The Appalachian Mountains, 250 miles north-west of Atlanta City:

First Officer Amanda Cassidy winced at the sound of another alarm screaming in her ear. She pulled her eyes away from the altimeter which told her she was barely one-thousand feet above the rocks and scanned the control panel of the Boeing 737 she was piloting through a valley in the Appalachians.

“Damn...” Her eyes settled on a warning light that demanded her immediate attention. “Someone has just opened the forward entry-port.”

“Maybe someone is getting ready to take a walk.” The greasy guy with the cloth wrapped about his face laughed.

“Oh Jesus, no...” Amanda whipped around in the co-pilot’s seat just as a flash of blue sailed below the side window. It was the flapping uniform jacket of an American Airlines pilot. For a brief moment she saw Captain Dryden tumbling through the air, his legs kicking as if to gain traction, his arms windmilling. Then, in a heartbeat, he was lost from view. The plane roared on without him.

Amanda slouched back, horrified by the blatant disregard for human life and sickened at the thought of tumbling through empty space, awaiting the final moment when your body would be dashed to pieces against the side of a mountain.

Pull up. Pull up. Pull up. The automated alert threatened her sanity. “I’m too low,” she screamed over the screeching warning system. “I need to take her up.” She reached to the overhead panel to turn off the door alarm.

“You remain as you are.” Emad lifted his Kalashnikov assault rifle and slipped the opposite hand under her raised arm. He cupped her breast and painfully squished the nipple through her uniform shirt. “We stay in the mountains and fly below the radar.”

Ignoring his fingers and flying instinctively, Amanda swooped down, dropping a wing to avoid another cliff face. “I can’t keep doing this,” she cried as she prepared to dodge a second mountain peak.

Emad eased his grip on her nipple, moved his hand across and soothed the underside of her right breast. Amanda kept her focus on what was coming up on the opposite side the windscreen.

“You ever fly naked?”

“W-what?”

“Yeah. I hear American college girls do that sometimes– drive around in the nude. Just for the thrill. You ever try? With a plane?”

“If you hadn’t noticed,” Amanda blew out a breath, “I’m kinda busy right now.”

“That’s okay, we’ll get you some help. Get that Japanese stewardess up here.”

“Lori Lee? She was born in Chicago.” Amanda lifted the intercom phone. “Lori? Please come forward to the flight deck.”

A pretty Asian-American stepped through the cabin door a moment later, eyed the man with his hand still on Amanda’s breast, and slipped in behind the co-pilot’s seat. “Yes Amanda?”

“How are the other girls?”

Tears tinted Lori’s voice. “We’re awfully scared, ma’am. They forced Captain Dryden to jump ... out of...”

Emad pushed the muzzle of his Kalashnikov into Lori’s face. “Amanda needs a hand getting out of her clothes. You’ll oblige her.”

Lori swung around, the blush draining from her cheeks. “Y-you can’t mean...”

“You know precisely what I mean. Get her clothes off.”

“You can’t ask me to do that...”

Emad’s eyes widened and he poked Lori’s chest with the gun. “Which tit would you like me to shoot off, first?”

Amanda intervened. “Lori. Don’t do anything stupid. Just do as he says.”

Lori was bewildered. “But...”

“Do it,” Amanda ordered.

With fingers trembling, Lori loosened Amanda’s tie and quickly unbuttoned her uniform shirt exposing gentle breasts cradled in white lace.

Emad leaned back in the command seat to enjoy the show. “Tell me, Amanda. Are you married?”

Amanda stayed focused as she removed first one hand from the yoke, and then the other so Lori could slip the bra straps off over her wrists. “Yes. To an aeronautical engineer.”

“And do you love this man?”

“Yes. Very much so.”

Emad studied Amanda’s dark nipples. “Good. That will make it more interesting when Lori and I fuck you.”

Lori whimpered like a small child and for the first time, Amanda drew her eyes from the windscreen. “No...”

Emad smiled. “Just worry about getting this tin bird to Washington in one piece. If the Air Force finds us, we all die.”

CIA Headquarters, Langley Field, Virginia:

“Did you locate Azaria?”

“Yes, sir,” Spencer’s aid responded. “She’s on her way up, sir.”

“Right Now is not soon enough.”

The tall woman pushed back his office door before he could drop the telephone receiver. “Spencer. What is it?”

“Taz. Thank God. We’ve got a skyjacking, an American Airlines domestic flight, bound from Jacksonville to Atlanta. Thankfully there’s a cool-cookie at the controls. Her name is Cassidy– First Officer Amanda Cassidy.”

Taz jack-knifed her legs into a chair. “First Officer? Where’s the Captain?”

“We have to assume he’s dead. Cassidy radioed to report she has been hijacked by Hamas militants. She used the mike button to tap out letters DOA in morse code followed by the letters D and L. The flight was captained by a pilot named Dryden with Lee as his senior flight attendant.”

“Current status?”

“The plane is on the ground at Dulles International in Washington. The militants are demanding enough fuel to cross the Atlantic. We have two more confirmed deaths, both passengers: A business man and an elderly woman were both shot and thrown from the plane.”

Spencer’s phone buzzed and he picked up immediately. “Yes ... Okay, yes. Got it.” He replaced the receiver. “First Officer Cassidy just got another message through. She tapped out 3-M followed by 1-F.”

Taz looked up. “Three males, one female. There’s four of them.”

“That would be my take. Yes.”

“Your orders, Spencer?”

“Christ, Taz. I don’t have any fucking orders. You’re Israeli. You understand these people better than anyone. There’s a chopper waiting to take you across to Washington. Just go and do what you can.”

Taz got to her feet but paused, her hand on the door. “Phone ahead, Spencer. Tell them I am a size four.”

