“Do not open that door.”
Maya said it quietly, but Captain Michael Davis heard the certainty in her voice.
He kept one hand on the controls.
“What are you seeing?”
“Someone who doesn't want me in this cockpit.”
Michael glanced at the security monitor.
Robert Anderson stood outside the door, still demanding entry.
“Robert runs flight operations,” Michael said.
“I know who he is.”
Maya kept watching him.
“What I don't know is why he looks like he has just seen a ghost.”
Another warning sounded.
The aircraft dipped several hundred feet.
Michael corrected.
Maya looked at the first officer.
“Get him away from that console.”
Michael shifted his attention.
“Why?”
“Because we don't know what's affecting him.”
“He collapsed.”
“And you haven't asked why.”
Michael's jaw tightened.
“You think he was poisoned?”
“I think you don't have enough information to assume he wasn't.”
Michael called the cabin crew and requested the onboard medical kit.
Within minutes, a doctor from the passenger cabin entered the cockpit.
Maya recognized him as the man who had been seated two rows behind her.
He knelt beside the first officer and checked his pupils, pulse, and breathing.
“His heart rate is elevated,” the doctor said. “But his oxygen saturation is improving.”
“Could it be poisoning?” Maya asked.
The doctor looked at her.
“Possibly.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The symptoms aren't typical of simple fainting.”
Maya looked at the coffee cup.
“Where's the container he drank from?”
Michael searched beneath the console.
Nothing.
Maya's attention shifted.
“Someone removed it.”
The doctor looked up.
“From the cockpit?”
“Yes.”
Michael stared at the locked door.
“No one has been in here.”
Maya said nothing.
The aircraft suddenly rolled again.
Michael reacted instinctively.
Maya caught his wrist.
“Wait.”
The nose drifted.
The roll increased.
“Now.”
Michael corrected.
The aircraft responded.
He stared at her.
“You were right.”
“I know.”
For the first time, a faint trace of the pilot she had once been returned to Maya's face.
Not arrogance.
Focus.
The fear had disappeared.
She moved to the jump seat and strapped herself in.
“Give me the aircraft status.”
Michael hesitated.
“You're taking over?”
“No.”
Maya tightened the harness.
“I'm helping you understand what it's doing.”
He gave her the readings.
Airspeed stable.
Altitude stable.
Hydraulic pressure falling.
Autopilot unreliable.
Flight-control response inconsistent.
Maya absorbed every number.
Then she asked the question that mattered.
“When was the last maintenance inspection?”
Michael answered.
“Thirty-six hours ago.”
“Who signed it?”
“Maintenance control.”
“Who oversees them?”
Michael looked at her.
“Robert Anderson.”
Maya slowly turned toward the cockpit door.
Outside, Anderson was still waiting.
The pieces were beginning to align.
Not enough for a conclusion.
Enough for suspicion.
The first officer suddenly stirred.
His eyes opened halfway.
Maya leaned toward him.
“Can you hear me?”
He blinked.
“Captain…”
Michael leaned closer.
“What happened?”
The first officer's lips moved.
Maya lowered her head.
“What did you drink?”
The man struggled to speak.
“Coffee.”
“From where?”
He looked confused.
“My thermos.”
Maya glanced at Michael.
“Who had access to it?”
The first officer swallowed.
“Robert.”
The cockpit went silent.
Michael's face tightened.
“When?”
“Before takeoff.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
The first officer's eyes closed again.
Maya sat back.
The situation had changed.
She looked toward the monitor.
Robert Anderson was no longer visible.
“He left.”
Michael frowned.
“Where did he go?”
Maya pointed to the hallway camera.
A maintenance corridor appeared on the screen.
Robert was walking quickly toward the rear of the aircraft.
Michael reached for the intercom.
“Security, locate Mr. Anderson.”
No response.
He tried again.
Still nothing.
Maya's eyes narrowed.
“Your communications are failing too.”
Michael stared at the console.
“That can't be coincidence.”
“No.”
A harsh warning tone sounded.
The right hydraulic system dropped again.
Maya studied the controls.
“What happens if it reaches zero?”
Michael answered immediately.
“We lose several normal control functions.”
“And the landing gear?”
