pageboy bob, perhaps a little too heavy–but in a sexy, Klondike Kate sort of way, she rationalized. She was wearing a while blouse with lavender flowers and a dark purple skirt, topped off by round, gold-rimmed glasses. “You goddess, you,” she thought to herself. It was the happiest moment of the day so far.

There wasn’t anybody in line behind her, so she settled in and took her time. She pondered her recent visit to the Big Apple and how she had taken in so much in just the few hours she had after her seminar yesterday. Central Park, the World Trade Towers, and the Kugelbahn Gallery in Brooklyn were the main highlights of her impromptu sight-seeing tour. Her thoughts turned to an amazing kinetic art exhibition she saw at the Kugelbahn, and she languidly thought of the foxy artist who created the exhibit when suddenly her reverie was shattered.

She distinctly heard the voice of the blonde flight attendant, “SIR, YOU’RE NOT ALLOW...” Then that was followed by a few crashes and indistinct yelling. She distinctly heard the bathroom door opposite hers slam open. Then there was a very loud, pain-filled scream, followed by several other screams. A cold shock went down Vera’s spine, and she snapped her panties up. Suddenly, the plane hit turbulence or something, and she was slammed against the tiny sink. Screaming and sounds of struggle came from the coach section, while the plane bounced around violently.

“SIT DOWN ALL OF YOU OR WE’LL CUT YOUR THROAT TOO!” shouted a strange man’s voice that boomed over the other noise. “STAY THE HELL IN YOUR SEATS OR THE SAME WILL HAPPEN TO YOU! WE ARE TAKING POSSESSION OF THIS AIRPLANE IN THE NAME OF THE ‘LORDS OF CHAOS’!”

The screams died down quickly in the coach section, but there was a couple of more screams from first class. Then, unexpectedly, the plane was flying smoothly again. Vera was crouched on the floor. A moment later, there were gasps and muffled screams, and she felt something bump against the bathroom door.

“IS ANYBODY IN THE BATHROOM? IF YOU’RE IN THERE, YOU BETTER GET THE HELL OUT IMMEDIATELY AND SIT DOWN OR YOU WILL DIE!”

She grabbed her purse without conscious thought and opened the door. It took more than usual effort, and something rolled away as the door opened. It was the blond attendant, but somehow she had gotten into the cargo hold and was sticking her head up through a hole in the floor. Except that her head was at the wrong angle and there was much blood on the carpet. A primal survival instinct had kept her from immediately registering what she saw, but next thing she became conscious of was a horrific scream that seemed to come from outside her body. She became violently sick against the other bathroom door, retching until she had the dry heaves.

“SIT DOWN YOU DAMNED FAT PUKING COW OR WE’LL CUT YOUR GODDAM HEAD OFF, TOO!” yelled a guy with mirrored sunglasses, standing at the front of the coach section. He had balding black hair, was very large and muscular looking, wore a black-leather vest and sunglasses, and had a vague Goth air about him. She had noticed him at the gate, but didn’t give him any thought until now.

Although her legs felt weak and rubbery, she somehow made it up the aisle to her row. She had enough presence of mind to cover her mouth to avoid nauseating others, but it was futile judging from the smell already permeating the cabin. The Hispanic man quickly moved aside, and she threw herself into her seat. There was a couple of indistinct shouts coming from either first class or the cockpit area. The small, rational part of her brain was telling her that she was witnessing a hijacking, but she wasn’t able to fully wrap her mind around that fact. She was too scared and disoriented to even panic properly.

Then the rational part of her mind took over again, and she became acutely aware of a scrawny guy in a black t-shirt next to the tall Goth. She couldn’t really determine if he were African or Middle Eastern from his light brown skin. From the appearance of the two members, she reasoned that Lords of Chaos was probably not a supremacist group, but probably some religious or political cult. She noticed that both of them were wielding stilettos and shuddered at the gruesome discovery that the large man’s stiletto was dripping blood onto the carpet. Her stomach knotted up tightly and she felt her legs turn rubbery.

Then a vaguely Euro woman with raven-black hair and deeply tanned skin, wearing a black camisole, emerged from the first-class section, and the large man stepped aside. The skinny man in the t-shirt immediately headed back into first class. Vera glanced down, grabbed a Kleenex and furtively dabbed at her mouth. The woman said with a distinct nasal Australian accent, “We’ve had no prob exing out those blokes in the cockpit! Larry’s got things under control and we’ve got ourselves a couple of dead whackers to dispose of. Say, it really reeks o’ chunder in here. Are the passies behaving themselves?”

“The blonde stewardess gave us some grief, so me an’ Samuel beheaded the bitch. We rolled her head down there to encourage the passengers to behave themselves,” he said as he pointed towards the bathrooms. “Oh, and some fat bitch was hiding from us in the crapper.”

