“Don’t get on that plane,” the voice said.
I’m not sure why I answered my phone since I’m boarding a flight. All right, I answered because some idiot called me eight times in a row. Now I plan on telling him what I thought of such an idea when he comes out with this malarkey.
“Why? What are you going to do?”
“What do you think? Why else would we warn you,” the voice said.
A shudder went down my spine, despite the insanity of such a claim. His tone permitted no doubt. This man might be crazy, but determined.
“Why,” was all I could say.
“The why does not matter, only that we chose to save you. Now walk away and pretend this conversation never happened.”
“Ok, why are you warning me?”
“Today is your lucky day.”
“What if I tell everyone else on the flight what you have told me?”
“That sounds like a good way to get arrested for being a crazy terrorist.”
“Touché.”
I hung up and glanced down at my phone. No number appears or a message about an unknown or blocked ID. I scroll through my call log, but nothing is there. I did not imagine this, yet what proof did I have? What should I do? Anyone who can disappear a call might have the means to crash a plane. I’m not sure why this seems logical, only that it does. I should turn around and go home, and at any other time I would, just not today; I can’t. Despite this warning, I moved towards the boarding gate, refusing to be cowed by such a demand. I am twenty feet from the counter when an intense nausea hits me. For a moment, I stand still, unwilling to give in. I will not run to the bathroom and miss my flight, even if someone is trying to save me. If I didn’t board now, I would end up dead. If this stranger is correct, I die in a plane crash, a gruesome death, but not as horrible as the other possibility. That is, if the caller is truthful.
Despite the nausea, I take a step forward. A gate attendant looks at me and says, “Sir, are you all right?” I nodded my head yes and hand her my boarding pass. She studies it for a long time before handing the paper back to me. A moment later, something stings me.
“Ouch,” I said. What had she done? What did she poke me with, and why? No chance for questions now, but providing I survived this flight, I would make a complaint. As I walk towards the plane, I noticed her name tag said April.
April, wait until I talk to your boss.
I move forward when another, more intense nausea hits me. My forehead breaks into a cold sweat and a jolt of dizziness nearly causes me to pass out. Then the feeling of diarrhea strikes. Now my thoughts shift as I am consumed with reaching the bathroom. I do the awkward run-walk to hold this disaster in as I scurry towards the bathroom. I reach the toilet with a fraction of a second to spare, and well, the rest is fuzzy. Later, I remember sitting there, telling myself I would remain for a moment until I felt less…horrible. When I wake, my head is leaning on the wall and I wonder how long I have been this way.
At first, I did not know where I was and imagined I was waking in my bed after a bad dream. Then I remembered. Had someone hit my head with a sledgehammer? After hazy thought clear, I decided this seems unlikely. Next, panic welled up inside. My flight. The plane must have left by now. No, no, no, no. Not this flight, not this time. My mind is fuzzy, but I realized they had set me up. The phone call was a means of delay while discovering how I felt. In a coffee shop near the gate, I had taken the lid off my cup to add cream when a man bumped into me. That bump was a distraction and looking back, I can see the splash. Why hadn’t I considered this before? Sure, I was in a hurry, but still. They stalled, since the drug needed time to work, and I was about to board. They did not want to crash the plane but steal my luggage. How long had I been out? I will phone the airline and explain. Right, the flight is going to Japan. What could I do? This is not good. This is the type of situation that gets me killed. Could I expect the airline to grab my luggage despite my missing the flight all before someone steals it first? He wanted to kill me before, and now this. He would never believe my story, but if he did, he would blame me. Sure, I would blame me too, but I know the truth, which in this case is stranger than fiction. I sit on the toilet, staring at the polished metal walls of the bathroom stall, before glancing at my watch.
