Fear of Flying

Zoë Sharp

Imagine for a moment that you’re in an airport departure lounge (if your memory stretches back that far). You are waiting to get on a flight. You’re a little nervous, however, because only a week or so ago, an armed group of people attempted to hijack the very same flight.

 

They wrecked the plane and stole bits of it.

 

Five people died in the course of the exercise.

 

(Many of them claimed the pilot had invited them on board.)

 

But today you are somewhat reassured to notice that the airport has installed another set of metal detectors before the jet-bridge leading to the aircraft.

 

Your flight is called. The passengers begin to line up in front of the metal detectors. Some of the passengers are sitting on the left side of the plane and some on the right side of the plane. At the moment, there are slightly more passengers on the left side than on the right side.

 

Some of the passengers are not happy about being asked to comply with this new level of security, saying they were not consulted about the decision to install the devices.

 

“You’re taking valuable resources completely away from where it needs to be, and you guys did it without any consultation,” one of them yells, going on to call the metal detectors “bullshit.”

 

Another passenger shouts at the security staff manning the detectors to “get back” and “don’t touch me.”

 

Yet another passenger refuses to go through the detectors and skirts around instead. “You can’t stop me,” he sneers. Ten other passengers follow suit and bypass the metal detectors.

 

The next passenger obligingly passes through the detector, but when it goes off he refuses to be searched. “Nah,” he says, “I’m not going to do that.”

 

The next passenger in line also sets off the detector and he does agree to be searched. When a (presumably legal) concealed handgun is found in his jacket pocket, he asks a colleague to hold the gun while he gets on the plane.

 

(The colleague refuses on the grounds that he doesn’t have a firearms licence.)

 

The next passenger is a woman who has been telling everyone that she has a loaded handgun as she is small in stature and that crime is “skyrocketing.” She dismisses the installation of the metal detectors as “a stunt” and refuses to allow her bag to be searched.

 

A further passenger claims the detectors are impeding the ability of passengers to board the plane and that they have been “strictly designed” for this purpose. “We now have to go through intense security measures, on top of the security we already go through. These new provisions include searches and being wanded like criminals,” adds another female passenger.

 

A number of passengers who had been aboard the hijacked flight claim they saw other passengers giving reconnaissance tours to the hijackers, the day before the incident took place. They have signed a letter to the airline to this effect. These alleged tour-guide passengers are being allowed to board the plane today without restriction or investigation.

 

A BAME passenger who was on the hijacked flight was concerned that other passengers with racist tendencies would particularly point out her location to the hijackers. Strangely, all the emergency call buttons in the row in which she was sitting had been disabled prior to the hijack, so she was unable to call for help.

 

Another female passenger who was on the hijacked flight tells a TV reporter that she is nervous about boarding a flight where her fellow passengers are armed. The TV reporter suggests that the armed passengers might simply be trying to keep everyone on board safe. “I don’t really care what they say their intentions are,” she replies. “I care what the impact of their actions are and the impact is to put 435 (passengers) in danger … it is absolutely outrageous that we even have to have this conversation.” 

 

What about you? Will you get on that flight?

 

This week’s Word of the Week is grawlix, meaning to replace a swearword with a string of typographical symbols, such as @$&%£*!, especially used in comic strips. The invention of the word was credited to the late cartoonist, Mort Walker.

The Abandoned Car

Jassy Mackenzie burst onto the South African thriller scene with her debut novel RANDOM VIOLENCE (2010), introducing Jade de Jong, and reflecting the violent tension of Johannesburg that hadn’t been a focus of South African thriller fiction before her book.  Jade was back in STOLEN LIVES (2011) and THE FALLEN (2012) and this month sees the release of the new book PALE HORSES.  The horse in question is the fourth horse of the apocalypse, and, as The Witness newspaper of South Africa commented, “Jade and David Patel find themselves in a race against time as they deal with sinister and very powerful forces in a satisfyingly tense and convoluted plot.”