He stared directly at Vera, and her eyes were locked to his. “Don’t mess with the Lords of Chaos, you lardass,” and pointed his hand at her with the fingers extended in some sort of strange satanic cult sign. The blood flushed from Vera’s face, and for a moment she thought she was next to die.

He then directed his gaze back over the other passengers, as he stuck the tip of the stiletto in his left index finger, drawing blood. “You all will obey me,” he proclaimed as he slowly rotated his stiletto, “and you had better goddam obey me as lord and master. I am a superior being, and if any of you wretched sub-humans mess with me, you will pay dearly. I’ll bring death upon you if you so much as look at me wrong. All of you will fasten your seatbelts immediately, or else!” Vera saw a gleam of madness in his eyes as he spoke, and several seatbelts quickly clicked shut.

“Ken, you’re a regular Standover man, ain’t ya?”, said the Australian woman sarcastically.

“Shaddup, you dumb bitch! You’re not supposed to refer to us by our first names!”

“What d’ya mean, you dumb swagman? You think we’ll have to worry about evading John Law after we pull this off?”

“No, but it’s in the damned plan not reveal our damned personal identities, dammit! They’ve got cell phones, you know!”

“Now look who’s pulled a boner, you dumb knocker! You didn’t have to remind them of that!” There was pure hate in the Aussie woman’s eyes. Vera tensed up, and hoped for a moment that the hijackers would turn on each other.

The large man pulled his left hand back as if preparing for an open-handed slap, and shouted, “Get the hell back into first class and get those damned passengers back in here immediately before I hit you!” He paused for a moment, stared at her with hate in his eyes, and added, “Stacy!”

“You bastard!” Stacy hissed, and headed back to first class.

The large man stood aside as the first-class passengers dutifully filed in, grabbed open seats, and buckled themselves in. At the end of the procession was the scraggly guy in the t-shirt, Samuel, who was waving his stiletto menacingly. He shouted “Get yer ass in gear, old fart, or I’ll whack ya!” to an elderly businessman, and smacked him hard. Vera noticed that the other passengers were even more agitated than the coach passengers, and a middle-aged woman among them was ashen in color and appeared to be having a seizure.

An air traffic controller at Bowling Green Air Traffic Control Center was the first person on the ground to notice that something was awry. She was tracking EconoJet 64 over southeastern Pennsylvania when the plane’s marker suddenly winked from her CRT screen at 8:28:58 Eastern Standard Time. She notified her supervisor immediately. After the Air Traffic Control Center was unsuccessful trying to contact Flight 64 by radio, an alert was put out to Wright-Patterson AFB about a potential hijacking.

The large hijacker Ken had been ranting some schizophrenic mishmash about politics and history for minutes, unaware that passengers were furtively calling loved ones and 911 on their cell phones. The five first-class passengers, though, appeared much more agitated than the other passengers. When they talked to the coach passengers nearest them, the others got highly agitated as well. After a while, the large guy noticed the desperate whispering and yelled at them to shut their traps or else.

The Aussie woman, Stacy, had reappeared. She told Ken to cut the ‘passies’ some slack and let them make one final call for decency’s sake. The big guy had reacted loudly to her statement and told her again to shut up while raising his hand. The thought crossed the minds of several passengers, including Vera, that this wasn’t just a hijacking, but a suicide mission. The first-class passengers and several of the coach passengers had already learned the ugly secret: the pilot and co-pilot were lying dead in first class, propped against the bulkhead with their throats slashed.

Then the gentleman next to her whispered the stunning truth of the flight crew to Vera. An inky black depression washed over her as she realized that no amount of cooperation with the hijackers would save her life. She stared numbly out of her window for a while, unable to think at all. Then, slowly at first, she started to think. She momentarily contemplated whether she had anything in her purse she could open a vein with, but quickly rejected the idea.

Most of the other passengers felt an awful despondency wash over them as well when they learned about the flight crew. Almost all were too stunned at first to do much more than stare straight ahead in shock. When they resumed their frantic calling, there was a much more desperate tone to their voice and the messages had turned primarily to grim goodbyes to loved ones.

It slowly dawned on the majority of the passengers that their plane was to be used as a flying missile of some sort; if the intention was to simply kill everybody on board, they would have smashed into the ground minutes ago. The passengers were slowly galvanized by a desire hit back hard against the evil scumbags and thwart whatever plans they had. Some were motivated by the altruistic decision to force the plane down immediately, rather than kill hundreds or even thousands of innocent people on the ground. Others simply wanted to cause the hijackers as much mortal pain as possible before the plane slammed into oblivion. Soon, the buzz of people calling on their cell phones was augmented by whispers of passengers trying to organize some sort of futile resistance.

