Chapter 6 - The Saboteur's Gambit
Kane took a step back, reaching for the door handle behind him, but Elena had already locked it from the outside per protocol.
"You don't understand what this is," Kane said, his voice dropping into a hiss. "This airframe was pre-selected. An unmonitored mid-ocean test. The signal jammer is autonomous, running on a decentralized relay. You can't land this plane. The flight controls will lock out completely within twenty minutes when the second firmware cycle initiates."
"Where is the transmitter?" Maya asked, keeping her left hand firmly on the yoke and her feet pinned to the pedals.
"In the e-bay, wired straight into the central logic unit," Kane smiled mirthlessly. "And you can't leave this seat to pull it. If you let go of that stick, this metal tube rolls over and dives straight into the sea."
"You forgot something about fighter pilots, Marcus," Maya said smoothly.
"What's that?"
"We don't fly alone."
Maya reached down with her right hand, flipping the emergency flight attendant override switch and shouting into the intercom: "Galley! Breach cockpit now!"
The flight deck door burst open. Two burly male passengers—a rugby coach and an off-duty fireman Elena had quietly briefed in the aisle—lunged through the threshold. Kane lunged forward to smash his portfolio against the throttle console, but the fireman tackled him around the waist, slamming him hard against the cockpit wall. The rugby coach pinned his arms, securing his wrists with heavy industrial zip-ties from the flight attendants' emergency kit.
The portfolio burst open on the floor. Inside was an active wireless interface terminal, its display running a continuous loop of encrypted data packets feeding into the plane's flight director bus.
"Smash the external transmitter antenna on that board," Maya ordered.
The fireman brought his boot down on the terminal, shattering the screen and snapping the receiver board in half.
May you like
Instantly, the instrument panel groaned. A cascade of green lights flickered across the glare shield. The synthetic attitude indicators rebooted, clearing their frozen displays, and the primary altimeters snapped back to life, registering 24,500 feet.
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