PROLOGUE

The plane was well on its way. Lyle Roberts was listening to his
headset with his eyes closed. He ran his hand through his thick
brown hair and settled in for the flight from Boston, Massachusetts,
where he was a scriptwriter, to Los Angeles, where he was
interviewing for a job as head script writer for a new prime time
series on one of the major television networks. He was excited. If
everything went well, he would be on speaking terms with all of the
most well-known television personalities. On the phone last night, he
had spoken to his parents, Aaron and Natalie Roberts. They had told
him how proud they were of him. He promised them that when he
moved to L.A., he would invite them and his little sister, Chelsea, a
freshman at Scranton community College, to visit him. They had
talked about where they would go. His mother wanted to see the
homes of her favorite movie stars, his dad wanted to visit some of the
beaches, and Chelsea wanted to visit some of the college campuses.
She was thinking of transferring.

“I don’t want my big brother to be in the big city all alone,” she had
teased brightly.

Lyle began looking out of his window to see just where they were.
He began wondering when the flight attendants would be bringing
out the drink cart. He glanced at his watch. Something was wrong.
They had been in the air for twenty minutes already. He was well-
traveled enough to know that the drink cart was usually brought out
as soon as the plane was in the air. He noticed that none of the flight
attendants were even out among the passengers. Then he saw
something strange going on outside of the cockpit. He could see
several men that looked to be from somewhere in the Middle East.
They were standing up. He could one of them pushing up against the
door of the cockpit. A lady in the front screamed and one of the men
pulled out a gun and shot her. Lyle sucked in a deep breath. Suddenly
he realized what was happening. The plane was being hijacked. He
quickly sank down in his seat, took off his headphones, and pulled
out his cell phone. He prayed for enough time to make his call before
the hijackers saw him. Another man in the row across from him was
doing the same thing. He held his hand up to catch the other man’s
attention and quickly crossed his fingers. The other man gave the
same signal back.