For others, it wasn’t so much a primeval urge to rip the guts out of the hijackers as a desire to exert one last bit of control over their destinies. Tears welled in her eyes at the realization that she would never see her cat Cleo, her cozy apartment, or her father, the history professor, again. Vera decided that before she died, she would inflict as much karmic retribution upon the evil shitbags as much as possible.

The Hispanic guy next to her had been whispering to a man in the seat in front of her. Suddenly, he turned to Vera and said in a low voice, “I’m Manny. We’re going for it in a couple of minutes. Are you in with us?” A savage hatred welled up within her and she said defiantly in a hoarse whisper, “I’m Vera–you can count me in. God dammit, I intend to go down swinging!”

Manny relayed this to man in front of him. The man, a stocky, military-looking guy with a gray crew-cut, turned around, glanced at Vera through the gap in the seats, and winked at her. Somehow, without any formal delegation whatsoever, he was the unofficial leader of the brewing insurrection. She would later learn that his full name was Mark Billings and that he was in the Marine Reserves. Mark leaned forward and whispered to an old man in the seat in front of him. He was the sickly man in the green sweater she saw outside the bathroom, and Vera would learn that he was Nathan Raabe, a retired Jewish dentist from Schenectady.

Ken, the big terrorist, was still ranting about his mad conspiracy theory involving the Age of Chaos, his voice slowly increasing in volume. He seemed too preoccupied with explaining his convoluted belief system to take much notice of the brewing insurrection. Some of the passengers were fervently thinking of ways of arming themselves with whatever was at hand. Pocket knives, nail files, and ball-point pens were quickly being regarded as armaments. Several of the passengers had also quietly unbuckled their seatbelts. Vera overheard some of the other passengers discussing who was to take control of the airplane. Nobody, it seemed, had a pilot’s license, or any experience with flying an airplane at all.

Then, her face turning red, Vera leaned forward and poked Mark in the arm. Before she was fully conscious of what she was saying, she whispered, “Hey, I’m Vera. I was in the Civil Air Patrol in high school. I can’t fly, but I have some idea how an airplane works.” She felt her face blush when she realized what she had said. It was true, though, that she had sat in a few cockpits in the days before she shrugged off her tomboyishness and went to college.

Mark pondered this for a second, then said decisively, “OK, Vera, you’re our pilot. I’m Mark. Listen, when we rush the bastards, I want you to stay in the rear of the pack and avoid getting hurt. When we take ‘em out, I want you to run forward, grab control of the stick or wheel or whatever the hell you call it, and get this goddam plane under control.”

She stammered, “But, I...I don’t know how to fly! I can’t do it, God help me I can’t!” She had suddenly lost her resolve at the intimidating thought of taking control of a jet airliner.

Mark made direct eye contact and said in a low, authoritarian voice, “You’re the only one remotely qualified. You have to do it, so you go, girl.” Then he glanced around at Manny and the other passengers, and continued, “I’ll give the signal by throwing my keys. Nate, you jump out in front of me, but stay clear of my right arm. The rest of you fall in behind me. Vera, you stick to the rear. I’m giving you all a minute to psych yourselves up, then we go for it.”

Vera thought of her father, Gary D. Ogilvie, Ph.D., professor of history at Antelope Valley College and his favorite saying: “History is not made by extraordinary people, but by ordinary people in extraordinary situations.” If he knew that in the last moments of her life she fought like hell instead of surrendering, it would make his grief more bearable. She quickly mustered a cold rage and was determined to take control of the airplane, even if she had to murder the bastard at the controls with her bare hands.

Then she was roused back to full consciousness. The terrorist Ken had suddenly stopped his self-adsorbed rambling and had grabbed the Italian flight attendant Lorenzo. He put his stiletto around Lorenzo’s neck and said loudly, “I know you damned sub-humans are plotting something! If you don’t shut the hell up immediately, I’m going to cut his throat and then start killing any other troublemakers!”

Then a loud crack exploded against the forward bulkhead, next to the skinny terrorist Samuel, as Mark’s keys made contact. Mark shouted, “LET’S ROLL!”

All hell broke loose. When the large hijacker Ken reacted to the noise and lifted his arm, Lorenzo threw himself on the floor. Several passengers suddenly materialized in the aisle. Vera’s endocrine system detonated, and she threw herself in behind Manny before she consciously realized what she was doing. The elderly Jewish guy, Nate, was in the front and was followed by Mark. Behind Mark was a skinny kid, Justin, with dark hair and a white t-shirt; behind Justin was a large bearded man with blonde hair and a Hawaiian shirt, Ron. Following Ron was Leo, a black businessman wearing a gray pinstripe suit, followed by Manny and Vera.