If someone had asked me how much time had passed, I would have said ten minutes–a quick nap but enough to miss the flight. Instead, when I look at the time, the numbers did not at first register. Was I staring at the hands wrong? The little hand shows the hour and the longer one the minute, right? If so, I have been out for two hours. How is that possible? At least the plane has not landed, so that gives me a chance to contact the airline and explain my situation. Maybe this could work out. I talk with someone, catch the next flight, and voilà Bob’s your uncle. Please, everyone knows it won’t be that simple. This has all the makings of one of those bad Steven Seagal movies, only I’m the guy that is killed in the beginning. Later, Seagal gets the goods and the girl.
I attempt to stand, but my knees buckle, and I fall back down. “I can do this,” I tell myself. Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and breathe out. I focus on my breathing: in and out. Mindfulness, that’s what they call this, right? I am also mindful that if I don’t get up and contact someone at the airline, I might not have a mind much longer. Several minutes pass and I try again, but now I am standing and step out of the stall. At the sink, I slap water on my face, which is pale, but I don’t look too bad. No one will think I’m about to die or am a zombie. I am at the sink for a minute and exit. I am in the entrance of the restroom, that curved section that keeps others from seeing inside when I spot the gate attendant, April. She is on the phone and is looking towards this way. Instead of exiting, I stop to see what she is doing. Was she watching me? Why? Today was the first time I ever seen her, so why would she care about me? Or is this nausea, and today’s events, making me paranoid?
When I was twelve, I was in an accident that left me almost deaf until I could undergo surgery to repair the problem. A year passed before my hearing returned, so I learned to read lips. The problem with reading lips is that it is easy to assume everyone is talking about you. The logic is simple–the person thinks you are too far away to hear and talks about you with impunity.
I see April mouth the words, “No, he is still in there. No, I didn’t expect he would make it in time. How do I know if he’s ok?”
She walked towards me, and for a moment, I wondered if she might enter. As she drew closer, I retreated and prayed she would not come in. Would she be so bold? Her red airline uniform did not help her blend in, and even from a distance, it is evident she is a woman. I hear the clanking sound of her heels as she enters. I moved towards the stalls before hearing a man say, “Wrong bathroom lady.”
I move to the farthest open stall and close the door most of the way. Next, I stand on the toilet seat and wait. Her heals start the click, click sound and she is coming to this way. The man’s voice made her change her mind and now she is leaving. I exit the stall, go to the sink, and I splash more water on my face. Now I do not look well, as my reflection in the mirror shows. I return to the entrance and search for her. April is on the phone, pacing back and forth. She is too far to overhear or read her lips. Another wave of nausea hits, and I need to leave now. Once she turns around and moves away from where I am, I run. This should give me fifteen or twenty seconds before she notices. As I move, I realize how horrible I feel and I’m not sure if I can keep going.
I wake, unsure where I am. My mind is fuzzy, and at first, I thought I had dreamed about the flight. I look around and realize that I was not in my bedroom, but in a hospital room. What was I doing here? I was about to board the plane, then nausea, the bathroom, and now I am here. When I move, I discover that my right hand is handcuffed to the bed. What is going on? I find the call button and press it. Several minutes later, a nurse walks in and says, “I see you are awake. How are you?”
“I’ve been better. I couldn’t help but notice this handcuff, which is a bit concerning.”
“Oh, yes, I understand. I did not do that. There is a man outside your room that will have the answer. Would you like to speak to him now or are you too tired?”
I should have said I was tired and asked to talk to a lawyer, but I was curious.
"Have him come in.”
The nurse stepped into the hall, and a moment later a man in a dark suit enters. Government agent is my first thought.
“I’m John Greenwell with Homeland Security and I’m here to ask you a few questions.”
This was serious because he told me my right to an attorney and all that other stuff, but I was not sure if I was under arrest or not. I agreed to answer questions since I had nothing to hide, or at least that is what I will convince him.
“You were booked on a flight to Tokyo. Why were you going to Japan?”
So I will start lying with the first question. “Why does anyone go to Tokyo? I wanted to meet Godzilla. Then if I survived, I will see the other places tourists visit.”
“I see.”
