Page 7 of Final Approach
“He said it didn’t matter, we just couldn’t land in Key West.”
“Okay. What did he say to do when you landed wherever you planned to land?”
“He didn’t say to do anything. Just that I would know when I got there.” He coughed again, another strangled fit that Kristine wasn’t sure he’d recover from. Once again, she almost went for help, but the fit passed. Shame coated his features. “The truth is,” he rasped, “I wanted the plane to crash. Then it would be done. I would be free of this miserable life and my family wouldn’t have to watch me die. It would just be done.”
Along with everyone else on the plane.
“And you were okay with killing all those innocent people on the plane with you?” Andrew asked as though reading her thoughts.
Marcus closed his eyes and shook his head. “No,” he whispered, “I wasn’t okay with it.”
Kristine suppressed a shudder. But he would have done it. If she and the others hadn’t been there, he might have succeeded. He was thin and looked tired—and the cough was scary—but she wouldn’t have any idea he was actually dying if he hadn’t said so. “How long have you been given?”
“They refused to give me a time. Could be a couple of days, could be a couple more weeks without treatment. I did the first two rounds of chemo, but I’m not doing any more treatments.”
She blinked. “Not that it’s any of my business, but may I ask why not?”
“The doctors say the cancer is too far advanced and I’d only be prolonging my life for a couple of months. What’s the point in doing that? Also, my wife’s mother died a horrible death with chemo and...” He waved a hand. “As a child, watching her go through that left an impression. It nearly killed my wife. Left her with a horrible fear of losing someone that way again. I won’t put her through it.” He pursed his lips. “She doesn’t know I’m terminal. She just knows I’ve been fatigued and lost weight and was sick for a while...” He shuddered. “Anyway, I just wanted to leave her the money. To make her life easier when I’m gone. I left her a note explaining everything. I’m sure she’s read it by now.” He heaved a sigh and released a sob. “I’ve really messed up, haven’t I?”
To say the least. Kristine had so many questions but couldn’t stop the compassion and sympathy flowing through her. He’d made wrong choices for the right reasons, she supposed.
Not that it mattered in the legal sense. Assuming he was being truthful about his medical condition, he’d spend the rest of his limited days behind bars, then cuffed to a hospital bed. His poor family.
Andrew and Nathan exchanged a look. They felt for the guy, too, but needed to get the rest of the story from him.
She slid a tissue box toward him, and he mopped up his face, getting control of the crying. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for it all.”
A little too late, but she kept that thought to herself.
“We need to know about the man who hired you,” Nathan said. “Can you think of anything about him that stood out? A tattoo? The way he spoke? An accent, any kind of physical mark above the mask?”
“Um, no, but he told me part of the deal was that I needed to get this tattoo.” He rolled up his sleeve and a three-headed snake coiled to strike popped off his skin in 3D. It looked real enough that Kristine wanted to step back. She hated snakes.
She hated what the tattoo represented even more. She looked at Nathan and Andrew. “The Serpentine Network.”
Andrew’s jaw tightened. “They’re behind this?” He looked at Marcus. “Are you a part of that gang?”
“Gang? No way. Why?”
Andrew nodded to the tattoo. “That’s their symbol. This is their way of taking credit for the hijacking?”
“Maybe.”
Kristine narrowed her eyes and looked at the man, whose gaze was pinging among the three of them. He was truly confused.
So was she. “I’ve got to admit, this is a new one for me.” She glanced at the men. “You ever heard of something like this?”
Andrew shrugged. “I’ve heard of some crazy stuff, but a gang putting a non-gang member on a plane and forcing them to hijack it? That’s not gang work, that’s terrorism. And while gangs often spread terror, I’ve not come across anything like this before.”
And a gang certainly wasn’t going to pay someone to do it.
“You were looking at someone,” Kristine said to Marcus. “One of the passengers. Who was it?”
Marcus fidgeted, shifting his feet and raising his still-bound hands to rub his nose. “Um...”
“Look, Marcus,” she said. “Planes are grounded, people’s lives have been disrupted because we can’t let anyone else go anywhere until we know if you were working alone.”
“But I was,” he blurted.