In addition to nail files, pens, and pocket knives, the motley collection of ersatz weapons included a glass bottle filled with olive oil, and Manny was wielding his laptop with both hands. Almost instantly the hastily-assembled group waded into the hijackers who had wasted precious moments flailing for Lorenzo who dove into the first row of seats.

Nate slammed into the large hijacker Ken, but wasn’t able to knock him down. Ken jammed his stiletto into Mr. Raabe’s stomach, driving it into his chest. A crimson plume spewed out as Mr. Raabe fell forward into Ken. Mark had smashed his fist into Ken’s throat, followed by the skinny kid Justin driving his cell phone into Ken’s forehead, smashing his sunglasses. Ken staggered, then fell over backwards, grasping for his face. Then the flight attendant, Lorenzo, pounced upon Ken and started pummeling him with his bare hands. Mr. Raabe fell into an unoccupied seat, bleeding profusely on to the passenger seated next to him, and died.

Mark then grabbed the skinny hijacker, Samuel, by his t-shirt and gave him a roundhouse slap that jerked his head to the side. He pushed Samuel over backwards and dove on top of him. Ken, purple-faced, had shaken off Lorenzo, but Justin gave him a kick to the jaw that slammed him into the bulkhead. Then the other attackers surged over Ken, stomping the hell out of him.

Samuel had slashed Mark across his chest and momentarily threw him off balance. Lorenzo grabbed Samuel’s knife hand while Justin dealt a few blows to Samuel’s head. Then the large man, Ron, still clutching his bottle, body-slammed into Samuel. Stacy, the female hijacker, had run forward to try and aid the other two hijackers, quickly assessed that they were losing, and quickly ran off screaming towards the cockpit, “CRASH THE PLANE, MICK, DAMMIT, CRASH THE PLANE!”

Samuel worked his right hand free, was about to drive his stiletto deep into Mark’s chest when the plane went abruptly into a dive, and they both bounced off of the front bulkhead. The man in the gray suit, Leo, had pitched forward, and fell into Samuel, driving his foot into Samuel’s throat. Samuel dropped his stiletto and grasped at his broken neck. Leo remained to finish off Samuel while the others surged forward.

Then the plane started to roll, and the commotion was compounded by loose bags and magazines flying around the interior of the airplane. Two passengers who weren’t wearing their seatbelts had gone airborne and bounced towards the rear of the plane, suffering serious injuries. The airplane rapidly became the Roller Coaster from Hell and the already panicky passengers started to lose all control of their bodily functions from the terror.

The large man, Ron, was first through the bulkhead into first class. He was followed closely by Justin and Lorenzo. Vera pitched over the bloody mess that was the terrorist Ken, then slammed her way into first class, following Mark and Manny. Her adrenaline was pumping so hard that she barely noticed that she had bounced off the ceiling. She was almost struck by the bodies of the pilot and co-pilot, their blue and white uniforms soaked with blood. It was impossible to tell which way was up, but she somehow continued to surge forward in the wildly gyrating aircraft.

She saw that Ron, Lorenzo, and Justin were beating the hell out of the female hijacker Stacy against the bulkhead leading to the cockpit. Ron took the bottle in his left hand and delivered a smashing blow to Stacy’s head that left it a gory mess and drenched his Hawaiian shirt with blood and olive oil. Mark had somehow managed to open the cockpit door–whose latching mechanism was damaged in the initial attack–and clawed his way inside, despite the intense G-forces. Manny soon followed, crashing into electronic equipment that made his left ear a bloody mess.

Vera herself slammed into the first class bulkhead, cracking a couple of ribs–which she wouldn’t notice until afterwards–then managed to fall through the cockpit door, cutting her right arm in the process. The fourth terrorist, Mick, a stout, unshaven guy with greasy brown hair who was wearing a black long-sleeved shirt, was engaged in a mortal struggle with Mark and Manny against the windshield on the co-pilot’s side. Mark was still fighting like a demon despite the streak of blood across his chest and was delivering hammer blows to Mick’s head. Manny drove the jagged edge of his smashed laptop into Mick’s torso several times.

The noise of the struggling combatants was augmented by the screams of the passengers in the rear of the plane. The noise and wild spinning of the airplane had a strong disorienting effect, but Vera had tenaciously kept her wits. She was sliding on the ceiling of the cockpit towards the front windshield when she reached up and grabbed the yoke.

Vera had instinctively pulled back hard on the yoke without conscious thought. As she did, she looked out the window at a horrific sight that electrified her: not only was the airplane in an inverted dive, but the ground was much closer than she had estimated. The plane started to tuck under, but she could see that it would smash into a field before it had righted itself. She realized that death was near and a profound calmness spread over her. She quickly lost consciousness and was limp when her body tumbled over.

