Turbulence-2-11
2015 Words
General waited while Lieutenant maneuvered himself to get the best camera angle. Willow had ceased her begging but was looking around the cabin wildly.
Looking for Kennedy?
Jesus saves! She should scream it now. Scream it as loudly as possible. Shout out the four steps to salvation, the sinner’s prayer, anything. Give Willow some sort of hope that she could hold onto. Give her that chance to receive God’s gift of salvation. How many opportunities had Kennedy already missed? How many times could she have broached the subject in their cramped dorm room? What kind of fellowship might they have shared together?
And now, she was too late.
“Mr. Weston, I’d like you to meet a young friend of mine.” General smiled as Willow tried to shrink into the wall to get away from him.
Just tell her, something burning inside Kennedy’s soul shouted. Tell her now. But the words wouldn’t come. Ray was holding onto her shoulder, whether to offer some sort of protection or to keep her from joining her roommate in her death.
“She doesn’t want to die, and if you must know the truth, I don’t want to kill her. But a word is a man’s bond, isn’t that right, Mr. Weston?” General raised up the corner of his lip in a half smirk.
Take me instead. The thought came to her in an instant, and her brain flashed with an image John Harper, the preacher on the capsizing Titanic who gave away his own life jacket because he couldn’t stand the thought of a man dying without having the chance to know Christ.
Take me instead. Why wouldn’t her mouth work? Why wouldn’t her body move? Why wouldn’t Ray let her go?
“Anyway, for those of you watching this drama unfold, I want you to remember one name. Charles Weston. Detroit School District superintendent. If it weren’t for Charles Weston, I wouldn’t have to send my children to a schoolyard that’s put grown men in the hospital. And if it weren’t for Charles Weston, I wouldn’t have to shoot this rather pretty passenger.”
“You’ll do no such thing, young man.”
Kennedy gaped at the old woman who addressed General with so much boldness and conviction.
He let out a gruff laugh. “You, granny? What are you going to do?”
Grandma Lucy was out of her seat, the cowboy bandana still in her hand. “Do?” she asked. “I’m going to save this young woman’s life.”
Kennedy’s heart was racing. She was going to throw up again. Any minute now. She couldn’t hold it down much longer.
Grandma Lucy stepped next to Willow, who flung her arms around her like a preschooler clutching at her mother’s skirt.
“I’ve given my word,” General explained. “It’s time for me to kill a hostage.”
Grandma Lucy swept Willow behind her. “Then you’ll kill a hostage whose soul is ready to enter paradise, and you’ll leave this poor child out of it.” She sucked in her breath, stuck out her chest, and waited.
The air in the cabin changed. Denser now. Was anybody on board still breathing?
General glanced once at Lieutenant and then shrugged. “A hostage is a hostage.” He held out his gun until the barrel was only a foot away from Grandma Lucy’s forehead.
She didn’t flinch. “Before you kill me, there’s something I’d like to tell you. Something your audience might be interested in hearing.”
He raised an eyebrow impatiently. “Yeah? What’s that?”
She tilted up her chin. “That Jesus Christ is the risen Savior of the world. He is my shepherd, my redeemer, my healer, and my coming king. If you kill me, my soul will leave this broken jar of clay and enter into the presence of God.”
“Great,” General muttered. “So I guess I’m doing you a favor.”
“Yes, you are.” Grandma Lucy took a step closer to him, pressing Willow several paces behind her with a protective sweep of her hand. “And since you’re doing me such a great honor, I want to return the favor.”
“How you expect to do that?”
Grandma Lucy’s voice was perfectly steady. “I’d like to pray for you.”
He scoffed.
“I’m volunteering to die for your cause. In a way, I’ll be your first martyr, isn’t that right? So you let me pray for you, and then I promise not to interfere when you pull that trigger. In fact, by killing me, you’ll be winning yourself lots of added publicity. Know why? My grandson made a documentary about Brown Elementary School last fall. Put four months of his own time and his own money into it.”
General shuffled from one foot to another. “I never heard about a documentary.”
“It never aired,” Grandma Lucy told him. “But I guarantee that if you kill me, everyone will be clamoring to watch my grandson’s show. The public will be on your side. You’ll be sure to get justice. Now, will you let me pray for you?”
He stared at Lieutenant once more before finally grumbling, “Fine. But keep it short.”
Grandma Lucy had already closed her eyes and raised her hands toward heaven. “Father God, sweet Savior, my friend, this is a man who is hurting. This is a man who has a deep desire to see justice. This is a father who cares for his children, who hates the thought of seeing them come to harm due to man’s ignorance and greed. Give rest to his soul, Father God. Comfort him. Strip him free of the burdens he carries, his anger, his rage, his insecurities. Settle his spirit, Lord, so that he can find true rest in you, the giver of life. The author of peace. The comfort of our souls. Teach him, Holy Spirit, that there is no other name under heaven by which he can be saved than the sweet name of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Show him that his sins will be washed clean, whiter than snow, if he confesses his sins, if he believes that you died for him, that you took the penalty for his sins upon your bloody shoulders when you hung on that beautiful, glorious cross. Show him, Jesus, that you are the way, the truth, and the life, that no one can come to the Father except through you. Give him a burning desire to know you, Lord, so that he can say like the Apostle Paul that Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I was the worst. Without you, sweet and merciful Jesus, we are all wretched. Without you, we are sinful, unable to do anything good. But because of the blood that you shed ...”
