The hijacker, still looking at Deepti and Priti, pointed his knife to his side, asking them to give way. Priti walked to the side and pulled Deepti along. The man then entered the cockpit. The other man started pointing his knife toward the passengers. As he moved his knife from left to right, the passengers screamed in succession.

“Silence! Not a word. If you do as I say, nobody will be harmed”, he yelled.

“How did they get the knives past security?”, A passenger whispered to his neighbor. It was the same passenger who told earlier that he didn’t believe the hijackers brought the bomb in.

The hijacker heard his whisper and walked to him.

“Looks like someone is very curious about our methods”, he said. Then he placed his knife close to the whisperer’s neck. He continued, “I like curious people. So, Mr. curious, let me teach you our magic.

“We cannot keep our knives in our pockets because during security check, the metal detectors will find them. But we can keep them in the cabin baggage. The X-ray equipment used to screen them transmits parallel scanning rays vertically. If we keep the knife in just the right direction, it will be parallel to the rays. Do you know what a knife kept parallel to the scanning rays looks like? It looks like a thin wire. Of course, we had to store the knife handles separately so that the entire knife looks like a single wire. And thanks to the not-so-smart security guards monitoring the insides of our bags, they didn’t seem to worry about what appeared as thin wires in our bags.

“See? Simple science. That’s why your mom told you to study well in school.” He gave a big laugh and took the knife off the passenger’s neck.

“How did you get the bombs in?”, the passenger asked.

His neighbor pressed his thigh tightly with his left hand and some other passengers gave an angry look towards him.

“Oh, looks like Mr. Curious is not satisfied”, the hijacker said. “If a magician reveals all his tricks, nobody will call him a magician anymore.” He continued, “Now, let’s get back on track. I need you all to cooperate so that both you and I can be safe.”

At the same time, the President got the news of the hijack and the hijackers’ demand. The hijackers were taking the plane to Mumbai in order to crash it over there. To stop them, they demanded the release of Abdul Khan, a serial killer who was caught about a year ago. After his trial a day ago, he was sentenced to death. The hijackers started their act right after the news was made public.

Abdul had murdered five people and releasing him was like releasing a bomb into the country that could blast at any time. The president instantly called for a meeting. There were 156 passengers, five flight attendants, and two pilots onboard the plane. If the plane crashed in Mumbai, it would kill hundreds more. They also had a bomb and nobody knew what they would do with that. Some suggested attacking the plane mid-air. They claimed that 163 lives didn’t matter when it came to the total lives that would be lost if the plane crashed in Mumbai and if Abdul was released. Some suggested releasing Abdul. He would not be able to take more than 163 lives before he would be caught again. But it was dangerous to assume what Abdul could do if he was released.

“Fly faster!” The hijacker yelled at the pilot, pointing the knife at his throat.

“I can’t”, the pilot replied.

“I can push this knife right through your throat without any thought. I still have your co-pilot”, the hijacker said.

The co-pilot started talking. “He’s not lying. We are already flying very fast. Any faster will result in rudder-lock. The control surfaces will not be able to move due to the force from the surrounding air and we will lose control of the plane”

The hijacker was silent for a while. Then he said, “Okay, but don’t decrease the speed. Fly as fast as it can get”

In the cabin, the hijacker had snatched a five-year-old girl from her mother. He warned everyone to follow his commands or he would kill her. Deepti and the other flight attendants sat behind him without uttering a word. A kid started crying loud out of fear. His mother tried to keep him quiet but he kept crying louder. The hijacker lifted his knife from the shoulder of the girl and pointed it at the kid to warn him to stay quiet. Deepti took the chance and ran to the hijacker, and caught his right hand, trying to snatch his knife. The little girl ran back to her mother. Deepti held both of her hands tightly on the hijacker’s right hand. She tried to pull the knife from his hand, but instantly, she felt a sharp pain as a knife came piercing behind her waist. She fell on the passenger beside her with her bleeding waist and turned around. Her vision was getting blurry out of the pain. There was another hijacker who attacked her. Now people in the plane became even more scared. Nobody knew how many hijackers were hiding amongst themselves. Anyone’s neighbor could turn out to be the next one.

Shiv arrived at IIA in the middle of the night and immediately went into Ram’s cabin.

“Are the parameters the same?” He asked, not wasting a word.

“Exactly the same. I’ve been running this simulation for more than 4 hours”, Ram replied.

“What’s the orientation of the magnetic field of the black hole?” Shiv asked.

“The north pole is 2.3 arcseconds above the equatorial plane of the solar system”

Shiv glanced through the parameters on the screen and Ram’s calculations.

“The beam will be 20 light-years across by the time it reaches the solar system”, he said.

“Yes”, Ram replied with a sigh. Then he said, “This simulation is accurate”

“I wish it wasn’t”, Shiv said in an almost inaudible tone. He then took off his spectacles and bent his head down, with his hands resting on the table.

“We need to show this to the director immediately”, he said.

Continued in chapter 3...


© arpan