*****

Then something strange and mystic happened to Vera. Only it didn’t seem mystical at all because it was so palpably real at the time. The first thing she noticed was that the color drained from her vision, and the cockpit, which was in shades of gray, receded from her. Then she heard a whirring noise that was decreasing in pitch. She intuitively knew that it was speed governor of the Universe decelerating. At that moment she had the insight that the sound was always there, running inaudibly in the background, and only now was she conscious of it. Then the governor ran down completely and Time itself came to a complete stop.

She had been on what had seemed to be and endless journey when she suddenly found herself on the outskirts of a nameless city. In front of her was a colossal machine with millions of valves, levers, and controls. It was manned by shadowy, bald-headed monks in brown robes whose faces were indistinct. A large sign on the machine, written in a bizarre font, identified it as the Universal Causality Entrainment Device.

Vera had the insight that she was a supplicant of some sort, and that the machine was the destination of her journey. She pleaded her case to one of the monks nearest her, a monk whose face she couldn’t see, to save her from annihilation. She couldn’t recall what the actual threat was, but she knew that she was in a dire situation. Without showing his face, the monk turned a wheel, and announced in a hollow voice, “The deed is done and the web of causation has been altered. You and the others shall avoid destruction by twenty-eight point three-five meters.”

Somehow it all made perfect sense in a way her rational mind couldn’t perceive. She couldn’t tell if her sojourn had taken an infinitesimal moment or vast eons of time to occur. The next thing Vera was aware of was the sound of the speed governor of the Universe revving up again. Her dream vision faded rapidly from her conscious mind, and she would soon return to waking Reality.

*****

Vera was conscious again. It took her a moment to fully realize where she was, but the screaming in the cockpit had snapped her back to full awareness. She realized she must have blacked out momentarily, and was puzzled that the aircraft had somehow avoided smashing into the Pennsylvania countryside. Then she heard over the noise of the struggle an electronic “whoop whoop” followed by a mechanical voice saying, “STALL ANGLE.”

She pulled herself off the floor, grabbed the yoke while standing behind the pilot’s seat, and pushed hard forward on it. Suddenly a burning sensation struck her right cheek, snapping her head to the left and knocking her dizzy. The hijacker Mick, in his dying throes, had made one final kick into the face of the fat lady passenger with the red hair and purple skirt who was trying to wrest control of the airplane from him.

It took Vera a moment to clear her head, then she grabbed the yoke again with hell-bent determination. Nobody was going to tear her away from the controls now. She saw that the plane had gone into another dive, but she pulled up in time, and had missed the ground by a comfortable thousand feet or so. She found herself screaming, “KILL THE BASTARD ALREADY!”

However, it wasn’t necessary; Mark, Manny and Leo were on top of Mick who was stabbed repeatedly. Mick thrashed around for a few seconds, then expired. The screaming stopped immediately in the cockpit and faded away quickly throughout the aircraft. It was soon apparent that the passenger revolt had succeeded.

Back in the rear of the airplane, things were in disarray. Blood was spattered all over the interior walls and seats, and carry-on luggage, magazines, pillows, and other debris was scattered about. There were several dead hijackers, one dead passenger, three dead crew, and two seriously injured passengers to deal with. When the plane bottomed out, most of the seated passengers had lost control of their bowels and bladders or had vomited from the fright. Several had also passed out, and it appeared that a couple others had received minor injuries. The stench was almost overpowering, so more than a few were fighting off nausea as the aircraft regained equilibrium.

Vera had now moved into the pilot’s seat. She showed a boldness she never knew was in her, and didn’t think twice about grabbing the throttle and pushing it forward. As the power surged through the airplane, she felt herself tingling with an unexpected thrill. She had the airplane under control now and put it into a moderate climb.

By the time the passengers had regained control of Flight 64, two F-14 Tomcats from Wright-Patterson had scrambled and closed in to the commercial jet. The pilots had been trying to establish radio contact on all frequencies to no avail. Their orders were to follow the aircraft for as long as possible, and to shoot it down in the event it went over a populated area or restricted airspace.

After much panicked fumbling with what appeared to be the radio, Manny had turned it on and yelled into the headset, “Mayday! SOS! Is anybody out there listening? You gotta help us! Mayday!”

“This is Colonel Ullman of the United States Air Force. Identify yourself immediately,” came a voice from the headset.

“Oh, mi Dios, you gotta help us! We’re passengers and we’ve just taken the airplane back from some hijackers! The flight crew is dead and we don’t have any licensed pilots on board!” Col. Ullman felt his blood run cold.

