Marty was starting to think the four of them were all together. Not only together, but also planning something. Something she didn’t want to put a name to but couldn’t help doing so.
It couldn’t be. What were the chances that of all the flights in all the world, the plane she was on would be hijacked?
Maybe these people were just drunk. Or on drugs. Or—
Her pointless hope-filled guesses were cut short at her first glimpse of the guns in the hands of the two men standing in front, facing the seated passengers.
The woman moved toward the front of the plane and screamed, prompting the co-pilot to open the cockpit door and investigate.
The man with her spoke in rapid German as he pushed his way into the cockpit and slammed the door.
After the sound of shouting from inside the cockpit, Marty felt the plane turn. She glanced out the window but they were up in the clouds. She couldn’t tell anything except they were definitely changing course.
“What’s happening?” she mumbled to herself, trying to make sense of it all.
“They’ve taken control of the plane. We’re being rerouted.” That unexpected answer was delivered softly in a slight accent from the elderly man in the seat next to her.
“You can understand them?” Marty asked just as quietly, her eyes remaining focused on the men in front.
“Yes,” the man answered. “The man and woman are speaking German. The other two men are Palestinian.”
Marty glanced sideways and saw the numbers tattooed on the man’s wrist as he clutched his hands together in his lap. He was a Holocaust survivor.
“Why are they doing this? What do they want?” she asked.
“Israeli hostages.”
“On a flight from Greece to Paris?” Marty hissed.
“I boarded in Tel Aviv. Most of us did. You and a few others got on in Athens. So did they.” The man’s stare remained pinned on the two men in the front as he spoke so low, Marty could barely hear him.
Another rapid fire, shouted order quieted the murmured whispers on the plane. Even if not everyone could understand the language, the meaning was obvious. As was the visible threat of the grenade clutched in one of the hijacker's hands. Shut up. Don’t move. Don’t try anything.
They were all in danger, but the man next to her continued to interpret for her softly. “They’re taking us to Libya.”
Libya? Marty’s eyes widened. “Why?”
“I heard them talking about getting more fuel there,” he mumbled, his head tipped down so the hijackers wouldn’t see his lips moving.
They’d just taken off from Athens, so they should have plenty of fuel to get to Paris, the original destination. If the men were concerned about refueling already, that meant the hijackers’ destination was someplace else. Someplace farther than France. That was not good.
“Are you American?” the man asked.
“Yes.”
“They won’t want trouble with the United States. Maybe they will let you go when we land.”
“And what about you?” she asked.
He patted her hand on the arm rest between them. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve survived worse.”
The crudely tattooed numbers caught her gaze again and she knew he’d already survived more than anyone should in one lifetime.
She knew something else too. His story wasn’t going to go untold. However this turned out, if she lived to tell this man’s story, as well as the one that she had somehow come to be caught in the middle of, she would, or die trying.
It was her duty as a journalist.
CHAPTER NINE
One of the hostage negotiators seated at the table in the FBI’s D.C. office glanced sideways at Peter. “Who are you again?”
Peter drew in a breath. “I work for Senator Scott.”
He wasn’t exactly lying, but he sure as hell wasn’t telling the whole truth either. And in a stroke of good luck, the senator would be on a cross country flight all day and out of reach, so no one could check on Peter’s story.
Agent Voss’s brows drew low. “I’ve already got the governor of Maryland calling me on behalf of this girl’s family. Now I’ve got a senator up my ass too. Would you like to tell me why that is, Mr. . . ? What was your name again?”
“Greenwood. Peter Greenwood. And Senator Scott is understandably concerned about the safety of one of his local constituents. Martha Vanderbilt lives and works in the area. She’s with the Washington Post.” Peter mentally crossed his fingers that the man wouldn’t make the connection that Marty lived and worked in D.C., while Scott was the senator from Virginia. She wasn't even in his voting district.
“Jesus. She’s a reporter and a Vanderbilt? Great.” The man rolled his eyes.
His attitude didn’t leave Peter feeling all that confident. Thank goodness he was only one of about half a dozen men from the FBI involved.
There was a negotiator on site in Libya trying to communicate directly with the hijackers on the plane, while the D.C. bureau listened in. Peter’s combined string-pulling and stretching of the truth had gotten him admittance to the room. But still, all he could do there was sit and wait.
It was maddening.
Meanwhile, while he was away from his office, he wouldn’t be there if Tim called. He’d left strict instructions with the staff that the phone was not to be left unmanned for even a second today. And that they were to take a message if Tim called. Not that Tim would want to leave one but maybe he’d leave some sort of code only Peter would understand.
Jeez. Codes. The FBI. Lies. Intrigue. He felt more like he was in a spy novel than his real life. But this was very real and Marty was really in trouble.
A bustle of movement around him had Peter on alert.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
Voss was obviously listening to something over his headphones. Peter would have given anything for a set of his own but that was a request already made and denied.
Finally, Voss answered, “They released one of the hostages.”
Heart pounding, Peter leaned closer. “Marty?”
Voss frowned as he glanced at Peter and he knew he’d tipped his hand. Now it was out there that he was more familiar with Martha Vanderbilt than just an aide to a senator from a neighboring state should be.
“No,” he answered. “A pregnant Brit. She needed a hospital.”
Peter’s hope deflated until Voss touched one of the earpieces of his headphones then said, “They’re moving the plane.”
“What? To where? Paris?”
A deeper frown from Voss silenced Peter’s guesses and he forced himself to wait in silence for an answer.
“Uganda.” That answer, when it came, was not comforting.
“Uganda?” His eyes popped wide.
“Entebbe Airport,” Voss glanced at one of the other agents in the room. “Fucking Amin gave them permission to land and he’s promised the support of his forces.”
Amin. As in Idi Amin, Uganda’s president? This whole thing had just gotten a whole lot more complicated, just when he didn’t think that was possible.
It was no longer the hijackers versus the hostage negotiators.
This had now become a deadly game with many players. The United States, Germany, France, the UK and Israel—who all had citizens on the flight—versus Uganda and its leader, possibly the most notorious despot currently in power, who had apparently decided he wanted in on this living game of chess.