Page 102 of All That Glitters
The flight attendant stared at him, dumbfounded. “You hijacked us so you can talk to someone?”
“Oh, no, it’s nothing like that,” he said quickly. “You see, there’s this girl I like, and she’s supposed to be on this plane.” He paused. “Only knowing her, she probably got on the wrong plane.”
“Is she a hijacker too?” the flight attendant asked, her voice dangerously quiet.
“Just an airhead,” Tony said, and squeezed past her into the aisle. He looked around at the sea of terrified, confused faces. “Debbie?” he called out, his voice echoing in the stunned silence. “Any of you guys see a short brunette? Probably has a smudge of something on her cheek? Probably knocked something over on her way to her seat?”
A little girl nudged her mom and whispered loudly, “Look, mommy. Is that man a hijacker?”
“No, sweetie,” her mom whispered back. “He’s just very sick.”
On the runway below, the police cars and the SWAT van screeched to a halt. Cops poured out, racing up the boarding ladder. The flight attendant stepped aside as they stormed the plane.
“You! Freeze!” a cop yelled, aiming his weapon down the aisle.
Passengers screamed and ducked in their seats. Tony looked back, saw the cops heading for him, and bolted to the back exit. He yanked open the door, grabbed the handle for the emergency chute, and pulled.
The yellow slide popped out and inflated with a loud whoosh. Without a second thought, Tony plunged down it.
“TONY!”
He looked over. A figure was racing across the runway towards him. It was Debbie. He stumbled to his feet and ran to meet her, grabbing her in a hug that was both desperate and triumphant.
“Have you totally lost your mind?” she cried into his chest.
He smiled, a wide, goofy, relieved smile. “Probably,” he admitted. He pulled back, holding her by the shoulders. “Look, Deb. I’ve done some stupid things. Hijacking a plane is definitely one of them. But I think losing you would be the stupidest thing I ever did.”
He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it. “I actually wrote all this down so I wouldn’t miss anything.” His eyes scanned the paper. “I can’t imagine not having you in my life. And those things you said in the wine cellar… I feel them too.”
Behind him, the cops were plunging down the chute, fanning out, their weapons raised.
“Freeze!”
Debbie looked past Tony at the approaching SWAT team. She held up a hand. “Wait!” she yelled. “You guys can’t shoot him yet! I’ve been waiting way too long to hear this!” She turned back to Tony, her eyes shining with tears of laughter and disbelief. “Keep going.”
He shoved the paper back in his pocket and looked her straight in the eye, his heart in his throat, pouring out fifteen years of unspoken truth.
“I love you, Deb,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “All the clumsiness, the breaking things, the way you’re looking at me right now like you want to kill me… I never want to be without any of it.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “Will you marry me?”
KA-CHUNK! The sound of a dozen machine guns being cocked echoed across the tarmac.
Chapter thirty-seven
Terrorist Watchlists and Happy Endings
A ‘BREAKING NEWS’ banner flashed on the TV, just as Veronica was mid-bite on a slice of pizza. She immediately set down her pizza and turned up the volume. Whatever this ‘breaking news’ was, she had no doubt it involved Tony. And probably her accident-prone roommate as well. And sure enough...
“We have breaking news out of San Diego,” the anchor began, “where police stopped what is being called a failed hijacking attempt. We take you now live to Alexis Calderon at the airport.”
The news cut to a reporter standing on the tarmac, her hair whipping in the wind as she shouted over the roar from nearby jet engines. “Thank you, Sandra. What we’re witnessing here can only be described as unprecedented. Passengers on a nearby aircraft captured the terrifying moment on their cell phones.”
The image on the screen cut to shaky, handheld video, clearly shot by a passenger from a nearby plane. It showed a chaotic scene on the runway. A massive 747 sat motionless, itsemergency slide deployed like a giant yellow tongue. A swarm of police cars and a menacing black SWAT van surrounded the aircraft.
Veronica took a bite of pizza as she watched the grainy footage. She washed it down with a Coke.
“The male suspect,” the anchor’s voiceover narrated with the same tone used for international terrorists, “allegedly commandeered a service vehicle and used it to stop a departing international flight to Paris.”
Veronica nearly spat up her Coke. Yup. Tony.