“I am outside your port–left–window. Myself and Lieutenant Colonel Murphy will be escorting you so I want you to remain calm. Who’s in control of the aircraft right now? I want them to wear the headset if at all possible.”

Upon Colonel Ullman’s orders, Manny had put the headset on Vera, brushing aside her bobbed hair. The colonel had told her where the transponder was and instructed her to turn it on. A few minutes later, the voice of Cynthia Robinson of the Bowling Green Air Traffic Control Center came on the radio informing Vera that they had established contact with Flight 64 and that it was just passing over the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.

Meanwhile, in the coach section, the passengers discovered that the large hijacker, Ken, was inexplicably still alive, despite his stomping. He was a bloody mess and was face down upon the floor near the front bulkhead. Samuel’s body was nearby, his bloodied head tilted at an unnatural angle. The passengers had continued beating on Ken sporadically until Mark raised his voice.

“Dammit, people, we need to take at least one of these bastards alive! The FBI’s going to want to question this scumbag, so we gotta keep him alive--stop kicking him or I’ll kick you!”

A voice yelled from the back, “Why the hell bother! We got no pilot to land this plane, so we’re all screwed anyways! Let’s hurt this bastard while we still can!”

It took all of Mark’s leadership skills to calm down the other passengers, but he finally convinced them that they had a pretty good shot at getting out of this alive. The Good Guys were in control of the airplane, they had the entire U.S. Air Force helping them, and the lady controlling the airplane knew what she was doing, he explained. So, the passengers stopped beating on Ken, hog-tied him with neckties and belts, and shoved a sock in his mouth.

Rodney Fox, Director of the Des Moines Air Traffic Control Center, was now in voice contact with the stricken airplane. He had worked in the airline industry as a pilot and trainer, and had logged almost a thousand hours on the new Airbus 328s before being hired by the FAA. He was giving Vera a literal crash course in how to safely land a commercial jet–or at least get it on the ground in as few pieces as possible. His student had only rudimentary knowledge of the controls of an airplane, but she seemed like a fast learner. Maybe they did have a chance after all. The officials at both Air Traffic Control Centers had figured that it was very unlikely that the airplane would land intact, but careful planning would minimize further fatalities.

As the airplane flew over Ohio, Indiana, and the southern tip of Lake Michigan, Vera practiced turns, banking, and pitching the aircraft. After the pass-off to the F-15s, the airplane headed north towards Sheboygan. While en route, Director Fox had informed Vera how to operate the flaps, slats, and landing gear. The Twin Cities ATCC was notified that control would soon be passing to them, but that Mr. Fox would continue to be in radio contact until just before the landing attempt. Then Rod instructed her to make an announcement on the public address system.

“This is your unofficial Captain, Vera Ogilvie, speaking. We will be lining up for the final approach in a few minutes. I’ve been informed to ask you to please finish making your final cell phone calls immediately. We need to be as free from radio interference as possible when we make our landing. As soon as we steer the plane towards the Twin Cities, we will be slowing down the plane and dropping the landing gear. This is normal procedure and I ask you to please remain calm. Thank you.”

Then, per orders, she steered the Airbus westward at a heading of 290 so that it was aimed towards Runway 4 at Lindbergh. She dropped the landing gear as instructed and increased the pitch of the nose. After the chase planes had verified that the landing gear was fully extended, she was instructed to increase throttle. Flight 64 climbed to 40,000 feet, and then held that altitude. The Airbus soon appeared on the screens at the Twin Cities ATCC.

Then Director Fox asked her a question. “Vera, are you familiar with the term ‘dead-stick landing’?”

Vera turned pale. “Omigod! Do we have to do that?”

“I’m afraid so. We not only have to minimize casualties in the air, but we have to take into account anybody living along the flight path. The jettison procedure for your aircraft is a bit complicated, so you’ll have to listen carefully.” Rod carefully explained the procedure to Vera, then asked her to make a final announcement on the PA system.

“This is your unofficial Captain, Vera Ogilvie, again. The landing gear is fully deployed and we hope to attempt a landing in the Twin Cities in fifteen minutes. Please turn off all cell phones and other electronic equipment immediately. The FAA has authorized all of you to confiscate any electronic device from anybody not complying with this request. We have been instructed to make what is known as a,” she paused, “dead-stick landing. So, if you feel hear the engine sound grow silent,” she paused again, “please remain calm as we are undergoing a routine emergency procedure that’s been done thousands of times.”

Despite her euphemistic speech, many of the passengers gasped when they realized what was about to happen. Vera continued, trying to remain as cheerful as possible, “With any luck, we’ll soon be on the ground–alive–and our biggest worry will be dealing with this crappy airline food.” The passengers laughed hysterically, desperately needing something to break the tension. She continued with forced cheefulness, “See you all on the ground!”

