“Brock, are you there? I can’t see you!” There was screaming in the background of the call, and Yara’s face was stricken with terror. She frantically searched for Brock’s face, the screen crackling a little indicating the signal was bad.
“Yes, we’re here. What the hell is going on, Yara? Are you on the plane?” There was a delay in Yara’s reply as the screen shifted and went static. But then her face returned, and she looked even more terrified than before. “I’m on the plane,” Yara confirmed. “But I think something’s wrong. The plane is going down.”
“What? Yara!” Olivia blurted. But it was too late. After another scream from Yara, the call was cut short, and Olivia’s heart plummeted into her stomach. Brock immediately tried to call her back, but this time, there was no response. He ran a hand through his hair, clearly terrified. How could he not be?
One of his closest friends was in a plane that was quickly plummeting to the ground. There was no way she’d make it out alive. “What do we do?” he asked, turning to Olivia. She fumbled for words, but for once, she didn’t have a solution. What were they supposed to do? Yara’s plane was going down somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
They didn’t even know exactly where she was going. Olivia knew how unlikely it was that anyone would survive the crash, but they had to try something—if only for their own sanity. She knew Brock couldn’t just accept what they’d seen before their very eyes. “We’ll, um, we’ll make some calls. See if we can get a fix on the location of the plane. Which airport did Yara fly out of?”
“I… I don’t know. LAX, I guess? But it could’ve been anywhere. I wasn’t paying attention. I should’ve been paying attention.” Olivia guided Brock to a seat.
“Breathe. You need to breathe. I’ll see what I can do.” Her heart raced as she tried to find a way to call the airport. She didn’t want to just sit there and wait on hold with customer service, and she couldn’t exactly drive down there herself; so all she could do was try to get through to air traffic control or security and hope for the best.
“How can I help you?” an operator answered on Olivia’s third ring. “I’m Special Agent Olivia Knight with the FBI. I need to be transferred to operations,” she said. “And what’s this regarding?” Olivia bit back the scathing reply on her tongue.
The woman was just doing her job. She didn’t know that the lives of Yara and dozens of others were at stake. “I’ve just received a call from a passenger onboard a flight. The plane is going down, and they need urgent assistance.”
“Are you sure?” “Yes, I’m sure. The passenger was certain of it.” “Do you have the flight number?” “No. It was a private jet. There weren’t many people on board. It was headed to… I don’t know where it was headed. Somewhere in the mountains…” “Ma’am, are you being serious?” Olivia bristled again. “I’m dead serious.
My friend called and said the plane is going down. We were cut off from her—there were people screaming. I’m a damn FBI agent! Of course, I’m serious!”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m sorry.” Olivia hated to bite the woman’s head off like that, but it had to be done. She was placed on hold and transferred over to operations where a harried-sounding man picked up. Olivia was a little calmer and explained the situation as quickly and concisely as possible. “There were several private flights that departed this evening. Do you at least know what time the flight took off?”
“I… I think it was around six in the evening your time. And the passenger’s name was Yara Montague, if that helps.” “It does. Give me one moment.” Olivia held her breath as the man typed away on a keyboard, the click-clacking of the keys putting Olivia even more on edge.
She knew that he was trying his best to help, but nothing felt like enough to soothe her frayed nerves. She glanced at Brock and saw that he had his head in his hands. Now wasn’t the time for him to fall apart on her, but she had no way to stop it. If he was going to spiral, then she’d have to be strong for both of them.
She took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. That was the least she could do. “The flight in question… we’ve lost GPS signaling. You’re right; there’s something wrong with the plane,” he said. “It looks like they’ve gone totally off the map… but their location disappeared over twenty minutes ago.
I’ll alert the necessary—” “So, you don’t know where the plane is? Not at all?” “Well, according to the flight path, it should be on its way to Colorado, but the signal we received from the plane was going in a different direction. Straight across the Pacific. I don’t know how this wasn’t picked up on sooner.
Bear with me—I’m doing everything I can to find out what’s happening.” Olivia’s stomach somersaulted. What on earth was going on? If the plane wasn’t even flying in the right direction, then what had the pilot been doing? Perhaps he’d been intoxicated and didn’t know what he was doing. Or maybe he was deliberately going off course, but Olivia had no idea why that would be. Why fly across the ocean if they were supposed to go to Colorado?
Whatever the scenario, he’d likely doomed Yara and the other passengers to death. “I need to know where that flight is going.” “Ma’am, I’m going to have to let you go.
I’m sorry. I’ll return your call when I have answers. Lives are likely at stake here. This needs my full attention.” “But—” Before Olivia could say anything more, the man hung up on her. She let out a frustrated cry, tempted to throw her phone across the room. But one glance at Brock reminded her to keep it together.
Losing her cool wouldn’t help anyone. “She said the plane was going down,” Brock whispered. “In the middle of the ocean… there’s no chance she’s surviving that, Olivia. No chance at all.” Olivia knew it was likely true. Not even the most expensive private jets could survive crashing into the choppy ocean waters.
But Olivia couldn’t admit that out loud. Not when Brock’s face was already stricken with grief. She rushed to him and put her arms around him, holding him close to her.
“Don’t give up. We never give up,” Olivia murmured. “The officer will call back when he knows more. He said the flight was on an unusual path, not the one that was planned. I think there’s more to this. Pilots don’t just veer off in a different direction.” “What are you saying?” Olivia swallowed. “I don’t know what I’m saying.
But I don’t think we’ve heard the end of this. I think there’s something bigger going on.” “You’re not making any sense…” “Do I ever?” Olivia said, a half-hearted attempt at a joke. “We know from experience that crazy things happen every day.
Crazier things than people surviving a plane crash. Maybe they just hit heavy turbulence.
Maybe by changing their flight path, they found somewhere safer to crash land. There could’ve been an issue on the plane that required an emergency landing… we don’t know. We can’t begin to speculate.
We’ll just have to sit tight and hope for the best, won’t we?” Brock didn’t look the slightest bit convinced by Olivia’s pep talk, but he said nothing more on the matter. They sat there for a long time, trying to hold themselves together. Olivia tried to make more calls to find out what was going on, but it soon became clear that no one had the time to talk to her about it when they were working hard to find the plane.
Instead, she resigned herself to making sure Brock was okay. She knew all too well how uncertainty could break a person down. She had to be there for him while he muddled through the anxiety and the pain. All the while, Olivia had to sit in the hurt of losing a new friend. She hadn’t known Yara for very long, but she cared for her anyway.
After everything the actress had been through with her addiction, it seemed so cruel that life was being stolen from her now. She was finally on the path to recovery, and now even that might’ve been snatched from her. If she even survived this ordeal, would she be able to keep that up? Olivia closed her eyes and prayed for a different ending to the story.
She prayed Yara would make it out alive. And that’s when she heard the phone ringing. Brock didn’t look up at the sound of his dial tone, lost somewhere in his grief, but Olivia’s eyes widened when she saw the caller ID. “Brock… it’s her. It’s Yara calling!” Brock snapped out of his daze, staring for a moment at the phone.
Olivia felt a surge of hope, but it was shortly followed by a sickening suspicion that something was wrong. As Brock picked up the video call, Olivia waited to see Yara’s face appear on the screen. But it wasn’t her face that greeted them.