Excerpt of Red Widow by Alma Katsu

One

NOVEMBER 2018

NEW YORK CITY

The gentleman in seat 2D was in medical distress when he boarded, the flight attendant is sure of it.

He was the first on the plane, leading the rush of premium club members. She noticed he was already having trouble, stumbling in the narrow aisle, sweat visible on his face. He shoved his overnight bag into her arms to stow for him and asked for a drink right away, a vodka neat. She is used to this kind of treatment from business class passengers, especially on this hop from JFK to Reagan National, which is often full of VIPs, senators and businessmen. He looks to her like a politician, the worst of all. She knows better than to argue with him.

She brings him a glass of water, too, even though he didn’t ask for it, in case he needs to cool off or take medication. He’s not in great shape—­three hundred pounds easy, squeezed into a suit at least two sizes too small. His face is pale, but there’s a deep flush creeping up from under his collar.

He grumbles to himself throughout the boarding process, but is otherwise quiet. His cell phone is clutched in one hand as the rest of the passengers squeeze by, his face turned to the tiny window, shunning any possibility of contact. He pays no attention through the safety demon­stration but then again no one does anymore, and the flight attendant stopped taking offense long ago.

As the plane taxis onto the runway, she checks the manifest. His name is Yaromir Popov and he came to JFK via an Aeroflot flight from Heathrow. A Russian businessman, then.

No sooner has the Airbus A330 lifted into the night sky than the Russian starts having problems. From the jump seat in the galley, the flight attendant sees his face has turned bright pink and that he’s having difficulty breathing. Could he be choking on something? He hasn’t pressed the call button so it might just be garden variety anxiety. Takeoffs are the worst for many passengers. She counts the minutes until the fasten seat belt signs go off.

The flight to Washington, D.C., will be quick. Because the plane is barely one-­third full, the airline cut back on flight attendants. Tonight, it’s just her and another woman, the bare minimum. Still, there’s plenty for them to take care of and she doesn’t think about Popov again until it’s time to take drink orders. By then, he’s gotten worse. He is shaking in his seat and on the verge of convulsions. His eyes bulge, and his bright red face is shiny from sweat.

She is glad the cabin is dark and the plane practically empty. She doesn’t want to alarm the rest of the passengers. Most have their heads down anyway, trying to catch a quick nap on the ninety-­minute trip.

She leans over him, bringing her face close to his so she can check for the smell of alcohol. “Are you okay, sir? Is there something I can do for you?”

He opens his mouth but no words come out, only a gurgling, choking noise.

Something’s seriously wrong. Her pulse immediately quickens. She’s never had to give emergency medical aid on a plane and she frantically tries to recall what she’s supposed to do next. Loosen his tie? Check his airway for obstructions? Signal for the other flight attendant to come help her?

Bubbles form in the saliva that coats his lips, like a rabid dog. She darts into the galley for another plastic cup of water which he gulps down greedily but it does nothing to help him to speak. The shaking increases; it is like he is riding his own personal wave of turbulence. There is a strangled look of panic in his eyes—­he knows something is very wrong—­but stubbornly keeps trying to speak, as though he is determined to give a message to her.

Spooked, she leaps to her feet and sprints for the cockpit. She knocks on the door and waits for the click of the lock as it disengages before popping her head in. The pilot and copilot look up at her at the same time without even a hint of curiosity as to why she needs to see them. Maybe they think she is bringing coffee.

“We’ve got a passenger in medical distress. In business class,” she adds, knowing that sometimes makes a difference.

A look of annoyance flits across the pilot’s face. “How bad is he?”

“I don’t know. He seems pretty bad.”

The pilot twists in his seat to look directly at her, like this is her fault. “Do we need to turn back?”

“We’re almost over Trenton,” the copilot says, looking at the instruments. “Even if we turn around, we’d have to circle at JFK for an hour before we could land. It’s only another forty minutes to D.C. We can ask for priority landing and for a medical team to be waiting at the gate.”

She can tell by the glassy look in the pilot’s eyes that his mind is made up. “Yeah, sure, that’s what we’ll do. You”—­he turns to the flight attendant, not having bothered to remember her name—­“keep him as comfortable as possible. See if he can give you anything we can radio on ahead to Washington—­the name of a doctor, what medications he’s on, anything.”

She hesitates. “Could you see if there’s a doctor on the flight?”

Both pilot and copilot exchange glances; it’s the kind of thing they hate to do. It makes the passengers nervous. Ask over the intercom if there’s a doctor on the plane and some passengers immediately assume that Ebola has broken out and start freaking out. But the pilot gives a quick nod.