Mark had loudly explained that if he caught anybody using a cell phone, there would be hell to pay, so there was complete compliance with the FAA’s request. He seemed unfazed at the streak of crusted blood across his chest and was still the unofficial leader. The non-injured passengers were all strapped into their seats and many of them sat rigidly with their hands firmly grabbing the arms of their chairs. Others were praying quietly, while a few were openly sobbing.

The hijacker Ken was still hog-tied, and was up against the bulkhead in the coach section. The bodies of the three dead hijackers, the flight crew, the blonde attendant, and Mr. Raabe were laid out in first class. Two of the combatants, Ron and Leo, who received stab wounds during the struggle, were laid sideways across seats in the front of the coach section as were two other passengers who were severely injured during the takeover.

Justin Mailand was attending to the injured as best he could and had improvised tourniquets out of neckties and shoelaces. His YMCA training had proven very useful. Manny was also injured, and his white cotton shirt and blue sport jacket were soaked with blood, but he was still sitting in the co-pilot’s seat. Mark seemed almost oblivious to the large gash across his chest, and was still in control.

Vera had entered the authorization code into the flight computer for jettison. Soon she and the passengers felt a mild vibration as the fuel escaped. After the buffeting stopped and the engines went silent, she told Director Fox, with much effort, that the jettison procedure was done. The praying and sobbing in the coach compartment had become much more subdued and a horrible silence overtook them. Vera noticed a certain warmth and realized that she had wet herself.

On the ground, emergency measures were hastily put into place. Portions of the cities of Eagan, Mendota, and Mendota Heights along the flight path were evacuated, and roadblocks were put on Highway 5, closing it off between 494 and the Mendota Bridge. Nearly one hundred rescue vehicles and fire-fighting rigs were lined up near Runway 4, but kept at a safe distance. Four of the local television stations had cameras at the airport already, and more media was on the way.

The Airbus was now being guided by the F-15 Eagle chase planes. The pilots were helping to correct the pitch and heading of Flight 64 until they were close to the airport. As the airplane was starting to go over Gun Club Lake, the Eagles parted from the aircraft so that their trailing vortices wouldn’t interfere with the landing. The last thing Vera heard was Captain Wojcik in the starboard chase plane who said, “Godspeed, Flight 64.”

It was the moment of truth. Vera was desperate to get this nightmare over with and was stubbornly determined to get the damned plane on the ground no matter what. She made one last heading correction, straightened out the roll angle, pitched the nose up a bit, and aimed for the end of Runway 4. The passengers were subdued; some were sobbing quietly, others were praying, but most were balled up in fetal crash positions or grasping their armrests in a death grip.

NC 52845 first made contact with the tarmac about 75 yards past the start of the runway. The first impact was hard, violently jarring the passengers, and three of the landing-gear tires exploded. Vera screamed a torrent of obscenities as she struggled violently to get the plane on the ground. After the first impact, the plane bounced about 10 yards off the tarmac, and rolled slightly to port. Vera corrected, and the plane came down again at about 600 yards downrange, the second impact causing another tire to explode. Many of the passengers started screaming.

Finally, at about 950 yards and the third impact, the plane’s rear landing gear finally stayed in contact with the ground. Then Vera pitched the nose downward. The front landing gear bounced another three times, and then the entire plane was finally down. Vera had difficulty getting the brakes to work right because of the loss of hydraulic fluid, so the plane fish-tailed down the runway in a slow deceleration, finally resting about 40 yards from west end of Runway 4. Vera shouted into her microphone, “WE ARE GODDAM LANDED! WHOO, HOO!” and struck the yoke hard enough to break off several fingernails.

Vera sat dazed for a second, then Manny grabbed her in a hug, kissed her on the cheek and yelled, “YOU DID IT! ¡BENDÍGATE, VERA!”

There was a moment of silence, then the passenger compartment erupted in wild cheering and clapping. Several of the passengers rushed forward into the cockpit and Mark threw his arms under Vera’s shoulders and lifted her bodily out of her seat. They grabbed and hugged each other despite being spattered in blood. Some of the passengers opened the emergency exits and were fumbling with the escape slides. Vera was carried by Mark and others to the first class slide, and many of the passengers were grabbing at her and shouting thanks.

Emergency vehicles began converging on the far end of the runway. The front gear had partially collapsed soon after stopping, so the plane was tilted forward a bit. Smoke was coming out of both of the rear landing gear units, and flames from burning hydraulic fluid were spotted on the port side. The fires were quickly extinguished by firefighters at about the same time that the escape slides had fully extended themselves.