Dulles International Airport, Washington, DC:

“Sir. I can’t allow you take off without a full complement. It’s against regulations. All trans Atlantic flights have to be fully staffed with a complete air crew.”

The militant turned to his compatriots. “Is he fucking crazy? We are holding 160 hostages and he is telling us what to do?”

“Easy, Emad. He is just a clerk. Shit for brains. I will go back and gut-shoot the rest of the flight attendants and toss them out. He can listen to the sounds of them screaming and dying on the tarmac while you ask him again. Nicely.”

“Sir? Are you still there? Sir?”

“Ah-h, the shit-clerk.” Emad keyed the radio mike. “What do you want, little man. It better have something to do with a fuel truck or we’ll be tossing down four flight attendants with their intestines hanging out.”

“Sir? ... I wanted to inform you that a senior flight attendant has been re-scheduled. She is waiting to board the plane. Her name is Azaria.”

“You are kidding me?” Emad bobbled the radio mike. “Azaria? These Americans really do have shit for brains. Azaria is an Israeli name. Do they not know who we are? That we are Hamas.”

Omar, his second in command pulled back the slide of his assault rifle and laughed. “Tell the shit-clerk to send this Azaria woman across to us. I will cut her down, rip her to pieces before she is halfway to the plane.

Taz, with a flight attendant’s uniform jacket slung over an arm, pushed through the plate-glass doors and pulled her travel-case around onto the landing-strip apron. She hung her jacket on the guardrail and parked a trim set of buttocks down on the case, and sitting, she shuffled through a bundle of papers. Taz took her time, separated out her passport and placed it in her shoulder bag, then she swung skinny legs around to face the aircraft.

She knew they would be watching and didn’t tug at her hemline as she crossed her knees and, if they had high-power field glasses, they would see her nipples twist and harden. It wasn’t sexual arousal. It was anxiety. Taz saw the two bodies, looking like discarded laundry, heaped on the tarmac, the wind fluttering the man’s lapel. These Hamas militants would kill indiscriminately.

The plane was less than a hundred yards away and the entry-port was propped open. Her kukri knife along with her 9mm automatic were back in the chopper and she would be out in the open and unable to defend herself. Taz figured it would be the longest hundred-yard walk of her lifetime. She was quick, but not quick enough to dodge automatic weapon-fire.

Taz was dressed in a dark uniform. It was a size too small and her hips and thighs bulged suggestively beneath the fabric. The hem had been adjusted as well– shortened to reveal a long curve of thigh. She stood, stepped into the sunshine and paused to let them see. Taz had sleek legs and knew she looked tempting. But was it enough?

“God. Look how tall she is.” Emad glanced up from the rifle stock as Taz uncrossed her knees. She stood and reached for her uniform jacket. As she raised an arm to shuck on the jacket, her hemline lifted. Emad, watching from the entry-port, saw a faint flash of white– a wedge-shaped slice of cotton nipped-up into her groin. His breath rattled in his throat. “Legs. And tits both. My God, I tell you, look...”

“Give the Jewis a taste of Palestinian lead, Emad. Blast her body in half, across the guts.”

Emad licked his lips and watched Taz move toward the boarding stairs, prowling like a lioness in heat. “Kus Allah. Such a woman...”

“Shoot, Emad. Blow her Jewish tits off.”

Emad lowered his Kalashnikov. “I’ll blow her tits, yes. And her cunt as well.”

“Emad?”

Emad turned and shrugged. “And besides. You can never have too many hostages.”

They were onto her like a pack of dogs as soon as she reached the top of the boarding stairs. Hands gripped her body, dragged her through the entry-port and flung her against a bulkhead. “Get the door,” a man screamed and a pretty blond flight attendant, fraught with fear for her life, ran to slide the door across and lock it.

Taz was pinned against the bulkhead. The front of her skirt was shoved up and a hand forced between her legs. He grabbed her by the crotch, gripping the soft undulations through her underthings. Another tried to cover her mouth with his and when Taz turned her face away, he went lower, licking and sucking at the softness of her neck and throat. Hands roamed freely inside her jacket, tugging at her breasts– mashing and milking the nipples.

It was pointless to resist and Taz, her hands laying open at her sides, didn’t struggle.

“What’s in the travel-case?” Emad finally pulled his hands out from under her jacket.

Taz turned her face on him and glared down. “SWAT team,” she sneered.

In heels, Taz was well over six-feet while Emad, like the rest of the men, had to lift their faces to catch her eyes. Emad drew back. “Watch your mouth.” And he landed an uppercut just below her ribs. Taz sucked-in, but the surprise came up in Emad’s eyes. Instead of soft underbelly, his fist had rebounded from hardened muscle.

“Let’s have a look...” He kicked over her travel-case and reaching down, he took hold of the clasp. He dumped out clothes, a pair of pajamas and a toiletry kit. “Ahh.” A look of triumph spread across his face as he unzipped the vinyl bag.

While he was distracted with her personal belongings, Taz looked about for the woman. Taz couldn’t locate her and she had to assume the female militant was guarding the First Officer, Amanda Cassidy.

If Emad was expecting to find a hidden weapon among her toiletries, he was destined for disappointment. He upended the kit and watched the contents spew across the floor: a hair comb, lipstick, eye shadow case, two tampons, a bunch of hairpins, toothpaste and a brush. He shook the kit just to be sure, then tossed it to the floor and kicked it.

“I am to be first,” he announced to Taz and the others. Omar, as second in command, you will come with us. And Ahmed, you stand over the hostages until we come to relieve you. Then you can do what you want with the Jewish whore, but after you finish, Ahmed, shoot her in the belly and toss her out. She joins the others on the tarmac. You have your orders.”