Erik shuffled lower in his seat, hoping that the passengers weren’t following the conversation, that he wasn’t attracting too much attention.
‘He’s fucking crazy, Dad. He seems disorientated; he started babbling about Washington as our destination instead of New York.’
Alex raised his voice.
‘Washington? For fuck’s sake, Erik, did you say Washington?’
Erik had heard that level of fear in his father’s voice only once before. When his mother was entering the final phase of her illness, and a courageous doctor delivered the news to Alex, Erik and his sister.
‘We’ve done all we can,’ the doctor had said. ‘We’ve tried everything possible, but that’s it. We’re not getting anywhere. Lena isn’t going to get better; she probably won’t make it to Christmas.’
There was nothing Erik hated remembering more about his mother’s illness and death than that dreadful day. And his father’s voice haunted him night after night, long after it was all over, long after the funeral.
‘I refuse to accept this. You can’t just stand there and tell me she’s going to die and I’ll be left alone. Do something. Anything. Do something!’
But the doctor had merely shaken his head and Alex had yelled and yelled and Erik’s sister had cried and cried and in the end everything was so fucking unbearable that Erik had just wanted the ground to swallow them up so that they could all die together.
That was several years ago, and this time Alex didn’t need any help in order to pull himself together.
‘Erik, I’ll be brief,’ he said. ‘We’ve come to the same conclusion as you. I can’t tell you exactly how we got there; that wouldn’t alter your situation. The fact that you’ve mentioned Washington is an ominous sign. We’re extremely worried about Karim’s involvement and what he might do. Has he said anything about the bomb that’s supposed to be on board?’
Erik really wanted to hear more about the Washington angle, but there was no time for questions.
‘Several times. He seems to be completely convinced that there’s a bomb in the hold, but I find that very strange. It’s virtually impossible, given the security measures that apply to transatlantic flights, and Karim knows that as well as I do. And yet he still refuses to go against the hijackers’ instructions.’
‘We have reason to believe that Karim is not going to change his mind on that point,’ Alex said. ‘We think he’s going to do exactly what the note told him to do.’ Alex fell silent, then went on: ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’
He didn’t need to say any more. Alex and his colleagues knew things that Erik could only guess at, but the key point was that they had reached the same conclusion: Karim was a danger to himself and his passengers.
‘I don’t believe there is a bomb,’ Erik heard himself saying. ‘I think we could land the plane.’
‘But Karim’s not going to do that,’ Alex said. ‘You do understand that, don’t you?’
Erik understood everything and nothing. Almost.
‘What’s the problem with Washington?’
The line crackled and Erik straightened up.
‘Dad?’
‘I’m here, Erik. We don’t have time to go into that right now.’
‘But…’
‘We don’t have time,’ Alex repeated. ‘You have to take over the plane. Right away. Do you hear me?’
‘I hear you. And that’s exactly what I was intending to do.’
‘Karim’s bigger than you.’
‘I’ll sort it, no problem.’
‘Don’t hesitate, just do what you have to do. And remember, you’ll only get one chance.’
Erik nodded without speaking.
‘Can you land the plane?’
‘Of course. That’s why I’m on board, after all.’
Erik thought his father was smiling.
‘I know, I just wanted to hear you say it.’
Then their time was up. Erik had to go back to the cockpit. Overpower Karim and take control of the plane.
I’ll hit the bastard over the head with a bottle of wine.
‘I’ll speak to you soon,’ he said.
‘Good,’ Alex replied.
Erik put down the phone. If this was their last conversation ever, they would both regret the abrupt ending.
Erik left his seat; he went back to Lydia in the bar and asked her for a bottle of wine in a plastic bag. She looked somewhat taken aback, but didn’t ask any questions. Erik strode up the stairs to the upper floor and the cockpit.
When he reached the door, he waited for a moment before pressing the button to request admission. This was it.
Time to put an end to the nightmare.
49 WASHINGTON, DC, 13:55
The plane would be shot down and history would be made. Bruce Johnson wasn’t surprised when the news reached him from the CIA. Karim Sassi couldn’t be persuaded – he was not prepared to move away from the US border, and he had no intention of landing anywhere other than the United States.
What the hell was wrong with the guy?
It wasn’t that Bruce lacked ideals. There were many things he held sacred; the love he felt for his family and his country were two examples. God help anyone who came near those he held dear with the intention of harming them. The very thought made him shudder. There was no weapon on this earth he wouldn’t use against the enemy who threatened those he loved.
But this. The way Karim and others like him behaved. Taking innocent people hostage, or sacrificing them in acts of violence in an attempt to change the politics or core values of another country. Killing people they had never even met, people they couldn’t possibly have a grudge against. He just didn’t understand it. And he really had tried hard, for a long time.
When Bruce was a child, his father had taught him that you should always try to meet the other person halfway if you had a problem.
‘It’s never one person’s fault if two people are quarrelling,’ he had said.
That expression had become one of the tenets that had shaped Bruce as a man and a person. His mother, a devoted churchgoer, had added the lesson of turning the other cheek. At university Bruce had written essays criticising the Americans’ unilateral attitude to the rest of the world, and the USA’s inability to co-ordinate its foreign policy with anyone else’s. Back then he had thought the USA shouldn’t attempt to police the world, either on its own initiative or that of others. Instead, the USA should turn to the United Nations and seek broader international support for its policies. It was important to understand the value of establishing a firm basis for one’s actions, Bruce had argued. Otherwise there was a risk that policies could become counter-productive, endangering US security instead of strengthening it.
On 10 September 2001, Bruce celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday with his family and his girlfriend. They had dinner at Bruce’s favourite pizzeria, then went bowling. The next morning, he went out for a run. It was eight thirty when he set off for the university, where he was in the first year of his doctorate.
It was a day that changed him forever.
The planes that crashed straight into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon destroyed so much of everything he had believed in that he was no longer the same person when he went to bed that night. The following year he had left university and got a post with the FBI. He was no longer able to motivate himself to write meaningless assignments on US security policy. He wanted to make a difference, for himself and for others.
‘Why don’t you join the army?’ his grandfather had said.
Bruce hadn’t wasted any time thinking about that suggestion. He wasn’t the kind of man who took up arms.
And that, it turned out, was one of the major differences between him and many of his friends and colleagues. Bruce wasn’t the only one who had changed after 9/11. Loud voices screamed for revenge.