When he arrived at row twenty-three, he said, “Come on.” He reached for
her hand.
She did not give it to him.
“We’ve got to talk,” he said.
“We can talk here.”
“No, we can’t.”
The stewardess who had warned him about blocking the aisle was
approaching again.
When Holly would not take his hand, he gripped her by the arm and urged
her to get up, hoping she would not force him to yank her out of the
seat. The stewardess probably already thought he was some perverted
Svengali who was herding up the best-looking women on the flight to
surround himself with a harem over there on the port side. Happily, the
reporter rose without further protest.
He led her back through the plane to a restroom. It was not occupied,
so he pushed her inside. He glanced back, expecting to see the
stewardess watching him, but she was attending to another passenger. He
followed Holly into the tiny cubicle and pulled the door shut.
She squeezed into the corner, trying to stay as far away from him as
possible, but they were still virtually nose to nose.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said.
“Good. There’s no reason to be.”
Vibrations were conducted well by the burnished-steel walls of the
lavatory. The deep drone of the engines was somewhat louder there than
in the main cabin.
She said, “What do you want?”
“You’ve got to do exactly what I tell you.”
She frowned. “Listen, I”
“Exactly what I tell you, and no arguments, there’s no time for
arguments,” he said sharply, wondering what the hell he was talking
about.
“I know all about your”
“I don’t care what you know. That’s not important now.”
She frowned. “You’re shaking like a leaf” He was not only shaking but
sweating. The lavatory was cool enough but he could feel beads of sweat
forming across his forehead. A thin trickle coursed down his right
temple and past the corner of his eye.
Speaking rapidly, he said, “I want you to come forward in the plane,
farther front near me, there’re a couple of empty seats in that area.”
“But I”
“You can’t stay where you are, back there in row twenty-three, no way
She was not a docile woman. She knew her own mind, and she was not used
to being told what to do. “That’s my seat.
Twenty-three H. You can’ strongarm me-” Impatiently, he said, “If you
sit there, you’re going to die.”
She looked no more surprised than he felt-which was plenty damned
surprised. “Die? What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” But then unwanted knowledge came to him. “Oh Jesus.
Oh, my God. We’re going down.”
“What?”
“The plane.” Now his heart was racing faster than the turbine blades of
the great engines that were keeping them aloft. “Down. All the way
down.”
He saw her incomprehension give way to a dreadful understanding “Crash?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. Soon. Beyond row twenty, almost nobody’s going to
survive.” He did not know what he was going to say until he said it,
and as he listened to his own words he was horrified by them. “There’ll
be a better survival rate in the first nine rows, but not good, not good
at this You’ve got to move into my section.”
The aircraft shuddered.
Holly stiffened and looked around fearfully, as if she expected the
lavatory walls to crumple in on them.
“Turbulence,” he said. “Just turbulence. We’ve got. . . a few minutes
yet.”
Evidently she had learned enough about him to have faith in his
perception. She did not express any doubt. “I don’t want to die.”
With an increasing sense of urgency, Jim gripped her by the shoulder
“That’s why you’ve got to come forward, sit near me. Nobody’s going to
be killed in rows ten through twenty. There’ll be injuries, a few of
them serious, but nobody’s going to die in that section, and a lot of
them are going to walk out of it unhurt. Now, for God’s sake, come on.”
He reached for the door handle.
“Wait. You’ve got to tell the pilot.”
He shook his head. “It wouldn’t help.”
“But maybe there’s something he can do, stop it from happening.”