Chapter 6 - Radio Silence from Seattle
The cockpit door felt suddenly heavy as I pressed my hand against the latch.
“Wait, Ryan,” Captain Vance warned, holding up a hand. “Don't panic the boy. If those operatives—whoever they are—managed to track Arthur Parker to the gate, there’s a terrifying possibility they also know Noah is on this flight. We don't know who is watching us.”
The warning hung in the air like poison.
“Are you saying there could be hostile agents on board Flight 271?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
“I’m saying we can’t rule out anything,” Captain Vance said, his eyes scanning his flight deck monitors. “Federal security protocols were triggered the moment the ticket was issued, but commercial airlines don't always vet every passenger manifest against black-site intelligence databases before takeoff. If someone wanted to slip onto this aircraft in Seattle, they easily could have.”
My blood ran cold. I thought back to the boarding process. The sea of faces rushing down the jet bridge. Businessmen in suits, families returning from vacations, tourists, students. Any one of them could have been carrying something far more dangerous than a standard carry-on.
“What do you want me to do, Captain?” I asked.
“Go back out there,” Vance instructed quietly. “Act normal. Serve the beverage service. Keep your eyes open, and stay within arm’s reach of Seat 2A. I’m going to check if there are any federal air marshals assigned to this route. Sometimes they travel incognito on high-priority transcontinental runs.”
“Understood,” I said.
I unlocked the cockpit door and slipped back out into the forward galley.
Linda was standing by the convection oven, her hands shaking as she tried to load a tray of hot meals. The arrogant, untouchable veteran flight attendant was completely gone; in her place stood a terrified woman realizing the catastrophic magnitude of her mistake.
She looked up as I stepped out, her eyes red-rimmed. “Ryan... is everything okay? What did the captain say?”
“Just keep working, Linda,” I said tightly, grabbing the cart brake release. “Don't look at Seat 2A, don't draw attention to the boy, and act like everything is completely normal.”
“Is... is he in danger?” she whispered, a tear slipping down her cheek.
“We all are,” I replied, pulling the beverage cart out into the aisle.
As I rolled the cart past row one and into the first-class cabin, every nerve ending in my body was stretched to its absolute limit. I forced a polite, professional smile to my face, offering orange juice and coffee to the passengers in seats 1C and 2C.
When I reached Seat 2A, Noah looked up at me with those big, tired eyes.
“Are we halfway to New York yet, Mr. Ryan?” he asked softly.
“We’re getting there, buddy,” I said, kneeling down beside his seat, keeping my body positioned between him and the rest of the cabin to shield him from view. “How’s your rabbit doing?”
Noah instinctively pulled the stuffed toy closer to his chest, his small fingers digging into the worn fabric of the belly seam.
“He’s tired,” Noah whispered. “Dad said Mr. Hopper holds all our most important secrets inside him so we never lose them.”
My chest constricted. Mr. Hopper holds all our most important secrets.
Arthur Parker hadn't just given his son a toy to comfort him; he had engineered a literal, physical vault disguised as a child’s stuffed animal, smuggling the most critical aerospace defense data in the world right past airport security and onto a commercial airliner.
Suddenly, a heavy thud echoed from the rear galley, followed by the sharp, metallic click of an overhead storage bin slamming shut.
I stood up quickly, scanning the cabin.
May you like
A passenger in row 12—a tall man in a dark wool coat who had kept his baseball cap pulled low over his forehead the entire flight—unbuckled his seatbelt and stood up in the aisle. He wasn't reaching for his luggage. Instead, he turned his head slowly, scanning the rows ahead of him.
His eyes locked directly onto the back of Noah’s head in Seat 2A.