Several camera crews had approached the airplane, and at least two had gotten shots of Vera exiting the plane. Vera slid down the slide in a daze and when she tried to stand up at the end, she stumbled as her knees buckled under her. Immediately, several hands grabbed her and hoisted her above their heads. She was carried several hundred yards into the Gold Concourse where she was cheered on by hundreds of onlookers.

By that time, all of the passengers who weren’t too injured had been evacuated, and emergency crews were starting to board the plane to remove the injured and dead. The blood-splattered walls, dead bodies, and overpowering stench were hard to stomach, even by veteran EMTs who were forced to wear respirators. Later, the accounts of the rescue crew’s boarding would lead to the slang term “to sixty-four” as an expression for losing control over one’s bodily functions.

Vera was examined by airport doctors. She had a couple of cracked ribs that would require further medical attention, but other than that, had received only minor lacerations that were bandaged. After that, she placed a call to her father in Lancaster, California, and sobbed like a little girl as the genial history professor reassured her that everything was now all right. She regained her composure after that, and gave an impromptu press appearance in the airport in which she received a ten-minute standing ovation.

Terrence Voss, a deer hunter who had witnessed the dive of Flight 64 from his stand, and the Swensons, a couple who were making an amateur video several miles away, were the two eyewitnesses that were of the most help to the NTSB’s investigation. The hijacker Ken was ignobly hustled off on a gurney to the Hennepin County Medical Center under heavy guard. Three of the passengers were treated for minor injuries, and two passengers who received broken bones during the attack were released from the hospital within a week.

It was another three days before Vera finally got home to her apartment in San Francisco. There were national television crews there to film her. In the lobby of the building, as well as the hallway leading to her own apartment, the walls were festooned with thousands of home-made tributes and banners. It would be publicly revealed that Mr. Nathan Raabe, dying of leukemia, had volunteered to serve as a human shield during the attack, and posthumously became a national hero. The others involved in the attack–Mark Billings, Manuel Zepeda, Ronald Chaffen, Leon McCready, Justin Mailand, and Lorenzo Solvetti–were soon household names across America and around the world.

The FBI quickly descended upon the Lords of Chaos, a doomsday cult out of northern Florida, and arrested over 120 members. Soon after, investigators would fully uncover their plot to crash Flight 64 into the Washington Mall. With a rally going on at the time, the potential death toll would be in the thousands. The surviving hijacker, Ken, would ultimately meet his demise in the electric chair in a federal penitentiary, and the cult itself quickly disintegrated.

Vera and the seven others who were in the attack were awarded both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the FAA’s Valor Medal, with Myra Raabe receiving the medals posthumously awarded to her husband Nathan. Vera appeared on Oprah and Rosie as a role model for full-figured women everywhere, and worked the usual talk show and Women’s Empowerment circuit for years afterwards. Within three months, the book Go Down Swinging: The True Saga of Flight 64 would be published, followed by the movie version a year later.

One of the lasting effects of the Flight 64 incident was a great increase in air travel safety after that. Airport security personnel went from being minimum-wage employees to highly-trained, salaried professionals. The FAA was more diligent in running background checks on students at flight schools. There were arrests of hijacker cells that were planning future attacks on American airplanes, including one with twenty conspirators that was planning to crash four airplanes into targets in Washington D.C. and Manhattan. However, they were little publicized, drowned out by rancorous debate over more pressing issues like Monicagate, hanging chads, and Pamela Lee’s video.

Epilogue

It was the Third Annual Reunion of Flight 64 Survivors, held on November 2nd, 2003, exactly three years after the hijacking. The gathering took place in one of the poshest restaurants in New York City, and the 42 survivors with their families were present. There was the usual speechification and toasts to the heroes involved, along with much hugging and crying. Vera, escorted by her fiancé Lorenzo, received a standing ovation after her ten-minute speech which caused her to dab repeatedly at her eyes with a silk handkerchief. Then there was a memorial to Nathan Raabe, followed by tributes to the other six attackers.

Afterwards, when things had wound down a bit, Vera was comfortably intoxicated and was having a heart-to-heart discussion with Manny about the Meaning of Life, Ultimate Reality, and other deeply metaphysical topics. Vera had asked how a benevolent universe could allow a horrible thing like the Flight 64 hijacking to occur. Manny had suggested that maybe, in ways they couldn’t imagine, their hijacking was part of some greater plan to prevent something worse from happening.

Vera smiled gently towards Manny and nodded in agreement. She leaned back in her chair and, from her position on the edge of the Windows on the World restaurant on the 107th floor of the North Tower, she gazed out at the South Tower and the misty Atlantic beyond Battery Park, and pondered that he might be right after all.

The End

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