Thought For The Day

Never annoy an author.

From chapter five of the current novel project:

He would fly to Washington was on American Airlines flight 23.  The Boeing 727 aircraft would make a stop at Chicago and then Stone would stay overnight at a Washington hotel before speaking to the committee.

But there was an interruption.

Stone sat in an isle seat in the coach class and was writing in an open notebook.  This was another chapter in the novel which described the construction of five sublight starships: Exodus, Humanity, Courage, Achievement, and Guardian.  They were two stage vessels propelled by an inertial confinement fusion drive that used Deuterium and Helium-3 for fuel.

As he roughed out the details of vessels Stone heard shouting from the middle of the coach class section.

A tall bearded man in his mid-twenties with long dark brown hair, blue eyes, and glasses, had taken one of the flight attendants as a hostage with a small automatic pistol.  The hijacker was also shouting Marxist slogans.

Great, thought Stone, another Hero of the Proletariat.

Stone closed the notebook and shifted the pen to the left hand to serve as a makeshift dagger.  With the notebook in his right hand He watched as the hijacker moved back towards the rear of the aircraft.   

The hijacker spun with his hostage as he moved down the aisle.  As the hijacker was faced away from Stone he suddenly stood up and stepped into the aisle As the hijacker turned to face him he threw the notebook at the face and surged forward.  The pen was pointed down in the left fist and with the palm of the right hand to guide and add force to the blow he stabbed the hijacker in the right eye.  With the open palm of the right hand he made another blow to drive the pen further into the brain.

The hijacker fell to the deck.

Stone reached down and picked up the weapon.  It was a Walther PPK, the Polizeipistole Kriminalmodell, in the original 7.65 millimeter caliber.  The weapon still had the Waffenamt stamp for weapons issued by the Third Reich.

Nice.  He thought.  Perfect weapon for a murderer.

He pulled back the slide and ejected a round.

Loaded.

At least six rounds.

I think.

With the weapon in a two hand grip at the eye level Stone moved forward into the first class section.  There he found the two other hijackers.  They were screaming at the passengers and each one was holding a PPK to the head of a flight attendant and the closest of the two was facing away from him.

Stone aimed at the center of the back and fired two rounds.  As the nearest hijacker dropped to the deck he now focused on the other.  He carefully lined the sights on the right eye of the assailant.

Focus.

Hold breath.

He pulled the trigger. 

A red spot appeared below the eye.

Blood and brains sprayed from the back of the head and the assailant dropped to the deck.

It was over.

Stone knelt down and gently laid the weapon on the deck. He then stood and spoke.

“Could someone tell the Captain that the situation is resolved?”

On the ground he was personally debriefed by the head of the FBI field office in Chicago, who in turn was stunned to hear that Stone wanted no publicity about his actions on the aircraft.

“I don’t understand?”

Stone replied.

“Sir, we are at war.  Our enemy sees us as either things to be used or trash to be disposed of.  And they absolutely hate those who raise a hand in defiance.  They are driven by emotion and the primary objects of their hatreds are those who stand against them.  Any publicity on my actions in this incident will be an effective death sentence.  Do you understand, sir?”

The senior agent stared for a moment before answering.

“Yes...yes, sir.”

Stone would stay overnight in a hotel near O’Hare Airport before moving on to Washington.