“That’s enough!” General roared.
Kennedy cowered involuntarily in her seat.
General raised his gun once more. His whole body was shaking. “I said that’s enough,” he snarled again, even though Grandma Lucy stood calmly and hadn’t said a word.
Kennedy tensed her muscles. Braced herself for the upcoming explosion. Squinted her eyes so they’d be ready to close that much faster as soon as he pulled the trigger.
“Go ahead, young man,” Grandma Lucy urged. “I’ve been ready to meet my Jesus for over fifty years.”
Kennedy squeezed her eyes shut and covered her ears with her hands.
CHAPTER 16Click.
Kennedy pried one eye half open. Had she heard right?
Click.
No louder than a retractable pen collapsing on itself. General stared at his gun in stunned rage.
Grandma Lucy opened her eyes and smiled at him sweetly. “I should have mentioned one more thing. God promised me in the book of Isaiah chapter 54 that no weapon forged against me would prevail.”
General stared stupefied.
Ray sprung out of his seat. “His gun doesn’t work!”
Three other men jumped up at the same time. Two tackled the fat lieutenant in his Hawaiian shirt from behind, sweeping his legs out from under him and letting his own body weight do the rest. Ray and someone in a dark suit confronted General head on, both working to twist the gun out of his hold. Ray finally succeeded and slid out the cartridge, tossing it up the aisle toward Kennedy. The second man doubled over when General punched him in the gut, but by then a few other passengers and the unbound air marshal had joined in the fray. Kennedy could only see a blur of colors, hear the cacophonous sounds of oofs and curses and flailing limbs. Breath whooshed back into her lungs, choppy and uncertain at first like a child just learning to toddle. Would it ever end?
She tried to focus on Ray to make sure he was ok, but she could never keep her eyes on him for long. Her brain couldn’t follow the disjointed movements of the skirmish, didn’t dare hope the passengers would succeed.
Were the cameras still rolling? Did the viewers see what was happening?
“We got them!” The male flight attendant shouted. “We have both men subdued.”
The cabin filled with air again. Relief. Release. Kennedy pried her fingers loose from her seatbelt. So it was really over. Their salvation had come in by way of a grandmother with the boldness of an advancing army and the miracle of a misfired weapon.
“You’re all dead!” General shouted as the air marshal dragged him to the back of the cabin. “Nobody’s getting off this plane alive!”
The PA system came on. “Folks, this is your captain speaking, and I just want to say thank you to everyone back there who kicked some terrorist butt.”
Nervous laughter and subdued applause began to melt away the fear that had frozen like armor around Kennedy’s psyche. She allowed herself a smile, noted the strange sensation of her facial muscles as it spread across her face.
A woman with shocking blue hair, glossy as a marble, threw herself into the seat by Kennedy and wrapped her arms around her. “We’re safe.”
“You’re all dead!” General shouted from the back of the plane.
A sob rose from Kennedy’s chest and lodged itself in her throat.
Willow shook her gently by the shoulders. “It’s ok now.”
Terror, fear, guilt, and shock took over Kennedy’s entire body. She hadn’t realized how much energy it had taken just to keep them all contained. Now they came bursting out of her core with the explosive energy of a nuclear detonation.
Willow didn’t seem surprised by the tears that coursed down Kennedy’s cheeks. She didn’t laugh at her. Didn’t tease. Just gave her another hug, whispering those beautiful words over and over again like a prayer of thanksgiving.
“We’re safe.”
CHAPTER 17The moments that followed General’s failure felt more surreal than any dream Kennedy could remember. While General and his lieutenant sat bound in the back of the plane, the passengers slowly began to talk again. Move around again. Breathe again. The two dead bodies were covered with blankets and moved out of the aisles. Out of sight. Could Kennedy ever forget? What had she known about Tracy? A mother of two. Frazzled at times, perhaps, but she did her job well. What would her friends say about the kind of person she was off hours? Her husband or any other loved ones she’d left behind?
She squeezed her eyes shut. Thank God they were so close to Detroit. She had to wrangle her thoughts. Take them captive. Avoid thinking about Tracy and the other murdered passenger. At least not until she landed on solid ground. Not until she achieved the psychological security that would come from getting off this plane.
“You’re all dead!” General shouted before the air marshal punched him in the face.
Kennedy, Willow, and Ray were scrunched up together in the row where his math tests had been strewn across the aisle. The three of them struggled together to make sense of his mess.
“Folks,” the captain said, “I’m sure we’re all ready to get off this aircraft. I’m happy to report that we’re beginning our descent now to Detroit. I imagine the deboarding process will be a little bit unorthodox, and we’ve got a whole army of first responders ready to assist in any way they can. Please buckle up and prepare for a safe and uneventful landing.”
Kennedy still had a hard time believing it was over. As if a nightmare that ghastly couldn’t end so simply. Were they really about to touch down in Detroit? She didn’t care if it took them a week to get to Anchorage. For now, she was just ready to have her feet connected to the solid earth.
Everything had happened so fast. The hijacking, the countdowns, the scrimmage that overcame their would-be killers. Kennedy had the feeling it would take her all of Christmas break and half of spring semester just to process everything that happened, and then another few years of prayer and counseling to actually move past it.
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