“Right gear may not extend properly.”
Maya nodded.
“Then we need a runway.”
Michael looked at the navigation display.
“We're still over the Atlantic.”
“How far to the nearest suitable airport?”
“About an hour.”
Maya looked at the weather.
A storm system had moved across their route.
“Not that one.”
Michael looked again.
“There is another field farther south.”
“Range?”
“Forty-three minutes if we descend.”
“Then turn.”
He began entering the new course.
The aircraft responded sluggishly.
Maya watched.
“Don't push the turn.”
“I've got it.”
“Michael.”
He looked at her.
“Your right control response is degrading.”
He eased off.
The aircraft steadied.
Maya remembered another cockpit.
Another pilot.
Another voice.
For half a second, she was no longer aboard Flight 412.
She was back inside an F-16, hearing her husband's voice over the radio.
Stay with me.
She blinked.
The memory vanished.
Michael noticed.
“You okay?”
“I'm fine.”
“You know him.”
Maya looked at him.
“Who?”
“Your husband.”
She said nothing.
Michael continued carefully.
“Daniel Brooks.”
Her face changed.
“Don't.”
“I flew with him.”
“You flew with him once.”
“More than once.”
Maya stared at the instruments.
Daniel had been her wingman.
Her closest friend.
The person whose death had ended her military career.
Everyone had told her the accident was unavoidable.
Yet she had never believed them.
She had replayed the final seconds thousands of times.
Every night.
Every time she closed her eyes.
Michael's voice softened.
“Daniel talked about you.”
Maya's throat tightened.
“Not now.”
“I think you need to know something.”
A violent jolt cut him off.
The aircraft dropped.
Warning lights flashed.
Maya grabbed the console.
“Altitude!”
Michael corrected.
The aircraft leveled.
Maya stared at the hydraulic display.
Pressure had fallen sharply.
“How long?”
Michael checked.
“Maybe twenty minutes before it becomes critical.”
“Then we land in twenty.”
“We're still too far.”
“Then descend.”
Michael looked at her.
“That increases our fuel burn.”
“Fuel won't matter if we can't control the aircraft.”
He nodded.
The aircraft began descending.
In the passenger cabin, Leo woke.
He looked at the empty seat beside him.
“Where's Mom?”
The elderly woman across the aisle smiled reassuringly.
“She is helping the crew.”
Leo sat up.
“Why?”
The woman hesitated.
“Because she's a pilot.”
Leo's eyes widened.
“My mom?”
“Yes.”
He stared toward the cockpit.
“But Mom's a doctor.”
The woman smiled.
“She may be both.”
Leo looked down.
He remembered the old photograph hidden in the drawer at home.
His mother beside a fighter jet.
He had asked about it once.
She had said it was from a long time ago.
Now he wondered what else she had never told him.
Back in the cockpit, Maya studied the approaching storm.
Lightning flashed beyond the windshield.
Michael checked the weather radar.
“We'll have to cross it.”
“How bad?”
“Bad enough.”
Maya looked at the controls.
“Then we go through carefully.”
Michael gave a humorless laugh.
“You make it sound simple.”
“It isn't.”
She adjusted the headset.
“But panic won't make it easier.”
The aircraft entered the storm.
Rain hammered the windshield.
The cabin lights flickered.
The right hydraulic pressure fell again.
Maya looked at the number.
Then at Michael.
“Prepare for a manual approach.”
He nodded.
The landing gear warning illuminated.
The right gear had failed to confirm locked.
Michael stared.
“We have a problem.”
Maya leaned forward.
“No.”
She watched the indicator.
“We have a problem we can still solve.”
Then another warning appeared.
This one was different.
A maintenance access alert.
Someone was attempting to open a systems panel from outside the cockpit.
Maya stared at the screen.
“Michael.”
“What?”
“Someone is working on the aircraft.”
He looked at the display.
Maya's voice dropped.
“And they aren't trying to fix it.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: The Failing Landing Gear Was Only the Beginning When Maya Discovered Someone Had Planned for the Aircraft to Go Down
The Quiet Mother in Seat 8A Heard a Question That No Ordinary Passenger Was Supposed to Answer
Part 2 of 20
