He walked back to the front of the aircraft. He had circled around it several times but hadn’t registered what it meant: a set of stairs leading upward to the second deck of the aircraft. He wasn’t on just any aircraft, but an Airbus A380, a behemoth of a jet whose upper deck was dedicated almost exclusively to first-class and luxury-class seats.
He hesitated. What could he possibly expect to find on the upper deck? The access to the cockpit was on this level.
The pilots and crew needed to rest somewhere, didn’t they? They couldn’t be expected to work the full flight without a break.
He remembered hearing once…somewhere…something about a small, secret compartment close to the cockpit where pilots and crew could stretch out and take a nap.
The door was tucked behind the cupboards where the drinks were kept, and it was locked. Cabin Crew Only, said the official label, along with a laminated sign taped to the door that said, This is not a passenger toilet!
He tried the flight attendant’s keys on the lock. One of them worked.
A steep set of steps, almost a ladder, led downward. Goddard descended them carefully. Two bunks were tucked to one side, along with an emergency phone to the cockpit. A small toilet, a storage cabinet, and a refrigerator completed the hideaway. He had to squeeze to fit inside the narrow spaces and duck constantly to keep from hitting his head.
Goddard picked up the phone and pressed the call button. The red light flashed, but nobody answered.
He looked for any way to get into the cockpit. No dice. Probably the pilots had a similar area of their own, underneath the cockpit.
One of the keys unlocked the storage cabinet.
Inside it was a fire axe.
Aha!
He pulled out the axe and climbed the narrow stairs. Trying to manage both the sharp axe and the handrails necessary to pull himself up the stairs was awkward, but he managed it.
At the top of the stairs, the door had swung closed again. He cursed. It wasn’t locked, but the latch was somewhat stiff. He wedged the axe between his feet on the steps and gave the door a shove.
It swung open, banging on the cockpit door, then swung closed again.
Goddard froze for a moment. Outside the open door, he’d glimpsed something that had changed since he’d gone down to the crew area.
But what was that change?
It was only the sense of emergency that had let him notice the detail. If he’d had less adrenaline in his system, he might not have noticed anything.
A young man was now sitting at the window seat farthest away from the secret door to the aircrew rest area. Goddard raked the previously empty first-class cabin with his eyes, landing square on the new arrival.
There were no other new additions to the first-class passenger’s cabin. He opened the door again, gently.
Goddard studied the man. He couldn’t quite see all of him because of the position of the two seats in front of him. Instead, all he could make out was the tip of the man’s clean gray sneakers, which rested on the extended footrest of his first-class seat. The sneakers stood out because they were some sort of name brand sports shoe that looked more like they belonged on an astronaut than a basketballer. They weren’t just gray, they appeared almost metallic. The sort of thing some rich kid would wear to look cool.
Holding the axe, Goddard climbed the rest of the way out of the rest area to get a better look at the new arrival.
In jarring contrast with his sneakers, the man looked like a typical Ivy League graduate. Well groomed, blond hair, parted on the right side. Clean shaven. He wore a blue-gray Burberry slim fit business suit that reeked of old money. The top of his shirt had been loosened at the neck along with his dark hound’s-tooth-patterned tie. His skin was well tanned, but Goddard imagined that came from a recent summer vacation as opposed to any outdoor vocation.
“Excuse me, are you awake?” Goddard asked, watching for any reaction.
The passenger didn’t move at all.
Goddard persisted. “Sir… are you awake?”
The younger man’s head lolled to the side, causing the stranger to snore.
Was the man putting it on for show, or was he really asleep? Goddard replayed the mental image of walking into the cabin from a few minutes ago. He was certain no one had been in the first-class cabin. In fact, Goddard recalled, he had taken specific note of it at the time because he’d been unable to book a first-class seat, and had discovered the entire cabin empty.
So, if the passenger hadn’t been there a few minutes ago, how did he get there?
Carefully, Goddard walked up to the man and nudged his leg with one foot.
No response.
He shouted, “Hey! Are you awake?”
Not even the slightest flutter of an eyelash. Goddard gave the man a firm shake, then pinched the skin sharply with his thumbnail between the thumb and forefinger. The skin went white, then red. The man didn’t wake.
If he was faking it, he was doing an incredibly good job.
Goddard growled, “I’m going to beat the shit out of you if you don’t answer me, you bastard!” He raised the axe overhead, as if to strike the man.
Who continued snoring.
No, he was truly out cold.
Had he been carried here? Or…somehow…fallen down the stairs from above and ended up, perfectly arranged, in the downstairs seat? Or had Goddard simply missed the man the first time round? That was probably more likely.
Goddard looked up the stairs but saw no movement above. He could check, but…no. He was out of time.
He turned toward the cockpit door and raised the axe to attack it. But the blade never struck the door. It didn’t have to.
Goddard suppressed a grin.
The door was slightly ajar.
What the hell’s going on?
He carried the axe in his right hand as he grabbed the door handle in his left. The door opened easily.
Maybe the man with the sneakers was a pilot, despite his lack of uniform… and maybe he had just stepped out of the cockpit and become incapacitated by whatever was causing everyone else within the cabin to become unconscious.
“Excuse me,” Goddard said, tentatively as he opened the door wide. “There’s been some sort of emergency back here. We need help.”
There was no reply.
He stepped inside.
The cockpit of the A380 Airbus had two main seats, each surrounded by a plethora of equipment, switches, dials, buttons, and warning lights. Each seat supported what looked like a computer terminal showing various readouts.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. No mysterious cloud of smoke or other gasses filled the air. No red lights flashed. No alarms went off in an attention-attracting fashion. In fact, both seat harnesses were still buckled.
He opened his mouth to speak to the pilots, but instead gasped.
Because the entire cockpit was empty.
Chapter Two
Goddard stared at the cockpit.
Electric switches lit up everywhere the pilot and co-pilot could reach, from the walls to the ceiling. His only understanding of the cockpit of a modern aircraft — any modern aircraft — had been derived from the movies. He wasn’t going to be able to intuitively work out how to land the thing. The sheer number of dials and switches made that unimaginable. An iPad sat on the copilot’s chair, next to which was a pair of thick user manuals in the middle of the cockpit, looking like a couple of phone books — a firm reminder of how much information was likely to be inside.
The hair stood up on the back of Goddard’s neck.
He was starting to really feel like he was stuck inside some sort of sick and twisted Stephen King novel. He made an involuntary shudder as fear rose in his throat like bile. Something inside him, a sixth sense, told Goddard to close the bomb-proof cockpit door and lock it immediately.