Chapter 5 - The Wolf at 35,000 Feet
The name Brenda Kowalski seemed to suck the very oxygen out of the cabin.
A wave of pure panic washed over the surrounding passengers. Two men sitting in Row 12 immediately jumped from their seats, pushing past each other to get into the rear aisle. The sounds of crying children and frantic murmurs echoed off the ceiling panels.
I tightened my grip on Leo. My baby was screaming now, completely terrified by the chaotic sounds around him. My heart was hammering so hard against my ribs that I felt dizzy.
*She stabbed a guard three hours ago.*
This was the woman who had sat mere inches from my ten-year-old daughter. This was the woman who had rolled her eyes at my baby, who had smirked as Kimberly forced me into the back of the plane. If Maya hadn't spoken up, if my daughter had stayed quiet for the next two and a half hours, she would have been sitting next to an escaped, violent fugitive trapped in an enclosed metal box.
“Everyone, remain in your seats!” Robert, the male flight attendant, shouted down the aisle, trying desperately to maintain control. “Please, sit down and fasten your seatbelts!”
Brenda Kowalski didn't look like an arrogant traveler anymore. She looked like an apex predator stripped of her camouflage.
The moment Kimberly read that dispatch, Brenda knew her game was finished. Her entire posture changed. The slouch vanished. She sat up straight, her eyes narrowing to thin, lethal slits. Her hands twitched against the armrests.
“You think this is over?” Brenda whispered, her gaze locking onto Kimberly. “You think you’re heroes?”
“Put your hands behind your back, Brenda,” Marcus commanded, pulling the heavy-duty plastic restraints from Robert’s hands. “We’re doing this the easy way, or we’re doing this the hard way.”
“I’m not going back to Stateville,” Brenda growled.
Then, in a split second of terrifying violence, Brenda Kowalski exploded into action.
She didn't reach for her bag. She didn't try to punch Marcus.
Instead, she grabbed the plastic hot-water thermos that the passenger in 11C had left sitting on his tray table and flung it straight into Marcus’s face.
The scalding liquid struck Marcus across the chest and neck. The officer grunted in pain, staggering backward into the opposite row.
In that fraction of a second, Brenda vaulted over the armrest of Row 11 with the feral agility of an escaped convict. She wasn't trying to escape down the aisle—she was trying to break through toward the forward galley, toward the cockpit door!
“Stop her!” Kimberly screamed, dropping to the floor to protect herself.
Brenda shoved past me, her shoulder slamming violently against my arm. The impact nearly threw me off balance, but I twisted my body instinctively, using my back to take the blow so that Leo wouldn't be crushed. Leo let out a deafening wail of sheer terror.
“Mom!” Maya cried out.
Brenda reached the entrance to the forward galley. The cockpit door was reinforced titanium—locked tight behind a digital keypad—but the galley itself was full of heavy service tools, stainless steel pots, and thick utility knives used for food preparation.
Brenda reached for the galley service drawer, her fingers wrapping around the handle of a long, serrated catering knife used for slicing bread.
She ripped the drawer open.
Metal utensils clattered loudly against the galley floor.
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“Back off!” Brenda screamed, turning around with the twelve-inch serrated knife clutched in her fist, her wild eyes darting between Marcus, Robert, and the terrified passengers. “Nobody touches me! Open this damn cockpit door right now!”
***
