Even if the digital-camera hack worked perfectly and he was able to find the killer splattered in blood, an accomplice could be seated nearby watching and waiting, unidentifiable until he started killing people. A little girl made for a ripe hostage. The killer might have a weapon. He’d certainly had one earlier and used it to great effect on the stairs. The entire plane was a lit fuse, with all the passengers on edge and unpredictable.
Grabbing someone in the tight quarters of an airplane added an enhanced level of danger. Movements were subtle in close-quarters battle and often could not be seen with the natural eye. They had to be felt. When it came to joining a fight, Quinn very literally went with the flow. There was no way of knowing what he’d have to do to win the fight and the thought of his little girl seeing that side of him again chilled him to the core.
“Got it,” Carly said, bringing Quinn out of his thoughts when she and Natalie returned to the rear of the plane. She handed him the cane and three white plastic restraints airlines used on unruly passengers.
He passed the cane to Mattie while he fed one end through the other on each of the thick plastic cuffs so they formed large loops that he’d be able to zip tight quickly around a prisoner’s wrists. He tucked the “loaded” restraints into his waistband.
Taking the cane back from Mattie, he held it in both hands and flexed it against his knee, testing it for strength. A simple wooden design with a shepherd’s crook, it seemed plenty strong for his intentions. He removed the rubber grip on the bottom and picked up the digital camera.
He turned to Carly. “Do you still have that capacitor?”
“I do.” She took it out of her pocket and passed it to him quickly, happy to get rid of it.
Quinn held it out toward Natalie on his open palm. “I’d appreciate it if you’d look after my little girl for a few minutes. Anyone gets near her, scream your head off and jab them with the wax end of this. The wires will push through and give them a good shock. I’ll be here before they’re back on their feet.”
Natalie took the improvised stun gun. Her eyes narrowed. Her lips pursed. “I’m a grandmother, Mr. Hackman. If anything happens to your daughter, it’ll be because I’m already dead.”
“Thank you,” Quinn said, a measure calmer knowing that he was leaving Mattie with an honest human being. She’d made the only promise she was capable of keeping — not that she’d absolutely be able to keep Mattie safe, but that she would die trying.
The economy-class beverage carts were stored in the aft section of the second level, so Quinn decided they should start there. Carly pushed the cart ahead, moving up the right aisle as if to start the service in front. This drew the passengers’ attention forward while giving Quinn a reason to move slowly, scanning as he walked. He held the improvised IR camera in his left hand, dragging his leg to feign a need for the cane, which he carried in his right.
Global had advertised this new seasonal flight from Anchorage to Moscow for months, so there were few vacant seats in any of the cabins. In another time, under less bloody circumstances, Quinn would have enjoyed the cosmopolitan makeup of the flight. Japanese, Korean, and Chinese made up a good portion of the passengers. Many of them would get off in Vladivostok to catch flights to their various countries that were just short hops away. There were Siberian Yupiks, cousins of the Eskimos of western Alaska; dark-faced Turkic peoples from central Asia; and of course, Americans visiting Russia and Russians returning home.
Quinn scanned with the camera as he walked, looking for evidence of the murder, but not allowing himself to get stuck on any particular stereotype of race or ethnicity. He could be looking at a Middle Eastern man reading a copy of the Economist in the seat to his left, while someone like the blue-eyed brunette to his right stabbed him in the neck with her pen. He’d earned several scars before he’d figured out that though there were certain indicators, all threats didn’t present an evil image.
Danger did, however, have a feel — an aura that could be felt low in the gut. To the Chinese it was zhijue — straight sense. The Japanese called it haragei or the art of the belly. Quinn felt it before he’d reached mid cabin. He slowed his breathing, which, in turn, did the same to his heart rate. He popped his neck from side to side.
Even on a wide-body aircraft like the A380, economy seats were cramped. Elbows and arms spilled into the aisle, forcing Carly to plod along behind her cart, warning passengers to pull in their appendages as she went. Many of the passengers eyed Quinn as he limped by. An Eskimo man in the collar, beard, and long black robes of a Russian Orthodox priest gave him a quiet smile from his window seat. An attractive redhead to his left turned at his approach, eyeing him warily as if she didn’t believe he needed the cane. If Quinn had had a sister, he was fairly certain she would have the same look in her eye. The redhead wore jeans and a sleeveless, blue wrap-around kimono top that exposed her well-muscled shoulders. The deep color of the blouse showed almost white in the camera viewfinder and was absent of any blood. Quinn continued to scan, feeling the woman stare at him as he passed.
A stocky man in the aisle seat on the right side of the plane stretched his arms just as Carly passed with her cart. Quinn could only see a portion of his head and one shoulder, but he had closely buzzed black hair and Asian features. Thick arms filled out the black leather sleeves of a designer jacket. White in the IR camera, the left shoulder was spotted with a spray of dark spots.
Moving forward, Quinn abandoned the limp and shoved the camera in the pocket of his jeans. He studied the passengers seated around the man in the leather jacket. An older woman sat in the window seat on the same row. Members of a girls’ college volleyball team with matching jerseys took up the two rows behind him and most of the seats in the center rows to his left.
When he reached the row directly behind his target, Quinn saw the faint hint of a blood smear on the side of the man’s neck — where he would have cradled Foulger’s head while he cut his throat.
Carly was three rows ahead with the beverage cart, nearly to the center galley and bank of lavatories that divided the aft economy and mid-cabin business class. Though he’d warned her about it, Carly’s curiosity got the better of her and she looked over her shoulder to check on Quinn’s progress. Backward looks were contagious, and every passenger who happened to be watching — including the Asian man in the blood-spattered jacket — turned in their seats. What they saw was Quinn, holding the wooden cane like a club.
Quinn jumped forward, shoving the smooth crook of the cane between the man’s forearm and seat back as he came up alongside. By lowering his center and pushing the cane upward, Quinn was able to graft the polished wood up past the man’s elbow and against the armpit so it stuck toward the ceiling behind his neck. Using the stick as a lever and the armpit as a fulcrum, Quinn slapped the crook end forward with his right hand while he hauled back on the base, torqueing the killer’s head down and sideways, slamming it against the back of the armrest on the seat in front of him with a dull thud. Quinn kept the man tied up as he rebounded off the seat, torqueing the man again as soon as he had room. He pulled up hard on the end of the cane, wanting to end the fight quickly, inflicting maximum damage to the shoulder that would tenderize the killer, but leave him well enough to question. Tied up with the cane and Quinn’s arcing movement, the man was twisted out of his seat and onto the floor so his shoulders and chest were in the aisle and his legs trailed behind him, trapped between the seat rows.