"I'm sorry, Captain Vance," Todd whispered, his voice trembling as he pointed the fire extinguisher at me. "But Mr. Pendelton promised me my own command if I helped Henderson. I couldn't let you ruin my career."
Henderson recovered his footing, his face contorted in a mask of pure, murderous rage. The blood from the scratch on his neck was staining his white collar, making him look like a wounded beast.
"Take the drive from her, Todd," Henderson snarled, stepping forward to block my escape back into the cabin. "And then we deploy the secondary override. We're landing this plane in Gary, Indiana. The ground crew there is already paid off."
I stood trapped in the narrow galley, the alarms screaming, the plane plunging toward the earth, and the two men closing in on me.
My plan had failed. I had underestimated the depth of Pendelton's reach. I had put Marcus in danger, and now, the very airline I had spent my life building was going to be my tomb.
"The drive, Evelyn," Henderson hissed, holding out his hand, his eyes gleaming with a sick, triumphant satisfaction. "Now. Or I tell Todd to put this plane into a vertical dive, and we can all die together."
I looked at the flash drive in my hand, the small, silver piece of metal that held the lives of thousands of future passengers.
I looked at Marcus's unconscious body in the cockpit.
With a slow, heavy sigh, I raised my hand, letting the drive dangle from my fingers.
"You win, Henderson," I whispered, my voice sounding old, tired, and completely defeated. "Just... please, don't hurt Marcus."
Henderson snatched the drive from my fingers, a cruel, mocking laugh escaping his throat. "Smart choice, grandma. Now, get back to your seat. We have a flight to land."
As Henderson turned to insert the drive into his wireless terminal to verify the encryption codes, I let my hand slip into my cardigan pocket one last time.
And as I did, a cold, sharp smile touched my lips.
They thought they had won. But they had forgotten the most important rule of flight safety:
*Always carry a backup.*
The steep, terrifying descent of the aircraft began to level off, the violent shuddering of the fuselage slowly subsiding into a tense, vibrating hum as the autopilot system corrected our altitude, locking us into a steady hold at fifteen thousand feet.
In the dim, red glow of the galley, Henderson stood with his back to me, his fingers flying across the keyboard of his portable terminal as he plugged the silver flash drive into the port.
"Let's see what we have here," Henderson muttered, his voice filled with a smug, arrogant satisfaction. "The legendary Vance files. The logs that were supposed to ruin Apex Air."
Beside him, Todd, the co-pilot, stood guard, his eyes darting nervously between me and the unconscious Captain Reed. "Is it all there, Henderson? Can we get this over with? I need to get back on the radio and explain this altitude drop to ATC."
"Just a second, Todd," Henderson grunted, his eyes narrowing as the progress bar on his screen began to load. "It's opening the root directory now. Wait... what is this?"
The triumphant smile on Henderson's face suddenly withered and died.