There was silence for fifteen seconds before he asked his next question. “If that is the case, why are you here?”
I paused for an equal amount of time since two can play at that game, and I answered him with a question. “Ask the doctors about that. One second, I am ready to board a plane. Next, I wake up here, handcuffed to the bed.”
“It’s convenient that you suddenly got ill right before boarding the plane.”
“Yea, that is the dream of every traveler. I wanted to miss my flight, mess up my vacation and end up with a hospital bill for who knows how much. If that is what you call convenient, then this is the most convenient moment of my life.”
“I would say lucky too.”
“Lucky, waking up handcuffed to a hospital bed is lucky? What then is unlucky?”
Before the agent answered, I knew his answer. He paused before leaning in.
“More unlucky than waking up in a hospital is not waking up at all, as is the case with your fellow passengers on the flight to Tokyo.”
“What happened?”
“Let’s turn on the television and see.”
He found the remote, switched on the television, and flipped through a few channels before stopping at one showing the new and turning up the volume.
I needed a moment to figure out what was being said. A plane disappeared. Authorities presumed it crashed. Shit, how was that voice on the phone be correct? You can’t just crash a plane. How is that even possible? After 9/11, people do not take down planes unless they are a military organization and the flight is in an African war zone.
“Are you feeling a little luckier now?”
I didn’t respond. This was impossible. Should I tell him about the phone call? Would telling him help my cause? Who would be convinced by such a story? Will he say I should have called the authorities instead of trying to board? Sure, that is easy to say in hindsight, but at the time, the idea seemed crazy. Even now, all that happened sounds impossible.
“Have they found any remains?”
“No, nothing, but you know how long it can take to find debris.”
“And I suppose the plane won’t suddenly appear after all this time?”
He gave me a look that implied that was the stupidest question ever asked, and he had heard many stupid questions. But it is possible.
“Hey guys, this is flight ca227. We were out of radar contact because we saw a pod of whales, so we went to check it out. Man, I love whales. Anyway, we lost track of time and well, you know how it is but we are back now so don’t worry.”
It could happen. I have read about pilots going to the wrong airports and other misadventures. Anything is possible.
We watched the news in silence and I wondered what happened next. I am better but still groggy, yet that would not keep me in the hospital long. I am probably headed to a place with bars and no bail, since they considered me a terrorist.
My mind could not comprehend this event. Somehow, an organization took down a plane, but before doing so, they warned me. Why? They went to a great deal of trouble keeping me away, but why? The only answer that makes any sense is that they wanted to set me up. I checked luggage but did not make the flight, which means a bomb was in my luggage. The problem with this logic, aside from being false, is why would I blow up a plane. I am not that type of person. Even as a child, I never blew things up despite my friends. I never played with fireworks or set things on fire. But before you start thinking I played with dolls and put on dresses, know I got into plenty of trouble, just not the exploding, set it on fire type of trouble. And even if one enjoys blowing things up as a child, that does not mean he wants to do the same to airplanes. I like planes–in fact, in between wanting to be a dinosaur and a fireman, I want to be an airplane. Obviously, none of those career choices panned out, but I still respect pilots, firefighters, and dinosaurs and would never blow any of them up. Eventually, the police would figure this out, but that takes time. And why would they believe my story about being warned?
Another idea occurred to me. If these terrorists (what else do you call a group who blows up a plane?) were setting me up, my house must be full of bomb-making equipment. No one will care that I do not know how to make a bomb or, for that matter, can make or fix anything. I don’t even photobomb. With my luck, I would blow myself up on my first attempt.
Are the police at my house right now finding this incriminating evidence? If someone was setting me up, I was in trouble. What if I offer a plea deal? Although for a terrorist, a plea agreement would not mean much. It would only mean I am fried a little less than extra crispy.
After watching the news for fifteen minutes, the agent, if that is what homeland security calls themselves, turns off the television.
“So what do you think?”
“This doesn’t look good, but this has nothing to do with me.”
