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"Right." Bettmann stood up straight and marched forward to
help drag aside the bodies from the finished battle and make room
for the hostages now streaming through the tunnel at a greater rate
than before. The cloud of tear gas gradually dissipated, and the
coughing of the new arrivals subsided as well, to the point that the
cabin was almost perfectly silent by the time the last passengers
from the John Glenn, a dozen lifeless bodies, were transferred to the
main level of the Airbus.
It was at that time that the tidal flow between the two
vessels shifted for the last time, and hijackers began streaming
through the tunnel to join their comrades on the spacecraft. Carter
Dedender removed his mask to explain to the gathered hostages that
their craft would be uncoupled from the John Glenn as soon as the
last of his "children" (as he called them) had crossed the tunnel, and
that any attempts to interfere with the spacecraft would only
endanger themselves: almost all of the Airbus's fuel had been
dumped and its new pilots would only have enough for an
emergency landing in Recife, Brazil.
His speech ended, Dedender nodded to his guards, who
included Bettmann, and stepped into the tunnel. Bettmann stared
down at the crying Lisa Goodall, and at Madison McCormick, who was
trying to comfort her, and took one step forward. Then a hand was
on Bettmann's shoulder, and he was staring through his mask at a set
of cold blue eyes beneath a second mask. Svetlana took him by the hand,
and led him several steps backward into the tunnel before an aluminum
replacement door, the last item from the footlockers, was pulled into
place over the doorway behind them.
Epilogue
"Hi Daddy!"
Ronald Goodall took his crying daughter in his arms and began to tear up
himself. "Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Pumpkin--"
"It's all over, daddy!" Lisa gushed into the shoulder of the President's
suit. "It's all over!"
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