Corsair

Practicing music in her mind had been the only way to keep herself sane since her capture.

Her cell was a featureless metal box with a single door and a chamber pot that was infrequently emptied. A low-wattage bulb protected by a wire cage gave the only illumination. They had taken her watch, so there was no way for her to know how long she’d been their prisoner. She guessed four days.

Moments before their aircraft made its emergency landing in the open desert, their pilot had come over the intercom to explain that they had spotted an old airfield. He managed to eke a few more miles out of their descent and set the aircraft down. The landing on the dirt strip was rough, but he had gotten them down in one piece. The cheer that went up when the wheels finally stopped rolling had been deafening. Everyone was up at once, hugging, laughing, and wiping at their joyous tears.

When the pilot and copilot stepped from the cockpit, their backs were slapped black-and-blue, and their hands shaken until they were probably ready to fall off. Frank Maguire had opened the main door, and a warm desert breeze had blown the stink of fear from the cabin.

And then his head had exploded, spraying blood and tissue onto the stewardess standing behind him.

A swarm of men emerged from along the length of the runway, where they had been hiding in foxholes covered with tarps and sand. They wore khaki uniforms, their heads swaddled in scarves. Several had ladders, and before anyone could think to reseal the cabin one of the ladders was set against the bottom sill. The pilot rushed to push it back, like a knight defending a castle wall. He was hit in the shoulder by the same sniper that killed Maguire. He went down clutching at the wound. An instant later, three men brandishing AK-47s had reached the cabin.

Fiona’s assistant, Grace Walsh, screamed so shrilly that Fiona later recalled being annoyed with her at the same time she feared for her life.

It all happened so fast. They were herded back away from the open door to allow more men to enter the plane. The terrorists kept repeating in Arabic, “Down. Everybody get down.”

Fiona somehow had managed to find her voice. “We will do whatever you say. There is no need for violence.” And she had gotten down on her knees.

Seeing her take the lead, the crew and staff sank to the cabin floor.

One of the men yanked Fiona to her feet and pushed her toward the exit at the same time that another man was climbing the ladder. Unlike the others, he wore dark slacks and a white short-sleeved oxford shirt.

Fiona knew the moment she saw him she would never forget his face. It was angelic, with smooth coffee-colored skin and long curling lashes behind wire-framed glasses. He was no more than twenty years old, slender, and almost bookish. She had no idea how he related to the gun-wielding savages shouting at her people. Then she noted he had something in his hands. A set of Arab worry beads and a copy of the Koran.

He smiled shyly as he passed her and was led into the cockpit.

She looked back to see her people being handcuffed to their seats, understanding telescoping in on her so the horror hit like a physical blow.

“Please don’t do this,” she begged the man grasping her arm.

He shoved her even harder toward the ladder. Fiona went wild, clawing at his face with her fingernails and trying to ram her knee into his groin. She managed to rip off his kaffiyeh and saw he didn’t have the classic Semitic features of a typical Libyan. She guessed he was Pakistani or Afghani. He balled up his fist and punched her hard enough that she momentarily lost consciousness. One second, she was scratching and kicking, and the next she was lying on the carpet, the left side of her face pulsing with pain. Men standing outside on the ladder started dragging her off the plane.

Fiona caught Grace’s eye just before she was hauled away. She had somehow managed to stifle her tears. Grace, too, realized what was about to happen.

“God bless you,” Grace mouthed.

“You, too,” Fiona replied silently, and then she was outside, being manhandled down to the ground.

They took her about a hundred feet from the aircraft and forced her to her knees, her wrists cuffed behind her back. Through the small cockpit window she could see the young man fiddling with the controls. She also saw that there was a hole in the plane’s tail section. It looked like a missile had struck the plane but hadn’t exploded. Which, she assumed, was the point. They wanted her but wanted the world to think she was dead.

The last of the terrorists finished securing the people left aboard. The suicide pilot stepped from the cockpit and hugged the last gunman at the door’s threshold. He paused there, waving to the others, who cheered him riotously. When the gunman was on the ground and the ladder hauled away, the pilot closed the hatch and retook his place in the cockpit.