Jassy lives in Johannesburg. She loves the energy, danger and excitement of the city, and believes there is no better place for a thriller writer to live.  But from time to time that danger gets a bit too close for comfort.  In her guest blog today, Jassy tells us about a scary example of that.

Michael - Thursday

The car came into view, trapped in the beams of our headlights, as my partner Dion and I drove down the quiet and unlit road that led to our country cottage. It was just outside our gate, and we knew for sure it spelled trouble.

Living in Johannesburg, even in the rural suburbs, one soon develops a sixth sense for when things are wrong, and the car was setting off all the alarms. For a start, this is not an area where people park on the side of the road at night. You either get yourself to safety behind tall gates and electrified fences, or you keep driving. But this car – a luxury vehicle – was just... stopped. At an angle, and only partly off the road.

“Is there anyone inside?” Dion asked, giving it a wide berth as we approached.

The headlights offered limited visibility, and we didn’t want to pass by too slowly. But then I saw that something was definitely wrong.

“The passenger door’s wide open!”

There was something strange about the window glass, too. It was opaque and milky-looking.

Don’t stop,” I told Dion.

“I’m not going to,” he reassured me.

With a suspicious vehicle just outside our gate, turning into our driveway would be stupid at best, suicidal at worst. It would mean we would be trapped. Instead, we drove slowly around the block while I called the local security firm, told them about the creepy-looking car, and asked them to meet us outside our house. We kept on the move until their red and yellow truck arrived, and then we got inside fast, making sure the gate was closed behind us and our cottage locked up tight.

Next morning, in the reassuring sunshine, I walked outside and found myself in the middle of a crime investigation. Two police cars were on the scene, as well as security personnel, with the buzz and crackle of walkie-talkies filling the air. In daylight, I could see why the glass of the car had looked so milky – it was peppered with bullet holes.

  I ran back to the cottage and fetched my camera. Standing inside the cover of my gateway, I took some photos of the scene. Then, since it looked as if the investigation was wrapping up, I grew bolder. I ventured outside and started talking to the detective.

“This BMW was hijacked in Fourways last night,” he told me. “While the hijackers were driving away, a security guard opened fire on the car with an automatic rifle.”

Wide-eyed, I peered at the bullet holes, some of which had punched right through the body of the car. I could only imagine the scene – the blast of gunfire filling the air; the screech of tires as the hijackers made their desperate getaway. Now all that was left to tell the story was the damaged glass and punctured bodywork and the silvery streaks and smudges of fingerprint dust.

  “They abandoned the car here,” the detective told me.

“That would explain the open door, I suppose,” I said. “But why leave it here? Did they panic?”

“One of the hijackers was hit by a bullet,” he said. “He was injured – dying, perhaps. I think they called for their accomplices to meet them here, and jettisoned the car. They must have dragged him out of the passenger seat and fled.” He gestured towards the BMW’s plush interior. “The passenger seat is covered in blood.”

 A click of my digital camera, and I captured the gory scene before thanking the detective and hurrying back to the safety of my cottage. An hour later, the car had gone, but the images of this scene still filled my mind. It was scary and sobering – a glimpse into another world that coexisted, mostly parallel to our calm and peaceful life, but just occasionally intersecting. A world where brutal acts were forcefully executed – where the language of violence was the first one spoken.

Where, on that cold July night, thanks to the sharp reactions of a security guard, a job went suddenly, lethally wrong. A desperate ride took these men to this quiet, dark rendezvous point. The driver sweating, terrified, gabbling on his phone. The passenger groaning and gasping as he pressed his hands onto his wounds to try and stem the flow of blood.

What happened to them? Where are they now? Is the driver still doing crime, or did that night, and the sound of his partner’s agony, provide a turning point for him?

None of us will ever know.

Jassy Mackenzie.
http://www.jassymackenzie.com/