One Hell of a Flight

By Gary J Byrnes

In Gary J Byrnes's latest thriller, a plane flying from Dubai is hijacked by a group of unknown terrorists. As the passengers fight for survival, they soon realize that their nightmare is only just beginning. A series of twisted and terrifying events lead them to question whether they are still alive or if they have somehow entered the depths of hell. With the clock ticking and their fate uncertain, the characters must race against time to uncover the truth behind the hijacking and their own existence. Will they find a way to escape the inferno or will they be doomed to spend eternity in the fires of damnation? 'One Hell of a Flight' is a pulse-pounding, heart-stopping ride that will keep readers on the edge of their seats until the very last page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gary J Byrnes
• Release date: Aug 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005864101

Gary J Byrnes

When you buy any of Gary's books, he will fund a hemp plant through his planet-saving, hemp offset and sustainable living platform at Hempoffset.com. Read a thriller, be the thriller, save the world.LOCKDOWN DREAMS is flash fiction by GARY J BYRNES, writer of number one bestselling thriller 9/11 TRILOGY and Crime Writers’ Association Dagger-nominated PURE MAD. Gary works in aviation and space tech marketing and founded sustainability platform Hempoffset.com, crowdfunding a solution to the climate crisis with hemp. Lives in Dublin, Ireland, loves travelling in Europe and America. Ambition is to write The Great Novel of the 21st Century.Favourite writers include George Orwell, Yuval Harari, David Mitchell, Hunter S Thompson, Norman Mailer and Philip K Dick. When not at his laptop, Gary enjoys cooking, encountering great art, exploring cities and trying to make the world a better place, one story at a time.

Book preview

Prologue

All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.

- Bob Dylan

The sky over Dubai, September 2019, noon

The plane hurtled towards the ground, the cruel desert where we would be smashed to atoms inside a fireball. My knuckles were ready to burst through my skin and I could feel a river of perspiration flow down my spine.

This is it. This is the end. Funny thing is, I want to die now, anything to escape the creeping dread and the hours of terror until I would have to fly again. I blacked out for a few seconds, until the voice called me, like a stranger from another room. I close my eyes. There is a bump, then another.

‘Nice landing, Adam.’

He’s talking to me. Say something.

‘Good to be back on the ground.’

I wasn’t lying.

There’s a knock on the door as we taxi to our gate, B9 at T3.

Abandon every hope, who enter here.

A flight attendant comes into the cockpit.

‘Thank fuck for that,’ she says. ‘I am gasping. Let’s get these fuckers disembarked pronto so we can get to the club.’

The captain smiled and shook his head, No.

Of course not.

I said ‘I’m buying. One sec.’ I flip open the passenger announcement channel and the platitudes come easily. When what I want to say is Welcome to Hell.

Fly like a brick

There is no greater sorrow than to recall our times of joy in wretchedness.

- Dante Alighieri, Inferno

Burj Khalifa, Dubai, 7:42pm

Here’s the most important question you will ever ask yourself: Why do I think what I think?

Every minute, every waking hour, I think about: Sex. Drugs. Guns. God. Dollars. Death.

My brain is on a constant boil. Here in Hell.

The Middle East is the American Dream on steroids. America herself was the mother, impregnated by Abraham’s poisonous seed, and so she spewed forth a petulant son. Needy, spiteful and vengeful, yes, but empowered by the petrodollar. And so the offspring is also America’s nemesis, the inescapable agent of doom. Oedipus.

Al-Qaeda, Islamic State, and more to come. Whack-a-mole. But the Middle East is also a female place. A subjugated, hot womb that pumps out an endless supply of angry men, pointless wars, stupid wealth, the infinite talents of womanhood wickedly wasted.

But, at least the hummus is really good.

I inhale Her smell. Hot and sour, dusty and gritty, a faint tang of body odour. I experience the moment, as I have trained myself to do. I stand at the balcony’s edge, near the top of the world’s tallest building. I want to jump, but I’m scared of heights. I want to jump.

There’s that sensation of falling, it shrieks through my nervous system. There’s a name for it: hypnic jerk. My heart death-rattles in my ears. I gaze through the ubiquitous orange haze. My spine jangles. There are no sharp edges. No clear lines. Past the corporate steeples, sunset pierces through the longest stretch of desert on Earth, Rub’ al Khali. The Empty Quarter. I see the nothing. I become the nothing.

And I feel that I’m out there, in the pitiless waste. Just walking. The thirst itself is beyond measure, like the worst hangover dry mouth, when you feel that a part of you has died and is with the mummies, afraid that a drink of water will cause you to crack and fall to pieces. The sun’s light is physical, some kind of wave/particle duality manifesting. Maybe gods did walk here one time, on this very sand. I trudge on. I must keep walking. I reflect on the duality of life itself, the divine comedy, the tragedy. It’s here.

In. Every. Breath.

There, on the horizon. A snake?

It must mean something, this I know. So I walk towards it, thinking about how there are two kinds of people: the