فصل ۸

Chapter 8

When the girl came back into the cabin she was shaking. Her hands were shaking and she was crying and smoke was coming out of her gun. One of the passengers, an American, stood up and shouted at her.

‘You’re a murderer!’ he shouted. ‘You’re a dirty, murdering, b…’

She turned and pointed the gun at him and fired. The man sat down in his seat and the bullets went above the seats, all along the plane, and out through the roof. After ten seconds the girl stopped firing and shouted.

‘You’re shut up! You shut up and sit down or I’ll kill you all! I am a soldier of the People’s Liberation Army and I’ll kill you, all of you!’ but she was crying too, and the young man in the black shirt put his arm around her and held her. She leaned against him, crying, and he whispered something in her ear.

It was then that Harald moved. He got out of his seat, bent low, and ran very fast along the aisle towards the front of the plane. The young man and the girl did not see him coming and he caught them both around their legs and knocked them onto the floor. Harald fell on top of them and he tried to take one of the guns, but girl pulled his hair and the young man held his arms. Then the bearded man came out of the Captain’s cabin and hit Harald hard on the head with his gun. Harald fell on the floor and lay still. The bearded man pointed his gun at the passengers and shouted ‘SIT STILL!’ very loud indeed.

None of the passengers had moved except Carl, and he was too slow. He stood very still in the middle of the aisle five metres away from the bearded man’s gun. The other two hijackers were still on the floor, and Carl saw the Captain move in the cabin behind the bearded man. But the young man I the black shirt saw him too, and stood up and pointed his gun at the Captain. Both Carl and the Captain were too late.

‘I am getting old,’ Carl thought. ‘When I was young, I could move as fast as Harald. But not now.’ Carl sat down in his seat, very slowly. The bearded man watched him all the time. He pushed Harald with his foot.

‘Search him,’ he said to the girl. ‘Then handcuff him to the door. He will be the next one.’

The girl pulled Harald to the door. She found some handcuffs in his pocket and handcuffed him to the door. Then she searched his other pockets.

In one of his pockets she found a newspaper. She looked at it and saw the photo of Harald and Carl. She stood up slowly and showed it to the bearded man. He looked at the photo, and then he looked at Carl carefully and for a long time. Very slowly appeared on the faces of the two hijackers and they began to laugh.