“Okay,” Quinn said. “But I’m coming with you.”
Mattie stuck out her hand like she was going to push him back in his seat. “No!” she said. “You scared her last time. Just let me give her the card and I’ll come right back.”
Quinn sighed, anxiety over his little girl’s safety wrestling with the fact that he just might be a little overprotective.
“She’ll be fine,” Carly mouthed so Mattie couldn’t see her.
“All right,” Quinn said. “But don’t stay too—”
Mattie was up and gone before he could finish his sentence.
“She’s precious,” Carly said, gazing toward the front of the aircraft.
“Thanks.” Quinn nodded. “You have kids?”
“My husband and I are trying,” she said. “But with his schedule and mine, it’s hard to get together long enough to…” She blushed and her voice trailed off. “Sorry, definitely TMI. Can I get you anything?”
“I’m fine,” Quinn said, eyes boring holes in the curtain where his daughter had just disappeared. Mattie was right. There was very little to fear on board a commercial aircraft, but that didn’t matter. Quinn was what he was, and that wasn’t likely to change. He felt sorry for her dates when she got to be a teenager. Lucky for them, he probably wouldn’t live that long.
Chapter 45
The others met Tang at the forward lavatories on the upper deck as soon as they were free to move around. Each carried two spare camcorder batteries in their pockets. Seen as normal Ni-Cad batteries under X-ray examination, they were able to power a camcorder for a short time if TSA had asked to turn the thing on. The bulk of their interiors was dedicated to the storage.
Apart from the detonator, which was still in Lin’s possession, the device would be comprised of two ingredients. When mixed together and stuffed into Ma Zhen’s ingeniously shaped carrier, these ingredients would become exponentially greater in power than the sum of their parts.
The men disappeared one by one into the lavatories, carrying out a surreal ballet as they retrieved their portion of the bomb components, and then passed it over to Ma. Each face had the silent resolve Tang had seen in the countenance of Tibetan monks who had set themselves on fire to protest Chinese policies. They knew what they were doing and were determined to do it right. Even Gao, the piggish tough, who’d become the de facto security man for the group, had a sweet earnestness about him as he stepped into the lavatory for his turn in the process.
The stress of waiting wore heavily on everyone. Hu’s hands shook, Gao’s eye twitched, and Ma snapped angrily at the slightest question or suggestion. Tang had to force himself to calm after the panic brought on by Lin’s recent bouts of faux happiness. This was no time to lose focus.
The device was relatively small, capable of bringing down the plane only if placed in the correct location. If it went off early, while it was being assembled, Tang and the other ran the risk of doing little damage but to themselves. If they lived through the explosion, they would be badly maimed prisoners of the United States government for the rest of their miserable lives — if they weren’t beaten to death first by angry passengers.
Hu, Ma Zhen, and Tang carried the primary explosive, a compound known as PETN. Experts sometimes pronounced it “petin.” It was an acronym for pentaerythritol tetranitrate, in the same chemical family as nitroglycerin. An ingredient of the commercial plastic explosive Semtex, PETN had been around since before World War I. It was more stable than some of its sister compounds and its quality of giving off a very low vapor trail made it a favorite for terrorists to try to tuck into all sorts of interesting places like Richard Reid’s shoe or Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s underwear.
Gao’s batteries carried the second component, the powdered metal that would add heat to the PETN’s explosive power. Altogether there was a scant twelve ounces of material — just enough to fill a soda can. According to Ma Zhen, twelve ounces would be plenty.
Ma had chosen PETN for its shattering force — known as brisance. And unlike the Shoe or Underwear bombers, who had tried to use conventional fuses or liquid igniters, Ma had designed an actual electric shock detonator, utilizing the flash attachment from a large DSLR camera.
Once assembled, the device would be marginally larger than the shoe bomb Reid had tried to use on the Paris to Boston flight. In theory, the pressure differential outside the aircraft would help rip a hole in the fuselage — but the man from Pakistan did not want to depend on theory. Ma Zhen had added another component to his device that would double its effective power — something they wouldn’t have to smuggle because they could easily get what they needed once on board the plane: water.
Once it was well mixed, Ma would pour the PETN and powdered metal into a flat, plastic case that resembled a mini tablet computer. This slightly malleable explosive tile would be nested between two plastic hip-pocket water flasks, one concave and one flat, each roughly the same dimensions as the tablet.
The resulting shape charge would turn the water in the concave flask into a liquid blade, slicing like butter through the thin metal fuselage of the Airbus. Pressure differential would do the rest, sucking loose objects and people out the gaping hole. Tang wanted his wife sitting as close as possible to the initial explosion, mercifully sparing her from the long minutes of terror and panic as the plane fell from the sky.
Eyes closed, with her seat almost fully reclined, Lin heard a rustling beside her. She thought Tang had returned and ignored the sound until she heard a different voice, higher and more tentative. For a fleeting moment she thought it was her daughter, Mei Li. Her heart swelled, but when she turned, it was the little girl with blue eyes from the airport.
“Mattie, right?” Lin pushed the button on her armrest so her seat slid upright.
The child nodded, smiling wide enough to show her missing front tooth. Her face glowed because Lin had remembered her name.
“You should not be here.” Lin craned her head to look up the aisle, terrified of what her husband would do if he came back to find her speaking with this little one. “Where is your father?”
“Reading a motorcycle magazine and worrying about me,” Mattie said, still grinning. “I made you something to cheer you up.” She handed her a piece of carefully folded notebook paper.
Lin opened it up to find the symbol Shuāngxĭ — double happiness — drawn in Mattie’s youthful hand and colored with a red marker. She held it to her chest.
“This is…” The words stuck in her throat. She swallowed back a sob. “This… is much… too kind.”
Lin started to say more, but the little girl leaned across her armrest and wrapped both arms around her neck. She held on the way Mei Li had once done.
“I hope you can be happy,” Mattie said, her face pressed against Lin’s neck.
The plane gave a sudden shudder. Lin clutched at the girl to keep her upright. For a moment, she feared her husband had detonated the bomb in another part of the plane. When she realized they’d only hit more turbulence, her heart sank even more. Tang would soon return with the device. If she did not detonate it as planned, he would only do it himself. This little angel reminded her so much of Mei Li. It was unthinkable to kill her.
The plane gave another violent lurch. An overhead bin fell open, dumping a leather briefcase into the aisle. The seat belt chime rang, seeming even more urgent amid the commotion.
“My dad will be worried about me,” Mattie said. She didn’t seem afraid, only aware of her father’s concern. “I should go back to my seat now, but I’ll come see you again.”