“It doesn’t look that way. The doctors showed me a toxicology report that found specific drugs in the perfect amount to cause you to get suddenly ill. They do not magically appear in your system if you eat too many bananas.”
“So someone drugged me,” I said, more to myself than the agent.
“Sure, you did.”
“Why would I do that?”
“That is a great way to avoid boarding at the last minute.”
“But I didn’t.”
“So, who drugged you?”
“How should I know? But how and why would I bring down a plane? My links to terrorists are hard to find, aren’t they?”
The agent shrugged his shoulders “Don’t worry, we have the time and the resources so we will find a link.”
The statement made me shutter. He did not say they will discover a connection if one existed. This meant that homeland security had already found me guilty, and used the most ridiculous connections between some terror organization and me. “Yes, we discovered a link to our suspect and terrorists. On June 12, he was at a Jack-in-the-Box and said hello to someone whose second cousin’s dog’s nephews brother’s owner knows a person who knows someone that lives in an undisclosed location where there is a goat owned by known terrorists thus proving our case.” Yep, that is what they call a smoking gun and all this time and effort will only cost American taxpayers $20 million, money well spent. I bet there are less than seven degrees of separation between George W. Bush and Osama Bin Laden. Didn’t their fathers know each other?
After considering my situation for a moment, I remembered what I said before; someone drugged me. The gate agent jabbed me with something sharp. What is her name? Amber, Andrea, something with an A. April that’s her name. She poked me, but I was sick before that.
Now, I remember the coffee shop. The man standing next to me added the drug when I was adding cream. A drug needs time and the phone call delayed me since it had not taken effect and I was about to board the flight. The gate attendant injected me because the other drug wasn’t working fast enough.
Now I had a better idea about what happened, but I was not telling this guy anything. There was no way I could trust him, even if he was a federal agent. Or perhaps I couldn’t trust him because he was a federal agent. We are living in the era of Big Brother and A Brave New World, all wrapped into one. Don’t think, just do what we say because you are afraid, very afraid.
“You are quiet. Any ideas that might help you?”
“Nope,” I said, “I am tired. Can I rest?”
“Sure. You will be discharged tomorrow, and we can continue this conversation then. Have a good night. I’ll be seeing you soon.”
That sounds like they will arrest me as I leave the hospital. Should I search for a lawyer now? Would they let me call one later? Only after asking this question do I realize I do not have my phone, nor is there one in my room. I am also missing my clothes; hopefully, they are returned tomorrow. I’m sure the other inmates would love seeing me in this hospital gown.
After talking with the Homeland Security agent, I was exhausted. Were the drugs still affecting me? The last few weeks had been crazy, and now this. If I get out of this alive and without several consecutive life sentences, I will have a wonderful story. Right now, that looks like a big if. In fact, all of this has the makings of a great conspiracy story. Unfortunately for me, I am the guy who gets killed in his hospital room because he is handcuffed to the bed. Then Jackie Chan and Steven Seagal discover the cover-up. At the end, they will say something like, “too bad that guy died in the hospital. He didn’t deserve it.” Thanks guys for your concern, but you’re a little late.
I drift off to sleep, imagining what a great movie this would be except for me dying.
When I wake, it is dark. I search for a clock but do not see one and instead there is a person sitting in a chair.
“Really?”
“Why do you say that?”
“I was wondering if someone comes in the middle of the night to kill me so the conspiracy might live on.”
“That was my role last week. This week I’m here to help you escape.”
“I take it you are not with Gnomeland Security. But why help me?”
“I’m just a kind-hearted fella.”
“Wasn’t that Hitler’s campaign slogan? You help me escape and shoot me in the back when we are outside?”
“That does not sound like the deeds of a kind-hearted fella. You watch too much television.”
I study the man for a moment, trying to decide if he is lying. He is wearing a suit and looks like someone who might work for the government, an accounting firm, or as an extra in one of the Men In Black movies. But I doubt accounting firms or extras go around killing people. This man has the determined look of a killer, yet I believe him. He might have killed someone last week, but my time was not up yet.
