Chapter 2 - The Fighter Without a Flag
Sarah turned before the door finished opening.
Daniel reached for the emergency lock.
Nothing happened.
The door moved inward.
Claire stood outside.
Alone.
Her face was pale.
"Sarah," she whispered. "You need to see what we found."
Sarah slipped her phone into her pocket before Daniel could see Lily's photograph.
"What?"
Claire looked toward the restrained gunman.
"He wasn't alone."
Sarah stepped into the galley.
The man in black sat on the floor with plastic restraints around his wrists.
Two male passengers watched him from several feet away.
Claire held a small black device.
"Found this sewn into his jacket."
Sarah recognized it immediately.
A short-range encrypted transmitter.
Military grade.
"Where's the second person?" Sarah asked.
"We don't know."
Sarah crouched in front of the gunman.
"Name."
Silence.
"Who took the picture of my daughter?"
His eyes changed.
Barely.
Enough.
Sarah grabbed his jacket.
"Who has Lily?"
"Sarah."
Daniel's warning came from behind her.
She ignored him.
The prisoner smiled.
"Still predictable."
Sarah froze.
"You know me."
"I know what they taught you."
"Who are they?"
"You already know."
Sarah released him.
She returned to the cockpit and shut the door.
Daniel watched her.
"Your daughter?"
Sarah looked at him sharply.
"You heard?"
"I saw your face."
Sarah considered lying.
There wasn't time.
"They sent me a photograph of Lily."
"When?"
"Minutes ago."
"Where is she?"
"New York."
Daniel's expression hardened.
"Then this isn't just about the aircraft."
"No."
Ethan looked toward the fighter.
"Could that pilot be communicating with whoever is aboard?"
"Almost certainly."
Sarah examined the displays.
"Show me everything that happened before the autopilot locked."
Ethan pulled up the event log.
Sarah read rapidly.
At 02:17 UTC, the aircraft's satellite communications had briefly reset.
At 02:18, navigation control switched to a backup module.
At 02:19, the autopilot rejected the first manual command.
At 02:21, the unidentified fighter appeared.
At 02:23, Captain Mercer made the announcement.
Sarah stopped.
"Why did you ask specifically for a fighter pilot?"
Daniel exchanged a glance with Ethan.
"Because of this."
He opened a stored cockpit message.
Sarah read it.
FIND THE WOMAN WHO FLEW NIGHTGLASS.
Sarah's pulse slowed.
Nightglass.
The name hadn't been spoken to her in seven years.
Daniel waited.
"What is Nightglass?"
Sarah stared at the screen.
"A mission."
"What kind?"
"The kind I can't discuss."
"Someone has taken control of an airliner carrying nearly three hundred people."
Sarah looked at him.
"I understand."
"Then start discussing."
Sarah walked toward the windshield.
The fighter remained off their right wing.
Seven years earlier, Nightglass had sent six aircraft toward an unidentified installation floating in international waters.
Their orders had been simple.
Observe.
Record.
Do not engage.
But someone had fired first.
The sky became chaos.
Sarah remembered warning lights.
Missile alerts.
Radio screams.
One aircraft exploding against the horizon.
Another vanishing into cloud.
Three pilots returned.
The official report blamed mechanical failure during a training operation.
Sarah had signed papers promising never to reveal otherwise.
"What happened?" Daniel asked.
"Three people died."
"And the others?"
"Three returned."
"You?"
"Yes."
"Who else?"
Sarah hesitated.
"Major David Kane."
"And?"
She looked toward the fighter.
"Captain Marcus Vale."
Ethan turned.
"Could one of them be flying that aircraft?"
"David died two years ago."
"And Vale?"
Sarah said nothing.
Daniel understood.
"You don't know."
Sarah shook her head.
After Nightglass, Marcus had disappeared.
No funeral.
No confirmed body.
Just a classified notification stating he was presumed dead.
Sarah had spent years believing it.
The fighter moved closer.
