فصل ۱۰

Chapter 10

In the plane, Carl and Harald sat on the floor by the door. They were handcuffed together with Harald’s handcuffs. The girl hijacker stood watching them with her gun. The bearded man in the Captain’s cabin, and the young man in the black shirt was watching the other passengers.

Harald touched his head with his hand. There was blood in his hair. ‘How do you feel, my young friend?’ Carl asked.

‘It hurts,’ Harald answered. ‘And I can’t see well.’

‘This man needs a doctor,’ Carl said to the girl, angrily.

She laughed. ‘That is your wife’s problem, not mine,’ she said. ‘If our brothers come, he will get a doctor. If they don’t come, he won’t need one.’ She pointed her gun at Harald’s head and laughed again. She wasn’t at all nervous now.

Carl felt angry. He was angry with the hijackers and he was angry with himself because he had not moved fast enough to help Harald. It was good to be angry; when he was angry he did not feel so afraid.

‘How old are you?’ he asked the girl.

‘I asked you a question!’ he said. ‘How old are you? Eighteen, nineteen? You’re not very old, really, are you? You’re just a child!’

The girl’s face went red. ‘I’m twenty,’ she said angrily. ‘I’m not a child!’

‘You look like a child,’ Carl said. ‘You’re only two years older than my daughter. Why are you doing this?’

The girl laughed. She didn’t look at his eyes. ‘Why? You wouldn’t understand.’

‘I don’t think you understand what you’re doing,’ Carl said. ‘None of the people in this plane has hurt you. We are all innocent. That man you killed – he wasn’t a spy, he was just an American businessman. You’ve never seen any of us before. Why do you want to kill us?’ The girl looked worried and angry. She pointed the gun straight at Carl’s head. ‘I don’t want to kill you,’ she said. ‘I want your government – your wife – to set our brothers free.

‘Yes, I know,’ said Carl, carefully. He watched the gun and the girl’s face, but he was not really afraid because he was still angry. He argued with the girl as trough he was arguing with his daughter. ‘But remember what your brothers did. They tried to put a bomb on a plane. They wanted to kill innocent people like us. Why?’ ‘You are not innocent!’ said the girl. ‘No on is innocent! People like you, and your wife, and that American – you have money and power and you take it from my people, from us! Do you know now I lived when I was a child? Ten people in one room, with no bath, no water, nothing! My parents had no jobs, no passports, no country, nothing! We lived I a town with ten thousand others. But ten kilometres away there were rich people like you, with big beautiful house, fine cars, fine clothes – and they were all innocent people, like you! I tell you no one is innocent.’ She was shouting now, and nearly crying – there were tears in her eyes. Carl and Harald watched the gun carefully. ‘Poor girl,’ Carl thought. ‘Poor little murderess.’ The bearded man came out of the Captain’s cabin and put his hand on the girl’s arm. ‘Stop it, little flower,’ he said. ‘Don’t talk to them. That’s not your job.’ Then he hit Carl in the face. ‘Keep your mouth shut!’ he said. ‘Think about your wife instead. Do you see the time? I think she has forgotten you!’ Carl groaned and held his mouth with his hand. There was blood in his mouth and one of his teeth was broken. Then he looked at his watch. It was 2.23. Seven minutes left; then the half hour was over.

‘I’m sorry, my friend,’ he whispered to Harald. ‘You tried fighting, and I tried talking.

But it didn’t work. I think this may be our last journey.’