“Why are you helping me?”
“Let’s just say I believe you are innocent and I don’t want the Homeland Clowns to lock you up for the rest of your life.”
“Who do you work for? FBI, CIA, NSA, NBA?”
“I work for Health and Human Services, naturally.”
“What?”
“What did you imagine HHS did? I am looking out for your health and am providing you a service because you are a human.”
This conversation was taking on a surreal air, like something out of Alice in Wonderland or a David Lynch movie. Regardless of which government agency he works for, should I accept his aid? If he wasn’t here to kill me, that must mean he will help me escape or shoot me in the back. Should I leave while I can?
Only guilty people run, right? Yet only idiots let Homeland Security take them into custody. I’m guessing, at best, they will hold me for a week, at worst, for the rest of my life. Then there is that other matter. If I am in custody, that will make me harder to kill, although they will get to me, eventually. Is my survival rate higher in prison or on the run?
“Do you want my help or an extended vacation at Club Guantánamo? You will look great in one of those jumpsuits. Orange will really bring out the color in your eyes. You can make new friends, learn about Islam, and find out how to be a real terrorist. What do you say?”
“After your rousing speech, how can I deny myself incarceration? If I let you help me, what do I need to do? Hide in Argentina for the rest of my life like a Nazi or move to a monastery? If I run now, I look more culpable and if caught, what do I say?”
“Don’t get caught. That’s what I say. You are resourceful and should be able to stay out of sight for a few weeks. By then, everything should be cleared up.”
“I can do that, but what do I do while I’m hiding?”
“Take a vacation to another country or a long nap. I’m not your activities coordinator. The only warning I will give you is to leave this matter alone. Don’t try to figure this out.”
“Where should I go?”
"Mongolia is probably best. No one will find you there.”
“I don’t have my passport with me? Do you have a special I heart Mongolia shirt I can borrow?”
“You are in luck. I have something better. I have a passport for you.”
“What, you just carry around extra passports?”
“Sure, you never know when you are going to meet someone accused of blowing up a plane. You can still access your money. Homeland Security hasn’t seized your bank accounts yet because they are holding you here. Besides, they want to see if anyone wires money into your account since they believe you are a terrorist for hire.”
“Right, because if I was I would have the funds wired to a U.S. account.”
“No one said Homeland Security is the brightest bunch, but even stupid people need jobs.”
Aside from setting me free, I was probably being set up. If this agent thinks I am innocent, why help me escape? The only reason is because I am the scapegoat. If they cannot discover the truth, at least they can pass the blame onto me and solve the case. But as long as he gives me a valid passport, starting a new life should not be difficult.
“I see you are thinking. Don’t worry, the passport is good and I can include a driver’s license, a social security number, birth certificate, and even a credit card. Everything you need.”
“You said I need to go away for a few weeks but now it sounds like I might be gone for a lot longer.”
“True, and I am ninety-five percent sure that this will all be cleared up soon. But there are no guarantees when dealing with the government.”
I stared at him for a moment. Who is he, really? He acted like a government agent, but what if he was one of the terrorists that brought down the flight? If I follow his man’s advice and go to Mongolia, what are the odds I end up dead inside a week? I can imagine the news story now.
“Today, authorities found the body of Alexander Black in Ulaanbaatar. He is the suspected mastermind behind the China Sky Airlines terrorist attack and is connected to various Uyghur factions in China.”
This despite the fact that I was in Mongolia, don’t know any Uyghurs (or even know how to spell the word Uyghurs), and have never visited China. The sad part is that news agencies will not realize the information is fake. I should leave, but go somewhere else. Could they find me elsewhere? If all I have are their documents, they will have little trouble tracking me. I can get new documents, but I need time, a luxury not available at present. The question is, what can I do? If I go now, what are the odds I remain on the run? And how do I prove someone else is behind this?