Its canopy was now clearly visible.
The pilot raised a hand.
Then touched two fingers to the side of his helmet.
Sarah knew that gesture too.
Private channel.
"Can we receive military frequencies?" she asked.
Ethan adjusted the radio.
"Some."
Sarah gave him a frequency from memory.
Static filled the cockpit.
Then a voice.
"Raven Two."
Sarah stopped breathing.
Nobody had called her that since Nightglass.
Daniel looked at her.
"That's you?"
Sarah reached for the microphone.
"Identify yourself."
Static.
Then:
"You left me there."
Sarah's fingers tightened around the microphone.
Marcus.
She knew the voice.
Older.
Rougher.
But unmistakable.
"Marcus?"
The transmission ended.
The fighter banked away.
Daniel stared at Sarah.
"You said he was presumed dead."
"He was."
"Apparently not."
Sarah switched frequencies.
"Marcus, respond."
Nothing.
Then another message appeared on the cockpit tablet.
YOU HAVE 43 MINUTES.
"Until what?" Ethan whispered.
The route display updated.
Their destination coordinates remained in the Atlantic.
Sarah calculated quickly.
Forty-three minutes would place them directly over the Nightglass coordinates.
Daniel saw the same thing.
"What's there?"
Sarah remembered black water.
Radar interference.
An enormous vessel with no flag.
And something they had been forbidden to photograph.
"I don't know anymore."
A scream came from the cabin.
Sarah turned.
Another scream.
Then shouting.
Claire's voice hit the interphone.
"Captain! We have a medical emergency!"
Daniel opened communication.
"What happened?"
"The prisoner."
Sarah rushed out.
The restrained gunman lay on his side.
His body convulsed.
Foam appeared at his lips.
"Move!"
Sarah knelt.
She checked his pulse.
Rapid.
Then weakening.
His eyes found hers.
He forced out three words.
"Not... the... enemy."
"What?"
His fingers grabbed Sarah's sleeve.
"Fighter... protecting... you."
Sarah leaned closer.
"From what?"
His eyes moved upward.
Toward the ceiling.
Then his body went still.
Sarah followed his gaze.
A tiny red light blinked inside the overhead panel.
Sarah stood.
"Everyone back."
Claire moved passengers away.
Sarah opened the panel.
Inside was another device.
Not explosive.
A network relay.
Someone had physically connected it to the aircraft's internal systems.
Daniel stared.
"Can that control the plane?"
"Maybe."
"Remove it."
"No."
Sarah examined the wiring.
"If it's acting as a relay, removing it could trigger whatever it's connected to."
Claire looked frightened.
"Then what do we do?"
Sarah looked down the aisle.
Nearly three hundred people watched her.
Some crying.
Some praying.
Some simply waiting.
She thought of Lily.
Then of Marcus.
The fighter protecting them?
From whom?
Sarah returned to seat 8A.
She searched beneath it.
Nothing.
Then she ran her fingers beneath the armrest.
Something clicked.
A compartment opened.
Inside was a small envelope.
Her name was written across it.
SARAH.
She opened it.
A photograph slid into her hand.
Six pilots stood beside their aircraft seven years earlier.
The Nightglass team.
Sarah.
Marcus.
David.
And three others who never returned.
One face had been circled.
David Kane.
On the back someone had written:
HE DIDN'T DIE.
Sarah stared at the sentence.
Her phone vibrated again.
This time the message came with live video.
Lily sat inside Sarah's sister's apartment.
Safe.
Watching television.
Sarah almost collapsed with relief.
Then a man walked through the background.
Sarah couldn't see his face.
He stopped behind Lily.
Slowly, he turned toward the hidden camera.
Sarah recognized him immediately.
David Kane.
The man officially buried two years ago looked directly into the camera.
He smiled.
Then the video went black.
A final message appeared.
May you like
COME TO NIGHTGLASS.
OR NEXT TIME, I TAKE HER.