By the time she gets back, Popov is having a full-­blown seizure. Luckily, after the announcement on the intercom, the flight attendant from economy class came forward to help. She has the confidence of the very young and—­thank goodness—­remembers first aid training from her time as a lifeguard at the town pool. She’s brought the plane’s automated defibrillator with her. The two women huddle over Popov. Given his size, putting him on his side is out of the question, even in the more spacious business class seat. The attendant tucks one of the small, thin pillows under his head and spreads a blanket over him. He’s not cold—­his clothes are soaked through with sweat—­but she does it for privacy more than anything else.

The flight attendant notices a man has crept forward from economy class, watching from a couple seats back. He didn’t announce himself to the attendants so he’s probably not a doctor. He’s just morbidly curious. He is middle-­aged but tough looking, like he’s former military. She holds out hope for a second that he’s an air marshal—­she will take all the help she can get at this point—­but knows they wouldn’t put an air marshal on this flight, not a midnight run.

There is a cold curiosity in his eyes. “Are you a doctor, sir?” she asks.

He says nothing, just gives a curt shake of his head.

“Then would you return to your seat, please?” she asks with only a hint of irritation. People can be unthinkingly rude; she has learned this in her ten years on the job. “We need to give him air.”

After one more look at the sick man over the attendant’s shoulder, the passenger retreats down the aisle.

The attendant turns her attention back to the Russian. She pats his hand. “Mr. Popov, is there someone we can contact for you? Someone waiting for you in D.C.?” She wishes she had thought of this earlier as the Russian is now nearly unconscious. His eyes are rolled back in his head, his face freezing in a rictus of fright and surprise. He is unresponsive to their questions. His hands are balled tightly, his arms and legs rigid and shaking. Worst of all, foam is coming out of his mouth in waves, like a washing machine gone out of control, like something you might see on a television show. She can’t imagine what’s wrong with him; she’s had passengers with food poisoning and one heart attack, but it was mild. She’s never seen anything like this. She is nearly paralyzed from fright.

She glances at her watch. Twenty more minutes. “Hang on, we’re almost there,” she tells him, though she doesn’t think he can hear her.

That’s when she sees the note. A scrap of napkin. She can’t make out what he’s written. It could be a name, but the ink has bled into the napkin’s porous fibers. If he was trying to tell her something, she’s at a loss.

The rest of the trip goes by in a blur. When she sees that he’s slipped into unconsciousness, she and her colleague in economy do as they were trained. One strips the clothing from his upper torso while the other readies at defibrillator. She breathes a silent prayer of thanks for the muscle memory of the classes; it makes what they’re doing now seem less unreal. This is something she can do. She attaches the pads to the man’s chest and side as indicated, sits back on her heels as the machine searches for his pulse. No heartbeat detected. It delivers a shock. The other flight attendant begins CPR and she waits impatiently for her turn as the machine counts off two minutes before it will check again. The pair take turns doing CPR, two cycles, four cycles . . . Before long she is damp with sweat and shaky from nerves as each time the machine says No heartbeat detected and shocks him again . . .

By the time the first wheel touches the ground—­the bounce and sudden deceleration as rubber catches on the second touch—­she is ready to accept that he is gone. If not dead then so far gone that it doesn’t matter.

They will not be able to keep the other passengers on the plane while waiting for the medical crew to remove the body—­they are like thirsty cattle that smell water in the distance—­and so she does her best. The other flight attendant ran down the aisle just before landing to get her cabin ready, leaving her alone with the Russian. She takes a second blanket from the overhead bin and drapes it over Popov so his entire body is covered. She stands in the next seat to block the view as passengers disembark, her knees trembling. They shuffle by quickly, eyes averted, even Mr. Curious, who can’t get off the plane fast enough.

It’s not until the last passenger is gone that the medical crew comes down the jet bridge with a gurney. The crew is nudged aside as the EMTs congregate around the body. The flight attendant stands in the galley, craning her neck to see what’s going on, but the EMTs’ body language is clear: the passenger is gone. The way they handle the body, there can be no doubt, pulling it out from the tight space like a beached whale and then—­drafting in a member of the cleaning crew for assistance—­lugging it over to the gurney. The flight attendant takes one last look at the dead man’s face as they struggle past her. Poor man.

Then she remembers the note. She had left it next to the passenger, thinking that it might come in handy at the hospital. But it’s gone. Disappeared.

Maybe the EMTs took it with them.

Whatever he was trying to tell her, she will never know.

From Red Widow by Alma Katsu, to be published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2021 by Alma Katsu.