Gerald moved then: he turned to Keely and made a short, decisive gesture, and the two of them repositioned Hollins' hands behind the seatbelt—a makeshift restraint from zip-tie cable ties from the emergency kit. No ceremony. Hollins didn't resist; he sat in his new configuration with the same composure, like a man who had accepted the shape of how this was going to end.
"It doesn't matter," he said as Gerald stepped away. "Stopping me doesn't stop anything. This is bigger than one flight."
Gerald walked back up the aisle without responding.
Warren had relayed enough of the cabin situation to Zariah that she had the picture now: most of it, anyway. The parts she suspected and the parts she hadn't. Her father hadn't slipped on an icy road.
She held that knowledge in her chest, where it sat with a weight she recognized. Not new weight, exactly, because she'd carried suspicion of it for a long time in the way children carry things they can feel but can't name. It was the same weight that had made her stare at the ceiling at night when she was ten and they'd told her about the accident; the same weight that had made her go deeper into the flight manuals, deeper into the simulator, deeper into everything her father had left behind—as if there was an answer in there she hadn't found yet.
There was an answer. She was 48 miles from landing with it.
"Reeves," she keyed the mic, "7702. I have updated information on the sabotage. The passenger we've restrained has verbally connected himself to the deliberate incapacitation of the flight crew and provided contextual information suggesting this action was part of an organized operation targeting aviation maintenance record integrity. The same operation is believed responsible for the death of my father, Marcus Washington, approximately two years ago. Over."
A long pause on the frequency. Then Reeves: "Copy all, Zariah. FBI have been notified and are coordinating with law enforcement at Caldwell Regional. The information you're providing is being recorded and logged. Over."
"Thank you." She checked the instruments: left engine 65%; hydraulic pressure 2,600; 48 miles.
The second engine warning light came on.
Not a full alarm; not a flameout indicator. But a performance degradation flag on the right engine. Not sabotage—genuine cascade: the asymmetric thrust load she'd been placing on the right engine for the past 30 minutes was beginning to show.
"Warren," she said.
"I see it."
She looked at the navigation display: 48 miles. At their current airspeed, that was roughly 14 minutes. "We're not making it to Caldwell in this configuration," she said.